E-ferry: "Ellen"

 

E-ferry is a new project supported by the European initiative H2020 involving the design, building and demonstration of a fully electric powered ‘green’ ferry which can sail without polluting and CO2 emissions. It promotes energy efficient, zero GHG emission and air pollution, free waterborne transportation for island communities, coastal zones and inland waterways in Europe and beyond.

Τhe overall objective of E-ferry is to apply an extremely energy efficient design concept and demonstrate a 100% electric, emission free, medium sized ferry for passengers and cars, trucks and cargo1 in full-scale operation on longer distances than previously seen (> 5 nautical miles (Nm)) for electric drive train ferries, i.e. the medium range connections Soeby-Fynshav (10.7 Nm) and Soeby-Faaborg (9.6 Nm) in the Danish part of the Baltic Sea connecting the island of Aeroe (Ærø) to the mainland.

E-ferry, goes beyond current limitations of similar efforts targeting medium range connections and is likely to be the ferry with the largest battery pack ever installed in a vessel.

e-ferryproject.eu/

The Courier

Friday 17 July 1863

 

QUEENSLAND INSURANCE COMPANY

 

[first annual report and meeting]

 

The annual meeting was held at the Brisbane School of Arts on Wednesday last, at one o'clock. There was a good attendance, and the chair was taken by Mr George Board, the chairman of the company.

 

Mr C. J. Trundle, the Secretary, read the following report and balance sheet:-

 

"Your directors have issued the following policies:- In Brisbane, 263; Ipswich, 67; Mayborough, 17; Rockhampton, 8; other inland towns, 10; making 365 in all. Great caution has been exercised in the class of business accepted by them, during the first years of the company's operations, involving the rejection of fully one-third of the proposals placed before the board. More than one-half the sum covered by the company's policies is upon first-class buildings of brick and stone. The risks taken upon wooden buildings being generally for small amounts on property well detached.

 

[...]

 

The fire engine belonging to the company has been placed in the hands of the fire brigade, a volunteer force, formed in Brisbane for the extinguishing of fires; their services have been highly beneficial during the past year, but the absence of a proper supply of water available for engine use has been sorely felt by them during the late fires in this city.

 

---

 

Brisbane History

Brisbane's recorded history dates from 1799, when Matthew Flinders explored Moreton Bay on an expedition from Port Jackson, although the region had long been occupied by the Yugara and Turrbal aboriginal groups. First Nations Australians lived in coastal South East Queensland (SEQ) for at least 22,000 years, with an estimated population between 6,000 and 10,000 individuals before European settlers arrived in the 1820s.

 

At this time the Brisbane area was inhabited by the Turrbal people, (Turrbal also being the name of the language they spoke) who knew the area that is now the central business district as Mian-jin, meaning "place shaped as a spike". Archaeological evidence suggests frequent habitation around the Brisbane River, and notably at the site now known as Musgrave Park.

 

The first convict jail was built in Redcliffe in 1824 and that was moved to the site of the present-day CBD in 1825. Officials believed the natural bend in the river provided an effective barrier against escape.

 

Read more about the Moreton Bay convict settlement in this article: blogs.archives.qld.gov.au/2021/10/05/moreton-bay-convict-...

 

Its suitability for fishing, farming, timbering, and other occupations, however, caused it to be opened to free settlement in 1838. Civilian occupation of the area began in 1842, and by the late 1880s Brisbane became the main site for commerce, and the capital-to-be began to develop distinct architectural features and culture.

 

With an abundance of sunshine and laid-back lifestyle, Brisbane quickly drew people eager to settle in its environs. The city grew steadily over the years and a turning point in its advancement was during World War II when it housed the main allied headquarters in the South Pacific for Australian and American service personnel.

 

The post-war population boom brought a spurt in industry and Brisbane staked a claim as the third-largest city in Australia.

 

Despite its rapid progress, Brisbane was often seen as lagging culturally behind Sydney and Melbourne. But two landmark events in the 1980s brought about a major change and accelerated Brisbane towards Australia’s new world city it is today.

 

The Commonwealth Games came to Brisbane in 1982, and this resulted in a massive injection of new infrastructure and sporting facilities. Then the eyes of the world turned to Brisbane in 1988 and thousands of visitors flocked to Expo 88. The subsequent birth of South Bank on the Expo site has resulted in a thriving cultural hub and Brisbane is more than matching it with its southern counterparts.

 

FIRST NATIONS HISTORY

Prior to European colonisation, the Brisbane region was occupied by Aboriginal tribes, notably clans of the Yugara, Turrbal and Quandamooka peoples. The oldest archaeological site in the Brisbane region comes from Wallen Wallen Creek on North Stradbroke Island (21,430±400 years before present), however, settlement would likely occurred well prior to this date.

 

The land, the river and its tributaries were the source and support of life in all its dimensions. The river's abundant supply of food included fish, shellfish, crab, and prawns. Good fishing places became campsites and the focus of group activities. The district was defined by open woodlands with rainforest in some pockets or bends of the Brisbane River.

A resource-rich area and a natural avenue for seasonal movement, Brisbane was a way station for groups travelling to ceremonies and spectacles. The region had several large (200–600 person) seasonal camps, the biggest and most important located along waterways north and south of the current city heart: Barambin or 'York's Hollow' camp (today's Victoria Park) and Woolloon-cappem (Woolloongabba/South Brisbane), also known as Kurilpa. These camping grounds continued to function well into historic times, and were the basis of European settlement in parts of Brisbane.

 

TOWN PLAN

Buildings were constructed for the convict settlement, generally at right angles to the river's shoreline in the direction of Queen Street, and along the shoreline south-east of today's Victoria Bridge. The outstanding surviving building is the Commissariat Store (1828-29), originally two storeys, in William Street. The street layout, however, developed from a thoroughfare from the river's edge running north-east to the prisoners' barrack near the corner of today's Queen and Albert Streets. When a town survey was done in 1840 that thoroughfare was chosen as the main street – Queen Street – and the grid pattern of square blocks moved out from the Queen Street axis. There were several versions of the town survey. The proposed streets varied in width from 20 to 28 metres but Governor Gipps, anticipating an inauspicious future for the settlement, trimmed them back to the lesser figure. Streets running parallel to Queen Street were named after British and related royalty, among them Queen Mary II, Queen Charlotte (wife of George III) and Queen Adelaide (wife of William IV). William, George, Albert and Edward Streets, running at right angles, had similar royal antecedents. Creek Street's position approximated the course of a minor stream, Wheat Creek.

 

The town survey occurred about three years after a select committee of the British Parliament had concluded that transportation had ceased to deter crime and, in any event, was tainted with inhumanity. By 1839 Moreton Bay was being transformed from a convict settlement to a free settlement, and in July 1842 the first sales of Brisbane land took place in Sydney. Nearly 60 allotments, each of 36 perches, in North and South Brisbane were offered. Twelve months later blocks in Kangaroo Point were sold. Little care was taken to reserve land or space along the river's edge for public purposes, but the government farm at the south-east end was kept and in time became the botanic gardens.

 

OUTER SETTLEMENTS

The scatter of urban land sales detracted from North Brisbane's role as a central place in Moreton Bay. Wharves were set up on both sides of the river, and there was an Ipswich-Cleveland 'axis' backed by rural interests which wanted the administrative centre and a port at those places. Probably it was the building of a customs house in 1849 on the river in North Brisbane which had a decisive effect: wharf interests moved, to be closer to the customs house, which in turn influenced the location of warehouses and merchandising. South Brisbane remained at a disadvantage until a permanent Victoria Bridge (1874) replaced ferry crossings.

 

Four years after the first land sales North and South Brisbane's populations were 614 and 346 respectively. The town was nothing much to look at: convict buildings were dilapidated, new structures had been roughly built and mainly it was the steady inflow of new inhabitants which held the best prospects for improvement. A Catholic school had been opened in 1845 and the Moreton Bay Courier weekly newspaper began publication in 1846, but it was not until the end of the decade that noticeable civic amenities emerged. Coinciding with the arrival of the Fortitude immigrants in 1849 (who were settled outside the town boundary, north of Boundary Street), an Anglican school was opened and a Wesleyan church built in Albert Street. A school of arts was established, moving into its own hall in Creek Street in 1851. Regular postal deliveries were introduced in Brisbane in 1852.

During the 1850s most Churches constructed substantial buildings: St Stephens Catholic in Elizabeth Street (1850), St Johns Anglican, William Street, Presbyterian, Ann Street (1857) and Baptist, Wharf Street (1859). There were three ferry services, to South Brisbane, Kangaroo Point and the 'middle' service from Edward Street, also to Kangaroo Point. The Brisbane Municipal Council was proclaimed, just before colonial self-government, in 1859.

 

There had been land sales well beyond the town boundaries, but in the early 1860s allotments were cut up for working-class cottages in Spring Hill, Petrie Terrace and Fortitude Valley. In 1861 a census recorded over 8000 people in Brisbane and another 5000 in adjoining areas. An Ipswich to Brisbane telegraph began operation and the unused convict windmill (1828) up in Wickham Terrace was converted to a signal station with a time ball.

 

TOWN IMPROVEMENTS

Municipal improvements were brought in with improved town lighting from the Brisbane gas works (1864) in Petrie Bight, north of the customs house, and the widely felt need for recreation space was officially recognised by a survey of Yorks Hollow (where the Fortitude migrants had been sent) for Victoria Park. Progress there was slow, with the council using the site for sewage disposal until 1886. Fires rid parts of Queen Street of time-worn commercial buildings in 1864, clearing the way for better structures built under the supervision of fire-protection bylaws. The council also found the need to divide its area into four wards, expanding it into six in 1865 (East, West, North, South, Valley and Kangaroo Point). The council also expanded to a new town hall in Queen Street (1866), by when a short-lived bridge to South Brisbane (1865-67) was in operation. The water supply ponds were hopelessly inadequate, and in 1866 a supply from Breakfast Creek, Enoggera, was turned on.

 

Gympie gold (1867) brought prosperity to the colony, but the rural-dominated legislature spent the money outside Brisbane, a prime example being the Darling Downs railway to Ipswich (1867) with the intent of having a port on the Bremer River. Legislative shenanigans could not stop the growth of the capital city's population (15,000 in 1871, 23,000 in 1881) nor that of the adjoining suburbs. Brisbane's 1881 population of 23,000 included South Brisbane. Ten years later, after South Brisbane had been made a separate municipality in 1887, their combined populations were 49,000. By 1891 Brisbane and suburbs had a population of over 100,000.

 

With population and export income from gold there came pressure for public buildings appropriate to the town's growing prosperity. The first of them was the general post office in Queen Street (1872), followed by the government printing office (1874) near the Commissariat Store in William Street. A torrent came in the 1880s, with the Queensland National Bank at the corner of Queen and Creek Streets, the Margaret Street Synagogue, Finney Isles Big Block emporium in Adelaide Street, and in 1889 the new Customs House, the Treasury Building in William Street and the Ann Street Presbyterian church. The legislature aspired to grandeur quite early, in 1868, with its Parliament House near the botanic gardens.

 

TRAINS AND TRAMS

The Ipswich railway line was joined to Brisbane by a bridge across the river at Chelmer and Indooroopilly in 1876. Ten years later a line to the South Coast was under construction, but the lines were at first organised with rural freight rather than suburban passengers in mind. Suburban transport services started with a horse tram out to New Farm (1885-86), and across the Victoria Bridge to West End. Electric powered trams began in 1887. Central Brisbane was crossed by a Queen Street tram, connected to termini at Newstead, West End and Logan Road at Buranda. The main shopping centre was around Queen, George and Adelaide Streets, competing with Brunswick and Wickham Streets in Fortitude Valley. The south side had shopping at Five Ways, Woolloongabba, and at South Brisbane, although the latter declined after the 1893 floods.

 

Northside tram lines from Red Hill, Kelvin Grove, Clayfield and Hamilton were opened during 1897-1902, coming into the city via Edward Street in most cases. By 1890 there were also suburban railway lines, to Sandgate via Nundah (1882), to Enoggera and to Cleveland (1889). Brisbane Central station (1889) brought northside travellers right into Brisbane, as before then the Sandgate line had ended at Roma Street via a cost saving line through Victoria Park. The line to Brisbane Central station also passed through busy Fortitude Valley.

With the addition of a tram line to Lutwyche and Kedron in 1913 the pressure of traffic led to the construction of a line along Adelaide Street (1915), which in turn required the Council to widen Adelaide Street by four metres between George and Creek Streets in 1922-23.

 

HOUSE SIZES

Since 1885 minimum house allotments had been set at 16 perches (10m x 40m). Residents could therefore look forward to more airy, spacious houses outside the city and its adjoining suburbs such as Spring Hill and Petrie Terrace. The better-off population invariably sought out the higher ridges on elevated sites overlooking the river, making Hamilton (with a tram in 1899) one of the most sought after suburbs. It was the new upper-working and middle-class suburbs, however, that showed the change most clearly.

 

CENTRAL CITY SHOPPING

Central Brisbane had grand department stores, Finney Isles, and Allan and Stark, but not as many as Fortitude Valley. A third one came later in George Street, near the Roma Street railway station: McDonnell and East built a low-rise emporium there in 1912. Commercial and government buildings, usually of a modest height, sometimes had a massive footprint. An exception to the prevailing height practice was the Queensland (later Commonwealth) Bank administration building of eight storeys at the corner of George and Elizabeth Streets (1920) clad with sandstone and granite. The CML building, next to the GPO, went to the legal limit of 11 storeys in 1931 and was exceeded in height only by the Brisbane City Hall tower (1930).

 

The changing commercial centre was thought to need a distinctive civic space and an Anzac Square was proposed in 1915. It was completed in 1930, coinciding with the City Hall and the construction of a second bridge out of the city, across the river to South Brisbane. Named after William Jolly, first Lord Mayor of the amalgamated Brisbane Metropolitan Council (1925), the bridge was opened in 1932. A third bridge was opened in 1940 from the other (eastern) end of the city across to Kangaroo Point. Neither bridge had trams, but each integrated with the metropolitan council's planned arterial road system.

 

The opening of the Story Bridge was followed by 20 years of building quietude in central Brisbane. The war and postwar recovery explains part of the inactivity, but central Brisbane made do with its prewar building stock during the 1950s. Suburban expansion was the focus of activity, exemplified by Allan and Stark building a drive-in shopping centre at Chermside in 1957. Another change was the removal of the wholesale food market from Roma Street to Rocklea in 1962.

After recovery from the 1961 credit squeeze, commercial pressure and interstate example succeeded in raising the building height limit. The Pearl Assurance building (1966) at Queen Street was 15 storeys and the Manufacturers Mutual Insurance building (1967), also in Queen Street, was 22 storeys. The SGIO building (1970) in Turbot Street was an even more significant structure.

 

A lack of building activity in central Brisbane in the 1950s did not detract from its role as a retailing destination. Central city shopping boomed while there were low postwar car ownership and strong radial public transport services. The 1953 retail census for metropolitan Brisbane showed that the city and inner suburbs (Fortitude Valley, Bowen Hills, South Brisbane etc) had 74% of total retail sales.

 

OFFICES AND SHOPS

Set against the decline in retailing was the growth in high-rise office and commercial buildings. By the late 1980s central Brisbane had about 1.75 million sq metres of office space, ten times the amount of retail floor space. Its share of metropolitan office space was over 70%, and fringe areas such as Spring Hill, Fortitude Valley, Milton and Woolloongabba had another 25%. The change in Brisbane's skyline was evident from across the river, an example being the view from Kangaroo Point to the Riverside Centre office building (1987) at Eagle Street. The eastern commercial end of Ann, Adelaide and Queen Streets began to resemble the closed in narrow streets of Sydney's office precinct.

In contrast to office high rise, the Queen Street retailing centre has kept many of its old buildings. The facades are partly concealed by pedestrian mall shade sails and other structures, but the shops and arcades generate plenty of activity. The most significant addition was the Myer Centre (1988) with eight cinemas and 200 other stores, bounded by Queen, Albert and Elizabeth Streets. It replaced Allan and Stark (Queen Street, opposite side) and McWhirters, Fortitude Valley, which had both been taken over by Myer several years before. When opened, the Myer Centre's retail floor area was nearly 108,000 sq m, 26% more than the largest competing regional drive-in centre, at Upper Mount Gravatt.

 

PARKS AND RESIDENTS

By the 1960s the growth of metropolitan population and motor traffic was putting central Brisbane's streets under strain. All three river bridges fed into the central business district, although the Centenary Bridge (1960) at Jindalee gave temporary relief. Closer in, relief came in 1969 with the widening of the Story Bridge approaches, and the opening of the fourth Victoria Bridge, often known as the Melbourne Street Bridge. The Riverside Expressway was completed in 1976, a close-in ring road along the western edge of central Brisbane, from Victoria Bridge to the new Captain Cook Bridge, and leading to the south-eastern suburbs. The Expressway decisively altered the appearance of Central Brisbane. The tram crossing had ceased to function when trams were replaced by buses, but a railway crossing came very belatedly with the Merivale Bridge, linking South Brisbane and Roma Street stations in 1978. Prior to that the lines from Beenleigh and Cleveland and the trunk standard gauge from Sydney terminated at the South Brisbane station.

Roma Street had been the site of the wholesale food market, and for decades the land had remained under-used. The central city had incrementally added open spaces to its fabric – King George Square enlarged in 1975 and the Post Office Square opened in 1984 – and in 2001-03 the largest addition, the 16 ha Roma Street Parkland was completed.

 

Along with Albert Park and Wickham Park, the Parkland gives inner city residents generous open space. The residential population of central Brisbane, however, changed little between 1981 and 2001. The inner city (approximately between Ann and Elizabeth Streets) had just 45 dwellings in 1981 and 689 in 2001. The resident populations for the respective years were 1174 and 976, a decrease. Apartments had replaced boarding houses and rooms. The rest of central Brisbane (including Petrie Terrace) also saw an increase in dwellings (758 to 1282) and a decrease in population (3511 to 1797). Single person apartments had increased, multi-person dwellings had decreased and some of each were not lived in full time, often being held for prospective capital gain. The boom in apartment building from 2001 has added thousands of apartments, many rented by overseas students.

 

The distinctive features of twenty-first century Brisbane are its increasing resemblance to other capital city office precincts, with forecourts, sub-tropical decorative plants and outdoor cafes. Queen Street's signature silver bullet trams last ran in 1969, but the street's unusual width (Andrew Petrie apparently persuaded Governor Gipps on this point) has provided for a signature shopping mall with generous outdoor seating and dining areas. Out of the central retail area elegant sandstone government and commercial buildings have survived, surely an iconic architectural form. Some buildings have removed their clerks and accountants, substituting hotel patrons, tourists and casino visitors. The historic customs house was purchased by The University of Queensland from the federal government, and includes meeting, dining and gallery space. The City Hall (1930), once the tallest building, has been dwarfed by surrounding skyscrapers, so its clock tower no longer affords a commanding view over Central Brisbane. In 2008 the Brisbane City Council agreed to underpin City Hall which was in danger of gradual sinking on inadequate foundations.

 

The gothic-style St Johns Anglican Cathedral, commenced in 1901-06, was finally completed in 2009. Bounded by Ann and Adelaide streets, the cathedral roof and other buildings sustained extensive damage in a storm in 2014.

 

Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brisbane & www.visitbrisbane.com.au/information/about-brisbane/histo... & queenslandplaces.com.au/brisbane-central

 

Maybach has historic roots through the involvement of Wilhelm Maybach, who was the technical director of the Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft (DMG) until he left in 1907. On 23 March 1909 he founded the new company, Luftfahrzeug-Motorenbau GmbH (literally "Aircraft Engine Building Company"), with his son Karl Maybach as director. In 1912 they renamed it to Maybach-Motorenbau GmbH ("Maybach Engine Construction Company"). The company originally developed and manufactured diesel and petrol engines for Zeppelins, and then rail cars. The Maybach Mb.IVa was used in aircraft and airships of World War I.

Captured Maybach T3 Assault Gun (Sturmgeschütz III), made on the basis of medium tank Maybach T3 (Panzer III). National Museum of Military History (Bulgaria)

 

The company first built an experimental car in 1919, with the first production model introduced two years later at the Berlin Motor Show. Between 1921 and 1940, the company produced various classic opulent vehicles. The company also continued to build heavy duty diesel engines for marine and rail purposes. During the second world war, Maybach produced the engines for Nazi Germany's medium and heavy tanks.

 

After WW II the factory performed some repair work, but automotive production was never restarted, and some 20 years later, the company was renamed MTU Friedrichshafen. Daimler-Benz purchased the company in 1960.

 

Pre-war Models

 

1919 Maybach W1: Test car based on a BMW chassis

1921 Maybach W3: First Maybach, shown at Berlin Motor Show. Featured a 70 hp (52 kW) 5.7L inline six.

1926 Maybach W5: 7L inline six, 120 hp (89 kW)

1929 Maybach 12: V12 precursor to DS7/8

1930 Maybach DSH: Doppel-Sechs-Halbe ("half a twelve cylinder") 1930-37

1930 Maybach DS7 Zeppelin: 7L V12, 150 hp (112 kW)

1931 Maybach W6: Same engine as W5, longer wheelbase. 1931-33

1931 Maybach DS8 Zeppelin: 8L V12, 200 hp (150 kW)

1934 Maybach W6 DSG: Featuring a twin overdrive transmission system.

1935 Maybach SW35: 3.5L 140 hp (104 kW) I6

1936 Maybach SW38: 3.8L 140 hp (104 kW) I6

1939 Maybach SW42: 4.2L 140 hp (104 kW) I6

1945 Maybach JW61: 3.8L 145 hp (108 kW) I6

 

(Wikipedia)

 

- - -

 

Der erste Maybach von 1919 war ein Prototyp, der „Wagen“ W 1, aufgebaut auf ein angekauftes Daimler-Chassis. Er trug schon die charakteristische Kühlermaske. W 2 war ein Motor. Der W 3 war 1921 der erste Serienwagen, mit Sechszylinder-Reihenmotor und angeblocktem Planetengetriebe, im Angebot als Typ 22/70 PS. Die erste Zahl bezeichnet die früheren „Steuer-PS“, eine vom Fiskus seit 1909 aus Leistung und Hubraum errechnete Kennzahl; die zweite die Motorenleistung.

 

1926 folgte W 5 als Typ 27/120 PS, der 1928 ein Schnellgang-Getriebe erhielt und daher W 5 SG hieß. 1930 kam, parallel zum „Zeppelin“, der W 6, den es ab 1934 auch mit Doppel-Schnellgang-Getriebe gab und so als W 6 DSG in den Annalen steht. Die Weiterentwicklung von 1934 war ein DSH, ein „Doppel-Sechs-Halbe“, was auf den 130 PS starken 5,2-Liter-Reihensechszylinder hinwies, eine vom „DS“-Zwölfzylinder abgeleitete, einfachere Konstruktion.

 

Die Zeppelin-DS-Modelle, von Karl Maybach 1930 erstmals offeriert und ab 1931 geliefert, gab es als Typen DS 7 und DS 8. Es waren die ersten Modelle von Maybach mit einem V-12-Motor. DS 7 bedeutet Doppel-Sechs-7-Liter. DS 8 bedeutet Doppel-Sechs-8-Liter. Der DS 7 leistete 150 PS. Der DS 8 leistete 200 PS. Er war mit einem 7922 Kubikzentimeter großen Motor ausgerüstet. Die Aufbauten lieferten Spohn und Erdmann & Rossi. Im Vergleich zum 1931 gebauten Bugatti Royale Typ 41 mit einem Preis von 100.300 Reichsmark war die Karosserie vom Zeppelin DS 8 geradezu günstig: 33.200 Reichsmark.

 

Maybach W 1, Versuchswagen, um 1919

Maybach W 3, 5,7 l Hubraum, 70 PS, ab 1921

Maybach W 5, 7 l Hubraum, 120 PS, 1926–1929

Maybach W 6, ab 1929

Maybach SW 35 (SW = Schwingachsenwagen), 3,5 l Hubraum, ab 1935 nur 50 Exemplare gebaut

Maybach SW 38, 3,8 l Hubraum, um 1936–1939

Maybach SW 42, 4,2 l Hubraum, um 1939–1941

Maybach „Zeppelin“ Sport, um 1938

Maybach „Zeppelin“ DS 8 Cabriolet, 1930–1937, sechs- bis siebensitzig

 

(Wikipedia)

 

Graffiti (plural; singular graffiti or graffito, the latter rarely used except in archeology) is art that is written, painted or drawn on a wall or other surface, usually without permission and within public view. Graffiti ranges from simple written words to elaborate wall paintings, and has existed since ancient times, with examples dating back to ancient Egypt, ancient Greece, and the Roman Empire (see also mural).

 

Graffiti is a controversial subject. In most countries, marking or painting property without permission is considered by property owners and civic authorities as defacement and vandalism, which is a punishable crime, citing the use of graffiti by street gangs to mark territory or to serve as an indicator of gang-related activities. Graffiti has become visualized as a growing urban "problem" for many cities in industrialized nations, spreading from the New York City subway system and Philadelphia in the early 1970s to the rest of the United States and Europe and other world regions

 

"Graffiti" (usually both singular and plural) and the rare singular form "graffito" are from the Italian word graffiato ("scratched"). The term "graffiti" is used in art history for works of art produced by scratching a design into a surface. A related term is "sgraffito", which involves scratching through one layer of pigment to reveal another beneath it. This technique was primarily used by potters who would glaze their wares and then scratch a design into them. In ancient times graffiti were carved on walls with a sharp object, although sometimes chalk or coal were used. The word originates from Greek γράφειν—graphein—meaning "to write".

 

The term graffiti originally referred to the inscriptions, figure drawings, and such, found on the walls of ancient sepulchres or ruins, as in the Catacombs of Rome or at Pompeii. Historically, these writings were not considered vanadlism, which today is considered part of the definition of graffiti.

 

The only known source of the Safaitic language, an ancient form of Arabic, is from graffiti: inscriptions scratched on to the surface of rocks and boulders in the predominantly basalt desert of southern Syria, eastern Jordan and northern Saudi Arabia. Safaitic dates from the first century BC to the fourth century AD.

 

Some of the oldest cave paintings in the world are 40,000 year old ones found in Australia. The oldest written graffiti was found in ancient Rome around 2500 years ago. Most graffiti from the time was boasts about sexual experiences Graffiti in Ancient Rome was a form of communication, and was not considered vandalism.

 

Ancient tourists visiting the 5th-century citadel at Sigiriya in Sri Lanka write their names and commentary over the "mirror wall", adding up to over 1800 individual graffiti produced there between the 6th and 18th centuries. Most of the graffiti refer to the frescoes of semi-nude females found there. One reads:

 

Wet with cool dew drops

fragrant with perfume from the flowers

came the gentle breeze

jasmine and water lily

dance in the spring sunshine

side-long glances

of the golden-hued ladies

stab into my thoughts

heaven itself cannot take my mind

as it has been captivated by one lass

among the five hundred I have seen here.

 

Among the ancient political graffiti examples were Arab satirist poems. Yazid al-Himyari, an Umayyad Arab and Persian poet, was most known for writing his political poetry on the walls between Sajistan and Basra, manifesting a strong hatred towards the Umayyad regime and its walis, and people used to read and circulate them very widely.

 

Graffiti, known as Tacherons, were frequently scratched on Romanesque Scandinavian church walls. When Renaissance artists such as Pinturicchio, Raphael, Michelangelo, Ghirlandaio, or Filippino Lippi descended into the ruins of Nero's Domus Aurea, they carved or painted their names and returned to initiate the grottesche style of decoration.

 

There are also examples of graffiti occurring in American history, such as Independence Rock, a national landmark along the Oregon Trail.

 

Later, French soldiers carved their names on monuments during the Napoleonic campaign of Egypt in the 1790s. Lord Byron's survives on one of the columns of the Temple of Poseidon at Cape Sounion in Attica, Greece.

 

The oldest known example of graffiti "monikers" found on traincars created by hobos and railworkers since the late 1800s. The Bozo Texino monikers were documented by filmmaker Bill Daniel in his 2005 film, Who is Bozo Texino?.

 

In World War II, an inscription on a wall at the fortress of Verdun was seen as an illustration of the US response twice in a generation to the wrongs of the Old World:

 

During World War II and for decades after, the phrase "Kilroy was here" with an accompanying illustration was widespread throughout the world, due to its use by American troops and ultimately filtering into American popular culture. Shortly after the death of Charlie Parker (nicknamed "Yardbird" or "Bird"), graffiti began appearing around New York with the words "Bird Lives".

 

Modern graffiti art has its origins with young people in 1960s and 70s in New York City and Philadelphia. Tags were the first form of stylised contemporary graffiti. Eventually, throw-ups and pieces evolved with the desire to create larger art. Writers used spray paint and other kind of materials to leave tags or to create images on the sides subway trains. and eventually moved into the city after the NYC metro began to buy new trains and paint over graffiti.

 

While the art had many advocates and appreciators—including the cultural critic Norman Mailer—others, including New York City mayor Ed Koch, considered it to be defacement of public property, and saw it as a form of public blight. The ‘taggers’ called what they did ‘writing’—though an important 1974 essay by Mailer referred to it using the term ‘graffiti.’

 

Contemporary graffiti style has been heavily influenced by hip hop culture and the myriad international styles derived from Philadelphia and New York City Subway graffiti; however, there are many other traditions of notable graffiti in the twentieth century. Graffiti have long appeared on building walls, in latrines, railroad boxcars, subways, and bridges.

 

An early graffito outside of New York or Philadelphia was the inscription in London reading "Clapton is God" in reference to the guitarist Eric Clapton. Creating the cult of the guitar hero, the phrase was spray-painted by an admirer on a wall in an Islington, north London in the autumn of 1967. The graffito was captured in a photograph, in which a dog is urinating on the wall.

 

Films like Style Wars in the 80s depicting famous writers such as Skeme, Dondi, MinOne, and ZEPHYR reinforced graffiti's role within New York's emerging hip-hop culture. Although many officers of the New York City Police Department found this film to be controversial, Style Wars is still recognized as the most prolific film representation of what was going on within the young hip hop culture of the early 1980s. Fab 5 Freddy and Futura 2000 took hip hop graffiti to Paris and London as part of the New York City Rap Tour in 1983

 

Commercialization and entrance into mainstream pop culture

Main article: Commercial graffiti

With the popularity and legitimization of graffiti has come a level of commercialization. In 2001, computer giant IBM launched an advertising campaign in Chicago and San Francisco which involved people spray painting on sidewalks a peace symbol, a heart, and a penguin (Linux mascot), to represent "Peace, Love, and Linux." IBM paid Chicago and San Francisco collectively US$120,000 for punitive damages and clean-up costs.

 

In 2005, a similar ad campaign was launched by Sony and executed by its advertising agency in New York, Chicago, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and Miami, to market its handheld PSP gaming system. In this campaign, taking notice of the legal problems of the IBM campaign, Sony paid building owners for the rights to paint on their buildings "a collection of dizzy-eyed urban kids playing with the PSP as if it were a skateboard, a paddle, or a rocking horse".

 

Tristan Manco wrote that Brazil "boasts a unique and particularly rich, graffiti scene ... [earning] it an international reputation as the place to go for artistic inspiration". Graffiti "flourishes in every conceivable space in Brazil's cities". Artistic parallels "are often drawn between the energy of São Paulo today and 1970s New York". The "sprawling metropolis", of São Paulo has "become the new shrine to graffiti"; Manco alludes to "poverty and unemployment ... [and] the epic struggles and conditions of the country's marginalised peoples", and to "Brazil's chronic poverty", as the main engines that "have fuelled a vibrant graffiti culture". In world terms, Brazil has "one of the most uneven distributions of income. Laws and taxes change frequently". Such factors, Manco argues, contribute to a very fluid society, riven with those economic divisions and social tensions that underpin and feed the "folkloric vandalism and an urban sport for the disenfranchised", that is South American graffiti art.

