The Thinktank Science Museum at Millennium Point, a multi-use meeting complex on Curzon Street in the Eastside, Birmingham, West Midlands.

 

The Birmingham Collection of Science & Industry was started in the mid-19th century, initially consisting of collections of weapons from the gun trade and the Birmingham Proof House. The Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery opened in 1885, including science collections. In 1951 the Museum of Science and Industry opened at Elkington Silver Electroplating Works, Newhall Street. Over the following years, the museum acquired individual artefacts, as well as entire collections, that were related to local industry and the history of science and technology.

 

Birmingham City Council decided in 1995 to relocate the museum when it was given an opportunity by the Millennium Commission to construct a new building. At the time, the old building was falling into a state of disrepair, and many of the artefacts were no longer in working order. The former museum closed in 1997, and Thinktank opened on 29 September 2001 as part of the £114-million Millennium Point complex. It was funded by Birmingham City Council, supported by the Millennium Commission. The area adjacent to the building is designated Eastside City Park. While many objects were put on display at Thinktank, others were stored at the Birmingham Museum Collection Centre, and some were brought out of storage.

 

Although the previous science museum was free to enter, Thinktank charges an entrance fee. In 2005 the museum underwent a £2 million upgrade, including the installation of a planetarium. By 2007 it had received over 1 million visitors. In April 2012, Birmingham Museums Trust took over governance and management responsibility for Thinktank, along with eight other sites.

 

In March 2015, a new "Spitfire gallery" opened, relating the displayed aircraft to their production, locally. Among the new exhibits are a leather flying helmet previously belonging to Helen Kerly, one of only two British civilian women commended for flying during the Second World War.

 

The museum shares the Millennium Point building with Birmingham City University, and is situated in the Eastside district. It lies near Aston University and the Gun Quarter – which was for many years the centre of world's gun-manufacturing industry. Immediately opposite are The Woodman, a public house, and Curzon Street railway station - both listed buildings.

 

Bronte shares her apartment with two roommates: a grey tabby named Irony and a white fluff-tail named Literally. Can you feel them silently judging you? Good. It’s what cats do best.

Córdoba shares its history with so many cities in Southern Spain. It was Carthaginian and Roman (from 260BC on), later it belonged to the Byzantine Empire for two decade, got looted by the Vandals, before Visigoths conquered it in 572. In 711 it was taken by the by the Umayyad army and became a provincial capital.

 

At that time a Christian church erected by the Visigoths was on the site, it was divided and shared by Muslims and Christians. The sharing agreement lasted until 784, when the Christian half was purchased by the Emir Abd al-Rahman I, who then demolished the church and started to build the grand mosque of Córdoba on its ground. This narrative goes back to the tenth-century historian al-Razi.

 

The work of building the Mezquita employed thousands of artisans and labourers. After vthe first completion it underwent numerous subsequent changes: Abd al-Rahman II ordered a new minaret, Al-Hakam II enlarged the building and enriched the Mihrab. The Mezquita reached its current dimensions in 987 with the completion of the outer naves and courtyard.

It covers an area of more than 23.000 m².

 

The Mezquita still is one of the largest sacred buildings on earth. In the 10th century it was in the center of Cordoba, that with a population of upto 500.000, at that time it was one of the largest cities in the known world.

 

The brick-and-stone striped arches are supported by 856 granite and marble pillars, coming from Romans and Visigothic ruins.

 

Ember shares the north side of Saint Andrew Square with the open toppers of Edinburgh Bus Tours and Bright Bus Tours. Here, Ember’s Yutong TCe12 YD70 CHX pulls away from its Edinburgh terminus for another trip to Dundee on Service E2. The route serves Ingliston Park and Ride (for Edinburgh Airport) offering Dundee passengers an alternative to the direct Xplore Dundee service.

The façade of Santa Maria Novella was completed by Leon Battista Alberti in 1470.

Santa Maria Novella is a church in Florence, Italy, situated just across from the main railway station which shares its name. Chronologically, it is the first great basilica in Florence, and is the city's principal Dominican church.

 

The church, the adjoining cloister, and chapterhouse contain a store of art treasures and funerary monuments. Especially famous are frescoes by masters of Gothic and early Renaissance. They were financed through the generosity of the most important Florentine families, who ensured themselves of funerary chapels on consecrated ground.

   

This church was called Novella (New) because it was built on the site of the 9th-century oratory of Santa Maria delle Vigne. When the site was assigned to Dominican Order in 1221, they decided to build a new church and an adjoining cloister. The church was designed by two Dominican friars, Fra Sisto Fiorentino and Fra Ristoro da Campi. Building began in the mid-13th century (about 1246), and was finished about 1360 under the supervision of Friar Iacopo Talenti with the completion of the Romanesque-Gothic bell tower and sacristy. At that time, only the lower part of the Tuscan gothic facade was finished. The three portals are spanned by round arches, while the rest of the lower part of the facade is spanned by blind arches, separated by pilasters, with below Gothic pointed arches, striped in green and white, capping noblemen's tombs. This same design continues in the adjoining wall around the old churchyard. The church was consecrated in 1420.

   

On a commission from Giovanni di Paolo Rucellai, a local textile merchant, Leone Battista Alberti designed the upper part of the inlaid black and white marble facade of the church (1456–1470). He was already famous as the architect of the Tempio Malatestiano in Rimini, but even more for his seminal treatise on architecture De Re Aedificatoria, based on the book De Architectura of the classical Roman writer Vitruvius. Alberti had also designed the facade for the Rucellai Palace in Florence.

 

Alberti attempted to bring the ideals of humanist architecture, proportion and classically-inspired detailing, to bear on the design while also creating harmony with the already existing medieval part of the facade. His contribution consists of a broad frieze decorated with squares and everything above it, including the four white-green pilasters and a round window, crowned by a pediment with the Dominican solar emblem, and flanked on both sides by enormous S-curved volutes. The four columns with Corinthian capitals on the lower part of the facade were also added. The pediment and the frieze are clearly inspired by the antiquity, but the S-curved scrolls in the upper part are new and without precedent in antiquity. The scrolls (or variations of them), found in churches all over Italy, all find their origin here in the design of this church.

 

The frieze below the pediment carries the name of the patron : IOHAN(N)ES ORICELLARIUS PAU(LI) F(ILIUS) AN(NO) SAL(UTIS) MCCCCLXX (Giovanni Rucellai son of Paolo in the blessed year 1470).

  

The vast interior is based on a basilica plan, designed as a Latin cross and is divided into a nave, two aisles with stained-glass windows and a short transept. The large nave is 100 metres long and gives an impression of austerity. There is a trompe l'oeil-effect by which this nave towards the apse seems longer than its actual length. The slender compound piers between the nave and the aisles are ever closer when you go deeper into the nave. The ceiling in the vault consists of pointed arches with the four diagonal buttresses in black and white.

 

The interior also contains corinthian columns that were inspired by the Classical era of Greek and Roman times.

 

The stained-glass windows date from the 14th and 15th century, such as 15th century Madonna and Child and St. John and St. Philip (designed by Filippino Lippi), both in the Filippo Strozzi Chapel. Some stained glass windows have been damaged in the course of centuries and have been replaced. The one on the facade, a depiction of the Coronation of Mary dates from the 14th century, based on a design of Andrea di Bonaiuto da Firenze.

 

The pulpit, commissioned by the Rucellai family in 1443, was designed by Filippo Brunelleschi and executed by his adopted child Andrea Calvalcanti. This pulpit has a particular historical significance, because from this pulpit the first attack came on Galileo Galilei, leading eventually to his indictment

The Holy Trinity, situated almost halfway in the left aisle, is a pioneering early renaissance work of Masaccio, showing his new ideas about perspective and mathematical proportions. Its meaning for the art of painting can easily be compared by the importance of Brunelleschi for architecture and Donatello for sculpture. The patrons are the kneeling figures of the judge and his wife, members of the Lenzi family. The cadaver tomb below carries the epigram: "I was once what you are, and what I am you will become".

 

Of particular note in the right aisle is the Tomba della Beata Villana, a monument by Bernardo Rossellino in 1451. In the same aisle, you can find the tombs of the Bishop of Fiesole by Tino di Camaino and another one by Nino Pisano.

 

The Filippo Strozzi Chapel is situated on the right side of the main altar. The Strozzi Chapel was the place where the first tale of the Decamerone by Giovanni Boccaccio began, when seven ladies decided to leave the town, and flee from the Black Plague to the countryside. The series of frescoes from Filippino Lippi depict the lives of Philip the Apostle and James the Apostle. They were completed in 1502. On the right wall is the fresco St Philip Driving the Dragon from the Temple of Hieropolis and in the lunette above it, the Crucifixion of St Philip. On the left wall is the fresco St John the Evangelist Resuscitating Druisana and in the lunette above it The Torture of St John the Evangelist. Adam, Noah, Abraham and Jacob are represented on the ribbed vault. Behind the altar is the tomb of Filippo Strozzi with a sculpture by Benedetto da Maiano (1491).

 

The bronze crucifix on the main altar is by Giambologna (16th century). The choir (or the Cappella Tornabuoni) contains another series of famous frescoes, by Domenico Ghirlandaio and his apprentice the young Michelangelo (1485–1490). They represent themes from the life of the Virgin and John the Baptist, situated in Florence of the late 15th century. Several members of important Florentine families were portrayed on these frescoes. The vaults are covered with paintings of the Evangelists. On the back wall are the paintings Saint Dominic burns the Heretical Books and Saint Peter's Martyrdom, the Annunciation, and Saint John goes into the Desert.

 

The stained-glass windows were made in 1492 by the Florentine artist Alessandro Agolanti, known also as il Bidello, based on cartoons by Ghirlandaio.

 

Gondi Chapel

This chapel, designed by Giuliano da Sangallo, is situated on the left side of the main altar and dates from the end of the 13th century. Here, on the back wall, is the famous wooden Crucifix by Brunelleschi, one of his very few sculptures. The legend goes that he was so disgusted by the "primitive" Crucifix of Donatello in the Santa Croce church, that he made this one. The vault contains fragments of frescoes by 13th-century Greek painters. The polychrome marble decoration was applied by Giuliano da Sangallo (ca.1503). The stained-glass window is recent and dates from the 20th century.

 

Cappella Strozzi di Mantova

The Cappella Strozzi di Mantova is situated at the end of the left transept. The frescoes were commissioned by Tommaso Strozzi, an ancestor of Filippo Strozzi, to Nardo di Cione (1350–1357). The frescoes are inspired by Dante's Divine Comedy: Last Judgment (on the back wall; including a portrait of Dante), Hell (on the right wall) and paradise (on the left wall). The main altarpiece of The Redeemer with the Madonna and Saints was done by his brother Andrea di Cione, better known as Orcagna. The large stained-glass window on the back was made from a cartoon by the brothers Andrea and Nardo di Cione.

 

Della Pura Chape

The Della Pura Chapel is situated north of the old cemetery. It dates from 1474 and was constructed with Renaissance columns. It was restored in 1841 by Baccani. On the left side there is a lunette with a 14th-century fresco Madonna and Child and St. Catherine. There is a wooden crucifix by Baccio da Montelupo (1501) on the front altar.

 

Rucellai Chapel

The Rucellai Chapel, at the end of the right aisle, dates from the 14th century. It houses, besides the tomb of Paolo Rucellai (15th century) and the marble statue of the Madonna and the Child by Nino Pisano, several art treasures such as remains of frescoes by the Maestro di Santa Cecilia (end 13th – beginning 14th century). The panel on the left wall, the Martyrdom of Saint Catherine, was painted by Giuliano Bugiardini (with possibly assistance by Michelangelo). The bronze tomb, in the centre of the floor, was made by Ghiberti in 1425.

 

Bardi Chapel

The Bardi Chapel, the second chapel on the right of the apse, was founded by Riccardo Bardi and dates from early 14th century. The high-relief on a pillar on the right depicts Saint Gregory blessing Riccardo Bardi. The walls show us some early 14th-century frescoes attributed to Spinello Aretino. The Madonna del Rosario on the altar is by Giorgio Vasari (1568)

 

Sacristy

The sacristy, at the end of the left aisle, was built as the Chapel of the Annunciation by the Cavalcanti family in 1380. Now it houses again, after a period of fourteen years of cleaning and renovation, the enormous painted Crucifix with the Madonna and John the Evangelist, an early work by Giotto. He had rediscovered the ideal proportions for the human body, as established by the Roman architect Vitruvius (1st century AD, see also : Vitruvian Man). The sacristy is also embellished by a glazed terra cotta and a marble font, masterpieces by Giovanni della Robbia (1498). The cupboards were designed by Bernardo Buontalenti in 1593. The paintings on the wall are ascribed to Giorgio Vasari and some other contemporary Florentine painters. The large Gothic window with three mullions at the back wall dates from 1386 and was based on cartoons by Niccolò di Pietro Gerini

 

Spanish Chapel

 

Fresco by Andrea di Bonaiuto da Firenze in the Spanish Chapel: Allegory of the Active and Triumphant Church and of the Dominican order (c. 1365)

The Spanish Chapel (or Cappellone degli Spagnoli) is the former chapter house of the monastery. It is situated at the north side of the green Cloister (Chiostro Verde). It was commissioned by Buonamico (Mico) Guidalotti as his funerary chapel. Construction started c. 1343 and was finished in 1355. The Guidalotti chapel was later called "Spanish Chapel", because Cosimo I assigned it to Eleonora of Toledo and her Spanish retinue. The Spanish Chapel contains a smaller Chapel of the Most Holy Sacrament. The Spanish Chapel was decorated from 1365 to 1367 by Andrea di Bonaiuto, also known as Andrea da Firenze. The large fresco on the right wall depicts the Allegory of the Active and Triumphant Church and of the Dominican order. It is especially interesting because in the background it shows a large pink building that may provide some insight into the original designs for the Duomo of Florence by Arnolfo di Cambio (before Brunelleschi's dome was built), although this interpretation is fantastical as the Duomo was never intended to be pink, nor to have the belltower at its back side. This fresco also contains portraits of pope Benedict IX, cardinal Friar Niccolò Albertini, count Guido di Poppi, Arnolfo di Cambio and the poet Petrarch. The frescoes on the other walls represent scenes from the lives of Christ and Saint Peter on the entry wall (mostly ruined due to the later installation of a choir), The Triumph of Saint Thomas Aquinas and the Allegory of Christian Learning on the left wall, and the large "Crucifixion with the Way to Calvalry and the Descent into Limbo" on the archway of the altar wall. The four-part vault contains scenes of Christ's resurrection, the navicella, the ascension, and Pentecost. The five-panelled Gothic polyptych that was probably originally made for the chapel's altar, depicting the Madonna Enthroned With and Child and Four Saints by Bernardo Daddi dates from 1344 and is currently on display in a small museum area accessed through glass doors from the far end of the cloister. Together, the complex iconography of the ceiling vault, walls, and altar combine to communicate the message of Dominicans as guides to salvation.

 

Architecture

Giorgio Vasari was the architect, commissioned in 1567 by Grand Duke Cosimo I, for the first remodeling of the church, which included removing its original rood screen and loft, and adding six chapels between the columns. An armillary sphere (on the left) and a gnomon (on the right) were added to the end blind arches of the lower façade by Ignazio Danti, astronomer of Cosimo I, in 1572. The second remodeling was designed by Enrico Romoli, and was carried out between 1858 and 1860.

  

Piazza Santa Maria Novella.

The square in front the church was used by Cosimo I for the yearly chariot race (Palio dei Cocchi). This custom existed between 1563 and late in the 19th century. The two obelisks marked the start and the finish of the race. They were set up to imitate an antique Roman circus. The obelisks rest on bronze tortoises, made in 1608 by the sculptor Giambologna.

 

Artists who produced items for the church include:

 

Sandro Botticelli – early nativity scene above the door

Baccio D'Agnolo – wood carvings

Bronzino – the Miracle of Jesus

Filippo Brunelleschi – The Crucifix (between 1410 and 1425)

Tino da Camaino – Bust of St. Antoninus (in terra cotta); the Tomb of the Bishop of Fiesole

Nardo di Cione – frescoes of the Divine Judgment

Duccio – Rucellai Madonna

Lorenzo Ghiberti – tombstone of Leonardo Dati (1423)

Domenico Ghirlandaio – frescoes (late 15th century) in the Tornabuoni Chapel, design of the stained-glass window

Filippino Lippi – frescoes in the Strozzi Chapel, depicting the life of Philip the Apostle; stained glass window

Benedetto da Maiano – the Tomb of Filippo Strozzi (1491) at the backside of the Strozzi Chapel.

Giacomo Marchetti : Martyrdom of Saint Laurence.

Masaccio – The Trinity

Nino Pisano – Madonna with Child (1368)

Bernardo Rossellino – Monument to the Beata Villana (1451)

Santi di Tito – Lazarus Raised from Death

Paolo Uccello – frescoes in the cloisters

Giorgio Vasari – Madonna of the Rosary (1568)

   

July 21, 2014

"The President shares a laugh backstage with Los Angeles Clippers basketball player Chris Paul, who was about to introduce the President at a 'My Brother's Keeper' initiative town hall in Washington, D.C. A few minutes before this photograph was taken, I was talking to Chris and he told me how nervous he was about doing the introduction. It surprised me that a basketball superstar, who plays under enormous pressure every night in front of tens of thousands of people, would be nervous. The President then came over and before long, had Chris cracking up in laughter to help put him at ease. I'll note that Chris did a great job in his introduction, and there were no visible signs of nervousness."

(Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

 

This official White House photograph is being made available only for publication by news organizations and/or for personal use printing by the subject(s) of the photograph. The photograph may not be manipulated in any way and may not be used in commercial or political materials, advertisements, emails, products, promotions that in any way suggests approval or endorsement of the President, the First Family, or the White House.

 

I met Bianca at the Yabun festival in Camperdown. Here she is performing a spiritual dance which involved water. If you look carefully, you will see small water droplets around her face which barely catch the light. The original picture was shot against a darker background which had some distracting elements so I removed them. I then converted to black and white and applied a blue filter to darken the skin tones. Finally, I adjusted the contrasts to achieve this effect.

 

Bianca is a proud Cabrogal woman of the Darug Nation.

 

The Darug are a group descending from an indigenous Australian people of that name, which shares strong ties of kinship and, in pre-colonial times, survived as skilled hunters in family groups or clans scattered throughout much of what is modern-day Sydney.

