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Vintage postcard. Ricky Nelson in Rio Bravo (Howard Hawks, 1959).
American singer Ricky Nelson (1940-1985) was one of the first teenage stars in America. He started his career in his parents' television series The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet. In the late 1950s, he had such hits as 'Hello Mary Lou' and he starred in the Western Rio Bravo (1959) with John Wayne.
Eric Hilliard 'Ricky' Nelson was born in Teaneck, New Jersey, in 1940. His father, Ozzie Nelson, was a bandleader, and his mother, Harriet Hilliard, was a singer in his father's band. As a child, Ricky and his older brother David performed in their parents' radio show (1940-1952), in the film Here Come the Nelsons (Frederick De Cordova, 1959), and in the television series 'The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet' (1952-1966). All episodes of the series were written by Ozzie Nelson, who also directed and often incorporated Ricky's actual songs into the shows. Ricky became one of the first teenage stars in America when his rock and roll career took off in 1957. His first single, which he wanted to impress his girlfriend with, was released in April 1957 by the Verve record company and had 'I'm Walkin' (originally by Fats Domino) as its B-side. Nelson's cover version rose to #4 on the best-selling charts and reached #17 on the Billboard Hot 100. The A-side, featuring the song 'Teenager's Romance', was even more successful and rose to #2 on the best-selling charts and #8 on the Billboard Hot 100, respectively. His appearance with the songs on his parents' television show played no small part in the rapid success of his first record. In the following years, he became extremely popular with well-known hits like 'Hello Mary Lou', 'Travelin' Man' and 'Poor Little Fool'. During the late 1950s and early 1960s, he had 29 Top 40 hits, and only Elvis Presley and Pat Boone sold more records in the United States. Compared to his success in the US, his international success remained rather modest. His most successful song in Europe was 'Hello Mary Lou'(1961). Ricky Nelson also worked as an actor. In 1959, he starred in the film Rio Bravo (Howard Hawks, 1959) with John Wayne and Dean Martin, and he performed the songs 'My Rifle, My Pony and Me' and 'Cindy, Cindy'. He was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Newcomer for his performance in the film. Alongside Jack Lemmon, Nelson starred in the comedy The Wackiest Ship In The Army (Richard Murphy, 1960),
With the release of the LP 'Rick is 21', Nelson dropped the "y" from his name and released under the name 'Rick Nelson' from September 1961. He made a promo clip for the hit 'Travelin' Man' (1961), which is considered the first video clip ever made. The promo clip consists of images of places that are sung about in the song. In 1963 he signed a 20-year contract with Decca Records, but after 'For You' (1964) he had no more major hits. The 'British Invasion' of the English beat groups also meant a career break for him, as for many other teenage idols. In 1966, the last episode of the TV series 'The Adventures Of Ozzie And Harriet' ran, leaving him without an important mainstay of his success. Nelson changed his musical style and went from Rock and Roll more into country music. His fans did not appreciate this very much. He took on two more roles in TV Westerns also starring his wife Kristin Harmon, The Over-The-Hill-Gang (Richard Murphy, 1969) starring Walter Brennan, and The Resurrection of Bronco Billy (James R. Rokos, 1970) starring Johnny Crawford. Nelson wrote the song 'Garden Party' (1972), in response to the unwillingness of the public to grant him a new repertoire. The song promptly became a hit, Two years later, another modest success followed with 'Windfall'. In the 1970s and 1980s, he fell into oblivion, until 1985, when he successfully participated in a series of golden oldie concerts in England. This led to a similar tour in the southern United States. During this tour, on New Year's Eve 1985, he died in a plane crash in Texas. His girlfriend Helen Blair and all the members of the Stone Canyon Band died with him. He was 45 years old. From 1963 to 1981, Nelson was married to Kristin Harmon, the older sister of actor Mark Harmon. Their twin sons, Gunnar and Matthew, later formed the pop group Nelson, which had a number one hit in America in 1990 with '(Can't live without your) love and affection'. Their daughter, Tracy Nelson, starred in the series 'Father Dowling Mysteries'. Ricky Nelson was buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Hollywood.