 

Prominent Brazilian writers include Os Gêmeos, Boleta, Nunca, Nina, Speto, Tikka, and T.Freak. Their artistic success and involvement in commercial design ventures has highlighted divisions within the Brazilian graffiti community between adherents of the cruder transgressive form of pichação and the more conventionally artistic values of the practitioners of grafite.

 

Graffiti in the Middle East has emerged slowly, with taggers operating in Egypt, Lebanon, the Gulf countries like Bahrain or the United Arab Emirates, Israel, and in Iran. The major Iranian newspaper Hamshahri has published two articles on illegal writers in the city with photographic coverage of Iranian artist A1one's works on Tehran walls. Tokyo-based design magazine, PingMag, has interviewed A1one and featured photographs of his work. The Israeli West Bank barrier has become a site for graffiti, reminiscent in this sense of the Berlin Wall. Many writers in Israel come from other places around the globe, such as JUIF from Los Angeles and DEVIONE from London. The religious reference "נ נח נחמ נחמן מאומן" ("Na Nach Nachma Nachman Meuman") is commonly seen in graffiti around Israel.

 

Graffiti has played an important role within the street art scene in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), especially following the events of the Arab Spring of 2011 or the Sudanese Revolution of 2018/19. Graffiti is a tool of expression in the context of conflict in the region, allowing people to raise their voices politically and socially. Famous street artist Banksy has had an important effect in the street art scene in the MENA area, especially in Palestine where some of his works are located in the West Bank barrier and Bethlehem.

 

There are also a large number of graffiti influences in Southeast Asian countries that mostly come from modern Western culture, such as Malaysia, where graffiti have long been a common sight in Malaysia's capital city, Kuala Lumpur. Since 2010, the country has begun hosting a street festival to encourage all generations and people from all walks of life to enjoy and encourage Malaysian street culture.

 

The modern-day graffitists can be found with an arsenal of various materials that allow for a successful production of a piece. This includes such techniques as scribing. However, spray paint in aerosol cans is the number one medium for graffiti. From this commodity comes different styles, technique, and abilities to form master works of graffiti. Spray paint can be found at hardware and art stores and comes in virtually every color.

 

Stencil graffiti is created by cutting out shapes and designs in a stiff material (such as cardboard or subject folders) to form an overall design or image. The stencil is then placed on the "canvas" gently and with quick, easy strokes of the aerosol can, the image begins to appear on the intended surface.

 

Some of the first examples were created in 1981 by artists Blek le Rat in Paris, in 1982 by Jef Aerosol in Tours (France); by 1985 stencils had appeared in other cities including New York City, Sydney, and Melbourne, where they were documented by American photographer Charles Gatewood and Australian photographer Rennie Ellis

 

Tagging is the practice of someone spray-painting "their name, initial or logo onto a public surface" in a handstyle unique to the writer. Tags were the first form of modern graffiti.

 

Modern graffiti art often incorporates additional arts and technologies. For example, Graffiti Research Lab has encouraged the use of projected images and magnetic light-emitting diodes (throwies) as new media for graffitists. yarnbombing is another recent form of graffiti. Yarnbombers occasionally target previous graffiti for modification, which had been avoided among the majority of graffitists.

 

Theories on the use of graffiti by avant-garde artists have a history dating back at least to the Asger Jorn, who in 1962 painting declared in a graffiti-like gesture "the avant-garde won't give up"

 

Many contemporary analysts and even art critics have begun to see artistic value in some graffiti and to recognize it as a form of public art. According to many art researchers, particularly in the Netherlands and in Los Angeles, that type of public art is, in fact an effective tool of social emancipation or, in the achievement of a political goal

 

In times of conflict, such murals have offered a means of communication and self-expression for members of these socially, ethnically, or racially divided communities, and have proven themselves as effective tools in establishing dialog and thus, of addressing cleavages in the long run. The Berlin Wall was also extensively covered by graffiti reflecting social pressures relating to the oppressive Soviet rule over the GDR.

 

Many artists involved with graffiti are also concerned with the similar activity of stenciling. Essentially, this entails stenciling a print of one or more colors using spray-paint. Recognized while exhibiting and publishing several of her coloured stencils and paintings portraying the Sri Lankan Civil War and urban Britain in the early 2000s, graffitists Mathangi Arulpragasam, aka M.I.A., has also become known for integrating her imagery of political violence into her music videos for singles "Galang" and "Bucky Done Gun", and her cover art. Stickers of her artwork also often appear around places such as London in Brick Lane, stuck to lamp posts and street signs, she having become a muse for other graffitists and painters worldwide in cities including Seville.

 

Graffitist believes that art should be on display for everyone in the public eye or in plain sight, not hidden away in a museum or a gallery. Art should color the streets, not the inside of some building. Graffiti is a form of art that cannot be owned or bought. It does not last forever, it is temporary, yet one of a kind. It is a form of self promotion for the artist that can be displayed anywhere form sidewalks, roofs, subways, building wall, etc. Art to them is for everyone and should be showed to everyone for free.

 

Graffiti is a way of communicating and a way of expressing what one feels in the moment. It is both art and a functional thing that can warn people of something or inform people of something. However, graffiti is to some people a form of art, but to some a form of vandalism. And many graffitists choose to protect their identities and remain anonymous or to hinder prosecution.

 

With the commercialization of graffiti (and hip hop in general), in most cases, even with legally painted "graffiti" art, graffitists tend to choose anonymity. This may be attributed to various reasons or a combination of reasons. Graffiti still remains the one of four hip hop elements that is not considered "performance art" despite the image of the "singing and dancing star" that sells hip hop culture to the mainstream. Being a graphic form of art, it might also be said that many graffitists still fall in the category of the introverted archetypal artist.

 

Banksy is one of the world's most notorious and popular street artists who continues to remain faceless in today's society. He is known for his political, anti-war stencil art mainly in Bristol, England, but his work may be seen anywhere from Los Angeles to Palestine. In the UK, Banksy is the most recognizable icon for this cultural artistic movement and keeps his identity a secret to avoid arrest. Much of Banksy's artwork may be seen around the streets of London and surrounding suburbs, although he has painted pictures throughout the world, including the Middle East, where he has painted on Israel's controversial West Bank barrier with satirical images of life on the other side. One depicted a hole in the wall with an idyllic beach, while another shows a mountain landscape on the other side. A number of exhibitions also have taken place since 2000, and recent works of art have fetched vast sums of money. Banksy's art is a prime example of the classic controversy: vandalism vs. art. Art supporters endorse his work distributed in urban areas as pieces of art and some councils, such as Bristol and Islington, have officially protected them, while officials of other areas have deemed his work to be vandalism and have removed it.

 

Pixnit is another artist who chooses to keep her identity from the general public. Her work focuses on beauty and design aspects of graffiti as opposed to Banksy's anti-government shock value. Her paintings are often of flower designs above shops and stores in her local urban area of Cambridge, Massachusetts. Some store owners endorse her work and encourage others to do similar work as well. "One of the pieces was left up above Steve's Kitchen, because it looks pretty awesome"- Erin Scott, the manager of New England Comics in Allston, Massachusetts.

 

Graffiti artists may become offended if photographs of their art are published in a commercial context without their permission. In March 2020, the Finnish graffiti artist Psyke expressed his displeasure at the newspaper Ilta-Sanomat publishing a photograph of a Peugeot 208 in an article about new cars, with his graffiti prominently shown on the background. The artist claims he does not want his art being used in commercial context, not even if he were to receive compensation.

 

Territorial graffiti marks urban neighborhoods with tags and logos to differentiate certain groups from others. These images are meant to show outsiders a stern look at whose turf is whose. The subject matter of gang-related graffiti consists of cryptic symbols and initials strictly fashioned with unique calligraphies. Gang members use graffiti to designate membership throughout the gang, to differentiate rivals and associates and, most commonly, to mark borders which are both territorial and ideological.

 

Graffiti has been used as a means of advertising both legally and illegally. Bronx-based TATS CRU has made a name for themselves doing legal advertising campaigns for companies such as Coca-Cola, McDonald's, Toyota, and MTV. In the UK, Covent Garden's Boxfresh used stencil images of a Zapatista revolutionary in the hopes that cross referencing would promote their store.

 

Smirnoff hired artists to use reverse graffiti (the use of high pressure hoses to clean dirty surfaces to leave a clean image in the surrounding dirt) to increase awareness of their product.

 

Graffiti often has a reputation as part of a subculture that rebels against authority, although the considerations of the practitioners often diverge and can relate to a wide range of attitudes. It can express a political practice and can form just one tool in an array of resistance techniques. One early example includes the anarcho-punk band Crass, who conducted a campaign of stenciling anti-war, anarchist, feminist, and anti-consumerist messages throughout the London Underground system during the late 1970s and early 1980s. In Amsterdam graffiti was a major part of the punk scene. The city was covered with names such as "De Zoot", "Vendex", and "Dr Rat". To document the graffiti a punk magazine was started that was called Gallery Anus. So when hip hop came to Europe in the early 1980s there was already a vibrant graffiti culture.

 

The student protests and general strike of May 1968 saw Paris bedecked in revolutionary, anarchistic, and situationist slogans such as L'ennui est contre-révolutionnaire ("Boredom is counterrevolutionary") and Lisez moins, vivez plus ("Read less, live more"). While not exhaustive, the graffiti gave a sense of the 'millenarian' and rebellious spirit, tempered with a good deal of verbal wit, of the strikers.

 

I think graffiti writing is a way of defining what our generation is like. Excuse the French, we're not a bunch of p---- artists. Traditionally artists have been considered soft and mellow people, a little bit kooky. Maybe we're a little bit more like pirates that way. We defend our territory, whatever space we steal to paint on, we defend it fiercely.

 

The developments of graffiti art which took place in art galleries and colleges as well as "on the street" or "underground", contributed to the resurfacing in the 1990s of a far more overtly politicized art form in the subvertising, culture jamming, or tactical media movements. These movements or styles tend to classify the artists by their relationship to their social and economic contexts, since, in most countries, graffiti art remains illegal in many forms except when using non-permanent paint. Since the 1990s with the rise of Street Art, a growing number of artists are switching to non-permanent paints and non-traditional forms of painting.

 

Contemporary practitioners, accordingly, have varied and often conflicting practices. Some individuals, such as Alexander Brener, have used the medium to politicize other art forms, and have used the prison sentences enforced on them as a means of further protest. The practices of anonymous groups and individuals also vary widely, and practitioners by no means always agree with each other's practices. For example, the anti-capitalist art group the Space Hijackers did a piece in 2004 about the contradiction between the capitalistic elements of Banksy and his use of political imagery.

 

Berlin human rights activist Irmela Mensah-Schramm has received global media attention and numerous awards for her 35-year campaign of effacing neo-Nazi and other right-wing extremist graffiti throughout Germany, often by altering hate speech in humorous ways.

 

In Serbian capital, Belgrade, the graffiti depicting a uniformed former general of Serb army and war criminal, convicted at ICTY for war crimes and crimes against humanity, including genocide and ethnic cleansing in Bosnian War, Ratko Mladić, appeared in a military salute alongside the words "General, thank to your mother". Aleks Eror, Berlin-based journalist, explains how "veneration of historical and wartime figures" through street art is not a new phenomenon in the region of former Yugoslavia, and that "in most cases is firmly focused on the future, rather than retelling the past". Eror is not only analyst pointing to danger of such an expressions for the region's future. In a long expose on the subject of Bosnian genocide denial, at Balkan Diskurs magazine and multimedia platform website, Kristina Gadže and Taylor Whitsell referred to these experiences as a young generations' "cultural heritage", in which young are being exposed to celebration and affirmation of war-criminals as part of their "formal education" and "inheritance".

 

There are numerous examples of genocide denial through celebration and affirmation of war criminals throughout the region of Western Balkans inhabited by Serbs using this form of artistic expression. Several more of these graffiti are found in Serbian capital, and many more across Serbia and Bosnian and Herzegovinian administrative entity, Republika Srpska, which is the ethnic Serbian majority enclave. Critics point that Serbia as a state, is willing to defend the mural of convicted war criminal, and have no intention to react on cases of genocide denial, noting that Interior Minister of Serbia, Aleksandar Vulin decision to ban any gathering with an intent to remove the mural, with the deployment of riot police, sends the message of "tacit endorsement". Consequently, on 9 November 2021, Serbian heavy police in riot gear, with graffiti creators and their supporters, blocked the access to the mural to prevent human rights groups and other activists to paint over it and mark the International Day Against Fascism and Antisemitism in that way, and even arrested two civic activist for throwing eggs at the graffiti.

 

Graffiti may also be used as an offensive expression. This form of graffiti may be difficult to identify, as it is mostly removed by the local authority (as councils which have adopted strategies of criminalization also strive to remove graffiti quickly). Therefore, existing racist graffiti is mostly more subtle and at first sight, not easily recognized as "racist". It can then be understood only if one knows the relevant "local code" (social, historical, political, temporal, and spatial), which is seen as heteroglot and thus a 'unique set of conditions' in a cultural context.

 

A spatial code for example, could be that there is a certain youth group in an area that is engaging heavily in racist activities. So, for residents (knowing the local code), a graffiti containing only the name or abbreviation of this gang already is a racist expression, reminding the offended people of their gang activities. Also a graffiti is in most cases, the herald of more serious criminal activity to come. A person who does not know these gang activities would not be able to recognize the meaning of this graffiti. Also if a tag of this youth group or gang is placed on a building occupied by asylum seekers, for example, its racist character is even stronger.

By making the graffiti less explicit (as adapted to social and legal constraints), these drawings are less likely to be removed, but do not lose their threatening and offensive character.

 

Elsewhere, activists in Russia have used painted caricatures of local officials with their mouths as potholes, to show their anger about the poor state of the roads. In Manchester, England, a graffitists painted obscene images around potholes, which often resulted in them being repaired within 48 hours.

 

In the early 1980s, the first art galleries to show graffitists to the public were Fashion Moda in the Bronx, Now Gallery and Fun Gallery, both in the East Village, Manhattan.

 

A 2006 exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum displayed graffiti as an art form that began in New York's outer boroughs and reached great heights in the early 1980s with the work of Crash, Lee, Daze, Keith Haring, and Jean-Michel Basquiat. It displayed 22 works by New York graffitists, including Crash, Daze, and Lady Pink. In an article about the exhibition in the magazine Time Out, curator Charlotta Kotik said that she hoped the exhibition would cause viewers to rethink their assumptions about graffiti.

 

From the 1970s onwards, Burhan Doğançay photographed urban walls all over the world; these he then archived for use as sources of inspiration for his painterly works. The project today known as "Walls of the World" grew beyond even his own expectations and comprises about 30,000 individual images. It spans a period of 40 years across five continents and 114 countries. In 1982, photographs from this project comprised a one-man exhibition titled "Les murs murmurent, ils crient, ils chantent ..." (The walls whisper, shout and sing ...) at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris.

 

In Australia, art historians have judged some local graffiti of sufficient creative merit to rank them firmly within the arts. Oxford University Press's art history text Australian Painting 1788–2000 concludes with a long discussion of graffiti's key place within contemporary visual culture, including the work of several Australian practitioners.

 

Between March and April 2009, 150 artists exhibited 300 pieces of graffiti at the Grand Palais in Paris.

 

Spray paint has many negative environmental effects. The paint contains toxic chemicals, and the can uses volatile hydrocarbon gases to spray the paint onto a surface.

 

Volatile organic compound (VOC) leads to ground level ozone formation and most of graffiti related emissions are VOCs. A 2010 paper estimates 4,862 tons of VOCs were released in the United States in activities related to graffiti.

  

In China, Mao Zedong in the 1920s used revolutionary slogans and paintings in public places to galvanize the country's communist movement.

 

Based on different national conditions, many people believe that China's attitude towards Graffiti is fierce, but in fact, according to Lance Crayon in his film Spray Paint Beijing: Graffiti in the Capital of China, Graffiti is generally accepted in Beijing, with artists not seeing much police interference. Political and religiously sensitive graffiti, however, is not allowed.

 

In Hong Kong, Tsang Tsou Choi was known as the King of Kowloon for his calligraphy graffiti over many years, in which he claimed ownership of the area. Now some of his work is preserved officially.

 

In Taiwan, the government has made some concessions to graffitists. Since 2005 they have been allowed to freely display their work along some sections of riverside retaining walls in designated "Graffiti Zones". From 2007, Taipei's department of cultural affairs also began permitting graffiti on fences around major public construction sites. Department head Yong-ping Lee (李永萍) stated, "We will promote graffiti starting with the public sector, and then later in the private sector too. It's our goal to beautify the city with graffiti". The government later helped organize a graffiti contest in Ximending, a popular shopping district. graffitists caught working outside of these designated areas still face fines up to NT$6,000 under a department of environmental protection regulation. However, Taiwanese authorities can be relatively lenient, one veteran police officer stating anonymously, "Unless someone complains about vandalism, we won't get involved. We don't go after it proactively."

 

In 1993, after several expensive cars in Singapore were spray-painted, the police arrested a student from the Singapore American School, Michael P. Fay, questioned him, and subsequently charged him with vandalism. Fay pleaded guilty to vandalizing a car in addition to stealing road signs. Under the 1966 Vandalism Act of Singapore, originally passed to curb the spread of communist graffiti in Singapore, the court sentenced him to four months in jail, a fine of S$3,500 (US$2,233), and a caning. The New York Times ran several editorials and op-eds that condemned the punishment and called on the American public to flood the Singaporean embassy with protests. Although the Singapore government received many calls for clemency, Fay's caning took place in Singapore on 5 May 1994. Fay had originally received a sentence of six strokes of the cane, but the presiding president of Singapore, Ong Teng Cheong, agreed to reduce his caning sentence to four lashes.

 

In South Korea, Park Jung-soo was fined two million South Korean won by the Seoul Central District Court for spray-painting a rat on posters of the G-20 Summit a few days before the event in November 2011. Park alleged that the initial in "G-20" sounds like the Korean word for "rat", but Korean government prosecutors alleged that Park was making a derogatory statement about the president of South Korea, Lee Myung-bak, the host of the summit. This case led to public outcry and debate on the lack of government tolerance and in support of freedom of expression. The court ruled that the painting, "an ominous creature like a rat" amounts to "an organized criminal activity" and upheld the fine while denying the prosecution's request for imprisonment for Park.

 

In Europe, community cleaning squads have responded to graffiti, in some cases with reckless abandon, as when in 1992 in France a local Scout group, attempting to remove modern graffiti, damaged two prehistoric paintings of bison in the Cave of Mayrière supérieure near the French village of Bruniquel in Tarn-et-Garonne, earning them the 1992 Ig Nobel Prize in archeology.

 

In September 2006, the European Parliament directed the European Commission to create urban environment policies to prevent and eliminate dirt, litter, graffiti, animal excrement, and excessive noise from domestic and vehicular music systems in European cities, along with other concerns over urban life.

 

In Budapest, Hungary, both a city-backed movement called I Love Budapest and a special police division tackle the problem, including the provision of approved areas.

 

The Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003 became Britain's latest anti-graffiti legislation. In August 2004, the Keep Britain Tidy campaign issued a press release calling for zero tolerance of graffiti and supporting proposals such as issuing "on the spot" fines to graffiti offenders and banning the sale of aerosol paint to anyone under the age of 16. The press release also condemned the use of graffiti images in advertising and in music videos, arguing that real-world experience of graffiti stood far removed from its often-portrayed "cool" or "edgy'" image.

 

To back the campaign, 123 Members of Parliament (MPs) (including then Prime Minister Tony Blair), signed a charter which stated: "Graffiti is not art, it's crime. On behalf of my constituents, I will do all I can to rid our community of this problem."

 

In the UK, city councils have the power to take action against the owner of any property that has been defaced under the Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003 (as amended by the Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Act 2005) or, in certain cases, the Highways Act. This is often used against owners of property that are complacent in allowing protective boards to be defaced so long as the property is not damaged.

 

In July 2008, a conspiracy charge was used to convict graffitists for the first time. After a three-month police surveillance operation, nine members of the DPM crew were convicted of conspiracy to commit criminal damage costing at least £1 million. Five of them received prison sentences, ranging from eighteen months to two years. The unprecedented scale of the investigation and the severity of the sentences rekindled public debate over whether graffiti should be considered art or crime.

 

Some councils, like those of Stroud and Loerrach, provide approved areas in the town where graffitists can showcase their talents, including underpasses, car parks, and walls that might otherwise prove a target for the "spray and run".

 

Graffiti Tunnel, University of Sydney at Camperdown (2009)

In an effort to reduce vandalism, many cities in Australia have designated walls or areas exclusively for use by graffitists. One early example is the "Graffiti Tunnel" located at the Camperdown Campus of the University of Sydney, which is available for use by any student at the university to tag, advertise, poster, and paint. Advocates of this idea suggest that this discourages petty vandalism yet encourages artists to take their time and produce great art, without worry of being caught or arrested for vandalism or trespassing.[108][109] Others disagree with this approach, arguing that the presence of legal graffiti walls does not demonstrably reduce illegal graffiti elsewhere. Some local government areas throughout Australia have introduced "anti-graffiti squads", who clean graffiti in the area, and such crews as BCW (Buffers Can't Win) have taken steps to keep one step ahead of local graffiti cleaners.

 

Many state governments have banned the sale or possession of spray paint to those under the age of 18 (age of majority). However, a number of local governments in Victoria have taken steps to recognize the cultural heritage value of some examples of graffiti, such as prominent political graffiti. Tough new graffiti laws have been introduced in Australia with fines of up to A$26,000 and two years in prison.

 

Melbourne is a prominent graffiti city of Australia with many of its lanes being tourist attractions, such as Hosier Lane in particular, a popular destination for photographers, wedding photography, and backdrops for corporate print advertising. The Lonely Planet travel guide cites Melbourne's street as a major attraction. All forms of graffiti, including sticker art, poster, stencil art, and wheatpasting, can be found in many places throughout the city. Prominent street art precincts include; Fitzroy, Collingwood, Northcote, Brunswick, St. Kilda, and the CBD, where stencil and sticker art is prominent. As one moves farther away from the city, mostly along suburban train lines, graffiti tags become more prominent. Many international artists such as Banksy have left their work in Melbourne and in early 2008 a perspex screen was installed to prevent a Banksy stencil art piece from being destroyed, it has survived since 2003 through the respect of local street artists avoiding posting over it, although it has recently had paint tipped over it.

 

In February 2008 Helen Clark, the New Zealand prime minister at that time, announced a government crackdown on tagging and other forms of graffiti vandalism, describing it as a destructive crime representing an invasion of public and private property. New legislation subsequently adopted included a ban on the sale of paint spray cans to persons under 18 and increases in maximum fines for the offence from NZ$200 to NZ$2,000 or extended community service. The issue of tagging become a widely debated one following an incident in Auckland during January 2008 in which a middle-aged property owner stabbed one of two teenage taggers to death and was subsequently convicted of manslaughter.

 

Graffiti databases have increased in the past decade because they allow vandalism incidents to be fully documented against an offender and help the police and prosecution charge and prosecute offenders for multiple counts of vandalism. They also provide law enforcement the ability to rapidly search for an offender's moniker or tag in a simple, effective, and comprehensive way. These systems can also help track costs of damage to a city to help allocate an anti-graffiti budget. The theory is that when an offender is caught putting up graffiti, they are not just charged with one count of vandalism; they can be held accountable for all the other damage for which they are responsible. This has two main benefits for law enforcement. One, it sends a signal to the offenders that their vandalism is being tracked. Two, a city can seek restitution from offenders for all the damage that they have committed, not merely a single incident. These systems give law enforcement personnel real-time, street-level intelligence that allows them not only to focus on the worst graffiti offenders and their damage, but also to monitor potential gang violence that is associated with the graffiti.

 

Many restrictions of civil gang injunctions are designed to help address and protect the physical environment and limit graffiti. Provisions of gang injunctions include things such as restricting the possession of marker pens, spray paint cans, or other sharp objects capable of defacing private or public property; spray painting, or marking with marker pens, scratching, applying stickers, or otherwise applying graffiti on any public or private property, including, but not limited to the street, alley, residences, block walls, and fences, vehicles or any other real or personal property. Some injunctions contain wording that restricts damaging or vandalizing both public and private property, including but not limited to any vehicle, light fixture, door, fence, wall, gate, window, building, street sign, utility box, telephone box, tree, or power pole.

 

To help address many of these issues, many local jurisdictions have set up graffiti abatement hotlines, where citizens can call in and report vandalism and have it removed. San Diego's hotline receives more than 5,000 calls per year, in addition to reporting the graffiti, callers can learn more about prevention. One of the complaints about these hotlines is the response time; there is often a lag time between a property owner calling about the graffiti and its removal. The length of delay should be a consideration for any jurisdiction planning on operating a hotline. Local jurisdictions must convince the callers that their complaint of vandalism will be a priority and cleaned off right away. If the jurisdiction does not have the resources to respond to complaints in a timely manner, the value of the hotline diminishes. Crews must be able to respond to individual service calls made to the graffiti hotline as well as focus on cleanup near schools, parks, and major intersections and transit routes to have the biggest impact. Some cities offer a reward for information leading to the arrest and prosecution of suspects for tagging or graffiti related vandalism. The amount of the reward is based on the information provided, and the action taken.

 

When police obtain search warrants in connection with a vandalism investigation, they are often seeking judicial approval to look for items such as cans of spray paint and nozzles from other kinds of aerosol sprays; etching tools, or other sharp or pointed objects, which could be used to etch or scratch glass and other hard surfaces; permanent marking pens, markers, or paint sticks; evidence of membership or affiliation with any gang or tagging crew; paraphernalia including any reference to "(tagger's name)"; any drawings, writing, objects, or graffiti depicting taggers' names, initials, logos, monikers, slogans, or any mention of tagging crew membership; and any newspaper clippings relating to graffiti crime.

Edna Martinez, left, and Alex Hickman load boxes into vehicles at Roadrunner Food Bank’s mobile food pantry outside the AMC movie theater.

 

Photo by Craig Fritz.

40th World Scout Conference, Slovenia 2014

By Kelley Scrocca

Warrior Country Spouse

 

Camp Red Cloud – Expecting a child while stationed in Korea involves the same rollercoaster of emotions as it does in the States.

 

If this will be your first child, as it was recently for me, those emotions range from excitement and anticipation to anxiety and fear.

 

As I discovered though, having a child in Korea does not have to be a scary experience and there is a wealth of support available if you know where to look.

 

My experience started in May 2011 when we found out I was pregnant with our first child.

 

My husband and I confirmed the pregnancy at the Camp Red Cloud Troop Medical Clinic and then made an appointment with the obstetrician/gynecologist at the 121st Combat Support Hospital in Yongsan.

 

Our first few sessions were each with a different doctor but I was extremely impressed and felt very comfortable with each of them, and glad for the opportunity to meet each doctor who might be delivering our baby.

 

Despite the physical frustrations of widening hips, a growing chest and a belly that made me look fat, everything went extremely well and I also started to find resources to turn to for information.

 

We attended the annual baby shower hosted by the Army Community Service and the Zeta Phi Beta Sorority at Camp Casey, which provided a wealth of information on services available.

 

These ranged from the New Parent Support Program and Women, Infants, and Children program to budgeting tactics, and obtaining a birth certificate and passport for baby.

 

We were referred to an off-post hospital for my 20-week ultrasound and went to St. Mary’s in Uijeongbu.

 

This was a bit intimidating but they had a separate spot for military check-in with people who speak English, and walked us where we needed to go.

 

The doctor we saw did not speak English, but did have an interpreter. Overall, the experience was not nearly as scary as expected.

 

As my pregnancy progressed I became interested in the social media resources available, specifically the “Pregnant Army Wives in South Korea” and “Korea Baby Network” Facebook pages.

 

The ladies on these pages have a wealth of information on even the most seemingly insignificant questions.

 

The Stork’s Nest is a fantastic program on Yongsan that provides no-cost housing for expectant mothers at 39 weeks. Get on the waiting list as soon as you know you are pregeant.

 

Birth at the 121st CSH was a very pleasant experience. They respected my birth plan as much as possible, explained things every step of the way and were very encouraging.

 

Expecting a child while in Korea may not be ideal since friends, family and other sources of support are not as readily available.

 

But if you explore a little, there are many resources available and many people willing to go above and beyond to offer support and encouragement.

 

The staff at the Stork’s Nest is ready to answer any additional questions you may have at 010-5351-9982.

In contrast to the chilly reception at West Peckham, Hadlow was a delight. Though it did involve a bit of a wait, as there was a wedding on. The poor couple we met outside had been invited to the wedding, but that week's updated advice meant guests inside the church had been cut from 30 to 15, so they lost out.

 

We talked as they waited, and told me some of the history of the town, the church and the castle next door. And of the Hop-picker's Memorial in the churchyard, which I went out to photograph.

 

There was no guarantee that we would be let in once the wedding was over, and once they did troop out, and the photographs taken, I thought that the west door would be locked and the hours wait wasted.

 

But it swung open, and the poor vicar was getting the chairs ready for the next day's service, and mentioned several years in seminary all to be a furniture mover.

 

I explained the project, and asked if I could take shots, explaining I would be quick and when he was done I would leave. But he was fine, let me take my time and showed me detail I would have otherwise missed.

 

It was hard to miss the wooden "throne" in the chancel, it looks very impressive, and I asked expecting it to be a Bishop's throne or chair, but it turns out to be not all what it seems. It is named Coverdale Chair, supposedly once owned by the Bishop who created the first translation of the Bible.

 

So far so good.

 

It was donated to Rochester Cathedral at one point, but returned, unwanted, when it became clear that some parts of the chair, especially the side panels, are younger than others.

 

Still, impressive from the front.

 

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The first record of a church in Hadlow was in 975.[2] This church would probably have been a wooden building. In 1018, the early church was replaced by a building of stone. In the 12th century, the church was rebuilt and extended by Richard de Clare, then lord of the Manor of Hadlow. De Clare granted the church to the Knights Hospitallers in 1166. The Knights Hospitallers later had a preceptory at nearby West Peckham, which was their local administrative base. From the Norman Conquest until the 18th century, Hadlow did not have a resident Lord of the Manor, being held under Tonbridge Castle.[3] It is thought that the tower was raised and the spire added in the 15th century.[4] Little money was spent on the maintenance of the church, although some 15th- and 16th-century bequests are recorded. Thomas Walter, Yeoman bequeathed 20s in 1448 "To make a window on the north side of the church by the altar of Our Lady". John Tatlyngbery bequeathed 10 marks "For repair of the great door of the church". In 1456, Richard Bealde bequeathed 13s 4d "For repair of the tower of Hadlow church".[5] In 1461, Dionysia Ippenbury left 3d for masses to be said each year for 12 years.[6] In 1465, William Palle, yeoman left a cow to the church. It was to be sold and "the profits therefrom to be devoted to the maintenance of a lamp in the chancel".[5] In 1509, Thomas Fisher, yeoman bequeathed £20 "for making a new rood loft". The rood screen may not have been in existence long, although it was mentioned in bequests dated 1510 and 1513.[7] The church remained under the ownership of the Knights Hospitallers until 1540, when the order was dissolved by Henry VIII.[3] In 1533, Henry Fane left two chalices valued at £4.[6]

 

The west door is inscribed "WB 1637 ES". The tower and steeple were repaired in that year. The churchwardens were Walter Barton and Essau Simmons.[7] In 1791, the clock was installed in the tower. It was made by John Thwaites of Clerkenwell.[8] At the beginning of the 19th century, the church was in disrepair. In 1847, the chancel was rebuilt and the vestry added. In 1853, the south porch was blocked up. The north aisle was added in this year at a cost of £470, which was raised by public subscription. A private gallery was erected by Walter Barton May, owner of Hadlow Castle. This had its own private access and was located at the west end of the nave. In 1885, an altar reredos was erected to the memory of Sir William Yardley and his wife Amelia. Yardley was a former judge in the High Court of Bombay, India. In 1936, the gallery was removed.[5] Work on the doorway at the west of the church in 1936 exposed some small crosses carved in the stonework. These are attributed to Nicholas de Hadloe and his son, who lived at Hadlow Place. They were carved to commemorate their safe return from the Third Crusade in 1189.[4] St Mary's was listed on 20 October 1954. It is currently Grade II* listed.

