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Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Shazza Typing

 This page is an archive of the discussion about the proposed deletion of the article below. This page is no longer live. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page rather than here so that this page is preserved as an historic record. The result of the debate was speedy delete. —Korath (Talk) 03:29, Apr 15, 2005 (UTC)

Shazza Typing
Self-promotion of User:Shazza, no encyclopedic relevance. andy 08:40, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * This should be speedied. Shazza is a repeat vandal. -- Riffsyphon1024 08:44, Apr 9, 2005 (UTC)

 * This page is now preserved as an archive of the debate and, like some other VfD subpages, is no longer 'live'. Subsequent comments on the issue, the deletion, or the decision-making process should be placed on the relevant 'live' pages. Please do not edit this page.


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Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sabir language

 * This page is an archive of the discussion about the proposed deletion of the article below. This page is no longer live. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page rather than here so that this page is preserved as an historic record.

The result of the debate was redirect

Sabir language
Someone's boilerplate. Salvaged from CAT:CSD. Mikkalai 08:43, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

No useful information, delete DDerby 17:43, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Redirect to Lingua franca. I added the useful bit from here (the Ethnologue link) to that article. Chris Johnson 20:25, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

This is indeed the same langauage as the one discussed on the bottom of the Lingua franca page. I guess I put up this template and then totally forgot about it. I'm way too busy to work on it now, so deletion + redirect is fine with me. John

Redirect to Lingua franca, I guess, although I'd prefer to have Lingua franca be a disambiguation for the common noun meaning auxiliary language, the Mediterranean pidgin (which should be at Lingua Franca language in spite of the redundancy), and the magazine (which should be at Lingua Franca (magazine). If that happens, Sabir language should redirect to Lingua Franca language. --Angr/comhrá 16:07, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)

 * This page is now preserved as an archive of the debate and, like some other VfD subpages, is no longer 'live'. Subsequent comments on the issue, the deletion, or the decision-making process should be placed on the relevant 'live' pages. Please do not edit this page.

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


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Category:LAN parties

Refer to LAN party. See also demoparty.

title: Category:LAN parties


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User:Michaelvandorpe

Welcome!

To do
Shorten World Bank Group lead paragraph.

title: User:Michaelvandorpe


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Mountain hut

A mountain hut is a building located high in the mountains, generally accessible only by foot, intended to provide food and shelter to mountaineers, climbers and hikers. Mountain huts are usually operated by an Alpine Club or some organization dedicated to hiking or mountain recreation. They are known by many names, including alpine hut, mountain shelter, mountain refuge, mountain lodge, and mountain hostel. It may also be called a refuge hut, although these occur in lowland areas (e.g. lowland forests) too.

Mountain huts can provide a range of services, starting with shelter and simple sleeping berths. Some, particularly in remote areas, are not staffed, but others have staff which prepare meals and drinks and can provide other services, including providing lectures and selling clothing and small items. Mountain huts usually allow anybody to access their facilities, although some require reservations.

While shelters have long existed in mountains, modern hut systems date back to the mid-19th century. The Swiss Alpine Club has built huts since 1863. In the United States, the Appalachian Mountain Club built its first hut at Madison Spring in New Hampshire in 1889.

The Alps
The construction of refuges and shelters in the Alps date back to ancient times, when Roman roads led across the mountain passes. In the High Middle Ages, hospitales were erected along the trade routes; cottages and sheds on the high mountain pastures served for Alpine transhumance. The long history of mountaineering from the 19th century onwards has led to a large number of Alpine club huts as well as private huts along the mountaineering paths. These huts are categorised according to their location and facilities. They may have beds or a mattress room (Matratzenlager) for overnight stays.

Just as the Margherita Hut in the Valais Alps is the highest alpine refuge at 4,554 m, the Rifugio Mario Premuda in Trieste is the lowest refuge in the Alps at 82 m (both are owned by the Italian Alpine Club).

