text:
Talk:Maccabi Haifa F.C.

= Questions =

As I read in another wikipedia-article, League football began in Israel in 1949-50. so how can maccabi most of its time bouncing between the Liga Leumit and the lower leagues in their early years? perhaps somebody could write something about football-playing before 1948? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.108.243.51 (talk) 23:42, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

The league began in 1931.

= Comments = Attendance against Rosenborg was 33,000 as far as I remember or 30,000 according to Maccabi Haifa official website but definitely not 38,000. This means that the game last week against Red Bull Salzburg made a new attendance record - 35,000.

Archived line-ups
I have restored this because I plan to create a Maccabi Haifa F.C. players category at some point, and this could be useful. - N (talk) 15:59, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

2003/04

 * Nir Davidovich - goalkeeper
 * Eithan Azaria - right defender
 * Alon Harazi - right defender / sweeper
 * Arik Benado (captain) - center back / sweeper
 * Walid Badeer - defensive middleplayer
 * Adoram Casey - left defender
 * Elad Tzhako - middleplayer
 * Elyaniv Barda - foward / striker
 * Goran Zakic - striker
 * Idan Tal - left center middleplayer
 * Giovanni Russo - right center attacking middleplayer
 * Pavel Zabdil - middleplayer
 * Oshri Gita - striker
 * Arik Ejiafur - center back
 * Asi Avraami - defensive middleplayer
 * Avishay Jano - right defender / right winger
 * Michael Zandberg - left winger / attacking middleplayer
 * Eran Levi - striker
 * Yaniv Katan - left winger / striker
 * Dekel Kinan - center back
 * Tom Almadon - goalkeeper
 * Paulo Alves - defensive middleplayer
 * Shai Birok - attacking middleplayer
 * Itzhak Ben Hemo - striker

Maccabi haifa user Template
All maccabi haifa fans - notice Template:User MHaifa Roeeyaron 23:17, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Maccabi haifa changes in Hebrew page
New info of "history" section and players has been added to Hebrew page and requires translation. If anyone has Hebrew and English in a good level, please help us expand.

This must be updated

Thank you

Fair use rationale for Image:Maccabi Haifa Squad Photo.jpg
Image:Maccabi Haifa Squad Photo.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

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BetacommandBot 02:37, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Maccabi Haifa FC.gif
Image:Maccabi Haifa FC.gif is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

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If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images lacking such an explanation can be deleted one week after being tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot (talk) 00:55, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Maccabi Haifa Squad Photo.jpg
Image:Maccabi Haifa Squad Photo.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to ensure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images lacking such an explanation can be deleted one week after being tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

Did not have strong opponents
surely this statement made about the 2006-07 uefa cup group stage is questionable and should be changed Rangers reached the next seasons uefa cup final auxerre are not bad livorno played in the serie A and Partizan are a decent outfit surely this statement on the teams quality should be changed so I will change itScotland the brave1297 (talk) 07:57, 4 July 2009 (UTC).

Kris Boyd and Nacho Novo
This page stated the names of Rangers Players Kris Boyd and Nacho Novo were actually Enzo Novo and chris lloyd so I changed it.Scotland the brave1297 (talk) 07:57, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

biased points
there were many biased points on the article such as stating the atmosphere as sheer hell which have been changed under the wikipedia code of non-biased view points.Scotland the brave1297 (talk) 08:01, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Very Poor Use Of English
Was this article autotranslated using Babelfish/Google Translate? It has the worst use of English I've seen in Wikipedia. Look at these text segments: "Haifa fought with gnashed teeth" "the result (0:0) signaled that Haifa might use its home advantage in the return match" "within one minute (60-61) two goals by Raul Tamudo and Luis Garcia wiped out all Israeli desire" Who wrote this rubbish? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jj2005 (talk • contribs) 13:18, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

it wa clearly written by a maccabi haifa fan with very very biased view points as the articleseems to think there the only decent team in the world Scotland the brave1297 (talk) 16:37, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

2009/10
Ali Ottman, Nicolás Domingo and Eial Strahman still not Maccabi Haifa player. Maybe they will be in the next few days. but they still not.Donjos83 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 09:48, 29 August 2009 (UTC).

maccabi haifa uniform is not the new one.
the new one is here: http://he.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D7%9E%D7%9B%D7%91%D7%99_%D7%97%D7%99%D7%A4%D7%94_(%D7%9B%D7%93%D7%95%D7%A8%D7%92%D7%9C) thanks !.

Clarification
The fact that in a title " out on loan" There are two Shlomi Azoulay, it's not a mistake. In the club has two players with that name.

League football
As league footbal began in 1950 in Israel the article needs to check its facts. As before 1948 there was no Israel — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.244.124.19 (talk) 06:15, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

Stefanos Athanasiadis
Do NOT add new players before their signing is officially announced by the club through their website, including medical and signing the contract. A transfer fee agreed doesn't mean the player will sign.

External links modified
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I have just modified 3 external links on Maccabi Haifa F.C.. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
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 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20100904135739/http://www.sport5.co.il/articles.aspx?folderid=64&docid=84720&lang=HE to http://www.sport5.co.il/articles.aspx?folderid=64&docid=84720&lang=HE
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20110423220025/http://www.mhaifa.co.il/English/ to http://www.mhaifa.co.il/English

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Green locomotive
An IP editor removed this nickname stating it was "outdated". I found a gambling-related use, a blogger who uses the nickname, another blogger a mention on the official web site and little else. Perhaps there is more in Hebrew. If there are WP:RS, it might be helpful to incorporate information about the nickname in the text of the article. Jack N. Stock (talk) 06:54, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

A 2022-23 new kit
Someone please can create the new kit - https://shop.mhaifafc.com/he-IL/merchandise/product/%D7%97%D7%95%D7%9C%D7%A6%D7%AA%20%D7%9E%D7%A9%D7%97%D7%A7%2022-23%20%D7%99%D7%A8%D7%95%D7%A7%20%D7%92%D7%91%D7%A8 YANIVST1 (talk) 15:19, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

title: Talk:Maccabi Haifa F.C.


text:
Tokomairaro River

The Tokomairaro River is located in Otago, New Zealand. It flows southeast for some 50 kilometres (30 mi), reaching the Pacific Ocean at Toko Mouth 50 kilometres (30 mi) south of Dunedin. The town of Milton is located on the Tokomairaro's floodplain, close to the junction of its two main branches (which run past the north and south ends of the town).

The name of the river is Māori, and translates roughly as 'place where canoe must be poled' (a possible reference to the method needed to travel through the extensive wetlands, instead of the usual paddling). The Tokomairaro River is prone to seasonal flooding during the heavy rainfall months, August to October. Local industrial buildings have been forced to build high concrete walls around their property to reduce flood damage each year.

The spelling of the river changed from "Tokomairiro River" to "Tokomairaro River" on 28 July 2016. Both spellings have been in use since mid-1800s, however "Tokomairaro" was deemed to be correct. Milton's main school, which is named for the river, retains the former spelling.

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

title: Tokomairaro River


text:
Mondovi

Mondovi may refer to:

 * Mondovì, town in Italy, in the Piemonte
 * Battle of Mondovì, battle of the Napoleonic Wars
 * Roman Catholic Diocese of Mondovì, in the Ecclesiastical Region of Piedmont
 * Mondovi, Wisconsin, city in Buffalo County
 * Mondovi (town), Wisconsin, in Buffalo County
 * Mondovi, a former name of the town of Dréan in Algeria
 * Mondovi, Washington, unincorporated community in Lincoln County

title: Mondovi


text:
Mondovì

Mondovì (Ël Mondvì, Mons Regalis) is a town and comune (township) in Piedmont, northern Italy, about 80 km from Turin. The area around it is known as the Monregalese.

The town, located on the Monte Regale hill, is divided into several rioni (ancient quarters): Piazza (the most ancient), Breo, Pian della Valle, Carassone, Altipiano, Borgato and Rinchiuso, lower, next to the Ellero stream, developed from the 18th century when industries developed in Mondovì and when it was reached by the railway.

The Funicolare di Mondovì, a funicular railway reopened in 2006, links Breo with Piazza.

It is the seat of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Mondovì.

History
Founded on a hilltop in 1198 by survivors of the destroyed village of Bredolo and by inhabitants of the neighboring villages of Vico (now Vicoforte), Vasco (now Monastero di Vasco) and Carassone (which was abandoned after the founding of the new city): an independent comune named Ël Mont ëd Vi, meaning "The Mount of Vico" in Piedmontese, was formed.

Their independence proved to be short-lived because the bishop of Asti and the marquis of Ceva stormed it in 1200 and destroyed it in 1231. The commune resisted, however, and the following year it was able to sustain another attack from Asti. In 1260 it was occupied by Charles I of Anjou (then King of Naples and one of the most powerful landlords in Provence and north-western Italy), while in 1274 it returned under the bishops of Asti. In 1290 he was however able to buy back its communal independence, under the new name of Mons Regalis ("Royal Mount") due to its large privileges. In 1305 it fell again under the Angevins, followed by the Visconti, the Marquisate of Montferrat, the Acaja and, from 1418, the House of Savoy.

Mondovì continued to grow until the 16th century when it was the largest city in Piedmont. In 1537 it was occupied by France, under which it mostly remained until 1559. In 1560, Emmanuel Philibert, Duke of Savoy restored it to Piedmont, which held it until the Italian unification, apart from the Napoleonic period (1796–1814).

Piedmont's first printing press was created in Mondovì in 1472. From 1560 to 1566, Mondovì was the seat of Piedmont's first university.

Music
It is home of the Academia Montis Regalis orchestra led by conductor Alessandro De Marchi.

Main sights

 * Church of San Francesco Saverio (1664–1678), with works by Andrea Pozzo.
 * Cathedral of San Donato, designed by Francesco Gallo.
 * Santa Croce Chapel, with a Gothic fresco cycle.
 * Medieval walls and towers (12th century).
 * Piazza Maggiore (Main Square, 14th-16th century), in Gothic style.
 * Church of Santa Chiara.
 * Church of the Misericordia (1708–1717), designed by Francesco Gallo.
 * Convent of Nostra Donna.
 * Palazzo Fauzone.
 * Chapel of San Rocco delle Carceri.
 * Chapel of San Borgato delle Forche, with notable Gothic paintings.