 

St Mary's is mostly constructed from ragstone, with some ashlar detail and quoins of Tunbridge Wells sandstone. The church is built in the Early English and Decorated style. The chancel roof is of slate, while the nave and aisle roofs are tiled. The spire is covered in shingles. The stained glass windows date from the 19th and 20th centuries,[9] the most recent of which is "The Visitation" created by Francis Skeat in 1956.

 

In 1919, the Coverdale Chair was presented to St Mary's by T E Foster MacGeagh of Hadlow Castle. The chair is so-named because it was owned by Miles Coverdale, Bishop of Exeter, who made the first translation of the Bible into English. In 1954, the chair was transferred to Rochester Cathedral, but it was returned to St Mary's in 1967.

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Mary%27s_Church,_Hadlow

 

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The lowy of Tunbridge: Hadlow

 

HADLOW.

THE BOROUGH OF HARDLOW, within the lowy of Tunbridge, contains the parish of Hadlow, with the church, except a small district of the northern part of it, which is in the hundred of Littlefield.

 

THE PARISH of Hadlow is of large extent, joining to West Peckham northward, and to the river Medway, its boundary southward; to the west it extends to the Northfrith woods and the parish of Tunbridge. It is far from being a pleasant situation, being a flat low country, much covered with large and spreading oaks, and broad hedge rows; the soil is in general a stiff clay, much of which is very swampy and wet; towards the upper part of the parish it is but poor, being very panny, and in some places inclining to gravel; lower down it is much more fertile, and bears good corn, and is kindly for hops, of which there are many plantations, which have much increased of late years. Near the river the grass lands are very rich, and capable of fatting beasts of a large size. The rivulet called the Sheet, which flows from Plaxtool by Oxenhoath, crosses this parish, joining the river Medway, a little above Brandt bridge, near which at Hartlake bridge, at the east end of this parish, is what is here called a flowing bolt, being an ingenious contrivance to pen up the water to a certain height, by which means it is capable of being let out in dry seasons, to flow over and moisten the adjoining meadows, which is at that time of the greatest advantage to them. The high road from Maidstone through Mereworth to Tunbridge, crosses this parish over Hadlow common, at the northern boundary of it, whence it goes through the town or village of Hadlow, between which and the river is Fish-hall and Hadlow-place, and more eastward the small hamlets of Goldwell-green, Barnes, and Mill-street.

 

On the bank of the Medway, at the west end of the parish, is a wharf and landing place, called Hadlow-stairs, for the lading and unlading of timber, coals and other merechandize.

 

A fair is yearly held in Hadlow town on WhitMonday.

 

IT APPEARS from the survey of Domesday, that this place was part of those vast possessions with which William the Conqueror enriched his half-brother Odo, bishop of Baieux, whom he afterwards made earl of Kent, under the title of whose lands it is thus entered there.

 

Richard de Tonebridge holds of the bishop (of Baieux) Hastow. It was taxed at six sulings. The arable land is twelve carucates. In demesne there are three, and forty-seven villeins, with fifteen borderers, having fifteen carucates. There is a church and ten servants, and two mills of eleven shillings, and twelve fisheries of seven shillings and six-pence, and twelve acres of meadow, Wood for the pannage of sixty hogs. In the time of king Edward the Consessor, and afterwards, and now, it was and is worth thirty pounds. Eddeva held it of king Edward.

 

In the reign of king Henry III. the seignory of this manor was claimed by the archbishop of Canter dury, and an agreement was entered into in the 42d year of it, between archbishop Boniface and Richard de Clare, earl of Gloucester and Hertford, concerning the customs and services which the archbishop required of the earl, on account of the tenements which the latter held of him in Tunebregge, Hanlo, &c. that is, the manors of Tunebregge and Hanlo, together with the whole lowy of Tonebregge, whence the archbishop required of the earl that he should do him homage, the service of four knights fees, and suit to his court at Canterbury, and that he should be the high steward of him and his successors, at their great feast, whenever it should happen that the archbishop should be inthroned.

 

The above-mentioned Richard de Clare, earl of Gloucester and Hertford, dying at Eschemerfield, in this county, in the 46th year of the reign of king Henry III. anno 1261. Gilbert, earl of Gloucester and Hertford, his son, succeeded him in this manor, and whose son of the same name, earl of Gloucester and Hertford, dying in the 7th year of Edward II. anno 1313, without surviving issue, his three sisters became his coheirs. (fn. 1) Upon which the manor of Hadlow, with the adjoining manor and castle of Tunbridge, and others in these parts, seem to have been allotted to the share of Margaret, the second sister, wife of Hugh de Audley, who in her right became possessed of this manor, and in the 11th year of king Edward III. was, in respect of this marriage, in parliament created earl of Gloucester.

 

Margaret, countess of Cornwall and Gloucester, died in the 16th year of that reign, and her husband, earl Hugh, outliving her about five years, died then possessed of this manor by courtesy of the realm, and leaving by her an only daughter and heir Margaret, then the wife of Ralph Stafford, lord Stafford. He before the end of that year obtained a special possession of all the lands of her inheritance, and among them of this manor, and in his descendants, earls of Stafford, and afterwards, by creation, dukes of Buckingham, of high estimation for the great offices of state which they held in the different reigns in which they lived. This manor continued down to Edward, duke of Buckingham, who in the 13th year of Henry VIII. being accused of conspiring the king's death, was found guilty, and beheaded that year; and although there was an act passed for his attainder, yet another act passed likewise for the restitution in blood of Henry his eldest son, but not to his honors and lands, which remained forfeited to the crown, and the king in his 16th year, granted the manors of Hadlow and Northfrith, aud several messuages, tenements, parks, &c. in the parishes of Hadlow, Shipborne, and Tunbridge, late belonging to Edward, duke of Buckingham, attainted, to Sir Henry Guildford, comptroller of his household, to hold by knight's service.

 

Sir Henry Guildford had greatly signalized himself by his valour against the Moors in Spain, and being first knighted, afterwards created a knight banneret, and made master of the horse. In the 17th year of king Henry VIII. he was made one of the chamberlains of the exchequer, and next year was elected a knight of the garter, being only thirty-nine years of age at the time of his election. (fn. 2)

 

On his death in the 23d year of king Henry VIII. this manor seems to have reverted to the crown, where it remained till king Edward VI. in his 4th year, granted the manor and park of Hadlow to John Dudley, earl of Warwick, who was afterwards created duke of Northumberland, and he by indenture, in the 7th year of that reign, inrolled in the Augmentation-office, sold this manor, among other premises, to the king, in exchange for lands in several other counties. (fn. 3)

 

The manor of Hadlow remained in the crown till the accession of queen Elizabeth, who in her 1st year granted it, together with the park called Northfryth, to her kinsman, Henry Carey, lord Hunsdon, to hold in capite; and he seems to have given it before his death to his eldest son, Sir George Carey, who possessed it.

 

in the 25th year of that reign, and on his father's death in the 38th year of it, succeeded to the title of lord Hunsdon. He died in the 1st year of king James I. without male issue, upon which this manor came to his next brother John, who succeeded him likewise as lord Hunsdon, and died in the 15th year of James I. and his eldest son Henry, lord Hunsdon, soon afterwards conveyed this manor by sale to James Faircloth, M. D. of London, who alienated it to George Rivers, esq. of this parish, second son of Sir George Rivers, of Chafford, in this county, whose son Edward Rivers, esq. was of Fishall, in this parish, and dying possessed of this manor in 1660, was buried near his father in this church. His successor alienated it in the reign of king Charles II. to Jeffry Amherst, gent. and he in the year 1699 sold it to Mr. John France, who dying without male issue, his two daughters, Mary and Elizabeth, became his coheirs; the eldest of whom married Walter Barton, gent. and the youngest George Swayne, gent. On his death, the former by settlement succeeded to this manor, as did his son Mr. John Barton, (by the entail in the same settlement, on his father's decease) and his son Walter who has since taken the name of May, is the present proprietor of it.

 

This manor holds a court leet and court baron, which seems to be entirely independent of the court leet of the manor of Tunbridge, for in 1759 a constable of Tunbridge was chosen at the court leet of that manor, and as such claimed jurisdiction over the parish of Hadlow; but on a trial had on a suit concerning it, at the Lent assizes for this county in 1761, it was proved, that the courts leet of Tunbridge and Hadlow had no connection with each other, and a verdict was found accordingly.

 

HADLOW-PLACE is a seat and estate in this parish, which, in all probability, gave both name and residence to a family of no small note in antient time.

 

John de Hadloe, a descendant of Nicholas de Hadloe, was among those gentlemen of this county, who attended king Edward I. in his expedition into Scotland, in the 28th year of his reign, and for his remarkable service there, at the siege of Carlaverock, was made knight banneret by that prince. The Hadlows bore for their arms, three crescents, to which was afterwards added, seven cross-croslets, in token of some exploit or expedition against the Saracens in the holly land; a usual mark of honor in those times. This addition was most likely granted to Nicholas de Hadloe, who is in the list of those Kentish gentlemen, who were with king Richard I. at the siege of Acon, in Palestine.

 

How long Hadlow-place remained in the above mentioned family I do not find; but most likely till it was alienated to that of Vane, aliasFane. Henry Fane, the eldest son of John Fane, esq. of Tunbridge, was possessed of it in the reign of king Henry VII. and was sheriff in the 23d year of it. (fn. 4) He died in the 30th year of king Henry VIII. anno 1538, leaving no issue by Alice his wife, sister of John Fisher, gent. of this parish. By his will he gave this manor-place, in which he then dwelt, with all his lands in Hadloe and Capel, to his kinsman Ralph Fane, son of Henry, his father's youngest brother, in tail male, remainder to each of the sons of his youngest brother, John Fane, successively in like tail. (fn. 5)

 

¶Ralph Fane was afterwards knighted at the siege of Bulleyn in 1544, and for his gallant behaviour at the battle of Musselborough, in the 1st year of king Edward VI. was made a knight banneret; but in the 6th year of that reign, being found guilty of high treason, he was executed. He died without issue, and Hadlow-place, with the adjoining lands, by virtue of the above entail, came to Henry Fane, the eldest son of John Fane, deceased, the youngest brother of Henry, of Hadlow, before-mentioned, who was of Hadlow-place; being concerned in Sir Thomas Wyatt's insurrection, he was attainted, but the queen pardoned him on account of his youth, and his estates were restored to him; his son Henry, wrote himself, as his ancestors had formerly done, Vane, which his posterity have continued to do ever since. He removed his residence to Raby-castle, in the bishopric of Durham, and was afterwards knighted, from which time he acted a conspicuous part in public affairs, and was greatly favored by king Charles I. (fn. 6) But in the year 1642, the king being offended at his forwardness in the prosecution of the earl of Strafford, he was removed from his place of secretary of state, and from the privy council, and became one of the most malicious of the king's enemies, soon after whose death he alienated this seat, with the estate belonging to it in this parish, to Mr. Thomas Petley, of Filston, in Shoreham, who at his death gave it to his son, Ralph Petley, by his second wife Elizabeth, daughter of Ralph Cam, of London, and he removed from Shoreham to Riverhead, in Sevenoke, where he afterwards resided, and in his descendants resident there this estate continued down in like manner with that seat to Ralph Robert Carter Petley, esq. who died in 1788, leaving his wife, Mrs. Elizabeth Petley surviving, who is the present possessor of this estate. (fn. 7)

  

HADLOW is within the ECCLESIASTICAL JURISDICTION of the diocese of Rochester, and deanry of Malling.

 

The church, which stands on the east side of the town, in Hadlow borough, is dedicated to St. Mary. It is a small building with a low pointed steeple at the west end. There is a monument in it for Sir John Rivers and his lady. It was part of the possessions of the knights of St. John of Jerusalem, commonly called the knights hospitallers, so early as the reign of king John; for in the last year of it, anno 1216, Benedict, bishop of Rochester, at the presentation of the prior and brethren of that hospital, admitted and instituted Adam de Fontibus to this church, saving to the prior and brethren the antient pension of two shillings yearly paid to them from it; and the right likewise of the church of Rochester in all matters, and the right of those who were accustomed to take tithes in this parish, separated from the mother church.

 

Thomas de Inglethorpe, bishop of Rochester, in 1287, appropriated this church, then vacant, and of the patronage of the prior and brethren, to them and their house, for ever; reserving a competent vicarage in it, which he decreed should consist of all the small tithes, oblations, obventions, and all other matters belonging to the altarage, excepting the tithe of the hay of the parish; and he decreed, that the vicar should have one acre of land, where he might conveniently build a house, and two acres of meadow, fit to be mowed, of the demesne of the church; and that he should sustain the ordinary burthens of the church, viz. the procurations of the archdeacon, and should pay yearly to the rector of the church of Adintone, eighteen pence, which the rector of the church of Hadlo used to pay to it, time out of mind; and that the prior and brethren should pay to the prior and convent of Rochester five shillings yearly, as had been accustomed to be paid to them from this church from antient time.

 

On the establishment of the preceptory in the adjoining parish of West Peckham by those knights, this church was allotted as an appendage to it; in which state it continued till the general dissolution of their hospital in the 32d year of king Henry VIII. when that order was suppressed by an act specially passed for the purpose, and all their lands and revenues given by it to the king. At which time the parsonage or rectory of Hadlow, appears to have been esteemed a manor.

 

King Edward VI. July 16, in his first year, granted the rectory and advowson of Hadlow, to Sir Ralph Fane, and lady Elizabeth Fane his wife, to hold in capite by knights service. (fn. 10) On Sir Ralph Fane's death, lady Elizabeth Fane, his widow, became possessed of it, and soon afterwards alienated one part of it, by the description of the manor of the rectory of Hadlow, together with all houses, glebes, tithes, and other appurtenances, lying in Hadlow-ward in this parish, to Thomas Roydon, esq. of East Peckham, whose daughter and coheir Elizabeth, married William Twysden, of Chelmington, who became in her right possessed of this manor and rectory; and his descendant, Sir William Jarvis Twysden, bart. lately sold it to Mr. Walter Barton, who is the present pos sessor of this tithery, with the manor and appurtenances belonging to it.

 

¶The other two parts of the rectory of Hadlow, consisting of the tithes of this parish, in the tithe wards of Goldwell, alias Coldweld and Stair, as well as the advowson, remained (after the above-mentioned alienation to Roydon) in the possession of lady Eliz. Fane, who in the 1st and 2nd year of king Philip and queen Mary, alienated the remainder of the parsonage of Hadlow to Henry Fisher, and he, in the first year of queen Elizabeth passed it away to Richard Smithe, who next year alienated it to John Rivers; his son, Sir George Rivers, possessed this parsonage, as well as the advowson of the church, which seems to have passed with it from lady Fane, and his eldest son, John Rivers, esq. was created a baronet, and in the 21st year of king James I. procured an act of parliament to disgavel as well his lands as those of Sir George Rivers, his father, and to settle the inheritance of them upon himself and his heirs by dame Dorothy his wife, daughter of Thomas Potter, esq. of Westerham. His grandson and heir, Sir Thomas Rivers, bart. son of James Rivers, esq. who died in his life time, in 1657 conveyed that part of this parsonage, which consisted of the tithes arising within the ward of Stayer, to Edward Rivers, esq. son of George Rivers, esq. of this parish, next brother to Sir John Rivers, created a baronet as above-mentioned, and he died possessed of it in 1660, and was buried in this church. His son, George Rivers, esq. possessed it near seventy years, and then dying, by will gave it to his god-son, George Rivers, esq. of the Inner Temple, who in 1737, reserving to himself a life estate in this tithery, sold the reversion of it to Stephen Hervey, esq. of London, and he soon after Mr. Rivers's death, in 1777, conveyed the fee of it to Mr. Robert Simmons, of Hadlow, who gave it by will to his nephew Mr. William Simmons, the present possessor of this part of the parsonage of Hadlow.

 

The remaining part of the parsonage of Hadlow, consisting of the tithe within Goldwell, commonly called Colweld-ward, passed afterwards into the possession of Wm. Lea, gent. of Hadlow, whose granddaughter, Mrs. Eliz. Leavens, of Hadlow, in 1701, conveyed it to Mr. John Weekley, of Town Malling, who in 1738 gave it by will to his brother, Mr. George Weekley, late of Ware, in Hertfordshire, on whose death in 1777 it descended to his only daughter and heir, Miss Jane Weekley, since whose death this tithery has been sold by her devisees to Mr. Thomas Swayne, of Tunbridge, the present possessor of it.

 

THE ADVOWSON of the vicarage of Hadlow seems to have continued in the Rivers family, till the death of Sir George Rivers, in 1734, when, on disputes arising concerning the devise of his estates, they were put into chancery, and after several decrees and process at law, this advowson, among his other estates, was in 1743 ordered by the court to be sold, (fn. 11) and it was accordingly conveyed to the Rev. Arthur Spender, vicar of this parish, who died in 1750, and his son Arthur, dying unmarried, it came to his brother, Mr. John Spender, of Northamptonshire, who sold it not long since to Mr. Monypenny, who is the present patron of it.

 

It is valued in the king's books at 13l. and the yearly tenths at 1l. 6s.

 

The income of this vicarage greatly depends on the hop-plantations in this parish, which have been some years so advantageous as to increase the income of it to 240l. per annum.

 

In 1608 the communicants in this parish were in number three hundred and seventy-six.

 

www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-kent/vol5/pp177-193

État de l’Unité, comté de Leer. Des femmes viennent chercher du sorghum et de l'huile quelques heures après un largage d'assistance alimentaire du CICR..

Unity State, Leer. Women collecting sorghum and oil some hours after an airdrop conducted by the ICRC. .

After the bags hit the ground, they are collected by ICRC, South Sudan Red Cross, and members of the local community. ICRC vehicles are used to carry the bags from the airdrop zone to the distribution points.The whole process on the ground involves a variety of different actors who work together, including ICRC staff and specialists and South Sudan Red Cross volunteers while coordinating with local authorities and community leaders. Beneficiaries are registered several days before the drop, which helps to make the distribution more efficient. On the day of the distribution, they come to the distribution point in groups of ten and show their registration cards, which are checked by ICRC staff and South Sudan Red Cross volunteers..

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ICRC website, 12-06-2014 Operational Update No 07/2014.

South Sudan: Living conditions worsen sharply amid ever more pressing food needs.

To counter growing food insecurity, the ICRC and the South Sudan Red Cross have provided food supplies for around 250,000 people since the beginning of the crisis."The humanitarian situation is dire and could further deteriorate now that the rainy season has arrived. The rains disrupt the delivery of aid because roads become impassable and aircraft landing strips can turn to mud," said François Moreillon, deputy head of the ICRC delegation in South Sudan. "If security conditions in the country do not improve, and if access remains a problem, the food insecurity we are currently facing could be exacerbated and drag on for much longer.".

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Food has been distributed in Lakes, Unity, Upper Nile, Warrap, Jonglei, and Northern and Western Bahr el Ghazal states. Since May, the ICRC has been using airdrops to bring in large quantities of food, seed and other essential aid. Staff on the ground are assessing needs and making the necessary preparations to take delivery of the aid being dropped at various sites. "Together with South Sudan Red Cross volunteers and the local community, they make sure that the aid is distributed fairly to those who need it most," explained Mr Moreillon. The last time the ICRC used airdrops to deliver aid was in 1997, in northern Afghanistan..

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Tens of thousands of people in Leer county, in the north of the country, have just received food and seed. Nymal (not her real name) is a widow with eight children. Her village, not far from a drop zone, was almost completely destroyed in the fighting. "It breaks my heart to see the destruction here," she said. "It will take a long time to rebuild everything that was destroyed. We are suffering because of the lack of food and medical care. I will give what I have received to my children." Her situation is similar to that of many people in the area. Nykouth (not her real name), the mother of six children, had to flee her home when she heard gunfire. Some weeks later, when she returned, she found her house burnt to the ground. Now she lives with her family under a tree. This is not the first time that she has seen violence in her town, but it is the first time that the destruction has been so extensive. "What happened this year is different," she said. "My kids will be so happy to see me bringing food home today.".

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"We are stepping up our food assistance in that area because it has one of the highest concentrations of displaced people, with many coming from Mayendit, Bentiu, Malakal and Koch, as well as the returnees from within Leer county itself," said Mr Moreillon. "We are focusing our efforts on the most isolated parts of the country, which have the least access to markets and the greatest concerns in terms of food security.".

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According to Asma Khaliq Awan, an ICRC relief coordinator, the situation is very serious. "It's heart-wrenching to see children storm into the drop zone and desperately pick up grains of sorghum left scattered on the ground after each distribution. It also speaks volumes about the problems in Leer." People who still have livestock are slaughtering them rampantly and generally have no seed reserves to plant. In a normal year, they would expect to harvest produce in October and November..

.

A total of 294 metric tonnes of food for around 40,000 people and 60 metric tonnes of sorghum, okra, pumpkin, maize and cowpea seed have so far been airdropped to mitigate food insecurity and support the cultivation of crops during the planting season. Ground teams from the ICRC and the South Sudan Red Cross in Leer distribute the food and seed to people registered to receive it..

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The ICRC is constantly reminding the parties to the conflict of their obligations under international humanitarian law. "We stress the obligation to grant unhindered access to humanitarian and medical workers and to show due respect for civilians and people who are wounded, sick, detained or surrendering," said Mr Moreillon. The ICRC welcomes any initiative that may improve the security environment and allow people to grow food and obtain improved access to basic services..

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Since the beginning of the latest emergency, in mid-December, in close cooperation with the South Sudan Red Cross the ICRC has:.

- performed almost 2,000 operations in 12 local health facilities, and provided medical supplies for 34 first-aid and other health-care facilities, as well as wound-dressing materials used in more than 5,000 cases by South Sudan Red Cross volunteers;.

- provided clean water for 230,000 people in displaced and other conflict-affected communities as well as in health and detention facilities in various parts of the country;.

- provided tents, cooking utensils and tarpaulins as emergency shelter for around 400,000 displaced people around the country;.

- visited more than 4,000 people held in various places of detention;.

- arranged for around 10,000 phone calls to be made from various camps to enable displaced people to contact family members.

Relief, or relievo rilievo, is a sculptural technique. The term relief is from the Latin verb relevo, to raise. To create a sculpture in relief is to give the impression that the sculpted material has been raised above the background plane. What is actually performed when a relief is cut in from a flat surface of stone (relief sculpture) or wood (relief carving) is a lowering of the field, leaving the unsculpted parts seemingly raised. The technique involves considerable chiselling away of the background, which is a time-consuming exercise. On the other hand, a relief saves forming the rear of a subject, and is less fragile and more securely fixed than a sculpture in the round, especially one of a standing figure where the ankles are a potential weak point, especially in stone. In other materials such as metal, clay, plaster stucco, ceramics or papier-mache the form can be just added to or raised up from the background, and monumental bronze reliefs are made by casting. There are different degrees of relief depending on the degree of projection of the sculpted form from the field, for which the Italian appellations are still sometimes used. The full range includes high relief (alto-rilievo), where more than 50% of the depth is shown and there may be undercut areas, mid-relief (mezzo-rilievo), low-relief (basso-rilievo, or French: bas-relief /ˌbɑːrɪˈliːf/), and shallow-relief or rilievo schiacciato, where the plane is scarcely more than scratched in order to remove background material. There is also sunk relief, which was mainly restricted to Ancient Egypt. However the distinction between high relief and low relief is the clearest and most important, and these two are generally the only terms used to discuss most work. The definition of these terms is somewhat variable, and many works combine areas in more than one of them, sometimes sliding between them in a single figure; accordingly some writers prefer to avoid all distinctions. The opposite of relief sculpture is counter-relief, intaglio, or cavo-rilievo, where the form is cut into the field or background rather than rising from it; this is very rare in monumental sculpture.

 

Reliefs are common throughout the world on the walls of buildings and a variety of smaller settings, and a sequence of several panels or sections of relief may represent an extended narrative. Relief is more suitable for depicting complicated subjects with many figures and very active poses, such as battles, than free-standing "sculpture in the round". Most ancient architectural reliefs were originally painted, which helped to define forms in low relief. The subject of reliefs is for convenient reference assumed in this article to be usually figures, but sculpture in relief often depicts decorative geometrical or foliage patterns, as in the arabesques of Islamic art, and may be of any subject.

 

Rock reliefs are those carved into solid rock in the open air (if inside caves, whether natural or man-made, they are more likely to be called "rock-cut"). This type is found in many cultures, in particular those of the Ancient Near East and Buddhist countries. A stela is a single standing stone; many of these carry reliefs.

 

TYPES

The distinction between high and low relief is somewhat subjective, and the two are very often combined in a single work. In particular, most later "high reliefs" contain sections in low relief, usually in the background. From the Parthenon Frieze onwards, many single figures have heads in high relief, but their lower legs are in low relief; the slightly projecting figures created in this way work well in reliefs that are seen from below (see Moissac portal in gallery). As unfinished examples from various periods show, raised reliefs, whether high or low, were normally "blocked out" by marking the outline of the figure and reducing the background areas to the new background level, work no doubt performed by apprentices (see gallery). Hyphens may or may not be used in all these terms, though they are rarely seen in "sunk relief" and are usual in "bas-relief" and "counter-relief". Works in the technique are described as "in relief", and, especially in monumental sculpture, the work itself is "a relief".

 

BAS RELIEF OR LOW RELIEF

A bas-relief ("low relief", from the Italian basso rilievo) or low relief is a projecting image with a shallow overall depth, for example used on coins, on which all images are in low relief. In the lowest reliefs the relative depth of the elements shown is completely distorted, and if seen from the side the image makes no sense, but from the front the small variations in depth register as a three-dimensional image. Other versions distort depth much less. It is a technique which requires less work, and is therefore cheaper to produce, as less of the background needs to be removed in a carving, or less modelling is required. In the art of Ancient Egypt and other ancient Near Eastern and Asian cultures, and also Meso-America, a very low relief was commonly used for the whole composition. These images would all be painted after carving, which helped to define the forms; today the paint has worn off in the great majority of surviving examples, but minute, invisible remains of paint can usually be discovered through chemical means.

 

The Ishtar Gate of Babylon, now in Berlin, has low reliefs of large animals formed from moulded bricks, glazed in colour. Plaster was sometimes used in Egypt and Rome, and probably elsewhere, but needs very good conditions to survive – Roman decorative plasterwork is mainly known from Pompeii and other sites buried by ash from Mount Vesuvius. Low relief was relatively rare in Western medieval art, but may be found, for example in wooden figures or scenes on the insides of the folding wings of multi-panel altarpieces.

 

Low relief is probably the most common type of relief found in Hindu-Buddhist arts of India and Southeast Asia. The low reliefs of 2nd-century BCE to 6th-century CE Ajanta Caves and 5th to 10th-century Ellora Caves in India are noted for they were carved out from rock-cut hill. They are probably the most exquisite examples of Buddhist, Hindu, and Jain arts in India. Most of these low reliefs are used in narrating sacred scriptures, such as those founds in 9th century Borobudur temple in Central Java, Indonesia, that narrating The birth of Buddha (Lalitavistara). Borobudur itself possess 1,460 panels of narrating low reliefs. Another example is low reliefs narrating Ramayana Hindu epic in Prambanan temple, also in Java. In Cambodia, the temples of Angkor are also remarkable for their collection of low reliefs. The Samudra manthan or "Churning of Ocean of Milk" of 12th-century Angkor Wat is an example of Khmer art. Another examples are low reliefs of Apsaras adorned the walls and pillars of Angkorian temples. The low reliefs of Bayon temple in Angkor Thom also remarkable on capturing the daily life of Khmer Empire.

 

The revival of low relief, which was seen as a classical style, begins early in the Renaissance; the Tempio Malatestiano in Rimini, a pioneering classicist building, designed by Leon Battista Alberti around 1450, uses low reliefs by Agostino di Duccio inside and on the external walls. Since the Renaissance plaster has been very widely used for indoor ornamental work such as cornices and ceilings, but in the 16th century it was used for large figures (many also using high relief) at the Chateau of Fontainebleau, which were imitated more crudely elsewhere, for example in the Elizabethan Hardwick Hall.

 

In later Western art, until a 20th-century revival, low relief was used mostly for smaller works or combined with higher relief to convey a sense of distance, or to give depth to the composition, especially for scenes with many figures and a landscape or architectural background, in the same way that lighter colours are used for the same purpose in painting. Thus figures in the foreground are sculpted in high-relief, those in the background in low-relief. Low relief may use any medium or technique of sculpture, stone carving and metal casting being most common. Large architectural compositions all in low relief saw a revival in the 20th century, being popular on buildings in Art Deco and related styles, which borrowed from the ancient low reliefs now available in museums. Some sculptors, including Eric Gill, have adopted the "squashed" depth of low relief in works that are actually free-standing.

 

Mid-relief, "half-relief" or mezzo-rilievo is somewhat imprecisely defined, and the term is not often used in English, the works usually being described as low relief instead. The typical traditional definition is that only up to half of the subject projects, and no elements are undercut or fully disengaged from the background field. The depth of the elements shown is normally somewhat distorted. Shallow-relief or rilievo stiacciato, used for the background areas of compositions with the main elements in low-relief, was perfected by the Italian Renaissance sculptor Donatello. It is a very shallow relief, which merges into engraving in places, and can be hard to read in photographs.

 

HIGH RELIEF

High relief (or altorilievo, from Italian) is where in general more than half the mass of the sculpted figure projects from the background, indeed the most prominent elements of the composition, especially heads and limbs, are often completely undercut, detaching them from the field. The parts of the subject that are seen are normally depicted at their full depth, unlike low relief where the elements seen are "squashed" flatter. High-relief thus uses essentially the same style and techniques as free-standing sculpture, and in the case of a single figure gives largely the same view as a person standing directly in front of a free-standing statue would have. All cultures and periods in which large sculptures were created used this technique in monumental sculpture and architecture.

 

Most of the many grand figure reliefs in Ancient Greek sculpture used a very "high" version of high-relief, with elements often fully free of the background, and parts of figures crossing over each other to indicate depth. The metopes of the Parthenon have largely lost their fully rounded elements, except for heads, showing the advantages of relief in terms of durability. High relief has remained the dominant form for reliefs with figures in Western sculpture, also being common in Indian temple sculpture. Smaller Greek sculptures such as private tombs, and smaller decorative areas such as friezes on large buildings, more often used low relief.

Hellenistic and Roman sarcophagus reliefs were cut with a drill rather than chisels, enabling and encouraging compositions extremely crowded with figures, like the Ludovisi Battle sarcophagus (250–260 CE). These are also seen in the enormous strips of reliefs that wound round Roman triumphal columns. The sarcophagi in particular exerted a huge influence on later Western sculpture. The European Middle Ages tended to use high relief for all purposes in stone, though like Ancient Roman sculpture their reliefs were typically not as high as in Ancient Greece. Very high relief reemerged in the Renaissance, and was especially used in wall-mounted funerary art and later on Neo-classical pediments and public monuments.