Britain
In the United Kingdom the tradition is of unwardened "climbing huts" providing fairly rudimentary accommodation (but superior to that of a bothy) close to a climbing ground; the huts are usually conversions (e.g. of former quarrymen's cottages, or of disused mine buildings), and are not open to passers-by except in emergency. Many climbing clubs in the UK have such huts in Snowdonia or in the Lake District. A well-known example is the Charles Inglis Clark Memorial Hut (the 'CIC Hut') - a purpose-built hut below the northern crags of Ben Nevis in Scotland. In the past, some shelters in Scotland were built in exposed locations at high elevation, often as part of military training exercises. However, and particularly following the 1971 Cairngorm Plateau Disaster, these were deliberately demolished because they were thought to pose dangers exceeding their benefits.

Norway
The Norwegian Trekking Association operates about 460 cabins mostly in the mountains and in forested areas, of which about 400 have lodgings. Many cabins are unstaffed and open all year, while the staffed cabins often are just open during summer.

Poland
In Poland most mountain shelters and huts are run by the Polish Tourist and Sightseeing Society, with some being privately owned. In the Polish mountains, there are about 100 shelters. Most mountain shelters offer multi-person rooms and refreshments. Polish mountain huts are obliged by their own regulations to allow overnight anyone who is not able to find any other place before sunset, but conditions may be spartan (e.g. a mattress in a hall or warm basement).

Slovakia
In Slovakia there is a dense network of mountain huts ("chata") in most mountain and forest regions, serving a culture of hiking. In the past they were managed by the official tourist union, but now are mostly in private hands. Official mountain huts are similar to guest houses and are run by full-time managers. In winter, some refuges are closed.

United States
There are many huts in the United States, for example in the Rocky Mountains, the Appalachian Mountains and other ranges. The High Huts of the White Mountains in New Hampshire are generally "full service" (cooks serve food) through summer and early fall, while some are open the rest of the year as self-service huts, at which hikers bring and prepare their own food.

Canada
The Alpine Club of Canada operates what it calls the "largest network of backcountry huts in North America."

New Zealand
The New Zealand Department of Conservation "manages a network of over 950 huts of all shapes and sizes."

The Himalayas
The mountains of Asia do not have a well-developed system of public mountain huts, although hiking, trekking and mountain climbing are common. In 2015, a competition was launched to design huts that could be located along trekking trails of Nepal.

South Africa
Many places in Africa have hiking huts but they are usually privately owned and require payment and reservations. At least one hut is open for public use on Table Mountain in South Africa, part of Table Mountain National Park.

title: Mountain hut


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Postal order

A postal order or postal note is a type of money order usually intended for sending money through the mail. It is purchased at a post office and is payable to the named recipient at another post office. A fee for the service, known as poundage, is paid by the purchaser. In the United States, this is known as a postal money order. Postal orders are not legal tender, but a type of promissory note, similar to a cheque.

History

The postal order is a direct descendant of the money order, which had been established by a private company in 1792. During World War I and World War II, British postal orders were temporarily declared legal tender to save paper and labour. Postal orders can be bought and redeemed at post offices in the UK, although a crossed postal order must be paid into a bank account. Until April 2006 they came in fixed denominations though an amount of any value less than the next higher fixed denomination could be produced by adding one or more postage stamps in the space on the postal order that was designated for that purpose, but due to increased popularity they were redesigned to make them more flexible and secure. They now have the payee and value added at the time of purchase, making them more like a cheque. There is a fee for using this form of payment. The maximum value of postal order available is £250.00 for a fee of £12.50.

Use in other countries

The use of postal orders (or postal notes in some countries) was extended to most countries that are now part of the British Commonwealth of Nations, plus to a few foreign countries such as Jordan, Egypt and Thailand.