Sources: Wikipedia (Dutch and German) and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
Warrington's Own Buses operate a closed-door peak and lunch time shuttle between the various office facilities on Birchwood Park and Birchwood railway station / shopping centre. Normally this would be operated by one of the two deckers to wear an advert livery for Birchwood Park Estates, but with most of the offices closed or on minimal staffing at the moment due to Covid-19 and the shuttle running on a reduced timetable, the capacity is not needed. An empty VDL SB120 / Wright 72 (DK07EZO) was seen on the service on the afternoon of 14/05/20 whilst I enjoyed a bike ride.
For many years independent operators have taken school children to the swimming baths providing a useful source of off peak income. The firm with whom I started my working life in the bus industry was no exception and Stoniers of Goldenhill ... later Tunstall, had several such contracts. Here 'our' penultimate new Leyland Leopard TVT 863R awaits the returning rabble outside Tunstall's elderly Public Baths in Greengate Street circa 1980. Bodywork was by Plaxton to their Supreme III 'Express' design seating 53.
I gather Tunstall's baths are now earmarked for closure along with several other council run facilities as the authority strives to make cuts. I'm not sure how or where the kids will learn to swim if it is indeed still a legal requirement (?)
Former Dublin Bus AV256, Stagecoach 16977 - TSU642, pulls in toward the stand for the 727 to Aberdeen Airport.
The Volvo B7TL/Alexander ALX400 was new to Dublin, registered 02-D-10256 and sold to D&E Coaches in late 2016, and re-registered P16YST. Largely used on school contracts, it would fall in the hands of Stagecoach Bluebird (along with two other ex-Dublin), reverting to its original 2016 Scottish registration of SJ02AJA, before it would gain the private plate of TSU642.
As everyone watches Johnny slink out of the coffee shop wearing humiliation and Elizabeth's coat, Booley turns to the Buddy Duo.
Booley: "Well, Don, what do you say we try to peel you out of this booth?"
Don tries to stand on his own but needs Booley's help straightening his back.
Don, not sure he can get his coat back on: "You know, who needs a coat in this weather?"
On a sidenote: Does anyone know where Don's coat comes from? I inherited it from my sister when I was about four or five, and we can't recall if it's Mattel and if so, what fashion it came from....It's Don's favorite coat -- or what remains of it! :)
This was the prototype B.Ae 146-300 and first flew on 09-Apr-87. After it's development flying was finished it was stored at the Avro airfield at Woodford, Cheshire, UK (now closed) in Dec-01. It's operated by Airtask on behalf of the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) & BAE Systems.
FAAM is the result of a collaboration between the UK Met Office and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) and has been established as part of the National Centre for Atmospheric Science (NCAS) to provide an aircraft measurement platform for use by all the UK atmospheric research community on campaigns throughout the world. The modified BAe 146-301 large Atmospheric Research Aircraft (the ARA) is owned by the Natural Environment Research Council and, via a support contract with BAE Systems, operated for them by Airtask. The Home Base is at Cranfield University, Bedfordshire. (Information courtesy of the FAAM website at www.faam.ac.uk
Contract Mission: Ivan Drackoff - Leader of the Shazir Cell in Bandaud
23.
Right after he grab a syringe and inject Drackoff
"Dagger clear"
(from Art in America .. more info on sources below)
Chinati Foundation, Marfa
The Marfa plans had a long gestation. The initial contract for the work to fulfill Judd's conception of a museum of permanently installed work by him, Flavin and John Chamberlain was issued by the Dia Art Foundation in 1979. Flavin traveled to Marfa in the early 1980s, and models of the buildings and meeting notes suggest that he conceived his plans around that time. Nonetheless, he did not disclose his ideas completely until March 1996.[3]
The six buildings are U-shaped structures that have been renovated in the local vernacular architectural style with adobe walls and metal roofs. To accommodate Flavin's installation, all the windows except two at the end of each long wall have been closed over; entrances are on the inside of the U toward the ends of the long sides. Inside, two parallel corridors have been constructed at the bottom of the U, with walls--86 feet on the outside and 44 feet on the shorter courtyard side--that lean left, making a 76-degree angle with the floor.
Passage through the leaning corridors is blocked by eight back-to-back pairs of 8-foot-long fluorescent fixtures that extend from floor to ceiling, parallel to the walls. Gaps the width of the lamps are left between each pair of fixtures, allowing one to see through the color cast by the lamps on the fronts to the different color at the backs.