 

In Hindu-Buddhist art of India and Southeast Asia high relief can also be found, although it is not as common as low reliefs. Most of Hindu-Buddhist sculptures however also can be considered as a high relief, since these sculptures usually connected to a stella as the background to support the statue as well as provides additional elements such as aura or halo in the back of sculpture's head, or floral decoration. The examples of Indian high reliefs can be found in Khajuraho temple, that displaying voluptuous twisting figures that often describes the erotic Kamasutra positions. In 9th-century Prambanan temple, Central Java, the examples are the high reliefs of Lokapala devatas, the guardian of directions deities.

 

SUNK RELIEF

Sunk or sunken relief is largely restricted to the art of Ancient Egypt where it is very common, becoming after the Amarna period of Ahkenaten the dominant type used, as opposed to low relief. It had been used earlier, but mainly for large reliefs on external walls, and for hieroglyphs and cartouches. The image is made by cutting the relief sculpture itself into a flat surface. In a simpler form the images are usually mostly linear in nature, like hieroglyphs, but in most cases the figure itself is in low relief, but set within a sunken area shaped round the image, so that the relief never rises beyond the original flat surface. In some cases the figures and other elements are in a very low relief that does not rise to the original surface, but others are modeled more fully, with some areas rising to the original surface. This method minimizes the work removing the background, while allowing normal relief modelling.

 

The technique is most successful with strong sunlight to emphasise the outlines and forms by shadow, as no attempt was made to soften the edge of the sunk area, leaving a face at a right-angle to the surface all around it. Some reliefs, especially funerary monuments with heads or busts from ancient Rome and later Western art, leave a "frame" at the original level around the edge of the relief, or place a head in a hemispherical recess in the block (see Roman example in gallery). Though essentially very similar to Egyptian sunk relief, but with a background space at the lower level around the figure, the term would not normally be used of such works.

 

COUNTER RELIEF

Sunk relief technique is not to be confused with "counter-relief" or intaglio as seen on engraved gem seals - where an image is fully modeled in a "negative" manner. The image goes into the surface, so that when impressed on wax it gives an impression in normal relief. However many engraved gems were carved in cameo or normal relief.

 

A few very late Hellenistic monumental carvings in Egypt use full "negative" modelling as though on a gem seal, perhaps as sculptors trained in the Greek tradition attempted to use traditional Egyptian conventions.

 

SMALL OBJECTS

Small-scale reliefs have been carved in various materials, notably ivory, wood, and wax. Reliefs are often found in decorative arts such as ceramics and metalwork; these are less often described as "reliefs" than as "in relief". Small bronze reliefs are often in the form of "plaques" or plaquettes, which may be set in furniture or framed, or just kept as they are, a popular form for European collectors, especially in the Renaissance.

 

Various modelling techniques are used, such repoussé ("pushed-back") in metalwork, where a thin metal plate is shaped from behind using various metal or wood punches, producing a relief image. Casting has also been widely used in bronze and other metals. Casting and repoussé are often used in concert in to speed up production and add greater detail to the final relief. In stone, as well as engraved gems, larger hardstone carvings in semi-precious stones have been highly prestigious since ancient times in many Eurasian cultures. Reliefs in wax were produced at least from the Renaissance.

 

Carved ivory reliefs have been used since ancient times, and because the material, though expensive, cannot usually be reused, they have a relatively high survival rate, and for example consular diptychs represent a large proportion of the survivals of portable secular art from Late Antiquity. In the Gothic period the carving of ivory reliefs became a considerable luxury industry in Paris and other centres. As well as small diptychs and triptychs with densely packed religious scenes, usually from the New Testament, secular objects, usually in a lower relief, were also produced.

 

These were often round mirror-cases, combs, handles, and other small items, but included a few larger caskets like the Casket with Scenes of Romances (Walters 71264) in Baltimore, Maryland, in the United States. Originally there were very often painted in bright colours. Reliefs can be impressed by stamps onto clay, or the clay pressed into a mould bearing the design, as was usual with the mass-produced terra sigillata of Ancient Roman pottery. Decorative reliefs in plaster or stucco may be much larger; this form of architectural decoration is found in many styles of interiors in the post-Renaissance West, and in Islamic architecture.

 

WIKIPEDIA

An ancient interaction involving some dude and some other dude and a long penis. The Egyptians definitely enjoyed their nudity. Many of the women are depicted bare chested with erect nipples and the pharoahs usually wore only a crown and a "royal kilt" A.K.A. ancient miniskirt. That explains Cairo's current population of 25 million.

Kamera: Nikon FE2

Linse: Nikkor-S Auto 35mm f2.8 (1974)

Film: Kodak 5222 @ ISO 400 -1EV

Kjemi: Xtol (stock / 9 min. @ 20°C)

 

Monday 30 December 2024: My New Year resolutions for 2025:

 

1. Do not buy or use any goods or services coming from Israel or their Occupied Palestinian Territories. Boycott Israel - the most racist, fascist, immoral and genocidal apartheid country in the world.

 

For me, this is a simple operation and will only involve my total boycott of the Israeli online genealogy platforms MyHeritage and Geni. I have no interest in any other consumer product coming out of Israel. But many of you may have heard of Ahava Dead Sea products coming from the Occupied Territories. Don’t buy it, don’t use it.

 

2. Do not buy or use any American goods or services as far as it is humanly possible today. They only use their income for WAR. The only way to stop this MADNESS is to stop buying and using their goods and services. Money to the USA is money to Israel.

 

This task is not as simple as boycotting only Israeli goods and products, but I will do my best - just like the USA has done it’s best in supporting Israel’s genocide in Gaza, providing Israel with weapons and incredible amounts of money, abusing their powers in the UN Security Council, working against international law and justice, supporting apartheid and never ever actually supporting or working to establish a Free Sovereign Palestine.

 

Israel seems to have become a way for all the corrupt American politicians in their archaic 'democratic' system to get an extra income under the table, directly stealing from the people, and for the American War Industries to thrive and grow; it is a Perpetuum mobile where US politicians donate money to Israel and where Israel in return use those money given to buy off US politicians [tax-deductible] and buying their weapons to slaughter Palestinians.

 

Americans get their money back [but first, some commercials] [without paying taxes] [under the table] and the Israelis get their fascist religious extremist zionist dreams come true. Incidentally, Israel's bizarre dreams of grandeur are closely linked to the American voters' archaic dreams of extremist christian zionist Eschatology. These people all belong in the Bronze Age.

 

USA has for so many years since the end of the Cold War been endangering all of Europe’s security by abusing the NATO alliance (this abuse started back in 1999 with the bombing of Yugoslavia!) presiding over a European proxy war with Russia via Ukraine - a war that now even involves North Korea (WTF!) and has killed hundreds of thousands of lives in Europe and flooded Western Europe with refugees once again! It needs to stop, and our own nations and politicians who are hostages to the American gangster regime can do no other - so therefore I can no longer justify MY feeble hard-earned money feeding this warmongering genocidal nation. It has to stop, and the only way I can make a miniscule difference is by boycotting American goods and services.

 

- First on my list: Mark Zuckerberg (1984) and his his Facebook and all of Facebook's subsidiaries through Meta. Easy. Done. Nothing!

 

- Second on my list: Larry Page (b. 1973) and Sergey Brin’s (b. 1973) Google and Alphabet Inc. - this is not so easy. This company with their search engine, Gmail and their subsidiary companies like YouTube and Android have infested the whole world. Instead of Google's search engine I have been using DuckDuckGo for years - but this is also an American company so my search will go on for something more safe and European.

 

As for Gmail, I am using Swiss Proton Mail instead but I have yet to to make the cut final. I hope I will be able to do so during the course of 2025.

 

As for YouTube, I have no clear alternative right now that is not American.

 

Android is easy - I never used it. But instead of Android I use Apple - which I feel is safer - but here is the problem - it is an American company. Maybe the solution is to go full-on dumbphone and get a Swiss Punkt. I might in fact do that.

 

What do you really need an American ‘smartphone’ for anyways? Life is analogue.

 

More American companies and platforms to boycott:

 

- Amazon Inc. - I can get most of my (paper) books and other stuff I usually buy on Amazon locally anyways. Amazon is a convenient marketplace, that's true - but it’s American and I’d rather suffer a little inconvenience just to not let the Americans get my money.

 

- eBay - again, such a great platform and marketplace for (in my case) photographic camera equipment and whatnot - but then again - if I could buy directly from Japanese camera stores with ease and no American involvement I would do so in a heartbeat without using American eBay. Let’s hope the Japanese evolve their international trade in this regard.

 

As for FILM there's plenty of European film providers; hey, we were first with film and photography anyways and have long traditions still thriving and living here. But I do love Kodak 5222. This is a problem - but at least I only use European chemicals these days. Foma and Tetenal.

 

- PayPal - also a very convenient platform to use, but goddamned this is the brainchild of Elon Musk (b. 1971) and I’ll do my very best to never support that fascist bastard. You’ll never see me driving an American car either, and certainly not a Tesla. Most unethical car ever.

 

- Airbnb - an American company that makes it easy to rent a room or a house for anyone in all those illegal Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories - it's just as sick as if American tourists through a 'tourist agency' could come and live in Nazi german confiscated Norwegian flats, houses and cottages to relax or just 'experience' Nazi occupied Norway in 1941. This is exactly what Airbnb is making possible in the Occupied Palestinian Territories these days - and I shall never, ever use Airbnb.

 

OK, that’s a lot but we’re not finished yet.

 

- Disney - Easy. They destroyed Star Wars. Done!

 

- Pepsi and Coca-Cola - Done. Never again. There are many other local alternatives. Easy!

 

- McDonald’s and Burger King - Done. Easy. Probably the worst hamburgers in the world anyways.

 

So when it comes to consumer products that you get in the general store, there are two really big and awful companies that I will do my best to never buy their products ever again. These two companies are the American-owned Mondelez International and the Swiss company Nestlé together with all their subsidiaries and brands.

 

Things not to buy (applicable to me):

 

- Douwe Egberts coffee (Mondelez)

- Toblerone chocolate (Mondelez)

- Heinz products (Mondelez)

 

- L’Oréal and ALL their subsidiary products Garnier, Maybelline, Biotherm, Lancôme, Prada, Yves Saint Laurent, Kérastase, Guy Laroche, Redken (Nestlé)

 

- Nespresso (Nestlé)

- Nescafé (Nestlé)

- Nesquik (Nestlé)

- Nestea (Nestlé)

 

- Smarties chocolates (Nestlé)

- After Eight chocolate (Nestlé)

- Maggi products (Nestlé)

- Purina dogfood (Nestlé)

 

[and Friskies catfood for those of you with cats - also Nestlé]

 

- Freia chocolate products (Mondelez) [The chocolate that could never ever ever be sold to Sweden otherwise we would lose our independence AGAIN - but which could easily be sold to America instead. Remember all those Edvard Grieg Freia commercials?]

 

- Friele coffee (Mondelez) in Bergen which also produce ALL the norwegian COOP cooffee products and ALL the swedish Gevalia coffee brand products

 

- Marabou candy and ALL their chocolate products (Mondelez)

 

Allright, so already quite an extensive list and that’s not half of it.

 

Therefore at the end, I want to inform you all about the Boycat app - the Ethical Shopping and Boycott Companion. Use it.

 

And if you have more suggestions of Israeli and American companies, products and services to boycott, do let me know. I’m eager ears.

 

PS: I am fully aware that Flickr is American. There are many good things coming out of America. I hope in 2025 USA can change their ways.

6939: Involving 11 ships and 11 aircraft from five nations, the search for the missing Malaysian airliner MH 370 involved an unprecedented level of regional co-operation in such circumstances. As seen here a RNZAF PC Orion aircraft flies over the Anzac Class frigate HMAS PERTH [III]. The China-bound aircraft's loss resulted in 239 people missing, and at the time of writing its apparent swing into the deeop South Indian Ocean remained a mystery.

Photo: ABIS Nicolas Gonzalez, RAN, publicly released.

Graffiti (plural; singular graffiti or graffito, the latter rarely used except in archeology) is art that is written, painted or drawn on a wall or other surface, usually without permission and within public view. Graffiti ranges from simple written words to elaborate wall paintings, and has existed since ancient times, with examples dating back to ancient Egypt, ancient Greece, and the Roman Empire (see also mural).

 

Graffiti is a controversial subject. In most countries, marking or painting property without permission is considered by property owners and civic authorities as defacement and vandalism, which is a punishable crime, citing the use of graffiti by street gangs to mark territory or to serve as an indicator of gang-related activities. Graffiti has become visualized as a growing urban "problem" for many cities in industrialized nations, spreading from the New York City subway system and Philadelphia in the early 1970s to the rest of the United States and Europe and other world regions

 

"Graffiti" (usually both singular and plural) and the rare singular form "graffito" are from the Italian word graffiato ("scratched"). The term "graffiti" is used in art history for works of art produced by scratching a design into a surface. A related term is "sgraffito", which involves scratching through one layer of pigment to reveal another beneath it. This technique was primarily used by potters who would glaze their wares and then scratch a design into them. In ancient times graffiti were carved on walls with a sharp object, although sometimes chalk or coal were used. The word originates from Greek γράφειν—graphein—meaning "to write".

 

The term graffiti originally referred to the inscriptions, figure drawings, and such, found on the walls of ancient sepulchres or ruins, as in the Catacombs of Rome or at Pompeii. Historically, these writings were not considered vanadlism, which today is considered part of the definition of graffiti.

 

The only known source of the Safaitic language, an ancient form of Arabic, is from graffiti: inscriptions scratched on to the surface of rocks and boulders in the predominantly basalt desert of southern Syria, eastern Jordan and northern Saudi Arabia. Safaitic dates from the first century BC to the fourth century AD.

 

Some of the oldest cave paintings in the world are 40,000 year old ones found in Australia. The oldest written graffiti was found in ancient Rome around 2500 years ago. Most graffiti from the time was boasts about sexual experiences Graffiti in Ancient Rome was a form of communication, and was not considered vandalism.

 

Ancient tourists visiting the 5th-century citadel at Sigiriya in Sri Lanka write their names and commentary over the "mirror wall", adding up to over 1800 individual graffiti produced there between the 6th and 18th centuries. Most of the graffiti refer to the frescoes of semi-nude females found there. One reads:

 

Wet with cool dew drops

fragrant with perfume from the flowers

came the gentle breeze

jasmine and water lily

dance in the spring sunshine

side-long glances

of the golden-hued ladies

stab into my thoughts

heaven itself cannot take my mind

as it has been captivated by one lass

among the five hundred I have seen here.

 

Among the ancient political graffiti examples were Arab satirist poems. Yazid al-Himyari, an Umayyad Arab and Persian poet, was most known for writing his political poetry on the walls between Sajistan and Basra, manifesting a strong hatred towards the Umayyad regime and its walis, and people used to read and circulate them very widely.

 

Graffiti, known as Tacherons, were frequently scratched on Romanesque Scandinavian church walls. When Renaissance artists such as Pinturicchio, Raphael, Michelangelo, Ghirlandaio, or Filippino Lippi descended into the ruins of Nero's Domus Aurea, they carved or painted their names and returned to initiate the grottesche style of decoration.

 

There are also examples of graffiti occurring in American history, such as Independence Rock, a national landmark along the Oregon Trail.

 

Later, French soldiers carved their names on monuments during the Napoleonic campaign of Egypt in the 1790s. Lord Byron's survives on one of the columns of the Temple of Poseidon at Cape Sounion in Attica, Greece.

 

The oldest known example of graffiti "monikers" found on traincars created by hobos and railworkers since the late 1800s. The Bozo Texino monikers were documented by filmmaker Bill Daniel in his 2005 film, Who is Bozo Texino?.

 

In World War II, an inscription on a wall at the fortress of Verdun was seen as an illustration of the US response twice in a generation to the wrongs of the Old World:

 

During World War II and for decades after, the phrase "Kilroy was here" with an accompanying illustration was widespread throughout the world, due to its use by American troops and ultimately filtering into American popular culture. Shortly after the death of Charlie Parker (nicknamed "Yardbird" or "Bird"), graffiti began appearing around New York with the words "Bird Lives".

 

Modern graffiti art has its origins with young people in 1960s and 70s in New York City and Philadelphia. Tags were the first form of stylised contemporary graffiti. Eventually, throw-ups and pieces evolved with the desire to create larger art. Writers used spray paint and other kind of materials to leave tags or to create images on the sides subway trains. and eventually moved into the city after the NYC metro began to buy new trains and paint over graffiti.

 

While the art had many advocates and appreciators—including the cultural critic Norman Mailer—others, including New York City mayor Ed Koch, considered it to be defacement of public property, and saw it as a form of public blight. The ‘taggers’ called what they did ‘writing’—though an important 1974 essay by Mailer referred to it using the term ‘graffiti.’

 

Contemporary graffiti style has been heavily influenced by hip hop culture and the myriad international styles derived from Philadelphia and New York City Subway graffiti; however, there are many other traditions of notable graffiti in the twentieth century. Graffiti have long appeared on building walls, in latrines, railroad boxcars, subways, and bridges.

 

An early graffito outside of New York or Philadelphia was the inscription in London reading "Clapton is God" in reference to the guitarist Eric Clapton. Creating the cult of the guitar hero, the phrase was spray-painted by an admirer on a wall in an Islington, north London in the autumn of 1967. The graffito was captured in a photograph, in which a dog is urinating on the wall.

 

Films like Style Wars in the 80s depicting famous writers such as Skeme, Dondi, MinOne, and ZEPHYR reinforced graffiti's role within New York's emerging hip-hop culture. Although many officers of the New York City Police Department found this film to be controversial, Style Wars is still recognized as the most prolific film representation of what was going on within the young hip hop culture of the early 1980s. Fab 5 Freddy and Futura 2000 took hip hop graffiti to Paris and London as part of the New York City Rap Tour in 1983

 

Commercialization and entrance into mainstream pop culture

Main article: Commercial graffiti

With the popularity and legitimization of graffiti has come a level of commercialization. In 2001, computer giant IBM launched an advertising campaign in Chicago and San Francisco which involved people spray painting on sidewalks a peace symbol, a heart, and a penguin (Linux mascot), to represent "Peace, Love, and Linux." IBM paid Chicago and San Francisco collectively US$120,000 for punitive damages and clean-up costs.

 

In 2005, a similar ad campaign was launched by Sony and executed by its advertising agency in New York, Chicago, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and Miami, to market its handheld PSP gaming system. In this campaign, taking notice of the legal problems of the IBM campaign, Sony paid building owners for the rights to paint on their buildings "a collection of dizzy-eyed urban kids playing with the PSP as if it were a skateboard, a paddle, or a rocking horse".

 

Tristan Manco wrote that Brazil "boasts a unique and particularly rich, graffiti scene ... [earning] it an international reputation as the place to go for artistic inspiration". Graffiti "flourishes in every conceivable space in Brazil's cities". Artistic parallels "are often drawn between the energy of São Paulo today and 1970s New York". The "sprawling metropolis", of São Paulo has "become the new shrine to graffiti"; Manco alludes to "poverty and unemployment ... [and] the epic struggles and conditions of the country's marginalised peoples", and to "Brazil's chronic poverty", as the main engines that "have fuelled a vibrant graffiti culture". In world terms, Brazil has "one of the most uneven distributions of income. Laws and taxes change frequently". Such factors, Manco argues, contribute to a very fluid society, riven with those economic divisions and social tensions that underpin and feed the "folkloric vandalism and an urban sport for the disenfranchised", that is South American graffiti art.

 

Prominent Brazilian writers include Os Gêmeos, Boleta, Nunca, Nina, Speto, Tikka, and T.Freak. Their artistic success and involvement in commercial design ventures has highlighted divisions within the Brazilian graffiti community between adherents of the cruder transgressive form of pichação and the more conventionally artistic values of the practitioners of grafite.

 

Graffiti in the Middle East has emerged slowly, with taggers operating in Egypt, Lebanon, the Gulf countries like Bahrain or the United Arab Emirates, Israel, and in Iran. The major Iranian newspaper Hamshahri has published two articles on illegal writers in the city with photographic coverage of Iranian artist A1one's works on Tehran walls. Tokyo-based design magazine, PingMag, has interviewed A1one and featured photographs of his work. The Israeli West Bank barrier has become a site for graffiti, reminiscent in this sense of the Berlin Wall. Many writers in Israel come from other places around the globe, such as JUIF from Los Angeles and DEVIONE from London. The religious reference "נ נח נחמ נחמן מאומן" ("Na Nach Nachma Nachman Meuman") is commonly seen in graffiti around Israel.

 

Graffiti has played an important role within the street art scene in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), especially following the events of the Arab Spring of 2011 or the Sudanese Revolution of 2018/19. Graffiti is a tool of expression in the context of conflict in the region, allowing people to raise their voices politically and socially. Famous street artist Banksy has had an important effect in the street art scene in the MENA area, especially in Palestine where some of his works are located in the West Bank barrier and Bethlehem.

 

There are also a large number of graffiti influences in Southeast Asian countries that mostly come from modern Western culture, such as Malaysia, where graffiti have long been a common sight in Malaysia's capital city, Kuala Lumpur. Since 2010, the country has begun hosting a street festival to encourage all generations and people from all walks of life to enjoy and encourage Malaysian street culture.

 

The modern-day graffitists can be found with an arsenal of various materials that allow for a successful production of a piece. This includes such techniques as scribing. However, spray paint in aerosol cans is the number one medium for graffiti. From this commodity comes different styles, technique, and abilities to form master works of graffiti. Spray paint can be found at hardware and art stores and comes in virtually every color.

 

Stencil graffiti is created by cutting out shapes and designs in a stiff material (such as cardboard or subject folders) to form an overall design or image. The stencil is then placed on the "canvas" gently and with quick, easy strokes of the aerosol can, the image begins to appear on the intended surface.

 

Some of the first examples were created in 1981 by artists Blek le Rat in Paris, in 1982 by Jef Aerosol in Tours (France); by 1985 stencils had appeared in other cities including New York City, Sydney, and Melbourne, where they were documented by American photographer Charles Gatewood and Australian photographer Rennie Ellis

 

Tagging is the practice of someone spray-painting "their name, initial or logo onto a public surface" in a handstyle unique to the writer. Tags were the first form of modern graffiti.

 

Modern graffiti art often incorporates additional arts and technologies. For example, Graffiti Research Lab has encouraged the use of projected images and magnetic light-emitting diodes (throwies) as new media for graffitists. yarnbombing is another recent form of graffiti. Yarnbombers occasionally target previous graffiti for modification, which had been avoided among the majority of graffitists.

 

Theories on the use of graffiti by avant-garde artists have a history dating back at least to the Asger Jorn, who in 1962 painting declared in a graffiti-like gesture "the avant-garde won't give up"

 

Many contemporary analysts and even art critics have begun to see artistic value in some graffiti and to recognize it as a form of public art. According to many art researchers, particularly in the Netherlands and in Los Angeles, that type of public art is, in fact an effective tool of social emancipation or, in the achievement of a political goal

 

In times of conflict, such murals have offered a means of communication and self-expression for members of these socially, ethnically, or racially divided communities, and have proven themselves as effective tools in establishing dialog and thus, of addressing cleavages in the long run. The Berlin Wall was also extensively covered by graffiti reflecting social pressures relating to the oppressive Soviet rule over the GDR.

 

Many artists involved with graffiti are also concerned with the similar activity of stenciling. Essentially, this entails stenciling a print of one or more colors using spray-paint. Recognized while exhibiting and publishing several of her coloured stencils and paintings portraying the Sri Lankan Civil War and urban Britain in the early 2000s, graffitists Mathangi Arulpragasam, aka M.I.A., has also become known for integrating her imagery of political violence into her music videos for singles "Galang" and "Bucky Done Gun", and her cover art. Stickers of her artwork also often appear around places such as London in Brick Lane, stuck to lamp posts and street signs, she having become a muse for other graffitists and painters worldwide in cities including Seville.

 

Graffitist believes that art should be on display for everyone in the public eye or in plain sight, not hidden away in a museum or a gallery. Art should color the streets, not the inside of some building. Graffiti is a form of art that cannot be owned or bought. It does not last forever, it is temporary, yet one of a kind. It is a form of self promotion for the artist that can be displayed anywhere form sidewalks, roofs, subways, building wall, etc. Art to them is for everyone and should be showed to everyone for free.

 

Graffiti is a way of communicating and a way of expressing what one feels in the moment. It is both art and a functional thing that can warn people of something or inform people of something. However, graffiti is to some people a form of art, but to some a form of vandalism. And many graffitists choose to protect their identities and remain anonymous or to hinder prosecution.

 

With the commercialization of graffiti (and hip hop in general), in most cases, even with legally painted "graffiti" art, graffitists tend to choose anonymity. This may be attributed to various reasons or a combination of reasons. Graffiti still remains the one of four hip hop elements that is not considered "performance art" despite the image of the "singing and dancing star" that sells hip hop culture to the mainstream. Being a graphic form of art, it might also be said that many graffitists still fall in the category of the introverted archetypal artist.

 

Banksy is one of the world's most notorious and popular street artists who continues to remain faceless in today's society. He is known for his political, anti-war stencil art mainly in Bristol, England, but his work may be seen anywhere from Los Angeles to Palestine. In the UK, Banksy is the most recognizable icon for this cultural artistic movement and keeps his identity a secret to avoid arrest. Much of Banksy's artwork may be seen around the streets of London and surrounding suburbs, although he has painted pictures throughout the world, including the Middle East, where he has painted on Israel's controversial West Bank barrier with satirical images of life on the other side. One depicted a hole in the wall with an idyllic beach, while another shows a mountain landscape on the other side. A number of exhibitions also have taken place since 2000, and recent works of art have fetched vast sums of money. Banksy's art is a prime example of the classic controversy: vandalism vs. art. Art supporters endorse his work distributed in urban areas as pieces of art and some councils, such as Bristol and Islington, have officially protected them, while officials of other areas have deemed his work to be vandalism and have removed it.

 

Pixnit is another artist who chooses to keep her identity from the general public. Her work focuses on beauty and design aspects of graffiti as opposed to Banksy's anti-government shock value. Her paintings are often of flower designs above shops and stores in her local urban area of Cambridge, Massachusetts. Some store owners endorse her work and encourage others to do similar work as well. "One of the pieces was left up above Steve's Kitchen, because it looks pretty awesome"- Erin Scott, the manager of New England Comics in Allston, Massachusetts.

 

Graffiti artists may become offended if photographs of their art are published in a commercial context without their permission. In March 2020, the Finnish graffiti artist Psyke expressed his displeasure at the newspaper Ilta-Sanomat publishing a photograph of a Peugeot 208 in an article about new cars, with his graffiti prominently shown on the background. The artist claims he does not want his art being used in commercial context, not even if he were to receive compensation.

 

Territorial graffiti marks urban neighborhoods with tags and logos to differentiate certain groups from others. These images are meant to show outsiders a stern look at whose turf is whose. The subject matter of gang-related graffiti consists of cryptic symbols and initials strictly fashioned with unique calligraphies. Gang members use graffiti to designate membership throughout the gang, to differentiate rivals and associates and, most commonly, to mark borders which are both territorial and ideological.

 

Graffiti has been used as a means of advertising both legally and illegally. Bronx-based TATS CRU has made a name for themselves doing legal advertising campaigns for companies such as Coca-Cola, McDonald's, Toyota, and MTV. In the UK, Covent Garden's Boxfresh used stencil images of a Zapatista revolutionary in the hopes that cross referencing would promote their store.

 

Smirnoff hired artists to use reverse graffiti (the use of high pressure hoses to clean dirty surfaces to leave a clean image in the surrounding dirt) to increase awareness of their product.

 

Graffiti often has a reputation as part of a subculture that rebels against authority, although the considerations of the practitioners often diverge and can relate to a wide range of attitudes. It can express a political practice and can form just one tool in an array of resistance techniques. One early example includes the anarcho-punk band Crass, who conducted a campaign of stenciling anti-war, anarchist, feminist, and anti-consumerist messages throughout the London Underground system during the late 1970s and early 1980s. In Amsterdam graffiti was a major part of the punk scene. The city was covered with names such as "De Zoot", "Vendex", and "Dr Rat". To document the graffiti a punk magazine was started that was called Gallery Anus. So when hip hop came to Europe in the early 1980s there was already a vibrant graffiti culture.

 

The student protests and general strike of May 1968 saw Paris bedecked in revolutionary, anarchistic, and situationist slogans such as L'ennui est contre-révolutionnaire ("Boredom is counterrevolutionary") and Lisez moins, vivez plus ("Read less, live more"). While not exhaustive, the graffiti gave a sense of the 'millenarian' and rebellious spirit, tempered with a good deal of verbal wit, of the strikers.

 

I think graffiti writing is a way of defining what our generation is like. Excuse the French, we're not a bunch of p---- artists. Traditionally artists have been considered soft and mellow people, a little bit kooky. Maybe we're a little bit more like pirates that way. We defend our territory, whatever space we steal to paint on, we defend it fiercely.

 

The developments of graffiti art which took place in art galleries and colleges as well as "on the street" or "underground", contributed to the resurfacing in the 1990s of a far more overtly politicized art form in the subvertising, culture jamming, or tactical media movements. These movements or styles tend to classify the artists by their relationship to their social and economic contexts, since, in most countries, graffiti art remains illegal in many forms except when using non-permanent paint. Since the 1990s with the rise of Street Art, a growing number of artists are switching to non-permanent paints and non-traditional forms of painting.

 

Contemporary practitioners, accordingly, have varied and often conflicting practices. Some individuals, such as Alexander Brener, have used the medium to politicize other art forms, and have used the prison sentences enforced on them as a means of further protest. The practices of anonymous groups and individuals also vary widely, and practitioners by no means always agree with each other's practices. For example, the anti-capitalist art group the Space Hijackers did a piece in 2004 about the contradiction between the capitalistic elements of Banksy and his use of political imagery.

 

Berlin human rights activist Irmela Mensah-Schramm has received global media attention and numerous awards for her 35-year campaign of effacing neo-Nazi and other right-wing extremist graffiti throughout Germany, often by altering hate speech in humorous ways.

 

In Serbian capital, Belgrade, the graffiti depicting a uniformed former general of Serb army and war criminal, convicted at ICTY for war crimes and crimes against humanity, including genocide and ethnic cleansing in Bosnian War, Ratko Mladić, appeared in a military salute alongside the words "General, thank to your mother". Aleks Eror, Berlin-based journalist, explains how "veneration of historical and wartime figures" through street art is not a new phenomenon in the region of former Yugoslavia, and that "in most cases is firmly focused on the future, rather than retelling the past". Eror is not only analyst pointing to danger of such an expressions for the region's future. In a long expose on the subject of Bosnian genocide denial, at Balkan Diskurs magazine and multimedia platform website, Kristina Gadže and Taylor Whitsell referred to these experiences as a young generations' "cultural heritage", in which young are being exposed to celebration and affirmation of war-criminals as part of their "formal education" and "inheritance".

 

There are numerous examples of genocide denial through celebration and affirmation of war criminals throughout the region of Western Balkans inhabited by Serbs using this form of artistic expression. Several more of these graffiti are found in Serbian capital, and many more across Serbia and Bosnian and Herzegovinian administrative entity, Republika Srpska, which is the ethnic Serbian majority enclave. Critics point that Serbia as a state, is willing to defend the mural of convicted war criminal, and have no intention to react on cases of genocide denial, noting that Interior Minister of Serbia, Aleksandar Vulin decision to ban any gathering with an intent to remove the mural, with the deployment of riot police, sends the message of "tacit endorsement". Consequently, on 9 November 2021, Serbian heavy police in riot gear, with graffiti creators and their supporters, blocked the access to the mural to prevent human rights groups and other activists to paint over it and mark the International Day Against Fascism and Antisemitism in that way, and even arrested two civic activist for throwing eggs at the graffiti.

