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Baldoyle

Baldoyle is a coastal suburb of Dublin's northside. It is located in the southeastern part of the jurisdiction of Fingal, Ireland, developed from a former fishing village.

Baldoyle is also a civil parish in the barony of Coolock within the traditional County Dublin.

Location and access
Baldoyle is located northeast of the city, and borders Donaghmede, which was formed from its western part, Portmarnock, Sutton and Bayside. It can be accessed from the coast road from Dublin to Howth, which includes a cycle track, from Sutton Cross via Station Road, or from Donaghmede, or Portmarnock.

Baldoyle is served by Dublin Bus and Irish Rail, the latter currently via the Sutton and Bayside stations on the Howth Branch of the DART, and by Clongriffin station on the Northern Branch, which is also the Dublin-Belfast main line. The railway line functions as the western boundary of the area.

Baldoyle is also served by Dublin Bus routes H1 (Baldoyle to City Centre) and H2 (Malahide to City Centre via Portmarnock)

Areas neighbouring Baldoyle are Sutton, Bayside, Portmarnock and Donaghmede, including Clongriffin.

Geography
Baldoyle is mostly level coastal plains, with the Mayne River passing under the railway line through a bridge structure known as the "Red Arches" and crossing in its northern parts, and coming to the sea. This river takes in the Grange Stream from Donaghmede, and other tributaries, notably the Seagrange Park Stream from the south and a small tributary from the Clongriffin estate to the west. The Mayne has, and some of its tributaries had, a history of flooding. A boy drowned in 1993 in the Seagrange Park Stream, when it was being culverted. This stream had once run south to the sea at Kilbarrack Road but was diverted to the Mayne.

A major townland of Baldoyle, encompassing much of what is now Donaghmede, is Grange, indicating that it was previously farmland.

Etymology
The district name derives from baile meaning "town" and dubh-ghaill meaning "dark (-haired) stranger", the name given by the Gaels to the Danes to distinguish them from the Norwegians or "fair (-haired) strangers" (finn-ghaill) who first settled in Ireland in 841–842. While it is sometimes rendered as "Doyle's town" with reference to the personal name Doyle which itself derives from dubh-ghaill, there is no evidence for this usage.

Features and Development
Baldoyle village today has a coastal main street, with a Roman Catholic church, a community hall, a modern county library branch with sea views, and some shops and pubs. Slightly inland, among the older suburban houses, is a small shopping precinct containing a Lidl supermarket, a football club, another Roman Catholic church, and other amenities. On the approach from the coast road is a well-known pub, the Elphin.

Many businesses in the area are represented by the Howth Sutton Baldoyle Chamber of Commerce.

Baldoyle Industrial Estate
On Grange Road towards Donaghmede is a light industrial estate, with more than forty businesses and the local An Post sorting and delivery office. Businesses located there include major generic pharmaceuticals player Mylan, the largest tenant of the estate, Irish Papers, Grange Builders Providers, Ferrum Trading Co Ltd Steel Stockholders, Poolbeg Press, Curtis & Lees, Ireland's Eye Knitwear, Grange Electrical Wholesalers, Baldoyle Print and Forest Tosara, producers of Sudocrem (invented in Dublin).

Housing developments
In the 20th and 21st centuries, Baldoyle has been at the centre of a large housebuilding programme, with the former racecourse having been sold to developers. The new developments have begun, as "The Coast", facing a new local centre at the northern edge of Donaghmede, Clongriffin. Clongriffin Dart station opened in April 2010 serving Baldoyle and racecourse developments such as "The Coast", and northern Donaghmede.

Parks
Seagrange Park is a public park that includes a modern playground and sports pitches. A new public park was to be built on part of the former racecourse lands, including a wildlife or nature park, and while this is still pending, a community garden is maintained on part of those lands.

Christian Brothers
Among the local residents are the retired members of the Congregation of Christian Brothers, whose retirement home, St. Patricks, is located in the town. There is a graveyard where approx 1000 members of the Christian Brothers are buried. St. Josephs, Baldoyle was formerly the site of the Christian Brothers Training School.

Education
In the centre of the village is a secondary school for girls, St. Mary's, while further inland is a large co-educational secondary school, Pobalscoil Neasáin. There is a co-educational primary school, St. Laurence's National School, catering for children aged 4–12, and with junior and senior buildings. Formerly St. Peter and Paul's BNS and St. Mary's GNS, the schools amalgamated at the beginning of the 2013/2014 school year to become St. Laurence's National School. Junior Infants to 2nd Class pupils attend the junior school in the Grange Road campus (the former girls' school), while 3rd Class to 6th Class pupils attend the senior school in the Brookstone Road campus (the former boys' school). Both buildings are within minutes of each other. Also in the village area is a special needs primary school run by St. Micheals house.

Religion
Baldoyle is a parish in the Howth deanery of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Dublin.

History
Baldoyle with its sheltered waterside location, was a Viking base for many years, eventually razed by an attack by the King of Leinster in 1012. However, it remained under Danish control under the arrival of the Anglo-Normans, when the last Danish chieftain, Hamund McTorkaill, was overthrown. The lands of Baldoyle were later presented to the Priory of All Hallows, which had been founded by Diarmaid mac Murchadha in 1150, on the site that is now Trinity College Dublin. The monks built the Grange Church, now known as Grange Abbey, which now lies in Donaghmede. By the 1500s, the area owned by the Priory at Baldoyle included gardens, arable land, pasture, a meadow, a copse, a warren, and woodland. The Priory lost the lands in 1536, during the dissolution of the monasteries when Henry VIII granted the lands to the Dublin Corporation. By 1630, Grange Abbey was in ruins, but the associated graveyard was used into the 1700s.

During the 1600s, there was an hostelry or inn in Baldoyle, which is recounted in one of the oldest hunting songs recorded from Ireland concerning Michael St Lawrence and a hunting party who went to Baldoyle after a day of hunting. The manuscript of the song is held in the Sloan manuscripts of the British Museum. During the 1700s, Jonathan Swift was a frequent visitor to Baldoyle, who had a number of friends who lived in the area, including at Grange House.

A description of Baldoyle from Lewis's Topographical Dictionary of Ireland (Dublin, 1837) gives a useful summary of what was then a substantial rural fishing village: "The village is pleasantly situated on an inlet or creek of the Irish Sea, to the north of the low isthmus that connects Howth, with the mainland: it comprises about 200 houses, and is much frequented in summer for sea-bathing. Some of the inhabitants are engaged in the fishery, which at the commencement of the present century employed nine wherries belonging to this place, averaging seven or eight men each; at present nearly 100 men are so, engaged. Sir W. de Windsor, lord-justice of Ireland, held a parliament here in 1369. The creek is formed between the mainland and the long tract of sand on the north of Howth, at the point of which, near that port, a white buoy is placed; it is fit only for small craft. The manor was granted to the priory of All Saints, Dublin, by Diarmit, the son of Murchard, King of Leinster, who founded that house in 1166."

The parliament mentioned above was held at Grange Church, which was partly restored in the late 20th century after a period of neglect. At that time the area had a population of 1208, of whom 1009 lived in the village, and the lands belonged entirely to Dublin Corporation. There were three "big houses" viz Grange Lodge, Donaghmede House and Talavera, a police station and a coast guard base, and both a parish school and a hedge school, and at least one holy well.

At the turn of the 20th century, Baldoyle was still primarily a fishing village, with 9 fishing wherries. The small harbour also received coal shipments. At this time, Baldoyle was also a popular bathing spot, and attracted visitors. James Warren, allegedly Ireland's oldest man, died in Baldoyle in 1887 at age 167.

The new district of Donaghmede, comprising perhaps six major housing development areas and a commercial and social core, was "carved out" of Baldoyle's inland lands, along with a little of Coolock, and some places often described as part of Raheny, in the 1960s and 1970s; it now has a population considerably greater than that of Baldoyle.

Baldoyle Racecourse
For most of the 20th century, Baldoyle was well known for its racecourse, which was one of three in the Dublin metropolitan area (and for a period the only one). Open land in the village had been an informal venue for horse races in the early nineteenth century, and annual race meetings at the site were proposed in 1842 at the same time as the closure of the Howth Park Racecourse in nearby Sutton and Howth. A new enclosed course was opened in May 1874, which continued in regular use for almost a century, until it was closed in August 1972 due to financial difficulties related to the potential costs of necessary renovations.

The year after closure, on 31 October 1973, one of the most spectacular and audacious escapes from an Irish prison took place when three of the Provisional IRA's key personnel were airlifted to freedom in a hijacked helicopter from Mountjoy Prison. The helicopter touched down at the disused racecourse where the IRA members escaped in waiting cars.

For several years during the 1960s, Baldoyle Racecourse became the destination for annual sponsored charity walks, which were intended to raise funds for the Central Remedial Clinic.

Football
Baldoyle is home to Baldoyle United FC, with teams in the NDSL, MGL and Leinster Senior League, and principal facilities at Brookstone Road. Games are also played at Racecourse Park and Seagrange Road, Baldoyle. There were for a short period two clubs, Baldoyle United and Grange United, which merged in 2015. A combined name, Baldoyle Grange United, was announced for the senior team but the remaining activity was continued as simple Baldoyle United. Since 2017 all teams play as Baldoyle United FC.

Baldoyle United has over 25 teams at schoolboy, schoolgirl and adult levels. In 2016 it won the FAI Community Club of the Year and also Fingal County Council's Community Group of the Year.

GAA
Na Dubh Ghall are the local GAA club and have teams across all age groups catering for both girls and boys, and play at Racecourse Park.

Badminton
Baldoyle has a dedicated badminton centre on Grange Road, one of the two centres of Leinster Badminton, with eight courts. There is an active local club, Baldoyle District Badminton Club, based there, and it is also used substantially by several other clubs, including two from Raheny.

Notable people

 * Robbie Brady, Irish international association footballer
 * Nicky Byrne, singer
 * James Chambers footballer for Bethlehem Steel
 * Edward Fitz-Symon of Grange Abbey, Elizabethan judge
 * Erica-Cody, Irish R&B singer-songwriter
 * Willie Nolan, Irish golfer, Willie Nolan Road in Baldoyle takes his name.
 * Jennifer Zamparelli, Irish comedian and television presenter

title: Baldoyle


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Wilbur Dartnell

William Thomas Dartnell, VC (6 April 1885 – 3 September 1915), also known as Wilbur Taylor Dartnell, was an Australian-born soldier, actor and a recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces. Born in Melbourne, he served in the Second Boer War as a teenager and later in the Bambatha Rebellion of 1906. He married, managed his own business and worked as a professional actor before immigrating to South Africa in 1912 or 1913.