I expected to find the anole when I unfurled the deck umbrella this morning.....there he was, already consumed his breakfast it seems. But I appreciate the company.

Thanks to all your SHARES, we were able to spot the family who owned Adrienne (it turns that her real name is PANTERA).

 

Adrienne jumped over the fence a week after the 4th. of July because kids were still playing with fireworks.

 

Adrienne ran and ran and couldn't find he way back home.

 

Luckily we were called to save her, and because hundreds of thousands of you shared the video, we were able to find the family, and she was quickly reunited with her people and with her daughter, Chillona.

 

If you missed this rescue video, you can see it here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAoz4ky5Gts

 

You are welcome to share it again and help us continue raising awareness ;-)

 

Eldad

.

 

▪ shares the common name "lilly pilly" with several other plants.

▪ a summer-flowering, winter-fruiting evergreen tree, belonging to the myrtle family Myrtaceae

  

McLaren Rhododendron Dell, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco

 

20210313_155350

 

5.45x39mm assault rifle based on the AK platform. Externally it shares some aspect in design and shares the same mechanism: a gas-operated, rotating bolt. Developed in 1953, the 53A was meant to be a successor to the AK-47. The model shown here is the 53A, but with most of its wooden furniture replaced with more modern furniture (a trait that the more modern 53Ms share, though the internals and furniture are much more durable in said model).

 

The weapon is fed by AK-74 styled magazines in a traditional layout. A conventional magazine release can be located in front of the trigger guard, which unlocks the magazine in place, allowing it to eject safely. A fire selector, which is different from the standard AK-styled selectors and is more like an AR selector as it doesn't double as a dust cover, can be found above the pistol grip. The 53A can be fired in automatic, semi-automatic, and safety modes.

 

Certain 53A/Ms are also outfitted with folding stocks, which creates the 53S-A/S-M variant respectively. This stock is similar to that of the AK-12 and can be folded to the right side. However, this stock can be replaced with more traditional stocks such as those on the AK platform. On the left side, mounts can be placed much similarly to how one is placed on an AK with optical sights such as the PSO-1, as seen on this Kobra-esque red dot sight. The design of the mount is such that it allows room for the charging handle on the left side to still be accessible, allowing shooters to quickly chamber their rifles.

 

Unfortunately, the standard 53A model was rejected for use as there was no need to replace the AK-47, which was doing fine as a reliable platform. However, the 53 continued to live on as work towards the 53M variants began, hoping to continue to be a competitor to the future AKM, AK-12, and A-545 rifles respectively as time passes.

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First ever try at a full Russian-styled build plus my entry for the contest.

 

Fixed stock variant: prntscr.com/c99aik

Without red dot sight: prntscr.com/c99ao0

 

Alice in Wonderland contains many animals, more than I have mentioned. Those I have mentioned, however, make clear the fact that Alice honors the animals by endowing them with consciousness equal to that of humans. Her interaction with animals and nature are manifestations of what Lévy-Bruhl calls participation mystique, a quality Alice shares with aboriginal peoples and one which adults with their ego-consciousness have lost. “The third exclusion,” Hannah writes, “is perhaps the worst from the psychological point of view, because it has prevented man from recognizing his own shadow. It consists in the exclusion of the inferior man.” It is Eros, “relationship,” that “the Church condemned as sinful” (ibid. 151). The sadistic cruelty shown, for example, in the poem, “The Walrus and the Carpenter,” in which the title characters befriend, then eat, the Oysters, reveals the shadow archetype which Western civilization needs to accommodate. The Freudian interpretations of Alice, in so far as they are valid, compensate for the Church’s denial of sexuality and the relatedness (the “Eros”) it needs. I agree with Bloomingdale that it is Alice’s “capacity for compassion that distinguishes Alice the Queen. . . . Love is the golden crown that makes Alice the true Queen of Hearts” (390). The last exclusion or “repression” Hannah cites is of “creative fantasy . . . [which] if . . . given full freedom . . . will probably lead the individual to find a divine spark in himself.” Although the Church, Hannah notes, has “apparently little influence nowadays,” it certainly had more influence in the last century (and Church here means Christianity in general, not Christ himself or any one denomination). Its negative influence today can be observed in the efforts by some to write discrimination against the marriage rights of gays and lesbians into the Constitution. Writing for children, Carroll was able to abandon his own prudery and give free reign to what was actually a new genre he and Edward Lear were creating simultaneously. Hannah reports that Jung, referring to his own Symbols of Transformation, described two kinds of thinking: “intellectual or directed thinking and fantastic thinking” (100). These are exactly the kinds of thinking that went into the writing of Alice in Wonderland. The happy balance of the two make it a classic which continues to appeal to collective needs in Western culture. Hannah further notes the fact that Jung liked to quote Schopenhauer, who said: “A sense of humor is the only divine quality of man” (40), and in that sense Alice in Wonderland is truly divine.

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (commonly shortened to Alice in Wonderland) is an 1865 novel written by English author Charles Lutwidge Dodgson under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll. It tells of a girl named Alice falling through a rabbit hole into a fantasy world populated by peculiar, anthropomorphic creatures. The tale plays with logic, giving the story lasting popularity with adults as well as with children. It is considered to be one of the best examples of the literary nonsense genre. Its narrative course and structure, characters and imagery have been enormously influential in both popular culture and literature, especially in the fantasy genre.Like most works of entertainment- there is a message to be found beneath the surface. Themes of occult initiation, altered states, Nihilism, and even MKULTRA child abuse can be found if you look hard enough at Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. Of all Victorian children’s stories that are enjoyed equally by children and adults, none is more popular than Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and Through the Looking-Glass (1872).1 More than any other piece of literature written for children during the Victorian period, Alice in Wonderland (as the tales together are generally called) has spawned a seemingly never-ending academic industry; and, although Carroll also wrote other children’s books (The Hunting of the Snark (1876) and the Sylvie and Bruno books (1889 and 1893) are the most notable), the interest in the Alice books far outweighs the interest in the other books. Alice in Wonderland has been analyzed from virtually all critical points of view.2 The Freudian approach has been applied many times, starting at least as early as 1933 with a piece by A. M. E. Goldschmidt (see Phillips, Aspects of Alice 279-82). Carroll himself receives the Freudian treatment in Phyllis Greenacre’s Swift and Carroll: A Psychoanalytic Study of Two Lives (1955). The Jungian approach, too, has been tried on Alice in an article called “Alice as Anima : The Image of Woman in Carroll’s Classic,” published in Aspects of Alice . Although much that Judith Bloomingdale says is on the mark, she is not convincing in making Alice the anima. Alice may be, for Carroll, an incipient image of the anima, but she is far more, as Bloomingdale herself demonstrates and as I hope my own analysis will show.3 One Freudian critic goes so far as to declare: “It is impossible to gain conscious understanding of the life of Lewis Carroll or of the meaning of his written fantasy unless a psychoanalytic approach is used” (Skinner 293). Although much nonsense has been written using the psychoanalytic approach, the approach itself is valid. At the same time, it leaves many psychological issues unexplored. In “The Spiritual Problem of Modern Man,” Jung writes: “If anything of importance is devalued in our conscious life, and perishes--so runs the law--there arises a compensation in the unconscious” (86). Jungian criticism attempts to account for the collective appeal of a classic like Alice in Wonderland. It asks, For what that is lacking in the contemporary collective psyche does the work compensate? An account for such appeal or compensation cannot be entirely provided by an examination of the author’s life, however provocative and interesting that life is--and Carroll’s life is certainly an interesting case study. First generation Jungians like Marie-Louise von Franz (in Puer Aeternus ) and Barbara Hannah (in Striving Towards Wholeness ) do examine in tandem the lives and works of literary artists, but Jung himself warned against the “reduction of art to personal factors.” Such a reduction “deflects our attention from the psychology of the work of art and focuses it on the psychology of the artist . . . the work of art exists in its own right and cannot be got rid of by changing it into a personal complex” (“Psychology and Literature” 93). In other words, the work of art is independent of and greater than its creator. It may tell us much about the artist, but ultimately, if it is to endure, its appeal must be collective--“visionary,” to use Jung’s term (ibid. 89). Having said this, I must add that a brief examination of Carroll’s life can provide clues as to how he was uniquely suited to produce his classic. Like Edward Lear, Carroll in some respects fits the profile of the puer aeternus as outlined by von Franz in Puer Aeternus. He seems to have had a mother complex; further, as one Carroll scholar states, he had a “reluctance to commit himself, to become in any way tied down” (Gattégno 215), and this is another puer trait. As a puer aeternus, Carroll had “a certain kind of spirituality which comes from a relatively close contact with the collective unconscious” (von Franz 4); Carroll was ordained a deacon, albeit he never became a priest.

Stephen Prickett points out some surface similarities between Lear and Carroll: Both were shy and sensitive bachelors; both were afraid of dogs both were of an ‘analytic state of mind’--Carroll indexed his entire correspondence, which, by his death had 98,000 cross-references. Both were marginal kinds of men, if in very different senses. (130) Like many of the authors whose work I have examined, both Lear and Carroll are social outsiders. Although both shared some of the same friends (among them some of the Pre-Raphaelites and the Tennysons), no one has found any record of either man referring to the other, though both pioneered the nonsense genre.4 Both were visual artists. Carroll’s photography and drawing were avocations, whereas Lear’s paintings provided his livelihood and he illustrated his own books, as Carroll did not. Unlike Lear and the typical puer, Carroll hardly ever traveled abroad (he made one trip to the Continent in his lifetime). And he was different from the typical puer as described by von Franz in that he was neither a homosexual, so far as we know, nor a Don Juan. Lear was a homosexual. Carroll, on the other hand, was a heterosexual pedophile who “collected” little girls like so many dolls and who lost his stammer in their presence. A famous photographer, Carroll abruptly gave up photography in 1880 after having practiced the art for some twenty-four years. He gave no explanation, but one reason may have been gossip about and resistance to his photographing pre-pubescent girls in the nude. After 1880 he continued drawing them in the nude (Clark 208). His nephew and first biographer, Stuart Dodgson Collingwood, records that Carroll “always took about with him a stock of puzzles when he travelled, to amuse any little [female] companions [he detested little boys] whom chance might send him” (407). To pretend that Carroll’s predilections were not in part sexual is extremely naïve (see Gattégno 82 and Greenacre 245-46). Carroll’s sexual orientation provided a powerful motive for his creative work. His remaining child-like as an adult also gave him entrée into the psyche of the child. Moreover, he had, like Lear, a nature somewhat akin to the Native American berdache. In his inventions of puzzles, riddles, and games, in his visual art, in his appeal to children, and indeed in his name-giving function (both for himself and for such characters as Jabberwocky and the Bandersnatch), Carroll fulfilled the role of the berdache. The adult Carroll disapproved of “transvestite parts [in the theater], though only when it involved a man’s being dressed as a woman” (Gattégno 226), but at about the age of seventeen or eighteen he drew a curious picture as the frontispiece to a family magazine called The Rectory. The Rectory Umbrella shows a bearded man with an almost Cheshire-cat grin lying down on one elbow. He is dressed, as Greenacre points out, as “a little girl, the skirt suggesting the appearance of a closed umbrella” (131). He’s holding an umbrella on which are the words “Tales, Poetry, Fun, Riddles, Jokes.” Overhead, six little sexless imps are trying to rain down chunks of “Woe, Spite, Ennui, Gloom, Crossness, and Alloverishness.” Rushing through the air and to the safety under the umbrella are seven female fairies bringing “Liveliness, Knowledge, Good Humour, Taste, Cheerfulness, Content, and Mirth” (Greenacre 130-31). The cross-dressed man’s resemblance to the berdache in this drawing is striking, all the more so because it is no doubt unconscious.

 

Chapter One – Down the Rabbit Hole: Alice, a girl of seven years, is feeling bored and drowsy while sitting on the riverbank with her elder sister. She then notices a talking, clothed White Rabbit with a pocket watch run past. She follows it down a rabbit hole when suddenly she falls a long way to a curious hall with many locked doors of all sizes. She finds a small key to a door too small for her to fit through, but through it she sees an attractive garden. She then discovers a bottle on a table labelled "DRINK ME," the contents of which cause her to shrink too small to reach the key which she has left on the table. She eats a cake with "EAT ME" written on it in currants as the chapter closes. "Down the Rabbit-Hole", in the midst of shrinking, Alice waxes philosophic concerning what final size she will end up as, perhaps "going out altogether, like a candle"; this pondering reflects the concept of a limitThe White Rabbit is one of the most iconic characters and is affiliated with Alice in Wonderland, in each depiction. Hopping speedily away, he is first introduced to Alice before she falls down the hole into Wonderland. Carrying his clock, pointing hastily with worry in his eyes, the white rabbit draws Alice in because he believes she is the one to defeat the Red Queen.

A lot of people suffer with anxiety, so this “diagnosis” could be considered easy to detect. GAD can cause twitching, restlessness, insomnia, and agitation to name just few of the many symptoms, all of which the white rabbit exude. Nervous that he has brought the wrong Alice to Wonderland and that the Red Queen will prevail, the white rabbit is especially anxious.

 

Chapter Two – The Pool of Tears: Chapter Two opens with Alice growing to such a tremendous size her head hits the ceiling. Alice is unhappy and, as she cries, her tears flood the hallway. After shrinking down again due to a fan she had picked up, Alice swims through her own tears and meets a Mouse, who is swimming as well. She tries to make small talk with him in elementary French (thinking he may be a French mouse) but her opening gambit "Où est ma chatte?" ("Where is my cat?") offends the mouse and he tries to escape her "The Pool of Tears", Alice tries to perform multiplication but produces some odd results: "Let me see: four times five is twelve, and four times six is thirteen, and four times seven is—oh dear! I shall never get to twenty at that rate!" This explores the representation of numbers using different bases and positional numeral systems: 4 × 5 = 12 in base 18 notation, 4 × 6 = 13 in base 21 notation, and 4 × 7 could be 14 in base 24 notation. Continuing this sequence, going up three bases each time, the result will continue to be less than 20 in the corresponding base notation. (After 4 × 12 = 19 in Base 39, the product would be 4 × 13 = 1A in Base 42, then 1B, 1C, 1D, and so on.)

 

Chapter Three – The Caucus Race and a Long Tale: The sea of tears becomes crowded with other animals and birds that have been swept away by the rising waters. Alice and the other animals convene on the bank and the question among them is how to get dry again. The Mouse gives them a very

dry lecture on William the Conqueror. A Dodo decides that the best thing to dry them off would be a Caucus-Race, which consists of everyone running in a circle with no clear winner. Alice eventually frightens all the animals away, unwittingly, by talking about her (moderately ferocious) cat.

 

Chapter Four – The Rabbit Sends a Little Bill: The White Rabbit appears again in search of the Duchess's gloves and fan. Mistaking her for his maidservant, Mary Ann, he orders Alice to go into the house and retrieve them, but once she gets inside she starts growing. The horrified Rabbit orders his gardener, Bill the Lizard, to climb on the roof and go down the chimney. Outside, Alice hears the voices of animals that have gathered to gawk at her giant arm. The crowd hurls pebbles at her, which turn into little cakes. Alice eats them, and they reduce her again in size.

 

Chapter Five – Advice from a Caterpillar: Alice comes upon a mushroom and sitting on it is a blue Caterpillar smoking a hookah. The Caterpillar questions Alice and she admits to her current identity crisis, compounded by her inability to remember a poem. Before crawling away, the caterpillar tells Alice that one side of the mushroom will make her taller and the other side will make her shorter. She breaks off two pieces from the mushroom. One side makes her shrink smaller than ever, while another causes her neck to grow high into the trees, where a pigeon mistakes her for a serpent. With some effort, Alice brings herself back to her normal height. She stumbles upon a small estate and uses the mushroom to reach a more appropriate height.

 

Chapter Six – Pig and Pepper: A Fish-Footman has an invitation for the Duchess of the house, which he delivers to a Frog-Footman. Alice observes this transaction and, after a perplexing conversation with the frog, lets herself into the house. The Duchess's Cook is throwing dishes and making a soup that has too much pepper, which causes Alice, the Duchess, and her baby (but not the cook or grinning Cheshire Cat) to sneeze violently. Alice is given the baby by the Duchess and to her surprise, the baby turns into a pig. The Cheshire Cat appears in a tree, directing her to the March Hare's house. He disappears but his grin remains behind to float on its own in the air prompting Alice to remark that she has often seen a cat without a grin but never a grin without a cat.

 

Chapter Seven – A Mad Tea-Party: Alice becomes a guest at a "mad" tea party along with the March Hare, the Hatter, and a very tired Dormouse who falls asleep frequently, only to be violently woken up moments later by the March Hare and the Hatter. The characters give Alice many riddles and stories, including the famous 'Why is a raven like a writing desk?'. The Hatter reveals that they have tea all day because Time has punished him by eternally standing still at 6 pm (tea time). Alice becomes insulted and tired of being bombarded with riddles and she leaves claiming that it was the stupidest tea party that she had ever been to. "A Mad Tea-Party", the March Hare, the Hatter, and the Dormouse give several examples in which the semantic value of a sentence A is not the same value of the converse of A (for example, "Why, you might just as well say that 'I see what I eat' is the same thing as 'I eat what I see'!"); in logic and mathematics, this is discussing an inverse relationship.

Also in chapter 7, Alice ponders what it means when the changing of seats around the circular table places them back at the beginning. This is an observation of addition on the ring of integers modulo N.

The Cheshire cat fades until it disappears entirely, leaving only its wide grin, suspended in the air, leading Alice to marvel and note that she has seen a cat without a grin, but never a grin without a cat. Deep abstraction of concepts, such as non-Euclidean geometry, abstract algebra, and the beginnings of mathematical logic, was taking over mathematics at the time Dodgson was writing. Dodgson's delineation of the relationship between cat and grin can be taken to represent the very concept of mathematics and number itself. For example, instead of considering two or three apples, one may easily consider the concept of 'apple', upon which the concepts of 'two' and 'three' may seem to depend. A far more sophisticated jump is to consider the concepts of 'two' and 'three' by themselves, just like a grin, originally seemingly dependent on the cat, separated conceptually from its physical object.