In three of the buildings, these light barriers are placed at the centers of the corridors' lengths, so that color is largely contained within the leaning walls. In the other three (they alternate from one building to the next), the lights are placed on both ends of the corridors, which allows color to flood into the long arms of the building as well as the inaccessible interiors of the corridors. The first two buildings contain pink and green lamps; in the second two, yellow and blue lamps are similarly placed; and the last two have both a pink/green and a yellow/blue corridor.
The repetition of arrangement and color in the Marfa corridors is characteristic of much of Flavin's art. As in the work of other Minimalists, such as Judd, Carl Andre or Sol LeWitt, an inherent systematic order distinguishes his art from the expressionism of the previous generation and takes on relevance with regard to many issues of the early '60s: handmaking versus industrial production, the nature of individuality, the importance of part to whole, and so on. For Flavin, the projection of a system was particularly important because it provided a kind of framework to work with and against. The repetition and regularity of his elements and his arrangements provided a structure within which he employed a strategy of systematic change.[4]
Although Marfa's tilting corridors were a striking new development for Flavin, the use of diagonals and other aspects of the piece derive from earlier works. Flavin's first solely fluorescent piece to be exhibited employed a diagonal element: the diagonal of May 25, 1963 (to Robert Rosenblum) was a single 8-foot fixture with a cool-white lamp placed on the wall at a 45-degree angle. The spacing of the parallel lamps at Marfa relates to untitled (to Dorothy and Roy Lichtenstein on not seeing anyone in the room), 1968, a work in which a rank of single cool-white lamps is set vertically into a doorway.[5] In that work, the lamps face away from the viewer, illuminating an empty room while blocking passage into it, like the Marfa works that are barricaded at each end. In both cases, the architecture and lights operate in tension with each other. The walls invite passage but the lamps prevent it; the lights shine forth brilliantly only to be contained and framed by the walls. The Marfa works, however, are neither as blunt nor as austere as the 1968 work, with its cool, colorless light. Also in contrast, the exposed backs of the fixtures in the earlier piece suggest prison bars and give a vaguely political character to the work. At Marfa, the double-sided arrangement and the intensity of the paired, contrasting colors fill and complicate both the existing and constructed space. The physical experience of the work becomes dynamic and visually disorienting.
The Marfa installations in which lamps are midway down the passage recall an earlier corridor, untitled (to Barry, Mike, Chuck and Leonard), 1972-75, a hall 8 feet tall and wide, of a length dependent on the available space,[6] with back-to-back pink and yellow lamps placed floor to ceiling midway down its length. As in Marfa, to see the work completely, the observer is forced to walk around the construction (in Marfa, this means going outside and crossing the courtyard to reenter the building). This experience introduces some surprises, as the color and intensity of the lights change from side to side. The construction of the earlier work set up a square frame that tends to play with notions of perspective; one's gaze travels down the visually converging lines of the walls, much as in Renaissance perspectival painting, to meet a plane of light fixtures.[7] In the Marfa works, the angled walls and fixtures disrupt the expected order of right angles, subverting the sense of architectural proportion and balance. In this regard, they recall a corridor conceived and built around the time Flavin was first thinking about the Marfa works, untitled (to my dear bitch, Airily), 1981, in which diagonally placed blue lamps ran along the walls and ceiling of an 8-foot-high and -wide corridor.[8] The familiar structure encouraged one to pass through; while the lights did not block the passage, their placement warped one's sense of rectilinear order.
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The dynamic quality of the installation in Marfa is amplified by color. Though he utilized a limited range of commercially available hues, Flavin combined colored lights to very different effects, both expressive and spatial. In Marfa, he paired bright, contrasting colors: pink/green and blue/yellow. Green is the most luminous and intense of the fluorescent colors; when pink and green are mixed they seem to radiate yellow. As one looks into the corridor toward the green lamps, the color turns white as the eye compensates for the intensity of the green light. This physiological effect strengthens the pink light as seen from the green side. When one walks around to look at this light barrier from the other side, the yellow reflection on the barrack walls is seen to be the result of emanations of soft pink highlighted by green. These subtle transformations play against the predictability of the repeated structures.
... from
Dan Flavin, Posthumously
Art in America, Oct, 2000 by Tiffany Bell
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Dan Flavin was born on April 1, 1933 in New York City. In the mid 1950s he served in the US Air Force as an air weather meteorological technician in Korea, after which he returned to New York and attended art history classes at the New School for Social Research and Columbia University. While he had an interest in art and drawing throughout his life, he never received formal art instruction.