Dartnell offered his services to the British Army on the outbreak of the First World War, and was commissioned into the 25th (Frontiersmen) Battalion, Royal Fusiliers in February 1915. He fought in the East African Campaign and was mentioned in despatches for the Battle of Bukoba, where he had stormed the German-held town hall, pulled down the German flag and replaced it with the Union Jack. On 3 September 1915, after his company had been ambushed and despite being wounded, Dartnell voluntarily stayed behind in an attempt to save the lives of wounded men as the remainder of the British force retired from the scene. Dartnell was killed in the attempt, but in recognition of his determination and sacrifice he was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross.

Early life
William Thomas Dartnell was born in the Melbourne suburb of Collingwood on 6 April 1885 to Henry Dartnell, an English-born fruiterer, and his Australian wife Rose Ann (née Hanley). He was brought up in Melbourne and, after leaving school, became an actor. In 1900, at the age of 15, Dartnell joined the Victorian Mounted Rifles, a part-time colonial militia unit. The regiment was mobilised as the 5th Victorian (Mounted Rifles) Contingent in early 1901 for service in the Second Boer War, and embarked for South Africa on 15 February. Arriving in Port Elizabeth the following month, Dartnell saw service in the Cape Colony and Orange Free State over the next twelve months and was wounded on 6 April—his 16th birthday. The Mounted Rifles returned to Australia in March 1902, and Dartnell was demobilised soon thereafter. He later returned to South Africa, and served as part of Royston's Horse during the Bambatha Rebellion in Natal in 1906. For his service in these two campaigns Dartnell was issued the Queen's South Africa Medal with "Cape Colony" and "Orange Free State" clasps, the King's South Africa Medal with the clasps "South Africa 1901" and "South Africa 1902", and the Natal Native Rebellion Medal with "1906" clasp.

After he returned to Australia, Dartnell married Elizabeth Edith Smyth on 15 April 1907 at Holt's Matrimonial Agency on Queen Street, Melbourne. They settled in Fitzroy, and had a daughter in 1908. Little is known about Dartnell's life over the next few years, though it is thought that he managed his own business and worked as an actor until 1912 or 1913, when he again departed for South Africa. Elizabeth and their daughter remained in Victoria, while Dartnell established himself in East London, a coastal city in the Cape Province. He found employment with the Standard Printing Company, and was a regular contributor to their Saturday newspaper, the Weekly Standard. During this period, he started using the name Wilbur Taylor Dartnell and, according to historian Gerald Gliddon, became engaged to another woman, a Mabel Evans.

First World War
After the outbreak of the First World War, Dartnell organised and chaired a meeting of Australians in East London who were willing to serve the British Empire. He cabled the War Office with a list of interested names (including his own), offered their services and requested passage to England in order to enlist. The request was evidently approved, as the group embarked for Britain in late September 1914. Using his assumed name, Dartnell joined the Legion of Frontiersmen and was subsequently commissioned as a temporary second lieutenant in the 25th (Frontiersmen) Battalion, Royal Fusiliers on 12 February 1915. As the "Frontiersmen" designation may suggest, the 25th Battalion "included men of various ages and with strange experience from all quarters of the globe", according to the regimental history. The battalion had been specifically raised to operate from British East Africa against Germany's neighbouring colonial possessions, and was reputedly the only British unit "sent on active service during the war without preliminary training". The 25th embarked from Plymouth for Mombasa on 10 April, less than two months after it had been raised. Dartnell had spent the intervening time stationed in Swaythling, and had made a number of trips to Belgium ferrying drafts of artillery horses to the Western Front.

The 25th Battalion arrived in Mombasa on 4 May, and was immediately dispatched to Kajiado to defend the local section of the Uganda Railway from German raiding parties. Being a strategic rail line, it had been subject to frequent guerrilla-style attacks since the declaration of war. In June, Dartnell took part in the attack on the German fort and wireless station at Bukoba; the base for German raids on the Ugandan frontier. The assault party, numbering approximately 400, had had to sail across Lake Victoria and scale a "cliff-like incline" before they reached the outskirts of Bukoba to commence their attack on 21 June. The British and German forces wrested for control of the town for two days before the raiding party was able to seize the wireless station and town hall. In the final assault, Dartnell had been the first to enter the German-held town hall, and had hauled down the German flag to replace it with the Union Jack. Dartnell's actions were later recognised with a mention in despatches. He was also reportedly recommended for the Distinguished Service Order for his performance in the battle, but this was not awarded. He was, however, promoted to temporary lieutenant on 25 July.

Victoria Cross
Shortly after the victory at Bukoba, the 25th Battalion moved to Voi where a military railway was being constructed for an allied advance into German East Africa. The battalion was employed in protection duties during this time, while two mounted infantry companies were formed in August by drawing upon the unit and the 2nd Battalion, Loyal North Lancashire Regiment to patrol the frontier around Maktau, 40 km to Voi's east. Dartnell was assigned the command of a section within one of the companies.

On 3 September, word came through that a German raiding party was in the vicinity of Maktau. A counter force of 117 men was raised from Dartnell's company with Captain John Woodruffe in command, and sent to intercept the German troops. The British force, however, was ambushed by a German party approximately 200 strong, which included a number of native Askari soldiers. Casualties were high, and the situation soon descended into chaos. Woodruffe, by this time badly wounded and concerned that his men were becoming surrounded, ordered that the wounded be quickly withdrawn so that the remainder of the force could retire. However, given the intensity of the firefight and the limited resources available, the grievously wounded could not be moved. Dartnell had been wounded in the leg and was being carried away to safety when he realised the situation. Fearing what the Askari would do to the British wounded, he demanded to remain and fight. Though twice instructed to leave, Dartnell refused and gave the order for his men to abandon him. Dartnell was last seen firing on the German troops, who were within 25 m of his position. When his body was recovered several hours later, it was surrounded by seven dead German soldiers.

Legacy
Dartnell's determination and sacrifice during his last battle was posthumously recognised with the award of the Victoria Cross (VC). The announcement and accompanying citation for the medal was published in a supplement to the London Gazette on 23 December 1915, reading:

"War Office, 23rd December 1915.

His Majesty the KING has been graciously pleased to award the Victoria Cross to the undermentioned Officers: —

Temporary Lieutenant Wilbur Dartnell, late 25th (Service) Battalion (Frontiersmen), The Royal Fusiliers (City of London Regiment).

For most conspicuous bravery near Maktau (East Africa) on 3rd September, 1915.

During a mounted infantry engagement the enemy got within a few yards of our men, and it was found impossible to get the more severely wounded away. Lieutenant Dartnell, who was himself being carried away wounded in the leg, seeing the situation, and knowing that the enemy's black troops murdered the wounded, insisted on being left behind in the hopes of being able to save the lives of the other wounded men.

He gave his own life in the gallant attempt to save others."

Dartnell was one of four personnel to receive the VC in the East African Campaign. He and seven of the other British troops killed in the ambush were initially buried at Maktau Military Cemetery, but were later reinterred in the Commonwealth War Grave Cemetery at Voi. His military effects were sold off in October and the proceeds sent to his fiancée Mabel, whom Dartnell had named in his will. But the funds were later claimed by his widow. Elizabeth Dartnell received her husband's VC from Sir Ronald Munro Ferguson, the Governor-General of Australia, in a private ceremony at Government House, Melbourne on 7 October 1916. Sir Arthur Stanley, the Governor of Victoria, and Sir Edmund Barton, a justice of the High Court and a former Prime Minister of Australia, were also in attendance. Elizabeth, who was living with her daughter in the Melbourne suburb of Murrumbeena at the time, later named her house "Maktau" after the place of her husband's actions and death, and was later invited to the VC centenary celebrations in London in 1956.

Dartnell's status as a professional actor was not forgotten. Several newspaper reports after his death postulated whether his VC was the first awarded to an actor,  and he is commemorated on a plaque in the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. Dartnell Street in Canberra is also named for him, while the German flag he captured at Bukoba is in the collection of the Royal Fusiliers headquarters in London. In 1981 Dartnell's VC and other medals were sold at a Sotheby's auction to Spink & Son for A$24,000. The auction house held the medals for little more than two years before auctioning them off again in 1983 for A$36,000. The buyer donated the set to the Australian War Memorial, where they are displayed in the Hall of Valour.

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title: Wilbur Dartnell


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Danny Lyon

Danny Lyon (born March 16, 1942) is an American photographer and filmmaker.

All of Lyon's publications work in the style of photographic New Journalism, meaning that the photographer has become immersed in, and is a participant of, the documented subject. He is the founding member of the publishing group Bleak Beauty.

After being accepted as the photographer for Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Lyon was present at almost all of the major historical events during the Civil Rights Movement.

He has had solo exhibits at the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Menil Collection, the M. H. de Young Memorial Museum in San Francisco and the Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona. Lyon twice received a Guggenheim Fellowship; a Rockefeller Fellowship, Missouri Honor Medal for Distinguished Service in Journalism; and a Lucie Award.

Early life
Lyon was born in 1942 in Brooklyn, New York and is the son of Russian-Jewish mother Rebecca Henkin and German-Jewish father Dr. Ernst Fredrick Lyon. He was raised in Kew Gardens, Queens, and went on to study history and philosophy at the University of Chicago, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1963.

Civil rights work
Lyon began his involvement in the civil rights movement in 1962 when he hitch-hiked to Cairo, Illinois during a summer break after his junior year at the University of Chicago. He was inspired by a speech John Lewis had given at a church on his first day in Cairo. After his speech Lewis left to go attend a sit-in, Lyon was impressed by this, Lewis was putting action behind his words. Lyon then decided to march to a nearby segregated swimming pool, the demonstrators knelt down to pray as the pool-goers heckled them. Soon a truck came, it went through the crowd in an attempt to break it up, a young black girl was hit by the truck and Lyon knew that he wanted to be a part of the movement. For a time after this, in the 1960s, Lewis and Lyon were roommates.

