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Mike Bassett: England Manager

 Mike Bassett: England Manager is a 2001 satirical mockumentary comedy film directed by Steve Barron and starring Ricky Tomlinson, Amanda Redman, Bradley Walsh, Dean Lennox Kelly and Geoff Bell. The film follows Mike Bassett, who is appointed England manager having only previous experience of managing in the English lower leagues, he is tasked with guiding the team to qualification for the upcoming World Cup in Brazil. Journalist Martin Bashir provides voice-over, and the film features satirical cameo appearances from prominent figures in sport and entertainment such as Pelé, Ronaldo, Gabby Logan and Atomic Kitten. Minimal use of on-field action is employed, with the focus centred on behind-the-scenes events in boardrooms and the locker room.

The film initially received mixed reviews, but since its release has gained popularity as a cult film among English football fans. The film was followed by a television series, Mike Bassett: Manager in 2005. In 2014, there were plans to bring Mike Bassett back to the big screen in a movie titled Mike Bassett: Interim Manager. However, the kickstarter project that was essential for raising funds for the film did not meet its target.

Plot
With the film narrated by Martin Bashir in a documentary form, we are told that Norwich City manager Mike Bassett (Ricky Tomlinson) is victorious as his side win the Mr Clutch Cup at Wembley Stadium. The team later take part in an open-top bus parade but the driver accidentally takes them the wrong way and they end up going down a motorway leaving the entire team windswept before returning to the city centre to finish the parade. Away from Norwich, it is reported in the papers that England manager Phil Cope has suffered a heart attack during qualification for the World Cup, which started out well but has since gone badly wrong.

The heads of the Football Association meet to decide who should be the new England manager. After phoning around Italy, France and Spain they conclude that nobody wants the job and are forced to look for a new coach in England but cannot decide on who should take the role. The most successful Premier League manager is Scottish (based on Sir Alex Ferguson), while the second-most successful is a former England captain who is interested in the job, but the FA decide that he is too much of a "loudmouth" and refuse to consider him (a reference to the numerous times Brian Clough was passed over for the England job). None of the other English managers in the Premier League are interested, forcing the FA to look to Division One for a new manager, with the press speculating that Mike Bassett may be the new man for the job. Mike lives at home with his wife Karine and son, Jason. He is described as a former professional footballer who played for Doncaster Rovers, Darlington, Hull City and Grimsby Town.

When the press turn up at Mike's house to question him about the job he initially denies the speculation until his son Jason appears with a phone to tell him he's got the job. Bassett takes over the England team and moves to appoint his coaching staff, namely assistant manager turned car salesman Lonnie Urquart (Philip Jackson) who is not interested unless Mike buys a car from him, and coach Dave Dodds (Bradley Walsh) who is a sycophantic yes man who once managed with Mike at Colchester United (a reference to Phil Neal under the Graham Taylor era). The team need one win from three World Cup qualifiers to get to the World Cup finals in Brazil. Bassett travels north to meet Kevin Tonkinson (Dean Lennox Kelly), who he believes will win England the World Cup, but on arrival at the pub he finds Tonkinson laying drunk on a pool table with people pouring beer into his mouth. Once calmed down, Bassett tells him to clean up his act and if he can promise to do it then he will recall him to the squad.

Bassett takes his first training session at Bisham Abbey ahead of his first game at Wembley Stadium against Poland. He selects an old-fashioned 4–4–2 formation and writes his team sheets on the back of an old cigarette packet. During the game, Tonkinson opens the scoring with a dink shot over the keeper, but Poland soon begin to put pressure on and eventually equalise before going on to win the game 2–1. Bassett is criticised by the media for the formation he played and the tactics used. Meanwhile, some of his players anonymously state to an interviewer that they have doubts about Bassett's credibility to lead the team. Bassett sits his coaching staff down to review the game but Doddsy's wife has taped Ground Force over the recording. In an attempt to improve the team's mental and psychological wellbeing, they visit a sports science institute but half the team are injured in the process, leaving Bassett with selection issues over his next game against Belgium. In a mix-up, his secretary accidentally calls up to the squad two players called Benson and Hedges, aging players who are playing in the Third Division. When querying who they are, Mike realises she has mistaken the brand of cigarettes Benson and Hedges as the names of players. Bassett is mocked in a press conference but claims he called them up intentionally. England lose the game 3–0, leading to pressure being placed on his family by angry supporters.

For the last qualification game, England need to beat Slovenia in order to qualify and with Tonkinson missing due to a drunken car crash, they struggle to a 0–0 draw in which captain Gary Wackett (Geoff Bell) is sent off and Rufus Smalls (Robbie Gee) misses a penalty. After the game, they learn that Luxembourg have beaten Turkey 2–0 which sees them go through on goal difference. The team head off to record the official England World Cup song with girl group Atomic Kitten and "hellraiser" Keith Allen.

England travel to Brazil for the finals but on arriving at the airport they start brawling with the Scottish and Irish teams. A difficult group stage sees them on the verge of heading home after they can only manage a goalless draw with unfancied Egypt before losing 4–0 to Mexico. To make matters worse, Bassett receives a phone call from Karine at home in England, informing him that Jason was bullied at school for the Egypt draw, resulting in his eyebrows being shaved off. One of England's training sessions is ruined after Urquart locks the footballs in his Opel and goes shopping. Wackett is then sent home for taking part in hooliganism and Tonkinson accidentally gets involved in a drunken tryst with a transsexual and is also booted from the team. During a team meeting the next morning, Urquart begins to praise the Mexicans by getting the English players to cheer "three cheers for Ramirez"; this angers Mike, who proclaims "We're England", saying that the country hates him and that his wife is about to leave him. Urquart, unhappy with Mike's tone, asks him to get more off his chest, which leads to Mike calling him a small-minded bigot and criticising the car he bought from him. Urquart reacts by punching him in the nose and is effectively sacked from the team instantly. Later that night, Tonkinson is reconciled with Bassett and the two share a drink, which leads to them dancing drunkenly on a bar top. When Lightfoot gets on the bar to coerce Mike down, the pair both fall off in full view of the local press.

The morning after his drunken incident, Bassett is involved in a press conference at which he is expected to step down from the managerial position. When he announces that he is carrying on, the press begin to get hostile and Bassett responds by reciting of "If—" by Rudyard Kipling, which he finishes by saying that "England will be playing 4–4–fucking–2" and storms out. Following this, England need to beat Argentina to get through to the second round. Reporter Tommo (Phill Jupitus) proclaims that if England win he will quit his job and become a bin man. In a close game in which England are the better team, they eventually succeed when Tonkinson dribbles past the Argentinian defence and blasts a shot that deflects off the crossbar. Tonkinson then punches the ball into the net – a reference to the "hand of God" goal from Argentina's Diego Maradona which helped to knock England out of the 1986 World Cup. As the full-time whistle sounds and the England team celebrate, Bassett heads down the tunnel telling Doddsy he's going to call his wife.

It is later seen in a series of newspaper articles that England advanced to the knock-out stages, where they beat Romania and France, with Rufus Smalls breaking his goal drought and scoring a hat-trick against Romania to become England's top goalscorer, with 52 international goals. They eventually lost to host nation Brazil in the semi-finals. Tommo Thompson is also seen briefly working as a binman following his statement during the final press conference. On their plane journey back to Britain, Bashir says to Bassett that England had equalled their best performance since they won in 1966 (in 1990, England finished fourth). Bassett replies that he is ready to move aside and let somebody else take the job. As the plane doors open at the airport, the team depart to a cheering crowd, where a surprised but happy Bassett confirms to the waiting press that he will remain as manager.

Main cast

 * Ricky Tomlinson as Mike Bassett, a former player turned manager from the lower leagues who leads Norwich City to the Mr. Clutch Cup. He then becomes manager of England but is derided by the fans and English media for not being good enough for the role.
 * Amanda Redman as Karine Bassett, Mike's wife whose patience and loyalty is put to the test when her husband's popularity plummets during England's poor run of form.
 * Bradley Walsh as Dave 'Doddsy' Dodds, Bassett's first team coach, he is a sycophantic yes man, who agrees with everyone else's opinions echoing instructions and very rarely offering any of his own thoughts.
 * Philip Jackson as Lonnie Urquart, Bassett's assistant manager and used car salesman (a reference to Lawrie McMenemy under the Graham Taylor era) who is very old-fashioned in his beliefs and often compares the England players' performances to cars. He is opinionated but is more concerned with getting the players to buy cars from him.
 * Martin Bashir as Interviewer (Narrator), Bashir narrates the entire film, also appearing in scenes as the interviewer who is given complete access to the England setup as part of the documentary. He offers an impartial view of the events that unfold.
 * Geoffrey Hutchings as Geoffrey Lightfoot, the head of the Football Association, he pays very little interest in Mike or his role.
 * Phill Jupitus as Tommo Thompson, a news reporter who is very sceptical about Mike but after making a bet with him later is seen to quit his job and become a bin man when England beat Argentina.
 * Danny Tennant as Jason Bassett, Mike's son who is a youth team player at Norwich City, he is later targeted by bullies when pressure mounts on his father.

Footballers

 * Dean Lennox Kelly as Kevin 'Tonka' Tonkinson, a Geordie playmaking midfielder. He is an alcoholic, often in trouble but is the most gifted player on the team. He is based on Paul Gascoigne.
 * Robbie Gee as Rufus 'Smallsy' Smalls, a Trinidad-born Newcastle United centre forward who is enduring an international goal drought since missing his penalty against Portugal two years prior. He struggles with self-confidence, he is based on Andy Cole.
 * Geoff Bell as Gary 'Wacko' Wackett, team captain and a hard tackling, intimidating Leicester City central defender who is often sent off. He is later arrested for joining in with rioting English football hooligans. He is based on Steve Walsh and Terry Butcher.
 * Terry Kiely as Steve 'Harpsey' Harper, a 26-year-old flash right-sided midfielder playing for Manchester United, he claims he is not about the lifestyle but owns sports cars and constantly talks on the phone to his model girlfriend even during team talks. He is based on David Beckham.
 * Chris McQuarry as Alan Massey, a softly spoken timid striker who is a very talented player, he later becomes the captain in Wackett's absence. He was based on Gary Neville and Phil Neville.
 * Dean Holness as Danny, a positive speaking energetic player who is part of a double act with Deano.
 * John Alford as Deano, a positive speaking energetic player who is part of a double act with Danny.

Other England players on the team are Scott Mean as Parkesy, Julian Ballantine as Robbo, Thomas Kenyon as Macca, Robert Campion as Smudger, Andy Ansah as Super, Alex Lawler as Sexy, Declan Perkins as Perks, Danny Husbands as Normal, Phil Gridelet as Grids, Dion Osbourne as Ossie, Kim Durham as Benson and Robert Hudson as Hedges. Des Hamilton and Paul Rattray appears as Scotland footballers, with Glenn Mulhern as the Ireland player.