Chapter Eight – The Queen's Croquet Ground: Alice leaves the tea party and enters the garden where she comes upon three living playing cards painting the white roses on a rose tree red because The Queen of Hearts hates white roses. A procession of more cards, kings and queens and even the White Rabbit enters the garden. Alice then meets the King and Queen. The Queen, a figure difficult to please, introduces her trademark phrase "Off with his head!" which she utters at the slightest dissatisfaction with a subject. Alice is invited (or some might say ordered) to play a game of croquet with the Queen and the rest of her subjects but the game quickly descends into chaos. Live flamingos are used as mallets and hedgehogs as balls and Alice once again meets the Cheshire Cat. The Queen of Hearts then orders the Cat to be beheaded, only to have her executioner complain that this is impossible since the head is all that can be seen of him. Because the cat belongs to the Duchess, the Queen is prompted to release the Duchess from prison to resolve the matter.

 

Chapter Nine – The Mock Turtle's Story: The Duchess is brought to the croquet ground at Alice's request. She ruminates on finding morals in everything around her. The Queen of Hearts dismisses her on the threat of execution and she introduces Alice to the Gryphon, who takes her to the Mock Turtle. The Mock Turtle is very sad, even though he has no sorrow. He tries to tell his story about how he used to be a real turtle in school, which the Gryphon interrupts so they can play a game.

 

Chapter Ten – Lobster Quadrille: The Mock Turtle and the Gryphon dance to the Lobster Quadrille, while Alice recites (rather incorrectly) "'Tis the Voice of the Lobster". The Mock Turtle sings them "Beautiful Soup" during which the Gryphon drags Alice away for an impending trial.

 

Chapter Eleven – Who Stole the Tarts?: Alice attends a trial whereby the Knave of Hearts is accused of stealing the Queen's tarts. The jury is composed of various animals, including Bill the Lizard, the White Rabbit is the court's trumpeter, and the judge is the King of Hearts. During the proceedings, Alice finds that she is steadily growing larger. The dormouse scolds Alice and tells her she has no right to grow at such a rapid pace and take up all the air. Alice scoffs and calls the dormouse's accusation ridiculous because everyone grows and she cannot help it. Meanwhile, witnesses at the trial include the Hatter, who displeases and frustrates the King through his indirect answers to the questioning, and the Duchess's cook.

 

Chapter Twelve – Alice's Evidence: Alice is then called up as a witness. She accidentally knocks over the jury box with the animals inside them and the King orders the animals be placed back into their seats before the trial continues. The King and Queen order Alice to be gone, citing Rule 42 ("All persons more than a mile high to leave the court"), but Alice disputes their judgement and refuses to leave. She argues with the King and Queen of Hearts over the ridiculous proceedings, eventually refusing to hold her tongue. The Queen shouts her familiar "Off with her head!" but Alice is unafraid, calling them out as just a pack of cards; just as they start to swarm over her. Alice's sister wakes her up from a dream, brushing what turns out to be some leaves and not a shower of playing cards from Alice's face. Alice leaves her sister on the bank to imagine all the curious happenings for herself.

  

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice%27s_Adventures_in_Wonderland

 

This building is in Monroe, Ohio, on a blocked-off section of Lebanon St, which apparently turns into Garver Rd. The address given is 1003 Garver Rd, but it didn't turn up a whole lot when I searched. The Warren County auditor site wasn't much help either - it shows some buildings to the west of this, but this parcel is overlaid with a shadow of the I-75 right-of-way. I thought it looked a little Hojo-ish but I'm not really sure. None of the Hojo fan sites mention this place. It shares a few similarities with Friendly's, but it doesn't look quite right for one of those either. Anyone have an idea? This is located on the southwest corner of the I-75 and OH 63 interchange.

Shares the building with Giant Food. I believe this building used to be a Hechingers. Has an older big lots sign out front.

This is the new Fiat 124 Spider. It shares a platform with the latest generation Mazda MX-5 and is also built at Mazda's Hiroshima plant in Japan. The engines and most of the body parts are different however. Fiat is also selling an Abarth version of the car.

The Postcard

 

A postcard bearing no publisher's name that was posted in Par, Cornwall using a 1d. stamp on Monday the 25th. August 1930. It was sent to:

 

C. F. Baker Esq.,

'Hedgerow',

Russell Grove,

Westbury Park,

Bristol.

 

The message on the divided back of the card was as follows:

 

"Sunday.

35, Par Green,

Par, Cornwall.

Dear Mr. & Mrs. Baker,

This is as quiet a place as

anyone could wish for - a

beautiful little bay & nice

sands.

We have the use of a hut

on the beach.

The Westermans wanted

me to preach, but I fear I

could not have stood in my

own pulpit today.

We have been thinking of

you all, and hope you are

having a good day.

Love to all from both,

S & B."

 

Kingswear

 

Kingswear is a village in the South Hams area of Devon. The village is located on the east bank of the tidal River Dart, close to the river's mouth, and opposite the small town of Dartmouth. It lies within the South Devon Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, and has a population of 1,332.

 

Kingswear is noted for being the railhead for Dartmouth, a role continued to this day by the presence of the Paignton and Dartmouth Steam Railway in the village. Two vehicle ferries and one pedestrian ferry provide links to Dartmouth.

 

The village itself contains several small tourist-oriented shops and public houses, and is home to the Royal Dart Yacht Club. Kingswear Castle, a privately owned 15th. century artillery tower, is situated on the outskirts.

 

Kingswear also contains the Church of St. Thomas, which is a member of the Anglican Diocese of Exeter and whose patron saint is Saint Thomas of Canterbury.

 

Sir Sean Connery

 

So what else happened on the day that the card was posted?

 

Well, the 25th. August 1930 marked the birth in Edinburgh of Sean Connery.

 

Sir Sean Connery, who was born Thomas Sean Connery, was a Scottish actor. He was the first actor to portray fictional British secret agent James Bond on film, starring in seven Bond films between 1962 and 1983.

 

Originating the role in Dr. No, Connery played Bond in six of Eon Productions' entries, and made his final Bond appearance in the non-Eon-produced Never Say Never Again.

 

If non-Eon-produced Bond movies are included, Connery shares the record for the most portrayals as James Bond with Roger Moore (with seven apiece).

 

Following Sean's third appearance as Bond in Goldfinger (1964), in June 1965, Time magazine observed:

 

"James Bond has developed into the

biggest mass-cult hero of the decade".

 

Connery began acting in smaller theatre and television productions until his break-out role as Bond. Although he did not enjoy the off-screen attention the role gave him, the success of the Bond films brought Connery offers from notable directors such as Alfred Hitchcock, Sidney Lumet and John Huston.

 

Their films in which Connery appeared included Marnie (1964), The Hill (1965), Murder on the Orient Express (1974), and The Man Who Would Be King (1975).

 

He also appeared in A Bridge Too Far (1977), Highlander (1986), The Name of the Rose (1986), The Untouchables (1987), Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), The Hunt for Red October (1990), Dragonheart (1996), The Rock (1996), Finding Forrester (2000), and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003).

 

Connery officially retired from acting in 2006, although he briefly returned for voice-over roles in 2012.

 

His achievements in film were recognised with an Academy Award, two BAFTA Awards (including the BAFTA Fellowship), and three Golden Globes, including the Cecil B. DeMille Award and a Henrietta Award.

 

In 1987, Sean was made a Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters in France, and he received the US Kennedy Center Honors lifetime achievement award in 1999. Connery was knighted in the 2000 New Year Honours for services to film drama.

 

Sean Connery - The Early Years

 

Thomas Connery was born at the Royal Maternity Hospital in Edinburgh, Scotland. He was named after his paternal grandfather.

 

He was brought up at No. 176 Fountainbridge, a block which has since been demolished. His mother, Euphemia McBain "Effie" McLean, was a cleaning woman. Connery's father, Joseph Connery, was a factory worker and lorry driver.

 

His father was a Roman Catholic, and his mother was a Protestant. Connery had a younger brother Neil, and was generally referred to in his youth as "Tommy".

 

Although Sean was small in primary school, he grew rapidly around the age of 12, reaching his full adult height of 6 ft. 2 in. (188 cm) at 18. Connery was known during his teen years as "Big Tam", and he said that he lost his virginity to an adult woman in an ATS uniform at the age of 14.

 

He had an Irish childhood friend named Séamus; when the two were together, those who knew them both called Connery by his middle name Sean, emphasising the alliteration of the two names. Since then Connery preferred to use his middle name.

 

Connery's first job was as a milkman in Edinburgh with St. Cuthbert's Co-operative Society. In 2009, Connery recalled a conversation in a taxi:

 

"When I took a taxi during a recent Edinburgh

Film Festival, the driver was amazed that I

could put a name to every street we passed.

"How come?" he asked. "As a boy I used to

deliver milk round here", I said. "So what do

you do now?" That was rather harder to

answer."

 

In 1946, at the age of 16, Connery joined the Royal Navy, during which time he acquired two tattoos. Connery's official website says:

 

"Unlike many tattoos, his were not frivolous –

his tattoos reflect two of his lifelong

commitments: his family and Scotland. One

tattoo is a tribute to his parents, and reads

'Mum and Dad', and the other is self-explanatory,

'Scotland Forever'".

 

Sean trained in Portsmouth at the naval gunnery school and in an anti-aircraft crew. He was later assigned as an Able Seaman on HMS Formidable.

 

Connery was discharged from the navy at the age of 19 on medical grounds because of a duodenal ulcer, a condition that affected most of the males in previous generations of his family.

 

Afterwards, he returned to the Co-op and worked as a lorry driver, a lifeguard at Portobello swimming baths, a labourer, an artist's model for the Edinburgh College of Art, and after a suggestion by former Mr. Scotland Archie Brennan, as a coffin polisher, among other jobs.

 

The modelling earned him 15 shillings an hour. Artist Richard Demarco, at the time a student who painted several early pictures of Connery, described him as:

 

"Very straight, slightly shy, too,

too beautiful for words, a virtual

Adonis".

 

Connery began bodybuilding at the age of 18, and from 1951 trained heavily with Ellington, a former gym instructor in the British Army. While his official website states he was third in the 1950 Mr. Universe contest, most sources place him in the 1953 competition, either third in the Junior class or failing to place in the Tall Man classification.

 

Connery said that he was soon deterred from bodybuilding when he found that Americans frequently beat him in competitions because of sheer muscle size and, unlike Connery, refused to participate in athletic activity which could make them lose muscle mass.

 

Connery was a keen footballer, having played for Bonnyrigg Rose in his younger days. He was offered a trial with East Fife.

 

While on tour with South Pacific, Connery played in a football match against a local team that Matt Busby, manager of Manchester United, happened to be scouting. According to reports, Busby was impressed with Sean's physical prowess, and offered Connery a contract worth £25 a week (equivalent to £743 in 2021) immediately after the game. Connery said he was tempted to accept, but he recalls,

 

"I realised that a top-class footballer could

be over the hill by the age of 30, and I was

already 23. I decided to become an actor,

and it turned out to be one of my more

intelligent moves".

 

Sean Connery's Acting Career

 

(a) Pre-James Bond

 

Seeking to supplement his income, Connery helped out backstage at the King's Theatre in late 1951. During a bodybuilding competition held in London in 1953, one of the competitors mentioned that auditions were being held for a production of South Pacific, and Connery landed a small part as one of the Seabees chorus boys.

 

By the time the production reached Edinburgh, he had been given the part of Marine Cpl. Hamilton Steeves, and was understudying two of the juvenile leads, and his salary was raised from £12 to £14–10s a week.

 

The production returned the following year, out of popular demand, and Connery was promoted to the featured role of Lieutenant Buzz Adams, which Larry Hagman had portrayed in the West End.

 

While in Edinburgh, Connery was targeted by the Valdor gang, one of the most violent in the city. He was first approached by them in a billiard hall where he prevented them from stealing his jacket and was later followed by six gang members to a 15-foot-high (4.6 m) balcony at the Palais de Danse.

 

There, Connery singlehandedly launched an attack against the gang members, grabbing one by the throat and another by the biceps and cracking their heads together. From then on, he was treated with great respect by the gang and gained a reputation as a "hard man".

 

Connery first met Michael Caine at a party during the production of South Pacific in 1954, and the two later became close friends. During this production at the Opera House, Manchester, over the Christmas period of 1954, Connery developed a serious interest in the theatre through American actor Robert Henderson, who lent him copies of the Ibsen works Hedda Gabler, The Wild Duck, and When We Dead Awaken, and later listed works by the likes of Proust, Tolstoy, Turgenev, Bernard Shaw, Joyce, and Shakespeare for him to digest.

 

Henderson urged Sean to take elocution lessons, and got him parts at the Maida Vale Theatre in London. He had already begun a film career, having been an extra in Herbert Wilcox's 1954 musical Lilacs in the Spring alongside Errol Flynn and Anna Neagle.

 

Although Connery had secured several roles as an extra, he was struggling to make ends meet, and was forced to accept a part-time job as a babysitter for journalist Peter Noble and his actress wife Marianne, which earned him 10 shillings a night.

 

One night at Noble's house Sean met Hollywood actress Shelley Winters, who described Connery as:

 

"One of the tallest and most charming

and masculine Scotsmen I have ever

seen."

 

Shelley later spent many evenings with the Connery brothers drinking beer. Around this time, Connery was residing at TV presenter Llew Gardner's house.

 

Henderson landed Connery a role in a £6 a week Q Theatre production of Agatha Christie's Witness for the Prosecution, during which he met and became friends with fellow Scot Ian Bannen.

 

This role was followed by Point of Departure and A Witch in Time at Kew, a role as Pentheus opposite Yvonne Mitchell in The Bacchae at the Oxford Playhouse, and a role opposite Jill Bennett in Eugene O'Neill's play Anna Christie.

 

During his time at the Oxford Theatre, Connery won a brief part as a boxer in the TV series The Square Ring, before being spotted by Canadian director Alvin Rakoff, who gave him multiple roles in The Condemned, shot on location in Dover in Kent.

 

In 1956, Connery appeared in the theatrical production of Epitaph, and played a minor role as a hoodlum in the "Ladies of the Manor" episode of the BBC Television police series Dixon of Dock Green.

 

This was followed by small television parts in Sailor of Fortune and The Jack Benny Program (in a special episode filmed in Europe).

 

In early 1957, Connery hired agent Richard Hatton, who got him his first film role, as Spike, a minor gangster with a speech impediment in Montgomery Tully's No Road Back.

 

In April 1957, Rakoff – after being disappointed by Jack Palance – decided to give the young actor his first chance in a leading role, and cast Connery as Mountain McLintock in BBC Television's production of Requiem for a Heavyweight, which also starred Warren Mitchell and Jacqueline Hill.

 

Sean then played a rogue lorry driver, Johnny Yates, in Cy Endfield's Hell Drivers (1957) alongside Stanley Baker, Herbert Lom, Peggy Cummins, and Patrick McGoohan.

 

Later in 1957, Connery appeared in Terence Young's poorly received MGM action picture Action of the Tiger; the film was shot on location in southern Spain.

 

He also had a minor role in Gerald Thomas's thriller Time Lock (1957) as a welder, appearing alongside Robert Beatty, Lee Patterson, Betty McDowall, and Vincent Winter. This commenced filming on the 1st. December 1956 at Beaconsfield Studios.

 

Connery had a major role in the melodrama Another Time, Another Place (1958) as a British reporter named Mark Trevor, caught in a love affair opposite Lana Turner and Barry Sullivan.

 

During filming, Turner's possessive gangster boyfriend, Johnny Stompanato, who was visiting from Los Angeles, believed she was having an affair with Connery. Connery and Turner had attended West End shows and London restaurants together.

 

Stompanato stormed onto the film set and pointed a gun at Connery, only to have Connery disarm him and knock him flat on his back. Stompanato was banned from the set. Two Scotland Yard detectives advised Stompanato to leave and escorted him to the airport, where he boarded a plane back to the United States.

 

Connery later recounted that he had to lay low for a while after receiving threats from men linked to Stompanato's boss, Mickey Cohen.

 

In 1959, Connery landed a leading role in director Robert Stevenson's Walt Disney Productions film Darby O'Gill and the Little People (1959). The film is a tale about a wily Irishman and his battle of wits with leprechauns.

 

Upon the film's initial release, A. H. Weiler of The New York Times praised the cast (save Connery whom he described as "merely tall, dark, and handsome") and thought the film:

 

"An overpoweringly charming concoction

of standard Gaelic tall stories, fantasy and

romance."

 

Sean also had prominent television roles in Rudolph Cartier's 1961 productions of Adventure Story and Anna Karenina for BBC Television, co-starring with Claire Bloom in the latter.

 

Also in 1961 he portrayed the title role in a CBC television film adaptation of Shakespeare's Macbeth with Australian actress Zoe Caldwell cast as Lady Macbeth.

 

(b) James Bond: 1962–1971, 1983

 

Connery's breakthrough came in the role of British secret agent James Bond. He was reluctant to commit to a film series, but understood that if the films succeeded, his career would greatly benefit.

 

Between 1962 and 1967, Connery played 007 in Dr. No, From Russia with Love, Goldfinger, Thunderball, and You Only Live Twice, the first five Bond films produced by Eon Productions.

 

After departing from the role, Connery returned for the seventh film, Diamonds Are Forever, in 1971. Connery made his final appearance as Bond in Never Say Never Again, a 1983 remake of Thunderball produced by Jack Schwartzman's Taliafilm.

 

All seven films were commercially successful. James Bond, as portrayed by Connery, was selected as the third-greatest hero in cinema history by the American Film Institute.

 

Connery's selection for the role of James Bond owed a lot to Dana Broccoli, wife of producer Albert "Cubby" Broccoli, who is reputed to have been instrumental in persuading her husband that Connery was the right man.

 

James Bond's creator, Ian Fleming, originally doubted Connery's casting, saying:

 

"He's not what I envisioned of James

Bond looks. I'm looking for Commander

Bond and not an overgrown stunt-man."

 

He added that Connery (muscular, 6' 2", and a Scot) was unrefined. However Fleming's girlfriend Blanche Blackwell told Fleming that Connery had the requisite sexual charisma, and Fleming changed his mind after the successful Dr. No première.

 

He was so impressed, he wrote Connery's heritage into the character. In his 1964 novel You Only Live Twice, Fleming wrote that Bond's father was Scottish and from Glencoe in the Scottish Highlands.

 

Connery's portrayal of Bond owes much to stylistic tutelage from director Terence Young, who helped polish him while using his physical grace and presence for the action.

 

Lois Maxwell, who played Miss Moneypenny, related that:

 

"Terence took Sean under his wing.