United States
United States Postal Money Service was introduced in 1864 by an act on Congress as a way of sending small amounts of money through the mail. By 1865 there were 416 post offices designated as money order offices that had issued money orders to the value of over $1.3 million and by 1882 they had issued orders valued at $113.4 million from 5,491 money order offices.

Currently they facially appear as a draft against an account held by the United States Postal Service, and the United States Postal Service requires a purchaser to know, in advance, where presentment of the instrument will occur. Only special, more expensive United States International Postal Money Orders may be presented abroad. In the United States, international money orders are pink and domestic money orders are green.

Canada
Canada had its own postal orders (called postal notes) from 1898 until 1 April 1949, when these were discontinued and withdrawn.

A British Forces Post Office in Suffield, Alberta was issuing British postal orders as late as July 2006.

China
Chinese Imperial Post began issuing postal orders since 1897, the so-called "remittance certificate". After purchase, these certificates are payable at main post offices in China and usually bearing franked postage stamps represented as fee. Since 1925, a set of special stamps were used by post offices to issue secured postal orders. Since 1929, Chinese Post were capable of selling international postal orders cashable under UPU protocol at a few other countries including Japan, Britain, France, and the US.

Australia

A Defence canteen order was a variant of a postal order used in Australia during World War II. Purchased at a post office, it was payable to an enlisted person in goods from a canteen rather than being a cash instrument.

Collecting
Postal orders are gaining in popularity as collectibles, especially among numismatists who collect banknotes.

There is an active numismatic organisation in the UK called the Postal Order Society that was established in 1985 with members both domestically and overseas. They hold twice-yearly postal auctions of postal orders and related material from across the British Commonwealth.

Advantages
Despite competition from cheques and electronic funds transfer, postal orders continue to appeal to customers, especially as a form of payment for shopping on the Internet, as they are drawn on the Post Office's accounts so a vendor can be certain that they will not bounce. They also enable those without a bank account, including minors, to make small financial transactions without the need for cash. Postal workers in the United Kingdom use voided or cancelled orders in their training.

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User:Heycam

Hi there! My name is Cameron McCormack from Melbourne, Australia. Nothing much interesting on this page here, but feel free to leave some comments on my talk page.

title: User:Heycam


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J. P. McManus

John Patrick McManus (born 10 March 1951) is an Irish businessman and racehorse owner. His career spanned from the 1980s to the 2010s. He was a major shareholder of Manchester United, until his stake was bought out by Malcolm Glazer in 2005.

Early life
McManus was born in Limerick, Ireland, on 10 March 1951. He began his career at a plant hire firm.

Racehorse ownership
His first horse was Cill Dara, named after the county in Ireland. McManus's first Cheltenham Festival winner was a horse called Mister Donovan in 1982. Former champion jockey Jonjo O'Neill trains some of his horses at the Jackdaws Castle facility, which McManus owns. McManus's horse Don't Push It, ridden by McCoy and trained by O'Neill, won the 2010 Grand National Steeplechase. In 2021 McManus won the Grand National for a second time with his horse Minella Times, ridden by Rachael Blackmore and trained by Henry De Bromhead. In 2024 McManus won the Grand National for a third time with his horse i am maximus, ridden by Paul Townend and trained by Willie Mullins.

2010s awards
In 2012, McManus's horse Synchronised won the Cheltenham Gold Cup. Synchronised went on to run in the 2012 John Smiths Grand National with champion jockey Tony McCoy on 14 April 2012. Synchronised threw McCoy on the way to the starting area; after being caught and veterinary checks were performed, Synchronised was re-entered. However, he fell at Becher's Brook, broke two legs, and was put down. McManus had his 50th Cheltenham festival winner when Buveur d'Air won the 2017 Champion Hurdle.

Personal life
McManus is married to Noreen McManus, and has three children and four grandchildren.

In 2006, he built a €20 million residence next to Martinstown Stud. In 2013, he completed a €150 million home in Barbados.

