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Humboldt, Saskatchewan

Humboldt is a city in the province of Saskatchewan, Canada. It is located 113 km east of Saskatoon at the junction of Highway 5 and Highway 20. The city is surrounded by the Rural Municipality of Humboldt No. 370.

History
Named after German explorer Alexander von Humboldt, Humboldt began as a telegraph station located on the Carlton Trail, a wagon route used in the early days of Western Canada as a route from Fort Garry (Winnipeg) to Fort Edmonton. The name "Humboldt" was approved in 1875 for a site in the North West Territories along the Canadian Pacific Telegraph Line at which a repair station was built (8 km south-west of the present city site). Built in 1878, the Humboldt Telegraph Station played an integral part in communications for the developing West.

With the Métis uprising led by Louis Riel taking place at Batoche just 100 km northwest, Humboldt became the only communication link between Prime Minister John A. Macdonald and his forces in the West, thus a site of strategic significance. General Frederick Middleton arrived in April 1885 with 950 soldiers, established a garrison at the station, and used it as his base for scouting operations. At that time, the Humboldt station was crucial, since the telegraph line further west was periodically cut – so Humboldt was the last secure link to the East.

On May 1, 1885, Humboldt became the site of a large supply depot under Maj. Lt.-Colonel G. T. Denison of the Governor Generals' Body Guard. A combined force of approximately 460 men built an elaborate series of entrenchments, converting the station into a fortified military encampment to protect the supplies. The troops left Humboldt in July 1885. The area was also the site of the first stagecoach robbery in Western Canada. Parts of the Carlton Trail in the form of wagon tracks/ruts still exist in the Humboldt area.

Humboldt in its beginnings was primarily German Catholic. It became the largest settlement in the Territorial Abbey of Saint Peter-Muenster also called St. Peter's Colony established by Benedictine monks from St John's Abbey in Collegeville, Minnesota. Immigration to the area from both the Northern Plains states of the US and Germany was promoted by the German American Land Company. Many immigrants from the German Empire settled in areas in and around Humboldt such as Muenster, Fulda, Pilger, St Gregor and Englefeld. Immigrants from the Russian Empire who were ethnic Germans settled in the area west of Humboldt and south of the hamlet of Carmel.

After being established as a community, Humboldt became an important location in Saskatchewan previously known as the "Heart of the Sure Crop District" for its reliable growing weather, which led the town to become a centre for farming equipment and supply businesses.

Humboldt Broncos bus crash
On April 6, 2018, the Humboldt Broncos junior hockey team was involved in a serious bus crash. The bus was carrying the team to a playoff game in Nipawin, Saskatchewan, when it collided with a tractor trailer loaded with peat moss at an intersection known as Armley Corner, near Nipawin. Sixteen of the 30 people on board the bus died — the driver, the general manager/head coach, the assistant coach, a radio commentator, a volunteer, the club's female trainer, and 10 players between the ages of 16 and 21. Fourteen players were injured, several of them seriously. News of the crash received significant national and international media coverage, and numerous dignitaries and politicians sent their condolences to the team and city. Two days after the crash, a vigil was held at the Elgar Petersen Arena in Humboldt, which was attended by over 5,000 people and televised nationally. Attendees included Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, the Premier of Saskatchewan, and popular Canadian sports personalities Don Cherry and Ron MacLean. Humboldt Mayor Rob Muench called the tragedy a "truly dark moment" for the city.

Climate
Humboldt experiences a humid continental climate (Köppen climate classification Dfb) featuring long, cold winters and brief, warm summers. The region falls into the USDA Plant Hardiness Zone 3a. It is a great distance from any large bodies of water, and thus lacks any moderating influences on its climate. The latitudinal difference of Saskatchewan can typically explain a 6–8 °C difference mean in annual temperatures across the province.

The highest temperature ever recorded in Humboldt was 41.1 C on 19 July 1941. The coldest temperature ever recorded was -50.6 C on 12 January 1916.

Demographics
In the 2021 Census of Population conducted by Statistics Canada, Humboldt had a population of $6,033$ living in $2,494$ of its $2,707$ total private dwellings, a change of NaN% from its 2016 population of $5,869$. With a land area of 13.3 km2, it had a population density of in 2021.

Economy
About 95% of all goods produced in the province directly depend on its basic resources (grains, livestock, oil and gas, potash, uranium and timber) and their refined products.

Wheat, canola, flax, peas, rye, lentils, canary seed and barley are mainly grown in the area. Beef cattle production, pork production – as well as other livestock – are significant for the community. With many farmers in the area, agricultural-related businesses were formed. Some services offered are in trucking and financial management, finance, business services, wholesale trade, transportation, etc. Humboldt is in the heart of potash country with many people employed in the mines near the city. The manufacturing community represented in the "Iron Triangle" also employs a large number of people in the city and surrounding district.

Attractions
Humboldt has a number of heritage buildings listed on the Canadian Register of Historic Places. They include the Canadian National Railways (Canadian Northern Railway) Station (built in 1905), a Post Office (built in 1911–1912), the Humboldt Provincial Court House (built in 1914–1920). and the Humboldt Water Tower (built in 1914) has been renovated with a spiral staircase and a circular observation platform on top.

The Humboldt Post Office is a National Historic Site of Canada (built in 1911–1912). It houses the Humboldt and District Museum and Gallery. Across the street is the Humboldt and District Art Gallery in the old Merchant Bank Building.

Marysburg Assumption Church is located 16 km north of Humboldt. Mount Carmel Shrine is located 23 km west and St. Peter's Abbey and St. Peter's Cathedral are 10 km east of the city in Muenster.

The Humboldt Murals located in the town centre depict historic scenes.

Festivals

 * The Summer Sizzler is held in late-June of each year. The event features a midway, demolition derby, cabaret, slo-pitch tournament, tractor pull, Sizzler Strut Marathon and live on-stage entertainment. On the opening day, there is a parade through downtown and a pancake breakfast at Centennial Park.
 * Canada Day celebrations occur every year on July 1 concluding with fireworks at the Uniplex.
 * The Humboldt StreetFest is held in mid-August and is organized by the Humboldt Downtown Business Improvement District.

Churches
Humboldt has ten churches: Humboldt Alliance Church, St. John's Lutheran, St. Andrew's Anglican Church, St. Augustine Catholic Church, Living Word Ministries, All Saints Ukrainian Catholic Church, Humboldt Bible Church, Westminster United Church of Canada, First Baptist Church and Kingdom Hall of Jehovah's Witnesses.

Education
Humboldt has three elementary schools: two Catholic (St. Augustine and St. Dominic) and one public (Humboldt Public School).

It has one public high school, Humboldt Collegiate Institute. It is co-managed by Horizon School Division No. 205 and Greater Saskatoon Catholic Schools. The Humboldt Collegiate Institute has senior and junior volleyball teams (boys' and girls'), senior and junior basketball teams (boys' and girls'), soccer (boys' and girls'), badminton, golf, cross-country, track & field and a nine-man football program known as HCI Mohawks. The Mohawks won provincial championships in 1975, 1996, 1997, 2008 and 2010.

Carlton Trail Regional College has its headquarters in Humboldt.

Transportation
The city is served by Highway 5 and Highway 20.

Humboldt Airport, (TC LID: CJU4), is located 1 nmi south of the city.

Humboldt is serviced by CN Rail and is home to a number of rail workers.

Health care
Humboldt District Health Complex is home to the Humboldt Hospital and Community Health Services. Humboldt has two medical clinics and four pharmacies in addition to local dental, chiropractic, home care, optometry, physiotherapy as well as health and wellness services.

Humboldt City Council
The Humboldt City Council is the municipal governing body for the city. The council consists of the mayor and six councillors. The current council sits between 2020 and 2024. The last civic election was held on November 9, 2020. Historically, the mayor and councillors were elected to three-year terms; however, the terms have increased to four years. Michael Behiel was elected as Mayor in 2020, after serving as Councillor from 2016 to 2020. Rob Muench was elected for his first term as Mayor in the 2016 election, and had previously been on City Council for 10 years as Councilor. In 2020, he was elected as Councillor.

Legislative Assembly of Saskatchewan
The City of Humboldt is the largest centre in the provincial electoral district of Humboldt-Watrous. Donna Harpauer of the Saskatchewan Party is the current MLA for the riding.

Member of Parliament
The City of Humboldt is currently within the federal electoral district of Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek which is represented by Kelly Block of the Conservative Party of Canada.

Notable people
Notable people who were born, grew up in or established their fame in Humboldt:

 * Kelly Bates, former CFL guard, former head coach with the Simon Fraser Clan (2015-2017), and current offensive line coach with the BC Lions
 * Al Duerr, former mayor of Calgary, Alberta
 * Jillian Gallays, wrestler
 * Glenn Hall, former professional ice hockey goaltender. Stanley Cup champion and Hockey Hall of Fame inductee
 * Lylian Klimek, sculptor
 * Otto Lang, Rhodes Scholar, law school dean, Federal Cabinet Minister, and executive
 * Brad Lauer, former NHL forward and current assistant coach with the Anaheim Ducks
 * Ross Lonsberry, professional ice hockey player, two-time Stanley Cup champion with the Philadelphia Flyers
 * Rusty Malinoski, professional wakeboarder
 * Kyle McLaren, former NHL defenceman
 * Nathan Paetsch, former NHL defenceman
 * Lyndon Rush, 2010 Olympian bronze medal in four-man bobsleigh and 2014 Olympian Canadian bobsledder
 * David Schmidtz, political philosopher
 * Brianne Theisen-Eaton, 2012 and 2016 Olympian, heptathlete and Canadian record-holder in the women's pentathlon, 2016 Olympic bronze medallist (heptathlon)
 * Dustin Tokarski, NHL Goaltender
 * Brendan Witt, former NHL defenceman
 * Jeremy Wotherspoon, speed skater with 67 World Cup wins
 * Jeremy Wotherspoon, speed skater with 67 World Cup wins

title: Humboldt, Saskatchewan


text:
Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool

Liverpool Philharmonic Hall is a concert hall in Hope Street, in Liverpool, England. It is the home of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Society and is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade II* listed building. It is not the original concert hall on the present site; its predecessor was destroyed by fire in 1933 and the present hall was opened in 1939.

Original hall
The Liverpool Philharmonic Society was founded in 1840 but initially did not have a permanent concert hall. In 1844 the Liverpool architect John Cunningham was appointed to prepare plans for a hall. The initial requirement was for a "concert room" holding an audience of 1,500 which would cost at least £4,000 (equivalent to £0 in ). Later that year the requirement was increased to a "new concert hall" to accommodate an audience of 2,100 and an orchestra of 250, plus "refreshment and retiring rooms". Subscribers were invited to both buy shares and to purchase seats along the sides of the hall. The foundation stone was laid in 1846 and plans were made for Mendelssohn to write a cantata to be played in his presence at the opening of the hall. Mendelssohn did not live long enough to write the work.