Other cast

 * Malcolm Terris as preceding England manager Phil Cope
 * Ulrich Thomsen as Dr Hans Shoegaarten
 * Lloyd McGuire as Midlands Representative
 * Stephen Walters as England Supporter
 * Sean Gilder as Independent Journalist
 * Iain Rogerson as Ticket Collector

Cameos

 * Pelé as himself, he arrives in to a hotel whilst doing a television interview and is confronted by a drunk Mike who is dancing on the bar.
 * Ronaldo as himself, he is asked by a Brazilian television presenter for what he thinks about Mike Bassett.
 * Atomic Kitten as themselves, they sing the England World Cup song with Keith Allen and the team.
 * Keith Allen as himself, he produces and sings the World Cup song with the team.
 * Sue Barker as herself, presenter of BBC's A Question of Sport, to which Rufus is a team captain.
 * Gabby Logan as herself, a television presenter who presents the World Cup TV show.
 * Barry Venison as himself, an ex-footballer and football pundit who appears on the World Cup TV show and interviews Mike over a poor satellite video link.
 * Alan Green, Brian Moore, Clive Tyldesley and Martin Tyler are commentators on England games.
 * Natasha Kaplinsky as herself, a Sky News reporter.
 * Dickie Bird as himself, a guest on BBC's A Question of Sport.
 * Richard Guest as himself, a guest on BBC's A Question of Sport.
 * Vincent Marzello as himself, a US Newsreader.
 * Kevin Piper as himself, the Norwich newsreader.

Production
Mike Bassett: England Manager is based on the career of Graham Taylor, and documentary An Impossible Job. Shot in high definition, the film is made to look like it had been shot on 35mm.

The film was shot entirely in the United Kingdom and Brazil. English football locations prominently used in the movie were Wembley Stadium, the Football Association headquarters at Lancaster Gate and the Bisham Abbey training complex. The São_Januário Stadium was used for the game against Egypt and Mexico. The Maracanã Stadium in Rio de Janeiro was used for the game against Argentina.

After the film's events
In the follow-up television series, Mike Bassett: Manager, it is revealed that Bassett was sacked by England after failing to qualify for the 2004 European Championships, including a defeat to Liechtenstein. Bassett subsequently guided Newcastle United to two consecutive relegations, before unsuccessful returns to Norwich and Colchester lead to him taking over at his father's former club, Wirral County.

Alternative ending
An alternative ending was shot for the film, in which Mike rejects a four-year extension to stay on as manager with England choosing to appoint a foreign manager as his replacement. Gary Wackett has now retired and is now on television as a Gladiator, whilst Rufus Smalls is given his captaincy back on BBC's A Question of Sport. Kevin Tonkinson has also retired and now is the manager of his local pub whereas Mike is seen coaching players on a sandy field and is now the new manager of Bolivia. The film ends with Mike jumping on board a red jeep and driving off with Karine and Jason.

Sequel
Following the success of the film, numerous talks over the years about a possible sequel. In late 2004 it announced that Mike Bassett 2 was in the works, with the story being continued on from the first movie which sees this time Bassett leading his country to the European Championships in Portugal in 2004. This project was later abandoned and instead the producers reverted to the idea of a television series for ITV Mike Bassett: Manager.

In 2016 a Kick Starter campaign was started, which saw both Ricky Tomlinson and Bradley Walsh reprise their roles for a promotional trailer, asking fans to fund to a sequel called Mike Bassett: Interim Manager. The movie needed to hit a certain financial target by a specific date in order for it to be made. The campaign did not hit its target and the project was shelved. It was understood the script centred round Bassett coming out of retirement in order to help assist the current England manager, who is German and struggling to engage his players. Before too long Bassett finds himself back in the hotseat and possibly leading his country to another World Cup.

Reception
The movie received a mixed reception from critics. When the film was released in the United Kingdom, it originally opened at number 3, behind Artificial Intelligence: AI and Moulin Rouge! in the top two spots.

Since its release, Mike Bassett: England Manager has gained popularity as a cult film among English football fans. Rugby coach Brendan Venter gave a press interview in 2010 that parodied one given by "Doddsie" in the film, in which he simply agrees with everything the questioner says, even if that contradicts previous answers.

Sprackling observed in 2018 that "when the film actually came out in 2001, Sven-Göran Eriksson was in charge and he was at the height of his pomp. Everyone had become convinced that it had all changed now, that we were going to be successful and continental about it all. This bungling uselessness was all in the past. Everything felt like it was going to be all modern and new and professional. The wheels weren't going to come off and we weren't going to have disasters. But that wasn't the case. That's why people come back to [the film] so often, because the same disasters continue to happen."

Stephen Glynn's 2018 book The British Football Film discusses the film at length, noting that it "does not always undercut a nostalgic and populist imperialism."

Comparison to real events
Some of the events in the actual 2002 FIFA World Cup hold similarities to the film. Although the tournament was hosted by Japan and South Korea and not Brazil, England like in the movie drew their opening game with a drab performance but this time with Sweden, they then went on to beat Argentina 1–0. Although there was no revenge or similarity for the 1986 "hand of God" incident, the penalty scored by David Beckham was seen as redemption following his criticised sending off four years earlier at the 1998 World Cup following a clash with Argentine midfielder Diego Simeone. Just like in the film, England were knocked out by the eventual champions, Brazil.

It was also recalled in 2019, when, in an echo of Bassett's disastrous open-top bus parade at the beginning of the film, Norwich's open-top bus broke down as they celebrated winning the EFL Championship.

title: Mike Bassett: England Manager


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Paul Walsh

Paul Anthony Walsh (born 1 October 1962) is an English former professional footballer who now works as a television pundit.

A pacey and skilful forward, he scored a total of 127 goals in 521 league games in a 17-year career in the English Football League and Premier League; he also won five senior caps for England in an eleven-month international career beginning in June 1983. He began his career at Charlton Athletic, making his first team debut aged 16 in September 1979. He helped Charlton to win promotion out of the Third Division in 1980–81 and then won a place on the PFA Team of the Year in 1981–82. He moved from the Second Division into the First Division when Luton Town paid £400,000 to acquire his services in July 1982. He continued to impress and was named as PFA Young Player of the Year in 1984. He moved to Liverpool for a £700,000 fee in May 1984 and was named in the PFA Team of the Year in his second season for the club as Liverpool won the league title and the Football League Super Cup. He went on to struggle with injury at Anfield, though still managed to appear in losing finals of the 1984 FA Charity Shield, 1984 European Super Cup, 1985 European Cup, and 1987 Football League Cup, as well as help Liverpool to the league title and FA Cup double in 1985–86, and to finish as runners-up in the league in 1984–85 and 1986–87.

He was sold on to Tottenham Hotspur for a £500,000 fee in February 1988 and played for Spurs in their 1991 FA Cup Final victory over Nottingham Forest. However, he was frozen out of the first team after punching a coach at the club, and after a brief loan spell at Queens Park Rangers was moved on to Portsmouth for a £400,000 fee in June 1992. A popular player at Fratton Park, supporters voted him Player of the Season in 1992–93, and he was named on the PFA Team of the Year in 1993–94. He returned to the top flight with Manchester City after signing for £750,000 in March 1994. He returned to Portsmouth for a £600,000 fee in September 1995 but was forced to retire due to cruciate ligament damage in February 1996. After retiring as a player, he became a football pundit and became a regular face on Sky Sports' Soccer Saturday. He was capped five times by England, scoring one goal.

Club career
Paul Walsh was born to Don and June Walsh in Plumstead on 1 October 1962; his father was an electrician and his mother worked at Tate & Lyle. He grew up supporting Arsenal. However, his father was a season-ticket holder at West Ham United. Despite his natural skill, his small stature meant he was frequently overlooked in junior football. He was spotted playing for local youth side Londinium by Charlton Athletic scout Jim Fibbins and signed schoolboy forms aged 14. In a 1986 interview with Shoot magazine, Walsh cited Londinium manager John O'Connor as the biggest influence on his career. After leaving school he also began working part-time at a meat factory and later a fruit packing factory before he joined Charlton on a full-time basis.

Charlton Athletic
Walsh made his debut for the Reserves in September 1978, playing right midfield against Portsmouth at Fratton Park. He made his first team debut in the English Football League at 16 years old, coming on as a half-time substitute for Dick Tydeman in a Second Division fixture with Shrewsbury Town on 22 September 1979; he provided the assist for Martin Robinson's winning goal. Manager Andy Nelson handed him his first professional contract on his 17th birthday, a two-year contract paying £100 a week. However, Nelson was sacked the following March, and the "Addicks" were relegated into the Third Division at the end of the 1979–80 season.

Following the sale of Mike Flanagan to Crystal Palace, new manager Mike Bailey played Walsh in a strike partnership with Derek Hales in the 1980–81 campaign. Due to a League Cup draw, the season opened with three matches against Brentford, and Walsh scored his first senior goal at Griffin Park in a 3–1 defeat before scoring a hat-trick in the return fixture at The Valley, a 5–0 victory; this made him the youngest player to score a hat-trick in the club's history. He ended the campaign with 18 goals in all competitions, whilst Hales was named in the division's PFA Team of the Year. Charlton were at the top of the table for most of the season, but a loss of form from February cost them the title, though promotion was still secured with a third-place finish.

Bailey left Charlton to replace Alan Mullery as Brighton & Hove Albion manager, and the Charlton board ironically decided to name Mullery as Bailey's successor. Charlton finished the 1981–82 season in 13th place, and Walsh scored 15 goals in total. He performed well against divisional champions Luton Town, giving captain Mal Donaghy a difficult afternoon, which was enough to win him a move to his next club.

Luton Town
Walsh was signed by Luton Town manager David Pleat for £400,000 plus Steve White in July 1982. Pleat had an attacking philosophy that allowed Walsh to express himself and score goals. In only his second game for Luton at Kenilworth Road, he scored a hat-trick in a 5–3 win over Notts County, the second goal of which was voted Goal of the Season as he beat numerous defenders before chipping the goalkeeper. On the final day of the 1982–83 season Luton needed to beat Manchester City at Maine Road to remain in the First Division, and a late Radomir Antić volley secured the "Hatters" a 1–0 win and a place in the top-flight. After the game, Pleat celebrated by running down the touchline in a scene that became an iconic moment of 1980s football in England.

Luton enjoyed an excellent start to the 1983–84 season and were in third place on Boxing Day. On 10 December, Walsh scored a hat-trick in a 4–2 win over Stoke City at the Victoria Ground. However, a run of just three wins in 24 games saw Luton go from title contenders to relegation candidates, as well as exit the FA Cup in a 4–3 defeat to rivals Watford at Vicarage Road. Luton ended the campaign in 16th place, and Walsh was voted as PFA Young Player of the Year, ahead of candidates such as Ian Rush, Nigel Callaghan and John Barnes.