He took him to dinner, showed him

how to walk, how to talk, even how

to eat".

 

The tutoring was successful; Connery received thousands of fan letters a week after Dr. No's opening, and he became a major sex symbol in film.

 

Following the release of the film Dr. No in 1962, the line "Bond ... James Bond", became a catch phrase in the lexicon of Western popular culture. Film critic Peter Bradshaw writes:

 

"It is the most famous self-introduction

from any character in movie history.

Three cool monosyllables, surname first,

a little curtly, as befits a former naval

commander.

And then, as if in afterthought, the first

name, followed by the surname again.

Connery carried it off with icily disdainful

style, in full evening dress with a cigarette

hanging from his lips.

The introduction was a kind of challenge,

or seduction, invariably addressed to an

enemy.

In the early 60's, Connery's James Bond

was about as dangerous and sexy as it

got on screen."

 

During the filming of Thunderball in 1965, Connery's life was in danger in the sequence with the sharks in Emilio Largo's pool. He had been concerned about this threat when he read the script.

 

Connery insisted that Ken Adam build a special Plexiglas partition inside the pool, but this was not a fixed structure, and one of the sharks managed to pass through it. He had to abandon the pool immediately.

 

(c) Post-James Bond

 

Although Bond had made him a star, Connery grew tired of the role and the pressure the franchise put on him, saying:

 

"I am fed up to here with the whole

Bond bit. I have always hated that

damned James Bond. I'd like to kill

him."

 

Michael Caine said of the situation:

 

"If you were his friend in these early

days you didn't raise the subject of

Bond. He was, and is, a much better

actor than just playing James Bond,

but he became synonymous with

Bond. He'd be walking down the

street and people would say,

'Look, there's James Bond'.

That was particularly upsetting

to him."

 

While making the Bond films, Connery also starred in other films such as Alfred Hitchcock's Marnie (1964) and Sidney Lumet's The Hill (1965), which film critic Peter Bradshaw regards as his two great non-Bond pictures from the 1960's.

 

In Marnie, Connery starred opposite Tippi Hedren. Connery had said he wanted to work with Hitchcock, which Eon arranged through their contacts. Connery shocked many people at the time by asking to see a script, something he did because he was worried about being typecast as a spy, and he did not want to do a variation of North by Northwest or Notorious.

 

When told by Hitchcock's agent that Cary Grant had not asked to see even one of Hitchcock's scripts, Connery replied:

 

"I'm not Cary Grant."

 

Hitchcock and Connery got on well during filming, and Connery said he was happy with the film "with certain reservations".

 

In The Hill, Connery wanted to act in something that wasn't Bond related, and he used his leverage as a star to feature in it. While the film wasn't a financial success, it was a critical one, debuting at the Cannes Film Festival and winning Best Screenplay.

 

The first of five films he made with Lumet, Connery considered him to be one of his favourite directors. The respect was mutual, with Lumet saying of Connery's performance in The Hill:

 

"The thing that was apparent to me –

and to most directors – was how much

talent and ability it takes to play that

kind of character who is based on charm

and magnetism.

It's the equivalent of high comedy, and

he did it brilliantly."

 

In the mid-1960's, Connery played golf with Scottish industrialist Iain Maxwell Stewart, a connection which led to Connery directing and presenting the documentary film The Bowler and the Bunnet in 1967.

 

The film described the Fairfield Experiment, a new approach to industrial relations carried out at the Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Company, Glasgow, during the 1960s; the experiment was initiated by Stewart and supported by George Brown, the First Secretary in Harold Wilson's cabinet, in 1966.

 

The company was facing closure, and Brown agreed to provide £1 million (£13.135 million; US$15.55 million in 2021 terms) to enable trade unions, the management and the shareholders to try out new ways of industrial management.

 

Having played Bond six times, Connery's global popularity was such that he shared a Golden Globe Henrietta Award with Charles Bronson for "World Film Favorite – Male" in 1972.

 

He appeared in John Huston's The Man Who Would Be King (1975) opposite Michael Caine. Playing two former British soldiers who set themselves up as kings in Kafiristan, both actors regarded it as their favourite film.

 

The same year, Sean appeared in The Wind and the Lion opposite Candice Bergen who played Eden Perdicaris (based on the real-life Perdicaris incident), and in 1976 played Robin Hood in Robin and Marian opposite Audrey Hepburn.

 

Film critic Roger Ebert, who had praised the double act of Connery and Caine in The Man Who Would Be King, praised Connery's chemistry with Hepburn, writing:

 

"Connery and Hepburn seem to have

arrived at a tacit understanding

between themselves about their

characters. They glow. They really

do seem in love."

 

During the 1970's, Connery was part of ensemble casts in films such as Murder on the Orient Express (1974) with Vanessa Redgrave and John Gielgud, and played a British Army general in Richard Attenborough's war film A Bridge Too Far (1977), co-starring with Dirk Bogarde and Laurence Olivier.

 

In 1974, he starred in John Boorman's sci-fi thriller Zardoz. Often called one of the weirdest and worst movies ever made, it featured Connery in a scarlet mankini – a revealing costume which generated much controversy for its unBond-like appearance.

 

Despite being panned by critics at the time, the film has developed a cult following since its release. In the audio commentary to the film, Boorman relates how Connery would write poetry in his free time, describing him as:

 

"A man of great depth and intelligence,

as well as possessing the most

extraordinary memory."

 

In 1981, Connery appeared in the film Time Bandits as Agamemnon. The casting choice derives from a joke Michael Palin included in the script, which describes the character's removing his mask and being:

 

"Sean Connery – or someone

of equal but cheaper stature".

 

When shown the script, Connery was happy to play the supporting role.

 

In 1981 he portrayed Marshal William T. O'Niel in the science fiction thriller Outland. In 1982, Connery narrated G'olé!, the official film of the 1982 FIFA World Cup.

 

That same year, he was offered the role of Daddy Warbucks in Annie, going as far as taking voice lessons for the John Huston musical before turning down the part.

 

Connery agreed to reprise Bond as an ageing agent 007 in Never Say Never Again, released in October 1983. The title, contributed by his wife, refers to his earlier statement that he would "never again" return to the role.

 

Although the film performed well at the box office, it was plagued with production problems: strife between the director and producer, financial problems, the Fleming estate trustees' attempts to halt the film, and Connery's wrist being broken by the fight choreographer, Steven Seagal.

 

As a result of his negative experiences during filming, Connery became unhappy with the major studios, and did not make any films for two years. Following the successful European production The Name of the Rose (1986), for which he won a BAFTA Award for Best Actor, Connery's interest in more commercial material was revived.

 

That same year, a supporting role in Highlander showcased his ability to play older mentors to younger leads, which became a recurring role in many of his later films.

 

In 1987, Connery starred in Brian De Palma's The Untouchables, where he played a hard-nosed Irish-American cop alongside Kevin Costner's Eliot Ness. The film also starred Andy Garcia and Robert De Niro as Al Capone.

 

The film was a critical and box-office success. Many critics praised Connery for his performance, including Roger Ebert, who wrote:

 

"The best performance in the movie

is Connery. He brings a human element

to his character; he seems to have had

an existence apart from the legend of

the Untouchables, and when he's

onscreen we can believe, briefly, that

the Prohibition Era was inhabited by

people, not caricatures."

 

For his performance, Connery received the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.

 

Connery starred in Steven Spielberg's Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), playing Henry Jones Sr., the title character's father, and received BAFTA and Golden Globe Award nominations. Harrison Ford said Connery's contributions at the writing stage enhanced the film:

 

"It was amazing for me in how far he got

into the script and went after exploiting

opportunities for character.

His suggestions to George Lucas at the

writing stage really gave the character

and the picture a lot more complexity

and value than it had in the original

screenplay.

 

Sean's subsequent box-office hits included The Hunt for Red October (1990), The Russia House (1990), The Rock (1996), and Entrapment (1999). In 1996, he voiced the role of Draco the dragon in the film Dragonheart.

 

He also appeared in a brief cameo as King Richard the Lionheart at the end of Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991). In 1998, Connery received the BAFTA Fellowship, a lifetime achievement award from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts.

 

Connery's later films included several box-office and critical disappointments such as First Knight (1995), Just Cause (1995), The Avengers (1998), and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003).

 

The failure of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen was especially frustrating for Connery. He sensed during shooting that the production was "going off the rails", and announced that the director, Stephen Norrington should be "locked up for insanity".

 

Connery spent considerable effort in trying to salvage the film through the editing process, ultimately deciding to retire from acting rather than go through such stress ever again.

 

However, he received positive reviews for his performance in Finding Forrester (2000). He also received a Crystal Globe for outstanding artistic contribution to world cinema.

 

In a 2003 UK poll conducted by Channel 4, Connery was ranked eighth on their list of the 100 Greatest Movie Stars.

 

Connery turned down the role of Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings films, saying he did not understand the script. He was reportedly offered US$30 million along with 15% of the worldwide box office receipts, which would have earned him US$450 million.

 

He also turned down the opportunity to appear as Albus Dumbledore in the Harry Potter series and the Architect in The Matrix trilogy.

 

In 2005, he recorded voiceovers for the From Russia with Love video game with recording producer Terry Manning in the Bahamas, and provided his likeness. Connery said he was happy the producers, Electronic Arts, had approached him to voice Bond.

 

(d) Retirement

 

When Connery received the American Film Institute's Lifetime Achievement Award on the 8th. June 2006, he confirmed his retirement from acting.

 

Connery's disillusionment with the "idiots now making films in Hollywood" was cited as a reason for his decision to retire.

 

On the 7th. June 2007, he denied rumours that he would appear in the fourth Indiana Jones film, saying:

 

"Retirement is just too

much damned fun."

 

In 2010, a bronze bust sculpture of Connery was placed in Tallinn, Estonia, outside The Scottish Club, whose membership includes Estonian Scotophiles and a handful of expatriate Scots.

 

In 2012, Connery briefly came out of retirement to voice the title character in the Scottish animated film Sir Billi. Connery served as executive producer for an expanded 80-minute version.

 

Sean Connery's Personal Life

 

During the production of South Pacific in the mid-1950's, Connery dated a Jewish "dark-haired beauty with a ballerina's figure", Carol Sopel, but was warned off by her family.

 

He then dated Julie Hamilton, daughter of documentary filmmaker and feminist Jill Craigie. Given Connery's rugged appearance and rough charm, Hamilton initially thought he was an appalling person and was not attracted to him until she saw him in a kilt, declaring him to be the most beautiful thing she had ever seen in her life.

 

He also shared a mutual attraction with jazz singer Maxine Daniels, whom he met whilst working in theatre. He made a pass at her, but she told him she was already happily married with a daughter.

 

Connery was married to actress Diane Cilento from 1962 to 1974, though they separated in 1971. They had a son, actor Jason Joseph. Connery was separated in the early 1970's when he dated Dyan Cannon, Jill St. John, Lana Wood, Carole Mallory, and Magda Konopka.

 

In her 2006 autobiography, Cilento alleged that he had abused her mentally and physically during their relationship. Connery cancelled an appearance at the Scottish Parliament in 2006 because of controversy over his alleged support of abuse of women.

 

He denied claims that he told Playboy magazine in 1965:

 

"I don't think there is anything

particularly wrong in hitting a

woman, though I don't

recommend you do it in the

same way you hit a man".

 

He was also reported to have stated to Vanity Fair in 1993:

 

"There are women who take it

to the wire. That's what they are

looking for, the ultimate

confrontation. They want a smack."

 

In 2006, Connery told The Times of London:

 

"I don't believe that any level of

abuse of women is ever justified

under any circumstances. Full stop".

 

When knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 2000 he wore a green-and-black hunting tartan kilt of his mother's MacLean clan.

 

Connery was married to French-Moroccan painter Micheline Roquebrune (born 4th. April 1929) from 1975 until his death. The marriage survived a well-documented affair Connery had in the late 1980's with the singer and songwriter Lynsey de Paul, which she later regretted due to his views concerning domestic violence.

 

Connery owned the Domaine de Terre Blanche in the South of France from 1979. He sold it to German billionaire Dietmar Hopp in 1999.

 

He was awarded an honorary rank of Shodan (1st. dan) in Kyokushin karate.

 

Connery relocated to the Bahamas in the 1990's; he owned a mansion in Lyford Cay on New Providence.

 

Connery had a villa in Kranidi, Greece. His neighbour was King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands, with whom he shared a helicopter platform.

 

Growing up, Connery supported the Scottish football club Celtic F.C., having been introduced to the club by his father who was a lifelong fan of the team.

 

Later in life, Connery switched his loyalty to Celtic's bitter rival, Rangers F.C., after he became close friends with the team's chairman, David Murray.

 

Sean was a keen golfer, and English professional golfer Peter Alliss gave Connery golf lessons before the filming of the 1964 James Bond film Goldfinger, which involved a scene where Connery, as Bond, played golf against gold magnate Auric Goldfinger at Stoke Park Golf Club in Buckinghamshire.

 

The golf scene saw him wear a Slazenger v-neck sweater, a brand which Connery became associated with while playing golf in his free time, with a light grey marl being a favoured colour.

 

Record major championship winner and golf course designer Jack Nicklaus said:

 

"He loved the game of golf – Sean

was a pretty darn good golfer! –

and we played together several

times.

In May 1993, Sean and legendary

driver Jackie Stewart helped me

open our design of the PGA

Centenary Course at Gleneagles

in Scotland."

 

Sean Connery's Political Views

 

Connery's Scottish roots and his experiences in filming in Glasgow's shipyards in 1966 inspired him to become a member of the centre-left Scottish National Party (SNP), which supports Scottish independence from the United Kingdom.

 

In 2011, Connery said:

 

"The Bowler and the Bunnet was just

the beginning of a journey that would

lead to my long association with the

Scottish National Party."

 

Connery supported the party both financially and through personal appearances. In 1967, he wrote to George Leslie, the SNP candidate in the 1967 Glasgow Pollok by-election, saying:

 

"I am convinced that with our resources

and skills we are more than capable of

building a prosperous, vigorous and

modern self-governing Scotland in which

we can all take pride and which will

deserve the respect of other nations."

 

His funding of the SNP ceased in 2001, when the UK Parliament passed legislation prohibiting overseas funding of political activities in the United Kingdom.

 

Dean Connery's Tax Status

 

In response to accusations that he was a tax exile, Connery released documents in 2003 showing he had paid £3.7 million in UK taxes between 1997 and 1998 and between 2002 and 2003. Critics pointed out that had he been continuously residing in the UK for tax purposes, his tax rate would have been far higher.

 

In the run-up to the 2014 Scottish independence referendum, Connery's brother Neil said that Connery would not come to Scotland to rally independence supporters, since his tax exile status greatly limited the number of days he could spend in the country.

 

After Connery sold his Marbella villa in 1999, Spanish authorities launched a tax evasion investigation, alleging that the Spanish treasury had been defrauded of £5.5 million.

 

Connery was subsequently cleared by officials, but his wife and 16 others were charged with attempting to defraud the Spanish treasury.

 

The Death and Legacy of Sean Connery

 

Connery died in his sleep on the 31st. October 2020, aged 90, at his home in the Lyford Cay community of Nassau in the Bahamas. His death was announced by his family and Eon Productions; although they did not disclose the cause of death, his son Jason said he had been unwell for some time.

 

A day later, Roquebrune revealed he had suffered from dementia in his final years. Connery's death certificate recorded the cause of death as pneumonia and respiratory failure, and the time of death was listed as 1:30 am.

 

Sean's remains were cremated, and the ashes were scattered in Scotland at undisclosed locations in 2022.

 

Following the announcement of his death, many co-stars and figures from the entertainment industry paid tribute to Connery, including Sam Neill, Nicolas Cage, Robert De Niro, Michael Bay, Tippi Hedren, Alec Baldwin, Hugh Jackman, George Lucas, Shirley Bassey, Kevin Costner, and Catherine Zeta-Jones.

 

Tributes also came from Barbra Streisand, John Cleese, Jane Seymour and Harrison Ford, as well as former Bond stars George Lazenby, Timothy Dalton and Pierce Brosnan, the family of late former Bond actor Roger Moore, and Daniel Craig, who played 007 until No Time to Die.

 

Connery's long-time friend Michael Caine called him:

 

"A great star, brilliant actor

and a wonderful friend".

 

James Bond producers Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli released a statement saying that:

 

"Connery has revolutionized the world

with his gritty and witty portrayal of the

sexy and charismatic secret agent.

He is undoubtedly largely responsible

for the success of the film series, and

we shall be forever grateful to him".

 

In 2004, a poll in the UK Sunday Herald recognised Connery as "The Greatest Living Scot," and a 2011 EuroMillions survey named him "Scotland's Greatest Living National Treasure".

 

He was voted by People magazine as the "Sexiest Man Alive" in 1989 and the "Sexiest Man of the Century" in 1999.

 

Final Thoughts From Sir Sean Connery

 

"I am not an Englishman, I was never an

Englishman, and I don't ever want to be

one. I am a Scotsman! I was a Scotsman,

and I will always be one."

 

"I admit I'm being paid well, but it's no more

than I deserve. After all, I've been screwed

more times than a hooker."

 

"Love may not make the world go round,

but I must admit that it makes the ride

worthwhile."

 

"There is nothing like a challenge

to bring out the best in man."

 

"I like women. I don't understand

them, but I like them."

 

"Some age, others mature."

 

"I met my wife through playing golf. She is

French and couldn't speak English, and I

couldn't speak French, so there was little

chance of us getting involved in any boring

conversations - that's why we got married

really quickly."

 

"Everything I have done or attempted to do

for Scotland has always been for her benefit,

never my own, and I defy anyone to prove

otherwise."

 

"The knighthood I received was a fantastic

honor but it's not something I've ever used,

and I don't think I ever will."

 

"I never trashed a hotel room or did drugs."

 

"More than anything else, I'd like to be an

old man with a good face, like Hitchcock or

Picasso."

 

"Laughter kills fear, and without fear there

can be no faith. For without fear of the devil

there is no need for God."

 

"Perhaps I'm not a good actor, but I would

be even worse at doing anything else."

 

"I'm an actor - it's not brain surgery. If I do

my job right, people won't ask for their

money back."

 

"I haven't found anywhere in the world

where I want to be all the time. The best

of my life is the moving. I look forward to

going."