The hall cost £30,000 (equivalent to £ in ) and was opened on 27 August 1849 accompanied by a week long festival. A correspondent for The Times reported that it was "one of the finest and best adapted to music that I ever entered". The correspondent described the interior: "The orchestra, on each side of which is a canopied box for the use of the committee or the directors of the concert, is at the east end of the hall, recessed under an arch, filled to the extremities by the instrumental and choral phalanx of executants, disposed semicircularly, with numberless bronze music-stands, each surmounted by a lyre. It has a most imposing appearance. A large organ, of simple but classic design, backs the orchestra. The length of the body of the hall, without the orchestra, is about 104 feet; with the orchestra, about 150 feet. The breadth cannot fall short of 100 feet. The form of the room is oblong. The boxes, 65 in number, are disposed on each side of the hall, under the galleries, which in their turn are surmounted by the brilliant line of gas-burners .... The entire body of the hall is divided into comfortable stalls which leave plenty of room to sit at ease, and have all the accommodation of arm chairs. Three doors for ingress and egress are disposed at each side of the hall, and there are divided by windows, fitted with perforated zinc for the purpose of ventilation. Two immense elliptic arches on each side of the hall, spanning nearly the entire length of the body, inclose the boxes and galleries, and give them the appearance of being recessed. The galleries are sustained by gilded pillars, which front the boxes, with scroll ornaments for capitals. At the west end of the building, opposite the orchestra, there are two galleries, one above the other. The roof is covered, and the covers are of stucco, perforated; the centre is flat, but elaborately ornamented and relieved. The boxes are very elegantly fitted … The hall is lighted in day-time by four large windows, two on either side."

According to The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, the hall was universally agreed to have superb acoustics. A new organ was installed in the hall in 1930 at a cost of £2,000 (equivalent to £0 in ). The concert hall continued to be the home of the society until a fire broke out during the evening of 5 July 1933. Despite over 100 firemen attending the fire, the hall and new organ were damaged beyond repair. Over 10,000 people stood in the streets around the hall to view the fire. There were no serious injuries – the hall had closed for the day – though two boys fell into the basement while watching the fire and a number of onlookers fainted or collapsed. The next day the chairman of the Philharmonic Society announced that the hall would certainly be rebuilt, saying that until then they would need to find a replacement hall in which to play. The hall contained a number of autograph books dating from 1848; these were contained in a fire-proof safe and thus kept safe along with autographed pictures and some instruments, though the music library was lost. The building was insured, and the insurers paid £84,000 (equivalent to £ in ) for the hall itself, £9,503 (equivalent to £0 in ) for other assets, and £6,000 (equivalent to £0 in ) for the loss of two years' rental. The exact cause of the fire was not known; only that it originated in the roof of the building. Demolition work on the building's ruins began the next day.

History
The building of a new hall was delayed by the demands of Liverpool Corporation, which announced that it would not support the building of a venue suitable only as a concert hall. The corporation demanded an auditorium equally suited to cinema and theatre use. Controversy ensued with vocal opposition to the corporation's stance led by the doyen of British conductors, Sir Henry Wood. A compromise was reached and work began in June 1937.

Herbert J. Rowse was commissioned to design a new hall on the site of the previous hall. Rowse's design was in Streamline Moderne style. It incorporated an organ built by the Liverpool firm of Rushworth and Dreaper with a console which can be lowered from the stage. The hall was officially opened on 19 June 1939, and inaugurated the next day with a concert conducted by Sir Thomas Beecham. The Manchester Guardian commented, "The magnificent compliment Liverpool has paid to the cause of music in England almost takes one's breath away ... a hall of great size, noble proportions, and up-to-date appointments ... ready to take its place among the most eminent homes of musical culture in this or any other country". The final cost of the hall was a little over £120,000 (equivalent to £ in ) and the architect was paid £6,869 (equivalent to £0 in ). An extension was added to the rear of the hall which was completed in 1992, designed by Brock Carmichael Associates. A major refurbishment of the hall was carried out in 1995 at a cost of £10.3 million. This included the complete replacement of the fibrous plaster interior with concrete, carried out again by Brock Carmichael, working with the acoustic consultant firm Lawrence Kirkegaard Associates. A local violinist, John Frederick Clarke, who was part of the famed RMS Titanic orchestra, and the other band members who died during the ship's sinking in 1912 are all commemorated on a memorial plaque within Philharmonic Hall.

A further renovation, costing around £14 million, was completed in October 2015, primarily refurbishing the main concert hall and auditorium. The 2015 renovation also saw the introduction of a new performance space named the Music Room, which replaced the former Rodewald Suite as Liverpool Philharmonic's secondary venue, with an increased capacity of between 180 and 250 people. The Music Room was formally opened to the public in a free open house event on 9 October 2015.

Architecture
The hall is built with fawn-coloured facing bricks, and is mainly in three storeys. It has a symmetrical frontage with a canopied entrance flanked by semicircular stair turrets. Above the entrance are seven windows that are separated by piers surmounted by carved abstract motifs. Outside the hall and separated from it are two piers for the display of posters. The architectural historians Pollard and Pevsner and the author of the description in the National Heritage List for England agree that the design of the hall was influenced by the Dutch architect W. M. Dudok.

The windows above the canopy contain glass etched by Hector Whistler. Glass doors panels by Whistler, originally from the building, and depicting musical instruments in art deco style, were featured on the BBC One's Antiques Roadshow in March 2015. Thirteen Pilkington glass panels had been purchased from a market in France by a Liverpool dealer, who expressed an interest in donating some to local museums. Inside the entrance to the hall is a copper memorial to the musicians of the RMS Titanic by J. A. Hodel, and on the landings are gilded reliefs of Apollo by Edmund C. Thompson. The interior of the auditorium is "sensuously curved". On the walls on each side are incised female figures in art deco style that represent "musical moods", also by Thompson. On the back wall above the platform was a kinetic structure, called Adagio, designed by Marianne Forrest in 1995; however this was moved to the nearby Harold Cohen Library at the University of Liverpool in 2016.

The hall contains a 3-manual pipe organ built by Rushworth and Dreaper, with a console on a lifting platform that can be played on the stage or from the area below the stage, and a Walturdaw rising cinema screen which is often played up with a musical interlude by the Hall's resident organist.

Current use
The hall stages over 250 events each year, of which more than 60 are concerts of classical music. The main hall has a capacity of 1,700 with smaller events taking place in the Music Room, Green Room and 1840 Room. The other shows include music of all genres (including international artists such as Sir Cliff Richard, Bryan Ferry, Brian Wilson, Kraftwerk and Gilbert O'Sullivan), comedians, and films shown on the Walturdaw screen. Tours of the hall are arranged, and the hall can he hired for corporate or private events, including weddings.

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

title: Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool


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Cantagalo, Rio de Janeiro

Cantagalo, formerly spelled Cantagallo, is a city located in the east-central area of Rio de Janeiro State, Brazil. The population is 20,168 (2020 est.) in an area of 749 km2. Its elevation is 391 m.

History
Colonization of Cantagalo began in 1755, when Portuguese nobleman Manoel Henriques, Duke of Terso and a clandestine gold miner, left the state of Minas Gerais in search of unexplored riches. Henriques and his group erected a settlement on a small tributary of the Parahyba approximately 80 mi northwest of Rio and began exploring along the local rivers. It was originally known as Sertões de Macacu after the nearby Macacu River.

By 1784, the settlement had grown to accommodate approximately 200 houses. This growth caught the attention of the Portuguese rulers of Brazil, who had a monopoly over gold exploration in the colony. By order of the Viceroy Luiz de Vasconcelos e Souza, several expeditions were sent in search of Henriques and his group. The town's current name (Portuguese for "rooster crow") was inspired by the circumstances of his capture. A troop was about to return to their camp after a day of searching in vain around the woods, when a soldier heard the crowing of a rooster nearby and decided to further explore the area. One of Henriques's men was found in a clearing in the woods and, in exchange for his release, revealed the whereabouts of the rest of the group. Henriques was deported to Africa in dishonour.

By 1786, the settlement's name had been officially changed from Sertões de Macacu to Cantagalo. In 1814, Cantagalo was officially recognized by Emperor Pedro I as a municipality and in October 1857, was officially elevated to the category of city. By the mid-19th century, the area's gold was played out and the settlement came to depend on agriculture. Corn, coffee, and sugarcane plantations covered several acres of highly fertile land.

Before the First World War, Cantagallo was considered a rich fruit- and coffee-producing district and was connected to Rio via a 100-mile-long eponymous railway.

Nowadays, the city's economic activities still revolve around agriculture, with the exploration of granite and calcareous rock for the cement industry also playing a strong role. Some of the largest cement manufacturers in Brazil have facilities in Cantagalo.

Notable residents
The financial journalist Jose Carlos Rodrigues was the son of a coffee planter of Cantagallo, and born there in 1844. Brazilian writer Euclides da Cunha, was born in Cantagalo on January 15, 1886. One of the city's districts is named Euclidelândia, in his homage. Brazilian football player Jairo Da Silva, was born in Cantagalo, Rio de Janeiro. He is the most notable football player of the town. Now he is playing in Pafos FC.

title: Cantagalo, Rio de Janeiro


text:
Earthsuit

Earthsuit was a New Orleans-based Christian rock band formed in 1995. The band consisted of guitarist Dave Rumsey, keyboardist/vocalist Paul Meany, bassist Roy Mitchell, drummer David "Hutch" Hutchison, and vocalist Adam LaClave. Earthsuit's sound was primarily rock, but also incorporated elements of hip-hop, electronica, reggae, soul, and experimental music.

The group recorded several independent EPs and played primarily in their New Orleans area before becoming noticed by Sparrow Records at a concert in 1999. The ensuing record deal saw the band's only commercial release, a critically acclaimed album entitled Kaleidoscope Superior, in 2000. Shortly after, the band left Sparrow and drifted out of the public eye. A final album, entitled The Rise of Modern Simulation was independently released before the group disbanded in 2003. Many of the band members continue to play together and collaborate in various bands, namely Mutemath and Club of the Sons.