In September 1962, with a $300 donation by Harry Belafonte, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) flew Lyon to Jackson and the Mississippi Delta to cover voter registration workers. Shortly after, Lyon had a run-in with the police, one of whom threatened to kill him because when told they “didn’t mix the races down here”, Lyon claimed he had a Black grandfather. Lyon left town in order to keep all the pictures he had taken safe from being confiscated.

In 1963 Lyon returned, but the SNCC was reluctant to bring him aboard as their photographer. One job Lyon participated in was getting a picture of some high-school girls who were in prison at the Leesburg Stockade without any charges against them. He hid in the back of a car while someone else drove him to the prison, and the young man who drove distracted the guards while Lyon snuck in the back to get the photo.

After being accepted as the photographer for SNCC, Lyon was present at almost all of the major historical events during the movement capturing the moments with his camera.

His pictures appeared in The Movement: documentary of a struggle for equality, a documentary book about the Civil Rights Movement in the southern region of the United States.

Later work
Later, Lyon began creating his own books. His first was a study of outlaw motorcyclists in the collection The Bikeriders (1968), where Lyon photographed, traveled with and shared the lifestyle of bikers in the American Midwest from 1963 to 1967. Living in a rented apartment in Woodlawn, Chicago, Lyon followed the Chicago chapter of the Outlaws Motorcycle Club in an "attempt to record and glorify the life of the American bikerider". Seeking advice from Hunter S. Thompson, who spent a year with the Hells Angels for his own book, Hell's Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs, Thompson warned Lyon that he should "get the hell out of that club unless it's absolutely necessary for photo action." Lyon said of Thompson's response: "He advised me not to join the Outlaws and to wear a helmet. I joined the club and seldom wore a helmet". He was a full-fledged member of the Outlaws between 1966 and 1967. On his time as an Outlaws member, Lyon said: "I was kind of horrified by the end. I remember I had a big disagreement with this guy who rolled out a huge Nazi flag as a picnic rug to put our beers on. By then I had realised that some of these guys were not so romantic after all".

The series was immensely popular and influential in the 1960s and 1970s. By 1967, Lyon was invited to join Magnum Photos. After The Bikeriders, he spent time documenting the lives of inmates in Texas prisons. During the 1970s, Lyon also contributed to the Environmental Protection Agency's DOCUMERICA project.

In 1969, when Lyon returned from his work in Texas to New York City, and had no place to live, the photographer Robert Frank, famous by then for his 1958 book The Americans, took him in. Lyon had met Frank two years earlier, at the end of a Happening that Lyon was part of, in New York City. Lyon lived with the Frank family for six months in the city, in an apartment on West 86th St.

The Destruction of Lower Manhattan (1969) was Lyon's next work, published by Macmillan Publishers in 1969. The book documents the large-scale demolition taking place throughout Lower Manhattan in 1967. Included are photographs of soon to be demolished streets and buildings, portraits of the neighborhood's last remaining stragglers and pictures from within the demolition sites themselves. The book was eventually remaindered for one dollar each, but soon attained the status of a collector's item. It was reprinted in 2005.

Conversations with the Dead (1971) was published with full cooperation of the Texas Department of Corrections. Lyon photographed in six prisons over a 14-month period in 1967–68. The series was printed in book form in 1971 by Holt publishing. The introduction points to a statement of purpose that the penal system of Texas is symbolic for incarceration everywhere. He states, "I tried with whatever power I had to make a picture of imprisonment as distressing as I knew it to be in reality."

Lyon befriended many of the prisoners. The book also includes texts taken from prison records, letters from convicts, and inmate artwork. In particular, the book focuses on the case of Billy McCune, a convicted rapist whose death sentence was eventually commuted to life in prison. In the foreword, Lyon describes McCune as a diagnosed psychotic, who one evening, while awaiting execution, "cut his penis off to the root and, placing it in a cup, passed it between the bars to the guard."

All of Lyon's publications work in the style of photographic New Journalism, meaning that the photographer has become immersed, and is a participant, of the documented subject.

He is the founding member of the publishing group Bleak Beauty. He was greatly encouraged in his photography by curator of the Art Institute of Chicago Hugh Edwards, who gave Lyon two solo exhibits as a young man.

Also a filmmaker and writer, Lyon's films and videos include Los Niños Abandonados, Born to Film, Willie, and Murderers. He has published the non-fiction book Like A Thief's Dream.

Publications

 * The Bikeriders.
 * London: Macmillan, 1968.
 * Santa Fe, NM: Twin Palms, 1998. ISBN 978-0-944092-91-0.
 * New York City: Aperture, 2014. ISBN 978-1-59711-264-2. Facsimile edition.
 * Conversations With The Dead.
 * New York City: Henry Holt and Company, 1971. ISBN 978-0030850691.
 * Conversations With The Dead: Photographs of Prison Life with the Letters and Drawings of Billy McCune #122054. ISBN 9780714870519. Digitally remastered facsimile edition with a new afterword by Lyon.
 * Pictures from the New World. New York City: Aperture, 1981.
 * I Like To Eat Right On The Dirt. Clintondale, NY: Bleak Beauty, 1989.
 * Memories of the Southern Civil Rights Movement.
 * Memories of the Southern Civil Rights Movement. The Lyndhurst Series on the South. Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University; University of North Carolina, 1992. ISBN 9780807820544. Edited by Alex Harris.
 * Memories of the Southern Civil Rights Movement. Santa Fe, NM: Twin Palms, 2010. ISBN 9781931885881.
 * Indian Nations. Twin Palms, 2002.
 * The Destruction of Lower Manhattan. New York City: PowerHouse, 2005.
 * Like A Thief's Dream. New York City: PowerHouse, 2007. Non-fiction book.
 * Memories of Myself. London; New York City: Phaidon, 2009.
 * Deep Sea Diver. London; New York City: Phaidon, 2011.
 * The Seventh Dog. London; New York City: Phaidon, 2014.
 * Burn Zone. Albuquerque, NM: Bleak Beauty. . With texts by Josephine Ferorelli.

Filmography

 * Los Niños Abandonados
 * Born to Film
 * Willie
 * Murderers

Awards

 * 1969: Guggenheim Fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation
 * 1978: Guggenheim Fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation
 * 1980s: Fellowship in Film making from the Rockefeller Foundation
 * 2011: Missouri Honor Medal for Distinguished Service in Journalism, Missouri School of Journalism, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO
 * 2015: Lucie Awards, "Achievement in Documentary" category
 * 2022: Induction into the International Photography Hall of Fame and Museum.

title: Danny Lyon


text: Category:Maine culture

title: Category:Maine culture


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title: User:Horse


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Thomas Swann

Thomas Swann (February 3, 1809 – July 24, 1883) was an American lawyer and politician who also was President of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad as it completed track to Wheeling and gained access to the Ohio River Valley. Initially a Know-Nothing, and later a Democrat, Swann served as the 19th Mayor of Baltimore (1856–1860), later as the 33rd Governor of Maryland (1866–1869), and subsequently as U.S. Representative ("Congressman") from Maryland's 3rd congressional district and then 4th congressional district (1869–1879), representing the Baltimore area.

Early life and career
Swann was born in Alexandria, Virginia, the fourth son born by the former Jane Byrd Page, a member of one of the First Families of Virginia. His mother died three years later after a difficult childbirth. His attorney father, Thomas Swann, had served in the Virginia House of Delegates and with political connections to William Wirt and other Virginia lawyers in the national government, would become United States Attorney for the District of Columbia during this man's childhood. Although two of his brothers died between 1825 and 1829, Swann's elder brother Wilson Cary Swann (1806-1876) was educated with him and later rose to prominence as a physician, philanthropist, and social reformer in Philadelphia.

The Swann brothers attended Columbian College (now George Washington University) in Washington, D.C., then the University of Virginia at Charlottesville. Thomas Jr. studied Ancient and modern languages and mathematics, but was also disciplined for disorderly conduct in 1825 and questioned in a gambling scandal the following year, which may have led him to enroll in a class in moral philosophy from prominent Virginia lawyer George Tucker. He also studied law under his father's guidance.

Career
A Democrat, in 1833 and possibly through his father's connections, Swann secured an appointment from President Andrew Jackson as secretary of the United States Commission to Naples (Kingdom of the Two Sicilies - later Italy). Also admitted to the Virginia bar, he began following his father's career path by winning election to the Alexandria City council in 1833.

In 1834, Swann married an heiress and moved to Baltimore, Maryland, where his father's lawyer friend William Wirt had settled, and where Swann later became a railroad lawyer. His bride's British born father, John Sherlock, left a sizeable estate which included interests in French and Neopolitan spoliation claims, as well as 6000 acres of Pennsylvania land, 150 ounces of silver plate, 300 bottles of madeira, plus stock in the Bank of the United States, three Baltimore banks, two turnpikes, a canal in York, Pennsylvania and the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (which had been incorporated in 1827 and in completed track to Harper's Ferry by 1834). His wife's uncle, Robert Gilmor, secured them entry into Baltimore society, although his father experienced financial difficulties after the Panic of 1836 so young Thomas bought 600 to 700 acres of land and the Morven Park plantation home from his father, noting that his father's nemesis Nicholas Biddle likewise was forced to sell property to his sons after the panic. In 1840 the elder Thomas Swann died and this man inherited Morven Park, sixty slaves and his father's law library, and over the next years gradually purchased the rest of what had been his father's land. Meanwhile, this Thomas Swann and his family lived on Franklin Street in Baltimore, and used his late father's Virginia property Morven Park as their summer retreat.

Swann returned to Alexandria after his father's death in 1840, but also continued as a railroad lawyer. Between 1837 and 1843 he was the assistant to Louis McLane, a veteran politician who served as the railroad's president. In 1844 Swann became Alexandria' tobacco inspector, an important responsibility in that port city which also had railroad ties both to Richmond, and (via a separate station) to Baltimore. In 1846-1847, Swann was the B&O's lobbyist in Richmond, for the franchise the railroad had secured in 1827 was expiring, and its extension through western Virginia was opposed by the powerful political interests of the James River and Kanawha Canal Company. Swann secured the extension on March 6, 1847, the railroad began building to Wheeling, and by October 1848, Swann's large stockholdings in and services to the B&O led to his election as a director, and when McLane retired, he succeeded him as the railroad's president. bY 1850, Swann raised funds in Europe to enable the B&O's extension to the Ohio River, continuing in that position until resigning in 1853. He was chosen as president of the Northwestern Virginia Railroad.