In 1961 Flavin had his first solo exhibition at the Judson Gallery, New York City. Later that year he began experimenting with electric light in a series of works called 'icons,' which led him to his inaugural work in pure fluorescent light, the diagonal of May 25, 1963. Flavin married Sonja Severdija in 1961, and their son, Stephen Conor, was born in 1964. In 1965 Flavin moved from Manhattan to the shores of the Hudson River where he continued his drawings of water and landscape and developed his interest in nineteenth-century Hudson River landscape painters.
With a recommendation from Marcel Duchamp, Flavin received an award from the William & Norma Copley Foundation, Chicago, in 1964, the same year that he exhibited his 'icons' at the Kaymar Gallery and had his first exhibition in fluorescent light at the Green Gallery, both in New York City. He also began his nearly life-long series of monuments dedicated to the Russian Constructivist Vladimir Tatlin. Flavin became known as an originator of 'Minimal' art through inclusion in key group exhibitions such as "Black, White, and Gray" at the Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut in 1964 and "Primary Structures" at the Jewish Museum in New York City in 1966.
Flavin's recognition began to spread to Europe in 1966 following his first solo exhibition at the Galerie Rudolf Zwirner, Cologne, and his first 'barrier' installation greens crossing greens (to Piet Mondrian who lacked green), created for the exhibition "Kunst Licht Kunst" at the Stedelijk van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven. He was featured in the "Minimal Art" exhibition at the Gemeentemuseum, The Hague, in 1968.
Flavin's first single large-scale installation, alternating pink and 'gold', was made for the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, in 1967. In 1969 his retrospective exhibition "fluorescent light, etc. from Dan Flavin," opened at the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, before traveling to the Vancouver Art Gallery, British Columbia, and to the Jewish Museum in New York City.
Circular fluorescent lights entered Flavin's artistic vocabulary in 1972 in an installation at the Albright-Knox Gallery, Buffalo, New York, and were a key element of an important exhibition at the St. Louis Art Museum, Missouri in 1973.
From its inception in 1974, the Dia Art Foundation acquired numerous works by Flavin, and supported larger projects including: an outdoor work for the four corners of the courtyard of the Kunstmuseum Basel, in 1975; lighting several train platforms at New York's Grand Central Station in 1977; and a permanent installation of nine works in a former firehouse and Baptist Church in Bridgehampton, New York (The Dan Flavin Art Institute) in 1983.
Among Flavin's most important late large-scale installation was his project to light the entire rotunda of the Frank Lloyd Wright designed Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City to commemorate its restoration and reopening in 1992 (based on a smaller installation he had made there for the 1971 "Sixth Guggenheim International"). Flavin married Tracy Harris, at the Guggenheim, in 1992. He completed a major installation for the Kunstbau Lenbachaus, Munich, in 1974.
Flavin died in Riverhead, New York, on November 29, 1996, near his Long Island, New York home.
Three of Flavin's most ambitious permanent installations were completed after his death: the lighting of Santa Maria Annunciata in Chiesa Rossa, a 1920s designed Catholic Church in Milan, in 1997; a project for Richmond Hall at the Menil Collection in Houston, Texas in 1998; and the completion of an installation in six former army barracks at Donald Judd's Chinati Foundation in Marfa, Texas in 2000.
Ousted by the low-floor revolution, a brace of new to Manchester Volvo B10s await their fates at Lillyhall.
What happens when two models are contracted to do the same photoshoot by mistake? Harry Emmalong, the unfortunate fashion photographer found out when sisters Flambo and Gissles Lank turned up at the same time.
The plan had been a simple shot, featuring an armchair by the newly formed furniture company, Shabby Sheik. However, both women were determined they should be the model employed, not accepting it to be a back-office mistake.
Harry said "Frankly, I just let them argue it out amongst themselves. There was much squealing from the back room, and afterwards I found tufts of hair all over the floor. But I wasn't going to get involved".
Eventually, Harry took this shot of the pair trying to force themselves into the same chair. It was as good he was going to get that day, especially as they broke the chair.
Shabby Sheik were delighted with the picture, and paid both girls half the amount.
On receiving the news of this, there was much squealing from the back room.
After 8 years with yearly contract at the Ministry of Education, eventually tonight I got my OPEN ENDED contract...see my face!!!!