Biography
Earthsuit began in 1995 as a collaboration between Adam LaClave and Paul Meany, who began composing music together after being introduced at a church in New Orleans. In an interview with Family Christian Stores, Meany explained that a sermon was the inspiration for the band's name: "...This man was preaching about how humans are really spirit beings encased in fleshly bodies. The term "earth suit" came up. At the time we liked it, and we took it." The two regularly performed at Café Joel, a small coffeehouse their church had started where Meany was music director. These performances helped cultivate their unique sound and introduced them to future band member David Rumsey.

In 1997 they released a self-titled EP, which is sometimes called the Headless Clown EP due to its album cover. The record featured an early version of "One Time" (of which they later made a music video) as well as portions of live performances where Earthsuit covered Roberta Flack's "Killing Me Softly", albeit with re-written lyrics. Rumsey helped produce the EP and played guitar; however, the official band lineup only comprised LaClave and Meany. Shortly after, Rumsey officially joined along with bassist Roy Mitchell, another Café Joel regular. The band played and ministered in their hometown and did not tour much. In 1998, the band recorded and released a second EP, entitled Noise for Your Eyes. The EP included a remix of "One Time" and early song demos, which were interspersed with short clips of live performances. Drummer David Hutchison joined the band after they met him through a friend. In 1999, Earthsuit performed two sets at the Cornerstone Festival, one in a label showcase and the other opening for P.O.D. on the main stage. This garnered the attention of several major Christian labels, and the band subsequently signed to Sparrow Records.

The band began working with Prince producer David Leonard on their debut record, which excited Meany: "[Sparrow] loved what we were doing musically, and they wanted to find the producer who would capitalize on that." Kaleidoscope Superior was released on June 20, 2000 and elicited positive reviews from critics. It also received a Dove Award nomination and experienced some success on Christian radio stations. Christian rock peers Rebecca St. James and dc Talk members, Kevin Max and Michael Tait, expressed excitement over the record. The same year, Earthsuit embarked on a tour called Festival Con Dios with other Christian bands, such as the Elms, PAX 217, and Switchfoot. The following year saw the band embark on their "Do You Feel The Distortion" tour with Ill Harmonics and The Benjamin Gate.

Despite critical reception, Kaleidoscope Superior would remain the band's only commercial release; they were soon dropped from Sparrow's lineup due to "creative differences and marketing conundrums". Earthsuit disappeared from the public eye and began posting on a website about a new independent album. In September 2001, Hutchison left the band so he could spend more time with his family. Rumors began circling that the band would break up. In 2003, Earthsuit revealed they were disbanding and released their last record, The Rise of Modern Simulation. The final collection featured six original studio songs and ten bonus tracks, including a live remix of "Against the Grain", practice sessions of concert material, and covers of various songs. The album could only be purchased on the internet. Meany would later state "most people didn't care when [they] broke up".

Shortly after Earthsuit's break up, Meany began working with drummer Darren King in a production team called "The Digitals". The name later changed to "Math" while the group helped produce music for Christian music stalwart TobyMac. The band recruited guitarist Greg Hill and changed their name to Mutemath. To accommodate new recordings, Meany and producer Tedd T started an independent label named Teleprompt Records. Their first release was an EP titled Reset in September 2004. Earthsuit alumnus Roy Mitchell joined the venture in 2005. Teleprompt later signed a distribution deal directly with Warner Bros. Records, allowing Mutemath to release a full-length self-titled album on September 26, 2006. Adam LaClave formed two bands, Macrosick and Club of the Sons. Macrosick has released only an independent CD titled demodisk; the Hurricane Katrina disaster of 2005 forced the band members to go on hiatus. LaClave then turned his attention towards Club of the Sons with friend and bassist Jonathan Allen. They released an EP called The Roughs in spring 2007 and an album entitled Young Quanta on July 7, 2009.

Musical style and influences
Earthsuit music was primarily rock, but also possessed strong hip-hop, electronica, reggae, soul, and experimental elements. Their sound had sometimes been compared to The Police, while Meany's rapping had been likened to the Beastie Boys. Adam LaClave stated the differing musical tastes of the band helped cultivate their sound: "Each one of us is really into a lot of different things ... it helps make our sound because you can hear all kinds of things". Live performances were characterized by sunglasses, futuristic costumes, and energetic showmanship. Many bands have influenced Earthsuit's style; the group has performed covers of songs by Basement Jaxx, Black Sheep, Kraftwerk, and Talking Heads. They have also utilized samples by DJ Shadow and The Verve.

Adam LaClave and Paul Meany were the primary songwriters for Earthsuit. As Christians, the two wrote lyrics that often communicated a Christian message. For example, the song "Said the Sun" is an allegory about God telling Christians to be carriers of light. "Whitehorse" was written to present a different view of the return of Jesus, as LaClave stated in an interview, "Most people, when they hear the term "white horse," think of the analogy of Jesus coming back ... [We] wanted to bring a different meaning to it, because ... He comes to rescue us in our everyday life [too]." The men's lyrics also reflect experiences they have had. Meany once had a dream that inspired him to write "Gummy Buffalo"; he found himself in a candy store and squeezed a gummy buffalo whereupon he heard the melody for the song. Christianity Today has proposed the lyrics in "Foreign" may have been inspired by their departure from Sparrow Records. The lyrics read "There's no place in your world for me / I've been from sea to shining sea / And I can't retain your policies, excuse me / If I'm just hanging around, I'm foreign."

Discography

 * Earthsuit (aka The Headless Clown EP) (independent, 1997)
 * Noise for Your Eyes (independent, 1998)
 * Kaleidoscope Superior (Sparrow Records, 2000)
 * The Rise of Modern Simulation (independent, 2003)

title: Earthsuit


text:
User talk:Kizzle/John Kerry Military Combined

I think this combination is misguided. We should have a standard encyclopedia article of generally accepted facts about Kerry's service, according to official records etc. In addition, we should have a separate article with conspiracy theories, controversy, etc. Wolfman 19:57, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)


text:
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Wiki addict

Wiki addict
Maybe this should be deleted? I made the article myself...not the best way to cure. What do you think? Should we keep it and start our own clinic or should it be deleted? regards, --georingo 20:01, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * my vote: a strong keep ! --georingo 20:04, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete or move to your own User space. RickK 20:36, Oct 2, 2004 (UTC)
 * Redirect to Are You a Wikipediholic Test.   — Gwalla | Talk 21:38, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete, or at least move to Wikipedia namepace. Anything but keep. Wyllium 00:29, 2004 Oct 3 (UTC)
 * Georingo, this article you've written is perfect for the Meta-wiki — why don't you copy it there before it's deleted here? The Meta-wiki is, among other things, a place to get all philosophical about the wiki phenomenon (see m:Category:Patterns). Who knows, there might be some possible cures there. :-) Anyway, you were right to list Wiki addict for deletion; it's not an encyclopedia article. My vote is delete. • Benc • 08:08, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete. --*drew 08:10, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * I agree with Gwalla and say Redirect to Are You a Wikipediholic Test
 * Move somewhat amusing content to georingo's user space and redirect the title to Are You a Wikipediholic Test. Fire Star 20:26, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * No value in having even a redirect in the main space. A move to meta space or user space is fine by me. -- Jmabel 00:53, Oct 6, 2004 (UTC)
 * Move to Wikipedia: namespace or Wiki addict. —No-One Jones (m) 00:55, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * Does not belong in main namespace even as redirect. Move to meta or elsewhere. -- Cyrius|✎ 01:45, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)

 * Delete: The best way to cure it is to write a policy proposal.  Geogre 02:18, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)


text:
User:Jonsafari

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title: User:Jonsafari


text:
Hamm's Brewery

The Theodore Hamm's Brewing Company was an American brewing company established in 1865 in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Becoming the fifth largest brewery in the United States, Hamm's expanded with additional breweries that were acquired in other cities, including San Francisco, Los Angeles, Houston, and Baltimore.

History
The Theodore Hamm Brewing Company was established in 1865 when German immigrant Theodore Hamm (1825–1903) inherited the Excelsior Brewery from his friend and business associate, A. F. Keller, who had perished in California seeking his fortune in the gold fields. Unable to finance the venture himself, Keller had entered into a partnership with Hamm to secure funding. Upon Keller's death, Hamm inherited the small brewery and flour mill in the east side wilderness of Saint Paul, Minnesota. Keller had constructed his brewery in 1860 over artesian wells in a section of the Phalen Creek valley in Saint Paul then known as Swede Hollow.

Hamm, a butcher by trade and local saloon owner, first hired Jacob Schmidt as a brew master. Jacob Schmidt remained with the company until the early 1880s, becoming a close family friend of the Hamms. Schmidt left the company after an argument over Louise Hamm's disciplinary actions regarding Schmidt's daughter, Marie. By 1884, Schmidt was a partner at the North Star Brewery not far from Hamm's brewery. By 1899, he had established his own brewery on the site of the former Stalhmann Brewery site. In need of a new brewmaster, Hamm hired Christopher Figge who started a tradition of three generations of Hamm's brewmasters, with his son William and grandson William II eventually serving in the position. By the 1880s, the Theodore Hamm Brewing Company was reportedly the second largest in Minnesota.

During Prohibition, the company survived by producing soft drinks and other food products, enabling it to expand rapidly through acquisitions after the repeal of Prohibition in 1933. From 1933 until 1965, Hamm's saw much success becoming the "fifth largest brewery in the nation by the 1950s"; much of this can be attributed to William C. Figge Jr. taking over as president in 1951. Figge expanded the Hamm's brand into a national entity with breweries in Saint Paul, Minnesota; Los Angeles, California; San Francisco, California; Baltimore, Maryland; and Houston, Texas. The latter two were short-lived and closed soon after they opened. As the company celebrated its 100th anniversary, the family sold the brewery and left the brewing industry to focus on its real estate ventures.

History of ownership
In 1965, the company was acquired by Heublein. In 1973, Hamm's was sold to a group of Hamm's distributors which in turn sold it to Olympia Brewing Company in 1975. In 1983, Pabst purchased Olympia—along with Hamm's. It was at this time that the Saint Paul flagship brewery was traded to the Stroh Brewing Company; Stroh's continued to operate the brewery until 1997. When it closed, the operation ended a 137-year brewing tradition on the site. Its buildings were shuttered, and subsequently vandalized, demolished, or left to decay. Miller Brewing acquired the brand from Pabst in 1999. Miller was later purchased by South African Breweries and the name was changed to SABMiller. Subsequently, SABMiller formed a joint venture combining their US and Puerto Rican assets with those of Molson Coors to form MillerCoors. In 2016, SABMiller sold its interests in MillerCoors to Molson Coors, who had been its partner in the joint venture, for around US$12 billion. Molson Coors gained full ownership of the Miller brand portfolio outside of the U.S. and Puerto Rico, and retained the rights to all of the brands that were in the MillerCoors portfolio for the U.S. and Puerto Rico. Molson Coors now produces Hamm's beers: Premium and Golden Draft.