"The Rolls-Royce Wraith is a Full-size luxury car/ Grand tourer manufactured by Rolls-Royce Motor Cars and based on the chassis of the Rolls-Royce Ghost.

 

The Wraith shares its name with the 1938 model by the original Rolls Royce company.

 

The body style is a two-door pillar-less coupe with iconic suicide doors, where all side windows can roll down like in a convertible. This body style was popular in American cars during the 1950s and 60s and was known as the hardtop body style, not used by Rolls Royce since 1955.

 

Vienna (/viˈɛnə/; German: Wien [viːn]) is the national capital, largest city, and one of nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's most populous city, with about 1.9 million inhabitants (2.6 million within the metropolitan area, nearly one third of the country's population), and its cultural, economic, and political center. It is the 6th-largest city by population within city limits in the European Union.

 

Until the beginning of the 20th century, Vienna was the largest German-speaking city in the world, and before the splitting of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in World War I, the city had 2 million inhabitants. Today, it is the second-largest German-speaking city after Berlin. Vienna is host to many major international organizations, including the United Nations, OPEC and the OSCE. The city is located in the eastern part of Austria and is close to the borders of the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary. These regions work together in a European Centrope border region. Along with nearby Bratislava, Vienna forms a metropolitan region with 3 million inhabitants. In 2001, the city center was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. In July 2017 it was moved to the list of World Heritage in Danger. Additionally to being known as the "City of Music" due to its musical legacy, as many famous classical musicians such as Beethoven and Mozart who called Vienna home. Vienna is also said to be the "City of Dreams", because of it being home to the world's first psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud. Vienna's ancestral roots lie in early Celtic and Roman settlements that transformed into a Medieval and Baroque city. It is well known for having played a pivotal role as a leading European music center, from the age of Viennese Classicism through the early part of the 20th century. The historic center of Vienna is rich in architectural ensembles, including Baroque palaces and gardens, and the late-19th-century Ringstraße lined with grand buildings, monuments and parks.

 

Vienna is known for its high quality of life. In a 2005 study of 127 world cities, the Economist Intelligence Unit ranked the city first (in a tie with Vancouver and San Francisco) for the world's most livable cities. Between 2011 and 2015, Vienna was ranked second, behind Melbourne. In 2018, it replaced Melbourne as the number one spot and continued as the first in 2019. For ten consecutive years (2009–2019), the human-resource-consulting firm Mercer ranked Vienna first in its annual "Quality of Living" survey of hundreds of cities around the world. Monocle's 2015 "Quality of Life Survey" ranked Vienna second on a list of the top 25 cities in the world "to make a base within." The UN-Habitat classified Vienna as the most prosperous city in the world in 2012/2013. The city was ranked 1st globally for its culture of innovation in 2007 and 2008, and sixth globally (out of 256 cities) in the 2014 Innovation Cities Index, which analyzed 162 indicators in covering three areas: culture, infrastructure, and markets. Vienna regularly hosts urban planning conferences and is often used as a case study by urban planners. Between 2005 and 2010, Vienna was the world's number-one destination for international congresses and conventions. It attracts over 6.8 million tourists a year.

 

Evidence has been found of continuous habitation in the Vienna area since 500 BC, when Celts settled the site on the Danube. In 15 BC the Romans fortified the frontier city they called Vindobona to guard the empire against Germanic tribes to the north.

 

Close ties with other Celtic peoples continued through the ages. The Irish monk Saint Colman (or Koloman, Irish Colmán, derived from colm "dove") is buried in Melk Abbey and Saint Fergil (Virgil the Geometer) served as Bishop of Salzburg for forty years. Irish Benedictines founded twelfth-century monastic settlements; evidence of these ties persists in the form of Vienna's great Schottenstift monastery (Scots Abbey), once home to many Irish monks.

 

In 976, Leopold I of Babenberg became count of the Eastern March, a district centered on the Danube on the eastern frontier of Bavaria. This initial district grew into the duchy of Austria. Each succeeding Babenberg ruler expanded the march east along the Danube, eventually encompassing Vienna and the lands immediately east. In 1145 Duke Henry II Jasomirgott moved the Babenberg family residence from Klosterneuburg in Lower Austria to Vienna. From that time, Vienna remained the center of the Babenberg dynasty.

 

In 1440 Vienna became the resident city of the Habsburg dynasty. It eventually grew to become the de facto capital of the Holy Roman Empire (800–1806) in 1437 and a cultural center for arts and science, music and fine cuisine. Hungary occupied the city between 1485 and 1490.

 

In the 16th and 17th centuries Christian forces twice stopped Ottoman armies outside Vienna, in the 1529 Siege of Vienna and the 1683 Battle of Vienna. The Great Plague of Vienna ravaged the city in 1679, killing nearly a third of its population.

 

In 1804, during the Napoleonic Wars, Vienna became the capital of the newly formed Austrian Empire. The city continued to play a major role in European and world politics, including hosting the Congress of Vienna in 1814/15. After the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867, Vienna remained the capital of what became the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The city functioned as a center of classical music, for which the title of the First Viennese School (Haydn/Mozart/Beethoven) is sometimes applied.

 

During the latter half of the 19th century, Vienna developed what had previously been the bastions and glacis into the Ringstraße, a new boulevard surrounding the historical town and a major prestige project. Former suburbs were incorporated, and the city of Vienna grew dramatically. In 1918, after World War I, Vienna became capital of the Republic of German-Austria, and then in 1919 of the First Republic of Austria.

 

From the late-19th century to 1938 the city remained a center of high culture and of modernism. A world capital of music, Vienna played host to composers such as Brahms, Bruckner, Mahler and Richard Strauss. The city's cultural contributions in the first half of the 20th century included, among many, the Vienna Secession movement in art, psychoanalysis, the Second Viennese School (Schoenberg, Berg, Webern), the architecture of Adolf Loos and the philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein and the Vienna Circle. In 1913 Adolf Hitler, Leon Trotsky, Josip Broz Tito, Sigmund Freud and Joseph Stalin all lived within a few kilometres of each other in central Vienna, some of them becoming regulars at the same coffeehouses. Austrians came to regard Vienna as a center of socialist politics, sometimes referred to as "Red Vienna"(“Das rote Wien”). In the Austrian Civil War of 1934 Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss sent the Austrian Army to shell civilian housing such as the Karl Marx-Hof occupied by the socialist militia." - info from Wikipedia.

 

Summer 2019 I did a solo cycling tour across Europe through 12 countries over the course of 3 months. I began my adventure in Edinburgh, Scotland and finished in Florence, Italy cycling 8,816 km. During my trip I took 47,000 photos.

 

Now on Instagram.

 

Become a patron to my photography on Patreon.

Heliflite Shares LLC. S-76C Reg: N26HF parked at Farmingdale.

This Coucal shares with most members of its family a mysterious, almost Machiavellian look. To me, they always seem to be up to something. It may just be my biased feeling informed by the reproductive breeding behavior of some of these birds. In any case, this particular species is also beautiful, majestic. This is a female.

"Shake Shack Shares Rise After Third-Quarter Results " by REUTERS via NYT t.co/LZCuIkLQmR (via Twitter twitter.com/felipemassone/status/662456315114057732)

Shares traits with grypus and hamatus (jagged merge of dorsal and ventral colouration as seen in hamatus). Origin of nasal cleft unclear in the field. These things are a mess.

Córdoba shares its history with many cities in Southern Spain. It was Carthaginian and Roman (from 260BC on), later it belonged to the Byzantine Empire for two decades, was looted by the Vandals before the Visigoths conquered it in 572. In 711 it was taken by the by the Umayyad army and became a provincial capital.

At that time a Christian church erected by the Visigoths was on the site, it was divided and shared by Muslims and Christians. The sharing agreement lasted until 784 when the Christian half was purchased by Emir Abd al-Rahman I, who then demolished the church and started to build the grand mosque of Córdoba on its ground. This narrative goes back to the tenth-century historian al-Razi.

 

The work of building the Mezquita employed thousands of artisans and laborers. After the first completion, it underwent numerous subsequent changes: Abd al-Rahman II ordered a new minaret, and Al-Hakam II enlarged the building and enriched the Mihrab. The Mezquita reached its current dimensions in 987 with the completion of the outer naves and courtyard.

 

It covers an area of more than 23.000 m².

 

The Mezquita still is one of the largest sacred buildings on earth. In the 10th century it was in the center of Cordoba, that with a population of up to 500,000, at that time it was one of the largest cities in the known world.

  

More photos from Cordoba

www.ipernity.com/doc/323415/album/1357714

Manly beach shares with Bondi Sydney's top tier of surfing beaches. Their surf are constantly monitored and this day was rated as 5 stars by magicseaweed.com with with 7-12 foot waves and an experienced Manly local tells me its only so every couple of months. Yes I had been waiting a while but In these conditions you don't see people with tripods so my (since updated by their X3) mobile was drafted into action. The moody lighting makes our tiny conqueror of the waves silhouetted more noticeable. It is little consolation that global warming will increase opportunities to photograph extreme weather events. Manly a half hour ferry ride from downtown.

Harp player in Pisaq - Peru

Peru shares with Irland and some Latin American countries (like Paraguay and Mexico) the use of the harp in its gorgeous folkloric music.

 

Tañendo el arpa - Pisaq - Peru

Peru comparte con Irlanda, y algunos países Iberoamericanos (p.e. Paraguay y Mexico) el uso del arpa en su magnífica música folclórica.

  

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson shares a laugh with Norwegian Foreign Minister Børge Brende before their bilateral meeting at the U.S. Department of State in Washington, D.C., on March 1, 2017. [State Department photo/ Public Domain]

Kendra shares the sex of her baby with her aunt Camille.

See the photostory here:

vansdolltreasures.blogspot.com/2013/05/kendra-shares-news...

ITM1692074

 

Google is an American multinational technology company focusing on search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence,[9] and consumer electronics. It has been referred to as "the most powerful company in the world"[10] and one of the world's most valuable brands due to its market dominance, data collection, and technological advantages in the area of artificial intelligence.[11][12][13] Its parent company Alphabet is considered one of the Big Five American information technology companies, alongside Amazon, Apple, Meta, and Microsoft.

Google was founded on September 4, 1998, by Larry Page and Sergey Brin while they were PhD students at Stanford University in California. Together they own about 14% of its publicly listed shares and control 56% of the stockholder voting power through super-voting stock. The company went public via an initial public offering (IPO) in 2004. In 2015, Google was reorganized as a wholly owned subsidiary of Alphabet Inc. Google is Alphabet's largest subsidiary and is a holding company for Alphabet's Internet properties and interests. Sundar Pichai was appointed CEO of Google on October 24, 2015, replacing Larry Page, who became the CEO of Alphabet. On December 3, 2019, Pichai also became the CEO of Alphabet.[14]

The company has since rapidly grown to offer a multitude of products and services beyond Google Search, many of which hold dominant market positions. These products address a wide range of use cases, including email (Gmail), navigation (Waze & Maps), cloud computing (Cloud), web browsing (Chrome), video sharing (YouTube), productivity (Workspace), operating systems (Android), cloud storage (Drive), language translation (Translate), photo storage (Photos), video calling (Meet), smart home (Nest), smartphones (Pixel), wearable technology (Pixel Watch & Fitbit), music streaming (YouTube Music), video on demand (YouTube TV), artificial intelligence (Google Assistant), machine learning APIs (TensorFlow), AI chips (TPU), and more. Discontinued Google products include gaming (Stadia), Glass,[citation needed] Google+, Reader, Play Music, Nexus, Hangouts, and Inbox by Gmail.[15][16]

Google's other ventures outside of Internet services and consumer electronics include quantum computing (Sycamore), self-driving cars (Waymo, formerly the Google Self-Driving Car Project), smart cities (Sidewalk Labs), and transformer models (Google Brain).[17]

Google and YouTube are the two most visited websites worldwide followed by Facebook and Twitter. Google is also the largest search engine, mapping and navigation application, email provider, office suite, video sharing platform, photo and cloud storage provider, mobile operating system, web browser, ML framework, and AI virtual assistant provider in the world as measured by market share. On the list of most valuable brands, Google is ranked second by Forbes[18] and fourth by Interbrand.[19] It has received significant criticism involving issues such as privacy concerns, tax avoidance, censorship, search neutrality, antitrust and abuse of its monopoly position.

In March 1999, the company moved its offices to Palo Alto, California,[52] which is home to several prominent Silicon Valley technology start-ups.[53] The next year, Google began selling advertisements associated with search keywords against Page and Brin's initial opposition toward an advertising-funded search engine.[54][22] To maintain an uncluttered page design, advertisements were solely text-based.[55] In June 2000, it was announced that Google would become the default search engine provider for Yahoo!, one of the most popular websites at the time, replacing Inktomi.

 

In 2003, after outgrowing two other locations, the company leased an office complex from Silicon Graphics, at 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway in Mountain View, California.[59] The complex became known as the Googleplex, a play on the word googolplex, the number one followed by a googol zeroes. Three years later, Google bought the property from SGI for $319 million.[60] By that time, the name "Google" had found its way into everyday language, causing the verb "google" to be added to the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary and the Oxford English Dictionary, denoted as: "to use the Google search engine to obtain information on the Internet".[61][62] The first use of the verb on television appeared in an October 2002 episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.[63]

Additionally, in 2001 Google's investors felt the need to have a strong internal management, and they agreed to hire Eric Schmidt as the chairman and CEO of Google.[49] Eric was proposed by John Doerr from Kleiner Perkins. He had been trying to find a CEO that Sergey and Larry would accept for several months, but they rejected several candidates because they wanted to retain control over the company. Michael Moritz from Sequoia Capital at one point even menaced requesting Google to immediately pay back Sequoia's $12.5m investment if they did not fulfill their promise to hire a chief executive office, which had been made verbally during investment negotiations. Eric wasn't initially enthusiastic about joining Google either, as the company's full potential hadn't yet been widely recognized at the time, and as he was occupied with his responsibilities at Novell where he was CEO. As part of him joining, Eric agreed to buy $1 million of Google preferred stocks as a way to show his commitment and to provide funds Google needed.

Google generates most of its revenues from advertising. This includes sales of apps, purchases made in-app, digital content products on Google and YouTube, Android and licensing and service fees, including fees received for Google Cloud offerings. Forty-six percent of this profit was from clicks (cost per clicks), amounting to US$109,652 million in 2017. This includes three principal methods, namely AdMob, AdSense (such as AdSense for Content, AdSense for Search, etc.) and DoubleClick AdExchange.

In addition to its own algorithms for understanding search requests, Google uses technology its acquisition of DoubleClick, to project user interest and target advertising to the search context and the user history.

In 2007, Google launched "AdSense for Mobile", taking advantage of the emerging mobile advertising market.

Google Analytics allows website owners to track where and how people use their website, for example by examining click rates for all the links on a page. Google advertisements can be placed on third-party websites in a two-part program. Google Ads allows advertisers to display their advertisements in the Google content network, through a cost-per-click scheme.[138] The sister service, Google AdSense, allows website owners to display these advertisements on their website and earn money every time ads are clicked.[139] One of the criticisms of this program is the possibility of click fraud, which occurs when a person or automated script clicks on advertisements without being interested in the product, causing the advertiser to pay money to Google unduly. Industry reports in 2006 claimed that approximately 14 to 20 percent of clicks were fraudulent or invalid.[140] Google Search Console (rebranded from Google Webmaster Tools in May 2015) allows webmasters to check the sitemap, crawl rate, and for security issues of their websites, as well as optimize their website's visibility.

Consumer services

Web-based services

Google offers Gmail for email, Google Calendar for time-management and scheduling, Google Maps for mapping, navigation and satellite imagery, Google Drive for cloud storage of files, Google Docs, Sheets and Slides for productivity, Google Photos for photo storage and sharing, Google Keep for note-taking, Google Translate for language translation, YouTube for video viewing and sharing, Google My Business for managing public business information, and Duo for social interaction. In March 2019, Google unveiled a cloud gaming service named Stadia. A job search product has also existed since before 2017, Google for Jobs is an enhanced search feature that aggregates listings from job boards and career sites.

Some Google services are not web-based. Google Earth, launched in 2005, allowed users to see high-definition satellite pictures from all over the world for free through a client software downloaded to their computers.

Software

Google develops the Android mobile operating system, as well as its smartwatch, television, car, and Internet of things-enabled smart devices variations.

It also develops the Google Chrome web browser, and Chrome OS, an operating system based on Chrome.

 

Hardware

 

In January 2010, Google released Nexus One, the first Android phone under its own brand. It spawned a number of phones and tablets under the "Nexus" branding until its eventual discontinuation in 2016, replaced by a new brand called Pixel.

In 2011, the Chromebook was introduced, which runs on Chrome OS.

In July 2013, Google introduced the Chromecast dongle, which allows users to stream content from their smartphones to televisions.

In June 2014, Google announced Google Cardboard, a simple cardboard viewer that lets user place their smartphone in a special front compartment to view virtual reality (VR) media.

Other hardware products include:

•Nest, a series of voice assistant smart speakers that can answer voice queries, play music, find information from apps (calendar, weather etc.), and control third-party smart home appliances (users can tell it to turn on the lights, for example). The Google Nest line includes the original Google Home (later succeeded by the Nest Audio), the Google Home Mini (later succeeded by the Nest Mini, the Google Home Max, the Google Home Hub (later rebranded as the Nest Hub), and the Nest Hub Max.

•Nest Wifi (originally Google Wifi), a connected set of Wi-Fi routers to simplify and extend coverage of home Wi-Fi.

 

Enterprise services

Google Workspace (formerly G Suite until October 2020) is a monthly subscription offering for organizations and businesses to get access to a collection of Google's services, including Gmail, Google Drive and Google Docs, Google Sheets and Google Slides, with additional administrative tools, unique domain names, and 24/7 support.

On September 24, 2012, Google launched Google for Entrepreneurs, a largely not-for-profit business incubator providing startups with co-working spaces known as Campuses, with assistance to startup founders that may include workshops, conferences, and mentorships. Presently, there are seven Campus locations: Berlin, London, Madrid, Seoul, São Paulo, Tel Aviv, and Warsaw.

On March 15, 2016, Google announced the introduction of Google Analytics 360 Suite, "a set of integrated data and marketing analytics products, designed specifically for the needs of enterprise-class marketers" which can be integrated with BigQuery on the Google Cloud Platform. Among other things, the suite is designed to help "enterprise class marketers" "see the complete customer journey", generate "useful insights", and "deliver engaging experiences to the right people". Jack Marshall of The Wall Street Journal wrote that the suite competes with existing marketing cloud offerings by companies including Adobe, Oracle, Salesforce, and IBM.