McManus has been known for donating multiple times. In July 2012, McManus donated over €1 million to the Daughters of Charity foundation. In 2020, he donated equipment to the University Hospital, Dooradoyle, during the 2019–22 Coronavirus pandemic.

In 2012, McManus won $17.4 million gambling in the United States, of which $5.2 million was retained as income tax by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). In 2016, The Irish Times reported that he was seeking a refund of the tax on the basis of the United States' double taxation treaty with Ireland; the IRS stated that McManus was a self-confessed tax exile out of Ireland and therefore – despite McManus's sworn affidavits to the contrary – not a legal resident of Ireland in 2012.

In July 2022, the sixth JP McManus Pro-Am golf tournament was held at Adare Manor, the first since 2010.

In December 2023, McManus announced that he is to donate €1 million to Gaelic games in every county in Ireland with the donation expected to arrive in January 2024.

Health
McManus was diagnosed with cancer in late 2008 and after receiving treatment in the United States, he was said to have recovered well.

Glackin Report
In 1991, an Irish company law inspector, solicitor John Glackin, was appointed by the Irish Government to investigate complicated dealings involving Dermot Desmond and the purchase and sale of the former Johnston Mooney and O'Brien site in Ballsbridge, Dublin, to Telecom Éireann. While Desmond represented himself as an intermediary in the sale, Glackin's report said Desmond, businessman JP McManus and John Magnier were beneficiaries of the sale. Desmond strenuously disputed Glackin's findings.

According to the Glackin Report, Hoddle Investments (the vehicle through which the deal was handled) executed two contracts with Telecom Éireann for the sale of the Johnston Mooney & O'Brien site for an aggregate price of £9.4 million, on 7 May 1990. Glackin concluded that McManus had lent £1.5 million to Chestvale to purchase the site from the liquidator in August 1989. McManus made the investment through an AIB account in Jersey in the name of J&N McMahon. Whether this account was to the benefit of John and Noreen McManus was not confirmed as AIB refused to break client confidentiality.

The report concluded that McManus was a beneficiary of the sale of the site to Telecom Éireann, and received £500,000 in cash from the transaction, which Dermot Desmond had stored in a tennis holdall in his safe. At paragraph 5.4.4 of the report, Glackin concludes that:

"'I am satisfied, on a basis that I believe is reasonable, that Mr. McManus was promised by Mr. Desmond as his consideration for the advance a share of the profits and that this was either agreed in advance or during the period between 29th June 1990 when the money was received from Telecom, and 19th July 1990 when the request was made to Ansbacher for the first cash withdrawal of £100,000. I can find no evidence that any other person received any of the cash of £500,000 and find accordingly that it was received by Mr. McManus.'"No criminal charges were made against McManus or the other principals involved resulting from the findings of the Glackin Report.

title: J. P. McManus


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Project Gutenberg Australia

Project Gutenberg Australia, abbreviated as PGA, is an Internet site which was founded in 2001 by Colin Choat. It is a sister site of Project Gutenberg, though there is no formal relationship between the two organizations. The site hosts free ebooks or e-texts which are in the public domain in Australia. Volunteers have prepared and submitted the ebooks.

To complement the extensive amount of original source material available in the form of ebooks, a great deal of information about the history and the exploration of Australia is provided, together with a "Library of Australiana", a list of ebooks available about Australia or written by Australians.

Because of differences between Australian and United States (where Project Gutenberg is based) copyright law, Project Gutenberg Australia contains many works not available in Project Gutenberg, including works by Margaret Mitchell, George Orwell, Ayn Rand, H. P. Lovecraft, Edgar Wallace, S. S. Van Dine and Dylan Thomas.