Saint Paul
The flagship brewery of the former Hamm's empire was in Saint Paul. Brewing began on the site in 1860, when Andrew F. Keller established the Pittsburgh Excelsior Brewery. Keller, a friend of Theodore Hamm, planned for the two of them to travel to California for the "second gold rush." Louise Hamm forbade her husband to leave her alone with three children in the wild frontier town of Saint Paul. Unbeknown to his wife, Hamm had staked all of his savings and mortgaged his beer garden to support Keller's trip and property acquisition in California. As collateral, Keller gave the deed to his small brewery and flour mill, located on the east side of Saint Paul, to Hamm.

Upon Keller's death in 1865, all of Hamm's savings, homestead and stake were lost. Having lost his beer garden, Hamm moved his family into the brewery.

Through constant expansion and improvements, the brewery soon became the largest in the state. The most notable expansion was the state-of-the-art brew house, which was built in 1893. In 1897, the wash house and part of the bottling plant were built, both of which still stand. The brewery was in an almost constant state of expansion from 1933 until 1948. They added a new power house, bottling facilities, malt house, grain storage, stock houses, shipping docks, office space, garages, and more.

The brewery shut its doors in 1997 under the ownership of the Stroh Brewing Company. The property was sold to a real estate investor who in turn sold the southern half to the City of Saint Paul, including the original brew house. The city, however, left these buildings to decay and crumble. The northern portion of the brewery today is mostly inhabited by various businesses, including a trapeze school. As of 2013, businesses have started to return to the historical southern portion of the brewery. The keg and wash house are currently home to Saint Paul Brewing. Stock House Number Three is home to Urban Organics, and the carpenter shop houses the 11 Wells Distillery. A sizable portion of the brewery remains abandoned, including the old brew house.

In December 2022, the City of Saint Paul announced it had tentatively selected JB Vang Partners, Inc. to redevelop the former Hamm's Brewery Complex, the plans for which include affordable and market-rate housing, commercial space, a public plaza, and more.

San Francisco
In 1953, Hamm's purchased its second brewery from the Rainier Brewing Company. Hamm's opened its San Francisco brewery in 1954 at 1550 Bryant Street. Its 20-by-80 foot sign, was surmounted by a three-dimensional 13-foot beer-glass-shaped lighting sculpture on top, filling with "beer" and forming a "head", all with lights. It appeared in the first Dirty Harry film and was a local landmark. The brewery closed in 1972. In the early 1980s, Suicide Club (secret society) used a jackhammer to "take out the doors and open holes in the giant tanks and make living spaces",  the beer vats were then first squatted and then rented out to punk rock bands. Known as "The Vats", the brewery was a center of San Francisco punk rock culture with about 200 bands using individual vats as music studios. The building was renovated in the mid 1980s and converted into offices and showroom space.

Los Angeles
In 1957, Hamm's purchased the former Acme Brewery on 49th street in Los Angeles, California. The brewery had been owned by the New York–based Rheingold Beer / Liebmann Breweries since 1954. The brewery was operated by Hamm's until 1972.

Baltimore
In 1959, the Gunther Brewery of Baltimore, Maryland, was purchased. The decision to discontinue the Gunther brand turned much of the Baltimore population against Hamm's. The brewery's reputation was further tarnished by a frozen batch of beer that made its way to market. After a failed attempt to re-introduce the Gunther brand in 1963, the brewery was sold to the Schaefer Brewing Company of New York after only four years of operation.

Houston
A final attempt at expansion was made in 1963 with the purchase of the Gulf Brewing Company of Houston, Texas. The brewery had been founded in 1933 by Howard Hughes. This venture was more successful, but in 1967 the brewery suffered a fire. Heublein decided not to rebuild and sold off the property. The closing of the Houston brewery in 1967 marked the beginning of the end for Hamm's bid to be a national brand. The breweries in San Francisco and Los Angeles were closed in the early 1970s.

Products
While Hamm's is no longer an independent brewing company, it is still sold in select markets under the Hamm's brand and label. The beer is brewed and sold by Molson Coors North America, of Toronto. Several Hamm's beers have been produced by Molson Coors: Hamm's Premium, the original pale lager; Hamm's Golden Draft; and Hamm's Special Light.

In August 2021, MolsonCoors announced it was discontinuing Hamm's Special Light as part of a "streamlining" effort by the company.

Advertising
Hamm's was well known for its advertising jingle and its mascot, the Hamm's Beer bear.

Jingle
The original jingle, with lyrics by Nelle Richmond Eberhart and music by Charles Wakefield Cadman was derived from a 1909 art song entitled "From The Land of Sky-Blue Water". It was first used on radio and later on television. It started with tom-tom drums, then a chorus intoned (partial lyrics): From the Land of Sky Blue Waters [(echo) Waters] Comes the water best for brewing, Hamm's, the beer refreshing, Hamm's, the beer refreshing, Hamm's!

Alternative wording on radio and TV adverts (circa 1950s): From, the Land of Sky Blue Waters – Hamm's Beer, From the land of pines, lofty balsams, Comes the beer refreshing, Hamm's, the beer refreshing, Hamm's!

Hamm's Bear
The Hamm's Beer bear (or the Hamm's Bear) was a cartoon mascot used in television production and print advertisements for the beer. The animated character was the first of its kind in the beer industry. In a typical TV spot, the bear would dance around in a pastoral setting while the "Land of Sky Blue Waters" advertising jingle played in the background. In 1999, Advertising Age Magazine called the Hamm's Bear the key element of one of the best ad campaigns in the last 100 years. A statue of the mascot was erected in a St. Paul, Minnesota in 2005.

Creation
"'Most agree that the character was born in 1952 at Freddie's restaurant in Minneapolis at a meeting with Cleo Hovel, creative director for Campbell-Mithun, and Howard Swift, an animator who worked for the California TV production company Swift-Chaplin. Hovel usually gets the credit for drawing the bear on a napkin in response to the idea to add an animal character to the Sky Blue Waters campaign.'"

The Hamm's ads were the first to use an animated character for a beer, although the perpetually mute character eventually only learned to speak one line: "It bears repeating!" The Hamm's Bear was created by Patrick DesJarlait following an idea first sketched on a restaurant napkin in 1952. The resultant advertising campaign—launched in 1953—was produced by the Campbell Mithun Advertising Agency. The original idea for the mascot came from Cleo Hoval, an account representative with Campbell Mithun, who finally asked a business acquaintance, Ray Tollefson, to draw the bear after discarding other prior attempts by his own marketing co-workers. Cleo liked the bear that Ray drew. Tollefson eventually drew many scenes and humorous situations into which he could put the bear in the ongoing Hamm's advertising campaign. He also created an in-house book for Campbell Mithun, "How to Draw the Hamm's Bear," since so many agency artists would have to be able to draw the Hamm's Bear accurately. Larry LaBelle, Vice President, Director to Television Production at Campbell-Mithun, could draw the bear accurately and conceptualized many of the commercials. LaBelle also created and designed the "Little Flame Girl" for Minnegasco and Tollefson provided the finished art following LaBelle's design and instructions. LaBelle also created the concept of Albert & Stanley for Grain Belt Beer while the pair collaborated on the finished character designs.

Use and public acceptance
The Hamm's Bear was featured on an endless array of signs, glassware, and promotional merchandise. Commercials featuring the klutzy cartoon bear with a bewildered but cheerful grin—often pictured in television ads tripping over canoes, logs, or its own feet—were considered an overwhelming success.

Although they were silly, the commercials were well written. The commercials were smarter and funnier than most non-advertising cartoons of the time. Each spot held genuine entertainment value for viewers (and had a miniature story-line containing a plot, some form of conflict, and usually a final resolution), guaranteeing TV audiences would pay attention. Also, the background use of actual imagery from Minnesota's natural wilderness helped get across the product's emphasis on natural and pure ingredients much more effectively than mere advertising copy could. The founder of Campbell Mithun, the ad agency that created the Hamm's Bear, once said, "We believe the legend of the Hamm's bear, like that of Paul Bunyan, will grow greater and greater as time goes on."

Hamm's went on to become one of the first companies to create a national pro-sports and college-sports branding campaign. According to Moira F. Harris' book, The Paws of Refreshment: The Story of Hamm's Beer Advertising, Hamm's claimed to be the biggest TV and sports radio beer sponsor in the country by 1964. The Hamm's Bear ads were run in support not only of the Minnesota Twins and Vikings; but also of the Chicago Blackhawks, White Sox, Cubs and Bears; the Kansas City A's; San Francisco Giants and 49ers; the Los Angeles Rams; Houston Oilers; Baltimore Orioles; Green Bay Packers; and Dallas Cowboys.

The Audit Research Bureau reported that nationwide, in 1965, the Hamm's Bear mascot was the "best liked" advertisement. Considering that Hamm's commercials only aired in 31 states, this is quite an accomplishment. The Hamm's Bear mascot was the key element of the campaign which ranked 75th in the "Best Ad Campaign of the 20th Century" as named by Advertising Age Magazine in 1999. The character was so well known (and identified so closely with the state of Minnesota) that in 2000, the St. Paul Pioneer Press named the Hamm's Bear as one of the "150 Most Influential Minnesotans of the Past 150 Years".

By that time, however, the current parent company, Miller Brewing, had drastically reduced the bear's use due to concerns it might be interpreted as an attempt to market beer to children (just as R.J. Reynolds Tobacco had recently been forced to discontinue its Joe Camel character for similar reasons).

Legacy
In 2002, to commemorate the bear's 50th anniversary, a St. Paul–based group of Hamm's memorabilia collectors, the Hamm's Club, proposed erecting a six-foot granite statue of the bear near a waterfall named for William Hamm (a former company president), which is in Como Park. The statue was placed instead in the Seventh Street Mall in September 2005.

In popular culture
William Hamm Jr. was kidnapped in Saint Paul by the Barker-Karpis Gang in the 1930s. The subsequent investigation by the FBI employed the first attempt at raising latent fingerprints from paper ransom notes.

A portion of the Hamm's Beer jingle was sung by The Three Stooges, Moe Howard, Larry Fine and Joe DeRita in the 1962 film, The Three Stooges in Orbit.

In the David Frizzell song "I'm Gonna Hire a Wino to Decorate Our Home", the wife mentions the Hamm's Bear in the lyrics, referring to a Hamm's Bear clock, used in many bars, i.e.: "When the Hamm's Bear says it's closing time, you won't have far to crawl".