1856 election
Swann was first elected Mayor of Baltimore in 1856 as a member of the "Know Nothing" movement (also known as the "American Party") in one of the bloodiest and corrupt elections in state history. He supposedly defeated Democratic challenger Robert Clinton Wright by over a thousand votes.

Many believed that once slavery was abolished in Maryland, African Americans would begin a mass emigration to a new state. As white soldiers returned from Southern battlefields, they came home to find that not only were their slaves gone, but soil exhaustion was causing tobacco crops in southern Maryland to fail. With a growing number of disaffected white men, Swann embarked on a campaign of "Redemption" and "restoring to Maryland a white man's government".

Additionally, Swann enacted a law that encouraged white fisherman to harass black fisherman when he signed into law the state's first ever "Oyster Code": "And be it acted, that all owners and masters of canoes, boats, or vessels licensed under this article, being White Men, are hereby constituted officers of this state for the purpose of arresting and taking before any judge or Justice of the Peace, any persons who may be engaged in violating any provisions of this article. Furthermore, all such owners and masters are hereby vested with the power to summon posse comitatus to aid in such arrest."

Although Maryland was still a "slave state" at the time, the Emancipation Proclamation did not apply to it, because it was a non-Confederate state, having officially remained in the Union; President Lincoln feared that ending slavery there at the height of the Civil War would cause Maryland to leave the Union. Hence, ending slavery there required a state-level referendum. When slavery there was abolished with the adoption of the third Maryland Constitution of 1864, Lincoln's fears were not realized; the war finished without Maryland ever defecting to the Confederacy, although many men from southern Maryland counties and the "Eastern Shore" did fight on the side of the Confederacy.

During the mid-1850s, public order in Baltimore City had often been threatened by the election of candidates of the "Know Nothing" movement which became known as the "American Party". In October 1856 the "Know Nothing" previous incumbent Mayor Samuel Hinks was pressed by Baltimoreans to order the Maryland State Militia in readiness to maintain order during the mayoral and municipal elections, as violence was anticipated. Hinks duly gave State Militia general George H. Steuart the order, but he soon rescinded it. As a result, violence broke out on polling day, with shots exchanged by competing mobs. In the 2nd and 8th Wards several citizens were killed, and many wounded. In the 6th ward artillery was used, and a pitched battle fought on Orleans Street in East Baltimore/Jonestown/Old Town neighborhoods between "Know Nothings" and rival Democrats, raging for several hours. The result of the election, in which voter fraud was widespread, was a victory for Swann by around 9,000 votes.

1857 election
In 1857, fearing similar violence at the upcoming elections, Governor Thomas W. Ligon ordered commanding General George H. Steuart of the Maryland State Militia to hold the First Light Division, Maryland Volunteers in readiness. Swann's ally, Know-Nothing Congressman Henry Winter Davis, criticized Ligon's action both for subverting local authority and as an attempt to swing the election to the Democrats. Mayor Swann, this time running for re-election, successfully argued for a compromise measure involving special police forces to prevent disorder, and Steuart's militia were stood down. This time, although there was less violence than in 1856, the results of the vote were again compromised, and the "Know-Nothings" took many state offices in the heavily disputed balloting.

1858 election
He was re-elected in 1858, again with widespread violence prevalent, and won by over 19,000 votes due to a large amount of voter intimidation.

There were a great deal of internal improvements and urban modernizations during Swann's tenure as mayor. The long-time colonial-era various in-fighting problems and competitive volunteer independent firefighting companies since 1763 (under a loose confederation of the "Baltimore City United Fire Department" of 1835) were replaced in 1858 with paid professional firefighters with the organization of the modern current Baltimore City Fire Department, and were given steam-powered fire engines and a better emergency telegraph alarm system. His office also oversaw the creation of the horse-drawn streetcar system in Baltimore replacing the older omnibuses, the purchase from the Col. Nicholas Rogers estate and creation of the large tract for Druid Hill Park in 1860, overlooking the west banks of the Jones Falls. Following the municipal purchase of the former private Baltimore Water Company, (since 1804), saw the replacement of its old wooden pipes and aging inadequate infrastructure with the beginnings of two water-sewage construction projects along the upper Jones Falls. Following was the major public works project of the construction of the dam at the new Lake Roland Reservoir along with the organization of a new city water board and extension of new waterworks service into new outlying areas of the growing metropolis. The "Basin" (Baltimore Inner Harbor) was dredged at 20 feet depth during his term as governor, and several new schools were added to the city. The former constables and "City Night Watch" system from 1784 were replaced by a newly organized Baltimore City Police Department under then modern principles was established and given new uniforms, weapons and training (later placed under supervision and appointment powers of the governor in 1860 to the 1990s). To provide better street lighting, the offices of Superindendents of Lamps with the then existing gas system was created.

Violence was greatly prevalent during Swann's term as mayor, especially during election campaigns. Then Maryland Governor Thomas W. Ligon sought Swann's assistance to try to avoid "Know Nothing" riots during the 1856 Presidential elections, but little was resolved during the meeting, and continued riots ensued during the night of the election wounding and killing many. Ligon criticized Swann for not taking the necessary precautions, recalling the event as partisans "engaged; arms of all kinds were employed; and bloodshed, wounds, and death, stained the record of the day, and added another page of dishonor to the annals of the distracted city". This continued to contribute to Baltimore's oft-stated ignoble reputation and nickname of "Mobtown", acquired since the anti-war riots of 1812. Gov. Ligon did not cooperate with Mayor Swann during the state elections of 1857, and immediately imposed martial law upon Baltimore City before election day had begun. Swann was angered, and insisted this was not necessary, but, recalling the events one year earlier, Ligon refused to lift the martial law status.

Governor of Maryland
In 1861, Swann left the American Party, which dissolved, and joined the wartime Unconditional Union Party. In 1864, he was unanimously nominated as the 33rd Governor of Maryland during its nomination convention. He won election with lieutenant-governor running mate Christopher C. Cox by over 9,000 votes. The only governor elected under the Maryland Constitution of 1864, Swann took the oath of office on January 11, 1865, but did not enter into the duties of the office until one year later (under that constitution, the governor chosen in the November 1864 election could not assume the office until the completion of the term of his predecessor, Augustus W. Bradford, in January 1866); he served until January 1869. In his inaugural address, he encouraged reunion in the State following the American Civil War, and voiced his opposition to slavery, deeming it "a stumbling block in the way of [our] advancement".

Radical Republicans of Maryland criticized Swann for supporting the Reconstruction policies of Democratic and 17th President Andrew Johnson, and refusing to adopt their proposals. He eventually parted with the Republicans and joined the Democratic Party during his term as governor. He had strongly opposed requiring the "ironclad" loyalty oath and registration laws promoted by the Radical Republicans for former Confederates in the state.

In 1867, the General Assembly of Maryland nominated Swann to succeed John A. J. Creswell to the United States Senate. But, Radical Republicans had gained control of the Congress in 1867, and refused to allow Swann admission to the Senate because he had switched parties. The Democrats in Maryland began to fear that, if Swann left, the Maryland lieutenant governor, a Radical Republican, might place Maryland under a military, Reconstruction government and temporarily disfranchise whites who had served in the Confederacy. Also, they did not want to lose reforms made by Swann with other voting rights. Rather than fight the Radicals in Congress to gain a seat, Swann was convinced by Democrats to remain as governor and turn down the Senate seat.

Swann supported internal improvements to state infrastructure, especially after the war, and he is credited with greatly improving the facilities at the Baltimore Port and Harbor. He also encouraged immigration, and the immediate emancipation of slaves following the War. By 1860, 49% of blacks in Maryland were already free, giving them a substantial position and economic strength in the years following the war.

U.S. Congressional career and final years
In 1868, Swann was elected to Congress from Maryland's 3rd congressional district, gaining re-election and serving until 1873. With redistricting changes, he was elected in 1873 from Maryland's 4th congressional district, serving three terms until 1879. In the United States Congress, Swann was chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs (Forty-fourth and Forty-fifth Congresses).

Personal life
Swann married twice. In 1843, his first wife, the former Elizabeth Gilmer Sherlock (1814-1876), bore a daughter, Elizabeth Gilmer Swann, who was their only child to reach adulthood. In 1878, the widower married Josephine Ward Thomson, daughter of Representative ("Congressman") Aaron Ward and widow of U.S. Senator John Renshaw Thomson, but they had no children.

Death and legacy
Swann died on his estate, "Morven Park", near Leesburg, Virginia. He is interred in the landmark Green Mount Cemetery (southeast of Maryland Route 45 and East North Avenue) of Baltimore. In eulogy, the influential "The Sun" newspaper of Baltimore criticized his early political errors, but credited him as "a great mayor, conferring inestimable benefits on the city he governed; not only was he a wise and beneficent governor to the oppressed portion of the citizens of the State, but he was one of the most useful and influential Congressmen this State or city ever had." Some of his family's papers are held by the University of Maryland library.

Swann Park, off of South Hanover Street (Maryland Route 2) in the South Baltimore/Spring Gardens area, adjacent to the eastern waterfront of Middle Branch (Smith and Ridgley's Coves) of the Patapsco River is named for him and also serves as an occasional athletic home for the former Southern High School (now Digital Harbor High School). Nearby are large monumental gas storage tanks for the Baltimore Gas and Electric Company.

In Virginia, both his childhood home, now called the "Swann-Daingerfield House" and Morven Park still exist (although expanded by later owners) and have been listed on the National Register for Historic Places since the 1970s. In addition, Alexandria named "Swann Avenue" near the former Potomac Railroad Yards, after him or the family.

It is assumed that Swann Street in Northwest Washington DC was originally named after Thomas Swann. However, in 2022, the Dupont Circle Advisory Neighborhood Commission approved a resolution declaring that Swann Street is named after William Dorsey Swann, one of the first known LGBT activists.

title: Thomas Swann


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List of political parties in Bermuda

This article lists political parties in Bermuda.

Bermuda has a three-party system, which means that there are three political parties: the Progressive Labour Party (PLP), the One Bermuda Alliance (OBA) and the Free Democratic Movement. From 1968 — Bermuda's first party-based election — to 1998, the United Bermuda Party (UBP) controlled Parliament. In 1998, it was supplanted by the slightly older PLP. Most UBP members merged with a breakaway party called the Bermuda Democratic Alliance in 2011 to form the OBA. The PLP and OBA currently hold all of the seats in the House of Assembly and were the only two parties with offices and organizations before September 1, 2020.