With the introduction of the U.S.-Australia Free Trade Agreement, works of authors who died after 31 December 1954 will now not enter the public domain in Australia until at least 1 January 2026. However, all such works which were already public domain under Australian law as of the end of 2004 remain in the public domain, and thus continue to be hosted at Project Gutenberg of Australia.

title: Project Gutenberg Australia


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Majuba

Majuba may refer to:

 * Battle of Majuba Hill, the final and decisive battle of the First Boer War
 * Majuba Day, a major annual national celebration on 27 February in the South African Republic
 * Majuba: Heuwel van Duiwe (Majuba: Hill of Pigeons), a 1968 South African War drama film based on the battle that was directed by David Millin
 * Majuba Mountains, a mountain range in Pershing County, Nevada
 * Majuba Power Station, coal-fired power plant in Mpumalanga, South Africa

title: Majuba


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Nggela Islands

The Nggela Islands, previously known as the Florida Islands, are a small island group in the Central Province of Solomon Islands, a sovereign state, since 1978, in the southwest Pacific Ocean. The name, Florida Islands, fell into disuse following Solomon Islands' independence in 1978.

The group is composed of four larger islands and about 50 smaller ones, many with white coral beaches. The four main islands are, Nggela Sule with Nggela Pile to its southeast, separated by the narrow Mboli Passage, Olevugha (also known as Mobokonimbeti, and previously Sandfly Is.) and Vatilau (also known as Buenavista) to the northwest. Smaller islands include: Anuha, (70 ha), south of Nggela Sule, Tulagi just off the southwest coast of Nggela Sule, now the capital of Central Province and previously the British administrative centre for the Solomons, Gavutu and Tanambogo.

History
The first recorded sighting by Europeans was by the Spanish expedition of Álvaro de Mendaña on 16 April 1568. More precisely the sighting was due to a local voyage done by a small boat, in the accounts the brigantine Santiago, commanded by Maestre de campo Pedro Ortega Valencia and having Hernán Gallego as pilot. They were who charted it as "Pascua Florida" (from the festival of that name) from where its present-day name "Florida" derives. Tulagi in Nggela Sule was the seat of the administration of the British Solomon Islands prior to the 1942 Japanese invasion in World War II.

The Nggela Islands group lies immediately north of the more famous island of Guadalcanal, the scene of the Guadalcanal Campaign during World War II; however, Nggela Sule itself was garrisoned by the Japanese in April 1942 in connection with their efforts to establish a seaplane base on neighbouring Gavutu. On 7 August of the same year, the United States 1st Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment landed on the island to provide cover for the assault on the neighbouring Tulagi islet. Florida Island served as a small, secondary base of operations for the US and Australian and New Zealand war effort in the Pacific for the duration of the war. Following the Allied liberation of the island from the Japanese, it became the site of a US seaplane base. About 80 Japanese troops from Tulagi escaped to Florida Island and fought Marine and British Solomon Islands Protectorate Defence Force patrols for the next two months until being wiped out. The island subsequently served as a watering point for the US Navy, diverting water from an underground source on the island.

After World War II, the British administration moved to Honiara, Guadalcanal.

Fauna
The Florida naked-tailed rat – possibly extinct – was endemic to the Nggela Islands. The black rat was introduced.

Other animals include:
 * dark sheath-tailed bat
 * diadem leaf-nosed bat
 * dwarf flying fox
 * Geoffroy's rousette
 * great bent-winged bat
 * island tube-nosed fruit bat
 * long-tongued nectar bat
 * Solomon's naked-backed fruit bat
 * Woodford's fruit bat

title: Nggela Islands


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Derek Pringle

Derek Raymond Pringle (born 18 September 1958) is a Kenyan-born English former Test and One Day International cricketer for England, and is now a cricket journalist. He was a part of the English squads which finished as runners-up at the 1987 Cricket World Cup and as runners-up at the 1992 Cricket World Cup.

Life and career
Pringle was born in Nairobi, Kenya. His father Donald Pringle, who had moved there to work as a landscaper, played cricket for Kenya and represented East Africa at the 1975 Cricket World Cup; he died in a car accident a few months later, days after his son's 17th birthday.