Liverpool
Liverpool manager Joe Fagan bought Walsh for a £700,000 fee in May 1984. Walsh turned down an approach from Italian Serie A side Como to join Liverpool. He joined Liverpool in time to travel with the players to Rome to see them win the 1984 European Cup Final. He made his debut as a substitute on 18 August 1984 in the 1–0 Charity Shield defeat to derby rivals Everton. With Ian Rush injured at the start of the 1984–85 season, Walsh partnered Kenny Dalglish up front, and he scored just 14 seconds into his Anfield debut on 27 August in a 3–0 win over West Ham United. However, he picked up a knee injury in October which caused him to miss six weeks and allowed Rush to re-establish himself as Dalglish's preferred strike partner. He scored 13 goals in 39 appearances in all competitions throughout the 1984–85 campaign, the most significant goal being the equaliser in the last minute of extra-time against rivals Manchester United in the FA Cup semi-finals at Goodison Park. However, Liverpool would lose the replay and also finished as runners-up in the league and European Cup. Walsh started the 1985 European Cup Final against Juventus at Heysel Stadium but had to come off early in the second half after aggravating a stomach injury; Liverpool lost the game 1–0, though the day would be remembered for the disaster which cost 39 lives.

Fagan's retirement in May 1985 and Dalglish's subsequent promotion to player-manager meant that instead of gradually succeeding Dalglish as Liverpool's main striker, Walsh had to contend with a rival for his position as the club's manager. He missed 1985–86 pre-season after undergoing a hernia operation. He returned to fitness against Oxford United on 14 September. He had a bitter argument with Dalglish at half-time, which initially seemed to spell the end of his Liverpool career as he was placed on the transfer list. He returned to the first team, though, and was taken off the transfer list by his own request and soon entered a scoring streak. However, his form was ended after he ruptured his ankle ligaments in a collision with Manchester United's Kevin Moran on 9 February. He returned to action six weeks later. Still, he continued to suffer from ankle trouble and was ruled out for the rest of the season, ending the campaign with 18 goals in 32 appearances in all competitions throughout the campaign. His injury caused him to miss the 1986 FA Cup Final, though he had played enough league games to secure a First Division winners medal as Liverpool won the league by a two-point margin over Everton. His contribution to the club's success was not forgotten as he was named in the First Division's PFA Team of the Year, alongside teammate Mark Lawrenson.

Writing in his 2015 autobiography, Walsh was highly critical of Liverpool's Boot Room culture, particularly then-medical staff Ronnie Moran and Roy Evans:

"'I'd been having ultrasound for several months ... when a guy came in to test the equipment. After a simple procedure on the ultrasound machine, he informed us it wasn't even working! I'd been having treatment all that time and the fucking machine was broken.'"

He again missed pre-season in the summer of 1986, as he underwent an operation to correct his ankle injury. He recovered to earn a place on the bench for the second leg of the Football League Super Cup final victory over Everton on 30 September, but though he only entered the game as a late substitute he broke his hand after falling awkwardly. The day after the match, he had to drive himself to the hospital for an x-ray and to receive treatment. Having recovered from this injury, he went on to score a hat-trick in a 6–2 home win over Norwich City. He then went 12 games without a goal, and John Aldridge was signed to add competition to the forward roles. Walsh started at Wembley in the 2–1 League Cup final defeat to Arsenal, before being taken off for Dalglish after 73 minutes. Liverpool finished second in the league, nine points behind Everton, and Walsh scored only six goals in 32 appearances throughout the campaign.

The arrival of new forwards of Peter Beardsley, John Aldridge and John Barnes left Walsh only making occasional appearances in the 1987–88 campaign. He played just nine games without scoring a goal, though maintained fitness by playing games for the reserves. He began drinking heavily, later admitting "the only thing I was interested in by that point was getting pissed and enjoying myself".

Tottenham Hotspur
Walsh was signed by Tottenham Hotspur for £500,000 in February 1988, just after the appointment of Terry Venables as manager. He continued to drink heavily and admitted to being a "ring leader" of a drinking culture alongside Neil Ruddock, Terry Fenwick and David Howells which was to the detriment of the club's on-field progress. He ended the 1987–88 season with one goal in 11 games for Spurs. He later said he was "running at 70% capacity".

Walsh was partnered with new-signing Paul Stewart for the 1988–89 season, whilst fellow new arrival Paul Gascoigne boosted both the club's attacking potential and drinking culture. Spurs had a poor start to the season and were in a relegation battle during the first half of the season, and only Gascoigne and Chris Waddle were creating and scoring goals. Walsh felt that manager Terry Venables was too easy on the players and particularly too easy on Walsh himself who "needed someone on my case a bit more". He later described the season as "just a blur" as Spurs turned their campaign around to finish in sixth place despite Walsh scoring just six goals from 32 starts and five substitute appearances.

Venables brought Gary Lineker back from Barcelona, and Stewart was selected to be Lineker's striker partner for the 1989–90 season, leaving Walsh on the bench. An injury to Stewart gave Walsh a chance to win back his first-team place, and he marked his return to the first team with the winning goal in a 2–1 victory over rivals Arsenal, though failed to capitalise on this performance and again was dropped. Later in the season, he had to be taken off at half-time against Wimbledon as he had a long night of drinking with George Best the previous night. Spurs finished third in the league that season. He ended the campaign with three goals from 13 starts and 18 substitute appearances.

He was on the bench for the first nine games of the 1990–91 campaign, but in his first start scored a hat-trick in a 4–0 win over Sheffield United. However, Venables dropped him to the bench for the following game, and Walsh became "cynical and pissed off" as he felt nothing he could do could displace either Stewart and Lineker, though he ended the season with 20 starts and 19 substitute appearances. He did though make an appearance at Wembley in the 1991 FA Cup Final, coming on for Vinny Samways 82 minutes into a 2–1 victory over Nottingham Forest.

Walsh missed two weeks of the 1991–92 pre-season with a groin injury, and on his first game back for the reserves at White Hart Lane punched reserve team manager Ray Clemence in the face after Clemence substituted him off after an hour. Walsh was suspended for two weeks and upon his return was loaned out to Queens Park Rangers for a month. QPR manager Gerry Francis wanted to make the signing a permanent one, but the club were unable to afford the £800,000 fee Spurs had asked for. After returning to Spurs, he again punched someone in the face, this time a supporter who had shouted abuse to Walsh on the pitch after a game against Norwich City. He ended the campaign with three goals in 22 starts and 15 substitute appearances.

Portsmouth
Walsh was signed by Portsmouth for a £400,000 fee in June 1992, as manager Jim Smith prepared for a promotion challenge from the new Division One in the 1992–93 season. To tempt him out of the top-flight, "Pompey" manager Jim Smith offered him a four-year contract on a higher wage than he had been on at Spurs, whilst the club also bought his London home off him to facilitate his move to the south coast. In his autobiography, he admitted that he was not keen on joining Portsmouth but stated that he decided to take a much more professional approach to his career in terms of training and eating healthier food to start the 1992–93 pre-season in good physical condition; he credited his new approach to the birth of his first child. Ironically though, a virus picked up on a family holiday to Saint Lucia caused him to miss a month early in the season and drained him of fitness. He recovered to build a strike partnership with Guy Whittingham, whilst midfielders Alan McLoughlin and Mark Chamberlain made an effective four-pronged attack, and with two games to go Portsmouth were top of the table and needed only to beat relegation-threatened Sunderland to secure an automatic promotion place. However, they lost the match 4–1, and Walsh was sent off; he wrecked the Roker Park dressing rooms in a fit of temper. Portsmouth missed out on automatic promotion on goal difference, Walsh was suspended for the play-off games, and Portsmouth lost at the semi-final stage to Leicester City. Despite Whittingham scoring 47 league goals in all competitions, it was Walsh who the fans voted as their Player of the Year.

With Whittingham sold, Walsh failed to build an effective partnership with new signing Gerry Creaney, and Portsmouth failed to put together a promotion push for the 1993–94 season. However, Walsh scored both goals in a 2–2 draw with Manchester United at Old Trafford in the League Cup, putting himself back on the radar for top-flight clubs in need of strikers.

Manchester City
Manchester City manager Brian Horton, his former captain at Luton, paid Portsmouth £750,000 for Walsh's services in March 1994. With star striker Niall Quinn out injured, City were fourth from bottom with eleven Premier League games left to play and had also signed another new striker, Uwe Rosler – a German player who had yet to learn English. The pair soon built an understanding, however, and the arrival of wingers Peter Beagrie and Nicky Summerbee gave City the attacking firepower to steer clear of the relegation zone as Walsh and Rösler scored nine goals between them in the final ten games.

Horton tried to accommodate Niall Quinn, returning from a long-term injury, alongside Rösler and Walsh in the first team for the 1994–95 season, and as a result, had a very strong attacking team. City were in sixth place and pushing for European qualification for the first time since the 1970s by December, but then ten games without a win and three months without a goal for Walsh saw City fall down the table. They ended the campaign in 17th place and Horton was sacked. New manager Alan Ball tried to build a team around new signing Georgi Kinkladze for the 1995–96 campaign, and Walsh felt that the time had come to leave Maine Road.

Return to Portsmouth
Former Spurs teammate Terry Fenwick, now manager at Portsmouth, took Walsh back to Fratton Park in exchange for Gerry Creaney (valued at £600,000) in September 1995; Walsh signed a three-year contract with the club. He scored five goals in 21 league games in the 1995–96 season before suffering a micro-fracture of the fibula in a seemingly innocuous incident during a 1–1 draw with Millwall at The Den on 27 January. He played against Leicester City on 10 February, but his knee collapsed. The resulting cruciate ligament damage meant that he never played professional football again, although he did not announce his retirement until the following year. He became assistant first-team coach at the club upon his retirement. He had a testimonial game at Fratton Park in May 1998. He was a popular figure at the club, and in February 2005 he came second in the Football Focus poll to find the club's "cult hero", behind teammate Alan Knight.

International career
Walsh was selected for the England youth team's summer trip to the Adria Cup at Yugoslavia in 1979. He was selected for the 1980 UEFA European Under-18 Championship in East Germany, which England won, though he made only two substitute appearances during the tournament. Soon after signing for Luton Town in 1982, he became a regular in the England under-21 side during the 1984 UEFA European Under-21 Championship. He played both legs against Greece, and scored the winning goal against Hungary to take England into the knock-out stages.

Walsh won his first senior England cap under Bobby Robson on 12 June 1983, in a 0–0 friendly draw with Australia at Sydney Cricket Ground during a two-week tour of the continent. Three days later he scored the only goal of the game against Australia in the second match of the tour at Brisbane's Lang Park. He then went on to secure his third cap within the space of seven days in a 1–1 draw with Australia at the Olympic Park Stadium. He earned a fourth cap playing alongside club-mate Brian Stein in a 2–0 defeat to France at Parc des Princes on 29 February 1984. The last of his five senior appearances for England came on 2 May 1984 in a 1–0 British Home Championship defeat to Wales at Wrexham's Racecourse Ground.