 

Graffiti may also be used as an offensive expression. This form of graffiti may be difficult to identify, as it is mostly removed by the local authority (as councils which have adopted strategies of criminalization also strive to remove graffiti quickly). Therefore, existing racist graffiti is mostly more subtle and at first sight, not easily recognized as "racist". It can then be understood only if one knows the relevant "local code" (social, historical, political, temporal, and spatial), which is seen as heteroglot and thus a 'unique set of conditions' in a cultural context.

 

A spatial code for example, could be that there is a certain youth group in an area that is engaging heavily in racist activities. So, for residents (knowing the local code), a graffiti containing only the name or abbreviation of this gang already is a racist expression, reminding the offended people of their gang activities. Also a graffiti is in most cases, the herald of more serious criminal activity to come. A person who does not know these gang activities would not be able to recognize the meaning of this graffiti. Also if a tag of this youth group or gang is placed on a building occupied by asylum seekers, for example, its racist character is even stronger.

By making the graffiti less explicit (as adapted to social and legal constraints), these drawings are less likely to be removed, but do not lose their threatening and offensive character.

 

Elsewhere, activists in Russia have used painted caricatures of local officials with their mouths as potholes, to show their anger about the poor state of the roads. In Manchester, England, a graffitists painted obscene images around potholes, which often resulted in them being repaired within 48 hours.

 

In the early 1980s, the first art galleries to show graffitists to the public were Fashion Moda in the Bronx, Now Gallery and Fun Gallery, both in the East Village, Manhattan.

 

A 2006 exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum displayed graffiti as an art form that began in New York's outer boroughs and reached great heights in the early 1980s with the work of Crash, Lee, Daze, Keith Haring, and Jean-Michel Basquiat. It displayed 22 works by New York graffitists, including Crash, Daze, and Lady Pink. In an article about the exhibition in the magazine Time Out, curator Charlotta Kotik said that she hoped the exhibition would cause viewers to rethink their assumptions about graffiti.

 

From the 1970s onwards, Burhan Doğançay photographed urban walls all over the world; these he then archived for use as sources of inspiration for his painterly works. The project today known as "Walls of the World" grew beyond even his own expectations and comprises about 30,000 individual images. It spans a period of 40 years across five continents and 114 countries. In 1982, photographs from this project comprised a one-man exhibition titled "Les murs murmurent, ils crient, ils chantent ..." (The walls whisper, shout and sing ...) at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris.

 

In Australia, art historians have judged some local graffiti of sufficient creative merit to rank them firmly within the arts. Oxford University Press's art history text Australian Painting 1788–2000 concludes with a long discussion of graffiti's key place within contemporary visual culture, including the work of several Australian practitioners.

 

Between March and April 2009, 150 artists exhibited 300 pieces of graffiti at the Grand Palais in Paris.

 

Spray paint has many negative environmental effects. The paint contains toxic chemicals, and the can uses volatile hydrocarbon gases to spray the paint onto a surface.

 

Volatile organic compound (VOC) leads to ground level ozone formation and most of graffiti related emissions are VOCs. A 2010 paper estimates 4,862 tons of VOCs were released in the United States in activities related to graffiti.

  

In China, Mao Zedong in the 1920s used revolutionary slogans and paintings in public places to galvanize the country's communist movement.

 

Based on different national conditions, many people believe that China's attitude towards Graffiti is fierce, but in fact, according to Lance Crayon in his film Spray Paint Beijing: Graffiti in the Capital of China, Graffiti is generally accepted in Beijing, with artists not seeing much police interference. Political and religiously sensitive graffiti, however, is not allowed.

 

In Hong Kong, Tsang Tsou Choi was known as the King of Kowloon for his calligraphy graffiti over many years, in which he claimed ownership of the area. Now some of his work is preserved officially.

 

In Taiwan, the government has made some concessions to graffitists. Since 2005 they have been allowed to freely display their work along some sections of riverside retaining walls in designated "Graffiti Zones". From 2007, Taipei's department of cultural affairs also began permitting graffiti on fences around major public construction sites. Department head Yong-ping Lee (李永萍) stated, "We will promote graffiti starting with the public sector, and then later in the private sector too. It's our goal to beautify the city with graffiti". The government later helped organize a graffiti contest in Ximending, a popular shopping district. graffitists caught working outside of these designated areas still face fines up to NT$6,000 under a department of environmental protection regulation. However, Taiwanese authorities can be relatively lenient, one veteran police officer stating anonymously, "Unless someone complains about vandalism, we won't get involved. We don't go after it proactively."

 

In 1993, after several expensive cars in Singapore were spray-painted, the police arrested a student from the Singapore American School, Michael P. Fay, questioned him, and subsequently charged him with vandalism. Fay pleaded guilty to vandalizing a car in addition to stealing road signs. Under the 1966 Vandalism Act of Singapore, originally passed to curb the spread of communist graffiti in Singapore, the court sentenced him to four months in jail, a fine of S$3,500 (US$2,233), and a caning. The New York Times ran several editorials and op-eds that condemned the punishment and called on the American public to flood the Singaporean embassy with protests. Although the Singapore government received many calls for clemency, Fay's caning took place in Singapore on 5 May 1994. Fay had originally received a sentence of six strokes of the cane, but the presiding president of Singapore, Ong Teng Cheong, agreed to reduce his caning sentence to four lashes.

 

In South Korea, Park Jung-soo was fined two million South Korean won by the Seoul Central District Court for spray-painting a rat on posters of the G-20 Summit a few days before the event in November 2011. Park alleged that the initial in "G-20" sounds like the Korean word for "rat", but Korean government prosecutors alleged that Park was making a derogatory statement about the president of South Korea, Lee Myung-bak, the host of the summit. This case led to public outcry and debate on the lack of government tolerance and in support of freedom of expression. The court ruled that the painting, "an ominous creature like a rat" amounts to "an organized criminal activity" and upheld the fine while denying the prosecution's request for imprisonment for Park.

 

In Europe, community cleaning squads have responded to graffiti, in some cases with reckless abandon, as when in 1992 in France a local Scout group, attempting to remove modern graffiti, damaged two prehistoric paintings of bison in the Cave of Mayrière supérieure near the French village of Bruniquel in Tarn-et-Garonne, earning them the 1992 Ig Nobel Prize in archeology.

 

In September 2006, the European Parliament directed the European Commission to create urban environment policies to prevent and eliminate dirt, litter, graffiti, animal excrement, and excessive noise from domestic and vehicular music systems in European cities, along with other concerns over urban life.

 

In Budapest, Hungary, both a city-backed movement called I Love Budapest and a special police division tackle the problem, including the provision of approved areas.

 

The Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003 became Britain's latest anti-graffiti legislation. In August 2004, the Keep Britain Tidy campaign issued a press release calling for zero tolerance of graffiti and supporting proposals such as issuing "on the spot" fines to graffiti offenders and banning the sale of aerosol paint to anyone under the age of 16. The press release also condemned the use of graffiti images in advertising and in music videos, arguing that real-world experience of graffiti stood far removed from its often-portrayed "cool" or "edgy'" image.

 

To back the campaign, 123 Members of Parliament (MPs) (including then Prime Minister Tony Blair), signed a charter which stated: "Graffiti is not art, it's crime. On behalf of my constituents, I will do all I can to rid our community of this problem."

 

In the UK, city councils have the power to take action against the owner of any property that has been defaced under the Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003 (as amended by the Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Act 2005) or, in certain cases, the Highways Act. This is often used against owners of property that are complacent in allowing protective boards to be defaced so long as the property is not damaged.

 

In July 2008, a conspiracy charge was used to convict graffitists for the first time. After a three-month police surveillance operation, nine members of the DPM crew were convicted of conspiracy to commit criminal damage costing at least £1 million. Five of them received prison sentences, ranging from eighteen months to two years. The unprecedented scale of the investigation and the severity of the sentences rekindled public debate over whether graffiti should be considered art or crime.

 

Some councils, like those of Stroud and Loerrach, provide approved areas in the town where graffitists can showcase their talents, including underpasses, car parks, and walls that might otherwise prove a target for the "spray and run".

 

Graffiti Tunnel, University of Sydney at Camperdown (2009)

In an effort to reduce vandalism, many cities in Australia have designated walls or areas exclusively for use by graffitists. One early example is the "Graffiti Tunnel" located at the Camperdown Campus of the University of Sydney, which is available for use by any student at the university to tag, advertise, poster, and paint. Advocates of this idea suggest that this discourages petty vandalism yet encourages artists to take their time and produce great art, without worry of being caught or arrested for vandalism or trespassing.[108][109] Others disagree with this approach, arguing that the presence of legal graffiti walls does not demonstrably reduce illegal graffiti elsewhere. Some local government areas throughout Australia have introduced "anti-graffiti squads", who clean graffiti in the area, and such crews as BCW (Buffers Can't Win) have taken steps to keep one step ahead of local graffiti cleaners.

 

Many state governments have banned the sale or possession of spray paint to those under the age of 18 (age of majority). However, a number of local governments in Victoria have taken steps to recognize the cultural heritage value of some examples of graffiti, such as prominent political graffiti. Tough new graffiti laws have been introduced in Australia with fines of up to A$26,000 and two years in prison.

 

Melbourne is a prominent graffiti city of Australia with many of its lanes being tourist attractions, such as Hosier Lane in particular, a popular destination for photographers, wedding photography, and backdrops for corporate print advertising. The Lonely Planet travel guide cites Melbourne's street as a major attraction. All forms of graffiti, including sticker art, poster, stencil art, and wheatpasting, can be found in many places throughout the city. Prominent street art precincts include; Fitzroy, Collingwood, Northcote, Brunswick, St. Kilda, and the CBD, where stencil and sticker art is prominent. As one moves farther away from the city, mostly along suburban train lines, graffiti tags become more prominent. Many international artists such as Banksy have left their work in Melbourne and in early 2008 a perspex screen was installed to prevent a Banksy stencil art piece from being destroyed, it has survived since 2003 through the respect of local street artists avoiding posting over it, although it has recently had paint tipped over it.

 

In February 2008 Helen Clark, the New Zealand prime minister at that time, announced a government crackdown on tagging and other forms of graffiti vandalism, describing it as a destructive crime representing an invasion of public and private property. New legislation subsequently adopted included a ban on the sale of paint spray cans to persons under 18 and increases in maximum fines for the offence from NZ$200 to NZ$2,000 or extended community service. The issue of tagging become a widely debated one following an incident in Auckland during January 2008 in which a middle-aged property owner stabbed one of two teenage taggers to death and was subsequently convicted of manslaughter.

 

Graffiti databases have increased in the past decade because they allow vandalism incidents to be fully documented against an offender and help the police and prosecution charge and prosecute offenders for multiple counts of vandalism. They also provide law enforcement the ability to rapidly search for an offender's moniker or tag in a simple, effective, and comprehensive way. These systems can also help track costs of damage to a city to help allocate an anti-graffiti budget. The theory is that when an offender is caught putting up graffiti, they are not just charged with one count of vandalism; they can be held accountable for all the other damage for which they are responsible. This has two main benefits for law enforcement. One, it sends a signal to the offenders that their vandalism is being tracked. Two, a city can seek restitution from offenders for all the damage that they have committed, not merely a single incident. These systems give law enforcement personnel real-time, street-level intelligence that allows them not only to focus on the worst graffiti offenders and their damage, but also to monitor potential gang violence that is associated with the graffiti.

 

Many restrictions of civil gang injunctions are designed to help address and protect the physical environment and limit graffiti. Provisions of gang injunctions include things such as restricting the possession of marker pens, spray paint cans, or other sharp objects capable of defacing private or public property; spray painting, or marking with marker pens, scratching, applying stickers, or otherwise applying graffiti on any public or private property, including, but not limited to the street, alley, residences, block walls, and fences, vehicles or any other real or personal property. Some injunctions contain wording that restricts damaging or vandalizing both public and private property, including but not limited to any vehicle, light fixture, door, fence, wall, gate, window, building, street sign, utility box, telephone box, tree, or power pole.

 

To help address many of these issues, many local jurisdictions have set up graffiti abatement hotlines, where citizens can call in and report vandalism and have it removed. San Diego's hotline receives more than 5,000 calls per year, in addition to reporting the graffiti, callers can learn more about prevention. One of the complaints about these hotlines is the response time; there is often a lag time between a property owner calling about the graffiti and its removal. The length of delay should be a consideration for any jurisdiction planning on operating a hotline. Local jurisdictions must convince the callers that their complaint of vandalism will be a priority and cleaned off right away. If the jurisdiction does not have the resources to respond to complaints in a timely manner, the value of the hotline diminishes. Crews must be able to respond to individual service calls made to the graffiti hotline as well as focus on cleanup near schools, parks, and major intersections and transit routes to have the biggest impact. Some cities offer a reward for information leading to the arrest and prosecution of suspects for tagging or graffiti related vandalism. The amount of the reward is based on the information provided, and the action taken.

 

When police obtain search warrants in connection with a vandalism investigation, they are often seeking judicial approval to look for items such as cans of spray paint and nozzles from other kinds of aerosol sprays; etching tools, or other sharp or pointed objects, which could be used to etch or scratch glass and other hard surfaces; permanent marking pens, markers, or paint sticks; evidence of membership or affiliation with any gang or tagging crew; paraphernalia including any reference to "(tagger's name)"; any drawings, writing, objects, or graffiti depicting taggers' names, initials, logos, monikers, slogans, or any mention of tagging crew membership; and any newspaper clippings relating to graffiti crime.

AltaRock Energy is working on a project involving new technology, techniques, and advanced monitoring protocols for the purpose of testing the feasibility and viability of enhanced geothermal systems for renewable energy production.

The project area is 22 miles south of Bend, Oregon, within the Bend-Fort Rock Ranger District of the Deschutes National Forest. The entire project is located on National Forest System Lands and would utilize an existing well pad and existing 10,000-ft deep geothermal well on a Federal geothermal lease. This geothermal project will enable the AltaRock Energy to create, test, and demonstrate the Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS) reservoir technology and its potential for electricity generation in areas with underground heat but little or no natural water. The EGS projects produce electricity using heat extracted with engineered fluid flow paths in hot rocks. These pathways are developed by stimulating them with cold water injected into a well at a relatively high pressure.

Development and testing of the EGS will involve several components, including the development of an underground reservoir, one “stimulation” well to help create the reservoir and transport water to it, two production wells to transport heated water out of the reservoir, and an array of up to 20 surface and “down-hole” seismic monitoring devices.

Eleven of the monitoring sites are on Federal geothermal leases administered by the BLM, and nine are on lands that are administered by the U.S. Forest Service, including one surface micro-seismic monitoring station and a motion sensor installed in the Newberry National Monument.

The United States leads the world in electricity generation with geothermal power. The U.S. Energy Information Administration reported that in 2012, U.S geothermal power plants produced about 17 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh), or 0.4% of total U.S. electricity generation. Six states had geothermal power plants: California had 36 plants producing about 80% of the Nation's geothermal-produced electricity; Nevada had 21 plants producing about 16% of the Nation's geothermal-produced electricity; Utah had two plants; and Hawaii, Idaho, and Oregon each had one plant. Geothermal energy is also used directly for space and water heating applications.

The Geothermal Steam Act of 1970, as amended (84 Stat, 1566; 30 U.S.C. 1001-1025), provides the Secretary of the Interior with the authority to lease public lands (245 million acres) and other federal lands, including National Forest lands (193 million acres), for geothermal exploration and development in an environmentally sound manner. This authority has been delegated to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM).

Leases are required to explore for or develop geothermal resources on public lands. Leasing requirements are described in the 43 CFR 3200 Geothermal Leasing Regulations.

As of June 5, 2013 there were 78 federal geothermal leases encompassing 102,484 acres in Oregon, a 2% acreage decrease since May 2012, and four leases encompassing 8,436 acres in Washington representing no change over the same period. There have also been 15 parcels nominated for leasing, 6 in Oregon (11,452 acres) and 9 in Washington (35,480 acres). Three of these are on BLM land; the remaining 12 are on U.S. Forest Service (USFS) land.

  

Specific project and location information for OR/WA can be found at this website: www.blm.gov/or/energy.

 

Photo: Michael Campbell, BLM.

At Llancaiach Fawr Manor near Nelson in Caerphilly, South Wales.

  

A house set in the time period of 1645 during the English Civil War.

 

There was actors inside the house as servants, who know nothing of what happens after 1645 (was supposed to be before Charles I visited the house - time period wise).

  

You first enter via a visitor centre. After you pay, they give you a guide book, and a note that you have to get stamped when you enter the manor.

  

Outside the manor. There is a formal garden at the front, and an orchard at the back.

  

The manor is Grade I listed.

 

Llancaiach-fawr, Gelligaer

 

Location

Close to the W community boundary which follows Nant Caeach, a short distance NE of Nelson and reached by a short track from the main road. Fronts a re-created formal garden, the surrounding walls incorporating stone benches.

 

History

Built early C16 for the Prichard (ap Richard) family and mentioned in Leyland's Itinerary of 1537. First Lord of Manor and Under Sherriff in 1549 was David ap Richard. Alteration in 1628 by his grandson, David Prichard, provided the rear staircase wing, the panelling of the first floor chambers and alterations to some windows, involving the introduction of the rectangular transom and mullion windows. The family were involved in recurrent feuds between Glamorgan noblemen including the Lewis family with whom they had marriage connections. Colonel Edward Prichard (d 1655) played an important role in the Civil War, originally a Royalist - Charles I is reputed to have lunched at Llancaiach in 1645 - he subsequently became a supporter of the Parliamentarians, becoming Governor of Cardiff Castle and playing a significant role in the Battle of St Fagans. Lack of male descendants led to property passing out of family and functioning as a farmhouse when second floor was used for storage. Purchased by Rhymney Valley District Council in 1979 and restored as a visitor attraction which particularly interprets the Civil War. A resistivity survey established the plan for the formal walled gardens which have been recreated to front; to rear was an orchard shown on the Tithe Map of 1842 and the OS map of 1875. A water colour of the building as a farmhouse shows it rendered.

 

Interior

Interior is characterised by the multitude of staircases which, apart from the later large timber staircase to rear, are incorporated within the walls, thus providing a network of escape routes to an outwardly undefended building. Traditionally the number of staircases was said to equal the number of rooms - fourteen, of which nine staircases remain after periods of remodelling. Walls are mostly lime plastered and limewashed, mostly white though with some renewed colour and fragmentary traces of former colour. Ceiling beams are large and chamfered, some stopped, some supported by corbels, some heavily keyed, some limewashed. Most doorways have heavy double thickness doors comprised of vertical planks to front and horizontal to rear, some retaining their massive iron bolts; barricade holes in the walls behind show where they could be reinforced by bars; doorways are mainly Tudor-arched and chamfered, of stone or wood. Windows have deep splays and the main windows to each room incorporate stone seats; only one of the quarry glazed window panels opens, in Colonel Prichard's study, the westernmost room on second floor. Spiral metal fire escape installed in rear wing at time of modern restoration.

 

Ground floor is entered through porch with flag floor, stone benches, ceiling, door with vertical fillets and hinges across the whole width. Entrance hall has flag floor, a four-centred ceiling arch, two cupboard recesses in gable end wall, access to main timber staircase left and rear mural stairs to rear; partition opening and doorway to kitchen right. Kitchen has fireplace with wide wooden lintel and bake ovens; under rear window is a stone waste sluice. Servants' Hall access is through a lobby beside the chimney incorporating front mural stairs, the fireplaces back to back. Servants' Hall fireplace has timber lintel and chamfered jambs; wall recess, flag floor; windows to 2 elevations; steps up to store doorway in the rear wing, further mural steps and blocked steps adjacent. Stairs to vaulted cellar.

 

From entrance hall quarter-turn stone steps with twisted wooden balusters, moulded rails and newel posts rise to first floor landing which extends across the W end of house; a 4-centred arch, part of the C17 remodelling, frames the staircase to next floor. Great Hall is entered through a wide doorway, with original door, studded, 2 boards wide and with long strap hinges terminating in fleur de lys; mural stairs to front and 2 to rear; dais for high table is lit by large windows to front and rear; it backs onto the central chimney breast but there are now no first floor openings to this and the stone Tudor-arched fireplace, with moulded jambs and shallow bracketed mantelpiece, and painted blue with woad, is against the rear wall. Narrow doorway at front to room over porch, used as Stewards' Room, with windows on 3 sides, garderobe, 2 mural staircases, small fireplace with large Tudor-arched stone lintel. Lobby adjacent to dais corresponding with that on ground floor, doors at each end, leads to parlour. This has small-square panelling with a linenfold-type frieze; depressed-arched chamfered stone fireplace in rear wall is flanked by staircases either side with matching panelled doors, one mural, one leading to rear bed chamber and one to former mural staircase. This is also panelled with fluted frieze and billet-moulded cornice; former access to privy.

 

Main stairs to second floor retain some original balusters, rail and newel post. Corridor runs along rear elevation with timber-framed lath and plaster partition to the main two interconnecting rooms to front; square headed wooden doorways with moulded surrounds. In rear wing is a further chamber with garderobe off lit by tiny windows. At top of stairs is a later partitioned windowless cheese room fronted by matching balusters with stone chute adjacent; over the porch is the steward's upper apartment, access to roof space which has arch-braced trusses and 2 rows of trenched purlins; end room, described as counting house, has stairs flanked by low walls rising in the centre of floor and fireplace in gable end wall with depressed Tudor arch and moulded jambs; at rear a small opening to roof and pigeon loft over stairs.

 

Exterior

Semi-fortified gentry house. Main range aligned roughly E/W with front porch wing and two rear wings, at W an added staircase wing, at E a contemporary wing with attached garderobe shaft. Three storeys and attic to main house and wings, with first floor hall; vaulted cellar beneath rear wing. Stone rubble walls mostly in narrow courses with ashlar dressings, quoins, rendered W and SW elevations. Windows are of one-, two-, three- or four-lights, some with 4-centred heads and moulded spandrels, some ornamented, some square headed, most with square low hoodmoulds, with chamfered surrounds and moulded mullions, and under wide relieving arches, no sills; transom and mullion windows represent the C17 remodelling; leaded glazing is a mid C20 replacement. C20 Cotswold tile roof; rectangular stone stacks to main roof with caps at centre right ridge and on either side of ridge of NE rear wing; smaller stack at gable end left. Gables have stone coping, moulded apex stones and kneelers. Main house and wings are battered.

 

S entrance elevation of five bays. Gabled full-height porch wing in second bay from SW has gable end and lateral stacks, small Tudor-arched apex light; 2-light first floor square-headed mullioned window; ground floor Tudor-arched doorway, chamfered and stopped; small side lights and larger rectangular window to first floor. Bay to left of porch is rendered, with small light to second floor and larger to first floor. To right of porch extends the main 2-window range over 3 floors separated by small lobby lights. At left the windows are square headed: 3-light second floor window close under eaves; large first floor window to hall of 4 transom and mullion lights; ground floor window of 2-lights. To right the lights are narrow with 4-centred heads: small 2-light window close under eaves; large first floor 4-light window to parlour; similar smaller 3-light ground floor window - some replaced masonry. W gable end elevation has small lights to the upper floor and a 2-light window to ground floor.

 

Rear elevation is asymmetrical. Cross wing to right has roof extending lower to right (W), and incorporates two groups of 3 dove nesting holes and ledges; two 3-light windows under shallow hoods, the higher under a relieving arch. Centre 3-storey bay is recessed though stepped out at each side, the left accommodating a gabled garderobe chute corbelled out at eaves and with small lights, the right the flue to the hall chimney. Centre single window range with 4-light square-headed window with arched lights close under eaves, larger 4-light window with arched heads under a hood and relieving arch to first floor with small light adjacent; ground floor has small rectangular chamfered light. Wide more deeply projecting 4-storey cross wing to left also has an asymmetrical gable, though less pronounced; kneelers and quoins; single window to each upper storey all with 4-centred arched lights: single light with hood to attic, paired lights with hood, flat relieving arch, moulded spandrels to second floor; similar triple light window to first floor; cellar access at ground floor with steps down.

 

E elevation of 4 storeys has again an asymmetrical gable with single window range to left though flush with single window range to right; ridge stacks. Similar arched lights under hoods: single light to attic left; second floor has paired lights to left and right and small adjacent stair light; first floor has similar 4- and 3-light windows with adjacent stair light, the former matching that on the front S elevation which both light the main parlour; ground floor has similar 3-light window to left, and small rectangular window to right without a relieving arch.

 

Frontage gives onto a walled garden, parts of the E and S walls and the wall adjacent to the front path dating from before the C20 refurbishment, though with substantial sections rebuilt or raised.

 

Reason for Listing

Listed grade I as an outstanding manor house, especially interesting for its internal defensive arrangements, well repaired, conserved and presented.

 

References

Newman J, Glamorgan, Buildings of Wales series, 1995, pp 353-8;

RCAHMW, Glamorgan, The Greater Houses, 1981, pp115-126;

Llancaiach Fawr Manor, guidebook, nd;

Gelligaer Tithe Map 1842;

Ordnance Survey, First edition,scale 1:2500, 1875.

  

This text is a legacy record and has not been updated since the building was originally listed. Details of the building may have changed in the intervening time. You should not rely on this listing as an accurate description of the building.

Notes:

 

Close to the W community boundary which follows Nant Caeach, a short distance NE of Nelson and reached by a short track from the main road. Fronts a re-created formal garden, the surrounding walls inc

  

Source: Cadw

 

Listed building text is © Crown Copyright. Reproduced under licence.

  

Formal gardens

 

The Knot Garden or Parterre in front of the manor is designed to mirror the pattern of the curtain in the Great Hall (taken from an original Tudor design).

Durham Museum (formerly Durham Museum and Heritage Centre) is a museum in Durham, England. It details the history of the City of Durham from medieval times to the present day. The museum is located in the redundant church of St Mary-le-Bow, close to the World Heritage Site of Durham Cathedral and Durham Castle. It is bounded on the north and east by Hatfield College; on the south by Bow Lane, and the west by North Bailey. The Museum is mainly run by volunteers.

 

The museum contains a variety of objects, models, pictures and audio-visual displays. These exhibitions provide the visitor with an overview of life, labour and leisure in this ancient fortified city, centre of pilgrimage and capital of the Prince Bishops of Durham.

 

Many of the museum's displays involve the industry and trade that Durham is known for, including the manufacture of organs, which still continues. As well as these permanent displays, there are also periodic exhibitions and events that highlight the lesser known aspects of Durham's social history. The museum also features a centre for making brass rubbings as well as a souvenir shop.

 

History

The church was rebuilt in the 1670s to replace a church on the same site which collapsed in 1632, incorporating earlier material. The church is a reconstruction of an older building, so it contains elements from different dates. The roof is fifteenth-century and the panelling is eighteenth-century. During the middle ages, an arch connected the tower to the fortifications, which created a 'bow'. However, this later collapsed in 1635. The building lay in ruins until 1685, although efforts were made to preserve the building by the parishioners. The rebuilding only began thanks to the help from the Bishop of Durham, as well as the Dean and Chapter of Durham Cathedral. The present tower dates from 1702, and now contains a bell cast by Dalton of York in 1759. The church boasts intricate wood carvings. The altar rails and wood screen are very historic, dating from 1705 and 1707 respectively. In 1731, the wainscoting was installed. Ten years later, in 1741, the west gallery and vestry were built. However, after a closure in 1968, many of the fittings were removed. Although much of the building has origins from medieval times, much of the present building is from the seventeenth century.

 

The church closed in 1968, and the museum opened in 1972.

 

The Bow Trust

Established in 1975, the Bow Trust (Durham) Limited is a registered charity (number 513865). The charity was created to maintain the now redundant church of St Mary-Le-Bow, with the goal of turning it into a centre for upholding the history and culture of both the city and county Durham. This culminated in the establishment of Durham Museum which the trust continues to run in the old church building.

 

Sculptures by Fenwick Lawson

Fenwick Lawson is a local sculptor who has contributed three works of art to Durham Museum, the first being 'Cuthbert of Farne' which he sculpted in 1984 and donated to the museum in 2004. (A bronze cast of this is on display at Lindisfarne abbey.) Gaia (1984), named after the goddess, was presented to the museum in 2011. His latest donation to the museum depicts the biblical story of Jacob wrestling with an angel.

 

Durham is a cathedral city and civil parish in the county of Durham, England. It is the county town and contains the headquarters of Durham County Council, the unitary authority which governs the district of County Durham. It had a population of 48,069 at the 2011 Census.

 

The city was built on a meander of the River Wear, which surrounds the centre on three sides and creates a narrow neck on the fourth. The surrounding land is hilly, except along the Wear's floodplain to the north and southeast.

 

Durham was founded in 995 by Anglo-Saxon monks seeking a place safe from Viking raids to house the relics of St Cuthbert. The church the monks built lasted only a century, as it was replaced by the present Durham Cathedral after the Norman Conquest; together with Durham Castle it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. From the 1070s until 1836 the city was part of the County Palatine of Durham, a semi-independent jurisdiction ruled by the prince bishops of Durham which acted as a geopolitical buffer between the kingdoms of England and Scotland. In 1346, the Battle of Neville's Cross was fought half a mile west of the city, resulting in an English victory. In 1650, the cathedral was used to house Scottish prisoners after their defeat at the Battle of Dunbar. During the Industrial Revolution, the Durham coalfield was heavily exploited, with dozens of collieries operating around the city and in nearby villages. Although these coal pits have now closed, the annual Durham Miners' Gala continues and is a major event for the city and region. Historically, Durham was also known for the manufacture of hosiery, carpets, and mustard.

 

The city is the home of Durham University, which was founded in 1832 and therefore has a claim to be the third-oldest university in England. The university is a significant employer in the region, alongside the local council and national government at the land registry and passport office. The University Hospital of North Durham and HM Prison Durham are also located close to the city centre. The city also has significant tourism and hospitality sectors.

 

Toponymy

The name "Durham" comes from the Brythonic element dun, signifying a hill fort and related to -ton, and the Old Norse holme, which translates to island. The Lord Bishop of Durham takes a Latin variation of the city's name in his official signature, which is signed "N. Dunelm". Some attribute the city's name to the legend of the Dun Cow and the milkmaid who in legend guided the monks of Lindisfarne carrying the body of Saint Cuthbert to the site of the present city in 995 AD. Dun Cow Lane is said to be one of the first streets in Durham, being directly to the east of Durham Cathedral and taking its name from a depiction of the city's founding etched in masonry on the south side of the cathedral. The city has been known by a number of names throughout history. The original Nordic Dun Holm was changed to Duresme by the Normans and was known in Latin as Dunelm. The modern form Durham came into use later in the city's history. The north-eastern historian Robert Surtees chronicled the name changes in his History and Antiquities of the County Palatine of Durham but states that it is an "impossibility" to tell when the city's modern name came into being.

 

Durham is likely to be Gaer Weir in Armes Prydein, derived from Brittonic cajr meaning "an enclosed, defensible site" (cf. Carlisle; Welsh caer) and the river-name Wear.

 

History

Early history

Archeological evidence suggests a history of settlement in the area since roughly 2000 BC. The present city can clearly be traced back to AD 995, when a group of monks from Lindisfarne chose the strategic high peninsula as a place to settle with the body of Saint Cuthbert, that had previously lain in Chester-le-Street, founding a church there.