Pringle was educated at St. Mary's School (Nairobi), Felsted School and Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge. He played for Essex between 1978 and 1993. He was a member of the successful Essex sides of the 1980s and early 1990s, alongside cricketers such as Graham Gooch, Mark Waugh, Nasser Hussain, John Lever and Neil Foster, which in that period won the County Championship six times. As an undergraduate, Pringle played for Cambridge University. In 1982, while captain of the university, he was selected for England Pringle went on to play 30 Tests, the last of which was in 1992, scoring 695 runs and taking 70 wickets. He also played in 44 One-Day Internationals between 1982 and 1993. He appeared in two World Cups and was a member of England's 1992 World Cup Final team.

International career
Pringle's career can probably be best summed up in phases.

Phase 1 – Early days in Botham's shadow Picked for the first time in 1982, he played several Test matches that summer with Ian Botham in the same side but averaged just 11 with the bat and 40 with the ball. The selectors felt that faster bowling was more likely to trouble the 1982 tourists (India and Pakistan) than spin. Pringle toured Australia in 1982–83 but failed to hold his place in 1983.

Pringle was recalled to the England team for the start of 1984, but was powerless to prevent a series of Test defeats by the all-conquering touring West Indies cricket team. He did however take his first Test five-wicket haul in the first Test match at Birmingham, and could claim to be the only English player to be man of the match in a victory over the West Indies that summer, in the second one-day international at Nottingham.

Phase 2 – England's all-rounder By the summer of 1986, Botham had been banned for three months for smoking cannabis. Pringle was therefore elevated to fulfil Botham's role. 1986 was probably one of the worst years for English Test cricket. Pringle played in the first three-match series of the summer, bowling adequately but having his batting exposed by the Indian spin attack, particularly Maninder Singh. He did however make his only Test half-century (an innings of 63) in the first match of this series at Lord's, adding 147 in a partnership with Graham Gooch.

With Botham returning for the last Test of the year at the Oval, Pringle was dropped and did not make the 1986–87 Australian tour. He did not return to the side until the following winter's tour to India and Pakistan for the 1987 World Cup, as Botham had decided not to tour. Pringle's style of bowling proved to be unsuccessful on dead Asian pitches; he went for 83 runs against West Indies in Gujranwala. Although he played the next two games, against Pakistan and Sri Lanka, he was then dropped for the rest of the tournament.

By the turn of the year he had lost his place to another aspiring all-rounder, David Capel from Northampton, who played in the Bicentenary Test in Sydney as well as the Test series in New Zealand. Again recalled for the home series against West Indies in 1988, Pringle took immediate action by taking five wickets in the Texaco Trophy series and making a crucial 39 in the second game at Headingley, which proved to be the difference between the two teams. Again Pringle was man of the match. Arguably that game was his highest point for England.

Pringle again bowled adequately in the first two Tests (Ian Botham being out for the season after his back operation) but, batting at number six, was exposed against the firepower of the West Indies pace attack. David Capel replaced him for Manchester, but a poor performance from Capel saw Pringle recalled again for Headingley where he took five wickets (his best Test figures, 5/95). He took three more at the Oval in the fifth Test, and briefly captained the team from the evening of the third day after Graham Gooch sustained a serious finger injury attempting to take a catch at first slip from Desmond Haynes. England went on to lose the game.

The "in-out" nature of Pringle's selection continued again in 1989. Botham and Pringle played together in the Texaco Trophy, but Botham sustained a facial injury facing Glamorgan bowler Steve Barwick. On a very flat pitch at Headingley, Pringle was one of four bowlers put to the sword by the Australian batsmen. He was dropped until the final Test of the series at the Oval, where he took four wickets in the Australian first innings and was England's most successful bowler. For the following winter tour to the West Indies David Capel was named as all rounder, and Chris Lewis, initially called into the squad as a replacement for Ricardo Ellcock, thereafter became England's new all-rounder in Test matches, although Pringle occasionally continued to turn out in one-day internationals.