Nearby is the Baroque sanctuary of Vicoforte.

Climate
Mondovì has a humid subtropical climate (Köppen: Cfa) with cold winters and warm to hot summers. Spring and fall are rainy, while summer and winter are relatively dry.

Notable people
Mondovì is the birthplace of
 * John Bona (1609–1674), Italian cardinal and author.
 * Giovanni Battista Beccaria (1716–1781), physicist.
 * Francis Vigo (1747–1836), fur trader, American Revolutionary War hero
 * Francesco Canaveri (1753-1836), physician, anatomist, and professor
 * Clemente Solaro, Count La Margherita (1792–1869), a Piedmont statesman.
 * Giacomo Durando (1807–1894), a general and statesman.
 * Teresa De Giuli Borsi (1817–1877), opera singer
 * Giovanni Giolitti (1842–1928), five-time Prime Minister of Italy.
 * Giovanni Bertone (1884–1972), automobile designer
 * Michele Baranowicz (born 1989), volleyball player

title: Mondovì


text:
Category:Cuttlefish

Articles relating to the Cuttlefish (order Sepiida), marine molluscs. They belong to the class Cephalopoda which also includes squid, octopuses, and nautiluses. Cuttlefish have a unique internal shell, the cuttlebone, which is used for control of buoyancy.

da:Kategori:Tiarmede blæksprutter

title: Category:Cuttlefish


text:
Oh, What a Lovely War!

Oh, What a Lovely War! is an epic musical developed by Joan Littlewood and her ensemble at the Theatre Workshop in 1963. It is a satire on World War I, and by extension on war in general. The title is derived from the "somewhat satirical" music hall song "Oh! It's a Lovely War!", which is one of the major numbers in the production.

Development
The idea for the production started on Armistice Day 1962 when Gerry Raffles heard the repeat of the second version of Charles Chilton's radio musical for the BBC Home Service, called The Long Long Trail about World War I. Written and produced by Chilton in memory of his father whose name was inscribed on the memorial at Arras, the piece was a radio documentary that used facts and statistics, juxtaposed with reminiscences and versions of songs of the time, as an ironic critique of the reality of the war. The songs were found in a book published in 1917 called Tommy's Tunes which had new lyrics written in the trenches to well-known songs of the era, many from hymns or from West End shows. Bud Flanagan provided the voice of the "ordinary soldier". The title came from the popular music hall song "There's a Long Long Trail A-Winding" published in 1913, mentioned in the introduction of Tommy's Tunes. Raffles proposed the idea of using it as the basis of a production to his partner, Joan Littlewood, but she detested the idea, hating World War I, military uniforms, and everything they stood for. Gerry though, brought Chilton along to the theatre and they played through the songs. Eventually Littlewood considered it might work, but refused any military uniforms, deciding on pierrot costumes from Commedia dell'arte very early on as a "soft, fluffy entertainment mode" providing an ironic contrast to the tin hats which they also wore. Littlewood said, in 1995, that "Nobody died on my stage, they died in the film – that they ruined". She wanted audiences to leave the theatre laughing at the "vulgarity of war". The idea was to portray how groups of people could lose their sense of individuality by conforming to those of a higher authority, which Littlewood despised.

The Theatre Workshop developed productions through improvisation and initially the cast would learn the original script but then have that taken away and have to retell the story in their own words for performance. Each member of the Theatre Workshop was tasked with learning about a particular topic, such as Ypres or gas. As the production developed, it also used scenes from The Donkeys by military historian (and future Conservative politician) Alan Clark, initially without acknowledgement: Clark took Littlewood to court to get credited.

Some scenes in the production, notably one on the first time the trenches were gassed, were worked on for many days only for Littlewood to conclude they were too horrific for an audience, and delete them. This was another reason why uniforms were not worn in the production.

Productions
The musical premiered at the Theatre Royal Stratford East on 19 March 1963 to rave audience reaction. Kenneth Tynan's review in The Observer was titled "Littlewood returns in triumph".

The official censor did not grant permission for a transfer to the West End until Princess Margaret attended a performance and commented to the Lord Chamberlain, Lord Cobbold, that "What you've said here tonight should have been said long ago, don't you agree, Lord Cobbold?"; at this point the transfer was more or less assured despite the objections of the family of Field Marshal Haig. It was an ensemble production featuring members of the theatre's regular company, which included Brian Murphy, Victor Spinetti, Glynn Edwards and Larry Dann, all of whom played several roles. In 2023, Dann shared his memories of the production for his autobiography, "Oh, What A Lovely Memoir". The sets were designed by John Bury. The production subsequently transferred to Wyndham's Theatre in June of the same year. The production was a surprise hit, and the musical was adapted by the BBC for radio several times.

The musical premiered in the United States on Broadway at the Broadhurst Theatre on 30 September 1964 and closed on 16 January 1965 after 125 performances. It was seen there by actor and former subaltern Basil Rathbone, who wrote to Charles Chilton that "we were duped, it was a disgusting war". Directed by Littlewood, the cast featured Spinetti and Murphy, plus Barbara Windsor. It received four Tony Award nominations: for Best Musical, Best Direction, Best Featured Actress, and Best Featured Actor, winning Best Featured Actor. Spinetti also won the Theatre World Award.

From September 2023 until May 2024, a 60th Anniversary production by Blackeyed Theatre toured the UK.

Description
The original production was performed with the cast in pierrot costumes and metal helmets due to Littlewood's abhorrence of the colour khaki and anti-war feelings. Behind them projected slides (operated by projectionist Tom Carr) showed images from the war and a moving display (what Littlewood called her "electronic newspaper" from having seen one in East Berlin on a railway bridge ) across the full stage width with statistics, such as "Sept 25 . . . Loos . . . British loss 8,236 men in 3 hours . . . German loss nil" and "Average life of a machine gunner under attack on the Western Front: 4 minutes".

Separating the performers from the actual events in this way would stop the audience collapsing in tears, and the production features such World War I-era songs as "It's a Long Way to Tipperary", "Pack up Your Troubles" and "Keep the Home Fires Burning". Harsh images of war and shocking statistics are projected onto the backdrop, providing a contrast with the comedy of the action taking place before it. The audience were also invited to join in with singing the songs.

The first act was designed to draw the audience in with the sentimentality of the songs, and the first explosion does not take place until the end of Act 1 during Goodbye...ee. Act 2 then brings the horror of war to the production.

Title song
The song "Oh! It's a Lovely War" was written by J. P. Long and Maurice Scott in 1917 and was part of the repertoire of music hall star and male impersonator Ella Shields. The lyrics of the first verse and the chorus are as follows:

Musical numbers

 * Sequence and casting based on the 1964 Broadway production

 * Act 1
 * "Row, Row, Row" (lyrics by William Jerome, music by James V. Monaco) – The Ensemble
 * "We Don't Want to Lose You (Your King and Country Want You)" (music and lyrics by Paul Rubens) – The Ladies
 * "Belgium Put the Kibosh on the Kaiser" (music and lyrics by Paddy Ellerton) – Valerie Walsh
 * "Are We Downhearted" – The Men
 * "It's a Long Way to Tipperary" (music and lyrics by Jack Judge and Harry Williams) – The Men
 * "Hold Your Hand Out Naughty Boy" (music and lyrics by Murphy and David) – The Men
 * "I'll Make a Man of You" (music and lyrics by Arthur Wimperis and Herman Finck) – Barbara Windsor
 * "Pack Up Your Troubles in Your Old Kit-Bag" (lyrics by George Asaf) – The Men
 * "Hitchykoo" (lyrics by L. Wolfe Gilbert, music by Lewis F. Muir and Maurice Abrahams) – Fanny Carby
 * "Heilige Nacht" – Colin Kemball
 * "Good-bye-ee!" (lyrics by R. P. Weston, music by Bert Lee) – Victor Spinetti

 * Act 2
 * "Oh What a Lovely War" – The Ensemble
 * "Gassed Last Night" – The Men
 * "Roses of Picardy" (music by Haydn Wood) – Linda Loftus and Ian Paterson
 * "Hush Here Comes a Whizzbang" – The Men
 * "There's a Long Long Trail" (lyrics by Stoddard King) – Ian Paterson
 * "I Don't Want to Be a Soldier" – The Men
 * "Kaiser Bill" – The Men
 * "They Were Only Playing Leapfrog" – The Men
 * "Old Soldiers Never Die" – Murray Melvin
 * "Far Far from Wipers" (music and lyrics by Bingham and Greene) – Colin Kemball
 * "If the Sergeant Steals Your Rum" – The Men
 * "I Wore a Tunic (When You Wore a Tulip)" – Ian Paterson
 * "Forward Joe Soap's Army" – The Men
 * "Fred Karno's Army" – The Men
 * "When This Lousy War is Over" – Colin Kembal
 * "Wash Me in the Water" – The Men
 * "I Want to Go Home" – The Men
 * "The Bells Of Hell Go Ting-a-ling-a-ling" – The Men
 * "Keep the Home Fires Burning" (lyrics by Lena Gulibert Ford, music by Ivor Novello) – Myvanwy Jenn
 * "Sister Susie's Sewing Shirts" (lyrics by R. P. Weston, music by Herman Darewski) – Barbara Windsor
 * "La Chanson de Craonne" – The Ensemble
 * "Don't Want to Be a Soldier" – The Ensemble
 * "And When They Ask Us" (music by Jerome Kern, parody lyric by Cole Porter, after original Kern song "They Didn't Believe Me" ) – The Ensemble

Song performances
Two renditions of the song, one from 1918, can be heard at firstworldwar.com. Almost all of the songs featured in the musical also appear on the CD41 album series ''Oh! It's A Lovely War'' (four volumes).

Adaptation and in culture
Richard Attenborough's film adaptation was released in 1969, also as a musical, and won numerous awards. It was Attenborough's debut as a film director.

Several Australian World War I movies and miniseries (e.g. The Lighthorsemen and Gallipoli) have used these songs to give a stronger sense of period to them. The 1985 series Anzacs used "Oh, it's a lovely war" as one of the numbers while the credits rolled, had "I wore a tunic" performed as part of an entertainment piece while the characters were on easy duties, used "Keep the home fires burning" as another credit number, and featured "The Bells of Hell" sung by Tony Bonner and Andrew Clarke.