 

City origins, the Dun Cow story

Local legend states that the city was founded in A.D. 995 by divine intervention. The 12th-century chronicler Symeon of Durham recounts that after wandering in the north, Saint Cuthbert's bier miraculously came to a halt at the hill of Warden Law and, despite the effort of the congregation, would not move. Aldhun, Bishop of Chester-le-Street and leader of the order, decreed a holy fast of three days, accompanied by prayers to the saint. During the fast, Saint Cuthbert appeared to a certain monk named Eadmer, with instructions that the coffin should be taken to Dun Holm. After Eadmer's revelation, Aldhun found that he was able to move the bier, but did not know where Dun Holm was.

 

The legend of the Dun Cow, which is first documented in The Rites of Durham, an anonymous account about Durham Cathedral, published in 1593, builds on Symeon's account. According to this legend, by chance later that day, the monks came across a milkmaid at Mount Joy (southeast of present-day Durham). She stated that she was seeking her lost dun cow, which she had last seen at Dun Holm. The monks, realising that this was a sign from the saint, followed her. They settled at a wooded "hill-island" – a high wooded rock surrounded on three sides by the River Wear. There they erected a shelter for the relics, on the spot where Durham Cathedral would later stand. Symeon states that a modest wooden building erected there shortly thereafter was the first building in the city. Bishop Aldhun subsequently had a stone church built, which was dedicated in September 998. This no longer remains, having been supplanted by the Norman structure.

 

The legend is interpreted by a Victorian relief stone carving on the north face of the cathedral and, more recently, by the bronze sculpture 'Durham Cow' (1997, Andrew Burton), which reclines by the River Wear in view of the cathedral.

 

Medieval era

During the medieval period the city gained spiritual prominence as the final resting place of Saint Cuthbert and Saint Bede the Venerable. The shrine of Saint Cuthbert, situated behind the High Altar of Durham Cathedral, was the most important religious site in England until the martyrdom of St Thomas Becket at Canterbury in 1170.

 

Saint Cuthbert became famous for two reasons. Firstly, the miraculous healing powers he had displayed in life continued after his death, with many stories of those visiting the saint's shrine being cured of all manner of diseases. This led to him being known as the "wonder worker of England". Secondly, after the first translation of his relics in 698 AD, his body was found to be incorruptible. Apart from a brief translation back to Holy Island during the Norman Invasion the saint's relics have remained enshrined to the present day. Saint Bede's bones are also entombed in the cathedral, and these also drew medieval pilgrims to the city.

 

Durham's geographical position has always given it an important place in the defence of England against the Scots. The city played an important part in the defence of the north, and Durham Castle is the only Norman castle keep never to have suffered a breach. In 1314, the Bishopric of Durham paid the Scots a 'large sum of money' not to burn Durham. The Battle of Neville's Cross took place around half a mile west of the city on 17 October 1346 between the English and Scots and was a disastrous loss for the Scots.

 

The city suffered from plague outbreaks in 1544, 1589 and 1598.

 

Bishops of Durham

Owing to the divine providence evidenced in the city's legendary founding, the Bishop of Durham has always enjoyed the formal title "Bishop by Divine Providence" as opposed to other bishops, who are "Bishop by Divine Permission". However, as the north-east of England lay so far from Westminster, the bishops of Durham enjoyed extraordinary powers such as the ability to hold their own parliament, raise their own armies, appoint their own sheriffs and Justices, administer their own laws, levy taxes and customs duties, create fairs and markets, issue charters, salvage shipwrecks, collect revenue from mines, administer the forests and mint their own coins. So far-reaching were the bishop's powers that the steward of Bishop Antony Bek commented in 1299 AD: "There are two kings in England, namely the Lord King of England, wearing a crown in sign of his regality and the Lord Bishop of Durham wearing a mitre in place of a crown, in sign of his regality in the diocese of Durham". All this activity was administered from the castle and buildings surrounding the Palace Green. Many of the original buildings associated with these functions of the county palatine survive on the peninsula that constitutes the ancient city.

 

From 1071 to 1836 the bishops of Durham ruled the county palatine of Durham. Although the term "prince bishop" has been used as a helpful tool in the understanding the functions of the bishops of Durham in this era, it is not a title they would have recognised. The last bishop to rule the palatinate, Bishop William Van Mildert, is credited with the foundation of Durham University in 1832. Henry VIII curtailed some of the bishop's powers and, in 1538, ordered the destruction of the shrine of Saint Cuthbert.

 

A UNESCO site describes the role of the bishops in the "buffer state between England and Scotland":

 

From 1075, the Bishop of Durham became a Prince-Bishop, with the right to raise an army, mint his own coins, and levy taxes. As long as he remained loyal to the king of England, he could govern as a virtually autonomous ruler, reaping the revenue from his territory, but also remaining mindful of his role of protecting England’s northern frontier.

 

Legal system

The bishops had their own court system, including most notably the Court of Chancery of the County Palatine of Durham and Sadberge. The county also had its own attorney general, whose authority to bring an indictment for criminal matters was tested by central government in the case of R v Mary Ann Cotton (1873). Certain courts and judicial posts for the county were abolished by the Supreme Court of Judicature Act 1873. Section 2 of the Durham (County Palatine) Act 1836 and section 41 of the Courts Act 1971 abolished others.

 

Civil War and Cromwell (1640 to 1660)

The city remained loyal to King Charles I in the English Civil War – from 1642 to the execution of the king in 1649. Charles I came to Durham three times during his reign of 1625–1649. Firstly, he came in 1633 to the cathedral for a majestic service in which he was entertained by the Chapter and Bishop at great expense. He returned during preparations for the First Bishops' War (1639). His final visit to the city came towards the end of the civil war; he escaped from the city as Oliver Cromwell's forces got closer. Local legend stated that he escaped down the Bailey and through Old Elvet. Another local legend has it that Cromwell stayed in a room in the present Royal County Hotel on Old Elvet during the civil war. The room is reputed to be haunted by his ghost. Durham suffered greatly during the civil war (1642–1651) and Commonwealth (1649–1660). This was not due to direct assault by Cromwell or his allies, but to the abolition of the Church of England and the closure of religious institutions pertaining to it. The city has always relied upon the Dean and Chapter and cathedral as an economic force.

 

The castle suffered considerable damage and dilapidation during the Commonwealth due to the abolition of the office of bishop (whose residence it was). Cromwell confiscated the castle and sold it to the Lord Mayor of London shortly after taking it from the bishop. A similar fate befell the cathedral, it being closed in 1650 and used to incarcerate 3,000 Scottish prisoners, who were marched south after the Battle of Dunbar. Graffiti left by them can still be seen today etched into the interior stone.

 

At the Restoration in 1660, John Cosin (a former canon) was appointed bishop (in office: 1660–1672) and set about a major restoration project. This included the commissioning of the famous elaborate woodwork in the cathedral choir, the font cover and the Black Staircase in the castle. Bishop Cosin's successor Bishop Lord Nathaniel Crewe (in office: 1674–1721) carried out other renovations both to the city and to the cathedral.

 

18th century

In the 18th century a plan to turn Durham into a seaport through the digging of a canal north to join the River Team, a tributary of the River Tyne near Gateshead, was proposed by John Smeaton. Nothing came of the plan, but the statue of Neptune in the Market Place was a constant reminder of Durham's maritime possibilities.

 

The thought of ships docking at the Sands or Millburngate remained fresh in the minds of Durham merchants. In 1758, a new proposal hoped to make the Wear navigable from Durham to Sunderland by altering the river's course, but the increasing size of ships made this impractical. Moreover, Sunderland had grown as the north east's main port and centre for shipping.

 

In 1787 Durham infirmary was founded.

 

The 18th century also saw the rise of the trade-union movement in the city.

 

19th century

The Municipal Corporations Act 1835 gave governing power of the town to an elected body. All other aspects of the Bishop's temporal powers were abolished by the Durham (County Palatine) Act 1836 and returned to the Crown.

 

The Representation of the People Act 2000 and is regarded as the second most senior bishop and fourth most senior clergyman in the Church of England. The Court of Claims of 1953 granted the traditional right of the bishop to accompany the sovereign at the coronation, reflecting his seniority.

 

The first census, conducted in 1801, states that Durham City had a population of 7,100. The Industrial Revolution mostly passed the city by. However, the city was well known for carpet making and weaving. Although most of the mediaeval weavers who thrived in the city had left by the 19th century, the city was the home of Hugh MacKay Carpets’ factory, which produced the famous brands of axminster and tufted carpets until the factory went into administration in April 2005. Other important industries were the manufacture of mustard and coal extraction.

 

The Industrial Revolution also placed the city at the heart of the coalfields, the county's main industry until the 1970s. Practically every village around the city had a coal mine and, although these have since disappeared as part of the regional decline in heavy industry, the traditions, heritage and community spirit are still evident.

 

The 19th century also saw the founding of Durham University thanks to the benevolence of Bishop William Van Mildert and the Chapter in 1832. Durham Castle became the first college (University College, Durham) and the bishop moved to Auckland Castle as his only residence in the county. Bishop Hatfield's Hall (later Hatfield College, Durham) was added in 1846 specifically for the sons of poorer families, the Principal inaugurating a system new to English university life of advance fees to cover accommodation and communal dining.

 

The first Durham Miners' Gala was attended by 5,000 miners in 1871 in Wharton Park, and remains the largest socialist trade union event in the world.

 

20th century

Early in the 20th century coal became depleted, with a particularly important seam worked out in 1927, and in the following Great Depression Durham was among those towns that suffered exceptionally severe hardship. However, the university expanded greatly. St John's College and St Cuthbert's Society were founded on the Bailey, completing the series of colleges in that area of the city. From the early 1950s to early 1970s the university expanded to the south of the city centre. Trevelyan, Van Mildert, Collingwood, and Grey colleges were established, and new buildings for St Aidan's and St Mary's colleges for women, formerly housed on the Bailey, were created. The final 20th century collegiate addition came from the merger of the independent nineteenth-century colleges of the Venerable Bede and St Hild, which joined the university in 1979 as the College of St Hild and St Bede. The 1960s and 70s also saw building on New Elvet. Dunelm House for the use of the students' union was built first, followed by Elvet Riverside, containing lecture theatres and staff offices. To the southeast of the city centre sports facilities were built at Maiden Castle, adjacent to the Iron Age fort of the same name, and the Mountjoy site was developed, starting in 1924, eventually containing the university library, administrative buildings, and facilities for the Faculty of Science.

 

Durham was not bombed during World War II, though one raid on the night of 30 May 1942 did give rise to the local legend of 'St Cuthbert's Mist'. This states that the Luftwaffe attempted to target Durham, but was thwarted when Cuthbert created a mist that covered both the castle and cathedral, sparing them from bombing. The exact events of the night are disputed by contemporary eyewitnesses. The event continues to be referenced within the city, including inspiring the artwork 'Fogscape #03238' at Durham Lumiere 2015.

 

'Durham Castle and Cathedral' was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1986. Among the reasons given for the decision were 'Durham Cathedral [being] the largest and most perfect monument of "Norman" style architecture in England', and the cathedral's vaulting being an early and experimental model of the gothic style. Other important UNESCO sites near Durham include Auckland Castle, North of England Lead Mining Museum and Beamish Museum.

 

Historical

The historic city centre of Durham has changed little over 200 years. It is made up of the peninsula containing the cathedral, palace green, former administrative buildings for the palatine and Durham Castle. This was a strategic defensive decision by the city's founders and gives the cathedral a striking position. So much so that Symeon of Durham stated:

 

To see Durham is to see the English Sion and by doing so one may save oneself a trip to Jerusalem.

 

Sir Walter Scott was so inspired by the view of the cathedral from South Street that he wrote "Harold the Dauntless", a poem about Saxons and Vikings set in County Durham and published on 30 January 1817. The following lines from the poem are carved into a stone tablet on Prebends Bridge:

 

Grey towers of Durham

Yet well I love thy mixed and massive piles

Half church of God, half castle 'gainst the Scot

And long to roam those venerable aisles

With records stored of deeds long since forgot.

 

The old commercial section of the city encompasses the peninsula on three sides, following the River Wear. The peninsula was historically surrounded by the castle wall extending from the castle keep and broken by two gatehouses to the north and west of the enclosure. After extensive remodelling and "much beautification" by the Victorians the walls were removed with the exception of the gatehouse which is still standing on the Bailey.

 

The medieval city was made up of the cathedral, castle and administrative buildings on the peninsula. The outlying areas were known as the townships and owned by the bishop, the most famous of these being Gilesgate (which still contains the mediaeval St Giles Church), Claypath and Elvet.

 

The outlying commercial section of the city, especially around the North Road area, saw much change in the 1960s during a redevelopment spearheaded by Durham City Council; however, much of the original mediaeval street plan remains intact in the area close to the cathedral and market place. Most of the mediaeval buildings in the commercial area of the city have disappeared apart from the House of Correction and the Chapel of Saint Andrew, both under Elvet Bridge. Georgian buildings can still be found on the Bailey and Old Elvet most of which make up the colleges of Durham University.

Post-radiation fibrosis; bilateral involvement.

In contrast to the chilly reception at West Peckham, Hadlow was a delight. Though it did involve a bit of a wait, as there was a wedding on. The poor couple we met outside had been invited to the wedding, but that week's updated advice meant guests inside the church had been cut from 30 to 15, so they lost out.

 

We talked as they waited, and told me some of the history of the town, the church and the castle next door. And of the Hop-picker's Memorial in the churchyard, which I went out to photograph.

 

There was no guarantee that we would be let in once the wedding was over, and once they did troop out, and the photographs taken, I thought that the west door would be locked and the hours wait wasted.

 

But it swung open, and the poor vicar was getting the chairs ready for the next day's service, and mentioned several years in seminary all to be a furniture mover.

 

I explained the project, and asked if I could take shots, explaining I would be quick and when he was done I would leave. But he was fine, let me take my time and showed me detail I would have otherwise missed.

 

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The first record of a church in Hadlow was in 975.[2] This church would probably have been a wooden building. In 1018, the early church was replaced by a building of stone. In the 12th century, the church was rebuilt and extended by Richard de Clare, then lord of the Manor of Hadlow. De Clare granted the church to the Knights Hospitallers in 1166. The Knights Hospitallers later had a preceptory at nearby West Peckham, which was their local administrative base. From the Norman Conquest until the 18th century, Hadlow did not have a resident Lord of the Manor, being held under Tonbridge Castle.[3] It is thought that the tower was raised and the spire added in the 15th century.[4] Little money was spent on the maintenance of the church, although some 15th- and 16th-century bequests are recorded. Thomas Walter, Yeoman bequeathed 20s in 1448 "To make a window on the north side of the church by the altar of Our Lady". John Tatlyngbery bequeathed 10 marks "For repair of the great door of the church". In 1456, Richard Bealde bequeathed 13s 4d "For repair of the tower of Hadlow church".[5] In 1461, Dionysia Ippenbury left 3d for masses to be said each year for 12 years.[6] In 1465, William Palle, yeoman left a cow to the church. It was to be sold and "the profits therefrom to be devoted to the maintenance of a lamp in the chancel".[5] In 1509, Thomas Fisher, yeoman bequeathed £20 "for making a new rood loft". The rood screen may not have been in existence long, although it was mentioned in bequests dated 1510 and 1513.[7] The church remained under the ownership of the Knights Hospitallers until 1540, when the order was dissolved by Henry VIII.[3] In 1533, Henry Fane left two chalices valued at £4.[6]

 

The west door is inscribed "WB 1637 ES". The tower and steeple were repaired in that year. The churchwardens were Walter Barton and Essau Simmons.[7] In 1791, the clock was installed in the tower. It was made by John Thwaites of Clerkenwell.[8] At the beginning of the 19th century, the church was in disrepair. In 1847, the chancel was rebuilt and the vestry added. In 1853, the south porch was blocked up. The north aisle was added in this year at a cost of £470, which was raised by public subscription. A private gallery was erected by Walter Barton May, owner of Hadlow Castle. This had its own private access and was located at the west end of the nave. In 1885, an altar reredos was erected to the memory of Sir William Yardley and his wife Amelia. Yardley was a former judge in the High Court of Bombay, India. In 1936, the gallery was removed.[5] Work on the doorway at the west of the church in 1936 exposed some small crosses carved in the stonework. These are attributed to Nicholas de Hadloe and his son, who lived at Hadlow Place. They were carved to commemorate their safe return from the Third Crusade in 1189.[4] St Mary's was listed on 20 October 1954. It is currently Grade II* listed.

 

St Mary's is mostly constructed from ragstone, with some ashlar detail and quoins of Tunbridge Wells sandstone. The church is built in the Early English and Decorated style. The chancel roof is of slate, while the nave and aisle roofs are tiled. The spire is covered in shingles. The stained glass windows date from the 19th and 20th centuries,[9] the most recent of which is "The Visitation" created by Francis Skeat in 1956.

 

In 1919, the Coverdale Chair was presented to St Mary's by T E Foster MacGeagh of Hadlow Castle. The chair is so-named because it was owned by Miles Coverdale, Bishop of Exeter, who made the first translation of the Bible into English. In 1954, the chair was transferred to Rochester Cathedral, but it was returned to St Mary's in 1967.

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Mary%27s_Church,_Hadlow

 

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The lowy of Tunbridge: Hadlow

 

HADLOW.

THE BOROUGH OF HARDLOW, within the lowy of Tunbridge, contains the parish of Hadlow, with the church, except a small district of the northern part of it, which is in the hundred of Littlefield.

 

THE PARISH of Hadlow is of large extent, joining to West Peckham northward, and to the river Medway, its boundary southward; to the west it extends to the Northfrith woods and the parish of Tunbridge. It is far from being a pleasant situation, being a flat low country, much covered with large and spreading oaks, and broad hedge rows; the soil is in general a stiff clay, much of which is very swampy and wet; towards the upper part of the parish it is but poor, being very panny, and in some places inclining to gravel; lower down it is much more fertile, and bears good corn, and is kindly for hops, of which there are many plantations, which have much increased of late years. Near the river the grass lands are very rich, and capable of fatting beasts of a large size. The rivulet called the Sheet, which flows from Plaxtool by Oxenhoath, crosses this parish, joining the river Medway, a little above Brandt bridge, near which at Hartlake bridge, at the east end of this parish, is what is here called a flowing bolt, being an ingenious contrivance to pen up the water to a certain height, by which means it is capable of being let out in dry seasons, to flow over and moisten the adjoining meadows, which is at that time of the greatest advantage to them. The high road from Maidstone through Mereworth to Tunbridge, crosses this parish over Hadlow common, at the northern boundary of it, whence it goes through the town or village of Hadlow, between which and the river is Fish-hall and Hadlow-place, and more eastward the small hamlets of Goldwell-green, Barnes, and Mill-street.

 

On the bank of the Medway, at the west end of the parish, is a wharf and landing place, called Hadlow-stairs, for the lading and unlading of timber, coals and other merechandize.

 

A fair is yearly held in Hadlow town on WhitMonday.

 

IT APPEARS from the survey of Domesday, that this place was part of those vast possessions with which William the Conqueror enriched his half-brother Odo, bishop of Baieux, whom he afterwards made earl of Kent, under the title of whose lands it is thus entered there.

 

Richard de Tonebridge holds of the bishop (of Baieux) Hastow. It was taxed at six sulings. The arable land is twelve carucates. In demesne there are three, and forty-seven villeins, with fifteen borderers, having fifteen carucates. There is a church and ten servants, and two mills of eleven shillings, and twelve fisheries of seven shillings and six-pence, and twelve acres of meadow, Wood for the pannage of sixty hogs. In the time of king Edward the Consessor, and afterwards, and now, it was and is worth thirty pounds. Eddeva held it of king Edward.

 

In the reign of king Henry III. the seignory of this manor was claimed by the archbishop of Canter dury, and an agreement was entered into in the 42d year of it, between archbishop Boniface and Richard de Clare, earl of Gloucester and Hertford, concerning the customs and services which the archbishop required of the earl, on account of the tenements which the latter held of him in Tunebregge, Hanlo, &c. that is, the manors of Tunebregge and Hanlo, together with the whole lowy of Tonebregge, whence the archbishop required of the earl that he should do him homage, the service of four knights fees, and suit to his court at Canterbury, and that he should be the high steward of him and his successors, at their great feast, whenever it should happen that the archbishop should be inthroned.

 

The above-mentioned Richard de Clare, earl of Gloucester and Hertford, dying at Eschemerfield, in this county, in the 46th year of the reign of king Henry III. anno 1261. Gilbert, earl of Gloucester and Hertford, his son, succeeded him in this manor, and whose son of the same name, earl of Gloucester and Hertford, dying in the 7th year of Edward II. anno 1313, without surviving issue, his three sisters became his coheirs. (fn. 1) Upon which the manor of Hadlow, with the adjoining manor and castle of Tunbridge, and others in these parts, seem to have been allotted to the share of Margaret, the second sister, wife of Hugh de Audley, who in her right became possessed of this manor, and in the 11th year of king Edward III. was, in respect of this marriage, in parliament created earl of Gloucester.

 

Margaret, countess of Cornwall and Gloucester, died in the 16th year of that reign, and her husband, earl Hugh, outliving her about five years, died then possessed of this manor by courtesy of the realm, and leaving by her an only daughter and heir Margaret, then the wife of Ralph Stafford, lord Stafford. He before the end of that year obtained a special possession of all the lands of her inheritance, and among them of this manor, and in his descendants, earls of Stafford, and afterwards, by creation, dukes of Buckingham, of high estimation for the great offices of state which they held in the different reigns in which they lived. This manor continued down to Edward, duke of Buckingham, who in the 13th year of Henry VIII. being accused of conspiring the king's death, was found guilty, and beheaded that year; and although there was an act passed for his attainder, yet another act passed likewise for the restitution in blood of Henry his eldest son, but not to his honors and lands, which remained forfeited to the crown, and the king in his 16th year, granted the manors of Hadlow and Northfrith, aud several messuages, tenements, parks, &c. in the parishes of Hadlow, Shipborne, and Tunbridge, late belonging to Edward, duke of Buckingham, attainted, to Sir Henry Guildford, comptroller of his household, to hold by knight's service.

 

Sir Henry Guildford had greatly signalized himself by his valour against the Moors in Spain, and being first knighted, afterwards created a knight banneret, and made master of the horse. In the 17th year of king Henry VIII. he was made one of the chamberlains of the exchequer, and next year was elected a knight of the garter, being only thirty-nine years of age at the time of his election. (fn. 2)

 

On his death in the 23d year of king Henry VIII. this manor seems to have reverted to the crown, where it remained till king Edward VI. in his 4th year, granted the manor and park of Hadlow to John Dudley, earl of Warwick, who was afterwards created duke of Northumberland, and he by indenture, in the 7th year of that reign, inrolled in the Augmentation-office, sold this manor, among other premises, to the king, in exchange for lands in several other counties. (fn. 3)

 

The manor of Hadlow remained in the crown till the accession of queen Elizabeth, who in her 1st year granted it, together with the park called Northfryth, to her kinsman, Henry Carey, lord Hunsdon, to hold in capite; and he seems to have given it before his death to his eldest son, Sir George Carey, who possessed it.

 

in the 25th year of that reign, and on his father's death in the 38th year of it, succeeded to the title of lord Hunsdon. He died in the 1st year of king James I. without male issue, upon which this manor came to his next brother John, who succeeded him likewise as lord Hunsdon, and died in the 15th year of James I. and his eldest son Henry, lord Hunsdon, soon afterwards conveyed this manor by sale to James Faircloth, M. D. of London, who alienated it to George Rivers, esq. of this parish, second son of Sir George Rivers, of Chafford, in this county, whose son Edward Rivers, esq. was of Fishall, in this parish, and dying possessed of this manor in 1660, was buried near his father in this church. His successor alienated it in the reign of king Charles II. to Jeffry Amherst, gent. and he in the year 1699 sold it to Mr. John France, who dying without male issue, his two daughters, Mary and Elizabeth, became his coheirs; the eldest of whom married Walter Barton, gent. and the youngest George Swayne, gent. On his death, the former by settlement succeeded to this manor, as did his son Mr. John Barton, (by the entail in the same settlement, on his father's decease) and his son Walter who has since taken the name of May, is the present proprietor of it.

 

This manor holds a court leet and court baron, which seems to be entirely independent of the court leet of the manor of Tunbridge, for in 1759 a constable of Tunbridge was chosen at the court leet of that manor, and as such claimed jurisdiction over the parish of Hadlow; but on a trial had on a suit concerning it, at the Lent assizes for this county in 1761, it was proved, that the courts leet of Tunbridge and Hadlow had no connection with each other, and a verdict was found accordingly.

 

HADLOW-PLACE is a seat and estate in this parish, which, in all probability, gave both name and residence to a family of no small note in antient time.

 

John de Hadloe, a descendant of Nicholas de Hadloe, was among those gentlemen of this county, who attended king Edward I. in his expedition into Scotland, in the 28th year of his reign, and for his remarkable service there, at the siege of Carlaverock, was made knight banneret by that prince. The Hadlows bore for their arms, three crescents, to which was afterwards added, seven cross-croslets, in token of some exploit or expedition against the Saracens in the holly land; a usual mark of honor in those times. This addition was most likely granted to Nicholas de Hadloe, who is in the list of those Kentish gentlemen, who were with king Richard I. at the siege of Acon, in Palestine.

 

How long Hadlow-place remained in the above mentioned family I do not find; but most likely till it was alienated to that of Vane, aliasFane. Henry Fane, the eldest son of John Fane, esq. of Tunbridge, was possessed of it in the reign of king Henry VII. and was sheriff in the 23d year of it. (fn. 4) He died in the 30th year of king Henry VIII. anno 1538, leaving no issue by Alice his wife, sister of John Fisher, gent. of this parish. By his will he gave this manor-place, in which he then dwelt, with all his lands in Hadloe and Capel, to his kinsman Ralph Fane, son of Henry, his father's youngest brother, in tail male, remainder to each of the sons of his youngest brother, John Fane, successively in like tail. (fn. 5)

 

¶Ralph Fane was afterwards knighted at the siege of Bulleyn in 1544, and for his gallant behaviour at the battle of Musselborough, in the 1st year of king Edward VI. was made a knight banneret; but in the 6th year of that reign, being found guilty of high treason, he was executed. He died without issue, and Hadlow-place, with the adjoining lands, by virtue of the above entail, came to Henry Fane, the eldest son of John Fane, deceased, the youngest brother of Henry, of Hadlow, before-mentioned, who was of Hadlow-place; being concerned in Sir Thomas Wyatt's insurrection, he was attainted, but the queen pardoned him on account of his youth, and his estates were restored to him; his son Henry, wrote himself, as his ancestors had formerly done, Vane, which his posterity have continued to do ever since. He removed his residence to Raby-castle, in the bishopric of Durham, and was afterwards knighted, from which time he acted a conspicuous part in public affairs, and was greatly favored by king Charles I. (fn. 6) But in the year 1642, the king being offended at his forwardness in the prosecution of the earl of Strafford, he was removed from his place of secretary of state, and from the privy council, and became one of the most malicious of the king's enemies, soon after whose death he alienated this seat, with the estate belonging to it in this parish, to Mr. Thomas Petley, of Filston, in Shoreham, who at his death gave it to his son, Ralph Petley, by his second wife Elizabeth, daughter of Ralph Cam, of London, and he removed from Shoreham to Riverhead, in Sevenoke, where he afterwards resided, and in his descendants resident there this estate continued down in like manner with that seat to Ralph Robert Carter Petley, esq. who died in 1788, leaving his wife, Mrs. Elizabeth Petley surviving, who is the present possessor of this estate. (fn. 7)

  

HADLOW is within the ECCLESIASTICAL JURISDICTION of the diocese of Rochester, and deanry of Malling.

 

The church, which stands on the east side of the town, in Hadlow borough, is dedicated to St. Mary. It is a small building with a low pointed steeple at the west end. There is a monument in it for Sir John Rivers and his lady. It was part of the possessions of the knights of St. John of Jerusalem, commonly called the knights hospitallers, so early as the reign of king John; for in the last year of it, anno 1216, Benedict, bishop of Rochester, at the presentation of the prior and brethren of that hospital, admitted and instituted Adam de Fontibus to this church, saving to the prior and brethren the antient pension of two shillings yearly paid to them from it; and the right likewise of the church of Rochester in all matters, and the right of those who were accustomed to take tithes in this parish, separated from the mother church.

 

Thomas de Inglethorpe, bishop of Rochester, in 1287, appropriated this church, then vacant, and of the patronage of the prior and brethren, to them and their house, for ever; reserving a competent vicarage in it, which he decreed should consist of all the small tithes, oblations, obventions, and all other matters belonging to the altarage, excepting the tithe of the hay of the parish; and he decreed, that the vicar should have one acre of land, where he might conveniently build a house, and two acres of meadow, fit to be mowed, of the demesne of the church; and that he should sustain the ordinary burthens of the church, viz. the procurations of the archdeacon, and should pay yearly to the rector of the church of Adintone, eighteen pence, which the rector of the church of Hadlo used to pay to it, time out of mind; and that the prior and brethren should pay to the prior and convent of Rochester five shillings yearly, as had been accustomed to be paid to them from this church from antient time.

 

On the establishment of the preceptory in the adjoining parish of West Peckham by those knights, this church was allotted as an appendage to it; in which state it continued till the general dissolution of their hospital in the 32d year of king Henry VIII. when that order was suppressed by an act specially passed for the purpose, and all their lands and revenues given by it to the king. At which time the parsonage or rectory of Hadlow, appears to have been esteemed a manor.

 

King Edward VI. July 16, in his first year, granted the rectory and advowson of Hadlow, to Sir Ralph Fane, and lady Elizabeth Fane his wife, to hold in capite by knights service. (fn. 10) On Sir Ralph Fane's death, lady Elizabeth Fane, his widow, became possessed of it, and soon afterwards alienated one part of it, by the description of the manor of the rectory of Hadlow, together with all houses, glebes, tithes, and other appurtenances, lying in Hadlow-ward in this parish, to Thomas Roydon, esq. of East Peckham, whose daughter and coheir Elizabeth, married William Twysden, of Chelmington, who became in her right possessed of this manor and rectory; and his descendant, Sir William Jarvis Twysden, bart. lately sold it to Mr. Walter Barton, who is the present pos sessor of this tithery, with the manor and appurtenances belonging to it.

 

¶The other two parts of the rectory of Hadlow, consisting of the tithes of this parish, in the tithe wards of Goldwell, alias Coldweld and Stair, as well as the advowson, remained (after the above-mentioned alienation to Roydon) in the possession of lady Eliz. Fane, who in the 1st and 2nd year of king Philip and queen Mary, alienated the remainder of the parsonage of Hadlow to Henry Fisher, and he, in the first year of queen Elizabeth passed it away to Richard Smithe, who next year alienated it to John Rivers; his son, Sir George Rivers, possessed this parsonage, as well as the advowson of the church, which seems to have passed with it from lady Fane, and his eldest son, John Rivers, esq. was created a baronet, and in the 21st year of king James I. procured an act of parliament to disgavel as well his lands as those of Sir George Rivers, his father, and to settle the inheritance of them upon himself and his heirs by dame Dorothy his wife, daughter of Thomas Potter, esq. of Westerham. His grandson and heir, Sir Thomas Rivers, bart. son of James Rivers, esq. who died in his life time, in 1657 conveyed that part of this parsonage, which consisted of the tithes arising within the ward of Stayer, to Edward Rivers, esq. son of George Rivers, esq. of this parish, next brother to Sir John Rivers, created a baronet as above-mentioned, and he died possessed of it in 1660, and was buried in this church. His son, George Rivers, esq. possessed it near seventy years, and then dying, by will gave it to his god-son, George Rivers, esq. of the Inner Temple, who in 1737, reserving to himself a life estate in this tithery, sold the reversion of it to Stephen Hervey, esq. of London, and he soon after Mr. Rivers's death, in 1777, conveyed the fee of it to Mr. Robert Simmons, of Hadlow, who gave it by will to his nephew Mr. William Simmons, the present possessor of this part of the parsonage of Hadlow.