Another party, the Bermuda Democratic Party, contested the 1968 election but failed to win any seats and collapsed soon after, eventually to be replaced by the now-defunct National Liberal Party. In addition, several candidates have run as independents, to varying success, or have formed temporary, one-man parties such as the Gombey Liberation Party (or, in its later days, the National Liberal Party).

Other Parties

 * Free Democratic Movement: formed on 1 September 2020, it ran as a party in the election of 1 October 2020 but won no seats.

Historical parties

 * United Bermuda Party: multiracial party, formed 1964, dissolved in 2011 after being replaced by the One Bermuda Alliance as the official opposition party
 * National Liberal Party: defunct
 * Bermuda Democratic Party: 1967 to 1970
 * Gombey Liberation Party: defunct, one-man grass roots movement
 * Bermuda Democratic Alliance: Political movement founded by seven concerned Bermudians, merging with the One Bermuda Alliance in 2011

title: List of political parties in Bermuda


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The Stig

The Stig is a character from the British motoring television show Top Gear. Created by former Top Gear presenter Jeremy Clarkson and producer Andy Wilman, the character is a play on the anonymity of racing drivers' full-face helmets, with the running joke that nobody knows who or what is inside the Stig's racing suit. The Stig's primary role is setting lap times for cars tested on the show. Previously, he would also instruct celebrity guests, off-camera, for the show's "Star in a Reasonably Priced Car" segment.

The identity of the original "Black" Stig, Perry McCarthy, was exposed by a Sunday newspaper in January 2003, and confirmed by McCarthy later that year. The black-suited Stig was subsequently "killed off" that October in the series 3 premiere, and replaced in the following episode by a new White Stig who lasted through to the end of series 15.

In series 13 episode 1, the show jokingly unmasked the Stig as seven-time world champion F1 driver Michael Schumacher. In the hiatus following series 15, racing driver Ben Collins was revealed to be the Stig in a court battle over Collins' impending autobiography, titled The Man in the White Suit. In series 16, debuting in December 2010, Collins was replaced by a second White Stig, whose identity remained secret.

Creation and name
The idea for the character was part of former host Jeremy Clarkson and former producer Andy Wilman's   concept for the relaunched Top Gear show, bringing a new format to the original version of Top Gear which ceased production in 2001. The relaunched show introduced a live studio audience, the Stig, a racetrack, and madcap stunts. Clarkson is credited with having come up with the original idea for the Stig.

Clarkson and Wilman wanted to have a professional racing driver as part of the show's cast, but ran into difficulty finding a driver sufficiently adept at speaking on-camera. Clarkson then asked Wilman why the driver needed to speak at all, and they decided that the Stig's role would be silent.

The name Stig derives from Wilman and Clarkson's time at Repton School, where new boys had always been called "Stig". "Stig" is a pejorative referring to someone from a poor background with a poor dress sense (originating from the eponymous character in the children's book Stig of the Dump).

According to the original Stig, Perry McCarthy, speaking in 2006, the producers had first wanted the anonymous driver to be called "The Gimp", referring to the use of gimp suits in BDSM sexual role-playing. After McCarthy objected, they settled upon the name Stig. McCarthy had said of the idea at the time that "I don't want to be forever remembered as the Gimp".

Anonymity and silence
When introducing the Stig in the Top Gear premiere, Clarkson said, "We don't know its name, we really don't know its name, nobody knows its name, and we don't want to know, because it's a racing driver."

According to a 2006 article in The Sunday Times, most of the Top Gear crew did not know the Stig's identity; one camera assistant reportedly observed the Stig eating his lunch in the back of an ambulance to avoid being spotted. In 2009, another Times article reiterated that only a few production staff, the show's presenters and other BBC journalists knew the Stig's true identity.

Former Stig Perry McCarthy described in 2009 how, to maintain his anonymity, he would put on the Stig's helmet while going through the Top Gear security gates, and then change into his racing overalls in a special room behind the gatehouse before driving into the studio areas. He would speak as little as possible in the backstage areas, and put on an accent which some mistook as French. McCarthy also explained that hiding his identity while coaching the celebrities for Star in a Reasonably Priced Car proved difficult. He said that he did reveal his true identity while coaching Ross Kemp and David Soul, as he had previously known them and they promised that they would be silent about his role. For other drives, if celebrities asked if he was a particular person, he would just say "How did you know?", adding that more often than not, the suggestion was Michael Schumacher.

The Stig is never shown talking on screen, although he does talk with celebrities off-camera while training them to drive around the track. Clarkson has joked that he is "not a very talkative chap". When asked about his identity in a rare spoken interview for the show Veronica Vibes of a Dutch channel, the Stig reportedly said, "I don't remember; my memory was erased when I got the job." The Stig's muteness has extended to appearances in other media, such as the "Brain Stig" video released by the BBC on YouTube in 2009.

Clarkson has written in his newspaper column that the Stig is not permitted to talk or comment on the cars he is given to drive because "the opinions of all racing drivers are completely worthless," going on to explain that, because of their familiarity with cars equipped for track racing, racing drivers believe any and all road cars are on low-scale compared to racing cars.

Driving ability
The show has often compared the Stig's driving ability to others, particularly Formula One drivers. When Jeremy Clarkson said that the Stig believed that the Suzuki Liana, the show's Reasonably Priced Car at the time, could do a lap time of 1:44.0, former F1 driver Nigel Mansell, appearing as a guest on the programme, duly obliged by posting a time of 1:44.6; the Stig then posted a time of 1:44.4. After Rubens Barrichello became the first person to beat the Stig's time (coming in at 1:44.3), the show repeatedly referred to a jealous rivalry between the Stig and Barrichello. Sebastian Vettel then further beat this time by posting a time of 1:44.0. A while later, Lewis Hamilton did a second lap and got a 1:42.9. Clarkson has often mentioned that F1 drivers seem to take a different racing line on the test track than the Stig, such as on Jenson Button's drive; however, during Barrichello's and Lewis Hamilton's visits to the show, Clarkson observed that they took the same line around the track as The Stig. F1 driver Mark Webber's appearance on the show was marked at the conclusion of his lap with Clarkson presenting him with an "I AM THE STIG" T-shirt.

Introductions
The Stig's introductions on the show have underlined his oddness. Initially the presenters heralded his appearance with simple humorous introductions, such as "His Holiness, the Stig!" Beginning in series 6, the introductions began to follow a format of, "Some say that [two bizarre characteristics]. All we know is, he's called the Stig." Characteristics described in this format include:

 * He has no face
 * He is terrified of Scouts
 * The drinks cabinet in his car contains 14 different types of custard
 * His favourite T-shirt has a picture of a T-shirt
 * He is afraid of bells
 * He is confused by stairs
 * He never blinks
 * He naturally faces magnetic north
 * He has a digital face
 * He will charge you if you attempt to remove his helmet
 * His nipples are explosive
 * He paid a 20,000 pound expenses claim for some gravel for his moat
 * When he sees a woman, his third leg will go up

Some introductions have referred to current events and stories in popular culture, such as:

 * "If you insult his mother, he will headbutt you in the chest" (a reference to Zinedine Zidane's headbutting incident and subsequent sending-off in the 2006 FIFA World Cup final)
 * "If you give him a really important job, he'll skive off and play croquet" (a reference to Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott in 2006)
 * "Has dreams about what Rubens Barrichello would look like in a ham slicer" (a reference to Barrichello being faster than the Stig around the test track the week before)
 * "If he was getting a divorce from Paul McCartney, he'd keep his stupid whining mouth shut" (a reference to McCartney's divorce from Heather Mills in 2008)
 * "He always wears a helmet because a man once smashed him in the face with a model of Salisbury Cathedral" (a reference to the Silvio Berlusconi assault with an alabaster statuette of Milan Cathedral in December 2009)
 * "He's banned from the town of Chichester and..., in a recent late-night deal, he bought a slightly dented white Fiat Uno from the Duke of Edinburgh" (a reference to conspiracy theories surrounding the death of Princess Diana)
 * "If you hold him in the wrong way, he doesn't work properly" (a reference to the iPhone 4's death grip)
 * "He regrets buying his new holiday home in down-town Cairo" (a reference to the Arab Spring in early 2011)
 * “That sixty years ago this week, he too became a Queen” (a reference to the Diamond Jubilee of Elizabeth II, in 2012)
 * "He contains 47% horse" (a reference to the 2013 horse meat scandal)
 * "He used to work in Rome, but gave up his job to be able to keep up with his work here" (after the Pope's retirement in early 2013)
 * "As a result of buying Pirelli condoms this week, he now has seventeen children" (reference to multiple cars suffering blown Pirelli tyres at the 2013 British Grand Prix)
 * "On a recent trip to Cornwall, he stopped off for one of his special, big wees in Somerset" (a reference to the 2013 Somerset flooding)
 * "If he had worked for CNN, he wouldn't have got such pitifully low ratings that his show got cancelled" (a reference to the cancellation of Piers Morgan Live)
 * "While we were off air, his iCloud was hacked and now everyone in the world has seen his helmet" (a reference to the 2014 celebrity photo hack)
 * "Last week, he was found in a locked room, tied to a chair with German piano wire" (the week after Michael Schumacher was "revealed" as The Stig)
 * "He once punched a horse to the ground" (a reference to the story of Roberto Durán having done so)

Other characteristics
In the Stig's debut, he was described by Clarkson as having a very small brain, worthless opinions, and a disorder called "Mansell Syndrome". Richard Porter, Top Gear's script editor, described the Stig as "single minded, stubborn and hilariously petulant; specifically, a mix of Kimi Räikkönen, the keyboard player from Pet Shop Boys, and a 15-year-old boy forced to go on holiday with his parents." He has been depicted as a piece of cargo, being collected by Clarkson from the baggage conveyor at the airport; he has also been shown stored in a cupboard when not in use.