General and cited references

 * Arthur, Max. 2001. When This Bloody War Is Over: Soldiers' Songs from the First World War. London: Piatkus. ISBN 0-7499-2252-4.
 * Banham, Martin, ed. 1998. The Cambridge Guide to Theatre. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-43437-8.
 * Brockett, Oscar G. and Franklin J. Hildy. 2003. History of the Theatre. Ninth edition, International edition. Boston: Allyn and Bacon. ISBN 0-205-41050-2.
 * Eyre, Richard and Nicholas Wright. 2000. Changing Stages: A View of British Theatre in the Twentieth Century. London: Bloomsbury. ISBN 0-7475-4789-0.
 * Milling, Jane and Peter Thomson, eds. 2004. The Cambridge History of British Theatre. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 397–401. ISBN 0-521-82790-6.

title: Oh, What a Lovely War!


text: Category:Italian chemists

title: Category:Italian chemists


text: Category:1578 births

title: Category:1578 births


text: Category:1578 deaths

title: Category:1578 deaths


text:
Grammar checker

A grammar checker, in computing terms, is a program, or part of a program, that attempts to verify written text for grammatical correctness. Grammar checkers are most often implemented as a feature of a larger program, such as a word processor, but are also available as a stand-alone application that can be activated from within programs that work with editable text.

The implementation of a grammar checker makes use of natural language processing.

History
The earliest "grammar checkers" were programs that checked for punctuation and style inconsistencies, rather than a complete range of possible grammatical errors. The first system was called Writer's Workbench, and was a set of writing tools included with Unix systems as far back as the 1970s. The whole Writer's Workbench package included several separate tools to check for various writing problems. The "diction" tool checked for wordy, trite, clichéd or misused phrases in a text. The tool would output a list of questionable phrases, and provide suggestions for improving the writing. The "style" tool analyzed the writing style of a given text. It performed a number of readability tests on the text and output the results, and gave some statistical information about the sentences of the text.

Aspen Software of Albuquerque, New Mexico released the earliest version of a diction and style checker for personal computers, Grammatik, in 1981. Grammatik was first available for a Radio Shack - TRS-80, and soon had versions for CP/M and the IBM PC. Reference Software International of San Francisco, California, acquired Grammatik in 1985. Development of Grammatik continued, and it became an actual grammar checker that could detect writing errors beyond simple style checking.

Other early diction and style checking programs included Punctuation & Style, Correct Grammar, RightWriter and PowerEdit. While all the earliest programs started out as simple diction and style checkers, all eventually added various levels of language processing, and developed some level of true grammar checking capability.

Until 1992, grammar checkers were sold as add-on programs. There were a large number of different word processing programs available at that time, with WordPerfect and Microsoft Word the top two in market share. In 1992, Microsoft decided to add grammar checking as a feature of Word, and licensed CorrecText, a grammar checker from Houghton Mifflin that had not yet been marketed as a standalone product. WordPerfect answered Microsoft's move by acquiring Reference Software, and the direct descendant of Grammatik is still included with WordPerfect.

As of 2019, grammar checkers are built into systems like Google Docs and Sapling.ai, browser extensions like Grammarly and Qordoba, desktop applications like Ginger, free and open-source software like LanguageTool, and text editor plugins like those available from WebSpellChecker Software.

Technical issues
The earliest writing style programs checked for wordy, trite, clichéd, or misused phrases in a text. This process was based on simple pattern matching. The heart of the program was a list of many hundreds or thousands of phrases that are considered poor writing by many experts. The list of questionable phrases included alternative wording for each phrase. The checking program would simply break text into sentences, check for any matches in the phrase dictionary, flag suspect phrases and show an alternative. These programs could also perform some mechanical checks. For example, they would typically flag doubled words, doubled punctuation, some capitalization errors, and other simple mechanical mistakes.

True grammar checking is more complex. While a programming language has a very specific syntax and grammar, this is not so for natural languages. One can write a somewhat complete formal grammar for a natural language, but there are usually so many exceptions in real usage that a formal grammar is of minimal help in writing a grammar checker. One of the most important parts of a natural language grammar checker is a dictionary of all the words in the language, along with the part of speech of each word. The fact that a natural word may be used as any one of several parts of speech (such as "free" being used as an adjective, adverb, noun, or verb) greatly increases the complexity of any grammar checker.

A grammar checker will find each sentence in a text, look up each word in the dictionary, and then attempt to parse the sentence into a form that matches a grammar. Using various rules, the program can then detect various errors, such as agreement in tense, number, word order, and so on. It is also possible to detect some stylistic problems with the text. For example, some popular style guides such as The Elements of Style deprecate excessive use of the passive voice. Grammar checkers may attempt to identify passive sentences and suggest an active-voice alternative.

The software elements required for grammar checking are closely related to some of the development issues that need to be addressed for speech recognition software. In voice recognition, parsing can be used to help predict which word is most likely intended, based on part of speech and position in the sentence. In grammar checking, the parsing is used to detect words that fail to follow accepted grammar usage.

Recently, research has focused on developing algorithms which can recognize grammar errors based on the context of the surrounding words.

Criticism
Grammar checkers are considered as a type of foreign language writing aid which non-native speakers can use to proofread their writings as such programs endeavor to identify syntactical errors. However, as with other computerized writing aids such as spell checkers, popular grammar checkers are often criticized when they fail to spot errors and incorrectly flag correct text as erroneous. The linguist Geoffrey K. Pullum argued in 2007 that they were generally so inaccurate as to do more harm than good: "for the most part, accepting the advice of a computer grammar checker on your prose will make it much worse, sometimes hilariously incoherent."

title: Grammar checker


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Category:Bobtail squid

 * Bobtail squid — Teuthida species.

title: Category:Bobtail squid


text: User talk:158.123.151.254

title: User talk:158.123.151.254


text: Category:Botanists by nationality

title: Category:Botanists by nationality


text:
Category:Squid

 * Teuthida— the squid species.

title: Category:Squid


text: User talk:64.217.18.76

title: User talk:64.217.18.76


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Roy Wilkins

Roy Ottoway Wilkins (August 30, 1901 – September 8, 1981) was an American civil rights leader from the 1930s to the 1970s. Wilkins' most notable role was his leadership of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), in which he held the title of Executive Secretary from 1955 to 1963 and Executive Director from 1964 to 1977. Wilkins was a central figure in many notable marches of the civil rights movement and made contributions to African-American literature. He controversially advocated for African Americans to join the military.

Early life
Wilkins was born in St. Louis, Missouri, on August 30, 1901. His father was not present for his birth, having fled the town in fear of being lynched after he refused demands to step away and yield the sidewalk to a white man. When he was four years old, his mother died from tuberculosis, and Wilkins and his siblings were then raised by an aunt and uncle in the Rondo neighborhood of Saint Paul, Minnesota, where they attended local schools. Wilkins graduated from Mechanic Arts High School. His nephew was Roger Wilkins. Wilkins graduated from the University of Minnesota with a degree in sociology in 1923.

In 1929, he married social worker Aminda "Minnie" Badeau; the couple had no children of their own, but they raised the two children of Hazel Wilkins-Colton, a writer from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Early career
While attending college, Wilkins worked as a journalist]at The Minnesota Daily and became editor of The Appeal, an African-American newspaper. After he graduated he became the editor of The Call in 1923..

His confrontation of the Jim Crow laws led to his activist work, and in 1931 he moved to New York City as assistant NAACP secretary under Walter Francis White. When W. E. B. Du Bois left the organization in 1934, Wilkins replaced him as editor of The Crisis, the official magazine of the NAACP. From 1949 to 1950, Wilkins chaired the National Emergency Civil Rights Mobilization, which comprised more than 100 local and national groups.

He served as an adviser to the War Department during World War II.

In 1950, Wilkins—along with A. Philip Randolph, founder of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, and Arnold Aronson, a leader of the National Jewish Community Relations Advisory Council—founded the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR). LCCR has become the premier civil rights coalition, and has coordinated the national legislative campaign on behalf of every major civil rights law since 1957.

NAACP leadership

In 1955, Wilkins was chosen to be the executive secretary of the NAACP and in 1964, he became its executive director. He had developed an excellent reputation as a spokesperson for the Civil Rights Movement. One of his first actions was to provide support to civil rights activists in Mississippi who were being subjected to a "credit squeeze" by members of the White Citizens Councils.

Wilkins backed a proposal suggested by T. R. M. Howard of Mound Bayou, Mississippi, who headed the Regional Council of Negro Leadership, a leading civil rights organization in the state. Under the plan, black businesses and voluntary associations shifted their accounts to the black-owned Tri-State Bank of Memphis, Tennessee. By the end of 1955, about $300,000 had been deposited in Tri-State for that purpose. The money enabled Tri-State to extend loans to credit-worthy blacks who were denied loans by white banks. Wilkins participated in the March on Washington (August 1963), which he had helped organize. The march was dedicated to the idea of protesting through acts of nonviolence in which Wilkins was a firm believer. Wilkins also participated in the Selma to Montgomery marches (1965) and the March Against Fear (1966).

He believed in achieving reform by legislative means, testified before many Congressional hearings, and conferred with Presidents Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, and Carter. Those achievements gained Wilkins attention from government officials and other established politicians, earning him respect as well as the nickname, "Mr. Civil Rights". Wilkins strongly opposed militancy in the movement for civil rights as represented by the "black power" movement because of his support for nonviolence. He was a strong critic of racism in any form regardless of its creed, color, or political motivation, and he also declared that violence and racial separation of blacks and whites were not the answer. As late as 1962, Wilkins criticized the direct action methods of the Freedom Riders, but changed his stance after the Birmingham campaign, and was arrested for leading a picketing protest in 1963.