"'If he can't motivate himself to play in a European Under-21 final, he's not for me.'"

Style of play
In 1986, Bob Paisley described Walsh as an "individualist" best suited for a lone striker role due to his selfish play, tremendous pace and dribbling ability. He was able to shoot powerfully with both feet. He had an aggressive temperament, which led to occasional bookings and red cards for ill-discipline.

"'Paul Walsh can play teams on his own some days. When he's buzzing and bubbling he whizzes around the field like a cartoon character with the ball tied to his boot. It's like watching a film that's running too fast. You want to slow it down in order to appreciate all the tricks he's getting up to. He might beat a defender on the outside, then turn back and go inside him and then beat him once again for luck.'"

Post-retirement
Walsh became a football agent for a short time and represented Lee Bradbury during his move to Manchester City. He also invested in property and other businesses, though he lost money by investing in Australian fraudster Peter Foster. Walsh began working in the media after retiring as a player and first began working as a pundit on Sky Sports in 2001, and since that time has appeared regularly on Soccer Saturday and Football First. In December 2007, he led a campaign against speeding fines in Hampshire.

Personal life
He married Bev in 1990, and the couple had their first child, Jordan, on 12 January 1991. They had another son, Mason, on 22 November 1995, who turned professional at AFC Bournemouth in April 2014. Walsh published his autobiography, Wouldn't It Be Good, in 2015. His son, Mason, played for Bognor Regis Town.

Honours
Individual
 * PFA Team of the Year (Second Division): 1981–82
 * PFA Young Player of the Year: 1984
 * PFA Team of the Year (First Division): 1985–86, 1993–94
 * Portsmouth F.C. Player of the Season: 1993

England U18
 * UEFA European Under-18 Championship: 1980

Charlton Athletic
 * Football League Third Division third-place promotion: 1980–81

Liverpool
 * Football League First Division: 1985–86
 * Football League Super Cup: 1986
 * Charity Shield runner-up: 1984
 * European Super Cup runner-up: 1984
 * European Cup runner-up: 1985
 * League Cup runner-up: 1987

Tottenham Hotspur
 * FA Cup: 1991
 * Charity Shield: 1991 (shared)

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

title: Paul Walsh


text:
User talk:Disastrophe

I dislike those red links.

title: User talk:Disastrophe


text:
Black Hole Sun

"Black Hole Sun" is a song by American rock band Soundgarden. Written by frontman Chris Cornell, the song was released in 1994 by A&M Records as the third single from the band's fourth studio album, Superunknown (1994). Considered to be the band's signature song, it topped the US Billboard Album Rock Tracks chart, where it spent a total of seven weeks at number one. Despite peaking at number two on the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart, "Black Hole Sun" finished as the number-one track of 1994 for that listing. Worldwide, the single reached the top 10 in Australia, Canada, France, and Ireland, while in Iceland, it reached number one.

"Black Hole Sun" was included on Soundgarden's 1997 greatest hits album A-Sides and also appeared on the 2010 compilation album Telephantasm.

Origin and recording
"Black Hole Sun" was written by frontman Chris Cornell. In 2014, Cornell explained the song's origins to Uncut Magazine:

"I wrote it in my head driving home from Bear Creek Studio in Woodinville, a 35–40 minute drive from Seattle. It sparked from something a news anchor said on TV and I heard wrong. I heard 'blah blah blah black hole sun blah blah blah'. I thought that would make an amazing song title, but what would it sound like? It all came together, pretty much the whole arrangement including the guitar solo that's played beneath the riff.

I spent a lot of time spinning those melodies in my head so I wouldn't forget them. I got home and whistled it into a Dictaphone. The next day I brought it into the real world, assigning a couple of key changes in the verse to make the melodies more interesting. Then I wrote the lyrics and that was similar, a stream of consciousness based on the feeling I got from the chorus and title."

Cornell said that he wrote the song in about 15 minutes. He used a Gretsch guitar to write the song, and commented, "I wrote the song thinking the band wouldn't like it—then it became the biggest hit of the summer." Cornell came up with the song while using a Leslie speaker. Guitarist Kim Thayil said that the Leslie model 16 speaker was perfect for the song as "it's very Beatlesque and has a distinctive sound. It ended up changing the song completely." Thayil said that the song "wasn't safe as milk, but it wasn't glass in someone's eye either. It was the spoonful of sugar that helps the medicine go down. Now it's the 'Dream On' of our set." The song was performed in a slightly sharp drop D tuning, similar to the tuning used on the band's first single, "Hunted Down". Drummer Matt Cameron called the song "a huge departure". Credit is due to Michael Beinhorn and Brendan O'Brien, producer and recording engineer, respectively.

Appearing on The Pods & Sods Network in July 2017, Beinhorn detailed the process of recording Superunknown and shared his reaction to first hearing "Black Hole Sun": "I think for the rest of my entire life, until I draw my last breath, I'll never ever forgot how I felt when they started playing that song. From the very first few notes, I felt like I'd been hit by a thunderbolt. I was just absolutely stunned. What in the world is this? I get goosebumps thinking about it now."

Composition
Musically, "Black Hole Sun" has been described as grunge, psychedelic rock, alternative rock, hard rock, and stoner rock. Regarding the song's lyrics, Cornell stated, "It's just sort of a surreal dreamscape, a weird, play-with-the-title kind of song." He also said that "lyrically it's probably the closest to me just playing with words for words' sake, of anything I've written. I guess it worked for a lot of people who heard it, but I have no idea how you'd begin to take that one literally." In another interview he elaborated further, stating, "It's funny because hits are usually sort of congruent, sort of an identifiable lyric idea, and that song pretty much had none. The chorus lyric is kind of beautiful and easy to remember. Other than that, I sure didn't have an understanding of it after I wrote it. I was just sucked in by the music and I was painting a picture with the lyrics. There was no real idea to get across." Commenting upon how the song was misinterpreted as being positive, Cornell said, "No one seems to get this, but 'Black Hole Sun' is sad. But because the melody is really pretty, everyone thinks it's almost chipper, which is ridiculous." When asked about the line, "Times are gone for honest men", Cornell said:

"It's really difficult for a person to create their own life and their own freedom. It's going to become more and more difficult, and it's going to create more and more disillusioned people who become dishonest and angry and are willing to fuck the next guy to get what they want. There's so much stepping on the backs of other people in our profession. We've been so lucky that we've never had to do that. Part of it was because of our own tenacity, and part of it was because we were lucky."

Release and critical reception
"Black Hole Sun" was released as a single in mid-1994. It became the most successful song from Superunknown on American rock charts, and became the band's best-known song overall. It appeared on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 Airplay chart, reaching the top 30. The following week it debuted on the Top 40 Mainstream, where it peaked at number nine in its eighth week and remained on the chart until its 20th week. The song peaked at number one on the Billboard Mainstream Rock Tracks chart and number two on the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart. The song spent a total of seven weeks at number one on the Mainstream Rock chart. At the 1995 Grammy Awards, "Black Hole Sun" received the award for Best Hard Rock Performance and received a nomination for Best Rock Song.

Outside the United States, the single was released in Australia, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom. In Canada, the song reached the top 10 on the RPM 100 Hit Tracks chart. It remained in the top 10 for three weeks and became the band's highest-charting song in Canada. "Black Hole Sun" reached the UK top 20 and was the last single from the album that charted in the UK top 20; it remains the band's highest charting single in the UK. "Black Hole Sun" debuted at number 10 in Australia but quickly descended the chart; however, widespread airplay and a promotional visit to Australia stimulated a resurgence of interest in Superunknown. "Black Hole Sun" would peak at number six on the Australian Singles Chart. "Black Hole Sun" reached the top 30 in Germany, the Netherlands, and New Zealand, and was a top-10 success in France and Ireland. It topped the Icelandic Singles Chart for a week and was a moderate top-20 success in Sweden. The single has sold over three million copies worldwide.

Greg Prato of AllMusic called the song "one of the few bright spots" of mid-1994, when "the world was still reeling from Nirvana leader Kurt Cobain's suicide the previous April". He said, "The song had a psychedelic edge to it (especially evident in the verse's guitar part), as the composition shifted between sedate melodicism and gargantuan guitar riffs. The lyrics were classic Chris Cornell—lines didn't exactly make sense on paper but did within the song." Ann Powers of Blender proclaimed that "Cornell's fixation with the Beatles pays off with the hit single 'Black Hole Sun' ". James Masterton wrote in his weekly UK chart commentary, "Easily the most commercial single the US band have released to date". Jon Pareles of The New York Times said, "The Beatles' techniques—fuzz-toned low chords, legato lead-guitar hooks and lumpy Ringo Starr-style drumming...are linked to Lennon-style melody in 'Black Hole Sun'." Roger Morton from NME named it "the best moment" from their album, "a melodramatic downer ballad, whose bleakness is offsett by some curious psychedelic guitar figures." J.D. Considine of Rolling Stone stated, "With its yearning, Lennonesque melody and watery, Harrison-style guitar, 'Black Hole Sun' is a wonderful exercise in Beatleisms; trouble is, it's not a very good song, offering more in the way of mood and atmosphere than melodic direction."

The solo for "Black Hole Sun", performed by Thayil, was ranked number 63 on Guitar Worlds list of the "100 Greatest Guitar Solos", and number 56 on Total Guitars list of the "100 Hottest Guitar Solos". The song was included on VH1's countdown of the "100 Greatest Songs of the '90s" at number 25. It was also included on VH1's countdown of the "100 Greatest Hard Rock Songs" at number 77. According to Nielsen Music's year-end report for 2019, "Black Hole Sun" was the ninth most-played song of the decade on mainstream rock radio with 125,000 spins. All of the songs in the top 10 were from the 1990s. In 2017, Billboard ranked the song number four on their list of the 15 greatest Soundgarden songs, and in 2021, Kerrang ranked the song number one on their list of the 20 greatest Soundgarden songs.

Music video
The surreal and apocalyptic music video for "Black Hole Sun" was directed by British video director Howard Greenhalgh, produced by Megan Hollister for Why Not Films (London, England), shot by Ivan Bartos, and features post-production work by 525 Post Production (Hollywood, California) and Soho 601 Effects (London). The video follows a suburban neighborhood and its vain inhabitants with grotesquely exaggerated grins, which are eventually swallowed up when the Sun suddenly turns into a black hole, while the band performs the song somewhere in an open field. In the video, Cornell is wearing a fork necklace given to him by Shannon Hoon of Blind Melon. In an online chat, the band stated that the video "was entirely the director's idea", and added, "Our take on it was that at that point in making videos, we just wanted to pretend to play and not look that excited about it." They said that the video was one of the few Soundgarden videos the band was satisfied with.

The video was released in June 1994. After several weeks of airplay on MTV, a second version of the video was substituted containing more elaborate visual effects than the original, including the addition of a computer-generated black hole. The music video for "Black Hole Sun" became a hit on MTV and received the award for Best Metal/Hard Rock Video at the 1994 MTV Video Music Awards. In 1995, it received the Clio Award for Alternative Music Video. The video is available on the CD-ROM Alive in the Superunknown.