It has been said that the Stig "has no understanding of money" and during challenges he has been shown using an Oyster card to access London public transportation, and a credit card in the name of "The Stig" issued by the "Bank of Money" to obtain petrol. The show has also featured the Stig's listening habits, as heard on the car stereo as he drives laps. Often a specific genre is chosen for one or more series. The Stig has been shown listening to:

• Power ballads

• One-hit wonders

• Easy listening

• Country and western

• Morse code

• Progressive rock

• Whale sounds

• Baroque music

• Advertising jingles

• Foreign language learning tapes

• Romantic audio novels

• Salesman techniques

• ABBA (in French and Spanish)

• Elton John

• Bee Gees (including, in one episode, the Bee Gees in German)

• The Bangles (in German)

• Speeches of Margaret Thatcher

• Self-help tapes

• Pipe band music

• Chas & Dave

• Vuvuzelas

• National anthems

• The Archers

• Tuvan throat singing

• The Carpenters

In 2008, the Stig appeared at the National Television Awards, where he silently accepted an award and handed award presenter Griff Rhys Jones a letter from the Top Gear hosts, which instructed Jones to give the Stig the award in his left hand, as his right one is magnetic, and cautioning organisers that he wasn't to be seated near the cast of Coronation Street, as "he's decided all northerners are edible".

Role
In the Top Gear end credits, the Stig is credited alongside Clarkson, Richard Hammond, and James May as a presenter. The Stig's primary role on the show is at the Top Gear test track at the show's base at Dunsfold Aerodrome, Surrey. His two main functions are to post lap times for featured performance cars in the "Power Laps" segment, and to train celebrity guests to set lap times in the "Star in a Reasonably Priced Car" segment, although Chris Harris later took on the instructional role.

The Top Gear website describes the Stig's test-driving role as follows:

When first introduced, the Stig was described as the resident test driver, as the presenters could not consistently post fast times themselves. His stated mission was to "just go out there and drive fast". The original Stig, Perry McCarthy, described in 2006 how a racing driver was intended to be used as part of the presenting team in order to produce definitive fastest lap times for tested cars.

Identity

 * Perry McCarthy – (2002–2003)
 * Ben Collins – (2003–2010)

Black Stig
Racing driver Perry McCarthy appeared in 22 Top Gear episodes as the black-suited, original Stig.

McCarthy was cast as the Stig following a chance meeting with Jeremy Clarkson at the 2002 launch party for McCarthy's autobiography, Flat Out, Flat Broke: Formula 1 the Hard Way!. This led to an audition as a regular presenter, before the production team decided the racing driver would be anonymous. (Contradicting this, McCarthy said in 2008 that Clarkson had mentioned the idea of a "top secret" racing driver at their first meeting. )

After the first series ended, an article in The Sunday Mirror on 12 January 2003 named McCarthy as the Stig. The newspaper quoted a show insider as saying, "Just a handful of the crew know that he is actually Perry." McCarthy responded at the time, "I do know who the Stig is but I cannot comment any further." After the second series ended, McCarthy published the second edition of his autobiography, in which he confirmed that he was the Stig. McCarthy was then "killed off" in the first episode of the third series.

The scene which saw Black Stig "killed off," nicknamed "Top Gun vs Top Gear," was an attempt to race to 100 mi/h and then come to a halt on the 200 m long flight deck of HMS Invincible, a Royal Navy aircraft carrier on which British Aerospace Sea Harrier jump jets reach 100 mi/h before take-off. He would be using the "old Top Gear Jag," a white Jaguar XJS bought for a "couple of hundred quid," stripped of its fittings and fitted with nitrous injection to take it to 500 bhp. The Stig accelerated along the deck, and an on-screen speedometer indicated 109 mi/h before a cutaway shot saw the car flying off the end of the runway ramp and into the sea. Clarkson then revealed in the last scene of the episode that a glove floating on the sea was all that divers had found. According to McCarthy, "We tried to make it as much like a scene out of James Bond as possible."

The explanations for McCarthy's exit vary. While McCarthy described the parting as amiable in 2008, The Times claimed in 2009 that he had fallen out with producers. In 2010, McCarthy said he had become tired of the job, which he claimed paid £700 a week, and that part of his annoyance stemmed from an attempt by a car owner to sue him for ruining his car and the BBC's refusal to defend him due to his anonymity. He said the BBC chose not to renew his contract and had him written out of the show.

Although McCarthy said in 2006 that, following his exit from Top Gear, he harboured ambitions of re-entering racing in the Grand Prix Masters series, he went on to run an investment company and appear as an after-dinner speaker.

According to the Sunday Times, writing in 2009, McCarthy revealed in his book that there had always been more than one Stig, and that then 47-year-old Julian Bailey, a former Formula One driver, had acted as a stand-in for McCarthy.

First White Stig
The first White Stig was introduced in November 2003, following the Black Stig's exit in the prior episode. His identity remained secret until it was revealed as Ben Collins in August 2010. During this Stig's time on the show, the character's role expanded from Power Lap times and "Reasonably Priced Car" training to include appearances in other show segments, such as producing timed runs in the Isle of Man road test; driving a Caterham Seven from Caterham to Knockhill; riding a London Bus, the DLR and the Tube across London; jumping a snowmobile off a ski-jump in Lillehammer, Norway; and playing a police pursuit driver in the White Van Man challenge.

Speculation
After the White Stig's debut, there was widespread speculation over his identity. Various sources claimed him to be a number of different racing drivers, including Collins, Damon Hill, Julian Bailey, Russ Swift, Darren Turner and Tim Schrick, as well as former Top Gear presenter Tiff Needell. Several people, including Hill and musician Jay Kay, claimed to be the Stig themselves. It was also speculated that the Stig was played by multiple drivers, a theory hinted at by original Stig Perry McCarthy. After observing the Stig's charity drive around the Silverstone Circuit just before the July 2008 British Grand Prix, former Formula One World Champion Fernando Alonso remarked, "Whoever's in that car is a seriously good driver. ... I've no idea who he is, but he's definitely ex-F1."

In January 2009, rumours about the Stig's identity were stoked, in part by a News of the World article alleging to have discovered the Stig to be a married man in his 30s, living in a £300,000 home and driving a £15,000 car, on an income of around £150,000 from his Top Gear job and some stunt and test driving. In the same month, an art gallery owner reported that the Stig had revealed his identity to the gallery owner and his son, after contracting with them (under the guise of a BBC executive) for a series of signed and limited prints of the Stig. In the latter instance, the Stig was alleged to be Ben Collins. It was also reported that a builder doing work at Collins' home had found the Stig's trademark suit and gloves on display there.

As these rumours were ongoing, the Top Gear blog published three entries on 21 January revealing the Stig to be, respectively, Damon Hill's deceased father Graham Hill; Royal Bank of Scotland chairman Sir Tom McKillop; and newly inaugurated U.S. president Barack Obama.

When Richard Hammond crashed a jet-powered car, the accident report into the crash described Ben Collins as someone "who worked closely with Top Gear as a high performance driver and consultant."

Michael Schumacher
On 20 June 2009, Clarkson announced in his newspaper column that the Stig would show his face in Top Gear's series thirteen premiere, airing the next day. According to Clarkson, the Stig was "fed up with newspapers speculating that he's a photocopier salesman from Bolton, or lives in a pebble-dashed house in Bristol."

The episode showed the Stig driving a black Ferrari FXX around the test track for a record-setting time of 1:10.7, before walking into the studio and sitting down. As the audience shouted "Off! Off!" the Stig removed his helmet to reveal himself as seven-time world champion F1 driver Michael Schumacher. In the subsequent interview, Schumacher exhibited some of the Stig's supposedly defining character traits, such as knowing only two facts about ducks (both "facts" being wrong).

Following the revelation, the Stig alleged to be Schumacher was shown driving the Suzuki Liana but did not set a lap time; instead, video clips showed the Stig exhibiting very poor car control, striking a camera tripod, and eventually getting lost. Clarkson closed the segment by observing that possibly, Schumacher was not truly the Stig after all. While the BBC initially would not confirm whether Schumacher's revelation was a stunt, The Telegraph reported the next day that a Top Gear spokesman confirmed Schumacher had played the Stig, due to Ferrari only allowing Schumacher to drive the FXX, but that "the identity of the driver at other times would remain 'a mystery'."

The Man in the White Suit
On 19 August 2010, it was reported that a legal dispute was developing between the BBC and publishers representing the Stig, over plans by the Stig to release an autobiography revealing his identity. A BBC spokesman said, "The BBC is in a legal dispute over the publication of a book relating to Top Gear as this breaches agreed contractual and confidentiality obligations relating to the show." The Stig was reportedly unhappy that he had been unable to profit from his Top Gear role to the same degree as the other presenters.

Around the same time, the Sunday Times claimed that financial documents for Ben Collins' company, Collins Autosport, provided evidence that he was the Stig. The Times stated that beginning a month after the White Stig's first appearance, the company had experienced an increase in profits ascribed to "driving services provided for the BBC, mainly in the Top Gear programme." Collins did not comment on this story; the BBC said it was "no surprise" as Collins had appeared several times on the show as well as provided other services.

On 23 August 2010, the BBC and the Stig's publisher, HarperCollins, appeared in court. HarperCollins confirmed that it was being sued by the BBC over the autobiography's publication, stating, "We are disappointed that the BBC has chosen to spend licence fee payers' money to suppress this book and will vigorously defend the perfectly legitimate right of this individual to tell his story." The BBC said, "This situation has come about as a result of an attempt by an external party to profit from unauthorised use of the Top Gear brand, one of the BBC's biggest and most watched shows in the UK and around the world. As a result, it is important that the BBC does all it can to uphold confidentiality clauses that have been agreed to in relation to the show."

In a 27 August 2010 entry on the Top Gear blog, executive producer Andy Wilman attacked HarperCollins for attempting to reveal the Stig's identity: "The whole point of the Stig is the mystique – the bizarre characteristics he has, the wonderment created about what he might think, feel, do or look like. ... HarperCollins have decided none of that is as important as their profits." He also clarified that half of the BBC's legal costs were being funded by BBC Worldwide, their commercial arm.

On 29 August, the Daily Mirror claimed that photos of Collins at his England home on the same day that the Stig had appeared at a Top Gear event in Germany proved that Collins had already been fired from the Stig role. When asked about the ongoing High Court action, Collins stated, "I am not allowed to talk about it."