On issues of segregation, as well, he was a proponent of systematic integration instead of radical desegregation. In a 1964 interview with Robert Penn Warren for the book Who Speaks for the Negro?, Wilkins declared, "We Negroes want the improvements in the public school system – and among them, of course, the elimination of segregation, based upon race – the institution of the same quality education in the schools attended by our children as those attended by other children, and we want Negro teachers and we want Negro supervisors, and we want all the opportunity, but the only way our form of government and our structure of society can survive is by some common indoctrination of our citizenry, and we have found this in the public school system. And, for any reformer, black or white, zealot or not, to come along and say, 'I'll destroy it, if it doesn't do like I want it to do,' is very dangerous business, as far as I'm concerned." However, his moderate views increasingly brought him into conflict with younger, more militant black activists who saw him as an "Uncle Tom".

Wilkins was also a member of Omega Psi Phi, a fraternity with a civil rights focus and one of the intercollegiate Greek-letter fraternities established for African Americans.

In 1964, he was awarded the Spingarn Medal by the NAACP.

During his tenure, the NAACP played a pivotal role in leading the nation into the Civil Rights Movement and spearheaded the efforts that led to significant civil rights victories, including Brown v. Board of Education, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

In 1968, Wilkins also served as chair of the U.S. delegation to the International Conference on Human Rights. After turning 70 in 1971, he faced increased calls to step down as NAACP chief.

In 1977, at the age of 76, Wilkins finally retired from the NAACP and was succeeded by Benjamin Hooks. Wilkins was honored with the title Director Emeritus of the NAACP in the same year. He died on September 8, 1981, in New York City, from heart problems related to a pacemaker implanted on him in 1979 because of his irregular heartbeat. In 1982, his autobiography, Standing Fast: The Autobiography of Roy Wilkins, was published posthumously.

"The players in this drama of frustration and indignity are not commas or semicolons in a legislative thesis; they are people, human beings, citizens of the United States of America."

Views
Wilkins was a staunch liberal and proponent of American values during the Cold War. He denounced suspected and actual communists within the Civil Rights Movement. He had been criticized by some on the left of the movement, such as Daisy Bates, Paul Robeson, W. E. B. Du Bois, Robert F. Williams, and Fred Shuttlesworth, for his cautious approach, suspicion of grassroots organizations, and conciliatory attitude towards white anticommunism.

In 1951, J. Edgar Hoover and the US State Department, in collusion with the NAACP and Wilkins, who was then the editor of The Crisis, the official magazine of the NAACP, arranged for a ghost-written leaflet to be printed and distributed in Africa. The purpose of the leaflet was to spread negative press and views about the black political radical and entertainer Paul Robeson throughout Africa. Roger P. Ross, a State Department public affairs officer working in Africa, issued three pages of detailed guidelines including the following instructions:

"United States Information and Educational Exchange (USIE) in the Gold Coast, and I suspect everywhere else in Africa, badly needs a through-going, sympathetic and regretful but straight talking treatment of the whole Robeson episode... there's no way the Communists score on us more easily and more effectively out here, than on the US. Negro problem in general, and on the Robeson case in particular. And, answering the latter, we go a long way toward answering the former."

The finished article published by the NAACP was called Paul Robeson: Lost Shepherd, and penned under the false name of "Robert Alan", who the NAACP claimed was a "well known New York journalist". Another article by Roy Wilkins, "Stalin's Greatest Defeat", denounced Robeson and the Communist Party USA in terms consistent with the FBI's information.

At the time of Robeson's widely misquoted declaration at the Paris Peace Conference that blacks would not support the United States in a war against the Soviet Union because of the continued lynchings and their legal second-class citizen status after World War II, Wilkins stated that regardless of the number of lynchings that then occurred or would occur, black Americans would always serve in the armed forces.

Wilkins also threatened to cancel a charter of an NAACP youth group in 1952 if it did not cancel its planned Robeson concert.

Support for military
Wilkins' views towards the participation of black military members in the US military was a point of contention between him and other prominent civil rights leaders. While most civil rights groups and activists stayed quiet or spoke out against the Vietnam War, Wilkins spoke about what he believed African-Americans could gain from serving in the military. An article posted in the Western Journal of Black Studies suggests that black troops were fighting for equality both in the United States as well as overseas. Wilkins emphasized the financial benefits of serving in the military along with the importance of African-American citizens participating in the first integrated American army.

Wilkins's efforts to further equality in the realm of international affairs were publicly recognized in 1969, when he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Lyndon Johnson.

Death and legacy
Wilkins died on September 8, 1981, in New York City, at the age of 80. During his later life Wilkins was frequently referred to as the "Senior Statesman" of the Civil Rights Movement.

In 1982, his autobiography Standing Fast: The Autobiography of Roy Wilkins was published posthumously.

The Roy Wilkins Renown Service Award was established in 1980 to recognize members of the Armed Forces who embodied the spirit of equality and human rights. The St. Paul Auditorium was renamed for Wilkins in 1985. The Roy Wilkins Center for Human Relations and Social Justice was established at the University of Minnesota's Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs in 1992. Roy Wilkins Park in St. Albans, Queens, New York was named after him as a unique public and cultural touchstone for all of New York City.

Gil Scott-Heron mentioned Wilkins in his spoken word song "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" with this lyric: "There will be no slow motion or still life of Roy Wilkins strolling through Watts in a red, black and green liberation jumpsuit that he has been saving for just the proper occasion." Amiri Baraka stated, in his "Civil Rights Poem", that "if i ever see roywilkins [sic.] on the sidewalks imonna [sic.] stick half my sandal up his ass". In 2001, the U.S. Postal Service issued a 34 cent stamp honoring Wilkins. In 2002, Molefi Kete Asante listed Roy Wilkins on his list of the 100 Greatest African Americans.

He is played by Joe Morton in the 2016 television drama All the Way.

Chris Rock portrayed Wilkins somewhat unfavorably in the 2023 Netflix film Rustin. In the film's final scenes, Wilkins comes around to a more positive view of Bayard Rustin, who is portrayed throughout the film as a Wilkins nemesis during the planning of the March on Washington.

title: Roy Wilkins


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Adansonia gregorii

Adansonia gregorii, commonly known as the boab and also known by a number of other names, is a tree in the family Malvaceae, endemic to the northern regions of Western Australia and the Northern Territory of Australia.

Names
The specific name gregorii honours the Australian explorer Augustus Gregory.

The most widely recognised common name is 'boab', which is a shortened form of the generic common name 'boabab'. It does, however, have many other common names, including:
 * baobab — the common name for the genus as a whole, but often used in Australia to refer to the Australian species
 * Australian baobab
 * boabab was in common use from the late 1850s (Perhaps the origin of boab)
 * baob

Gadawon is one of the names used by the local Aboriginal Australian groups. Other names include larrgadi or larrgadiy, which is widespread in the Nyulnyulan languages of the Western Kimberley.

Other names include:
 * bottle tree or bottletree
 * cream of tartar tree
 * gourd-gourd tree
 * gouty stem tree
 * monkey bread tree
 * sour gourd
 * upside down tree
 * dead rat tree

Habitat
Endemic to Australia, boab occurs in the Kimberley region of Western Australia and east into the Northern Territory. It is the only baobab to occur in Australia, the others being native to Madagascar and mainland Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. There are various theories as to how the tree got to Australia, with A. gregorii and A. digitata, its African relative, being very similar genetically.

It can grow from sea level to about 300 m in altitude, and is most often found in open forest and rocky areas, but is also seen in monsoon forest.

Description
As with other baobabs, Adansonia gregorii is easily recognised by the swollen base of its trunk, which forms a massive caudex, giving the tree a bottle-like appearance. Boab ranges from 5-15 m in height, usually 9-12 m, with a broad bottle-shaped trunk, up to 5 m in diameter.

A. gregorii is deciduous, losing its leaves during the dry winter period and producing new leaves and large white flowers between December and May, up to 75 mm long. The flowers open at night, and have a calyx about 6 cm long. The inner surface is densely sericeous.

Boabs are pollinated by the convolvulus hawk-moth Agrius convolvuli.

The tree's bark has a remarkable property, in that it can maintain inscribed markings for long periods of time, over more than a century. Some specimens of the African relative of boabs have been estimated to live close to 2,000 years, but the Australian ones are not as well-documented.

Uses
The plant has a wide variety of uses; most parts are edible and it is the source of a number of materials. Its medicinal products and the ability to store water through dry seasons has been exploited. Aboriginal Australians obtained water from the tree, owing to its ability to store huge amounts of water; some of the oldest and largest trees can hold more than 100,000 L of water in their trunks. They also use the white powder that fills the seed pods (or pith, said to taste like sherbet or cream of tartar ) as a food.

Decorative paintings or carvings were sometimes made on the outer surface of the fruit.

The bark and leaves are used medicinally, in particular for digestive ailments.

The root fibres are used to create string.

The 1889 book Useful Native Plants of Australia states that "The dry acidulous pulp of the fruit is eaten. It has an agreeable taste, like cream of tartar".

European use of the trees has included letter boxes and jails.

The leaves may see a future use prepared as food, due to their high iron content. The leaves can be boiled and eaten as a spinach; the seeds can be ground and used as a coffee-like beverage, and fermenting the pulp creates a type of beer.

Notable trees
A large hollow boab south of Derby, Western Australia is reputed to have been used in the 1890s as a lockup for Aboriginal prisoners on their way to Derby for sentencing. The Boab Prison Tree, Derby is now a tourist attraction.

Another hollow boab near Wyndham, Western Australia was also used as a prison tree. The Hillgrove Lockup or Wyndham Prison Tree is on the King River Road out of Wyndham near the Moochalabra Dam. There is also a boab tree located within the Wyndham Caravan Park that is billed as "the biggest boab in captivity".

Gija Jumulu is a large boab which was transported from Warmun in the Kimberley region to Kings Park in the Western Australian capital city, Perth in 2008. the tree was growing well, after an initial period showing signs of stress after the move, demonstrating the adaptability of the species in a different climate.

Gregory's Tree, in the Gregory's Tree Historical Reserve at Timber Creek, NT, is an Aboriginal sacred site and a registered Australian heritage site. The boab tree marks the site of a camp of the explorer Augustus Charles Gregory, and is inscribed with the dates of his party's arrival and departure, from October 1855 to July 1856.