Accolades
* denotes an unordered list.

Track listing
All songs were written by Chris Cornell except where noted.

CD (Europe and Germany)
 * 1) "Black Hole Sun"  – 5:18
 * 2) "Like Suicide" (acoustic)  – 6:11
 * 3) "Kickstand" (live) (Cornell, Kim Thayil)  – 1:58
 * 4) * Recorded live on August 20, 1993, at Jones Beach Amphitheater in Wantagh, New York

CD (Europe)
 * 1) "Black Hole Sun"  – 5:18
 * 2) "Jesus Christ Pose" (live) (Matt Cameron, Cornell, Ben Shepherd, Thayil)  – 7:19
 * 3) * Recorded live on August 11, 1993, at Rushmore Plaza Civic Center in Rapid City, South Dakota
 * 4) "My Wave" (live) (Cornell, Thayil)  – 4:34
 * 5) * Recorded live on August 20, 1993, at Jones Beach Amphitheater in Wantagh, New York
 * 6) "Spoonman" (Steve Fisk remix)  – 6:55

Box set (UK)
 * 1) "Black Hole Sun"  – 5:18
 * 2) "Beyond the Wheel" (live)  – 5:56
 * 3) * Recorded live on August 18, 1993, at Exhibition Stadium in Toronto, Canada
 * 4) "Fell on Black Days" (live)  – 4:45
 * 5) * Recorded live on August 16, 1993, at Pine Knob Music Theatre in Clarkston, Michigan
 * 6) "Birth Ritual" (demo) (Cornell, Cameron, Thayil)  – 5:50

CD (Australia and Germany)
 * 1) "Black Hole Sun"  – 5:18
 * 2) "Jesus Christ Pose" (live) (Cameron, Cornell, Shepherd, Thayil)  – 7:19
 * 3) "Beyond the Wheel" (live)  – 5:54
 * 4) * Recorded live on August 18, 1993, at Exhibition Stadium in Toronto, Ontario, Canada

7-inch vinyl (UK) and cassette (UK)
 * 1) "Black Hole Sun"  – 5:18
 * 2) "My Wave" (live) (Cornell, Thayil)  – 4:34
 * 3) * Recorded live on August 20, 1993, at Jones Beach Amphitheater in Wantagh, New York
 * 4) "Beyond the Wheel" (live)  – 5:54
 * 5) * Recorded live on August 18, 1993, at Exhibition Stadium in Toronto, Ontario, Canada

7-inch vinyl (US)
 * 1) "Black Hole Sun"  – 5:18
 * 2) "Spoonman"  – 4:06

Personnel
Personnel are taken from the liner notes of Superunknown.

Soundgarden
 * Chris Cornell – rhythm guitar, lead vocals
 * Ben Shephard – bass, backing vocals
 * Matt Cameron – drums
 * Kim Thayil – lead guitar

Weekly charts

 * }

In popular culture
Black Hole Sun is on the base set list for the original Rock Band game.

Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock features the song in its downloadable content library, and it is a playable track in the TV mode of Guitar Hero Live.

A cover version in the style of lounge music was performed by Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme.

A polka cover of a section of the song was made by Weird Al Yankovic.

The song also was featured in the game Fortnite Festival.

title: Black Hole Sun


text:
Dance Band on the Titanic

Dance Band on the Titanic is the seventh studio album by the American singer-songwriter Harry Chapin, released in 1977. Its vinyl release is a double album. It was later released as a single CD.

Reception
Reviewed at the time of release, Sounds wrote: "Mr Chapin is such a master at his particular craft that his music itself is totally middle class, boring and as bland as the outward appearances and the public lifestyles of the men and women in his songs. So what is Chapin trying to do? Express suburban, boredom and frustration in realistic photographic detail? He does that alright." The album sold poorly, but was voted Album of the Year by The Times of London

Personnel

 * Harry Chapin – guitar, vocals
 * Buzz Brauner – tenor saxophone
 * Barbara Carr – vocals
 * Stephen Chapin – piano, vocals
 * Tom Chapin – guitar, banjo, vocals
 * Harry DiVito – trombone
 * Howie Fields – drums
 * Steve Gadd – drums
 * Marsh Lynn Goldberg – vocals
 * Jeff Gross – vocals
 * Neil Jason – bass
 * Arthur Jenkins – percussion
 * Bernie Keising – bass, vocals
 * Art Krahulek – vocals
 * Barbara Lindquist – vocals
 * Theodore Marnel – vocals
 * Craig Mitchell – vocals
 * Nancy Newman – vocals
 * Ronald Palmer – guitar, vocals
 * John Quayle – vocals
 * Elliott Randall – guitar
 * Steve Randall – vocals
 * Donna D. Reilly – vocals
 * Kim Scholes – cello
 * Tim Scott – cello
 * Gus Skinas – programming
 * Mike Solomon – vocals
 * Chris Waite – percussion
 * Doug Walker – guitar, mandolin, vocals
 * John Wallace – bass, vocals

title: Dance Band on the Titanic


text:
File:Rail News cover from November 1980.jpg

November 1980, a special edition for the APT


text:
Sakharov Prize

The Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, commonly known as the Sakharov Prize, is an honorary award for individuals or groups who have dedicated their lives to the defence of human rights and freedom of thought. Named after Russian scientist and dissident Andrei Sakharov, the prize was established in December 1988 by the European Parliament.

A shortlist of nominees is drawn up annually by the European Parliament's Committee on Foreign Affairs and Committee on Development. The MEPs who make up those committees then select a shortlist in September. Thereafter, the final choice is given to The European Parliament's Conference of Presidents (President and political group's leaders) and the laureate's name is announced late in October. The prize is awarded in a ceremony at the Parliament's Strasbourg hemicycle (round chamber) in December. The prize includes a monetary award of €50,000.

The first prize was awarded jointly to South African Nelson Mandela and Russian Anatoly Marchenko. The 1990 award was given to Aung San Suu Kyi, but she could not receive it until 2013 as a result of her political imprisonment in Burma. The prize has also been awarded to organisations, the first being the Argentine Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo in 1992. Five Sakharov laureates were subsequently awarded the Nobel Peace Prize: Nelson Mandela, Aung San Suu Kyi, Malala Yousafzai, Denis Mukwege and Nadia Murad.

Razan Zaitouneh (2011) was kidnapped in 2013 and is still missing. Nasrin Sotoudeh (2012) was released from prison in September 2013, but is still barred from leaving Iran, along with fellow 2012 laureate Jafar Panahi. The 2017 prize was awarded to the Democratic Opposition in Venezuela, under boycott of the European United Left–Nordic Green Left.

title: Sakharov Prize


text:
Amos Lawrence

Amos Lawrence (April 22, 1786 – December 31, 1852) was an American merchant and philanthropist.

Biography
Amos Lawrence was born in Groton, Massachusetts. Lawrence attended elementary school in Groton and briefly attended the Groton Academy. In 1799, at age 13, Amos Lawrence became a clerk at a country store in Dunstable, Massachusetts, and a few months afterward was promoted to a variety store in Groton. After the completion of his apprenticeship, in April 1807, Amos went to Boston with $20 of his savings. His employers' business there failed. Amos was appointed by the creditors to settle the firm's accounts, and after doing that to their satisfaction he rented a shop on Cornhill and founded a dry-goods establishment on his own account in December. In 1808, his brother Abbott entered his employ as chief clerk, and in 1814 became a partner in the firm, now called A. & A. Lawrence and later A. & A. Lawrence and Co. The firm continued until Amos's death and became the greatest wholesale mercantile house in the United States. It was successful even in the hard times of 1812 to 1815, and afterwards engaged particularly in selling woolen and cotton goods on commission. In 1818, A. & A. Lawrence purchased 50 shares of the Suffolk Bank, a clearinghouse bank on State Street in Boston.

The firm did much for the establishment of the cotton textile industry in New England. In 1830, it came to the aid of financially distressed mills of Lowell, Massachusetts. In that year, the Suffolk, Tremont and Lawrence companies were established in Lowell, and Luther Lawrence, the eldest brother, represented the firm's interests there. In 1845–1847, the firm established and built up Lawrence, Massachusetts, named in honor of Abbott Lawrence, who was a director of the Essex Company, which controlled the water power of Lawrence, and afterwards was president of the Atlantic Cotton Mills and Pacific Mills there.

In 1831 when his health failed, Amos Lawrence retired from active involvement in the firm, where thereafter Abbott Lawrence was the head. The later years of Amos's life were spent mostly in furthering various philanthropic enterprises. According to his records, from 1829 until his death, Amos Lawrence gave over $639,000 (in 1840s dollars) to charitable causes. In 1842, he decided not to allow his property to increase any further, and in the last eleven years of his life he spent in charity at least $525,000. To Williams College, he gave nearly $40,000; to Groton Academy, which later changed its name to Lawrence Academy to honor both Amos and his brother, William, he gave over $20,000; to Wabash College, Kenyon College, and the theological seminary at Bangor, Maine, he also gave sizable sums.

His private donations were numerous, requiring several rooms in his house to coordinate them. Among other things, Amos Lawrence donated libraries to academic institutions, established a children's hospital in Boston, and gave $10,000 for the completion of the Bunker Hill Monument (Lawrence's father had fought at the Battle of Bunker Hill). He gave to many good causes on a smaller scale, taking especial delight in occasionally giving books from a bundle in his sleigh or carriage as he drove.

Upon his death in Boston in 1852, his fortune was estimated at $14,100,000, roughly $600,000,000 in today's dollars.

Family
Lawrence was the fourth son of Samuel Lawrence and Susanna (née Parker) Lawrence. Samuel Lawrence was a Revolutionary War officer and one of the founders of Groton Academy (now Lawrence Academy at Groton), where Amos was educated. Samuel was in turn descended from John Lawrence of Wissett in Suffolk, England, who was one of the first settlers of Groton. Among Amos Lawrence's brothers were Luther Lawrence and Abbott Lawrence. The family firm, with Abbott Lawrence at its head, founded Lawrence, Massachusetts.

On June 6, 1811, Lawrence married Sarah Richards. They had three children, including Amos A. Lawrence. After Richards died in 1819, Amos Lawrence married Nancy Means Ellis, widow of former U.S. Representative for New Hampshire and New Hampshire Superior Court justice Caleb Ellis, on April 11, 1821. Lawrence had two more children from his second marriage.

Amos A. Lawrence was the founder of Lawrence, Kansas (thus its name) through his work with the New England Emigrant Aid Company, founded the University of Kansas, and also helped found Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin. His son, Bishop William Lawrence, was the longtime Episcopal bishop of Massachusetts.