The era of the pastoralists in the Crystal Brook area was dominated by the Bowman family. This area appealed to pastoralists as the Rocky River (which rises beyond Laura) joins the Broughton River near where Crystal Brook now stands. The first run in the district, called the Crystal Brook run (560 square miles) was taken up by William Younghusband and Peter Ferguson in 1842. It included the site of present day Port Pirie. Younghusband and Ferguson decided to survey part of their run and establish a town in 1848. They sold some of the land (85 acres) to Emmanuel Solomon and Matthew Smith, who established Solomontown. Around 1850 the leasehold was “sold” to the Bowman brothers with 25,000 sheep, 3,400 cattle and 200 horses for £50,000! The partnership between the three Bowman brothers was dissolved in 1864 following the Surveyor General’s new evaluation of their leasehold. George Goyder raised the annual lease from £514 to £3,420. One Bowman brother left for Tasmania, one for Poltalloch on Lake Alexandrina and another for Campbell Park on Lake Albert. The last remaining brother had his Crystal Brook run resumed by the government for closer settlement in 1873. The original homestead with a fine slate roof is part of Bowman Park, a state Native Fauna Park, controlled by the government. Many station buildings from the pastoral era still exist in this park. .
Surveying of the land for agriculture began in 1873 with town blocks being sold at auction shortly after this and the Hundred of Crystal Brook being declared. The town grew phenomenally in the first few years. The railway from Port Pirie arrived in 1877 sealing a prosperous future of the town. It continued on to Gladstone and to Peterborough by 1880. Many public buildings were erected in the years between 1877 and 1880. The first two storey construction in the town was completed in 1875 for E.H. Hewett, a butcher. At one stage this became the town’s bakery and it still has a basement oven. Today it is the National Trust Museum. By the time of the 1881 census Crystal Brook had 496 residents, making it the 12th largest town in the areas north of Adelaide.
At the end of the Main Street (Bowman Street) is Adelaide Square. Like Adelaide, Crystal Brook is also surrounded by parklands, although these have been used for development in places. The railway line divided the town into two parts. Some of the notable or historic buildings in the main street are:
1.The Crystal Brook Hotel on the corner of Railway Terrace was erected in 1878. The upper floor was added in 1910. For some years it was known as Knapman’s Hotel.
2.One of the large department stores was Claridge’s. It eventually became a Eudunda Farmer’s Store.
3.The National Bank site from used from 1876 but is now a private residence. The last a bank to operate here was the Savings Bank of SA. The classical looking bank structure was opened in 1936 for the SA centenary celebrations. It became a Savings Bank of SA in 1943.
4.The Royal Hotel built in 1882 with the upper floor added between 1910 and 1920.
5.Crystal Brook Institute built in 1881. Note the rounded upper windows and door quoin with the rectangular lower windows. Made of local stone. The library service started in 1878 before the Institute built.
6.The Georgian style Elders stock and station agent building was built in the 1930s. It is now a private residence. Note the perfect symmetry and the tiny portico above the front door.
7.In Adelaide Square note the Methodist Church- opened in 1877 and still in use. The unsympathetic front porch was added in 1967. Adjacent to it is a fine Sunday School building which opened in 1912 with FOUR foundation stones laid by four different local ministers and identities.
The District Council of Crystal Brook was established in 1882 and by then the town had a number of town facilities. These included the Crystal Brook School which opened in 1877; the Methodist Church which opened in 1877; and the first Catholic Church which opened in 1879. (The present Catholic Church opened in 1924 when the old church became a Catholic School.)
Growth of the town was based on its industrial development and the employment opportunities this provided. The first blacksmith was started by John & Robert Forgan who had learnt their trades with James Martin of Gawler. Their Crystal Brook foundry and implement works began operations in 1878. In 1884 the business expanded following the death of Robert. John also opened a branch in Port Pirie in 1902. The firm was still operating in 1973 when the town centenary history was written. The first flour mill was built on the corner of Railway Terrace and Cunningham Street in 1880. The flour mill burnt down in 1905 but the chaff mill part of the operations continued until the 1920s when it too burnt down. It was replaced by a motor vehicle dealership and garage.