 

Internet services

In February 2010, Google announced the Google Fiber project, with experimental plans to build an ultra-high-speed broadband network for 50,000 to 500,000 customers in one or more American cities.[178][179] Following Google's corporate restructure to make Alphabet Inc. its parent company, Google Fiber was moved to Alphabet's Access division.[180][181]

In April 2015, Google announced Project Fi, a mobile virtual network operator, that combines Wi-Fi and cellular networks from different telecommunication providers in an effort to enable seamless connectivity and fast Internet signal.

 

Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz, and Chris Hughes, its name comes from the face book directories often given to American university students. Membership was initially limited to Harvard students, gradually expanding to other North American universities and, since 2006, anyone over 13 years old. As of July 2022, Facebook claimed 2.93 billion monthly active users,[6] and ranked third worldwide among the most visited websites as of July 2022.[7] It was the most downloaded mobile app of the 2010s.[8]

Facebook can be accessed from devices with Internet connectivity, such as personal computers, tablets and smartphones. After registering, users can create a profile revealing information about themselves. They can post text, photos and multimedia which are shared with any other users who have agreed to be their "friend" or, with different privacy settings, publicly. Users can also communicate directly with each other with Facebook Messenger, join common-interest groups, and receive notifications on the activities of their Facebook friends and the pages they follow.

The subject of numerous controversies, Facebook has often been criticized over issues such as user privacy (as with the Cambridge Analytica data scandal), political manipulation (as with the 2016 U.S. elections) and mass surveillance.[9] Posts originating from the Facebook page of Breitbart News, a media organization previously affiliated with Cambridge Analytica,[10] are currently among the most widely shared political content on Facebook.[11][12][13][14][15] Facebook has also been subject to criticism over psychological effects such as addiction and low self-esteem, and various controversies over content such as fake news, conspiracy theories, copyright infringement, and hate speech.

 

Zuckerberg built a website called "Facemash" in 2003 while attending Harvard University. The site was comparable to Hot or Not and used "photos compiled from the online face books of nine Houses, placing two next to each other at a time and asking users to choose the "hotter" person". Facemash attracted 450 visitors and 22,000 photo-views in its first four hours. The site was sent to several campus group listservs, but was shut down a few days later by Harvard administration. Zuckerberg faced expulsion and was charged with breaching security, violating copyrights and violating individual privacy. Ultimately, the charges were dropped. Zuckerberg expanded on this project that semester by creating a social study tool. He uploaded art images, each accompanied by a comments section, to a website he shared with his classmates.

A "face book" is a student directory featuring photos and personal information. In 2003, Harvard had only a paper version[ along with private online directories. Zuckerberg told The Harvard Crimson, "Everyone's been talking a lot about a universal face book within Harvard. ... I think it's kind of silly that it would take the University a couple of years to get around to it. I can do it better than they can, and I can do it in a week."[29] In January 2004, Zuckerberg coded a new website, known as "TheFacebook", inspired by a Crimson editorial about Facemash, stating, "It is clear that the technology needed to create a centralized Website is readily available ... the benefits are many." Zuckerberg met with Harvard student Eduardo Saverin, and each of them agreed to invest $1,000 ($1,435 in 2021 dollars[30]) in the site.[31] On February 4, 2004, Zuckerberg launched "TheFacebook", originally located at thefacebook.com.

Six days after the site launched, Harvard seniors Cameron Winklevoss, Tyler Winklevoss, and Divya Narendra accused Zuckerberg of intentionally misleading them into believing that he would help them build a social network called HarvardConnection.com. They claimed that he was instead using their ideas to build a competing product. The three complained to the Crimson and the newspaper began an investigation. They later sued Zuckerberg, settling in 2008 for 1.2 million shares (worth $300 million ($354 million in 2021 dollars[30]) at Facebook's IPO).

Membership was initially restricted to students of Harvard College. Within a month, more than half the undergraduates had registered.[36] Dustin Moskovitz, Andrew McCollum, and Chris Hughes joined Zuckerberg to help manage the growth of the website.[37] In March 2004, Facebook expanded to Columbia, Stanford and Yale.[38] It then became available to all Ivy League colleges, Boston University, NYU, MIT, and successively most universities in the United States and Canada.

In mid-2004, Napster co-founder and entrepreneur Sean Parker—an informal advisor to Zuckerberg—became company president.[41] In June 2004, the company moved to Palo Alto, California.[42] It received its first investment later that month from PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel. In 2005, the company dropped "the" from its name after purchasing the domain name Facebook.com for US$200,000 ($277,492 in 2021 dollars). The domain had belonged to AboutFace Corporation.

In May 2005, Accel Partners invested $12.7 million ($17.6 million in 2021 dollars) in Facebook, and Jim Breyer added $1 million ($1.39 million in 2021 dollars) of his own money. A high-school version of the site launched in September 2005. Eligibility expanded to include employees of several companies, including Apple Inc. and Microsoft.

 

Facebook was sued by the Federal Trade Commission as well as a coalition of several states for illegal monopolization and antitrust. The FTC and states sought the courts to force Facebook to sell its subsidiaries WhatsApp and Instagram.[183][184] The suits were dismissed by a federal judge on June 28, 2021, who stated that there was not enough evidence brought in the suit to determine Facebook to be a monopoly at this point, though allowed the FTC to amend its case to include additional evidence. In its amended filings in August 2021, the FTC asserted that Facebook had been a monopoly in the area of personal social networks since 2011, distinguishing Facebook's activities from social media services like TikTok that broadcast content without necessarily limiting that message to intended recipients.

In response to the proposed bill in the Australian Parliament for a News Media Bargaining Code, on February 17, 2021, Facebook blocked Australian users from sharing or viewing news content on its platform, as well as pages of some government, community, union, charity, political, and emergency services.[187] The Australian government strongly criticised the move, saying it demonstrated the "immense market power of these digital social giants".

On February 22, Facebook said it reached an agreement with the Australian government that would see news returning to Australian users in the coming days. As part of this agreement, Facebook and Google can avoid the News Media Bargaining Code adopted on February 25 if they "reach a commercial bargain with a news business outside the Code".

Facebook has been accused of removing and shadow banning content that spoke either in favor of protesting Indian farmers or against Narendra Modi's government. India-based employees of Facebook are at risk of arrest.

On February 27, 2021, Facebook announced Facebook BARS app for rappers.

On June 29, 2021, Facebook announced Bulletin, a platform for independent writers.[197][198] Unlike competitors such as Substack, Facebook would not take a cut of subscription fees of writers using that platform upon its launch, like Malcolm Gladwell and Mitch Albom. According to The Washington Post technology writer Will Oremus, the move was criticized by those who viewed it as an tactic intended by Facebook to force those competitors out of business.

In October 2021, owner Facebook, Inc. changed its company name to Meta Platforms, Inc., or simply "Meta", as it shifts its focus to building the "metaverse". This change does not affect the name of the Facebook social networking service itself, instead being similar to the creation of Alphabet as Google's parent company in 2015.

In November 2021, Facebook stated it would stop targeting ads based on data related to health, race, ethnicity, political beliefs, religion and sexual orientation. The change will occur in January and will affect all apps owned by Meta Platforms.

In February 2022, Facebook's daily active users dropped for the first time in its 18-year history. According to Facebook's parent Meta, DAUs dropped to 1.929 billion in the three months ending in December, down from 1.930 billion the previous quarter. Furthermore, the company warned that revenue growth would slow due to competition from TikTok and YouTube, as well as advertisers cutting back on spending.

Analysts predict a "death spiral" for facebook stock as users leave while ad impressions increase, as the company chases revenue.

On March 10, 2022, Facebook announced that it will temporarily ease rules to allow violent speech against 'Russian invaders'. Russia then banned all Meta services, including Instagram.

  

At a crossroads – Needing to make an important decision

When you are at a crossroads, you are at a point in your life where you need to make a decision. The implication is that the decision you make will have big, life-altering consequences.

Bad apple – Bad person

You can use this idiom to describe someone who is not nice and maybe even criminal.

Barking up the wrong tree – Pursuing the wrong course

When you “bark up the wrong tree” you are pursuing the wrong solution to your problems.

Be closefisted – Stingy

If you are being “closefisted”, you don’t want to spend a lot of money.

Be cold-hearted – Uncaring

If you decide to be “cold-hearted”, you are making a deliberate decision not to care about someone or something.

Be on solid ground – Confident

When you are “on solid ground”, you are confident in your position or feel that you are safe.

Beat around the bush – Avoid saying

When you do this, you are taking a long time to say what you really need to say. You may be doing this because the “truth” is embarrassing or your unsure about how the listener will take it.

Behind you – Supportive

When you are “behind” someone, you are saying that they have your support.

Between a rock and a hard place – Facing difficulties

When you have to choose between two options, neither of which are ideal or “good”.

Blow off steam – Try to relax

When you are stressed or upset about something, sometimes you need to do something to keep you from thinking about it.

Born with a silver spoon in their mouth – Born wealthy

This idiomatic expression is used to describe someone who was born into a wealthy family.

Break the bank – Spend a lot

When you “break the bank”, you spend a lot of money on something. If something will “break the bank”, then it’s expensive.

Bright spark – Smart

A “bright spark” is someone who is smart and valuable to an organization.

Build a case – Argue your point

When you “build a case” for something, you are preparing to argue a point or convince someone that your opinion is the right one.

Build castles in the sky – Daydream

When you fantasize about something you hope to have or achieve.

Burn your bridges – End a relationship

When you “burn your bridges” you end a relationship permanently.

Butter up – Flatter

When you “butter” someone up, you are telling them nice things about themselves.

Bought a lemon – Bad bargain

If something you bought is a “lemon” it is a bad product. In a sense, you wasted your money on it.

Break the ice – Start a conversation

When you start a conversation strangers with the end goal of making new friends.

Calm before the storm – Peaceful

When you use this to describe your state of being or mind, you’re talking about a quiet period before anticipated trouble comes your way.

Chasing rainbows – Pursuing dreams

When you try to follow your dreams. The implication here, however, is that you might be better off forgetting your dreams.

Clear as mud – Hard to understand

When you are confused about something or a situation.

Cool as a cucumber – Calm

This idiomatic expression is meant to describe someone who is calm and relaxed.

Couch potato – Lazy

A couch potato is a lazy person. Specifically, someone who sprawls on their couch watching TV almost all day.

Cross that bridge when we get to it – Think about it later

When you say this, you are telling someone that you will think about something later. The implication is that it’s a problem or a decision that can be put off for now.

Chew it over – Think had about something

This idiom implies that you need to make an important decision and can’t afford to be hasty about it.

Come to light – Be revealed

When something “comes to light” something that was originally concealed from you is revealed.

Cut back on – Reduce

When you use this idiom, you are reducing something.

Cut to the chase – Speak concisely

When you tell someone to “cut to the chase”, you are expressing impatience. This is usually used when someone feels someone else is taking to long to deliver important news.

Crystal clear – Easy to understand

When you say that something is “crystal clear”, you are saying that it is understood.

Dead-end job – No more opportunities

When you are stuck in a “dead-end job”, you are in a career situation where there is no more room for advancement.

Dig deep – Strive

When you “dig deep” you put a lot of effort into a task.

Digging into – Looking closer

When you “dig into” something, you are looking for more information.

Don’t run before you can walk – Don’t assume something is easy

This is a descriptive idiom, it’s meant to make you think about how a baby needs to learn how to walk before they can run. It’s supposed to caution you about assuming you can just do something without learning the basics.

Down to earth – Practical

This describes someone who is known for being sensible and practical.

Eat like a bird – Small appetite

This is used to describe someone who doesn’t eat a lot.

Eat like a horse – Eat a lot

If you eat like a horse, you are eating a lot. You can “eat like a bird” most of the time but “eat like a horse” at a specific time because you are either very hungry or you really like the food.

Eat your words – Admit you were wrong

When you “eat your words” you are admitting that something you said earlier turned out to be wrong.

Every cloud has a silver lining – Things will get better

When you say this, you are telling yourself or someone else that you will get through your troubles.

Face the music – Face the consequences

When you “face the music”, you are owning up to a mistake and trying to make amends.

Find your feet – Adapt

When you are “finding your feet” you are learning how to adapt to a new situation, like a new job.

Follow in their footsteps – Imitate

This idiom is often used between children and their parents, but it can also refer to a mentor or someone you admire. If you “follow in someone’s footsteps”, you do the same thing that they did.

Food for thought – Something to think about

If you are given “food for thought” you have been given something to think about.

A frosty reception – To be unwelcome

If you received a “frosty reception”, you are not welcome.

Fly off the handle – Rages

You can use this idiom to describe someone who is visibly angry over a situation. Often this means that someone is shouting and maybe gesturing violently and even causing damage to property. It also implies that the angry reaction is disproportionate to the situation.

Get on with your life – Continue on after a setback

This is something you can say and should do after going through some problems.

Give them a run for their money – Compete

If you are competing with someone, you are giving them a “run for their money.”

Go Dutch – Split the bill

You can use this idiomatic expression when dining out with friends.

Go with the flow – Relax and get along

When you “go with the flow” you keep calm and just go along with whatever is happening around you.

Got off scot-free – Escaped

When you “get off scot-free”, you managed to escape any consequences for your actions.

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Hard to swallow – Unbelievable

If someone told you something that you just can’t believe, they told you something that is “hard to swallow”.

Have your whole life in front of you – Young

Someone who has their whole life in front of them is young and full of promise.

Hold out an olive branch – Apologize

When you do this, you try to make amends or peace with someone you’ve hurt or angered.

In hot water – In trouble

This idiomatic expression can be used to say that you are in a less than ideal situation.

Inching forward - Making slow progress

When you say this, you’re saying things are proceeding slowly.

Keep on the straight and narrow – Keep out of trouble

When you say this, you are implying that you are going to live in a morally correct way.

Keep your chin up – Stay positive

Even if you’re going through a hard time, you should keep thinking positive.

Kicked the bucket – Died

This is an irreverent phrase to say that someone has died. Be careful how you use it.

Let the cat out of the bag – Spoiled the secret

You “let the cat out of the bag” when you accidentally let someone in on a secret that they weren’t meant to know.

Look up to – Respect

When you “look up to” someone you are acknowledging that you respect them and value their opinion.

Loaded – Rich

When you call someone “loaded” you are saying that they are rich.

Lost at sea – Confused

If a situation is making you feel confused or lost, this is the idiom to use.

Making ends meet – Careful budgeting

If you. don’t have much money, you need to “make ends meet”. This means you carefully budget what you do have to meet your needs.

Make a mountain out of a molehill –Exaggerate

This idiom is used to say that someone is being over-dramatic with their complaints or concerns.

Make waves – Change things

When you “make waves”, you change a situation dramatically. This can also mean that you caused trouble.

Nip in the bud – Stop

When you do this, you take action to keep a situation from getting worse.

No sweat – Easy

When you say “no sweat” you are saying that a task was easy

Not your cup of tea – Not something you like

If you say that something is “not your cup of tea” you are saying it’s not something you particularly like or enjoy.

Once in a blue moon – Rare

This implies something that either won’t happen or rarely happens.

Out in the open – Public knowledge

When something is “out in the open”, it is a matter of public knowledge.

Over the moon – Very happy

You can use this to describe the feeling of getting something you’ve been looking forward to for a long time.

On cloud nine – Very happy

Similar to being over the moon.

Packed like sardines – Crowded

If people are “packed like sardines” in a venue, they are standing very close together in a small space.

Piece of cake –Easy

If you say something is a “piece of cake” you are saying that it is easy.

Pitch in - Contribute

When you “pitch-in”, you work with a group of people to reach a common goal.

Point of view – An opinion

Your “point of view” is what you think about someone or a situation.

Pony up – Pay

If you are paying back a debt, you are “ponying up” the money.

Pour oil on troubled waters – Calm things down

This basically means that you played peacemaker and kept an argument from developing into a physical fight.

Put your head in the sand – Deny something unpleasant

When you have your “head in the sand”, you are deliberately ignoring a bad situation.

Rags to riches – Became rich

Someone who went from “rags to riches” was born poor or underprivileged, but is now in a better social position.

Rain or shine – No matter what

This idiomatic expression is used to express the idea that nothing will stop you.

Reap the rewards – Received the benefits

When you “reap the rewards”, you are getting the benefits of your good work.

Rings a bell – Sounds familiar

When you think that you’ve heard a piece of information before but are not so sure.

Rule of thumb – General practice

A “rule of thumb” is an unwritten rule that is followed by the majority.

Separate the wheat from the chaff – Decide what is valuable

This picturesque idiom refers to how, when you harvest wheat, you need to separate it from the stalks and leaves. So, it means that you pick out or choose what is valuable to keep.

Shell out money – Pay

When you “shell out money”, you pay for an item.

Sitting on the fence – Neutral

When you “sit on the fence” you are avoiding making a decision. Often, this is a decision between two people with different opinions.

Smart cookie – Smart person

You can use this idiom to describe someone intelligent.

Spice things up – Make things interesting

When you “spice things up” you do something to break out of your normal routine.

Spill the beans – Tell

When you do this, you tell someone something they didn’t know. It may or not have been a secret previously.

Sticky fingers – Thief

If you accuse someone of having “sticky fingers” you are basically calling them a thief.

Take a side – Choose who to support

When you “take a side” in an argument, you are agreeing with one of those arguing.

Throw light on – Explain something

When you “throw light on” a situation, you help make sure that it is understood.

To move at a snail’s pace – Move slowly

This is another idiomatic phrase that’s meant to paint a picture. A snail moves slowly, so to move at its pace means things are going slowly.

Tread carefully – Be cautious

This implies that a situation is fraught and it might be easy to offend those involved.

Under the table – Secretive

When you do something “under the table”, you are trying to do something so that only a small amount of people are aware of it. It’s commonly used to describe something that is possibly unscrupulous. For example, bribes are given “under the table”.

Undermine your position – Act unconvincingly

When you behave in a way that makes you and your opinion seem untrustworthy.

Up in the air – Uncertain

When you say something is “up in the air”, you are saying that you are not sure that an event is happening.

Weather the storm – Survive

When you “weather the storm”, you endure a bad situation.