Jane Pierce, who served as First Lady during the presidency of her husband, Franklin Pierce, from 1853 to 1857, was Lawrence’s niece.

title: Amos Lawrence


text: Category:Interpersonal relationships

title: Category:Interpersonal relationships


text:
Gun Fight

Gun Fight, known as Western Gun (ウエスタンガン) in Japan and Europe, is a 1975 multidirectional shooter arcade video game designed by Tomohiro Nishikado, and released by Taito in Japan and Europe and by Midway in North America. Based around two Old West cowboys armed with revolvers and squaring off in a duel, it was the first video game to depict human-to-human combat. The Midway version was also the first video game to use a microprocessor instead of TTL. The game's concept was adapted from Sega's 1969 arcade electro-mechanical game Gun Fight.

The game was a global commercial success. In Japan, Western Gun was among the top ten highest-grossing arcade video games of 1976. In the United States, Gun Fight sold 8,600 arcade cabinets and was the third highest-grossing arcade game of 1975, second highest-grossing arcade game of 1976 and fifth highest arcade game of 1977.

It was ported to the Bally Astrocade video game console as a built-in game in 1977 and later the Atari 8-bit computers.

Gameplay
Western Gun is a single-screen shooter where two players compete in an Old West gun fight. It was the first video game to depict human-to-human combat. When shot, the characters fall to the ground and the words "GOT ME!" appear above the body. The game has two joysticks per player: an eight-way joystick for moving the computerized cowboy and the other for changing the shooting direction. Unlike later dual stick games, Western Gun has the movement joystick on the right.

Obstacles between the characters block shots, such as a cactus, and (in later levels) stagecoaches. The guns have limited ammunition, with each player given six bullets. A round ends if both players run out of ammo. Gunshots can ricochet off the top and bottom edges of the playfield, allowing for indirect hits.

Taito's original Western Gun allows the two players to move around anywhere on the screen. Midway's version, Gun Fight, restricts each player to their respective portions of the screen and also increased the size of the characters.

Development
Both Western Gun and Gun Fight have artwork of Wild West cowboys on the cabinet, with matching in-game graphics featuring cacti, rocks, and human characters (and a covered wagon in Gun Fight). These cartoon-like humans were in contrast to earlier games which used miniature shapes to represent abstract blocks or spaceships.

The original game, Western Gun, was created by Tomohiro Nishikado for Taito. The game's concept was adapted from a Sega arcade electro-mechanical game, also called Gun Fight, which was released in 1969. In that game, two players control cowboy figurines on opposing sides of a playfield full of obstacles, with each player attempting to shoot the opponent's cowboy. The cowboy figurines were adapted into character sprites, with both players able to maneuver across a landscape while shooting each other. It was the second game by Nishikado to use human character sprites, after a 1974 sports video game he designed for Taito, Basketball, which was released as TV Basketball by Midway in North America.

Taito licensed Western Gun to Midway for release in North America, one of the first such licenses, after the 1974 scrolling racing game Speed Race, also designed by Nishikado, and the 1974 sports game Basketball. The title Western Gun, while making perfect sense for Japanese audiences in that it conveyed the setting and theme as simply as possible, sounded odd to American audiences, so it was renamed Gun Fight for its American localization.

Taito's version was based on discrete logic. When Dave Nutting adapted the game for Midway, he decided to base it on the Intel 8080, which made Gun Fight the first video game to use a microprocessor. Nutting's company Dave Nutting Associates had already used microprocessor technology in prototypes of arcade pinball machines, and the first arcade pinball machine to include a microprocessor, The Spirit of '76 by Mirco Games, used this technology under license.

Midway's version, which had a black-and-white raster monitor with a transparent yellow screen overlay, used bitmapped framebuffer technology to display the game text and graphics, including its animated human-like characters. To make the animation fast and smooth, the game included a special barrel shifter circuit built from multiple discrete chips. The microprocessor used this to shift each pattern of picture bits, byte-by-byte, to the proper horizontal bit offset, reading back each shifted byte and then writing it into the framebuffer. The 8080, like other microprocessors of its era, had shift instructions that could only shift by a single bit position. With the shifter circuit, the microprocessor could quickly shift a picture byte by several bit positions, giving it more time for other work. A similar shifter circuit was used in later Midway and Taito games whose hardware was based on Gun Fight, such as Sea Wolf and Space Invaders. In some later Space Invaders derivatives, such as Taito's Space Invaders Part II of 1979, this circuit is a Fujitsu MB14241, a single-chip implementation of the barrel shifter.

Midway's version increased the size of the character sprites, while at the same time restricting each character's movement to their respective portions of the screen. Nishikado believed that his original version was more fun than Midway's version, but he was impressed with the Midway machine's improved graphics and smoother animation. This led him to design microprocessors into his subsequent games, including the 1978 shoot 'em up Space Invaders.

Reception
In Japan, Western Gun was among the top ten highest-grossing arcade video games of 1976.

In the United States, following its November 1975 release there, Gun Fight sold 500 arcade cabinets by the end of 1975, making it one of the top ten best-selling arcade games of 1975. It eventually went on to sell 8,600 arcade cabinets in the United States.

In March 1976, the first annual RePlay arcade chart listed Gun Fight as the third highest-grossing arcade game of the previous year in the United States, below the Kee game Tank I & II and Taito/Midway game Wheels I & II. Later in October, RePlay listed Gun Fight as the second highest-grossing arcade game of 1976 in the United States, below Midway's Sea Wolf. In November 1977, the first annual Play Meter arcade chart listed Gun Fight as the fifth highest-grossing arcade video game of 1977. Play Meter later listed it among the top 30 highest-grossing arcade games of 1978.

In 2021, The Guardian listed it as the eleventh greatest video game of the 1970s.

Ports
In 1978, the game was introduced to the home market with a port to the Bally Astrocade, which included a color version of the game within the system's ROM.

In 1983, Epyx released Gun Fight and another Midway game, Sea Wolf II, for Atari 8-bit computers as an Arcade Classics compilation.

Legacy
The game was included in GameSpy's "Hall of Fame" in 2002. They commented that "Gun Fight was the first game to feature two humanized characters attempting to outfight each other, which would become one of the most common themes in games for the next 25-plus years"; that it was one of the first Japanese video games imported to North America; and that Midway's version "was the first microprocessor-based arcade game".

Atari, Inc. released a similar arcade game in 1976 titled Outlaw which was ported to the Atari VCS.

In 1982, the clone Gunfight was released for the Atari 8-bit computers by Hofacker / Elcomp Publishing. The Duel for the Commodore 64 is a clone released in 1985.

Taito used a control scheme similar to Western Gun for the run and gun video game Front Line (1982). In 1995, GamesMaster host Dominik Diamond called Sega's arcade game Virtual On: Cyber Troopers "a futuristic version" Gun Fight game.

title: Gun Fight


text:
ZF Sachs

ZF Sachs AG, also known as Fichtel & Sachs, was founded in Schweinfurt in 1895 and was a well-known German family business. At its last point as an independent company, the company name was Fichtel & Sachs AG.

In 1997, the automotive supplier was taken over by Mannesmann and renamed Mannesmann Sachs AG. As of 2001, Sachs belonged to ZF Friedrichshafen as a subsidiary company ZF Sachs AG. In 2011, ZF Sachs, like other Group subsidiaries, was legally merged with ZF Friedrichshafen AG and the independent business units integrated into the ZF divisions. Sachs has since become a brand of ZF Friedrichshafen AG. The head office for development, production and sales of products of the brand Sachs remained in Schweinfurt. The Schweinfurt plant is today (2017) the largest location of the automotive supplier ZF Friedrichshafen.

Today, Fichtel & Sachs is a German manufacturer of automotive parts, producing powertrain and suspension components. In the past the company also having produced ball bearings, motorcycle engines, bicycle parts and – via its subsidiary Sachs Motorcycles – motorcycles, mopeds, motorised bicycles and all-terrain vehicles (ATVs).

Early beginnings

In 1894, Ernst Sachs made his first design attempts for bicycle hubs, with the first patent on November 23 on bicycle ball bearings with sliding ball tread. On August 1, 1895, Ernst Sachs (technical director) and Karl Fichtel (commercial management) founded Schweinfurt Precision Ball Bearing factories (Fichtel & Sachs as oHG) with a founding capital sum of 15,000 Deutsche marks. First ball bearings and bicycle hubs were made. In 1896, Schweinfurt Precision Ball Bearing factories already employed 70 workers, who produced about 50 to 70 hubs daily.

World-famous inventions

 * 1889: Bicycle freewheel by Ernst Sachs.
 * 1903: Backpedal brake by Ernst Sachs.
 * 1903: Torpedo freewheel hub: bicycle component with integrated freewheel and coaster brake, by Ernst Sachs.

The bicycle gear was not invented by Fichtel & Sachs, but developed over decades. This developed the conventional, modern bike, with its basic components from Fichtel & Sachs.

Birth of globalisation
After the invention of the torpedo freewheel hub in 1903, Ernst Sachs was the first to have the idea to not patent the whole product, but worldwide to patent only one component, without which no one could build a modern bike. This led to product piracy in China at the time, with confoundingly similar falsifications of the torpedo freewheel hub. After the invention of the well-known torpedo freewheel hub, which preceded eight years of construction work and was already so mature that it has barely changed over many decades, the company grew rapidly. By 1905, they were employing 1,800 employees and had a production of 382,000 torpedo hubs.

Rapid growth

Sachs's father-in-law, Wilhelm Höpflinger, received a patent for the first usable ball cage still used today in the ball bearing industry. Fichtel & Sachs was one of the world's leading companies for rolling bearings, where Sachs registered more than 100 patents, and bicycle hubs before the First World War. A further development boost brought the conversion of multiple of the factories to armaments during the war, when the number of employees rose from 5000 to 8000.

In 1911, Karl Fichtel died and in 1912, in order to counter the high customs duties, Sachs acquired a factory in Černýš (Tschirnitz) on the river Ohře (Eger) in Bohemia. Somewhat later, a subsidiary factory was built in the United States. During the four years of the war, the number of Fichtel & Sachs employees increased from 3,000 to around 8,000. In addition to hubs and ball bearings of all kinds, armour products were manufactured in Schweinfurt. Today's main plant (North Plant), between Hauptbahnhof and Ernst-Sachs-Straße, is based on a weapons and projectile factory, which Fichtel & Sachs built here first, in what is now the eastern plant area.

In 1919, the first works council was elected at Fichtel and Sachs, one year before the Works Councils Act (Betriebsrätegesetz) was implemented nationwide.

In the inflation year 1923, the transformation into a public company took place. A holding company of the company, the Sachs GmbH, was founded in the same year in Munich. At the turn of the year 1927/1928, the number of employees rose to a provisional high of 9,026. The hub production accounted for 67% of the total production, the remainder fell on rolling bearings. Sachs founded a company pension, the Ernst-Sachs-Hilfe.