Phase 3 – "Pring the swing" As so often happened around this time, England's youth policy was not long-lasting; Pringle was back in the England team by the beginning of the 1991 season, again against the West Indies. In the interim he had made a clear change to his bowling style, slightly slowing down and swinging the ball. In this new style he proved highly effective throughout that series. On a lively Headingley pitch, his style took wickets and proved hard to score against, and he shared in a crucial second-innings partnership of 98 for the seventh wicket with his captain Graham Gooch (Pringle's share being 27), helping England to their first victory in a home Test match against the West Indies for 22 years. He also took five wickets in the first innings at Lord's, giving him an unusual hat-trick of three five-wicket hauls in Test match cricket against the West Indies, one coming on each of three successive West Indies tours of England. Pringle also shared in a ninth-wicket partnership of 92 with Chris Lewis in the second innings at Birmingham; however this was his team's largest partnership of the match and this time Pringle finished on the losing side. Pringle was forced to withdraw with tonsillitis from the final Test of the series, which England won, meaning that his replacement Botham finally had the experience Pringle had enjoyed earlier in the summer of being on the winning side in a Test match against the West Indies.

For the following winter tour of 1991–92, Pringle bowled tightly in the Test Series in New Zealand and was a star in the following World Cup. Opening the bowling in every game, he produced tidy figures in every match, particularly in the World Cup Final in which England were beaten by Pakistan. His figures of 3/22 remain (as of 2022) the best bowling figures ever taken by an England male player in a List A cricket World Cup final.

The English home season of 1992 saw Pringle take his best one-day international figures, 4/42, also against Pakistan in an England victory at Lord's. In the subsequent Test series, Botham and Pringle initially played together in the Test side, but neither lasted long. Botham played his last Test at Lord's, and Pringle was dropped until the Headingley Test match. Headingley was the ground where he took more of his Test wickets than any other, and again, Pringle was instrumental in England's win versus Pakistan, and the selectors persisted with him for the Oval. By this stage he was beginning to be easier to play on flat pitches but an excellent opponent when there was anything in the pitch. On a very true, fast, bouncy surface at the Oval, Pringle looked highly playable, and his final bow on a Test match field saw him having his off stump flattened by Wasim Akram. He was not chosen to tour India in 1992–93, but did make the Texaco Trophy side for 1993 against Australia. Failing to make the Test side, he retired shortly afterwards.

Career after and outside cricket
Pringle eventually became a cult figure late in his career. His always popular warm-up routine before coming on to bowl involved him lying on his back and apparently wrestling with an invisible octopus. He once damaged his back when his chair collapsed, forcing him to withdraw from a Test match, although the story usually (but wrongly) told is that he sustained the injury whilst writing a letter.

After his playing days he became a cricket correspondent, firstly with The Independent and then The Daily Telegraph. In 2004 Pringle was threatened with deportation by the Mugabe administration in Zimbabwe during an England cricket tour of the country.

He has eclectic tastes in fashion and music in comparison to his former team-mates. Pringle's interests include archaeology, photography, writing, real ale, and more obscure musical trends. He picked a track, (The Soft Boys with "I Wanna Destroy You"), for Rough Trade Records' 30th anniversary compilation album.

Pringle also appeared as an extra in the film Chariots of Fire.

He was a Technical Advisor to the Oman cricket team in 2015, helping them qualify for their first ever World T20 Tournament the following year.

title: Derek Pringle


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John Magnier

John Magnier (born 10 February 1948) is an Irish business magnate. He is Ireland's leading thoroughbred stud owner and has extensive business interests outside the horse-breeding industry.

Magnier has also been a Senator in the upper house of the Irish Parliament, Seanad Éireann. He is based at Coolmore Stud at Fethard in County Tipperary, considered one of the world's pre-eminent stallion stations, and a nursery of thoroughbreds.