Dendroglyphs
In 2021, a collaborative project to find and trace histories etched in boab trees in the Kimberley was launched. Funded by the Australian Research Council, archaeologists from the Australian National University (ANU), the University of Western Australia, the University of Canberra, and University of Notre Dame Australia are working with Aboriginal communities and using advanced technology (photogrammetry ) to record 3D images of carvings on the trees. It is "the first systematic survey and recording program of carved boab trees in Australia".

In October 2022, the team published the results of their recent survey of such trees in the Tanami Desert. The survey records the tree markings, also known as dendroglyphs, relating to the Lingka Dreaming track across the desert. Also known as the King Brown Snake dreaming, many of the carvings are of snakes, but also include emu and kangaroo tracks; geometric markings; and, further west, crocodiles, turtles and Wanjina figures. The researchers also found stone artefacts and broken grinding stones, used for grinding seeds, as camps were often made underneath the large shady trees.

In film
A boab tree is featured in the 1992 animated film FernGully: The Last Rainforest to imprison the film's antagonist, Hexxus.

The boab tree is celebrated in the end credits of the 2008 film Australia with the song "By the Boab Tree", a song nominated for a 2008 Satellite Award, with lyrics by Baz Luhrmann and performed by Sydney singer Angela Little.

title: Adansonia gregorii


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The Young Gods

The Young Gods are a Swiss industrial rock band from Fribourg, formed in 1985. The original lineup of the band featured singer Franz Treichler, sampler player Cesare Pizzi and drummer Frank Bagnoud. For most of their history, the band maintained a trio format with a singer, a sampler player and a drummer, albeit with multiple line-up changes. Treichler is the band's sole consistent member; the current line-up also features Pizzi and drummer Bernard Trontin. During their career, the band have extensively collaborated with producer Roli Mosimann.

The band's music is largely based on sampling and sound manipulation; the tracks are constructed from various samples, such as distorted guitar riffs and string sections. Their later releases have incorporated elements from ambient and electronic music. Their sample-based approach to rock music influenced numerous musicians such as David Bowie, The Edge and Mike Patton.

Formation, The Young Gods and L'eau rouge (1985–1991)
Circa 1984, Fribourg-native guitarist Franz Treichler relocated to Geneva and started experimenting with sound collages on his 4-track recorder, following the dissolution of his punk band Jof & The Ram, previously known as Johnny Furgler & the Raclette Machine. Inspired by the sampling synthesizer E-mu Emulator, he started composing songs from these sound collages in early 1985 and introduced his roommate, former the Raclette Machine bassist Cesare Pizzi, to the sampler. The band started rehearsing with the addition of drummer Frank Bagnoud, who previously played in the same band as Pizzi.

The band took their name from the track "Young God" from Swans's 1984 EP of the same name; Treichler was exposed to the track after booking the band for a performance in Switzerland in 1984. The band made their live debut in the late 1985. Their early performances were mostly guerrilla gigs, in which the band played at squats, factories and occupied public places illegally. In these very early performances, Pizzi operated the samples through tape-playing keyboards and a loop pedal; the samples were stored in cassettes and taped through an answering machine. While they were able to obtain an Akai sampler after 10 performances, their debut single "Envoyé" was produced with this setup. The band signed to Belgian Play It Again Sam record label after the release of "Envoyé" on Organik and Wax Trax! Records in 1986. A music video for the track was also produced. The single cover art featured the band's logo carved onto Treichler's chest; in 2005, he stated that the scar "disappeared after five or six years." For their debut album, the band started working with former Swans member Roli Mosimann, who went on to become a long-time studio collaborator. The band's self-titled debut was released in 1987 to critical acclaim in the United Kingdom: the record was named as the best album of 1987 by music magazine Melody Maker. "Did You Miss Me?", a Gary Glitter cover from the album, was released as an accompanying single. During this period, the band regularly relocated to London.

Bagnoud left the band in 1987. Drummer Urs Hiestand then joined the band and the band began working on the follow-up album with Mosimann. The drumming duties were first offered to Bernard Trontin, a friend of Treichler and band's then-future drummer; he refused due to his conflicting touring schedule. L'eau rouge was released in 1989 on Play It Again Sam, with non-album track "L'Amourir" and "Longue route" as singles. Like its predecessor, the record ranked among the year's best on Melody Maker. Pizzi departed the band following the release of the album and was replaced by Alain Monod, who performed on the subsequent tour. The tour featured the band's first performances in the United States. Kurt Weill's "September Song" became a staple of the band's live set; they subsequently performed covers of Weill's compositions on Switzerland's Festival du Bois de la Bâtie. The studio versions of the tracks were released as The Young Gods Play Kurt Weill in 1991.

T.V. Sky, Only Heaven and Heaven Deconstruction (1992–1997)
For the recording of the band's fourth album with Mosimann, Treichler located to New York, where he subsequently lived for a couple of years; other members joined them for six months. The band's first English-language album, T.V. Sky, was released in 1992, with the single "Skinflowers" becoming an underground hit. North American leg of the accompanying tour was documented on the television documentary TV-Sky - The Young Gods US Tour 92. The band's 1992 live performance in Australia was released as the live album Live Sky Tour in 1993.

Amidst the commercial success of acts such as Nine Inch Nails, the band signed to Interscope Records. As a part of the label's request, the band worked with a sample clearance expert. The band's ambient-influenced record, Only Heaven, was released in 1995. Music video for the album's lead single, "Kissing the Sun", was directed by Eric Zimmerman of H-Gun, who is known for his work on Nine Inch Nails's "Head Like a Hole" and Soundgarden's "Jesus Christ Pose." To support Only Heaven, the band joined Ministry's 1996 tour, touring extensively for two years. Hiestand, feeling that the touring lifestyle was tiring, left the band in 1996. Treichler and Monod, then living in New York, regarded his departure as a sign and relocated back to Switzerland. To fill in for drumming duties, Bernard Trontin joined the band in 1997.

A companion record to Only Heaven, titled Heaven Deconstruction, was independently released in 1996. The instrumental album featured fully-ambient compositions and soundscapes produced during Only Heaven recording sessions. Treichler originally anticipated Only Heaven to be a double album featuring those outtakes; nevertheless, Interscope vetoed the idea. Towards the end of the decade, the label dropped the band, citing low commercial performance. During this time, the band entered a lawsuit with their former label, Play It Again Sam, regarding their contract.

Second Nature, Super Ready/Fragmenté and Everybody Knows (1998–2011)
In 2000, the band released their electronic music-influenced seventh album, Second Nature. Citing the past problems with major labels such as Play It Again Sam, the band sought to release their album on their manager's label, Intoxygene, which Treichler subsequently regretted. The track "Lucidogen" was also released as a single in that year. Following the release of the 2001 live album Live Noumatrouff, 1997, the band was commissioned to compose instrumentals for Swiss Federal Office of Public Health at Expo.02; these compositions were later reinterpreted and released under the name Music for Artificial Clouds in 2004. The record was later performed live as a part of which was a collaboration with anthropologist Jeremy Narby. In 2003, Ipecac Recordings issued Second Nature in North America.

Between 2003 and 2004, the band was left without a manager and a label. In 2005, the band started working on new material and released the compilation album XXY: 20 Years (1985-2005), featuring career highlights and rarities. The album was released on Play It Again Sam with a new track, titled "Secret", as a promotional single. In that year, the band played their anniversary shows in Montreux Jazz Festival and Willisau, Switzerland, followed by a European tour in November. The band's performance in Montreux, which was a collaboration with Lausanne Sinfonietta and featured guest vocals from Mike Patton, was later released as a live album in 2010. The band's former drummer, Frank Bagnoud, passed away after a long illness in June.

In 2006, the band issued Truce Diaries, which was recorded exclusively for the Swiss magazine Truce. The following year's Super Ready/Fragmenté marked a return to a guitar-oriented sound in contrast to Second Nature. Around this time, multi-instrumentalist Vincent Hänni started collaborating with the band, eventually becoming a full member. In 2008, the band released Knock on Wood, which featured acoustic interpretations of their past material. The band paid homage to the original Woodstock festival at their 2009 Paléo Festival gig, scoring the documentary Woodstock live with samples from the original artists. Hänni was involved in the recording of the band's tenth studio album, 2010's Everybody Knows; the band sought an improvisation-oriented direction with the addition of a fourth member. The record was succeeded by live albums, Super Ready/Fragmenté Tour – Live at Rote Fabrik, Zürich and Griots and Gods – Live at Eurockéennes Festival, Belfort; the latter featured the live collaboration between the band and experimental hip hop duo Dälek at Eurockéennes 2007.

Pizzi's return and Data Mirage Tangram (2012–present)
Following the tour for Everybody Knows, Monod and Hänni departed the band in 2012. Treichler approached the band's former sampler player, Cesare Pizzi, who rejoined the band. The band toured in that year, performing tracks from the first two studio albums, The Young Gods and L'eau rouge, on which Pizzi had performed. The band also supplied original music for the animated short film, Kali the Little Vampire, which was released in that year.

In 2015, the band began working on new material. The album was inspired by their residency at Cully's Off Festival. The band performed to small crowds and regularly improvised; Treichler has started playing guitar. The resulting record, Data Mirage Tangram, was released in 2019. Mixed by Alan Moulder, the album was nominated for IMPALA's European Independent Album of the Year Award (2019). The band had approached Wax Trax! Records, which released their early work, for the record's North American release, which was turned down by the label. On 17 July 2020, the band released the accompanying live album, Data Mirage Tangram: Live at La Maroquinerie, Paris 2019 on Two Gentlemen.

In 2021, Treichler stated that the band has been working on a rendition of Terry Riley's In C, which the band has been performing live. In June 2022, the band announced their new record, Play Terry Riley In C, to be released on October 21, 2022.

Musical style and legacy
The Young Gods's sound has been described as industrial rock, industrial, avant-rock, post-industrial music and "sampledelic rock;" Treichler favours the term "electronic rock music." Since their early career, the band have used sampling as a compositional and performance tool, constructing tracks electronically with treated electric guitar samples, musique concrète, classical vignettes and electronica. Trouser Press remarked that The Young Gods's "unusual vocals/sampler/drums configuration reconstructs rock from the ground up, producing a fiery collage of roaring guitars, blistering rhythms and Wagnerian orchestras, all presided over by Franz Treichler's leering, guttural voice." Treichler has regarded "abstraction" and "element of surprise" as important factors for using the sampler, since they rendered the listeners to "the first time you're listening to music because you don't know what it is." He has cited 60s psychedelia, Einstürzende Neubauten, Kraftwerk, punk rock movement and post-punk acts such as Killing Joke and Wire as influences on The Young Gods. Kurt Weill, whose compositions were covered on 1991's The Young Gods Play Kurt Weill, is also an influence: Treichler has credited him as a model for the band's "experiments with music but still in a song format."