In Episode 10/20 of M*A*S*H, "Sons and Bowlers," B.J. Hunnicutt, engaged in a scam to trick a professional bowler into believing he has kidney problems that cause his urine to turn blue, hears the bowler screaming in the latrine and quotes from the Hamm's jingle in an aside to Charles Emerson Winchester III, "From the land of sky-blue waters ...". Actor Mike Farrell, who played B.J., appeared in a Hamm's commercial where the bear showed him how to make the beer magically appear.

In gratitude for Edward H. Hamm Jr. financing the film God Bless America, filmmaker Bobcat Goldthwait got a tattoo of the Hamm's Bear on his chest.

A Hamm's delivery truck is clearly seen briefly in the 1967 film, The Graduate (at approximately 1:15:44)

title: Hamm's Brewery


text:
Royal Court Theatre, Liverpool

The Royal Court Theatre is a theatre located at 1 Roe Street in Liverpool, England. The current Royal Court Theatre was opened on 17 October 1938, after fire destroyed its predecessor. It was rebuilt in Art Deco style and soon became Liverpool's premier theatre. The interior of the building has a nautical theme, in line with Liverpool's seafaring traditions. The design of the basement lounge was based on the Cunard liner Queen Mary until its conversion into the Studio space during renovations. There are three viewing levels within the main auditorium: the Stalls, the Grand Circle and the Balcony.

Although the Liverpool Blitz during the Second World War destroyed many of the buildings around it, the Royal Court itself remained intact. Throughout the war, many well-known artists performed here, including Ivor Novello, Margot Fonteyn and John Gielgud. Richard Burton made his stage debut here and Judi Dench made her professional stage debut in September 1957. In the 1980s it became home to rock and pop concerts, hosting artists such as the Smiths, Slade, Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream, Rage Against the Machine, R.E.M., Iron Maiden, David Bowie, Ozzy Osbourne, Roger Taylor, Brian May, U2, and George Michael. In 1990 the building was listed as Grade II, highlighting its major part of Liverpool's heritage.

In 2005 Rawhide Comedy Club took ownership of the building. Following two years of stand-up comedy, with a break in 2006 to produce Brick Up The Mersey Tunnels, they began producing plays all year round in 2007. The theatre has produced more than 100 shows since 2007, including Council Depot Blues, The Royal, ''Mam! I'm 'Ere and a sell out series of Christmas shows including Scouse Pacific, Little Scouse On The Prairie, The Hitchhiker's Guide To Fazakerley, The Scouse Nativity, The Scouse Cinderella and The Scouse Snow White''.

History
The site of the Royal Court Theatre was originally that of a water well constructed in the 12th century. A circus owner, John Cooke, bought the site in 1826 for his circuses, plays, operas and concerts, and it became known as 'Cooke's Royal Amphitheatre of Arts'. During this time Pablo Fanque, the black circus performer and proprietor immortalised in the Beatles' song "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!", performed here as a part of William Batty's circus. In 1881, the building was redesigned by Henry Sumner as a regular theatre and it was re-opened as the Royal Court.

In 1896 the theatre was taken over by Robert Arthur of Glasgow, who in 1897 put all his theatres into a limited company quoted on the Stock Exchanges, the Robert Arthur Theatres Ltd. In 1912, following Arthur's bankruptcy, the shareholders appointed as chairman Michael Simons of the Theatre Royal, Glasgow, chairman and creator in 1895 of Howard & Wyndham Ltd. The direction and programming of the theatre, embracing plays, musicals, revues, opera and pantomime, now passed to Howard & Wyndham Ltd, chaired by Simons with its managing director Fred Wyndham, who would be followed in 1928 by A. Stewart Cruikshank after his King's Theatre, Edinburgh had joined the Howard & Wyndham group.

A fire destroyed the building in 1933. Five years after demolition, construction works began in March 1938 to ensure the theatre was rebuilt and reopened in October of the same year. The title deeds of the theatre changed to Howard & Wyndham in 1941.

The current Royal Court Theatre was opened on 17 October 1938. It had been totally rebuilt in Art Deco style to the designs of architect James Bushell Hutchins; its splendor and grandeur made it Liverpool's number one theatre. The interior of the building has a nautical theme, in line with Liverpool's seafaring traditions. The design of the basement lounge is based on the Cunard liner Queen Mary, which had been launched on the Clyde two years before the 1938 reopening. There are three viewing levels within the main auditorium: the Stalls, the Grand Circle, and the Balcony.

Although the Liverpool Blitz during the Second World War destroyed many of the buildings around it, the Royal Court itself remained intact. Throughout the war, many well-known artists performed in the Royal Court, including Ivor Novello, Margot Fonteyn and John Gielgud. Richard Burton made his stage debut at the Royal Court in an Emlyn Williams production. The 22-year-old Judi Dench made her professional stage debut here in September 1957, playing Ophelia in an Old Vic production of Hamlet

In 1980, two former Liverpool taxi drivers took the Royal Court in a new direction, moving away from traditional plays and instead of transferring the focus to rock and pop concerts. Their first year ended promisingly and proved to be a successful strategy for the venue, which went on to play host to artists as internationally famous as Tangerine Dream, Rage Against the Machine, R.E.M., Iron Maiden, David Bowie, Ozzy Osbourne, Roger Taylor, Brian May, U2 and George Michael.

The music videos for "Let It Go", "High 'n' Dry (Saturday Night)", and "Bringin' On the Heartbreak" by the British rock band Def Leppard were directed by Doug Smith and shot on 22 July 1981. The photo on the "Let It Go" single cover was taken from that shoot.

In 1983, rock group Slade performed their last live UK concert with the original lineup featuring Noddy Holder.

In 1990, the building was listed as Grade II, highlighting the fact that it is a major part of Liverpool's heritage.

In 2005 Rawhide Comedy Club took ownership of the building. Following two years of stand-up comedy, with a break in 2006 to produce Brick Up The Mersey Tunnels, they began producing plays all year round in 2007.

Present
The stalls are now set out in a three-tier cabaret-style arrangement with tables and chairs and a bar at the rear of the stalls. The current capacity is 1,186 (Stalls 290 [cabaret,] Circle 403, Balcony 493). Audience members can dine before the show in the stalls seating.

Following two years of being the home to the Rawhide Comedy Club, the Royal Court made a move back to producing theatre in the summer of 2007 with the sell-out re-run of Brick Up the Mersey Tunnels.

Since then, the theatre has undergone extensive refurbishment which completed its third 'Act' in January 2018.

In 2010 the theatre began their sell out Variety Lunch Club series which provides lunch, a cup of tea, a singer, and a comedian for £6. More than 1,200 people a month come to these Wednesday afternoon shows.

The theatre also offers free to access groups including a Community Choir and a Youth Theatre for young people aged 11 and up.

The theatre has produced shows such as Council Depot Blues, The Royal, Mam! I'm 'Ere and best-selling Christmas show The Scouse Nativity.

Liverpool's Royal Court became a National Portfolio Organisation and has been receiving Arts Council funding since April 2018. In 2018 it also launched Boisterous Theatre Company, Liverpool's only company dedicated to promoting BAME talent.

The theatre has produced more than 100 shows since 2007, including Council Depot Blues, The Royal, Mam! I'm 'Ere and a sell out series of Christmas shows including Scouse Pacific, Little Scouse On The Prairie, The Hitchhiker's Guide To Fazakerley, The Scouse Nativity, The Scouse Cinderella, and The Scouse Snow White. For a full list of shows see below.

Flying
The counterweight fly system has recently been refurbished. There were originally in excess of 70 fly lines, however, this has been reduced to about half that number in order to increase the distance between bars.

The original brakes have now been removed. They screwed shut and could hinge open to completely release the rope.

Lighting
The lighting was controlled by a 'Grandmaster' which was situated on a perch about 8 feet above the stage floor on Stage Right. This would have been operated by two people and was in operation until the 1980s. It was only disconnected from the power in June 2006.

The lighting is now controlled by a High End Systems Roadhog lighting desk and 3 Avolites Art 2000 48-way dimmers. It has an extensive lantern stock including ETC Source Four 750's, Strand Cantata Fresnels and Martin Mac 500's.

Rigging
FOH there is a 12 m A-type truss hung from 2 lodestar 1-ton motors. This is used for most of the FOH rigging. There are also truss booms either side of the stage, FOH.

Revolving Stage
The refurbishment saw the restoration of the original revolving stage, the biggest outside of London.

Pantomime
With no television and no cinema, Liverpool audiences of the late 19th century flocked to the theatre. Liverpool possessed no less than 26 theatres and 38 music halls. The main theatres towards the end of the century were the Prince Of Wales in Clayton Square (opened 1861) the Shakespeare Theatre off London Road (opened 1866) and the Royal Court Theatre.

The site of the Royal Court had been a theatre for many years. As Cookes Royal Amphitheatre of Arts, up to 4,000 people would gather to attend plays, operas, concerts and circus. In 1881 as ownership of the theatre changed, it was rebuilt and renamed The Royal Court Theatre. Along with the three other theatres it presented an annual pantomime.

The Victorian pantomime was not only the template for today's show but very much a vehicle for music. The Poluski Brothers were among the stars who featured. Combining a mixture of music hall, comic opera and a large chunk of spectacle, the pantomime appealed to all levels of society. The first Royal Court pantomime, or "annual" as it was known, was Babes in the Wood. It is not clear whether this was a success or not, but no further pantomime was produced at the Court for fourteen years until 1895 with the presentation of Dick Whittington.

Three years later, Arthur Lawrence was appointed the theatre manager. Starting with Aladdin, it was Lawrence who put the Royal Court firmly in the centre of the panto map. The biggest music hall stars of the day would appear in the Court's "annual". George Robey, Harry Lauder, Little Hetty King as Aladdin Tich, the Three Sisters Levey, and the Poluski Brothers all helped to make the Royal Court's pantomime among the most famous in Britain. With the ownership of the theatre passing to Howard & Wyndhams Ltd at the turn of the century, the growth of pantomime blossomed.

Arthur Lawrence quoted in The Liverpudlian, November 1938: "In 1906, in Aladdin, I had Hetty King and [Happy Fanny Fields], together with Malcolm Scott and Harry Tate-some combination. I produced at the Court, in twenty-six years, twenty pantomimes. The 1906 panto was the biggest success. We averaged takings of just under £2,000 a week, and that in a theatre supposed to hold no more than about £275 at full capacity. Our pantomimes would run elsewhere for about five years, so Liverpool was thus a pantomime manufacturing centre. 'Happy' Fanny Fields, They were all made here—scenery, dresses, jokes and music, and all. I may mention, also, that we had a stage unsurpassed for its equipment. Every kind of trap ever known on a stage was in being."