On 1 September 2010, the case was decided against the BBC, as the High Court refused to grant an injunction blocking the publication of the autobiography now acknowledged to be authored by Collins. Collins was in court for part of that day's hearing, but neither he nor the BBC confirmed afterward that he was the Stig; a BBC spokesman said, "The BBC brought this action as we believe it is vital to protect the character of The Stig, which ultimately belongs to the licence-fee payer. Today's judgment does not prevent the BBC from pursuing this matter to trial and it will not be deterred from protecting such information from attack no matter when or by whom it should arise." On 3 September 2010, the BBC News website published a profile of Collins that began: "Former Formula Three driver Ben Collins has won a legal fight to publish an autobiography in which he claims to be The Stig."

Collins' book, The Man in the White Suit, was published 16 September 2010.

Aftermath
Immediately following the High Court's decision, Top Gear presenter James May commented, "Obviously I'm now going to have to take some legal action of my own, because I have been the Stig for the past seven years, and I don't know who this bloke is, who's mincing around in the High Court pretending it's him." He expounded on the pretence in a newspaper column the next day, describing his dual life as the Stig and "Captain Slow".

Speculation about the future of the Stig character began immediately. On 3 September 2010, May told a radio show that the Stig would be "dealt with" in a similar manner to how the Black Stig was eliminated. On the same day, The Telegraph reported that the BBC would not be renewing Collins' contract and that Collins would be soliciting offers to star in his own programme. (A month later, he joined the show Fifth Gear for its eighteenth series; he then became a co-presenter on the Polish programme Automaniak.) Clarkson advertised for a new driver in his 4 September newspaper column, noting the successful applicant must know that "no one, under any circumstances, should ever rat on their friends". In a 7 September interview, Clarkson said that Collins was "history as far as we are concerned. He's sacked."

Bookmakers' favourites to become the new Stig included Anthony Davidson, Damon Hill, Russ Swift, Heikki Kovalainen, and an unspecified female driver.

On 1 October 2010, it was announced that Collins would join Five's Fifth Gear motoring show, where he was introduced by Vicki Butler-Henderson as someone whose name "rhymes with The Twig." Collins appeared unmasked, saying "Yes, I can speak. It's a massive pleasure to do so."

On 5 November 2010, the Top Gear website released a video clip about its "Stig Farm," the end of which introduced a new Stig for the travelling stage show Top Gear Live. The video also featured a Stig attempting to write a book on a computer, and correcting one of its many mistakes with Tippex.

In the "USA Road Trip" special (debuting 21 December 2010), the presenters branded the Stig a traitor; May declared his true name to be Judas Iscariot. In a challenge mimicking a drive-by shooting, the targets used were cardboard representations of the Stig (with Hammond taking special care to shoot the Stig in the back).

During Collins' appearance with a military amputees rally team, broadcast in July 2011, he was introduced by Hammond as "ex-Stig Ben Collins." Collins returned to Top Gear in the series 18 special "50 Years of Bond Cars," where Hammond interviewed him on his work as a stunt driver in the film Skyfall. Hammond again introduced him as an ex-Stig and referred several times during the interview to Collins' departure. Collins wore a T-shirt during the interview which read "I am the Stig."

Second White Stig
On 26 December 2010, five days after the "USA Road Trip" special, Top Gear aired a "Middle East Special" in which the presenters re-enacted the journey of the Three Wise Men to Bethlehem. At the episode's conclusion, they discovered a manger cradling not Jesus, but a baby Stig.

In the series 16 premiere a month later, the presenters explained that Stigs grow very quickly, and the new Stig was thus already fully grown. Aside from a slightly different helmet and overalls, the current Stig resembles the previous Stig. In his first episode, he set a speed record around the track (1:15.1) in an Ariel Atom V8 – Clarkson commenting that this Stig posted times "broadly comparable to those of Sacked Stig".

"Cousins" and other "family members"
Various episodes have featured "cousins" and other relatives of the Stig, often when the show is filming outside the United Kingdom.

 * "Big Stig": US Special (2007)
 * The show featured a portly American cousin nicknamed "Big Stig." He raced the presenters' cars around the Palm Beach International Raceway track. Clarkson stated he had a "relaxed driving style".

 * "African Cousin": Botswana Special (2007)
 * This special featured the Stig's African cousin, with dark skin, wearing just Puma racing boots, a loincloth, white racing gloves and the iconic white helmet. He raced two of the presenters' chosen cars around an improvised rally track; Clarkson's Lancia Beta refused to start. According to the special's DVD commentary, this cousin did have experience in Formula 1 racing.

 * "Rig Stig": Series 12; Episode 1 (2008)
 * "Rig Stig" made his debut, sporting a "suntanned" right sleeve and glove in reference to his supposed job as a lorry driver. He appeared powersliding a Team Oliver racing truck to show to the presenters that a lorry could drift.

 * "Vietnamese/Communist Cousin": Vietnam Special (2008)
 * A version of the Stig that rode a motorbike, he was nicknamed the "Vietnamese/Communist" cousin and wore a red uniform. Although featured in a montage compiled at the beginning of series twelve showing a preview of the episodes to come, his feature did not air in the original broadcast of the special. The footage was however included in a later DVD release. Top Gear hired a local motorcycle stunt rider.

 * "Janet Stig Porter/Eco Stig": Series 14; Episode 2 (2009)
 * The Stig's vegetarian cousin, nicknamed "Janet Stig Porter", appeared. He wore green overalls, Birkenstock sandals with socks, and a solar-powered helmet. He drove the presenters' "Hammerhead Eagle iThrust" hybrid around the MIRA test circuit to see how long it would last, but was incapacitated by the car's diesel fumes. Ben Collins later revealed that he played the part of the eco Stig.

 * "Herr Stig/Stiggy Ray Cyrus": Series 15; Episode 2 (2010)
 * The Stig's German cousin was also nicknamed "Herr Stig" and "Stiggy Ray Cyrus". He was almost identical to the main Stig, the main difference being a mullet haircut. He drove the presenters' cheap sports saloons around EuroSpeedway Lausitz. Ben Collins later revealed that he played the part of the German Stig.

 * "Bunga-Bunga Stig": Series 18; Episode 1 (2012)
 * The Stig's Italian cousin, "Bunga-Bunga Stig", was introduced during the final leg of the Italian Road Trip at Imola Circuit. He came out of a motor-home dressed in a suit, followed by three glamorous women, to set a lap time in a Ferrari 458 Italia.

 * "Attack Stig": Series 18; Episode 2 (2012)
 * The Stig's Chinese cousin "Attack Stig" made his dramatic arrival by kung fu kicking through a door at the local race track. While in appearance he looks the same as the normal Stig, Chinese Stig attacked anyone indiscriminately with martial arts. His unruly behaviour caused problems not just for the presenters but also for the Top Gear filming crew, flag bearer and a nearby track marshal, the latter for whom this Stig even interrupted his timed lap of the Roewe 350 in order to attack. After the timed laps, he walked on-screen and kicked James "in the plums". His behaviour was so bad that Clarkson remarked, "that's the worst Stig we've ever had."

 * "Teenage Cousin": Series 21; Episode 1 (2014)
 * The Stig's Teenage cousin appeared, with headphones on, a low waist line allowing his underwear to be seen and a phone he seldom stopped looking at. He drove a modern hot hatchback to set a hill run time against the presenters's classic hot hatchbacks. He also appears in advertisements promoting the mobile game Top Gear: Race The Stig.

 * "Australian Cousin": Series 22; Episode 2 (2015)
 * The Stig's Australian cousin was introduced during a hill-climb track in the Australian Outback, placed in an open cut iron ore mine and setting a benchmark time in an Australian HSV Maloo Ute. He looks similar to the ordinary Stig, except for dusty, white overalls with flip-flops, and sporting a large "gentleman sausage" and muscular upper body.

 * "Leisure Stig": Series 22; Episode 8 (2015)
 * The Stig's leisure activity cousin is also known as Top Gear's top-secret Leisure Stig. He is only used for testing caravans and is an otherwise useless driver. He appears identical to the ordinary Stig, but is notably slower.

 * "Teenaged Cousins": Series 24; Episode 4 (2017); Series 25; Episode 4 (2018) Series 29; Episode 2
 * The Stig's three Teenaged Cousins sported the same appearance as the previous Teenage cousin, each sporting smartphones and headphones of different colours. They drove the Renault Twingo GT, the Smart Fortwo Brabus, and the Volkswagen Up on the Top Gear track, in a race against each other. Two Teenaged Stigs appear again in Series 25, this time racing the Hyundai i30N against the Volkswagen Golf GTI Mk7 on a wet Top Gear track.

 * "Emirati Cousin": Series 24; Episode 4 (2017)
 * The Stig's Emirati cousin drove host Matt LeBlanc through downtown Dubai in a Bentley Mulsanne. He looks similar to the ordinary Stig, except for wearing a ghutrah on top of his helmet, and a huge diamond watch on his wrist.

 * "StigFoot": Series 25; Episode 2 (2018)
 * StigFoot appears briefly at the end of the episode having been pursued by LeBlanc and Harris as they search for Bigfoot.

 * "Ninja Stig": Series 25; Episode 3 (2018): The Stig's Japanese ninja cousin appears during Harris' visit to Japan, where he raced Harris in a drifting duel. He wore a black helmet, black ninja outfit and a katana strapped to his back.
 * "Business Stig": Series 26; Episode 2 (2019): The Stig's "business cousin" appears during Harris' review of BMW M5 and Mercedes-AMG E63 S. He wears a red tie and a set of braces.
 * "Stig's dad": Series 30; Episode 1 (2021): The Stig's dad appears during a Rally challenge in the episode's main feature which deals with the main presenters commemorating their dads' cars. The Stig's dad sets the benchmark time the presenters then try to beat. He wears a tank top and flare trousers.

Other Stigs
The Australian, French, Korean, Russian, Chinese and U.S. adaptions of Top Gear also feature their own versions of The Stig. The Top Gear Australia Stig was wheeled on screen, upside down in a delivery crate for the UK-Australian "Top Gear Ashes" episode. Additionally, when Top Gear Australia visited New Zealand (in series 3 episode 2), they introduced their Stig's Kiwi cousin, "The Stug" (referencing New Zealand English's centralised short-"i" sound). When Top Gear U.S. drove a modified off-road racer through Colorado against a kayak, they introduced "Backwoods Stig," who wears a white racing overall with torn off sleeves. The Stig was rarely used in the US version as presenter Tanner Foust is himself a professional racing driver, but was portrayed by Paul F Gerrard. The Korean version of the Stig is reportedly portrayed by Bil Li-ship.