Interwar period

In 1929, on the eve of the great recession of 1929/30, Ernst Sachs sold the rolling bearing division with 3000 coworkers, which made about half of the enterprise, to the Swedish conglomerate SKF. This merged with the Schweinfurt Fries & Höpflinger AG, the Maschinenfabrik Rheinland from Krefeld, the Riebe-Werke and the rolling bearing production of the German weapons and munitions factories DWM, both in Berlin, to the United Ball Bearings AG (VKF, from 1953 SKF GmbH). With the proceeds Sachs paid off the Fichtel heirs and invested in sustainable developments, such as clutches, small engines and shock absorbers.

National Socialism
In 1932, Ernst Sachs died, and his only son Willy Sachs took over the company. In 1937 he presented at the Saxonette auto show a 60 cc engine that could be installed in the rear hub of bicycles.

At the beginning of the Second World War, the number of employees was again at 7,000. During the war, there was no significant change in the product range. Almost every German tank was equipped with Sachs clutches. Among the over 7,000 workers in 1944, many were forced laborers.

At the end of the war, 67% of the production facilities were destroyed.

Early post-war period

In 1956, the company presented a semi-automatic transmission called Saxomat. From the end of the Second World War to the mid-1980s, Fichtel & Sachs also produced single-cylinder two-stroke gasoline engines with capacities of 50 to 400 cubic centimeters, which were called StaMo. From 1953, a single-cylinder two-stroke diesel engine was built under license from Holder, which was initially used with 500, later with 400 and 600 cubic centimeters, especially in tugs and small tractors.

Successor
Consul Willy Sachs died in 1958. His son Ernst Wilhelm Sachs was appointed a full member of the executive board. In 1960, the first air-cooled Wankel engine in the world (for stationary operations) was developed. From then until the mid-1970s, small single-disc rotary engines were produced. At the Schweinfurt location alone, more than 10,000 employees were counted. In 1967, Ernst Wilhelm Sachs left the company's executive board and, together with his brother Gunter Sachs, becomes deputy chairman of the supervisory board. On the world market, Fichtel & Sachs was able to maintain a leading and sometimes dominant position in the market with its four main products - small engines, bicycle hubs, clutches and shock absorbers - until the 1980s.

In the 1960s and 1980s, Fichtel & Sachs took over various other traditional brands and manufacturers of bicycles and bicycle components, including Hercules, Rabeneick, Huret, Maillard and Sedis.

In 1969, the foundation stone was laid in Schweinfurt for a second plant, the Süd plant in the new industrial area of Hafen-West, which doubles the size of the plant premises. In 1971, the Sachs racing service was built, with rally registration and support. In 1973, the wide hub program is complemented by the automatic switching two-speed Torpedo-Automatic. Ernst Wilhelm Sachs died in a 1977 heliskiing accident in Val d'Isere.

In 1981, the Foundation of Fichtel & Sachs (West Africa) Ltd. in Lagos, Nigeria, together with Salzgitter AG was founded. In 1986, Fichtel & Sachs started to develop prototypes for micro combined heat and power plants and started 10-year field trials.

Mannesmann & Bosch / Siemens era
After the sale of the majority shareholding to the British GKN group in 1977 had been prohibited by the consumer financial conduct authorities, as well as the death of Ernst Wilhelm Sachs, the sale of the company was excluded due to a clause of his will for the next 10 years. In 1987, Gunter Sachs and his brother's daughters sold the company to Mannesmann. In 1991, the takeover was completed by Mannesmann and the majority entry of Mannesmann in the Boge AG with the former head office in Eitorf, which was also completely taken over two years later.

In 1997, engine construction was discontinued or sold and the production of bicycle hub gears and other components sold to SRAM. Sachs Bikes took over part of the two-wheeler activities. Furthermore, this year Fichtel & Sachs was renamed Mannesmann Sachs. As part of the Mannesmann takeover by Vodafone, the company went in 2000 as part of the previously founded Mannesmann Atecs to a consortium of companies around Bosch and Siemens.

ZF Friedrichshafen Era
In 2001, Fichtel & Sachs was sold to ZF Friedrichshafen and renamed ZF Sachs in the same year. The traditional French chain manufacturer Sedis has been resold to the Indian bicycle and industrial holding 'Tube Investments'.

As early as November 2002, a large development center was opened in the Werk-Süd.

On August 1, 2011, the company merged with ZF Friedrichshafen. As a result, ZF Sachs as an independent company, the business operations and the brand Sachs led ZF Friedrichshafen.

The Schweinfurt south plant has been continuously expanded since the takeover by ZF until today, also with a plastic center and a development center for e-mobility. In 2017, the Schweinfurt location with 9,500 employees almost reached its peak employee number from the post-war period.

Today's product range
Today's product range coming from the Schweinfurt plants of ZF Friedrichshafen AG includes drive components such as clutch systems, torque converters, dual-mass flywheels, electric drives and complete modules for hybrid vehicles, as well as suspension components such as shock absorbers and damping systems for cars, trucks, motorcycles and rail vehicles.

Examples products:

 * Nivomat (a portmanteau of the French niveau and automatique) is the name for a vehicle suspension level-control technology previously created by Mannesmann-Sachs (now ZF Sachs). Compared to the common use of springs, struts, and shock absorbers in a car suspension, Nivomat replaces all of these components with a single unit per wheel which provides damping, ride control, and a self-levelling function. The Nivomat system uniquely incorporates an internal pump which relies on relative movement between the axle and the chassis to provide the levelling and damping function.

Sachs-Motors
Fichtel & Sachs began producing a vehicle engine with a displacement of 74 cubic centimeters in 1930. As early as 1932, followed by a model with 98 cubic centimeters. In the 1930s, the bike with auxiliary motor "Saxonette", stationary and boat engines and motorcycle engines were included in the program. After the war, the old engine range was supplemented by a large number of new designs with 50 cubic centimeter displacement for mopeds, mopeds, small and light motorcycles. Engines with larger displacement were used in small and snowmobiles and motorcycles.

The stationary engine area was expanded by two-stroke diesel engines and mower engines with different capacities. Of particular note is the development of a range of Wankel engines in various sizes for a wide variety of applications. After the assumption of the enterprise by Mannesmann the engine production was stopped 1997.

Bicycle components
Fichtel & Sachs produced its own bicycle component groups until the takeover of the bicycle division by SRAM in the mid-1990s. For brake production Sachs cooperated with Modolo and in the production of derailleurs with Weinmann and Simplex.

Renak in Reichenbach
In 1944, the production of the torpedo freewheel hub was outsourced from Schweinfurt to Reichenbach in the Vogtland. At the end of the war, production was interrupted. In August 1945, the operation was taken over by the state government of Saxony and handed over to the USSR on November 1, 1946, trading as part as Awtowelo. On 1 May 1952 it became the VEB vehicle parts factory Fichtel & Sachs, Reichenbach the GDR. In 1956, the Renak brand was protected for the VEB Renak works (Reichenbacher hubs and coupling plants). The mid-1960s, the production of bicycle parts reached a peak with exports to 40 countries, but it was throttled and stopped the export.

On July 1, 1990, the transformation to RENAK-Werke GmbH took place. Products such as steering bearings, bottom bracket, idler sprockets and unbraked steel hubs have been discontinued. Fichtel & Sachs AG took over the production of the jet hub. Under the administration of the Treuhandanstalt, the company was privatized in several sections.

The bicycle components business unit, which only produced the coaster brake hub Univers (torpedo) and Speed (Jet) and aluminum hubs, was sold to the Flying Pigeon Bicycle Group Corporation (Tianjin) from China on April 1, 1994, and the RENAK International GmbH with approx 30 employees.

On March 7, 1994, the Reichenbacher hub and bicycle components GmbH was founded and the production of the hub dynamo Enparlite (mechanically switched off, with gearbox) prepared. End of 1994, the sale of the Univers and speed hub production including the trademark RENAK Flying Pigeon back to the Reichenbacher Hubs and Fahrrad-Komponenten GmbH, which then shortened its name to RENAK Komponenten GmbH.

Re-introduction
The Sachs brand was revived in 2018, and is now a major producer of bikes.

Literature

 * Wilfried Rott: Sachs – Unternehmer, Playboys, Millionäre. Eine Geschichte von Vätern und Söhnen. Blessing, München 2005, ISBN 3-89667-270-3
 * Thomas Horling: Kartell und ausländisches Kapital. Die deutsche Wälzlagerindustrie in den Jahren 1925–1932. In: Jahrbuch für fränkische Landesforschung, 66, 2006, S. 521–562
 * Andreas Dornheim: Sachs – Mobilität und Motorisierung – Eine Unternehmensgeschichte. Hoffmann und Campe, Hamburg 2015, ISBN 978-3-455-50382-1
 * Volker Ullrich: Goldene Jahre im braunen Reich. In: Die Zeit, Nr. 42/2005

title: ZF Sachs


text:
Talk:Electrical conductivity

Table of SI units
I noticed that the table of SI electromagnetism units was on several entries, so I think I'll make an entry just for it and then put a link to it at the bottom of the entries that it used to be in. — Preceding unsigned comment added by TDogg310 (talk • contribs) 22:17, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

Measuring Electrical Conductivity in Fluids
Measuring the conductivity of a metal rod is relatively simple, but how do you measure the conductivity of a fluid? Will a horizontal glas tube with facing(inert)platimum disk-electrodes at each end (so you can calculate the length and area of the fluid column do the trick? One can then apply a AC voltage accross the electrodes and measure the current to calculate the resistance of the fluid column and hence calculate the conductivity of the fluid.

What is the recommended practice?--168.209.98.35 20:24, 9 December 2005 (UTC)G Francois Marais

Electric conductivity measuring instruments for liquids are commercially available from laboratory equipment suppliers. After calibrating the instrument the probe containing the measuring cell is simply immersed in the liquid for a digital readout of the conductivity and the temperature (conductivity varies with temperature).--168.209.98.35 15:41, 14 December 2005 (UTC)G Francois Marais

Electrical expreiments with potatoes
I seem to remember in high school science, something about potatoes being used as conductors or like a primative battery. Am I wrong?209.74.5.35

 * You can use a potato as a battery. This should be disussed under battery, if it isn't already. --Heron 15:30, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Table of conductivity and resistivity
I propose that we combine the tables of conductivity and resistivity onto their own page, because they are fundamentally related. Comments? Fresheneesz 22:44, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

 * Agreed. — Omegatron 19:02, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Electrical Conductivity: Gas
I have something on my mind that I want to clarify. Is there a gas that can conduct an electrical charge were it will move within that specific gas only/mostly? - Johan1984
 * Lightning - Rip-Saw 10:43, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Temperature Dependance
The formula seems not quite right. It causes most conductivity to increase with temperature instead of being reduced. As far as I can tell the T and the Tprime are out of order. 63.164.202.130 14:35, 30 August 2007 (UTC)63.164.202.130 14:33, 30 August 2007 (UTC)rfilabs
 * This is because the formula is for semiconductors, where electrical conductivity increases with increasing temperature. The formula is for calibrating an EC water meter using a calibration solution. Different EC meters use different slopes. This section probably needs a bit of tidying and sectioning to specify the EC dependence for metals and semiconductors (such as water). + m t  01:09, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

the text says the conductivity is directly proportional to temperature, whereas it's inversely proportional.--132.65.16.64 (talk) 19:09, 28 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Please read the text - directly for semiconductors, inversely for metals. Materialscientist (talk) 22:47, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Even with Semiconductors it is not very common to have the electrical conductivity directly proportional to temperature. More typical is an exponential dependence. So this part is not absolutely wrong, but its prone to misinterpretation and not really useful. So I would better remove it. The more important point is that for many (non magnetic) pure metals a resistivity proportional to absolute temperature is a reasonable approximation for not so limited range of temperature. --Ulrich67 (talk) 20:34, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Current Density or Free Current Density
I suppose there's an imprecision on the definition of the electrical conductivity:

"The conductivity σ is defined as the ratio of the current density J to the electric field strength E"

I believe it must say: ...the ratio fo the FREE current density etc..

since the total current density depends on the free and the bounded current (see Magnetization).