When it rains, it pours – Trouble comes

This refers to the fact that sometimes, many bad things happen to people at one time.

So there you have it, 10 idiomatic expressions and their meanings. These idioms are used by native English language speakers to add some color to their daily speech.

 

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open by design enough Have had enough coffee forget Don’t forget stop at store since She hasn’t eaten since yesterday claim made insurance claim car accident note Leave note you’re going late remove Remove cookies from oven manager manager look at your application help Could help move this table close Close door sound dog did make sound enjoy enjoy soda network Band name internet network legal legal documents need signed religious She very religious she attends church weekly cold feet are cold form fill out this application form final divorce was final last month main main problem lack money science studies health science at university green grass green memory has good memory card They sent card birthday above Look on shelf above sink seat That’s comfortable seat cell Your body made millions cells establish They established their business 1942 nice That’s very nice car trial They are employing on trial basis expert Matt IT expert that Did see that movie spring Spring most beautiful season firm ‘no was very firm she won’t change mind Democrat Democrats control Senate radio listen radio car visit visited museum today management That store has good management care She cares mother at home avoid should avoid poison ivy imagine imagine pigs could fly tonight Would like go out tonight huge That truck huge! ball threw ball dog no said ‘no ’ don’t ask again close Close window finish Did finish your homework yourself gave you

Shares the lines of the El Camino during the last year a two door wagon was offered as a Chevelle.

Four more photos taken today, 9 January 2025, while on a drive with my daughter. We had hoped to find a Snowy Owl, as she has yet to see her first one of this winter.

 

The weather forecast was for a beautiful, sunny day, which it was, but the strong glare from the sun was just awful, not only for taking photos but also for driving.

 

Not much in the way of birds, apart from a small flock of Snow Buntings in flight, three groups of Gray Partridge, a Raven or two and, of course, Black-billed Magpies.

 

We did have one rather creepy moment, when we were pulled over to photograph a familiar old barn. Several years ago, when we were doing exactly the same thing at this location, we noticed a large tarpaulin in the ditch at the edge of the road. We approached it cautiously and my daughter pulled one corner upwards to check what was underneath. What we saw was something we have never forgotten. A head that didn't look like any kind of animal's head - looked rather like dark, human hair on the forehead. We did not look any further, but quickly drove away from the area. At the same time that we were there today, we heard several Coyotes howling around us in the distance, in different directions. I think unusual in the daytime. Unfortunately, they were too far away to see.

 

No success in finding a Snowy Owl, but at least we came across a number of old barns and an old grain elevator. Always my favourite kind of day, spent together with my daughter.

 

"The small town of Brant, Alberta, has one grain elevator. It is a former Alberta Wheat Pool elevator, now owned by Brant Farms Ltd. and still in use." From Grain Elevators of Canada,

 

"Brant is located 18 km west and 12 kilometres north of Vulcan. It is located on the CP main line which runs from Aldersyde to Kipp. This elevator was originally a Home Grain elevator, but changed owners to Searle, Federal and finally Alberta Wheat Pool, before being sold to B & J Farms." From vanishingsentinels.blogspot.ca/2006/02/alberta-wheat-pool...

 

"There were 1,651 elevators in Alberta in 1951, but by 1982 a total of 979 elevators remained. The 1990s spelled the death of the wooden “country” or “primary” elevator. At the end of the 1990s, as the full impact of both of the ending of the Crow Rate in 1995 and further impending rail abandonment was felt, the pace of demolition accelerated at an unprecedented rate. At the end of the 1996-1997 crop year, there were only 327 elevators left. Alberta’s largest cooperative grain companies, the Alberta Wheat Pool (which amalgamated with Manitoba Pool Elevators in 1998 as Agricore) and United Grain Growers, ultimately formed a new corporate entity known as Agricore United in 2001, issuing issued public shares. Demolition of country elevators has continued, and in 2005 there were only 156 wooden elevators of any kind still standing, only a handful of which are used by the grain trade.

 

The Government of Alberta has recognised the significance of the traditional wood grain elevators, and has designated 12 as Provincial Historic Resources. They are located in the following communities: Andrew, Castor, Leduc, Meeting Creek, Paradise Valley, Radway, Rowley (3 elevators), Scandia and St. Albert (2 elevators)."

 

www.grainelevatorsalberta.ca/articles/HRM-history.pdf

Because in Ladakh, India shares disputed borders with Pakistan and China, all three states continue to invest heavily in building roads and bridges in their borderlands. The Indian military presence is very obvious and widespread in Ladakh.

 

This temporary bridge is part of a military project to establish secure crossings over the Indus River especially in mountainous areas. Above this modest bridge a large major bridge was completed in 2022.

 

The Indus River, whose origin is in Tibet, China and which flows through Pakistan to the Indian Ocean, is the backbone of Ladakh. All major places historically and currently in Ladakh, such as Shey, Leh, Basgo, and Tingmosgang, are situated close to the river.

  

m.youtube.com/watch?v=_KLkP6WgNQI

 

Joanna Newsom shares another Paul Thomas Anderson-directed music video

| Plaincut | bit.ly/1DfNmQD

Back in August, avant-garde harpist Joanna Newsom released the video for “Sapokanikan,” the lead single from Divers, her first album since 2010’s…http://bit.ly/1NySioO

This is a new world record (I think). One million SHARES on Cadence's rescue video:

www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=1458313137726165

 

I am so happy so many people found this video worthy of sharing. Awareness is critical to our success.

 

Eldad

 

This bird of mystery shares a throne that has been used by other raptors this season. Although we are learning more about these mystical creatures, so much about them is still unknown. Recent research with tracking devices has found that some snowy owls actually migrate north rather than south during the winter season, while others have rarely migrated as far south as the Caribbean. One thing seems certain, their travels are linked to a search for food. An interesting article in this month's National Wildlife sheds some light on the shrouded mysteries surrounding these beautiful birds. Global warming could soon begin to affect their nesting grounds in the extreme northern arctic. That might possibly be more devastating than any changes south of their nesting grounds. They will continue to fascinate most of us, whenever they choose to grace our locations with their presence. #iLoveNature #iLoveWildlife #WildlifePhotography in #NewJersey #Nature in #America #USA #SnowyOwl #Canon #DrDADBooks #Bringit #Photography #Picoftheday #Photofotheday

Heliflite Shares Sikorsky S-76C N155RR cn 760464 JRA West 30th St Heliport Manhattan NYC

After studying it's time for a treat which Liv happily shares

President Barack Obama shares a laugh with a woman during a Thanksgiving service project at Bread for the City in Washington, D.C., Nov. 26, 2014. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

 

This official White House photograph is being made available only for publication by news organizations and/or for personal use printing by the subject(s) of the photograph. The photograph may not be manipulated in any way and may not be used in commercial or political materials, advertisements, emails, products, promotions that in any way suggests approval or endorsement of the President, the First Family, or the White House.

At the Japanese Friendship Garden of Phoenix, Arizona - RO HO EN, a joint project of the cities of Phoenix Airzona and Himeji Japan.

The garden is a small, 3.5 acre oasis right in the middle of downtown. We started the new year off right with a visit, the first since we visited initially in November 2013. There was still fall color on the trees and there were several broods of baby ducks.

www.japanesefriendshipgarden.org/

On Facebook: www.facebook.com/JFGPHX

RAW file processed with RAW Therapee.

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Portmahomack is a small fishing village in Easter Ross, Scotland. It is situated in the Tarbat Peninsula in the parish of Tarbat. Tarbat Ness Lighthouse is about three miles (five kilometres) from the village at the end of the Tarbat Peninsula. Ballone Castle lies about one mile (1.5 kilometres) from the village.

 

There is evidence of early settlement, and the area seems to have been the site of significant activity during the time of the Picts, early Christianity and the Vikings. The village is situated on a sandy bay and has a small harbour designed by Thomas Telford: it shares with Hunstanton the unusual distinction of being on the east coast but facing west. Portmahomack lies inside the Moray Firth Special Area of Conservation with the associated dolphin and whale watching activity.

 

The village has a primary school, golf course, hotel, a number of places to eat and a shop with a sub-post office. The nearest rail access is at Fearn railway station and the nearest commercial airport is at Inverness Airport. The nearest town with full services is Tain lying approximately 10 miles (16 kilometres) west. Tain also has rail access. The hamlet of Rockfield is nearby and is accessed via the village of Portmahomack.

 

Situated nine miles (fourteen kilometres) east of Tain on the northern coast of the Tarbat Peninsula, Portmahomack has long been known to be on the site of early settlements. The earliest evidence of habitation is provided by shell middens pointing to settlement as early as one or two thousand years BCE.

 

There are the remains of an Iron Age broch a little to the west of the village. Finds of elaborate early Christian carved stones dating to the 8th–9th centuries (including one with an inscription), in and around the churchyard, had long suggested that Portmahomack was the site of an important early church in the sixth-seventh century.

 

In 1822 Rev Grant, minister of Boharn, described "a beautiful square fortification of about 100 paces of a side" near Blàr a' Chath, north of the village. It was tentatively identified as a Roman camp in 1949 by O. G. S. Crawford although he did not visit the site and no trace was found of its existence during a later visit.

 

It had apparently been defaced by 1872 during land reclamation, but in Crawford's opinion there may be some traces of the Roman camp still visible or to be discovered.

 

It has been suggested that the supposed camp was visited by emperor Septimius Severus, based on remarks made by the Roman historian Cassius Dio: "Severus did not desist until he approached the extremity of the island".

 

Portmahomack is the site of the first confirmed Pictish monastery and the subject between 1994 and 2007 of one of the largest archaeological investigations in Scotland directed by Martin Carver (b. 1941). The fields surrounding the redundant St Colman's church were the focus of the 13-year investigation. What the archaeologists uncovered were: an early medieval enclosure ditch, burial ground, remnants of a stone church, and carved stone fragments in the Pictish style.

 

The monastery began around 550 AD and was destroyed by fire in about 800 AD. It had a burial ground with cist and head-support burials, a stone church, at least four monumental stone crosses and workshops making church plate and early Christian books. The making of vellum in an early medieval site was detected for the first time here by Cecily Spall of FAS Ltd.

 

Over two hundred pieces of sculpture have been found, some of it broken up in a layer of burning suggesting that the monastic buildings were violently destroyed, possibly in a Viking raid, about the year 800.

 

The present restored building, adapted to house a museum after lying empty for a number of years, has been shown by archaeological investigation to be itself a monument of great interest, of multi-phase construction, the oldest part (the east wall of the crypt) having been built as early as the 9th century. The museum and visitor centre in the remodeled parish church is managed by the Tarbat Historic Trust.

 

Recent research on the ancient trench around the local monastery found organic samples in the date range from 140 AD to 590 AD. The area enclosed by the ditch may have been a "settlement, craft-working centre and/or hub of a Pictish community", connected to the possible Roman fortification in Port a Chaistell.

 

The Battle of Tarbat Ness was a land battle fought (c 1030–1040) between Thorfinn the Mighty, Earl (Jarl) of Caithness and the King of Scotland.

 

In the Battle of Tarbat in the 1480s, a raiding party from the Clan Mackay of Strathnaver were cornered in the Tarbat church by the Clan Ross, who killed many of them before setting fire to the church.

 

During the 17th century, cod, skate ling, halibut, lobsters and turbot were fished in great quantities until the end of the 18th century. Over 100 ships are reported to have exported grain from the harbor. Herring exports peaked between 1850 and 1890, and brought increased employment and prosperity to the region. At the end of the 19th century, the growing number of steam trawlers in the area led to the decline of the herring industry. The construction of the Balintore harbour, south of Portmahomack, also contributed to reduced shipping activity at Portmahomack. The export of grain from the harbor ended during the 1930s.

 

Today, Portmahomack is a tourist destination with its traditional harbour, swimming beach, golf, dolphin watching, fishing and other watersports. It has a permanent population of between 500 and 600 residents. In the former parish church the Tarbat Discovery Centre, designed by exhibition consultants Higgins Gardner & Partners, houses displays on local history, and many of the finds from several seasons of excavation within the church itself, and in the fields surrounding the churchyard. It also houses the Peter Fraser Archive of memorabilia relating to Peter Fraser, wartime prime minister of New Zealand, who was born and grew up in Hill of Fearn, seven miles (eleven kilometres) distant from Portmahomack.

 

Notable among these are a large collection of fragments of Pictish stone sculpture, many of them superbly carved with figures of ecclesiastics, fantastic and realistic animals, 'Celtic' interlace and key-pattern, and other motifs. The large elaborate late seventeenth- or early eighteenth-century bell-turret on the west gable of the church is an unusual and distinctive feature.

 

Some important Pictish carved stones from Portmahomack are on display in the Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh with replicas in the Tarbat Discovery Centre.

 

Two other important historic buildings in Portmahomack are adjoining 'girnals' (storehouses), built in the late 17th century and 1779, overlooking the harbour (restored as housing). The former is one of the oldest such buildings to survive in Scotland. The village also features a number of attractive 18th/early 19th century houses lining the shore.

 

Portmahomack was a favourite holiday location for Lord Reith (John Reith, 1st Baron Reith), Director-General of the BBC, who holidayed in the Blue House, still aptly painted blue and located on the seafront, near the harbour.

 

The murder-mystery writer Anne Perry lived adjacent to the village for a number of years.

 

John Shepherd-Barron, the inventor of the ATM (Auto-Teller Machine), lived in the nearby community of Geanies until his death in 2010.

 

Professor Thomas Summers West, was a famous son of the Village with an Exhibition held in his name at the Tarbat Discovery Centre in 2011.

 

The Highlands is a historical region of Scotland. Culturally, the Highlands and the Lowlands diverged from the Late Middle Ages into the modern period, when Lowland Scots language replaced Scottish Gaelic throughout most of the Lowlands. The term is also used for the area north and west of the Highland Boundary Fault, although the exact boundaries are not clearly defined, particularly to the east. The Great Glen divides the Grampian Mountains to the southeast from the Northwest Highlands. The Scottish Gaelic name of A' Ghàidhealtachd literally means "the place of the Gaels" and traditionally, from a Gaelic-speaking point of view, includes both the Western Isles and the Highlands.

 

The area is very sparsely populated, with many mountain ranges dominating the region, and includes the highest mountain in the British Isles, Ben Nevis. During the 18th and early 19th centuries the population of the Highlands rose to around 300,000, but from c. 1841 and for the next 160 years, the natural increase in population was exceeded by emigration (mostly to Canada, the United States, Australia and New Zealand, and migration to the industrial cities of Scotland and England.) and passim  The area is now one of the most sparsely populated in Europe. At 9.1/km2 (24/sq mi) in 2012, the population density in the Highlands and Islands is less than one seventh of Scotland's as a whole.

 

The Highland Council is the administrative body for much of the Highlands, with its administrative centre at Inverness. However, the Highlands also includes parts of the council areas of Aberdeenshire, Angus, Argyll and Bute, Moray, North Ayrshire, Perth and Kinross, Stirling and West Dunbartonshire.

 

The Scottish Highlands is the only area in the British Isles to have the taiga biome as it features concentrated populations of Scots pine forest: see Caledonian Forest. It is the most mountainous part of the United Kingdom.

 

Between the 15th century and the mid-20th century, the area differed from most of the Lowlands in terms of language. In Scottish Gaelic, the region is known as the Gàidhealtachd, because it was traditionally the Gaelic-speaking part of Scotland, although the language is now largely confined to The Hebrides. The terms are sometimes used interchangeably but have different meanings in their respective languages. Scottish English (in its Highland form) is the predominant language of the area today, though Highland English has been influenced by Gaelic speech to a significant extent. Historically, the "Highland line" distinguished the two Scottish cultures. While the Highland line broadly followed the geography of the Grampians in the south, it continued in the north, cutting off the north-eastern areas, that is Eastern Caithness, Orkney and Shetland, from the more Gaelic Highlands and Hebrides.

 

Historically, the major social unit of the Highlands was the clan. Scottish kings, particularly James VI, saw clans as a challenge to their authority; the Highlands was seen by many as a lawless region. The Scots of the Lowlands viewed the Highlanders as backward and more "Irish". The Highlands were seen as the overspill of Gaelic Ireland. They made this distinction by separating Germanic "Scots" English and the Gaelic by renaming it "Erse" a play on Eire. Following the Union of the Crowns, James VI had the military strength to back up any attempts to impose some control. The result was, in 1609, the Statutes of Iona which started the process of integrating clan leaders into Scottish society. The gradual changes continued into the 19th century, as clan chiefs thought of themselves less as patriarchal leaders of their people and more as commercial landlords. The first effect on the clansmen who were their tenants was the change to rents being payable in money rather than in kind. Later, rents were increased as Highland landowners sought to increase their income. This was followed, mostly in the period 1760–1850, by agricultural improvement that often (particularly in the Western Highlands) involved clearance of the population to make way for large scale sheep farms. Displaced tenants were set up in crofting communities in the process. The crofts were intended not to provide all the needs of their occupiers; they were expected to work in other industries such as kelping and fishing. Crofters came to rely substantially on seasonal migrant work, particularly in the Lowlands. This gave impetus to the learning of English, which was seen by many rural Gaelic speakers to be the essential "language of work".

 

Older historiography attributes the collapse of the clan system to the aftermath of the Jacobite risings. This is now thought less influential by historians. Following the Jacobite rising of 1745 the British government enacted a series of laws to try to suppress the clan system, including bans on the bearing of arms and the wearing of tartan, and limitations on the activities of the Scottish Episcopal Church. Most of this legislation was repealed by the end of the 18th century as the Jacobite threat subsided. There was soon a rehabilitation of Highland culture. Tartan was adopted for Highland regiments in the British Army, which poor Highlanders joined in large numbers in the era of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars (1790–1815). Tartan had largely been abandoned by the ordinary people of the region, but in the 1820s, tartan and the kilt were adopted by members of the social elite, not just in Scotland, but across Europe. The international craze for tartan, and for idealising a romanticised Highlands, was set off by the Ossian cycle, and further popularised by the works of Walter Scott. His "staging" of the visit of King George IV to Scotland in 1822 and the king's wearing of tartan resulted in a massive upsurge in demand for kilts and tartans that could not be met by the Scottish woollen industry. Individual clan tartans were largely designated in this period and they became a major symbol of Scottish identity. This "Highlandism", by which all of Scotland was identified with the culture of the Highlands, was cemented by Queen Victoria's interest in the country, her adoption of Balmoral as a major royal retreat, and her interest in "tartenry".