The band has infused various styles of music to their sound through sampling: 1987's The Young Gods made use of classical and metal guitar samples: the band have described their sound on this record as "new sonic architecture." Their second album, L'eau rouge, incorporated cabaret and chanson influences. 1995's Only Heaven delved into ambient territories while "being cherished equally by heavy metal, indie, techno and industrial"; the ambient elements were explored on instrumental albums such as Heaven Deconstruction. Focusing on synthesized, found sounds and computer plug-ins on 2000's Second Nature, The Young Gods also occasionally strayed away from their sampler-based formula: multi-instrumentalist Vincent Hänni was employed for the recording of Everybody Knows and the acoustic record Knock on Wood. Treichler also played the guitar on those albums and Data Mirage Tangram.

Treichler's lyrics are mostly sung in French and English. The Young Gods and L'eau rouge largely featured French vocals while 1992's T.V. Sky became the band's first English-language record. On the subsequent records Treichler mixed the two languages; in 2005, he stated: "I hope to find a solution in between. But they're very different to sing; they both have their rules." Lyricwise, Treichler often uses double entendres: the track "L'Amourir" from L'eau rouge can be interpreted as "an intense love song or the end of a love affair." The title track from L'eau rouge is regarded as "a celebration of 'red water' " and is a reference to menstruation. The track "Lucidogen" from Second Nature illustrates "a fictitious drug which would make people more clairvoyant" and was inspired by an anti-World Trade Organization riot that Treichler witnessed in Geneva in 1998. On The Sex Revolts: Gender, Rebellion and Rock 'n' Roll, authors Simon Reynolds and Joy Press argued: "Treichler's lyrics brought out all the militaristic, fascistic tendencies inherent in Romanticism, Nietzsche et al., only to transcend and transfigure them;" in a 1995 interview, Treichler dismissed Reynolds's and Press's Nietzschean interpretation of his lyrics.

David Bowie has cited the band as an influence when he was asked in 1995 if his record Outside was influenced by Nine Inch Nails, stating: "The band that I was actually quite taken with was three guys from Switzerland called the Young Gods... I'd been aware of them previous to knowing about Nine Inch Nails." Bowie further praised the band's approach in sampling and looping guitar riffs, which he tried to employ in his record. U2 guitarist The Edge namedropped the band as an influence on his soundtrack work for 1990 musical adaptation of A Clockwork Orange and 1991's Achtung Baby. Devin Townsend reported Only Heaven and Second Nature to be among his favourite albums. Other artists influenced by The Young Gods include Disco Inferno guitarist Ian Crause, Sepultura, Napalm Death, Mike Patton, Ministry, Nine Inch Nails, The Chemical Brothers, Kill the Thrill and Laika.

Members
Band members as adapted from the official website:
 * Current
 * Franz Treichler (aka Franz Muse) – vocals, sampler, computer, guitar (1985–present)
 * Cesare Pizzi (aka Ludan Dross) – sampler, computer (1985–1988, 2012–present)
 * Bernard Trontin – drums, electronics (1997–present)

 * Past
 * Frank Bagnoud (born Patrice Bagnoud) – drums (1985–1987)
 * Urs "Üse" Hiestand – drums (1987–1996)
 * Alain Monod (aka Al Comet) – sampler, keyboards, guitar (1989–2012)
 * Vincent Hänni – guitar, bass guitar, electronics (2006–2011)

Discography

 * The Young Gods (1987)
 * L'eau rouge (1989)
 * The Young Gods Play Kurt Weill (1991)
 * T.V. Sky (1992)
 * Only Heaven (1995)
 * Heaven Deconstruction (1996)
 * Second Nature (2000)
 * Music for Artificial Clouds (2004)
 * Super Ready/Fragmenté (2007)
 * Everybody Knows (2010)
 * Data Mirage Tangram (2019)
 * Play Terry Riley In C (2022)

title: The Young Gods


text:
For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge

For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge (often abbreviated as F.U.C.K.) is the ninth studio album by American rock band Van Halen. It was released on June 17, 1991, on Warner Bros. Records and is the third to feature vocalist Sammy Hagar. It debuted at number 1 on the Billboard 200 album chart and maintained the position for three consecutive weeks. The album marked a record in the band's history, seeing seven of its eleven tracks released as singles.

The album marked the first time the band had Ted Templeman working in a producer capacity since 1984, when David Lee Roth was still lead singer. He had, however, assisted in determining the track sequencing for the 1986 effort 5150.

The album was remastered by Donn Landee and released on October 6, 2023 as part of The Collection II; the four studio albums with Hagar, plus an extra disc of eight rarities from this era.

A 2 LP, 2 CD, Blu-ray Expanded Edition of the album was released on July 12, 2024. It included previously unreleased alternate versions "The Dream Is Over" as well as alternate single versions of "Right Now." It also included unreleased concert footage from the band's December 4, 1991, performance in Dallas, Texas captured during the “For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge Tour"

Title
The album's title came from lead singer Sammy Hagar, who wanted to push the issue of censorship by naming Van Halen's album with a vulgarity, stating, "That's when censorship was a big issue. I wanted to name the album just Fuck." Hagar eventually backed away from the outright vulgarity after he was told by his friend, former world lightweight boxing champion Ray "Boom Boom" Mancini, that the word "fuck" was an acronym for the phrase "for unlawful carnal knowledge" (though this is a false etymology). Their tour promoting the album was unofficially named F.U.C.K. 'n' Live. Prior to recording, the term "for unlawful carnal knowledge" was used by the band Coven as a track on their album Witchcraft Destroys Minds & Reaps Souls in 1969.

Recording
Van Halen started work on the album in March 1990 and finished in April 1991, two months before its release. The album itself was marketed as the "return" to Van Halen's hard rock roots, with most songs being guitar driven, and the synth sounds being replaced by pianos. The band also reconciled with producer Ted Templeman, who produced earlier Van Halen albums to return to work on the album. According to Eddie Van Halen, this happened because Hagar did not want to work with Andy Johns and Templeman let him "get away with everything." The year-long production led to the 'labored' sound.

This was the first album that Eddie recorded without his trademark Marshall Super Lead serving as the primary amplifier. The Marshall was fading, so he went with his 1989 Soldano SLO-100 to record the album primarily, though the Marshall was used sparingly. A prototype for what would become the Peavey 5150 series of custom amplifiers was also used. Peavey's release of the 5150 series coincided with the release of the album.

"Poundcake" featured the sound of a battery-operated power drill, which Eddie held to the pickups of his guitar and revved, creating the intro.

The instrumental "316" is named for the March 16, 1991, birthday of Eddie's son Wolfgang, who later went on to be Van Halen's last bass player, although the song predates his birth (as part of it was used by Eddie at the beginning of his guitar solo on tour, as seen on Live Without a Net, and was originally written for 5150). On Wolfgang's 25th birthday on March 16, 2016, his mother Valerie Bertinelli posted a photo on her Facebook page of her and Eddie during her pregnancy with the caption "Ed playing 316 on my growing tummy, before he knew he would call it 316" Eddie can be seen in the photo playing an acoustic guitar on top of Valerie's pregnant belly.

The song "Top of the World" features a riff that was first heard on a studio recording during the outro of the 1984-era hit "Jump". However on bootleg and official (but unreleased) recordings of Van Halen concerts during the original David Lee Roth era, the riff can sometimes be heard being played at the end of "Dance The Night Away", the most notable being at the end of 1983 Us Festival performance of the song. "Top of the World" was played directly after "Jump" on the For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge Tour and appears immediately after it on the Best of Both Worlds compilation.

Critical reception
Rolling Stone's John Milward rated the album two out of five stars, explaining that it "is so stuffed with zigzagging guitars and blustery vocals that it almost forgets to rock. Eddie Van Halen, who probably has more guitars than teeth, upends such a tackle box of hooks that they only start to surface after repeated listenings. Tasteful simplicity, which is never really simple at all, would have proved a better course to follow." He concluded that the guitars "are busier, the beats are heavier, and the fun is fleeting. Van Halen has chops to burn, but For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge, like its lumbering opening track and first single, 'Poundcake', is stale."

Gina Arnold of Entertainment Weekly gave the album a C and said, "It would be nice to believe that the acronym formed by the title of Van Halen's new, top-charting album was intended as a covert blow against censorship in America. Unfortunately, it's far more likely that the punny name merely indicates VH's love of the kind of bathroom talk that third graders think is funny. [...] For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge doesn't contain even one mind-numbingly catchy melody. Only 'Top of the World' and 'The Dream Is Over' come close to working up a truly fist-thrusting chorus, and the gist of the latter—'dream another dream, this dream is over'—may well be advice that Van Halen and their fans ought to take to heart."

In his Consumer Guide, Robert Christgau gave the album a "dud" rating.

A retrospective review by AllMusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine was mixed. He stated that the title "indicates the true nature of For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge [...] Backing away from the diversity of OU812, the band turns in some of the most basic, straightforward rock & roll of its career." However, he also stated that it was "undeniable that [Sammy Hagar's] limited vocal power had a great deal to do with the obvious nature of most of this music." He concluded that, even though the band continued to be tight and professional, the songwriting "is, by and large, undistinguished, with the anthemic 'Right Now' standing out as the most memorable song of the batch, mainly because of its incessant chorus."

Personnel
Van Halen
 * Sammy Hagar – lead vocals, guitar
 * Eddie Van Halen – guitars, keyboards, electric drill on "Poundcake", backing vocals
 * Michael Anthony – bass, backing vocals
 * Alex Van Halen – drums, percussion, backing vocals

Additional personnel
 * Steve Lukather – backing vocals on "Top of the World"

Production
 * Andy Johns – producer, engineer, mixing
 * Jeri Heiden – art direction
 * Lee Herschberg – engineer
 * Michael Scott – engineer, mixing
 * David Seltzer – photography
 * Ted Templeman – producer, mixing
 * Van Halen – producers
 * Glen Wexler – photography
 * Donn Landee – remastering (2023)

Awards
Grammy Award

title: For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge


text:
Lishipa tribe

The Lishipa is a tribal group found in the Dirang area in the West Kameng district of Arunachal Pradesh in India.