 

The remaining part of the parsonage of Hadlow, consisting of the tithe within Goldwell, commonly called Colweld-ward, passed afterwards into the possession of Wm. Lea, gent. of Hadlow, whose granddaughter, Mrs. Eliz. Leavens, of Hadlow, in 1701, conveyed it to Mr. John Weekley, of Town Malling, who in 1738 gave it by will to his brother, Mr. George Weekley, late of Ware, in Hertfordshire, on whose death in 1777 it descended to his only daughter and heir, Miss Jane Weekley, since whose death this tithery has been sold by her devisees to Mr. Thomas Swayne, of Tunbridge, the present possessor of it.

 

THE ADVOWSON of the vicarage of Hadlow seems to have continued in the Rivers family, till the death of Sir George Rivers, in 1734, when, on disputes arising concerning the devise of his estates, they were put into chancery, and after several decrees and process at law, this advowson, among his other estates, was in 1743 ordered by the court to be sold, (fn. 11) and it was accordingly conveyed to the Rev. Arthur Spender, vicar of this parish, who died in 1750, and his son Arthur, dying unmarried, it came to his brother, Mr. John Spender, of Northamptonshire, who sold it not long since to Mr. Monypenny, who is the present patron of it.

 

It is valued in the king's books at 13l. and the yearly tenths at 1l. 6s.

 

The income of this vicarage greatly depends on the hop-plantations in this parish, which have been some years so advantageous as to increase the income of it to 240l. per annum.

 

In 1608 the communicants in this parish were in number three hundred and seventy-six.

 

www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-kent/vol5/pp177-193

University of Illinois Springfield 2019 Involvement Expo, UIS studenst were welcomed with a warm and joyful event where they can register themselves to different clubs, organizations which will enrich their student life

This project involves the four-laning of Highway 1 through the Village of Chase.

 

Chase to Jade Mountain

 

Improvements include:

 

1.6 km section widened to four lanes, including median and roadside barrier

New grade-separated interchange at Brooke Drive

Two grade-separated pedestrian connections to Scatchard Trail

Municipal infrastructure improvements

Traffic and pedestrian safety improvements along Brooke Drive to Shuswap Avenue

Microscopic Photo. Epithelial disorganization involving 2/3 of cervical squamous epithelial lining. H&E Stain. Jian-Hua Qiao, MD, FCAP, Los Angeles, CA, USA

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There is an exciting experimental project underway in Dublin at present and it involves Traffic Lights (actually the control cabinets) and Street Art.

 

On Saturday 9th. I photographed artwork at two locations:

(1) Chancery Street - Starman

(2) Corner Church Street and Chancery Street (work in progress) - Gicelle Archanjo

 

On Saturday 2nd. I had the opportunity to photograph two examples:

(1) Bolton Street - Still A Work In Progress by Anna Doran

(2) Ormond Quay - "Bookcase" by Holly & Cathal. On Saturday 9th. I photographed this again as there are some additions (I assume that they are not by the original artists)

 

On Monday 4th. I photographed the finished version of the "Robot" on Bolton Street using a Sigma DP2

  

I have also located all four boxes on the Flickr Map.

 

For more information about the ongoing project in Dublin please visit Dublin City Council Beta Projects

dubcitybeta.wordpress.com/whos-behind-this/

male bonding - the formation of a close personal relationship between men; "the rituals known as male bonding do not necessarily involve drinking beer together"

  

Male bonding is a term that is used in ethology, social science, and in general usage to describe patterns of friendship and/or cooperation in men (or in the case of ethology: males of various species). The exact meaning of the term differs across contexts.

 

In ethology, a species is said to have male bonding if the males regularly form coalitions in which they mutually support each other, especially if such coalitions are used to attack other groups or individuals. Male bonding is not very common in animals, but it is found in both chimpanzees (e.g. raiding behaviour) and humans (e.g. war), and is seen when male lions form lifelong coalitions to defend their prides. Although females occasionally participate in such groups that kill others, they are normally a minority in a coalition that is composed mostly of males.

 

In the context of human relationships, male bonding is used to (sometimes jokingly or informally) describe friendship between men, or the way in which men befriend each other. The expression is sometimes used synonymously with the word camaraderie. Friendships among men are often based on shared activities, instead of emotional sharing, which is more typical of women's friendships. The first widely-noticed use of the term was in Men in Groups (1969;2004) by anthropologist Lionel Tiger.

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Male_bonding

 

This was shot at Alibagh, the first question posed to me would be are they gay?

Their body langauge suggests they are gay in love , enjoying precious moments away from city life, in an idyllic situation on the beach on the feast of Holi.Also they were high so they have no inhibitions , they would think twice in real life situation.

The Indian male has not yet come out of the closet.

Fear of the whiplash of society friends , family and relatives.

 

I have known homosexuals since my very early days , I have nothing against their sexual prefernce or orientation as long as they dont prey on little kids and keep their relationships to consenting adult male.

My best friiends are gay and they are sincere , loving kind and multi talented.

The Hijdas is also a case of Male Bonding, they live in clans, always in groups and are highly territorial, hijdas cant do without hijdas, they live in ghetto like areas, away from mainstream society.

The metrosexual hijdas mostly live in middle income housing societies , keeps to himself, and minds his business.

 

The modern homosexuals that I saw at Haji Malang the post pubescant teens , feminine , have started aping the hIjdas in dress and mannerisms as Hijda bonding is a safer option and a kind of shield of protection , these are my observations , and not any fixed rules.

Than there is the cross dresser , most of the Hijdas are all cross dressers , being endowed with male biological genitalia.

Rarely will the Hijda dress as male, and I have seen Hijdas in male attire they have a very vibrant charm and fragility an ethereal vulnerabilty.

The womans dress is what gives the Hijda its sexual significance and identification.

 

I have never stayed with Hijdas like my photographer friends from abroad, I saw them shot them, I was given an invitation to stay with them at Haji Malang I politely refused preferring to stay at a lodge owned by the Ketkars.

 

This is the bottom line..

I shoot Hijdas it is from within, I capture the trapped essence of their perishable lives..

People at Haji Malang pestered me to tke their pictures I would simplytell them I only shoot Hijdas..

I dont give copies, aso shooting pictures nd be stalked for copies gets on my goat.Earlier I spent a bomb on this ridiculous enterprise .

I gave it up completely.

A thought that will tell yu till date at my house there is not a single picture of my grand daughter, I have been sheer lazy, and I did promise I would frame one of hers on our barren walls.

So this picture on the beach, has its male sensitivity.

Here in India for the first timer its a shocking jet lag to see Indiand holding hands walking down Carter Road, but they are not homosexuals its their migrant sense of insecurity and a involuantry action that goes without anyone paying attention to it..

 

At the Mumbai Red Light Hijda cages I saw the carmaderie between whores and the Hijras , both seeking succor from each other , both caught in a cage , both sharing their prostituted angst.

And on feast days the Hijdas and the prostitutes share the dieties , worship together.

This is also not a same sex bonding.

But a bonding of human circumstances in inhuman living conditions.

     

A hug is a form of physical intimacy, not necessarily sexual, that usually involves closing or holding the arms around another person or group of persons. The hug is one of the most common human signs of love and affection, along with kissing. Unlike some other forms of physical intimacy, it is practiced publicly and privately without stigma in many countries, religions and cultures, within families, and also across age and gender lines.

Sometimes, hugs are a romantic exchange. Hugs may also be exchanged as a sign of support and comfort. A hug can be a demonstration of affection and emotional warmth, sometimes arising out of joy or happiness at meeting someone.

Hugs are mostly short and used to show many levels of affection. It is not particular to human beings alone, as there are many species of animals that engage in similar exchanges of warmth.

Hugging has been proven to have health benefits. One study has shown that hugs increase levels of oxytocin, and reduce blood pressure.

There are different variations of hugs. Prolonged hugging in a cozy, comfortable position is called cuddling. Spooning is a cuddling position, a kind of hugging when both the hugger and the hugged persons face the same direction, i.e., the front of one person is in contact with the back of the second one. The person whose front is in contact with the other's back is referred to as the "Big Spoon" and the person whose back is in contact with the other's front in referred to as the "Little Spoon". "Big Spoon" is a position held predominantly by males, whilst "Little Spoon" is typically the female, or smaller partner. There is also the term snuggling, also known as "kanoodling", coined by the modern psychologist Alexander Althoff, that refers a more intimate form of cuddling, with the two bodies almost intertwined, i.e. one's leg in between the other's.

In May 2009, the New York Times reported that "the hug has become the favorite social greeting when teenagers meet or part these days" in the United States. A number of schools in the United States have issued bans on hugs, which in some cases have resulted in student-led protests against these bans.

Despite hugging being widespread across human culture, several cultures - such as the Himba in Namibia - do not embrace as a sign of affection or love.

The Other End of the Leash notes that dogs tend to enjoy being hugged less than humans and other primates do, since canines interpret putting a limb over another animal as a dominance signal.

Icelandic extreme lift kit involves fitting 12mm plates to the tops of the rear struts and cranking up the front torsion bars.

 

These are of Starduzt's ML in Iceland. The original online resource that these were on no longer exists so I've put the pics I have for reference when doing mine up here to help anyone thinking of doing this as well. The Mercedes ML can be dramatically transformed as an off road vehicle by carrying out this modification. They are also great value now and can be picked up relatively cheaply.

Students at Misericordia University had the opportunity to attend the Involvement Fair on Thursday, September 2nd, in the Anderson Center. The fair gave students the opportunity to learn about the various clubs and organizations on campus and how to get involved.

Bakersfield City and Kern County Fire Departments fighting a fire involving 2 vehicles and a large amount of accumulated junk and trash.

Photo: Laura Dutelle

AltaRock Energy is working on a project involving new technology, techniques, and advanced monitoring protocols for the purpose of testing the feasibility and viability of enhanced geothermal systems for renewable energy production.

The project area is 22 miles south of Bend, Oregon, within the Bend-Fort Rock Ranger District of the Deschutes National Forest. The entire project is located on National Forest System Lands and would utilize an existing well pad and existing 10,000-ft deep geothermal well on a Federal geothermal lease. This geothermal project will enable the AltaRock Energy to create, test, and demonstrate the Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS) reservoir technology and its potential for electricity generation in areas with underground heat but little or no natural water. The EGS projects produce electricity using heat extracted with engineered fluid flow paths in hot rocks. These pathways are developed by stimulating them with cold water injected into a well at a relatively high pressure.

Development and testing of the EGS will involve several components, including the development of an underground reservoir, one “stimulation” well to help create the reservoir and transport water to it, two production wells to transport heated water out of the reservoir, and an array of up to 20 surface and “down-hole” seismic monitoring devices.

Eleven of the monitoring sites are on Federal geothermal leases administered by the BLM, and nine are on lands that are administered by the U.S. Forest Service, including one surface micro-seismic monitoring station and a motion sensor installed in the Newberry National Monument.

The United States leads the world in electricity generation with geothermal power. The U.S. Energy Information Administration reported that in 2012, U.S geothermal power plants produced about 17 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh), or 0.4% of total U.S. electricity generation. Six states had geothermal power plants: California had 36 plants producing about 80% of the Nation's geothermal-produced electricity; Nevada had 21 plants producing about 16% of the Nation's geothermal-produced electricity; Utah had two plants; and Hawaii, Idaho, and Oregon each had one plant. Geothermal energy is also used directly for space and water heating applications.

The Geothermal Steam Act of 1970, as amended (84 Stat, 1566; 30 U.S.C. 1001-1025), provides the Secretary of the Interior with the authority to lease public lands (245 million acres) and other federal lands, including National Forest lands (193 million acres), for geothermal exploration and development in an environmentally sound manner. This authority has been delegated to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM).

Leases are required to explore for or develop geothermal resources on public lands. Leasing requirements are described in the 43 CFR 3200 Geothermal Leasing Regulations.

As of June 5, 2013 there were 78 federal geothermal leases encompassing 102,484 acres in Oregon, a 2% acreage decrease since May 2012, and four leases encompassing 8,436 acres in Washington representing no change over the same period. There have also been 15 parcels nominated for leasing, 6 in Oregon (11,452 acres) and 9 in Washington (35,480 acres). Three of these are on BLM land; the remaining 12 are on U.S. Forest Service (USFS) land.

  

Specific project and location information for OR/WA can be found at this website: www.blm.gov/or/energy.

 

Photo: Michael Campbell, BLM.

A photex involving the Hydrographic Surveying Squadron took place off the Devon coast. This was the first time that all the ships had been together in one place for sometime.

 

The ships involved were HMS Scott, HMS Enterprise, HMS Echo, HMS Roebuck and HMS Gleaner all Survey Vessels. HMS Echo had just returned from an 18-month deployment and had Rear Admiral Chittenden onboard.

 

This image was submitted as part of the Peregrine 06 Photographic Competition.

This image is available for non-commercial, high resolution download at www.defenceimages.mod.uk subject to terms and conditions. Search for image number 45145965.jpg

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Photographer: LA(PHOT) Husbands

Image 45145965.jpg from www.defenceimages.mod.uk

Elev8 Parent Mentor Program at Ames Middle School Chicago:

eric@smittyimage.comGloria Bedillo had never served as a school volunteer before, or thought of herself as a leader. But within XX months of the day her daughter enrolled at Logan Square’s Ames Middle, all that changed. Suddenly Bedillo found herself serving as a classroom assistant, a family book group leader, a truant outreach worker, a member of the local school council, and chair of the school’s No Child Left Behind Committee. REACTION FROM HER—IS SHE SURPRISED? While Bedillo is one of the more active parents at Ames, she is hardly unusual. Inner-city schools often bemoan the lack of parental involvement, but Ames has it in spades: 20 parents are volunteering or working for modest wages at the school almost daily at a variety of jobs through Logan Square Neighborhood Association’s Parent Mentor Program. “It’s an enhancement to everything we do,” said Ames Principal Thomas Hoffman who credits the program’s parent truancy outreach workers for helping to raise the school’s average daily attendance rate more than two percentage points in the past two years. LSNA launched the Parent Mentor Program in 1995 as a way to give parents, mainly Hispanic women, the skills and confidence to get more involved in their children’s education. Since then, the program has trained more than 1,300 parents at nine neighborhood elementary schools as classroom mentors for struggling students.But learning how to assist students and school staff is just the beginning. Parent mentors are encouraged to become leaders in their schools and politically active in their communities. And they are urged to pursue personal goals, such as finding employment or pursuing further education. Many have gone on to take ESL or GED classes offered at Ames and four other Logan Square elementary schools.Maria Marquez, a former parent mentor who now coordinates that program at Ames, went even further. She enrolled in LSNA's “Grow Your Own” program which helps Logan Square residents earn undergraduate degrees in education and land jobs in Chicago Public Schools, helping to alleviate the bilingual teacher shortage. More than 20 other parent mentors have done likewise. “Had it had it not been for the Parent Mentor Program I would not be going to Northeastern [University],” she said.For Bedillo, joining the program was no less transformative. As a former substance abuse counselor with an associates degree in social services, she had always enjoyed helping people. BUT OUTSIDE HER CIRCLE?, she had been hesitant to speak her mind. “She was kind of quiet when she first started, not wanting to say a lot,” Marquez recalled.But in the safety of the parent mentor group—LSNA trained a dozen this fall—she began to speak up, said Marquez. “She's a little bit more confident about her opinions.”During one meeting, when a mother complained that her son was unable to get reduced city bus fare because he couldn't prove he went to Ames, Bedillo volunteered to ask the principal about providing student IDs. The principal agreed to do so. WHAT MADE HER DECIDE TO DO THAT.The other mothers were impressed, said Marquez. Later, when she asked for volunteers for the school’s No Child Left Behind Advisory Committee, they quickly nominated Bedillo as chair, said Marquez.“I was like 'Me?' Bedillo recalls. “They were like, 'Yes, you.'”Bedillo, a friendly woman with a ready smile, initially signed-up as a parent mentor because of concerns about school safety, which provided to be unfounded, she said. But that first step was a gateway. “The more I get involved with my daughters school,” she said, “the more I want to be involved.”Her sudden interest surprised her daughter, Jaileen Martinez. “I was shocked about it. I just thought of my mom as a house mom.” The 7th-grader was also worried. “I was kind of scared because I thought she would embarrass me,” Jaileen acknowledged. But she needn't have worried. Her friends thought Bedillo was cool. “When they see me they're like, 'Where's your mom?'” And rather than embarrassed by her mother's involvement at the school, Jaileen found herself impressed. “She's so into it. Her trying to help somebody makes me want to do the same. She motivates me.”Parents in neighborhoods like Logan Square often don't realize how eager schools are for their participation, said Marquez. That's especially true for those immigrating from Mexico or other Central American countries, she explained.In Mexico, parents don’t ever question the teacher or principal, said Marquez. “You can't come into the classroom because it’s invading their domain.”But the parent mentor training makes it clear how much they are valued, not only by recruiting them to serve in a variety of additional roles—safety patrol, truancy outreach, after school tutorCK—but by building their confidence. Before parents step foot in the classroom, they get two weeks of training on the school's math and reading curriculum and also on personal development and leadership. The training continues for two hours a week throughout the school year. Parents without degrees often imagine they don’t have much to offer the school, said Leticia Barerra, another Parent Mentor alumna who now manages the program for LSNA. When parents realize they have lots of skills and talents they can offer to the school, they feel important and useful.” CAN BEDILLO COMMENT ON HER EXPERIENCE?Parents also need to know they have the right to speak up to authority, she said, whether to the principal, the alderman or their state representatives. “They didn't realize how much power they could have,” Barerra explains. “As soon as they know, they start making phone calls.” During last school year's training, a group of mothers suddenly decided to visit the alderman and demand traffic-calming measures around the school: They got their way. After this year's initial training, parents spontaneously teamed up to go door to door to encourage their neighbors to vote. ASK BEDILLO ABOUT THIS.HOW MANY TIMES THIS YEAR, past and present parent mentors have hopped on a bus to Springfield to lobby legislators on immigration reform. NEED A LITTLE MORE HERE“We're speaking out and being heard and not being afraid,” Bedillo said. “We're not just parents now. Were being heard as a group and working together.”After that, came back and was speaking more passionately.Gloria already had associates degree. Benefits mothers as much as students. many gone on to get bachelors degrees and become teachers in the community. Feeds into Grow Your Own,HeadBedillo said she initially decided to join the mentor because her daughter, a 7th-grader, was nervous about attending the new school which she heard had a lot of fighting and bullying, rumors that later proved to be unfounded. Parents receive xx hours of training over xx weeks before they are each assigned to a classrooms two hours a day Monday through Thursday. Bedillo assigned to a math class and then a science class, helps all students but particularly those who are still learning English. QUOTE FROM TEACHER ABOUT WHY THIS IS HELPFULIdea is to make parents realize that they can be part of school. in mexico, not welcome.Bedillo is from Puerto Rico, immigrated to Chicago at three and grew up in Spanish-speaking household. Graduated from St. Augustine college with an associates degree in social services and worked as a substance abuse counselor until 2008. Never been active in school before. When her daughter went to Nixon, didn’t have those opportunities. NEED TRANSITION.Comfort of group, started speaking up. went to principal. Got ids. Then chosen for no child left behind, also on local school counsel.now that I got involved as a parent mentor at my ds school ive felt the need to get more inv and more invRecruited to do extra work for modest hourly wage. Part of elev8 programs. Ames part of elev8 program, extra funds to do truant outreach—phones disconnected and many parents don’t realize kids not in school. money also for literacy ambassadors.Recently she and her daughter visited another neighbor and read about seeds. Youngest participant in 5th grade, the oldest his grandmother. Xx said bedillo’s daughter, who also went along.Role models for their kidsBedillo’s daughter said she was worried when her mother was going to volunteer, meant they would walk to school together each morning. thought she was going to embarrass me. Surprised to find that her friends thought her mom was actually pretty cool. Now she’s motivated. Also part of the Elev8 program where afterschool tutoring raised her math grade c TO A. mother also able to help out more, with parent mentor traning. huge confidence boost. Set her sites on selective high school marine biology. mother as an inspiration.The award-winning program was launched xx years ago and now operates at nine neighborhood schools including Ames. Since its founding, LSNA has trained over xx parents to mentor struggling students in the classroom. But mentorship is just the beginning. The program trains parents, mainly Hispanic women, to become leaders in their schools and politically active in their communities. It also recruits them to serve in a variety of additional roles at the school from safety patrol to neighborhood book group leader.Gloria quotesThe more I get involved with my daughters school the more I want to participate, the more I want to be involved.Speaking out. To the needs that I see that we need. And not being afraid. Speakingout and being heard. Safe place to do that. I see solutions and bepeople workingwith it. We'rebeingheard. Wer'not just parents now. Were beingheard as a group and working together.encouraging them to become leaders in their schools and politically active in their communities.

 

Officers disperse after the protestors have returned to their coaches.

 

This afternoon’s protest in Luton involving the English Defence League and a counter protest organised by Unite Against Facism and others under the collective banner of ‘We are Luton’ has concluded peacefully.

 

The combined operation by Bedfordshire Police and Luton Borough Council enabled the town centre to remain protest free in order to allow the community and businesses to operate as normally as possible. Bury Park, a key neighbourhood in the town, also reported ‘business as usual’ during the day.

 

Two people were arrested during the policing operation for minor public order offences and remain in police custody. One was an EDL supporter and the other from the ‘We are Luton’ group.

 

The policing operation was mounted with the assistance of officers from around 20 police forces. The protestors themselves are thought to have numbered possibly up to 3000 for the EDL and around 1000 ‘We are Luton’ although these are not confirmed.

 

Isolated incidents of minor disorder occurred when a handful of smoke flares were set off and bottles were thrown towards officers policing the EDL protest, prompting them to put on their protective clothing as a precautionary measure. During the counter ‘We are Luton’ protest some of the group tried to move away from the main march but were pushed back by mounted officers. No further issues were reported.

 

Paramedics from the East of England Ambulance Service assisted six patients, four were generally unwell and two were injured by accident. Four have had hospital treatment.

 

Assistant Chief Constable Andrew Richer, who led the operation said: “Over all the policing of these protests has been a resounding success and is testament to everyone involved including the community themselves and our partners. It is disappointing that we saw disorder from some members of Unite Against Fascism, who were part of the ‘We are Luton’ march, who attempted to break out of the agreed protest route. This shows policing of these events is justified as there is such a large area to protect.”

 

“The policing operation has been in the planning for weeks and the professionalism of the officers was borne out today. We were assisted by 20 forces and it’s a great example of how forces can work together in difficult circumstances.”

 

“I’d like to thank everyone involved in the planning and execution of the operation, all our partner agencies and in particular the community mediators who volunteered to help us communicate. Their involvement really made a difference. I am confident the town is now back to normal and disruption has been minimised.”

 

At Bedfordshire Police our aim is "fighting crime, protecting the public."

 

We cover 477 square miles, serve a population of around 550,000 and employ in the region of 1,260 Police Officers, 950 police staff and 120 Police Community Support Officers (PCSOs). For more information about Bedfordshire Police, visit our website www.bedfordshire.police.uk

 

Photo: Laura Dutelle

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An image produced by one of the Force's photographers to illustrate forced marriage.

 

Forced marriage is a criminal offence and is:

 

"A marriage conducted without the valid consent of one or both parties, where duress is a factor".

 

Duress can include physical, sexual, emotional, and financial and psychological pressure. This will include coercion and deception to force someone into marrying.

 

Forced marriages are a form of domestic abuse and are dealt with as such by the police.

 

Forced marriages are where one or both persons involved get forced into a marriage that they do not want to enter and do not consent to the marriage.

 

Sometimes it is parents forcing their child to get married or sometimes it can be the extended family or community

It can happen between people in this country or between someone from this country with someone abroad.

 

How do arranged marriages differ from forced marriages?

 

Where the families of both parties take a leading role in arranging the marriage, but the choice as to whether or not to accept the arrangement remains with the prospective spouses.

 

Which communities do forced marriages happen in?

 

We are aware it happens in many communities and we want to encourage communities to understand that this is force and to be confident enough to report to the police.

 

Victims

 

Forced marriage is primarily, but not exclusively, an issue of violence against women. Most cases involve young women and girls aged between 13 and 30 years, although there is evidence to suggest that as many as 15 per cent of victims are male.

 

It is felt that men may still be a reluctant to report to the police that they have been forced into a marriage.

 

We are aware that there are a number of cases going unreported and we hope to encourage more reporting by raising awareness of the issues.

 

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How can police help?

 

We want to encourage potential victims and those already in a forced marriage to seek support and help from the police. We have specialist officers who can deal with the issues and they will help and support you throughout the process.

 

Obviously we understand that many victims do not want to criminalise family members and may be reluctant to call the police; however we would encourage you to do so if this is the only way to get you out of the situation and so that we can offer you some support and protection.

 

Foreign and Commonwealth assistance

 

The Forced Marriage Unit at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office are also available to help and advice you and they can be contacted on 0207 008 0151 or email: fmu@fco.gov.uk

 

In particular the FCO can help to repatriate you back to this country if you have been forced into a marriage abroad. It is important that you don’t feel like there is no one there to help you.

 

Reporting a Forced Marriage

 

We will respect the victim's wishes, respect confidentiality, establish lines of communication and provide appropriate support and guidance via a number of support agencies.

 

You can report a forced marriage via the normal means of communicating with GMP listed on the Contact Us page. Always call 999 in an emergency where there is a threat to life of a crime in progress. In a non-emergency, call 101.

 

In addition we have Specialist Domestic Abuse Investigators on each division or by calling 0161 872 5050.

 

Police Response

 

Forced marriages are a legitimate issue to report to the police. We will support and protect the victim and investigate criminal offences.

 

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Situations whereby a forced marriage may come to the attention of the police include:

 

An individual who fears they may be forced to marry.

A report by a third party of an individual having been taken abroad for the purpose of a forced marriage.

 

An individual who has already been forced to marry either in this country or abroad or to someone from abroad.

The Legal Position

 

Forced Marriage is a criminal offence

 

This legislation came into effect on 16 June 2014. For further information on the legislation click: www.cps.gov.uk/legal/h_to_k/forced_marriage_and_honour_ba...

  

Forced Marriage Protection Orders (Civil Protection Act 2007)

 

A Forced Marriage Protection order can be made by a Family Court in order to protect victims, both adults and children of a potential forced marriage or people who are already in a forced marriage. This is a legal document issued by a judge designed to protect individuals according to their particular circumstances. It contains legally binding conditions and directions that require a change in the behavior of a person or persons trying to force another person into marriage.

 

Forced Marriage Protection Orders may be made to prevent a forced marriage from occurring, to stop intimidation and violence, to reveal the whereabouts of a person, to stop somebody from being taken abroad, to hand over passports etc.

 

A breach of any of the conditions is a criminal offence. www.cps.gov.uk/legal/h_to_k/forced_marriage_and_honour_ba...

 

You can find out more about forced marriage protection orders here.

 

Safety Advice

 

If you really don’t want to talk to the police or other agencies then please think about the following safety advice if you think you may be forced into a marriage in this country or abroad:

 

Keep a copy of your passport including dual nationality passports.

 

Tell a trusted friend if you are travelling abroad and give them addresses of where you will be staying and also details of your return flight so they can alert the police if you fail to return on that date.

 

Have a spare mobile to hand that you can be contacted on and leave the number with trusted people so you are contactable

Memorise police phone numbers, and/or email addresses of the Forced Marriage unit and trusted friends in case you have to call them in an emergency.

 

Have addresses of British Embassies available

Support Agencies.

 

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Bangladeshi Women’s Centre - 0161 257 3867

Advice, information and support for Bangladeshi women including the issues of domestic abuse, forced marriage and ‘honour’ based violence. Other areas covered include welfare rights, housing, health, education and training, employment and immigration and nationality.

 

Henna Foundation - 02920 498600/496920

Henna Foundation is a registered charity that whose work involves supporting and seeking assistance to protect victims of ‘honour’ related crime, abuses & violence including cases of Forced marriages.

 

Honour Network (Karma Nirvana) - 0800 5999 247

The Honour Network helpline is a confidential helpline providing emotional and practical support and advice for victims and survivors (male & female) of forced marriage and/or ‘honour’ based violence and abuse.

 

Independent Choices - 0161 636 7534

This is a voluntary organisation promoting the rights and meeting the needs of women who have experienced domestic abuse. Supports victims and provides a help line facility and refuge accommodation.

 

Iranian and Kurdish Women’ Rights Organisation (IKWRO) - 020 7490 0303

Provides support and advice in Arabic, Kurdish, Turkish and Farsi to women, girls and men living in Britain, in areas including domestic abuse and ‘honour’ based issues.

 

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Saheli - 0161 945 4187

Saheli is an organisation for Asian women run by Asian women. Saheli provides emergency, temporary refuge accommodation to South Asian women and their children who are fleeing domestic abuse situations. The refuge offers a children's service to ensure that children's needs are met, for example through play session and one to one work.

 

Southall Black Sisters - 020 8571 9595 (10am-12.30pm and 1.30pm-4pm)

This is a resource centre offering information, advice, advocacy, practical help, counselling, and support to black and minority women experiencing domestic abuse. Southall Black Sisters specialise in forced marriage particularly in relation to South Asian women. The office is open weekdays (except Wednesday)

 

Lesbian and Gay Foundation - 0845 3 30 30 30

Confidential helpline and centre offering information, advice, advocacy, practical help, counseling, and support to men and women experiencing domestic abuse, honour based violence or are victims of forced marriage.

 

Men’s Advice Line - 0808 801 0327 (Mon-Fri 10am-1pm and 2pm-5pm)

Confidential helpline for men who experience violence from their partners and ex partners. They provide emotional support, practical advice and inform men of specialist services that can give them advice on legal, housing, child contact, mental health and other issues.

 

NSPCC

This free, confidential service for anyone concerned about children at risk of harm offers counselling, information and advice. The service also connects vulnerable young people, particularly runaways, to services that can help. It is open Monday to Friday between 11am and 7pm.

 

Asian Child Protection Helpline

 

Bengali speaking advisor - 0800 096 7714

Gujarati - 0800 096 7715

Hindi - 0800 096 7716

Punjabi - 0800 096 7717

Urdu - 0800 096 7718

English - 0800 096 7719

This free, 24-hour helpline provides information, advice and counselling to anyone concerned about a child at risk of abuse.

 

0808 800 5000 (helpline)

0800 056 0566 (text phone)

Broken Rainbow - 08452 255 6234

Support for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people experiencing domestic violence.

 

Careline - 0208 8514 1177

This is a national confidential counselling line for children, young people and adults on any issue including family, marital and relationship problems, child abuse, rape and sexual assault, depression and anxiety.

 

Child Line - 0800 1111

This service is for any child or young person with a problem.

 

The Citizens Advice Bureau

The Citizens Advice Bureau offers free, confidential and impartial information and advice on a wide range of subjects including consumer rights, debt, benefits, housing, employment, immigration, family and personal matters.

 

Manchester Airport Immigration 0161 489 3576

Immigration may be able to assist you with enquiries in relation to passports and dual nationality

 

Mondays and Tuesdays: 10am – 1pm

 

Wednesdays: 1pm – 4pm

An email service is also offered by the Helpline for non-urgent concerns with an aim to respond within 3 working days: helpline@independentchoices.org.uk

 

To find out more about Greater Manchester Police please visit our website.

www.gmp.police.uk

 

You should call 101, the national non-emergency number, to report crime and other concerns that do not require an emergency response.

 

Always call 999 in an emergency, such as when a crime is in progress, violence is being used or threatened or where there is danger to life.