That pantomime Aladdin was repeated, with almost the same cast, at the Adelphi Theatre in London the following year. "A chorus of over 100 Voices" boasted the posters. A magazine was produced in Liverpool solely devoted to pantomimes.

[Fanny Fields] in Aladdin By the 1920s the death of Music Hall was underway, and the Royal Court panto mirrored its decline. Hetty King Gone were the stars with their own personal songs to be replaced by "free" songs that anyone could sing. The Royal Court panto ended, replaced each Christmas by musical comedy, or a visit by the D’Oyly Carte Opera Company.

Upon re-opening some years after its fire in 1938, its first Panto was Humpty Dumpty, starring Gene Gerrard, Bobbie Comber, the Tiller Girls, and a cast "of Over 80". The consecutive run of pantomime was not to be, With another World War the Howard and Wyndham's—Babes in the Wood spectacle of pantomime found itself replaced with the comedy The Eric Maschwitz revue, featuring a young Charles Hawtrey (of later Carry On Fame) performing female impersonations. The following year Vivien Leigh appeared in The Doctor's Dilemma.

It was not until 1943, with the arrival of A. Stewart Cruickshank as managing director that pantomime returned, again starting with Babes In The Wood. By the 1960s television comedians and pop stars became the new stars of panto. In 1956, young heart throb Dickie Valentine took on the role of Aladdin. By the end of the fifties, facing stiff competition and dwindling audiences, the Royal Court Pantomime began a slow lingering death. In the Sixties occasional pantomimes (always Cinderella) were interspersed by Christmas shows by Ken Dodd, Dora Bryan, Frankie Vaughan, the Bachelors and the Black & White Minstrels.

Howard & Wyndham's financial problems increased, and the Royal Court was offered to the City Council to purchase. They refused. An attempt to open the Court as a Bingo Hall in 1968 was abandoned after eight months. There was no Christmas show after Aladdin in 1975. An attempt to revive panto in 1981 with Snow White was not successful, and pantomimes were no longer performed at the Royal Court.

In 1997 the Neptune Theatre in Liverpool presented Aladdin at the Court. Following on their success at the Neptune the previous year with Sonia in Dick Whittington, they presented Aladdin starring Julie Goodyear as Mrs. Twankey, and Danny McCall as Aladdin. Since then the Royal Court pantomimes have been Cinderella (1998), Babes in the Wood (1999), Aladdin (2000) and Dick Whittington (2001).

Pantomime returned to the Royal Court in (2006) with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs starring Hollyoaks' Christina Bailey as Snow White.

Slappers and Slapheads

 * 2003 Performed at The Royal Court, Slappers and Slapheads, written by local Playwrights Len Pentin and Fred Lawless was performed with a mainly local cast and crew. Slappers and Slapheads is returning to the Royal Court in 2009 from Friday 6 February to Saturday 7 March with an all new cast.

Brick Up the Mersey Tunnels
Brick Up the Mersey Tunnels a play with music written by Dave Kirby and Nicky Allt showed in the Royal Court from 3 August to 26 August 2006. This was a huge success and received 9/10 in a review in the Liverpool Echo.
 * 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2011 & 2016

Lennon

 * Performed 2010 and 2013, Lennon is a play by Bob Eaton based on the life of John Lennon. In 2010 the lead role was played by Andrew Schofield, in 2013 by John Power. The musical premiered in 1981 at the Everyman Theatre, Liverpool and was shown Off-Broadway, New York in 1982. Its 1985 London Astoria Theatre production won the Sunday Times Award for Best Musical and two Olivier Award nominations.

You'll Never Walk Alone

 * 2011, 2014, 2017 & 2020

The story of the Liverpool Football Club, written by Nicky Allt.

Stags and Hens

 * 2008 – Stags and Hens by Willy Russell

The Miracle of Great Homer Street

 * 2018

Starring Les Dennis and Andrew Schofield, TMOGHS is written by Gerry Linford, winner of 'Highly Commended Award' by Liverpool Hope Playwriting Prize

Girls Don't Play Guitars

 * 2019 & 2020

Musical that tells the story of The Liverbirds, an all-female beat group in the 1960s. The show attracted attention in the story of The Liverbirds and was featured in a short documentary by the New York Times.

Studio
In 2017, the theatre's basement level was converted into a performance space, tailored to smaller scale theatre, music and comedy events. This was supported by Arts Council England, as part of the third stage of the theatre's refurbishment and work was completed in January 2018.

The art deco style space seats around 150 people and has been home to both inhouse shows and numerous visiting companies.

Comedy events have included the return of the Rawhide Comedy Club, It's a Scream Comedy Club, the Alternative Black Cabaret Showcase (Boisterous Theatre Company) and various solo stand-up comedians. Dane Baptiste, Pauline Daniels, Pete Price and Paul Sinha have been among the most notable performers.

The theatre began producing inhouse stage plays for the Studio, starting with 2018's The Rainbow Connection. Several subsequent productions have been written by students of their Stage Write Playwright Development Programme, which aims to aide new, local playwrights in developing their craft. The Studio also regularly hosts Stage Write Nights, script-in-hand readings of extracts from new works. Some of these plays showcased have gone onto be performed in the Studio and even on the main stage. See below for a full list of Studio shows.

title: Royal Court Theatre, Liverpool


text:
L.A. Story

L.A. Story is a 1991 American satirical romantic comedy film written by and starring Steve Martin and directed by Mick Jackson. The plot follows a weatherman (Martin) trying to find love in Los Angeles. It was released on February 8, 1991, and received generally positive reviews from critics.

Plot
Harris K. Telemacher is a TV weatherman living in Los Angeles. He is in a dead-end relationship with his social-climbing girlfriend Trudi and feels his job requires him to be undignified and unintellectual, though he holds a Ph.D. in arts and humanities. He wants to find some meaning and magic in his life, having grown increasingly weary of what he sees as the rather shallow and superficial city of L.A., from overly pretentious coffee orders to bizarre shooting etiquette rules on the freeway. Furthermore, he spends his time roller-skating through art galleries with his friend Ariel, offering eccentric art reviews to acquaintances, remixing Shakespeare a lot, and otherwise seeking to escape his ordinary life.

At a luncheon with a group of friends, he meets Sara, a journalist from London, with whom he immediately becomes infatuated. Driving home that night, his car breaks down on the freeway. He notices that a freeway traffic condition sign seems to be displaying messages intended solely for him. It offers him cryptic advice on his love life throughout the movie.

He begins to fall for Sara, but she is conflicted because she has pledged to reconcile with her ex-husband, Roland. Feeling that a relationship with Sara is unlikely, Harris begins dating SanDeE*, a ditzy aspiring spokesmodel, whom he meets at a clothing store. After his first date with her, Harris discovers that Trudi has been cheating on him for three years with his agent. The discovery leads him to pursue his romantic interest in Sara. This is complicated by his new relationship with SanDeE* and by Sara's feeling of obligation to Roland. By the conclusion, he has successfully wooed Sara, with some encouragement and advice from the sign.

Cast

 * Steve Martin as Harris K. Telemacher
 * Victoria Tennant as Sara McDowell
 * Richard E. Grant as Roland Mackey
 * Marilu Henner as Trudi
 * Sarah Jessica Parker as SanDeE*
 * Susan Forristal as Ariel
 * Kevin Pollak as Frank Swan
 * Sam McMurray as Morris Frost
 * Patrick Stewart as Maitre d' at L'Idiot
 * Iman as Cynthia

There are uncredited cameo appearances by Chevy Chase, Woody Harrelson, Paula Abdul, Martin Lawrence, Rick Moranis (this would be the fourth and final film in which Moranis appeared with Martin), and Terry Jones. John Lithgow and Scott Bakula filmed scenes—as a movie agent and Harris's neighbor, respectively—that did not appear in the final cut (although references to Lithgow's character remain in the freeway shootout and the 'California Cuisine' lunch scenes). Martin and Tennant were real-life husband and wife at the time of the film's production.

Box office
L.A. Story was a box office success. The film earned $6.6 million during its opening weekend, and ended its theatrical run with a gross of $28 million.

Critical response
On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 91% based on 44 reviews, with an average rating of 7.50/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "A romantic comedy that doubles as a love letter to the titular city, L.A. Story is Steve Martin at his silly, sweetly soulful best." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 66 out of 100, based on 11 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale.

In 2008, L.A. Story was voted by a group of Los Angeles Times writers and editors as the 20th best film set in Los Angeles in the last 25years—with two criteria: "The movie had to communicate some inherent truth about the L.A. experience, and only one film per director was allowed on the list".

title: L.A. Story


text:
Arthur Grimble

Sir Arthur Francis Grimble,  (11 June 1888 – 13 December 1956) was a British Colonial Service administrator and writer.

Biography
Grimble was educated at Chigwell School and Magdalene College, Cambridge. He then went to France and Germany for postgraduate studies. After joining the Colonial Office in 1914 he became the very first cadet administrative officer in the Gilbert and Ellice Islands. From April 1919 he acted as the Resident Commissioner until Herbert Reginald McClure took up his appointment as Resident Commissioner. In 1925 Grimble succeeded McClure as Resident Commissioner. He learned the Gilbertese language, and became a specialist in the myths and oral traditions of the Kiribati people. He remained in the islands until 1933. He has been the source of many people's impressions of the islands through his radio broadcast on BBC in the 1950s and his bestselling book A Pattern of Islands.

Grimble later served as Governor of the Seychelles (1936–1942) and as Governor of the Windward Islands (1942–1948). He was knighted as a Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George (KCMG) on 1 January 1930.

Literary career
After retiring and moving to Britain in 1948 Grimble became a writer and broadcaster. He wrote A Pattern of Islands (London, John Murray 1952, published in the United States as We Chose the Islands) and Return to the Islands (1957), both of which were bestsellers. Pacific Destiny, a film based on his experiences, was released in 1956. Grimble's scholarly work on Gilbertese culture is covered in Henry Evans Maude's book Tungaru Traditions: Writings on the Atoll Culture of the Gilbert Islands (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1989, ISBN 0-8248-1217-4).

Heraldic artist
In 1931 Grimble designed the coat of arms of the British colony of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands, which was granted in 1937. The design has been retained for the flag of Kiribati.

title: Arthur Grimble


text:
User talk:Scentoni

Welcome to the Wikipedia
Here are some links I thought useful:

 * Tutorial
 * Help desk
 * Foundation issues
 * Policy Library
 * Utilities
 * Cite your sources
 * Verifiability
 * Wikiquette
 * Civility
 * Conflict resolution
 * Neutral point of view
 * Pages needing attention
 * Peer review
 * Bad jokes and other deleted nonsense
 * Brilliant prose
 * List of images
 * Boilerplate text
 * Current polls
 * Mailing lists
 * IRC channel

Feel free to contact me personally with any questions you might have. The Village pump is also a good place to go for quick answers to general questions. You can sign your name by typing 4 tildes, like this: ~.