Origin
They are ethnically related to both the Chugpa and Monpa, in which they are officially classified as a tribe of the Monpa.

However, the relative affinity of their linguistic origins to the Sherdukpen, Sulung and Bugun that rendered their distinct identity from the Monpas. The tribe boasts about 1,000 individuals.

title: Lishipa tribe


text:
Craig Murray

Craig John Murray (born 17 October 1958) is a Scottish author, human rights campaigner,  journalist,   and former diplomat.

While he was the British ambassador to Uzbekistan (2002–2004), he exposed the violations of human rights in that country by the Karimov administration. This led to conflict with his superiors in the Foreign Office until finally he was removed from the post. Specifically, Murray lodged formal written complaints to his superiors stating that it was morally and legally wrong to obtain intelligence under torture and that intelligence received by the Secret Intelligence Service (and the US Central Intelligence Agency) from the Uzbek government was unreliable because it had been obtained through torture.

Subsequently he became a political activist, campaigning for human rights and for transparency in global politics as well as for the independence of Scotland. Between 2007 and 2010 he was the elected Rector of the University of Dundee.

His books include two memoirs, first about his time in Central Asia, Murder in Samarkand (2006), and then The Catholic Orangemen of Togo: and other Conflicts I Have Known (2009), about his early career years in West Africa; and a historical biography, Sikunder Burnes: Master of the Great Game (2016), about Alexander Burnes and the rivalry between the 19th century British and Russian Empires over influence in Asia.

Family and education
Murray was born in West Runton, Norfolk, to Robert Cameron Brunton Murray and Poppy Katherine Murray (Grice) and was raised in neighbouring Sheringham. His father, one of 13 children, had worked in the docks in Leith, Scotland, before joining the Royal Air Force. Murray was educated at Sheringham Primary and then at Paston School, an all-boys state grammar school in North Walsham in Norfolk, which he greatly disliked. He told John Crace in 2007 that pupils were obliged each week to don "military uniform and become cadets. Either I skipped school or refused to take part, so I was frequently suspended". His A-levels suffered as a result.

Murray became President of the East Anglian Federation of Young Liberals. Aged 16 he was elected to the National Council of the Liberal Party to represent the Eastern Region of England. At the University of Dundee, to which, Murray said, he barely gained admission to read Modern History, he "made a policy decision not to attend any lectures". Instead he "read voraciously" to teach himself, and graduated in 1982 with an MA (Hons) first class. He remained active in Liberal then Liberal Democrat politics, serving on the Students' Representative Council as an avowed liberal. Murray became President of Dundee University Students' Association, elected to this sabbatical office twice (1982–1983 and 1983–1984), an occurrence so unusual that the university court (the highest body) changed the rules to prevent him running a third time. He spent seven years in total at the university (he had to re-sit one year for not attending tutorials), compared with the four years for a Scottish first (honours) degree.

Early years in HM Diplomatic Service
Murray sat the 1984 Civil Service Open Competition exams in his second year as the Students' Association President because a woman he was interested in was also sitting them, although he had no interest in entering the civil service. Later, after he was told he was in the top three of his year, he chose the HM Diplomatic Service because "it seemed marginally more glamorous than anything else on offer".

Murray had a number of overseas postings with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) to Nigeria, Poland (in the 1990s, where he was first secretary heading the embassy's political and economic section) and Ghana. In London, he was appointed to the FCO's Southern European Department, as Cyprus desk officer, and later became head of the Maritime Section. In August 1991 he worked in the Embargo Surveillance Centre as the head of the FCO section. This job entailed monitoring the Iraqi government's attempts at smuggling weapons and circumventing sanctions. His group gave daily reports to Margaret Thatcher and John Major. In Murder in Samarkand, he describes how this experience led him to disbelieve the claims of the UK and US governments in 2002 about Iraqi WMDs.

Ambassador to Uzbekistan
Murray was appointed ambassador to Uzbekistan, at the age of 43, where he was formally in office from August 2002 to October 2004, when he was dismissed. He told Nick Paton Walsh, then with The Guardian, in July 2004 that "there is no point in having cocktail-party relationships with a fascist regime". In a 2005 University of York speech, Murray recounted that, about a fortnight after his arrival, he observed a court trial at which an elderly defendant said his statement about two of the other accused, nephews of his, had been made as he watched his children being tortured, and the claim the two men were associates of Osama bin Laden was entirely false.

Human rights
"In the middle of October" 2002, Nick Cohen wrote in The Observer, Murray "delivered a speech which broke with all the established principles of Foreign Office diplomacy". "The brave and honest ambassador", Cohen commented, spoke at a human rights conference hosted by Freedom House in Tashkent, although David Stern reported in January 2003 for EurasiaNet that other western officials had made similar comments. In the speech, Murray said that: "Uzbekistan is not a functioning democracy, nor does it appear to be moving in the direction of democracy. The major political parties are banned; Parliament is not subject to democratic election and checks and balances on the authority of the electorate are lacking. There is worse: we believe there to be between 7,000 and 10,000 people in detention whom we would consider as political and/or religious prisoners. In many cases they have been falsely convicted of crimes with which there appears to be no credible evidence they had any connection." Nick Paton Walsh wrote in The Guardian that "[t]he Foreign Office cleared the speech, but not without an acrimonious struggle over its content". Murray also said in his speech that the boiling to death of two men (reportedly members of Hizb ut-Tahrir ) was "not an isolated incident". A photograph of one of the men showed that his fingernails had been pulled out. The US ambassador John Herbst was present at the event and reportedly "livid" at Murray's speech. According to a report in The Sunday Times, Murray was advised by Whitehall not to antagonise the government in Tashkent any further. The Americans were said to have put pressure on the British government for Murray to tone down his comments. The then Secretary-General of the United Nations Kofi Annan confronted Uzbek President Islam Karimov with Murray's claims.

Murray was summoned to the FCO in London and, on 8 March 2003, was reprimanded for writing to his employers, in response to a speech by President of the United States George W. Bush criticising human rights violations by Saddam Hussein, that "when it comes to the Karimov regime, systematic torture and rape appear to be treated as peccadilloes, not to affect the relationship and to be downplayed in the international fora. Double standards? Yes". Murray believed the human rights abuses in Uzbekistan were worse than in Iraq in the run up to the invasion of Iraq, but that the latter was being invaded while the government of the former was being supported. In an internal document by Murray, later leaked to the Financial Times, he commented that Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) used intelligence provided by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) from the Uzbek authorities gained through torture. Murray wrote that "[t]orture dupes are forced to sign up to confessions showing what the Uzbek government wants the US and UK to believe". "It is morally, legally and practically wrong to continue to receive this material. It is hypocritical and fatally undermines our moral standing", he wrote in a July 2004 dispatch. Murray denied being responsible for the leaks.

According to Murray, the Uzbek government overstated the activities of local militants and their connections to Al-Qaeda. He later wrote in The Washington Post that the material from the CIA "revealed the same pattern of information" as the "forced confessions" of which he had become aware. In October 2004, the British government said neither it, nor the intelligence agencies, had ever used torture or encouraged others to so on its behalf. A later enquiry by The Washington Post, in connection with an interview with Murray, did not indicate the British had instituted an "absolute ban" on using information gained via torture. According to Murray, in March 2003 the Foreign Office legal team told him there was nothing to prevent their use of information gained by the Uzbeks using these methods.

Disciplinary charges
Some of the embassy staff were sacked in July 2003 while Murray was away on holiday. They were reinstated after he expressed his outrage to the FCO. Later during the same holiday he was recalled to London for disciplinary reasons. He was confronted with 18 charges on 21 August 2003. These included "hiring dolly birds [pretty young women] for above the usual rate" for the visa department, although Murray said that the department had an all-male staff, and Murray was accused of granting British visas to Uzbek women in exchange for sex in his office. The FCO gave him a week to resign and told him that discussing the charges would be a violation of the Official Secrets Act 1989. Representatives of the US embassy in Tashkent and the British Foreign Office later denied the US government had any involvement in Murray being recalled to London. However, a "local analyst" in Tashkent told Nick Paton Walsh that Murray and the US ambassador John Herbst (who left his Uzbekistan post in 2003) were regularly in heated disagreement.

Murray collapsed during a medical check in Tashkent on 2 September 2003 and was airlifted to St Thomas' Hospital in London. He was treated in hospital for depression having seriously considered taking his own life. After an FCO internal inquiry conducted by Tony Crombie, Head of the FCO's Overseas Territories Department, all but two of the charges (being drunk at work and misusing the embassy's Land Rover) were dropped. The charges were leaked to the press in October 2003. Murray returned to work in mid-November 2003. Only a few days after his return to Uzbekistan, Murray suffered another health crisis and was again flown back to London for medical treatment for what turned out to have been a near-fatal pulmonary embolism on a lung.

Around the same time, a group of more than a dozen British expatriates in Tashkent, including businessmen, wrote to the Foreign Secretary Jack Straw defending Murray as an advocate for inward British trade. One of the co-signers of the letter said there was a "common belief that Mr Murray is being sacrificed to the Americans". Members of Ozod Ovoz (Free Voice), an Uzbeki free speech group, pleaded with Prime Minister Tony Blair and US President Bush for Murray to remain in his post as he was "an example for other ambassadors". Murray's stance was also supported by Clare Short, Secretary of State for International Development until her resignation in May 2003, and Daniel Hannan, the Conservative Member of the European Parliament (MEP).

The FCO exonerated Murray of all 18 charges in January 2004 after a four-month investigation but reprimanded him for speaking about them. Speaking in the House of Commons, the Foreign Office Minister Bill Rammell said the government "endorse his comments about the human rights situation in Uzbekistan".

Removal from post
Murray was removed from his post in October 2004, shortly after the Financial Times leak which, Murray later told Amy Goodman, he thought had been leaked by the British government to incriminate him.