But the biggest employer in the town was the SA government. In 1885 construction of the Beetaloo Dam, upstream on the Rocky River commenced. The government based its headquarters for the construction team in Crystal Brook. Once this project was completed work began on the Bundaleer reservoir in 1898. This was connected to the Beetaloo system. All the engineers and other workers for water in the mid north were based in Crystal Brook. Next the Baroota Reservoir was started in 1921. The Engineering and Water Supply (E & WS) office has thus been in Crystal Brook since 1892. Since the 1950s Crystal Brook has been the regional head office for E & WS with over 100 employed in the department’s workshops and offices. They are still located on the edge of Adelaide Square. The Highways Department has also had regional headquarters in Crystal Brook since 1943. In the 1970s this department employed 110 people in Crystal Brook. The railways were the other major government employer in the town before the rail standardisation of 1970 which saw the old station complex demolished. Other employment options in the town have been the northern areas radio station which was established in 1932, and the town electricity supply which began providing a service in 1922. The government has also employed health workers at the town hospital since 1925. Today Crystal Brook has a population of 1,600.
Used for an article about a pension fund for freelancers: www.24oranges.nl/2014/05/17/a-pension-for-freelancers/
Photo by Branko Collin.
From 2000 the preferred chassis manufacturer for new and replacement vehicles for the First Aberdeen Ltd fleet was Volvo. This came about as a result of a decision to contract out maintenance to a Volvo franchise with First Aberdeen engineering staff transferring to that new contractor. Consequently, plans were made to replace Leyland Atlanteans, Mercedes Benz 0405, Scania and Dennis Dart types with brand new and young second hand buses Volvo buses from other First fleets.
Six new Volvo B7LA / Wright Eclipse Fusion artics and six new Volvo B7TL / Alexander ALX400 double deckers were overshadowed by what eventually amounted to a total of one hundred and seven Volvo B10BLE single deckers, of which thirty-nine were new and sixty-eight were between one and four years old. The second hand vehicles came from First Manchester (twenty-eight) and First Glasgow (forty). Wright Renown bodywork featured on all of the new single deckers and thirty-eight of the second hand acquisitions with just thirty of the forty buses from First Glasgow having Alexander ALX300 bodies. The influx of these new and second hand buses with the consequential disposal of Leyland Atlanteans, Mercedes Benz 0405, Scania and Dennis Darts to other FirstGroup companies spanned a period just short of eighteen months.
Fleet numbers –
2 – 7 Volvo B7LA artics, 132 – 137 Volvo B7TL double deckers, 601 – 639 new Volvo B10BLE, 640 – 677 / 801 – 830 second hand Volvo B10BLE, (Registration numbers and other details are given below the images of individual vehicles).
In 2002 six Volvo B6-41 / Alexander Dash bodied buses came from Essex Buses Ltd These were allocated fleet numbers 201 – 206.
28 2001 651 X695 ADK 20010727 ae cpy
There is a lot of work for any government concern done by private contractors nowadays. This process of part privatisation of public services was started during Labours tenure of No.10 during the “reign” of Mr Blair!
He was responsible for many retrograde policies, too many for me to start going on about here, but when it comes down to the NHS, the National Health Service, he introduced PPP, Public and Private Partnership to get more new hospitals and health establishments built.
Constructed by private finance then leased back to and operated by the NHS. The contacts were for very long periods, decades, and very costly rents. These locked the government organisations into exorbitant payments even when the building became redundant for some reason.
There are many empty buildings around the country that the government is still paying for and for many years to come.
Patient transport is one area that part-privatisation actually appears to be working in!
Go North East's Saltmeadows-based "QuayLink" branded Optare Versa V1110/Optare 8316 (NK10 GOJ), which also sports the name "Thomas Berwick", is pictured here at Gateshead Transport Interchange, Gateshead, whilst working "QuayLink" service Q1 to Central Station. 28/12/14
Following funding withdrawals from Newcastle City Council and Gateshead Council, the future of the "QuayLink" services (which Go North East operates under contract to Nexus) was unknown. It has recently been announced that Go North East has stepped in to save the "QuayLink", and, from 26th July 2015, will operate the services commercially. It is believed that the services will be altered to fit in with the company's existing network of services, meaning that the frequency of the current QuayLink services is likely to decrease.