Origins
Magnier was born in Fermoy, County Cork, the eldest son of Thomas Magnier (1909–1962) a County Cork landowner (son of Michael Joseph Magnier of The Manor House, Fermoy, County Cork) by his wife Evelyn Margaret Hallinan (1925–2022), the younger daughter of Major Thomas Francis Dennehy Hallinan of Ashbourne, Glounthaune, County Cork. His aunt Mary Elizabeth Hallinan married Rupert Watson, 3rd Baron Manton, Senior Steward of the Jockey Club 1982–85, effectively the chief executive of the British horse racing industry.

Early life
Magnier received his formal education at Glenstal Abbey in County Limerick but had to leave school at 15 to take charge of the family estate near Fermoy after his father died.

Coolmore
Magnier later moved to County Tipperary, where he transformed Coolmore Stud into a multi-million-euro international business. The business is headquartered in County Tipperary where a number of other stud farms are part of an extensive network which includes Longfield and Castlehyde studs. The operation also has branches in Versailles, Kentucky and at Jerrys Plains, New South Wales, Australia.

Magnier began his association with Coolmore in partnership with his father-in-law and champion racehorse trainer, Vincent O'Brien, and Vernon's Pools magnate, Robert Sangster. They developed the best racing horses and breeding stock, mainly by purchasing the progeny of the great Canadian stallion Northern Dancer . Their forays to the bloodstock auctions at Keeneland Sales furthered their rising stock at home. Eventually, Magnier came to head the operation and thus began an upward spiral of success. His racing empire, which became arguably the most successful on the planetis nowadays powered by a huge string of blue-blooded thoroughbreds trained at Ballydoyle by Aidan O'Brien, plus dozens of others in the care of a number of other trainers.

Champion sires to have stood at Coolmore include the incomparable Sadler's Wells who was leading sire (by prizemoney won) in Great Britain and Ireland in 14 of the 15 years between 1990 and 2004, though his success in his later years was somewhat eclipsed by the astonishing exploits of three other Coolmore stallions, namely Danehill and his own sons Galileo and Montjeu. Other notable Group 1 winners who have turned successfully to stud duties are Danehill Dancer, Giant's Causeway, and Epsom Derby winner High Chaparral.

Less successful at Coolmore was George Washington, winner of the 2,000 Guineas and Queen Elizabeth II Stakes in 2006.. George Washington proved infertile, was returned to racing, and suffered a fatal breakdown in the 2007 Breeders' Cup Classic. George Washington was replaced at stud by another son of Danehill, Holy Roman Emperor, removed from training at the start of his three-year-old season. The strength of thoroughbred talent residing at Coolmore is indicated by the fact that eleven of the fifteen winners of the blue riband of the turf, The Derby, between 1998 and 2012 were sired by Coolmore stallions (High Estate, Fairy King, Grand Lodge, Sadler's Wells (two), Danehill, Montjeu (four) and Galileo)

Other business ventures
Outside the equine business, Magnier has proven to be an astute investor and together with associates J. P. McManus, Dermot Desmond, Joe Lewis, Michael Tabor and Derrick Smith has enjoyed phenomenal success. A high-profile venture was his stake of 28.89 per cent shareholding in football club Manchester United F.C., which was sold in May 2005 to Malcolm Glazer, an American businessman. A friendship with manager Alex Ferguson was tested in a dispute over bloodstock rights to prolific Group 1 winner (seven wins) Rock of Gibraltar

Wealth
Magnier is said to be the most influential man in horse racing and breeding worldwide, even over Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum. While Magnier's fortune is in the realms of speculation, The Sunday Independent estimated his wealth at €2.3 billion in 2018, although this is conservative as Coolmore Stud is valued at more than €4 billion alone, in addition to his personal property portfolio and other investments and holdings.

Personal life
He is married to Susan O'Brien, a daughter of Irish racehorse-trainer Vincent O'Brien. The couple have five children.

title: John Magnier