Be Bold!

Sam [Spade] 20:05, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Oligochaetes are not Platyhelminthes
They are Annelida. Platyhelminthes are flatworms. -- WormRunner | Talk 20:16, 3 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Oops! Cut & paste error. Thanks! Scentoni 22:54, 3 Nov 2004 (UTC)

 * No problem. The information on the ice worms, especially Hesiocaeca methanicola, is very fascinating.  I had known about Mesenchytraeus, but this is the first I had heard of the "Methane Ice" worm.  -- WormRunner | Talk 01:18, 4 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Alan Turing
I removed link to Alan Turing that you contributed to the "See also" section of Morphogenesis. --romanm (talk) 17:32, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, the '"See also" section wasn't really the right place for it. I inserted a short paragraph at the beginning about pre-DNA work on morphogenesis done by D'Arcy Wentworth Thomson and Alan Turing. It would be good if someone more familiar with the work done in that era could expand on it. Scentoni 21:11, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

hydraulic analogy
I have started this article independently. :-) See User:Omegatron/water analogy - Omegatron 21:48, May 24, 2005 (UTC)

SoIaF pronunciations
Scentoni, thanks for giving the pronunciation section for A Song of Ice and Fire some attention. I have to say that I don't agree with most of your changes, but would be happy to discuss them. Do you have any references for them? Note that the most important thing for Wikipedia is WP:V, so we need to agree on a common frame of reference. Arbor 10:05, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Hi Arbor, I was just in the process of writing a little note to put in the discussion page. Could you be more specific on what you disagree with? I think most of the changes I made were putting in the r's in names like Cersei...it looked like the transcription into IPA had been done for Australian English or some other pronunciation that has r-dropping, and GRRM does pronounce the r in words like Cersei. I'm not a professional linguist, so I certainly could have made some errors in using the right IPA codes for the sounds. Scentoni 10:27, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

ArbCom elections are now open!
MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 12:52, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

title: User talk:Scentoni


text:
Theodore Ts'o

Theodore Yue Tak Ts'o (born 1968) is an American software engineer mainly known for his contributions to the Linux kernel, in particular his contributions to file systems. He is the secondary developer and maintainer of e2fsprogs, the userspace utilities for the ext2, ext3, and ext4 filesystems, and is a maintainer for the ext4 file system.

Biography
Ts'o graduated from MIT with a degree in computer science in 1990, after which he worked in MIT's Information Systems (IS) department until 1999. During this time he was project leader of the Kerberos team.

In 1994, Ts'o created the  Linux device node and the corresponding kernel driver, which was Linux's (and Unix's) first kernel interface that provided high-quality cryptographic random numbers to user programs. works without access to a hardware random number generator, allowing user programs to depend upon its existence. Separate daemons such as  take random numbers from such hardware and make them accessible via. Since its creation, interface  is used in Linux, FreeBSD, macOS, and Solaris systems.

After MIT IS, Ts'o went to work for VA Linux Systems for two years. In late 2001 he joined IBM, where he worked on improvements in the Linux kernel's performance and scalability. After working on a real-time kernel at IBM, Ts'o joined the Linux Foundation in late 2007 for a two-year fellowship. He initially served as Chief Platform Strategist, before becoming Chief Technology Officer in 2008. Ts'o also served as Treasurer for USENIX until 2008, and has chaired the annual Linux Kernel Developers Summit.

In 2010 Ts'o moved to Google, saying he would be working on "kernel, file system, and storage stuff".

Ts'o is a Debian Developer, maintaining several packages, mostly filesystem-related ones, including e2fsprogs since March 2003. He was a member of the Security Area Directorate for the Internet Engineering Task Force, and was one of the chairs for the IPsec working group. He was one of the founding board members for the Free Standards Group.

In July 2023, Ts'o joined RESF's Board of Directors, which encompasses the Rocky Linux project.

Awards
Ts'o was awarded the Free Software Foundation's 2006 Award for the Advancement of Free Software.

title: Theodore Ts'o


text:
Delivering Milo

Delivering Milo is a 2001 American fantasy comedy film written by David Hubbard and directed by Nick Castle. Anton Yelchin stars as Milo, while Bridget Fonda and Campbell Scott play his parents. Albert Finney stars as Elmore Dahl, a guardian angel sent to convince a soul that life on Earth is worth living.

Plot
Elizabeth and Kevin live in NYC in the loft above his glassblowing studio and are expecting their first child. Believing she has gone into labor, they hurry to the hospital. But, once there, the obstetrician tells her she was having Braxton Hicks contractions.

The reality is that in the world from which babies come, Milo is too scared to leave the comfortable place where he has lived. He looks about 11 years old in this place despite not being born yet. Since babies must be born in order, no other babies will be born until he changes his mind. The people in charge have no idea what to do as no baby has ever refused. An old man named Elmore volunteers to show Milo that life is worth it. Elmore is trapped in a sort of limbo until he is determined worthy of Heaven. Though he would much rather be back on Earth as he finds limbo very boring.

Seeing a chance, Elmore bargains with the powers that be. He must get Milo to say he wants to be born in exchange for more time on Earth. To convince Milo to accompany him, he takes advantage of the boy's love of cards games and tricks. They let the cards decide, and Elmore is triumphant.

Elizabeth calls her mom, updating her. She mentions she saw a man who looked like her father who'd abandoned them years ago.

Elmore and Milo go out the door which normally serves only as an entrance. Outside is the energetic and terrifying New York City. Elmore loves it, but Milo doesn't want to be in this scary place.

Milo is introduced to a deli, ice cream and Central Park. He initially loves food which he has never needed before. However, once his natural bodily functions kick in and he needs the toilet, he is less convinced. A call from above suggests that Elmore try to inspire Milo's soul, but a museum visit has the opposite effect.

As the day goes on, the big news story seen in the background is the lack of births globally. This is a reminder of how Milo's doubt and refusal to be born has affected the world.

Cleaning up the studio after a pipe burst, Elizabeth finds a bag with Atlantic City parpheranalia from her dad. She plays blackjack with her husband's workmate, and doing well, she impulsively goes to Atlantic City. Almost simultaneously Elmore takes Milo there too, as he loved to gamble when he was alive.

Milo's mind has not been changed and there is a deadline: at midnight, the door that the souls go through to be born will close, and no more babies will ever be born. In Atlantic City, Elizabeth meets Milo. He realizes she is his mother, and decides he wants to be born. He also realises Elmore is the father who abandoned Elizabeth and therefore his grandfather. They return to the door. He is too weak to make it through the door on his own as time is nearly up and he begins to die as he will never be born. Elmore feeling remorse for how he treated his family in life takes him back giving up the chance to stay. Elmore accuses the people in charge of setting him up as they knew he would not be able to leave milo. They don’t deny it but say he did have a choice. Milo is finally born and Elmore is finally ascended from limbo to heaven.

Cast

 * Anton Yelchin as Milo
 * Albert Finney as Elmore Dahl
 * Bridget Fonda as Elizabeth
 * Campbell Scott as Kevin
 * John Cho as Mr. Hugo
 * Kenny Blank as Mr. Ralph

title: Delivering Milo


text:
User:Zzo38/sand

sand --zzo38 * ]] 20:09, 2004 Oct 2 (UTC)

sand --zzo38 * ]] 20:09, 2004 Oct 2 (UTC)

sand --zzo38( * )? 20:15, 2004 Oct 2 (UTC)

sand --zzo38( * )? 20:15, 2004 Oct 2 (UTC)

zzo38( * )? 03:53, August 18, 2005 (UTC)

vote yes/no if this good signicer

title: User:Zzo38/sand


text:
Medium Extended Air Defense System

The Medium Extended Air Defense System (MEADS) is a ground-mobile air and missile defense system intended to replace the Patriot missile system through a NATO-managed development. The program is a development of the United States, Germany and Italy.

MEADS is designed to address the shortcomings of fielded systems and to permit full interoperability between U.S. and allied forces. Germany chose MEADS to replace their MIM-104 Patriot systems in June 2015.

Description

MEADS provides ground-mobile air and missile defense with expanded coverage. The system provides enhanced force protection against a broad array of third-dimension threats. Improved interoperability, mobility, and full 360-degree defense capability against the evolving threat represent are key aspects. MEADS is the first air and missile defense (AMD) system that provides continuous on-the-move protection for maneuver forces. MEADS also provides area defense, homeland defense, and weighted asset protection.

MEADS incorporates the Lockheed Martin hit-to-kill PAC-3 Missile Segment Enhancement (MSE) missile in a system including 360-degree surveillance and fire control sensors, netted-distributed tactical operations centers, and lightweight launchers. A single MEADS battery is able to defend up to 8 times the area of a Patriot battery through use of advanced 360-degree sensors, near-vertical launch capability, and the longer-range PAC-3 MSE missile. The MEADS radars – using active phased arrays and digital beam forming – enable full use of the PAC-3 MSE missile's extended range.

Truck-mounted MEADS elements drive or roll on and off C-130 and A400M transport aircraft so they are quickly deployed to a theater of operations. Because MEADS uses fewer system assets, it permits a substantial reduction in deployed personnel and equipment. MEADS reduces demand for airlift, so it can deploy to theater faster.

The minimum MEADS engagement capability requires only one launcher, one battle manager, and one fire control radar to provide 360-degree defense of troops or critical assets. As more system elements arrive, they automatically and seamlessly join the MEADS network and build out capability.

The prime contractor, MEADS International, is a multinational joint venture headquartered in Orlando, Florida. Its participating companies are MBDA Italia, MBDA Deutschland GmbH, and Lockheed Martin. The company initially won a competitive downselect to develop the MEADS system in 1999, but the program could not be started because the losing competitor filed two successive suits. In 2001, a $216 million Risk Reduction Effort contract was awarded to incorporate a new interceptor approach. In May 2005, MEADS International signed a definitized contract valued at $2 billion plus €1.4 billion for MEADS design and development. This development contract was completed in 2014. The U.S. funded 58 percent of the MEADS Design and Development program, with European partners Germany and Italy providing 25 percent and 17 percent respectively.