The FCO denied any direct connection and stated that Murray had been suspended for disciplinary reasons after he gave a series of media interviews criticising the FCO. He was suspended, amid claims that he had lost the confidence of senior officials and colleagues. The following day, in an interview on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Murray countered that he was a "victim of conscience", although he did not then believe the Americans were involved. A week later he was accused of "gross misconduct" by the FCO. A spokesman said "He is suspended on full pay pending an investigation into his conduct. I think it is more what he said than giving interviews" to the media. In February 2005, Murray took a severance package from the FCO, most of which was used to pay tax and fund his divorce.

A later report by European investigators found that Uzbekistan was used as a base in the US programme of extraordinary rendition during the War in Afghanistan (the neighbouring country) and Iraq, which remained secret during Murray's time in the country, because such countries were tolerant of the use of torture. Speaking to Kevin Sullivan of The Washington Post in January 2008, Murray gave this as a reason why the response to his revelations was so "ferocious".

Alisher Usmanov affair
In September 2007, shortly after Alisher Usmanov's investment in Arsenal Football Club, Murray blogged about the character of Usmanov, a Russian multi-billionaire whom Forbes magazine had identified as the 142nd wealthiest person in the world. Murray had written two "quite highly classified" telegrams about Usmanov's influence and commercial dealings to the Foreign Office in 2002 and 2004 while he was ambassador in Uzbekistan. Usmanov's solicitors, Schillings, requested that the hosting company Fasthosts delete the material from Murray's blog. As a result, the server that hosted Murray's blog was permanently closed by the hosting company Fasthosts on 20 September 2007, an action which resulted in unintended deletion of other sites, including the blog by Boris Johnson.

An attempt to release the Foreign Office documents, including Murray's telegrams, was made by Jeremy Corbyn, then a backbench Labour MP, in whose constituency Arsenal is based. In late October 2007, Jim Murphy, then minister for Europe, refused to release the documents on data protection grounds.

University career
Murray was elected to the position of Rector of the University of Dundee, his alma mater, on 16 February 2007. The other nominee was former British Lion and Scotland rugby captain Andy Nicol. Murray opposed the cuts to University departments and services which were proposed. He remained in the post until 2010.

Entrepreneurial activities
As of 2009, Murray was executive chairman of Atholl Energy Ltd and chairman of Westminster Development Ltd, a gold mining company, both operating in Accra, Ghana.

Political activities
Murray remained a member of the Liberal Democrats until 2005. He continued to oppose the War on Terror.

He stood for election to the House of Commons three times. At the May 2005 general election he stood as an independent, in Blackburn, Lancashire, against his former boss, Jack Straw, then the MP for the constituency. He polled 2,082 votes (5.0%) and came fifth out of seven candidates.

Following the United Kingdom parliamentary expenses scandal, Murray stood for election in the July 2009 Norwich North by-election under the slogan "Put an honest man into Parliament". He polled 953 votes (2.77%), which placed him sixth out of the twelve candidates.

Murray rejoined the Liberal Democrats, according to his blog entry on 22 March 2010. By September 2011, he had left the Liberal Democrats again, as he objected to policies pursued by the coalition government, and joined the Scottish National Party.

Murray supported the "Yes" campaign in the 2014 Scottish independence referendum. Following his failed bid for SNP nomination, Murray resigned from the SNP in March 2016 "to campaign for Scottish Independence" in the 2017 parliamentary election.

In the 2021 Scottish Parliament election, Murray was chosen as the main candidate for Action for Independence in the Lothian region. However, Murray and the other Action for Independence candidates stood down to support Alex Salmond, who launched the Alba Party.

In an April 2023 blog post titled "So Now Who Do We Vote For?", Murray advocated supporting the Alba Party in Scotland, the Green Party in England, Plaid Cymru in Wales and Sinn Féin in Northern Ireland.

Investigative reporting
In 2011–2012, Murray exposed four undisclosed meetings that took place from September 2009 between Britain's then defence minister Liam Fox, Fox’s friend Adam Werritty and the UK Ambassador to Israel Matthew Gould in Tel Aviv, possibly to promote a pro-Israel or anti-Iran foreign policy outside the control of the UK Foreign Office.

Scepticism about Salisbury poisoning
Murray questioned the official UK government account of the Skripal poisoning in Salisbury, March 2018, writing on his blog that Israeli security services were more likely to be behind the poisoning than Russia and that, while Russia lacked a motive, "Israel has a clear motivation for damaging the Russian reputation". This contributed to The Times and others writing that he had promoted conspiracy theories. Murray, who had visited the former chemical site at Nukus, Uzbekistan, where novichok was manufactured, stated that Russia's stocks had been dismantled with US assistance. He said "anyone who expresses scepticism" about Russian involvement in the poisoning "is seen as an enemy of the state". In September 2018, Murray claimed in a blog post that the photos issued by the Metropolitan Police of the suspects in the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal were "impossible" because they depicted the two suspects at the same place at the same time. A Metropolitan Police spokesperson confirmed that the photographs "of two suspects at Gatwick are taken from two different cameras covering separate lanes at the point passengers exit from international arrivals". Murray retracted his claim, corrected his post and added a note that "it is good to acknowledge mistakes".

Relationship with Julian Assange and WikiLeaks
In December 2016, The Guardian and Daily Mail reported that Craig Murray said that the leak of Democratic National Committee (DNC) and Hillary Clinton campaign emails before the US 2016 presidential election was the work of a DNC insider. Murray told the Daily Mail that in September 2016 he had met the leaker, who was handing off the documents on behalf of someone with "legal access" to both the DNC and Podesta emails. According to Snopes, this contradicted the conclusion of American security services that the Russian authorities had hacked the DNC and Clinton servers. Assange responded to the claim by saying that "Craig Murray is not authorized to talk on behalf of WikiLeaks." According to The Nation, the alleged meeting reported by the Daily Mail "supposedly happened in September 2016, long after WikiLeaks published the Guccifer 2.0–linked DNC e-mails, which surfaced months earlier."

Murray was one of few people granted access to Julian Assange's extradition hearing which started in the Old Bailey on 7 September 2020. He published detailed reports of each day's proceedings on his website. He was invited to Assange and Stella Moris' wedding at Belmarsh Prison in March 2022. The UK Ministry of Justice said it had barred Murray from attending due to security concerns. It had initially said that Murray had not been invited. Murray said his ban was aimed at isolating Assange.

Alex Salmond trial and contempt of court charge
Murray attended two days of Alex Salmond's trial in 2020 and wrote about the court proceedings on his blog and on Twitter. He alleged that the Scottish National Party leadership, the Scottish government, the Crown Office and police conspired to convict Salmond on charges of sexual harassment and attempted rape.

The judge in the case, Lady Dorrian, had issued an order forbidding the publication of the names of the women who testified against Salmond, or other information that might identify them. In March 2021, she found Murray to be in contempt of court after he published information that in her view could potentially lead to identifying some of the complainants, and sentenced him to eight months' imprisonment. In June 2021, she refused Murray's application for permission to appeal to the Supreme Court, saying that there were "no arguable points of law arising" in his appeal.

Murray appealed directly to the Supreme Court but his application was refused on 29 July 2021. Murray announced that he would appeal to the European Court of Human Rights and surrendered himself to the police on 1 August 2021. Alba Party MP Kenny MacAskill called Murray's sentencing "vindictive and a sad day for Scottish justice".

Murray was released on 30 November 2021, after serving half of his eight month sentence. In March 2022, the Appeal Court of the High Court of Justiciary refused his petition to quash the finding of contempt along with the prison sentence.

Workers Party of Britain
In March 2024, Murray was selected as the Workers Party of Britain candidate for the Blackburn constituency at the 2024 general election.

Personal life
Murray married his first wife, Fiona Ann Kennedy, in 1984. They had two children before separating in 2004. Murray married Nadira Alieva, an Uzbek woman, on 6 May 2009. They have two sons.

He is a friend of Peter Oborne, who described him as "one of the greatest truth-tellers of our time" and said that "Apart from Julian Assange, no one has done more to expose coalition crimes during the War on Terror."

In November 2023 Murray's Twitter account was hacked.

Murder in Samarkand
Murray's book Murder in Samarkand – A British Ambassador's Controversial Defiance of Tyranny in the War on Terror (2006) is a memoir about his time as an ambassador.

In December 2005, Murray published confidential memos on his website, which had been officially removed from the text when Murder in Samarkand was submitted for checking. He had initially acceded to these cuts. According to Murray, the British government "refused to clear it" uncut. The Foreign Office, after publication was announced, "said that they wouldn't seek to prevent publication but that they may act against it later".

The British government claimed copyright over the documents in July 2006, saying they were "damaging to the national interest" and demanding they be removed. In response, Murray deleted some of the material.
 * (US edition of Murder in Samarkand)
 * (US edition of Murder in Samarkand)
 * (US edition of Murder in Samarkand)

Murray's biography of Alexander Burnes, first published in 2016, was reviewed favourably in a number of academic journals, including the historical and area studies journals Asian Affairs and Central Asian Survey.

Awards

 * January 2006: the Sam Adams Award for Integrity in Intelligence, in recognition of his campaigning work on torture and human rights
 * November 2006: the Premio Alta Qualità della Città di Bologna

Murray has turned down three honours from Queen Elizabeth, saying letters after his name are "not his thing".

Portrayals in fiction
Murray's life featured in a show by Nadira Alieva, The British Ambassador's Bellydancer, initially presented in 2007 at the Arcola Theatre in Hackney, later moving to London's West End.

Robin Soans used an interview with Murray and Alieva as a character for his verbatim-style play Talking to Terrorists which had a successful run at the Royal Court Theatre and has since been produced worldwide. Soans used Murray again as a verbatim character in his later play Life After Scandal in which Murray "tells of how scandal was used against him when the government wanted to undermine his claims about humanitarian disasters".

On 20 February 2010 BBC Radio Four broadcast a radio play Murder in Samarkand, written by Sir David Hare and directed by Clive Brill, based on Murray's book. The play, with David Tennant portraying Craig Murray, was nominated for best drama at the Sony Radio Academy Awards 2011 and had positive reviews.

title: Craig Murray