In the DVD Top Gear: The Worst Car in the History of the World, the Stig's Yorkshire cousin, nicknamed "T'Stig" (a reference to the Yorkshire accent), was featured. Alongside his trademark racing outfit, he had a flat cap on his helmet and two whippets by his feet. He was involved in driving a BMW around a Gymkhana course to show how it is done for when James and Jeremy attempt to do so with two of the worst American cars. He was also prompted to drive a Peugeot 308 - one of the cars that was the candidate for the title, but he fled.

Temporary Stigs
In the Winter Olympics special Top Gear used Dan Lang, a Swedish snowmobile champion, to jump a snowmobile.

In the "USA Road Trip" (aired 21 December 2010), Tiff Needell was brought in as an "Emergency Stig" to train Danny Boyle on the track.

Other appearances
In June 2008, the Stig drove a passenger in a two-seat Formula One car at speeds up to 178 mi/h for three laps around the Silverstone Circuit in wet conditions, hours before the start of the 2008 British Grand Prix. The drive was the prize in a charity auction held in aid of Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital where the winning bidder paid £35,000 for the privilege. The Stig appeared at the 2008 October National Television Awards to accept Top Gear's third award for best factual programme, as the other presenters were ostensibly busy filming the new series. The Stig also appears at Top Gear Live events, such as the August 2010 Stunt Show at the Nürburgring in Germany, in which he is billed as the star of the show alongside the other stunt drivers and cars, with the other Top Gear presenters not playing a part. The Stig has appeared outside Top Gear in Clarkson's motoring DVDs since 2005. He also appeared before the BBC's 2011 British Grand Prix coverage when Clarkson and Hammond gave the camera crew a tour of the Top Gear studio.

In the 2011 X Games 17, the Stig can be seen walking in the background during one of Brian Deegan's interviews during Rallycross. Tanner Foust, one of the presenters of Top Gear US, was competing in the event.

Google Street view of the Dunsfold track shows the Google Camera car being paced by The Stig driving a Mercedes SLS coupe.

In 2016, he was a part of The Getaway Car presented by Dermot O'Leary along with his 2 'nephews' simply called 'Red Stig' and 'Blue Stig'.

On 8 December 2016, the Stig appears for a short moment in a segment from Top Gear: Series 23, where he is seen reading a paper while Ken Block zooms past in his Hoonicorn Mustang along with Matt LeBlanc.

On 30 March 2017, the Stig appeared on Colin Furze's World's Fastest Bumper Car YouTube video, which featured a modified 1960s bumper car and a 600cc 100bhp engine.

For a period, the Stig, along with the Top Gear presenters were visible in miniature at Legoland Windsor, arranged around a model of a Caterham sports car.

In February 2009, a YouTube video emerged which suggested the Black Stig had survived his accident. Still wearing his iconic black overalls, helmet and only one glove, he is witnessed to emerge from the waves by a group of men playing frisbee on the beach at Walton-on-the-Naze in Essex, where he initially mistook their frisbee for a steering wheel, before running away.

Cultural impact and merchandising
The Scotsman described the Stig in 2008 as a "real-life James Bond able to tame the most powerful cars, while possessing all the mystique of Zorro." The Sunday Times in 2009 described the Stig as "not a man but an idea, possibly an extraterrestrial," speculating that, along the lines of the Spartacus mythology, the more people that were linked with the character, the stronger the mystery would become. It paid tribute to how long the show had actually kept the secret.

The question of "Who is the Stig?" has been described as one of the most-asked queries on the Internet. The Sunday Times reported that online and text-answering services rated it as one of the most popular questions of all time, along with the meaning of life.

The Stig has been notionally "spotted" in the wild in images collected for Google Street View. He was photographed by a Street View car standing on the side of the A82 road in Loch Ness, Scotland. He was also captured by a Street View tricycle in three locations within Legoland Windsor in Berkshire, including riding a go-kart and sitting on a camel. A Street View image taken from the A40 Westway of the Stig apparently standing in a window of the Top Gear office was reportedly just a cardboard cut-out.

The BBC has capitalised on the mystery behind the Stig by marketing "I AM THE STIG" T-shirts and variants through the Top Gear shop. Other Stig merchandise has included bubble wash, pens, keyrings, soap on a rope, lunchbags and a "sonic toothbrush."

Through a partnership with Polyphony Digital, the Stig's helmet and overalls are available for virtual purchase in the videogames Gran Turismo 5 and Gran Turismo 6. The Stig has also appeared several times in the Forza Motorsport series, including as avatar items in Forza Motorsport 4, one-on-one racing challenges against "The Stig's Digital Cousin" in Forza Motorsport 5 and Forza Motorsport 6, and as a driver outfit in an add-on for Forza Motorsport 7 and as a reward in Forza Horizon 4.

In 2018, Piccadilly Press (under licence from BBC Worldwide) published The Stig Plays a Dangerous Game, the first in a series of children's books featuring The Stig as the silent 'secret weapon' of a group of friends who become 'the Top Gear Gang'. The Stig Drives Again was published later the same year and the third in the trilogy, The Stig and the Silver Ghost, came out in October 2019. The books feature in a joint venture with the School Libraries Association to promote school literacy whereby initial copies of each book, plus support materials, are provided free of charge to requesting schools.

title: The Stig


text:
Talk:QUEL

QUEL seems like a language I'd like to use. Please could anyone provide some external links to where the language can be obtained, or explain why it is not available.

Thanks, fred2.

Text output from QUEL
The final QUEL statement to dump into a text file is supported by within many in modern RBMS's, albeit usually in a database specific way. Text output from QUEL could only ever be very platform specific (just think, multibyte character sets and DOS vs *NIX vs Mac line termination), probably specific only to ingres and informix, and so I wouldn't have thought that it could really be described as an advantage over SQL.

By the same line of arguement I could say that SQL is better then QUEL because, in Oracle, I can write image processing routines in PL/SQL.--Jimadilo 01:02, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

title: Talk:QUEL


text: User talk:12.107.16.50

title: User talk:12.107.16.50


text: User talk:84.12.19.99

title: User talk:84.12.19.99


text:
Talk:Fenerbahce

Fenerbahçe is a Turkish football club from İstanbul. Its colours are yellow and navy. It plays on its Fenerbahçe & that has a seating capacity of 52,000 that will expand to 65,000 in few years or earlier.

History
Fenerbahçe was founded in 1907 in the province of Kadikoy in Istanbul. The founders were Nurizade Ziya Songülen (the first president), Osmanli Bank worker Mr. Ayetullah and Bahriye School student Necip Okaner, together with Hasan Sami Kocameme and Asaf Baspinar known as Hintli. They met at the Besbiyik Street in Moda, in the bottom floor of house number 3.

Fenerbahçe's activities had to be conducted in secrecy until a change of Ottoman legislation in 1908, after which the club was officially registered.

The first football team joined the Istanbul League in 1909. The new team of the 1912-1913 season won the championship for the first time, and without a single defeat at that.

The Emblem
http://www.fenerbahce.org.tr/getpage.asp?pg=amblem&lang=EN

Famous Fenerbahçe Players

 * Alex De Souza
 * Rüştü Reçber
 * Ariel Ortega
 * Pierre van Hooijdonk
 * Tuncay &
 * R&
 * Tanju Çolak

title: Talk:Fenerbahce


text:
Edmund Costello

Brigadier-General Edmund William Costello, VC, CMG, CVO, DSO (7 August 1873 – 7 June 1949) was a British Indian Army officer and a recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces.

Early life and service
Costello was born in Sheikhbudia on the North-West Frontier of India, the son of a colonel in the Indian Medical Service. He was educated in England at Beaumont College, Stonyhurst College and the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. In 1892 he was commissioned into the West Yorkshire Regiment, but transferred to the Indian Army in 1894 and was posted to the 22nd Punjab Infantry.

Victoria Cross
He was 23 years old, and attached to the 24th Punjab Infantry during the Malakand Frontier War, when the following deed took place for which he was awarded the VC:

"On 26 July 1897 at Malakand on the Indian Frontier, Lieutenant Costello went out from the hospital enclosure and with the assistance of two sepoys, brought in a wounded lance-havildar who was lying 60 yd away, in the open, on the football ground. This ground was at the time over-run with swordsmen and swept by a heavy fire from both the enemy and our own men who were holding the sapper lines."

In the subsequent fighting he was wounded twice and mentioned in dispatches twice.

Later service
In November 1900 Costello was appointed adjutant of his regiment, and on 19 November 1901 he was promoted Captain in the Indian Staff Corps. He then worked as a recruiting officer for several years before taking part in the Mohmand operations of 1908. He was promoted Major in 1910. In 1913 he entered the Indian Staff College at Quetta and graduated just before the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, when he rejoined his regiment as second-in-command.

The regiment was soon sent to Mesopotamia as part of the 17th (Ahmednagar) Brigade of the 6th (Poona) Division and Costello remained there for the rest of the war. He was promoted Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel in June 1916, was awarded the Distinguished Service Order (DSO) in 1917 and appointed Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George (CMG) in 1918. In May 1918 he took command of the 12th Indian Brigade and he received a substantive promotion to Lieutenant-Colonel in September 1918. He was mentioned five times in dispatches during the war and also received the French Croix de Guerre.

In June 1919 he was promoted Brevet Colonel and was joint commander of the Indian contingent at the Peace March in London, for which he was appointed Commander of the Royal Victorian Order (CVO) in the 1920 New Year Honours. He was promoted substantive Colonel in March 1920, although he had held the acting appointment of Brigadier-General since 1918. From May to December 1920 he commanded the 8th (Jullundur) Brigade in the 3rd (Lahore) Division. In March 1921 he went to Palestine as temporary commander of the Palestine Defence Force and remained there to command a brigade in 1922. He retired in October 1923 and became Director of Military Studies at the University of Cambridge.

Family
Costello married Elise Maud Lang Huggins, daughter of Charles Lang Huggins, of Hadlow Grange, Buxted, Sussex, at St Peter and St Edward's church, Pimlico, on 16 October 1902.

Legacy
His grave and headstone memorial is at St Mark's Church, Hadlow Down, Sussex, England.

His Victoria Cross is displayed at the National Army Museum in Chelsea.

Honours and awards

title: Edmund Costello