The German Bundeswehr completed an analysis of air defense alternatives in 2010 and strongly recommended MEADS as the basis for improving Germany's missile defense shield and as Germany's contribution to the European Phased Adaptive Approach. In February 2011, the U.S. Department of Defense announced that it intended to fulfill its commitment to complete the design and development effort, but that it would not procure the MEADS system for budgetary reasons. Lockheed Martin developed an interactive life cycle cost and capabilities application based on their Dynamic Comparative Analysis Methodology (DCAM) approach to more fully evaluate and communicate the performance and cost advantage of MEADS as compared to alternative systems. The DCAM application further reinforced the value of MEADS and is credited with helping ensure continued funding.

In October 2011, the National Armaments Directors of Germany, Italy, and the U.S. approved a contract amendment to fund two flight intercept tests, a launcher/missile characterization test, and a sensor characterization test conducted to complete the planned development scope.

In September 2013, MEADS received operating certification for Mode 5 interrogation in its Identification friend or foe (IFF) system. Mode 5 is more secure and provides positive line-of-sight identification of friendly platforms equipped with an IFF transponder to better protect allied forces.

In June 2015, MEADS was selected as the basis for the German Taktisches Luftverteidigungssystem (TLVS), a new generation of air and missile defense that requires flexible architecture based on strong networking capabilities. MEADS was a candidate for Poland's Wisła medium range air defense system procurement, but was eliminated in June 2014 when competition was downselected to the US Patriot system and the French/Italian SAMP/T system. However, Lockheed Martin began renewed discussions with the Polish Ministry of Defense in February 2016 leading to a formal request for information in September 2016. MEADS remains a candidate for Poland's Narew short range air defense system procurement.

Major equipment items
The MEADS air and missile defense system is composed of six major equipment items. The MEADS radars, battle manager, and launchers are designed for high reliability so that the system will be able to maintain sustained operations much longer than legacy systems, resulting in overall lower operation and support costs.

Multifunction Fire Control Radar (MFCR)

An X-band, solid-state, active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar using element-level transmit/receive modules developed in Germany. The MMIC is supplied by the Selex Sistemi Integrati foundry in Rome. The photonics foundry in Rome supplies lithium niobate (LiNbO3) components for the radar. The MFCR radar provides precision tracking and wideband discrimination and classification capabilities. For extremely rapid deployments, the MEADS MFCR can provide both surveillance and fire control capabilities until a surveillance radar joins the network. The MFCR uses its main beam for uplink and downlink missile communications. An advanced Mode 5 identification friend-or-foe subsystem supports improved threat identification and typing.

Surveillance Radar (SR)

The UHF MEADS Surveillance Radar is a 360-degree active electronically steered array radar that provides extended range coverage. It provides threat detection capability against highly maneuverable low-signature threats, including short- and medium-range ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and other air-breathing threats.

Tactical Operations Center (TOC)

The MEADS TOC provides battle management and C4I (command, control, computers, communications, and intelligence). It controls an advanced network-centric open architecture that allows any combination of sensors and launchers to be organized into a single air and missile defense battle element. The system is netted and distributed. Every MEADS battle manager, radar, and launcher is a wireless node on the network. By virtue of multiple communications paths, the network can be expanded or contracted as the situation dictates and precludes single point failure if one node becomes inoperable. It also has a plug-and-fight capability that allows MEADS launchers and radars to seamlessly enter and leave the network without shutting it down and interrupting ongoing operations. MEADS uses open, non-proprietary standardized interfaces to extend plug-and-fight to non-MEADS elements. This flexibility is new for ground-based AMD systems.

Launcher and Reloader

The lightweight MEADS launcher is easily transportable, tactically mobile, and capable of rapid reload. It carries up to eight PAC-3 Missile Segment Enhancement (MSE) Missiles and achieves launch readiness in minimum time. A MEADS reloader is similar but lacks launcher electronic systems.

PAC-3 MSE
The PAC-3 Missile Segment Enhancement (MSE) missile is the baseline interceptor for MEADS. The interceptor increases the system's range and lethality over the baseline PAC-3 missile, which was selected as the primary missile for MEADS when the design and development program began in 2004. The MSE missile increases the engagement envelope and defended area by using more responsive control surfaces and a more powerful rocket motor.

IRIS-T SL

In Germany, the PAC-3 MSE missile is expected to be supplemented by IRIS-T SLM as secondary missile for ground-based medium range air defense. It is based on the IRIS-T air-to-air missile equipped with an enlarged rocket motor, datalink, and jettisonable drag-reducing nose cone.

Plug-and-fight
In the BMC4I TOC, plug-and-fight flexibility lets MEADS exchange data with non-MEADS sensors and shooters. The same capability lets MEADS move with ground forces and interoperate with allied forces. Through interoperability features designed into the system, MEADS will dramatically improve combat effectiveness and situational awareness, reducing the possibility of friendly fire incidents. MEADS system elements can seamlessly integrate into each nation's, or NATO's, combat architecture as required.

Units can be dispersed over a wide area. Command and control of launchers and missiles can be handed over to a neighboring battle management unit while the initial systems are moved, maintaining maneuver force protection. Plug-and-fight connectivity lets MEADS elements attach to and detach from the network at will, with no requirement to shut the system down.

The MEADS plug-and-fight capability enables command and control over other air and missile defense system elements through open, non-proprietary standardized interfaces. MEADS implements a unique ability to work with secondary missile systems if selected, and to evolve as other capabilities are developed.

Integration and test history
In July 2010, the MEADS BMC4I demonstrated its interoperability with the NATO Air Command and Control System (ACCS) during tests using the Active Layer Theatre Ballistic Missile Defense (ALTBMD) Integration Test Bed being developed by NATO. The test was an early maturity demonstration for the MEADS BMC4I capability.

In August 2010, the MEADS program completed an extensive series of Critical Design Review (CDR) events with a Summary CDR at MEADS International. Reviewers from Germany, Italy, the U.S., and the NATO Medium Extended Air Defense System Management Agency (NAMEADSMA) evaluated the MEADS design criteria in a comprehensive series of 47 reviews.

In December 2010, the first MEADS launcher and Tactical Operations Center were displayed in ceremonies in Germany and Italy before initiating system integration tests at Pratica di Mare Air Force Base in Italy.

In November 2011, it was announced that the MEADS Multifunction Fire Control Radar had been integrated with a MEADS TOC and launcher at Pratica di Mare Air Force Base. The objectives of the integration test series were to demonstrate that the MEADS TOC could control the MEADS MFCR in coordination with the MEADS Launcher as initial operational proof of the plug-and-fight capability. The MFCR demonstrated key functionalities including 360-degree target acquisition and track using both dedicated flights and other air traffic. Then, at White Sands Missile Range, MEADS demonstrated a first-ever over-the-shoulder launch of the PAC-3 MSE missile against a simulated target attacking from behind. It required a unique sideways maneuver, demonstrating a 360-degree capability. The missile executed a planned self-destruct sequence at the end of the mission after successfully engaging the simulated threat.

In November 2012 at White Sands Missile Range, MEADS detected, tracked, intercepted, and destroyed an air-breathing target in an intercept flight test. The test configuration included a networked MEADS Tactical Operations Center, lightweight launcher firing a PAC-3 MSE, and a 360-degree MEADS Multifunction Fire Control Radar, which tracked the MQM-107 target and guided the missile to a successful intercept.

Several progress milestones were demonstrated during 2013, culminating in a 360-degree dual-intercept test that went beyond initial contract objectives. In April, the MEADS Surveillance Radar acquired and tracked a small test aircraft and relayed its location to a MEADS TOC, which generated cue search commands. The MFCR, in full 360-degree rotating mode, searched the cued area, acquired the target, and established a dedicated track.

In June 2013, during six days of testing, MEADS demonstrated network interoperability with NATO systems during Joint Project Optic Windmill (JPOW) exercises. MEADS demonstrated battle management capability to transmit, receive, and process Link 16 messages and to conduct threat engagements.

In November 2013, MEADS intercepted and destroyed two simultaneous targets attacking from opposite directions during a stressing demonstration of its 360-degree AMD capabilities at White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico. All elements of the MEADS system were tested, including the 360-degree MEADS Surveillance Radar, a networked MEADS battle manager, two lightweight launchers firing PAC-3 Missile Segment Enhancement (MSE) Missiles and a 360-degree MEADS Multifunction Fire Control Radar (MFCR). The flight test achieved all criteria for success.

The first target, a QF-4 air-breathing target, approached from the south. Simultaneously a MGM-52 Lance missile, flying a tactical ballistic missile trajectory, attacked from the north. The Surveillance Radar acquired both targets and provided target cues to the MEADS battle manager, which generated cue commands for the MFCR. The MFCR tracked both targets successfully and guided missiles from launchers in the Italian and German configurations to successful intercepts.

At White Sands Missile Range, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman also demonstrated plug-and-fight connectivity between MEADS and the U.S. Army's Integrated Battle Command System (IBCS). IBCS demonstrated ability to plug-and-fight a 360-degree MEADS Surveillance Radar and Multifunction Fire Control Radar.

In July 2014, MEADS completed a comprehensive system demonstration at Pratica di Mare Air Base, Italy. The tests, including operational demonstrations run by German and Italian military personnel, were designed to seamlessly add and subtract system elements under representative combat conditions, and to blend MEADS with other systems in a larger system architecture. All criteria for success were achieved.

During the test, plug-and-fight capability to rapidly attach and control an external Italian deployable air defense radar was demonstrated. Also demonstrated was engage-on-remote flexibility, which allows operators to target threats at greater distances despite being masked by terrain. Through reassigning workload, MEADS demonstrated ability to maintain defense capabilities if any system element is lost or fails.

Interoperability with German and Italian air defense assets was demonstrated through exchange of standardized NATO messages. Italian air-defense assets were integrated into a test bed at an Italian national facility, while the Surface to Air Missile Operations Centre and Patriot assets were integrated into a test bed at the German Air Force Air Defense Center in Fort Bliss, Texas. MEADS further demonstrated capability to perform engagement coordination with other systems, which fielded system are unable to do.

In September 2014, MEADS MFCRs completed a six-week performance test at Pratica di Mare Air Base, Italy, and MBDA Deutschland's air defense center in Freinhausen. During the tests, the MEADS MFCR successfully demonstrated several advanced capabilities, many of which are critical for ground-mobile radar systems. Capabilities tested include tracking and canceling of jamming signals; searching, cueing and tracking in ground clutter; and successfully classifying target data using kinematic information.

On 9 June 2015, Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen announced that Germany had selected MEADS as the foundation for its Taktisches Luftverteidigungssystem (TLVS), which is planned to replace Germany's Patriot systems. In January 2017, MEADS International presented an updated offer for Poland's medium-range air defense (Wisła) program to Poland's Ministry of National Defense.

title: Medium Extended Air Defense System