A VOSA registration confirms that service 'Q3' will also operate from this date, and it is believed that this service will replace "Great Park & Ride" service X40. Although Go North East gained the Great Park X40 contract as articulated vehicles could be allocated, the Scania L94UA/Wright Solar Fusion vehicles have become rather unreliable in their old age, leading to breakdowns and normal rigid vehicles being allocated on an almost daily basis. It is therefore thought that service Q2 will operate with a 20-minute frequency, and it will interwork with the new Q3 service to provide newer, more reliable vehicles, on service X40.
The "QuayLink" services are currently allocated Optare Versa vehicles. Go North East currently has a sizeable fleet of 59 Optare Versa vehicles, varying in length. Three examples are pictured here: 8316 is one of nine Optare Versa V1110 variants, featuring Next Stop Announcements. The unidentified "Orbit" branded example is also a Optare Versa V1110 variant, featuring the more modern style of bodywork, and the unidentified "Citylink" branded example is a Optare Versa V1170 variant, featuring Next Stop Announcements and free Wi-Fi.
Picture This: Annie Leibovitz In Court
Courtney Comstock, 08.04.09, 10:10 AM EDT. Forbes.Com
The acclaimed photographer is sued by creditors over a contract worth $24 million.
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Last year, famed photographer Annie Leibovitz leveraged practically everything but the shirt off her back for a loan from Art Capital Group. From their upscale office on Madison Avenue, the Art Capital Group doles out loans to celebrities and art collectors who put up real estate or pieces from their art collection as collateral. Some of the spoils of the business can be seen hanging on their walls, like the Warhols and the Rubens hanging there now.
In the past, high-profile names like Michael Jackson, Julian Schnabel and Veronica Hearst have turned to Art Capital for loans. Hearst leveraged the aforementioned Rubens. Next to forfeit her collection to their walls of shame might be Vanity Fair's Annie Leibovitz. Art Capital Group Inc. sued the famous photographer for breach of contract on Tuesday, July 28.
Last autumn, Art Capital gained the rights to Leibovitz's house in Rhinebeck, N.Y., her three townhouses in Manhattan's West Village, all of her existing and some of her future art. Leibovitz signed it all away to restructure her finances by borrowing $24 million from the Art Capital Group, a "high-class hock shop," according to most media reporting on the lawsuit. A spokesman for the group, Montieth Illingworth, told Forbes, "Using [the term 'pawn shop'] may make for interesting journalism, but it does nothing to capture [the group's] complicated and sophisticated expertise in art and finance." Perhaps their spokesman's upper-crust name better captures it.
Leibovitz is obligated to pay Art Capital the $24 million on Sept. 8, but it seems that she's still very broke. Just last May, B2Pro Lighting, whom she owed just under $200,000, threatened to file a petition to force Leibovitz into bankruptcy because of her outstanding debt. No petition has been filed yet, but that doesn't mean that Leibovitz has $24 million to repay Art Capital or that anyone ever expected that she would.
Both Leibovitz and Art Capital knew that her loan couldn't be repaid come September, so they made other arrangements via a sales agreement in which Leibovitz allows Art Capital to settle her projected debt by selling off her real estate and art properties, not an easy task considering the wavering art market. The group has the exclusive right to find buyers, make offers and sell on Leibovitz's behalf. They just don't have the right to force her to help them—yet.
Art Capital claims that Leibovitz has not only refused the bankers entry into her homes, which they need to value before she defaults on her loan, but that in general her conduct has been so "boldly deceptive," that it appears to them that she "entered into the sales agreement with no intention of performing or permitting performance under it." In their suit Art Capital petitions the court to order Leibovitz to allow appraisers into her home. They also seek judgment for her "willful breach" of what Illingworth says is "a very simple and clear agreement." Which Leibovitz signed. Four times.
A bit of evidence against her is an agreement that Leibovitz made last March. She entered into a "multi-project collaboration" with Orchard Represents by Getty Images despite owing all future photographic assets to Art Capital Group until after the $24 million loan is repaid. The $1.1 million contract Leibovitz signed with Getty sparked a separate lawsuit in April. The Art Capital Group apparently initiated Leibovitz's collaboration with Getty Images, who then made a similar arrangement without involving Art Capital.
There are plenty of wealthy art collectors out there to buy her photos, but Leibovitz has surely lost one potential buyer, her lenders-cum-collectors Art Capital. It's hard to imagine they'd even want a reminder of this year's legal mess hanging over their heads, even if it were a photograph of pregnant, naked Demi Moore.