--Felipebm (talk) 16:00, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

conductivity

This page is really helpful.

Thanks

Kingpenguins —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kingpenguins2007 (talk • contribs) 23:21, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

What a HORRIBLE entry. Not a single mention of the electron!! Gross negligence.69.40.254.72 (talk) 14:40, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

Superconductivity
Maybe mention it somewhere in the text (general properties) and link to its article. Or just in the related links. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 161.53.198.136 (talk) 23:30, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

High Voltage Power Distribution
Added text about Aluminium being commonly used for High Voltage Power Distribution ie. between electricity "Transmission" Towers. Mostly due to lighter weight, and cost(?) for same current carrying capacity. Wondering if this has always been the case? Aluminium is not cheap, (Copper more expensive?) Aluminium ironically need HEAPS of Electricity to refine. A bit off-topic, but? --220.101.28.25 (talk) 23:16, 3 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Going to aluminium and copper and -F for "price" brings a picture that copper is some 2.5 times more expensive than Al. I've heard Al is reinforced with steel core for power lines. Materialscientist (talk) 23:22, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Classification of electrical conduction
Electrical conductivity is potential to facilitate flow of charge (Q). There are currently two ways charge can be conducted in an electric field setup: Please note this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Otivaeey (talk • contribs) 14:26, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * free-electron flow theory (in solid and plasma)
 * ion-carrier (in liquid only, such as the mechanism of hydronium ion migration/relay)

title: Talk:Electrical conductivity


text:
Waterloo Tunnel

The Waterloo Tunnel in Liverpool, England, is a former railway tunnel, 852 yards long, which opened in 1849. Its western end was at 53.414829, -2.994385, underneath Pall Mall. From here the line continued under Great Howard Street to Waterloo Goods railway station, now the site of the Kingsway Tunnel Ventilation Shaft, after 1895 continuing beyond to the dock railway system and on to Liverpool Riverside at the Pier Head for direct connection to the passenger liners. The eastern end opens into a short (69 yards) cutting, four tracks wide between Byrom Street and Fontenoy Street, which connects to the Victoria Tunnel, which emerges at Edge Hill station. It is effectively one long tunnel from Edge Hill to Liverpool Waterloo Dock with two names along its route. The tunnels were given two different names because initially trains in the Victoria Tunnel were cable hauled and in the Waterloo Tunnel locomotive hauled. Both tunnels closed on 19 November 1972.

In May 2007 it was reported that chief executive of Merseytravel, Neil Scales, had prepared a report outlining the possibilities for reuse of the Victoria/Waterloo and Wapping tunnels. Merseytravel safeguard the tunnel for future use.

In 2016, work began on replacing the road bridge on Great Howard Street that crosses over the dock entrance to the tunnel. Whilst it would have been cheaper to remove the existing bridge and in fill the resulting gap, the Department for Transport insisted the bridge was replaced at a cost of £9.7 million in order to preserve the tunnel for future use.

title: Waterloo Tunnel


text: Category:Saxon monarchs

title: Category:Saxon monarchs


text:
Alexander Wetmore

Frank Alexander Wetmore (June 18, 1886 – December 7, 1978) was an American ornithologist and avian paleontologist. He was the sixth Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. He was also an elected member of both the American Philosophical Society and the United States National Academy of Sciences.

Early life and education
The son of a physician, Frank Alexander Wetmore was born in North Freedom, Wisconsin. Developing an interest in birds at an early age, he made his first field journal entry (a pelican seen while on vacation in 1894) at the age of eight. By 1900, Wetmore published his first paper "My Experience with a Red-headed Woodpecker," in the magazine Bird-Lore. To further his education Wetmore enrolled at the University of Kansas in 1905. During his studies there he did a stint as an assistant in the University Museum, under the direction of Charles D. Bunker. Alexander Wetmore later received his BA from the University of Kansas in 1912; finally receiving his MS in 1916 and his PhD in 1920 from George Washington University. Wetmore began federal service in 1910, working for the Biological Survey of the Department of Agriculture. In 1915, he researched the use of lead shot in causing death in waterfowl. His paleontological research led to his work on the fossil birds Palaeochenoides mioceanus and  Nesotrochis debooyi.

From April 1923 to July 1924, Wetmore was the lead scientist of the Tanager Expedition, a series of five biological surveys to study the flora, fauna and geology of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, Johnston Atoll and Wake Island. In 1924, Wetmore joined the Smithsonian Institution as the superintendent of the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. In 1925, Wetmore was appointed assistant secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, becoming secretary between 1945 and 1952. In 1929 he participated in the Pinchot South Sea Expedition. In 1939 he was elected a Corresponding Member of the Royal Australasian Ornithologists Union He wrote A Systematic Classification for the Birds of the World (1930, revised in 1951 and 1960). This Wetmore Order received widespread acceptance, remaining popular until the end of the twentieth century. From 1944 to 1946 Wetmore served as the 15th president of The Explorers Club. Between 1946 and 1966 Wetmore made annual trips to Panama to study and collect specimens of the birds of the Isthmus. His 4-volume magnum opus, Birds of the Republic of Panama, was published by the Smithsonian between 1965 and 1984, the last volume appearing posthumously. He also served on the boards of trustees of Science Service, now known as Society for Science & the Public, from 1946 to 1953, and of the National Geographic Society, where he served successively as vice chairman, acting chairman, and chairman emeritus of the Committee for Research and Exploration, from 1933 until his death, in his final years as a trustee emeritus.

Several taxa of birds have been named in his honor, including the Cretaceous genus Alexornis and the tanagers Wetmorethraupis sterrhopteron and Buthraupis wetmorei. Insects, mammals, amphibians, mollusks, and one plant (an Argentinian cactus), as well as a bridge in Panama and the Wetmore Glacier in the Antarctic, have also been named after him. Wetmore is commemorated in the scientific names of one species and two subspecies of reptiles: Pholidoscelis wetmorei, Uromacer frenatus wetmorei, and Anolis brevirostris wetmorei.

In 1953 he married Annie Beatrice van der Biest Thielan, who became guarantor of the American Ornithologists' Union after his death in 1978. His papers and an oral history interview are held at the Smithsonian Institution.

title: Alexander Wetmore


text:
Ralph Sandwich

Sir Ralph Sandwich (1235–1308) (also known as Rauf de Sanduiz, Ralph de Sandwich and Ralph of Sandwich), of Dene (in Margate), Ham, and Ripple, Kent, Winchfield, Hampshire, etc., was an English administrator and justice. He was Steward of the King's Demesne, Constable of Canterbury (1278), and Royal Warden (Lord Mayor) of London (1286, 1288–1293).

Biography
He was the son of Simon of Sandwich, the brother of clergyman Henry of Sandwich, and Gillian Sandwich. His family had close connections with Simon de Montfort, and his uncle's links with Montfort's administration is most likely what brought Ralph into government. By September 1264 he had become part of the captive King's household, and on 1 January 1265 he became Master of the Great Wardrobe. On 7 May he was made Keeper of the Great Seal, although without the governmental position which accompanied it. He was only allowed to use it for routine writs, otherwise the presence of Peter de Montfort and two others was required.

On 4 August 1265, Sandwich was captured at the Battle of Evesham fighting on the losing side for de Montfort. His lands were confiscated and given to Roger de Leybourne and his father's lands awarded to Leybourne's son William, who also married Juliana de Sandwich (1245-1327) on 16 October 1265; she was the daughter of Sir Henry de Sandwich (died c. 1249). After his pardon in 1266, Sandwich maintained a relationship with the Leybourne family, acting as a lawyer to Roger's widow in 1272 and executing her will in 1276. After the death of his uncle Henry of Sandwich in 1273, he was made administrator of the See of London, having already acted as their administrator during Henry's exile in Rome. In November 1273 he was appointed to audit the accounts of the Constable of Dover Castle, and in 1274 was summoned to attend the coronation of Edward I. In November 1275 he was one of three men appointed as a Steward of the King's Demesne, with his responsibilities being the counties of the south and west. The post, which involved large amounts of travel, handling of huge sums of money (over £7000 between 1277 and 1279) and the supervision of large building works at Devizes, Banstead, and Odiham, completely exhausted one of his colleagues.

He also acted as Keeper of the Port of Dover, Keeper of the Forest of Dean and administrator of the See of Canterbury during the 1278–1279 vacancy. In 1280 he was appointed to negotiate for the site of New Winchelsea. A member of the King's council, Sandwich was in 1278 appointed justice coram rege (in the presence of the King) for when the king was in Kent, and was with the judges when Alexander III of Scotland paid homage in Westminster in October. In 1285 Edward took direct control of London, appointing Sandwich as Warden of London on 1 July and Constable of the Tower on 10 September. Until 1293 Sandwich was the effective Mayor of London, and presided over the city's Court of Hustings. He was appointed Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas in 1289 after the previous holder, Sir Thomas Weyland, became a fugitive 'until the king makes further provision', and stepped down in 1290 after a replacement was found. Between 1286 and 1307 he sat every year as a justice at the original Old Bailey, and sat as a justice at the trial of William Wallace at Westminster Hall in 1305.

He attended Edward II's coronation in February 1308, and on 24 March turned the custody of the Tower of London over to John Cromwell. He died before 20 August and was buried in Greyfriars Church. In 1309 Henry de Eynesford, Nicholas de Sandwich, Thomas de Boynton, and William de Berton, clerk, executors of the will of Ralph de Sandwich, deceased were summoned to answer William de Carleton, Baron of the Exchequer, and his associates, executors of the will of William, Bishop of Norwich, deceased regarding a debt of £40. By an unknown first wife, he appears to have had a daughter, Desirée (or Desiderata) (living 1330–1), wife of Geoffrey de Lucy, Knt. He married (2nd) Maud, widow of Thomas de Belhouse, who survived him.

title: Ralph Sandwich


text:
File:Harry Chapin - Living Room Suite.jpg

Summary
Harry Chapin - Living Room Suite album cover