 

Recurrent famine affected the Highlands for much of its history, with significant instances as late as 1817 in the Eastern Highlands and the early 1850s in the West.  Over the 18th century, the region had developed a trade of black cattle into Lowland markets, and this was balanced by imports of meal into the area. There was a critical reliance on this trade to provide sufficient food, and it is seen as an essential prerequisite for the population growth that started in the 18th century. Most of the Highlands, particularly in the North and West was short of the arable land that was essential for the mixed, run rig based, communal farming that existed before agricultural improvement was introduced into the region.[a] Between the 1760s and the 1830s there was a substantial trade in unlicensed whisky that had been distilled in the Highlands. Lowland distillers (who were not able to avoid the heavy taxation of this product) complained that Highland whisky made up more than half the market. The development of the cattle trade is taken as evidence that the pre-improvement Highlands was not an immutable system, but did exploit the economic opportunities that came its way.  The illicit whisky trade demonstrates the entrepreneurial ability of the peasant classes. 

 

Agricultural improvement reached the Highlands mostly over the period 1760 to 1850. Agricultural advisors, factors, land surveyors and others educated in the thinking of Adam Smith were keen to put into practice the new ideas taught in Scottish universities.  Highland landowners, many of whom were burdened with chronic debts, were generally receptive to the advice they offered and keen to increase the income from their land.  In the East and South the resulting change was similar to that in the Lowlands, with the creation of larger farms with single tenants, enclosure of the old run rig fields, introduction of new crops (such as turnips), land drainage and, as a consequence of all this, eviction, as part of the Highland clearances, of many tenants and cottars. Some of those cleared found employment on the new, larger farms, others moved to the accessible towns of the Lowlands.

 

In the West and North, evicted tenants were usually given tenancies in newly created crofting communities, while their former holdings were converted into large sheep farms. Sheep farmers could pay substantially higher rents than the run rig farmers and were much less prone to falling into arrears. Each croft was limited in size so that the tenants would have to find work elsewhere. The major alternatives were fishing and the kelp industry. Landlords took control of the kelp shores, deducting the wages earned by their tenants from the rent due and retaining the large profits that could be earned at the high prices paid for the processed product during the Napoleonic wars.

 

When the Napoleonic wars finished in 1815, the Highland industries were affected by the return to a peacetime economy. The price of black cattle fell, nearly halving between 1810 and the 1830s. Kelp prices had peaked in 1810, but reduced from £9 a ton in 1823 to £3 13s 4d a ton in 1828. Wool prices were also badly affected.  This worsened the financial problems of debt-encumbered landlords. Then, in 1846, potato blight arrived in the Highlands, wiping out the essential subsistence crop for the overcrowded crofting communities. As the famine struck, the government made clear to landlords that it was their responsibility to provide famine relief for their tenants. The result of the economic downturn had been that a large proportion of Highland estates were sold in the first half of the 19th century. T M Devine points out that in the region most affected by the potato famine, by 1846, 70 per cent of the landowners were new purchasers who had not owned Highland property before 1800. More landlords were obliged to sell due to the cost of famine relief. Those who were protected from the worst of the crisis were those with extensive rental income from sheep farms.  Government loans were made available for drainage works, road building and other improvements and many crofters became temporary migrants – taking work in the Lowlands. When the potato famine ceased in 1856, this established a pattern of more extensive working away from the Highlands.

 

The unequal concentration of land ownership remained an emotional and controversial subject, of enormous importance to the Highland economy, and eventually became a cornerstone of liberal radicalism. The poor crofters were politically powerless, and many of them turned to religion. They embraced the popularly oriented, fervently evangelical Presbyterian revival after 1800. Most joined the breakaway "Free Church" after 1843. This evangelical movement was led by lay preachers who themselves came from the lower strata, and whose preaching was implicitly critical of the established order. The religious change energised the crofters and separated them from the landlords; it helped prepare them for their successful and violent challenge to the landlords in the 1880s through the Highland Land League. Violence erupted, starting on the Isle of Skye, when Highland landlords cleared their lands for sheep and deer parks. It was quietened when the government stepped in, passing the Crofters' Holdings (Scotland) Act, 1886 to reduce rents, guarantee fixity of tenure, and break up large estates to provide crofts for the homeless. This contrasted with the Irish Land War underway at the same time, where the Irish were intensely politicised through roots in Irish nationalism, while political dimensions were limited. In 1885 three Independent Crofter candidates were elected to Parliament, which listened to their pleas. The results included explicit security for the Scottish smallholders in the "crofting counties"; the legal right to bequeath tenancies to descendants; and the creation of a Crofting Commission. The Crofters as a political movement faded away by 1892, and the Liberal Party gained their votes.

 

Today, the Highlands are the largest of Scotland's whisky producing regions; the relevant area runs from Orkney to the Isle of Arran in the south and includes the northern isles and much of Inner and Outer Hebrides, Argyll, Stirlingshire, Arran, as well as sections of Perthshire and Aberdeenshire. (Other sources treat The Islands, except Islay, as a separate whisky producing region.) This massive area has over 30 distilleries, or 47 when the Islands sub-region is included in the count. According to one source, the top five are The Macallan, Glenfiddich, Aberlour, Glenfarclas and Balvenie. While Speyside is geographically within the Highlands, that region is specified as distinct in terms of whisky productions. Speyside single malt whiskies are produced by about 50 distilleries.

 

According to Visit Scotland, Highlands whisky is "fruity, sweet, spicy, malty". Another review states that Northern Highlands single malt is "sweet and full-bodied", the Eastern Highlands and Southern Highlands whiskies tend to be "lighter in texture" while the distilleries in the Western Highlands produce single malts with a "much peatier influence".

 

The Scottish Reformation achieved partial success in the Highlands. Roman Catholicism remained strong in some areas, owing to remote locations and the efforts of Franciscan missionaries from Ireland, who regularly came to celebrate Mass. There remain significant Catholic strongholds within the Highlands and Islands such as Moidart and Morar on the mainland and South Uist and Barra in the southern Outer Hebrides. The remoteness of the region and the lack of a Gaelic-speaking clergy undermined the missionary efforts of the established church. The later 18th century saw somewhat greater success, owing to the efforts of the SSPCK missionaries and to the disruption of traditional society after the Battle of Culloden in 1746. In the 19th century, the evangelical Free Churches, which were more accepting of Gaelic language and culture, grew rapidly, appealing much more strongly than did the established church.

 

For the most part, however, the Highlands are considered predominantly Protestant, belonging to the Church of Scotland. In contrast to the Catholic southern islands, the northern Outer Hebrides islands (Lewis, Harris and North Uist) have an exceptionally high proportion of their population belonging to the Protestant Free Church of Scotland or the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland. The Outer Hebrides have been described as the last bastion of Calvinism in Britain and the Sabbath remains widely observed. Inverness and the surrounding area has a majority Protestant population, with most locals belonging to either The Kirk or the Free Church of Scotland. The church maintains a noticeable presence within the area, with church attendance notably higher than in other parts of Scotland. Religion continues to play an important role in Highland culture, with Sabbath observance still widely practised, particularly in the Hebrides.

 

In traditional Scottish geography, the Highlands refers to that part of Scotland north-west of the Highland Boundary Fault, which crosses mainland Scotland in a near-straight line from Helensburgh to Stonehaven. However the flat coastal lands that occupy parts of the counties of Nairnshire, Morayshire, Banffshire and Aberdeenshire are often excluded as they do not share the distinctive geographical and cultural features of the rest of the Highlands. The north-east of Caithness, as well as Orkney and Shetland, are also often excluded from the Highlands, although the Hebrides are usually included. The Highland area, as so defined, differed from the Lowlands in language and tradition, having preserved Gaelic speech and customs centuries after the anglicisation of the latter; this led to a growing perception of a divide, with the cultural distinction between Highlander and Lowlander first noted towards the end of the 14th century. In Aberdeenshire, the boundary between the Highlands and the Lowlands is not well defined. There is a stone beside the A93 road near the village of Dinnet on Royal Deeside which states 'You are now in the Highlands', although there are areas of Highland character to the east of this point.

 

A much wider definition of the Highlands is that used by the Scotch whisky industry. Highland single malts are produced at distilleries north of an imaginary line between Dundee and Greenock, thus including all of Aberdeenshire and Angus.

 

Inverness is regarded as the Capital of the Highlands, although less so in the Highland parts of Aberdeenshire, Angus, Perthshire and Stirlingshire which look more to Aberdeen, Dundee, Perth, and Stirling as their commercial centres.

 

The Highland Council area, created as one of the local government regions of Scotland, has been a unitary council area since 1996. The council area excludes a large area of the southern and eastern Highlands, and the Western Isles, but includes Caithness. Highlands is sometimes used, however, as a name for the council area, as in the former Highlands and Islands Fire and Rescue Service. Northern is also used to refer to the area, as in the former Northern Constabulary. These former bodies both covered the Highland council area and the island council areas of Orkney, Shetland and the Western Isles.

 

Much of the Highlands area overlaps the Highlands and Islands area. An electoral region called Highlands and Islands is used in elections to the Scottish Parliament: this area includes Orkney and Shetland, as well as the Highland Council local government area, the Western Isles and most of the Argyll and Bute and Moray local government areas. Highlands and Islands has, however, different meanings in different contexts. It means Highland (the local government area), Orkney, Shetland, and the Western Isles in Highlands and Islands Fire and Rescue Service. Northern, as in Northern Constabulary, refers to the same area as that covered by the fire and rescue service.

 

There have been trackways from the Lowlands to the Highlands since prehistoric times. Many traverse the Mounth, a spur of mountainous land that extends from the higher inland range to the North Sea slightly north of Stonehaven. The most well-known and historically important trackways are the Causey Mounth, Elsick Mounth, Cryne Corse Mounth and Cairnamounth.

 

Although most of the Highlands is geographically on the British mainland, it is somewhat less accessible than the rest of Britain; thus most UK couriers categorise it separately, alongside Northern Ireland, the Isle of Man, and other offshore islands. They thus charge additional fees for delivery to the Highlands, or exclude the area entirely. While the physical remoteness from the largest population centres inevitably leads to higher transit cost, there is confusion and consternation over the scale of the fees charged and the effectiveness of their communication, and the use of the word Mainland in their justification. Since the charges are often based on postcode areas, many far less remote areas, including some which are traditionally considered part of the lowlands, are also subject to these charges. Royal Mail is the only delivery network bound by a Universal Service Obligation to charge a uniform tariff across the UK. This, however, applies only to mail items and not larger packages which are dealt with by its Parcelforce division.

 

The Highlands lie to the north and west of the Highland Boundary Fault, which runs from Arran to Stonehaven. This part of Scotland is largely composed of ancient rocks from the Cambrian and Precambrian periods which were uplifted during the later Caledonian Orogeny. Smaller formations of Lewisian gneiss in the northwest are up to 3 billion years old. The overlying rocks of the Torridon Sandstone form mountains in the Torridon Hills such as Liathach and Beinn Eighe in Wester Ross.

 

These foundations are interspersed with many igneous intrusions of a more recent age, the remnants of which have formed mountain massifs such as the Cairngorms and the Cuillin of Skye. A significant exception to the above are the fossil-bearing beds of Old Red Sandstone found principally along the Moray Firth coast and partially down the Highland Boundary Fault. The Jurassic beds found in isolated locations on Skye and Applecross reflect the complex underlying geology. They are the original source of much North Sea oil. The Great Glen is formed along a transform fault which divides the Grampian Mountains to the southeast from the Northwest Highlands.

 

The entire region was covered by ice sheets during the Pleistocene ice ages, save perhaps for a few nunataks. The complex geomorphology includes incised valleys and lochs carved by the action of mountain streams and ice, and a topography of irregularly distributed mountains whose summits have similar heights above sea-level, but whose bases depend upon the amount of denudation to which the plateau has been subjected in various places.

Climate

 

The region is much warmer than other areas at similar latitudes (such as Kamchatka in Russia, or Labrador in Canada) because of the Gulf Stream making it cool, damp and temperate. The Köppen climate classification is "Cfb" at low altitudes, then becoming "Cfc", "Dfc" and "ET" at higher altitudes.

 

Places of interest

An Teallach

Aonach Mòr (Nevis Range ski centre)

Arrochar Alps

Balmoral Castle

Balquhidder

Battlefield of Culloden

Beinn Alligin

Beinn Eighe

Ben Cruachan hydro-electric power station

Ben Lomond

Ben Macdui (second highest mountain in Scotland and UK)

Ben Nevis (highest mountain in Scotland and UK)

Cairngorms National Park

Cairngorm Ski centre near Aviemore

Cairngorm Mountains

Caledonian Canal

Cape Wrath

Carrick Castle

Castle Stalker

Castle Tioram

Chanonry Point

Conic Hill

Culloden Moor

Dunadd

Duart Castle

Durness

Eilean Donan

Fingal's Cave (Staffa)

Fort George

Glen Coe

Glen Etive

Glen Kinglas

Glen Lyon

Glen Orchy

Glenshee Ski Centre

Glen Shiel

Glen Spean

Glenfinnan (and its railway station and viaduct)

Grampian Mountains

Hebrides

Highland Folk Museum – The first open-air museum in the UK.

Highland Wildlife Park

Inveraray Castle

Inveraray Jail

Inverness Castle

Inverewe Garden

Iona Abbey

Isle of Staffa

Kilchurn Castle

Kilmartin Glen

Liathach

Lecht Ski Centre

Loch Alsh

Loch Ard

Loch Awe

Loch Assynt

Loch Earn

Loch Etive

Loch Fyne

Loch Goil

Loch Katrine

Loch Leven

Loch Linnhe

Loch Lochy

Loch Lomond

Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park

Loch Lubnaig

Loch Maree

Loch Morar

Loch Morlich

Loch Ness

Loch Nevis

Loch Rannoch

Loch Tay

Lochranza

Luss

Meall a' Bhuiridh (Glencoe Ski Centre)

Scottish Sea Life Sanctuary at Loch Creran

Rannoch Moor

Red Cuillin

Rest and Be Thankful stretch of A83

River Carron, Wester Ross

River Spey

River Tay

Ross and Cromarty

Smoo Cave

Stob Coire a' Chàirn

Stac Polly

Strathspey Railway

Sutherland

Tor Castle

Torridon Hills

Urquhart Castle

West Highland Line (scenic railway)

West Highland Way (Long-distance footpath)

Wester Ross

The guy who occasionally shares this body with Kath is an actual nurse. He'd like to point out that if Kath had turned up on a shift he was responsible for, with nails like that, he'd have produced nail varnish remover & clippers! He also pointed out that the engagement ring would be taken off too! Having started nagging her, he'd have pointed out the ear-rings, watch and bracelet could come off too. Might even have mentioned an iron on the uniform not going amis!

 

Fortunately Nurse Adams doesn't work with him, so she can get away with it!

newerupdates.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Elizabeth-Hur...

Elizabeth Hurley Shares Her Hottest Selfie

newerupdates.com/elizabeth-hurley-shares-her-hottest-selfie/

Folkets Park is the oldest people's Park in the world and one of Sweden's most visited sites. For nearly 120 years, people come here to have fun, relax and enjoy life. The charming park has many sides. Malmö 's best club scene, a fabulous cultural House, a reputable dance palaces and beautiful uteserveringar, shares the park with adventure golf, minibondgård, sjöholm and tivoli.

In addition to all this is also a wooded park by Park green city park with ponds, lawns and an inordinately popular playground. In winter, transformed the great paddling pond to the rink for skating.

-Come here as often as you want. It is free admission.

In the early 19th century combines Frans Suell,Malmö city's founder, a park for private use. What is left in the Park from that time are jaktpaviljongen and the rectangular pond. Manor House, known as Calm, is also preserved and is located outside on Park Street.

1891 buys the Socialist students ' UnionPark. It is consecrated as the first Folkets Park may of that year.

Uteserveringarna dominated the supply in the Park. Two restaurants were built, Park restaurant (1892), now the father in the hat, and garden restaurant (1899) which were there Ponnygården Ark is located today. The need for a larger restaurant grew with the increasing any significant growth in audiences. Moorish Pavilion was built in 1903 under the direction of the architect a. w. Krenzisky.

 

1895 built dance Stora Teaternat corner Falsterbogatan-Kristianstadsgatan. The building was renovated in 1994 and is today Barnens scen.

Of the 20th century expanded the Parkand new ground was bought in North of Moriskan. The Park was an amusement park with a Ferris wheel, roller coaster, slänggunga and radiobilar.

Admiral and entertainment theater became clear during the war years1939-40. Park had the largest dance floor in town, and it quickly became a popular dance place.

1944 purchased björn cave in with three associated bear cubs.

Outdoor scene was a beautiful wooden building with turrets and tinnar from 1899. It was the longest in the Park between the current playground and ridhus and burned down in 1990.

1976 sells social democratic association60% of the shares to the municipality. Fourteen years later, the municipality over the operation completely.

A ridhus built in 2000 at Ponnygården sheets.

The children receive a watering hole in the Park 2002with paddling pond. In winter, washed the dam and becomes rink.

2004 built the main entrance from Amiralsgatan into its current form, according to the architect Torsten Persson's drawings. In connection with the moves of the Orangery, which stood in the lower half of the exhibition Bo01, go to the Park. First year hosting a fjärilsutställning, but in 2005, it is made into Cuba Café, a restaurant and bar with Cuban theme on food, music and drinks.

The same year built the playground and modernised.Is now the one of Malmö 's absolute favourite playgrounds.

In recent years, there have also been spent much of the Green Group in the Park. Several exotic trees were planted and perennplanteringarna have become more numerous.

In October 2007 opens a new fountain in the shape of a 4.5 meters in height ros in fiberglass in the northern part of the Park.

In August 2008 completed mosaic wall at the playground. The artwork was created by the Park's younger visitors.

2008 appointed Folkets Park to this year's joy spreader of magazine nöjesguiden and 2009 may Park Malmö city integration award.

                                                              

Tiny shares an enclosure with his brother, Kafara, at the Wildlife Heritage Foundation in Kent. Most of the time they get on very well, are even close, but once or twice they've had serious fights. Kafara is the alpha male and Tiny's broad nose is the one that bears the scars. Applying Topaz Glow to the image has softened the lines and created an interesting pattern.

Shares the same genus as white-crowned. Lake St. Clair.

Kayla, Gabrielle,Camille, Kira