 

You can also call anonymously with information about crime to Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111. Crimestoppers is an independent charity who will not want your name, just your information. Your call will not be traced or recorded and you do not have to go to court or give a statement.

  

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Across the nation, there are often situations we don’t hear about involving the courage of our Forest Service Law Enforcement officers. Tonight we are proud to honor an officer with the Regional Forester’s Award for Heroism and Emergency Response.

 

In early December 2009, Forest Service Law Enforcement Officer Tyler Robinson received a phone call from a local high school principal. The principal realyed that there was a potenial threat from an armed teenager at a Seeley Lake home less than a half-mile from the school.

 

As with many places in the region, Forest Service law enforcement officers are occasionally asked to assist in emergency situations, because there is minimal law enforcement coverage from any state or local law enforcement agencies.

 

According to the local deputy and the dispatcher, the teenager was upset after an argument with his parents. He took a rifle from their home and fired a shot at their animals in the backyard. He was last seen at the end of his driveway with a rifle. The county dispatch requested Officer Robinson to respond and look for the teenager.

 

After passing the Seeley Swan High School, Officer Robinson came around a sharp corner and spotted the teenager walking towards the school with the rifle. He parked his vehicle according to his tactical training for safety and began to quietly talk the teenager into putting the rifle on the ground. The teen was emotionally upset, but complied with the officer’s instructions to put the weapon down. Officer Robinson safely removed a scoped Remington .22-caliber long rifle and hunting knife from the teen who was then put in a County Sherriff’s patrol vehicle, interviewed and transported to the Missoula County Jail.

 

Due to Officer Robinson’s quick thinking and response and his outstanding tactical and verbal persuasion skills, this situation was quickly resolved without injury to the teenager, the public or Officer Tyler Robinson. The bravery he displayed along with cool thinking and effective use of his training brought a potentially tragic incident to a safe conclusion and has earned him the Heroism and Emergency Response Award.

 

AltaRock Energy is working on a project involving new technology, techniques, and advanced monitoring protocols for the purpose of testing the feasibility and viability of enhanced geothermal systems for renewable energy production.

The project area is 22 miles south of Bend, Oregon, within the Bend-Fort Rock Ranger District of the Deschutes National Forest. The entire project is located on National Forest System Lands and would utilize an existing well pad and existing 10,000-ft deep geothermal well on a Federal geothermal lease. This geothermal project will enable the AltaRock Energy to create, test, and demonstrate the Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS) reservoir technology and its potential for electricity generation in areas with underground heat but little or no natural water. The EGS projects produce electricity using heat extracted with engineered fluid flow paths in hot rocks. These pathways are developed by stimulating them with cold water injected into a well at a relatively high pressure.

Development and testing of the EGS will involve several components, including the development of an underground reservoir, one “stimulation” well to help create the reservoir and transport water to it, two production wells to transport heated water out of the reservoir, and an array of up to 20 surface and “down-hole” seismic monitoring devices.

Eleven of the monitoring sites are on Federal geothermal leases administered by the BLM, and nine are on lands that are administered by the U.S. Forest Service, including one surface micro-seismic monitoring station and a motion sensor installed in the Newberry National Monument.

The United States leads the world in electricity generation with geothermal power. The U.S. Energy Information Administration reported that in 2012, U.S geothermal power plants produced about 17 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh), or 0.4% of total U.S. electricity generation. Six states had geothermal power plants: California had 36 plants producing about 80% of the Nation's geothermal-produced electricity; Nevada had 21 plants producing about 16% of the Nation's geothermal-produced electricity; Utah had two plants; and Hawaii, Idaho, and Oregon each had one plant. Geothermal energy is also used directly for space and water heating applications.

The Geothermal Steam Act of 1970, as amended (84 Stat, 1566; 30 U.S.C. 1001-1025), provides the Secretary of the Interior with the authority to lease public lands (245 million acres) and other federal lands, including National Forest lands (193 million acres), for geothermal exploration and development in an environmentally sound manner. This authority has been delegated to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM).

Leases are required to explore for or develop geothermal resources on public lands. Leasing requirements are described in the 43 CFR 3200 Geothermal Leasing Regulations.

As of June 5, 2013 there were 78 federal geothermal leases encompassing 102,484 acres in Oregon, a 2% acreage decrease since May 2012, and four leases encompassing 8,436 acres in Washington representing no change over the same period. There have also been 15 parcels nominated for leasing, 6 in Oregon (11,452 acres) and 9 in Washington (35,480 acres). Three of these are on BLM land; the remaining 12 are on U.S. Forest Service (USFS) land.

  

Specific project and location information for OR/WA can be found at this website: www.blm.gov/or/energy.

 

Photo: Michael Campbell, BLM.

Graffiti (plural; singular graffiti or graffito, the latter rarely used except in archeology) is art that is written, painted or drawn on a wall or other surface, usually without permission and within public view. Graffiti ranges from simple written words to elaborate wall paintings, and has existed since ancient times, with examples dating back to ancient Egypt, ancient Greece, and the Roman Empire (see also mural).

 

Graffiti is a controversial subject. In most countries, marking or painting property without permission is considered by property owners and civic authorities as defacement and vandalism, which is a punishable crime, citing the use of graffiti by street gangs to mark territory or to serve as an indicator of gang-related activities. Graffiti has become visualized as a growing urban "problem" for many cities in industrialized nations, spreading from the New York City subway system and Philadelphia in the early 1970s to the rest of the United States and Europe and other world regions

 

"Graffiti" (usually both singular and plural) and the rare singular form "graffito" are from the Italian word graffiato ("scratched"). The term "graffiti" is used in art history for works of art produced by scratching a design into a surface. A related term is "sgraffito", which involves scratching through one layer of pigment to reveal another beneath it. This technique was primarily used by potters who would glaze their wares and then scratch a design into them. In ancient times graffiti were carved on walls with a sharp object, although sometimes chalk or coal were used. The word originates from Greek γράφειν—graphein—meaning "to write".

 

The term graffiti originally referred to the inscriptions, figure drawings, and such, found on the walls of ancient sepulchres or ruins, as in the Catacombs of Rome or at Pompeii. Historically, these writings were not considered vanadlism, which today is considered part of the definition of graffiti.

 

The only known source of the Safaitic language, an ancient form of Arabic, is from graffiti: inscriptions scratched on to the surface of rocks and boulders in the predominantly basalt desert of southern Syria, eastern Jordan and northern Saudi Arabia. Safaitic dates from the first century BC to the fourth century AD.

 

Some of the oldest cave paintings in the world are 40,000 year old ones found in Australia. The oldest written graffiti was found in ancient Rome around 2500 years ago. Most graffiti from the time was boasts about sexual experiences Graffiti in Ancient Rome was a form of communication, and was not considered vandalism.

 

Ancient tourists visiting the 5th-century citadel at Sigiriya in Sri Lanka write their names and commentary over the "mirror wall", adding up to over 1800 individual graffiti produced there between the 6th and 18th centuries. Most of the graffiti refer to the frescoes of semi-nude females found there. One reads:

 

Wet with cool dew drops

fragrant with perfume from the flowers

came the gentle breeze

jasmine and water lily

dance in the spring sunshine

side-long glances

of the golden-hued ladies

stab into my thoughts

heaven itself cannot take my mind

as it has been captivated by one lass

among the five hundred I have seen here.

 

Among the ancient political graffiti examples were Arab satirist poems. Yazid al-Himyari, an Umayyad Arab and Persian poet, was most known for writing his political poetry on the walls between Sajistan and Basra, manifesting a strong hatred towards the Umayyad regime and its walis, and people used to read and circulate them very widely.

 

Graffiti, known as Tacherons, were frequently scratched on Romanesque Scandinavian church walls. When Renaissance artists such as Pinturicchio, Raphael, Michelangelo, Ghirlandaio, or Filippino Lippi descended into the ruins of Nero's Domus Aurea, they carved or painted their names and returned to initiate the grottesche style of decoration.

 

There are also examples of graffiti occurring in American history, such as Independence Rock, a national landmark along the Oregon Trail.

 

Later, French soldiers carved their names on monuments during the Napoleonic campaign of Egypt in the 1790s. Lord Byron's survives on one of the columns of the Temple of Poseidon at Cape Sounion in Attica, Greece.

 

The oldest known example of graffiti "monikers" found on traincars created by hobos and railworkers since the late 1800s. The Bozo Texino monikers were documented by filmmaker Bill Daniel in his 2005 film, Who is Bozo Texino?.

 

In World War II, an inscription on a wall at the fortress of Verdun was seen as an illustration of the US response twice in a generation to the wrongs of the Old World:

 

During World War II and for decades after, the phrase "Kilroy was here" with an accompanying illustration was widespread throughout the world, due to its use by American troops and ultimately filtering into American popular culture. Shortly after the death of Charlie Parker (nicknamed "Yardbird" or "Bird"), graffiti began appearing around New York with the words "Bird Lives".

 

Modern graffiti art has its origins with young people in 1960s and 70s in New York City and Philadelphia. Tags were the first form of stylised contemporary graffiti. Eventually, throw-ups and pieces evolved with the desire to create larger art. Writers used spray paint and other kind of materials to leave tags or to create images on the sides subway trains. and eventually moved into the city after the NYC metro began to buy new trains and paint over graffiti.

 

While the art had many advocates and appreciators—including the cultural critic Norman Mailer—others, including New York City mayor Ed Koch, considered it to be defacement of public property, and saw it as a form of public blight. The ‘taggers’ called what they did ‘writing’—though an important 1974 essay by Mailer referred to it using the term ‘graffiti.’

 

Contemporary graffiti style has been heavily influenced by hip hop culture and the myriad international styles derived from Philadelphia and New York City Subway graffiti; however, there are many other traditions of notable graffiti in the twentieth century. Graffiti have long appeared on building walls, in latrines, railroad boxcars, subways, and bridges.

 

An early graffito outside of New York or Philadelphia was the inscription in London reading "Clapton is God" in reference to the guitarist Eric Clapton. Creating the cult of the guitar hero, the phrase was spray-painted by an admirer on a wall in an Islington, north London in the autumn of 1967. The graffito was captured in a photograph, in which a dog is urinating on the wall.

 

Films like Style Wars in the 80s depicting famous writers such as Skeme, Dondi, MinOne, and ZEPHYR reinforced graffiti's role within New York's emerging hip-hop culture. Although many officers of the New York City Police Department found this film to be controversial, Style Wars is still recognized as the most prolific film representation of what was going on within the young hip hop culture of the early 1980s. Fab 5 Freddy and Futura 2000 took hip hop graffiti to Paris and London as part of the New York City Rap Tour in 1983

 

Commercialization and entrance into mainstream pop culture

Main article: Commercial graffiti

With the popularity and legitimization of graffiti has come a level of commercialization. In 2001, computer giant IBM launched an advertising campaign in Chicago and San Francisco which involved people spray painting on sidewalks a peace symbol, a heart, and a penguin (Linux mascot), to represent "Peace, Love, and Linux." IBM paid Chicago and San Francisco collectively US$120,000 for punitive damages and clean-up costs.

 

In 2005, a similar ad campaign was launched by Sony and executed by its advertising agency in New York, Chicago, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and Miami, to market its handheld PSP gaming system. In this campaign, taking notice of the legal problems of the IBM campaign, Sony paid building owners for the rights to paint on their buildings "a collection of dizzy-eyed urban kids playing with the PSP as if it were a skateboard, a paddle, or a rocking horse".

 

Tristan Manco wrote that Brazil "boasts a unique and particularly rich, graffiti scene ... [earning] it an international reputation as the place to go for artistic inspiration". Graffiti "flourishes in every conceivable space in Brazil's cities". Artistic parallels "are often drawn between the energy of São Paulo today and 1970s New York". The "sprawling metropolis", of São Paulo has "become the new shrine to graffiti"; Manco alludes to "poverty and unemployment ... [and] the epic struggles and conditions of the country's marginalised peoples", and to "Brazil's chronic poverty", as the main engines that "have fuelled a vibrant graffiti culture". In world terms, Brazil has "one of the most uneven distributions of income. Laws and taxes change frequently". Such factors, Manco argues, contribute to a very fluid society, riven with those economic divisions and social tensions that underpin and feed the "folkloric vandalism and an urban sport for the disenfranchised", that is South American graffiti art.

 

Prominent Brazilian writers include Os Gêmeos, Boleta, Nunca, Nina, Speto, Tikka, and T.Freak. Their artistic success and involvement in commercial design ventures has highlighted divisions within the Brazilian graffiti community between adherents of the cruder transgressive form of pichação and the more conventionally artistic values of the practitioners of grafite.

 

Graffiti in the Middle East has emerged slowly, with taggers operating in Egypt, Lebanon, the Gulf countries like Bahrain or the United Arab Emirates, Israel, and in Iran. The major Iranian newspaper Hamshahri has published two articles on illegal writers in the city with photographic coverage of Iranian artist A1one's works on Tehran walls. Tokyo-based design magazine, PingMag, has interviewed A1one and featured photographs of his work. The Israeli West Bank barrier has become a site for graffiti, reminiscent in this sense of the Berlin Wall. Many writers in Israel come from other places around the globe, such as JUIF from Los Angeles and DEVIONE from London. The religious reference "נ נח נחמ נחמן מאומן" ("Na Nach Nachma Nachman Meuman") is commonly seen in graffiti around Israel.

 

Graffiti has played an important role within the street art scene in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), especially following the events of the Arab Spring of 2011 or the Sudanese Revolution of 2018/19. Graffiti is a tool of expression in the context of conflict in the region, allowing people to raise their voices politically and socially. Famous street artist Banksy has had an important effect in the street art scene in the MENA area, especially in Palestine where some of his works are located in the West Bank barrier and Bethlehem.

 

There are also a large number of graffiti influences in Southeast Asian countries that mostly come from modern Western culture, such as Malaysia, where graffiti have long been a common sight in Malaysia's capital city, Kuala Lumpur. Since 2010, the country has begun hosting a street festival to encourage all generations and people from all walks of life to enjoy and encourage Malaysian street culture.

 

The modern-day graffitists can be found with an arsenal of various materials that allow for a successful production of a piece. This includes such techniques as scribing. However, spray paint in aerosol cans is the number one medium for graffiti. From this commodity comes different styles, technique, and abilities to form master works of graffiti. Spray paint can be found at hardware and art stores and comes in virtually every color.

 

Stencil graffiti is created by cutting out shapes and designs in a stiff material (such as cardboard or subject folders) to form an overall design or image. The stencil is then placed on the "canvas" gently and with quick, easy strokes of the aerosol can, the image begins to appear on the intended surface.

 

Some of the first examples were created in 1981 by artists Blek le Rat in Paris, in 1982 by Jef Aerosol in Tours (France); by 1985 stencils had appeared in other cities including New York City, Sydney, and Melbourne, where they were documented by American photographer Charles Gatewood and Australian photographer Rennie Ellis

 

Tagging is the practice of someone spray-painting "their name, initial or logo onto a public surface" in a handstyle unique to the writer. Tags were the first form of modern graffiti.

 

Modern graffiti art often incorporates additional arts and technologies. For example, Graffiti Research Lab has encouraged the use of projected images and magnetic light-emitting diodes (throwies) as new media for graffitists. yarnbombing is another recent form of graffiti. Yarnbombers occasionally target previous graffiti for modification, which had been avoided among the majority of graffitists.

 

Theories on the use of graffiti by avant-garde artists have a history dating back at least to the Asger Jorn, who in 1962 painting declared in a graffiti-like gesture "the avant-garde won't give up"

 

Many contemporary analysts and even art critics have begun to see artistic value in some graffiti and to recognize it as a form of public art. According to many art researchers, particularly in the Netherlands and in Los Angeles, that type of public art is, in fact an effective tool of social emancipation or, in the achievement of a political goal

 

In times of conflict, such murals have offered a means of communication and self-expression for members of these socially, ethnically, or racially divided communities, and have proven themselves as effective tools in establishing dialog and thus, of addressing cleavages in the long run. The Berlin Wall was also extensively covered by graffiti reflecting social pressures relating to the oppressive Soviet rule over the GDR.

 

Many artists involved with graffiti are also concerned with the similar activity of stenciling. Essentially, this entails stenciling a print of one or more colors using spray-paint. Recognized while exhibiting and publishing several of her coloured stencils and paintings portraying the Sri Lankan Civil War and urban Britain in the early 2000s, graffitists Mathangi Arulpragasam, aka M.I.A., has also become known for integrating her imagery of political violence into her music videos for singles "Galang" and "Bucky Done Gun", and her cover art. Stickers of her artwork also often appear around places such as London in Brick Lane, stuck to lamp posts and street signs, she having become a muse for other graffitists and painters worldwide in cities including Seville.

 

Graffitist believes that art should be on display for everyone in the public eye or in plain sight, not hidden away in a museum or a gallery. Art should color the streets, not the inside of some building. Graffiti is a form of art that cannot be owned or bought. It does not last forever, it is temporary, yet one of a kind. It is a form of self promotion for the artist that can be displayed anywhere form sidewalks, roofs, subways, building wall, etc. Art to them is for everyone and should be showed to everyone for free.

 

Graffiti is a way of communicating and a way of expressing what one feels in the moment. It is both art and a functional thing that can warn people of something or inform people of something. However, graffiti is to some people a form of art, but to some a form of vandalism. And many graffitists choose to protect their identities and remain anonymous or to hinder prosecution.

 

With the commercialization of graffiti (and hip hop in general), in most cases, even with legally painted "graffiti" art, graffitists tend to choose anonymity. This may be attributed to various reasons or a combination of reasons. Graffiti still remains the one of four hip hop elements that is not considered "performance art" despite the image of the "singing and dancing star" that sells hip hop culture to the mainstream. Being a graphic form of art, it might also be said that many graffitists still fall in the category of the introverted archetypal artist.

 

Banksy is one of the world's most notorious and popular street artists who continues to remain faceless in today's society. He is known for his political, anti-war stencil art mainly in Bristol, England, but his work may be seen anywhere from Los Angeles to Palestine. In the UK, Banksy is the most recognizable icon for this cultural artistic movement and keeps his identity a secret to avoid arrest. Much of Banksy's artwork may be seen around the streets of London and surrounding suburbs, although he has painted pictures throughout the world, including the Middle East, where he has painted on Israel's controversial West Bank barrier with satirical images of life on the other side. One depicted a hole in the wall with an idyllic beach, while another shows a mountain landscape on the other side. A number of exhibitions also have taken place since 2000, and recent works of art have fetched vast sums of money. Banksy's art is a prime example of the classic controversy: vandalism vs. art. Art supporters endorse his work distributed in urban areas as pieces of art and some councils, such as Bristol and Islington, have officially protected them, while officials of other areas have deemed his work to be vandalism and have removed it.

 

Pixnit is another artist who chooses to keep her identity from the general public. Her work focuses on beauty and design aspects of graffiti as opposed to Banksy's anti-government shock value. Her paintings are often of flower designs above shops and stores in her local urban area of Cambridge, Massachusetts. Some store owners endorse her work and encourage others to do similar work as well. "One of the pieces was left up above Steve's Kitchen, because it looks pretty awesome"- Erin Scott, the manager of New England Comics in Allston, Massachusetts.

 

Graffiti artists may become offended if photographs of their art are published in a commercial context without their permission. In March 2020, the Finnish graffiti artist Psyke expressed his displeasure at the newspaper Ilta-Sanomat publishing a photograph of a Peugeot 208 in an article about new cars, with his graffiti prominently shown on the background. The artist claims he does not want his art being used in commercial context, not even if he were to receive compensation.

 

Territorial graffiti marks urban neighborhoods with tags and logos to differentiate certain groups from others. These images are meant to show outsiders a stern look at whose turf is whose. The subject matter of gang-related graffiti consists of cryptic symbols and initials strictly fashioned with unique calligraphies. Gang members use graffiti to designate membership throughout the gang, to differentiate rivals and associates and, most commonly, to mark borders which are both territorial and ideological.

 

Graffiti has been used as a means of advertising both legally and illegally. Bronx-based TATS CRU has made a name for themselves doing legal advertising campaigns for companies such as Coca-Cola, McDonald's, Toyota, and MTV. In the UK, Covent Garden's Boxfresh used stencil images of a Zapatista revolutionary in the hopes that cross referencing would promote their store.

 

Smirnoff hired artists to use reverse graffiti (the use of high pressure hoses to clean dirty surfaces to leave a clean image in the surrounding dirt) to increase awareness of their product.

 

Graffiti often has a reputation as part of a subculture that rebels against authority, although the considerations of the practitioners often diverge and can relate to a wide range of attitudes. It can express a political practice and can form just one tool in an array of resistance techniques. One early example includes the anarcho-punk band Crass, who conducted a campaign of stenciling anti-war, anarchist, feminist, and anti-consumerist messages throughout the London Underground system during the late 1970s and early 1980s. In Amsterdam graffiti was a major part of the punk scene. The city was covered with names such as "De Zoot", "Vendex", and "Dr Rat". To document the graffiti a punk magazine was started that was called Gallery Anus. So when hip hop came to Europe in the early 1980s there was already a vibrant graffiti culture.

 

The student protests and general strike of May 1968 saw Paris bedecked in revolutionary, anarchistic, and situationist slogans such as L'ennui est contre-révolutionnaire ("Boredom is counterrevolutionary") and Lisez moins, vivez plus ("Read less, live more"). While not exhaustive, the graffiti gave a sense of the 'millenarian' and rebellious spirit, tempered with a good deal of verbal wit, of the strikers.

 

I think graffiti writing is a way of defining what our generation is like. Excuse the French, we're not a bunch of p---- artists. Traditionally artists have been considered soft and mellow people, a little bit kooky. Maybe we're a little bit more like pirates that way. We defend our territory, whatever space we steal to paint on, we defend it fiercely.

 

The developments of graffiti art which took place in art galleries and colleges as well as "on the street" or "underground", contributed to the resurfacing in the 1990s of a far more overtly politicized art form in the subvertising, culture jamming, or tactical media movements. These movements or styles tend to classify the artists by their relationship to their social and economic contexts, since, in most countries, graffiti art remains illegal in many forms except when using non-permanent paint. Since the 1990s with the rise of Street Art, a growing number of artists are switching to non-permanent paints and non-traditional forms of painting.

 

Contemporary practitioners, accordingly, have varied and often conflicting practices. Some individuals, such as Alexander Brener, have used the medium to politicize other art forms, and have used the prison sentences enforced on them as a means of further protest. The practices of anonymous groups and individuals also vary widely, and practitioners by no means always agree with each other's practices. For example, the anti-capitalist art group the Space Hijackers did a piece in 2004 about the contradiction between the capitalistic elements of Banksy and his use of political imagery.

 

Berlin human rights activist Irmela Mensah-Schramm has received global media attention and numerous awards for her 35-year campaign of effacing neo-Nazi and other right-wing extremist graffiti throughout Germany, often by altering hate speech in humorous ways.

 

In Serbian capital, Belgrade, the graffiti depicting a uniformed former general of Serb army and war criminal, convicted at ICTY for war crimes and crimes against humanity, including genocide and ethnic cleansing in Bosnian War, Ratko Mladić, appeared in a military salute alongside the words "General, thank to your mother". Aleks Eror, Berlin-based journalist, explains how "veneration of historical and wartime figures" through street art is not a new phenomenon in the region of former Yugoslavia, and that "in most cases is firmly focused on the future, rather than retelling the past". Eror is not only analyst pointing to danger of such an expressions for the region's future. In a long expose on the subject of Bosnian genocide denial, at Balkan Diskurs magazine and multimedia platform website, Kristina Gadže and Taylor Whitsell referred to these experiences as a young generations' "cultural heritage", in which young are being exposed to celebration and affirmation of war-criminals as part of their "formal education" and "inheritance".

 

There are numerous examples of genocide denial through celebration and affirmation of war criminals throughout the region of Western Balkans inhabited by Serbs using this form of artistic expression. Several more of these graffiti are found in Serbian capital, and many more across Serbia and Bosnian and Herzegovinian administrative entity, Republika Srpska, which is the ethnic Serbian majority enclave. Critics point that Serbia as a state, is willing to defend the mural of convicted war criminal, and have no intention to react on cases of genocide denial, noting that Interior Minister of Serbia, Aleksandar Vulin decision to ban any gathering with an intent to remove the mural, with the deployment of riot police, sends the message of "tacit endorsement". Consequently, on 9 November 2021, Serbian heavy police in riot gear, with graffiti creators and their supporters, blocked the access to the mural to prevent human rights groups and other activists to paint over it and mark the International Day Against Fascism and Antisemitism in that way, and even arrested two civic activist for throwing eggs at the graffiti.

 

Graffiti may also be used as an offensive expression. This form of graffiti may be difficult to identify, as it is mostly removed by the local authority (as councils which have adopted strategies of criminalization also strive to remove graffiti quickly). Therefore, existing racist graffiti is mostly more subtle and at first sight, not easily recognized as "racist". It can then be understood only if one knows the relevant "local code" (social, historical, political, temporal, and spatial), which is seen as heteroglot and thus a 'unique set of conditions' in a cultural context.

 

A spatial code for example, could be that there is a certain youth group in an area that is engaging heavily in racist activities. So, for residents (knowing the local code), a graffiti containing only the name or abbreviation of this gang already is a racist expression, reminding the offended people of their gang activities. Also a graffiti is in most cases, the herald of more serious criminal activity to come. A person who does not know these gang activities would not be able to recognize the meaning of this graffiti. Also if a tag of this youth group or gang is placed on a building occupied by asylum seekers, for example, its racist character is even stronger.

By making the graffiti less explicit (as adapted to social and legal constraints), these drawings are less likely to be removed, but do not lose their threatening and offensive character.

 

Elsewhere, activists in Russia have used painted caricatures of local officials with their mouths as potholes, to show their anger about the poor state of the roads. In Manchester, England, a graffitists painted obscene images around potholes, which often resulted in them being repaired within 48 hours.

 

In the early 1980s, the first art galleries to show graffitists to the public were Fashion Moda in the Bronx, Now Gallery and Fun Gallery, both in the East Village, Manhattan.

 

A 2006 exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum displayed graffiti as an art form that began in New York's outer boroughs and reached great heights in the early 1980s with the work of Crash, Lee, Daze, Keith Haring, and Jean-Michel Basquiat. It displayed 22 works by New York graffitists, including Crash, Daze, and Lady Pink. In an article about the exhibition in the magazine Time Out, curator Charlotta Kotik said that she hoped the exhibition would cause viewers to rethink their assumptions about graffiti.

 

From the 1970s onwards, Burhan Doğançay photographed urban walls all over the world; these he then archived for use as sources of inspiration for his painterly works. The project today known as "Walls of the World" grew beyond even his own expectations and comprises about 30,000 individual images. It spans a period of 40 years across five continents and 114 countries. In 1982, photographs from this project comprised a one-man exhibition titled "Les murs murmurent, ils crient, ils chantent ..." (The walls whisper, shout and sing ...) at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris.

 

In Australia, art historians have judged some local graffiti of sufficient creative merit to rank them firmly within the arts. Oxford University Press's art history text Australian Painting 1788–2000 concludes with a long discussion of graffiti's key place within contemporary visual culture, including the work of several Australian practitioners.

 

Between March and April 2009, 150 artists exhibited 300 pieces of graffiti at the Grand Palais in Paris.

 

Spray paint has many negative environmental effects. The paint contains toxic chemicals, and the can uses volatile hydrocarbon gases to spray the paint onto a surface.

 

Volatile organic compound (VOC) leads to ground level ozone formation and most of graffiti related emissions are VOCs. A 2010 paper estimates 4,862 tons of VOCs were released in the United States in activities related to graffiti.

  

In China, Mao Zedong in the 1920s used revolutionary slogans and paintings in public places to galvanize the country's communist movement.

 

Based on different national conditions, many people believe that China's attitude towards Graffiti is fierce, but in fact, according to Lance Crayon in his film Spray Paint Beijing: Graffiti in the Capital of China, Graffiti is generally accepted in Beijing, with artists not seeing much police interference. Political and religiously sensitive graffiti, however, is not allowed.

 

In Hong Kong, Tsang Tsou Choi was known as the King of Kowloon for his calligraphy graffiti over many years, in which he claimed ownership of the area. Now some of his work is preserved officially.

 

In Taiwan, the government has made some concessions to graffitists. Since 2005 they have been allowed to freely display their work along some sections of riverside retaining walls in designated "Graffiti Zones". From 2007, Taipei's department of cultural affairs also began permitting graffiti on fences around major public construction sites. Department head Yong-ping Lee (李永萍) stated, "We will promote graffiti starting with the public sector, and then later in the private sector too. It's our goal to beautify the city with graffiti". The government later helped organize a graffiti contest in Ximending, a popular shopping district. graffitists caught working outside of these designated areas still face fines up to NT$6,000 under a department of environmental protection regulation. However, Taiwanese authorities can be relatively lenient, one veteran police officer stating anonymously, "Unless someone complains about vandalism, we won't get involved. We don't go after it proactively."

 

In 1993, after several expensive cars in Singapore were spray-painted, the police arrested a student from the Singapore American School, Michael P. Fay, questioned him, and subsequently charged him with vandalism. Fay pleaded guilty to vandalizing a car in addition to stealing road signs. Under the 1966 Vandalism Act of Singapore, originally passed to curb the spread of communist graffiti in Singapore, the court sentenced him to four months in jail, a fine of S$3,500 (US$2,233), and a caning. The New York Times ran several editorials and op-eds that condemned the punishment and called on the American public to flood the Singaporean embassy with protests. Although the Singapore government received many calls for clemency, Fay's caning took place in Singapore on 5 May 1994. Fay had originally received a sentence of six strokes of the cane, but the presiding president of Singapore, Ong Teng Cheong, agreed to reduce his caning sentence to four lashes.

 

In South Korea, Park Jung-soo was fined two million South Korean won by the Seoul Central District Court for spray-painting a rat on posters of the G-20 Summit a few days before the event in November 2011. Park alleged that the initial in "G-20" sounds like the Korean word for "rat", but Korean government prosecutors alleged that Park was making a derogatory statement about the president of South Korea, Lee Myung-bak, the host of the summit. This case led to public outcry and debate on the lack of government tolerance and in support of freedom of expression. The court ruled that the painting, "an ominous creature like a rat" amounts to "an organized criminal activity" and upheld the fine while denying the prosecution's request for imprisonment for Park.

 

In Europe, community cleaning squads have responded to graffiti, in some cases with reckless abandon, as when in 1992 in France a local Scout group, attempting to remove modern graffiti, damaged two prehistoric paintings of bison in the Cave of Mayrière supérieure near the French village of Bruniquel in Tarn-et-Garonne, earning them the 1992 Ig Nobel Prize in archeology.

 

In September 2006, the European Parliament directed the European Commission to create urban environment policies to prevent and eliminate dirt, litter, graffiti, animal excrement, and excessive noise from domestic and vehicular music systems in European cities, along with other concerns over urban life.

 

In Budapest, Hungary, both a city-backed movement called I Love Budapest and a special police division tackle the problem, including the provision of approved areas.

 

The Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003 became Britain's latest anti-graffiti legislation. In August 2004, the Keep Britain Tidy campaign issued a press release calling for zero tolerance of graffiti and supporting proposals such as issuing "on the spot" fines to graffiti offenders and banning the sale of aerosol paint to anyone under the age of 16. The press release also condemned the use of graffiti images in advertising and in music videos, arguing that real-world experience of graffiti stood far removed from its often-portrayed "cool" or "edgy'" image.

 

To back the campaign, 123 Members of Parliament (MPs) (including then Prime Minister Tony Blair), signed a charter which stated: "Graffiti is not art, it's crime. On behalf of my constituents, I will do all I can to rid our community of this problem."

 

In the UK, city councils have the power to take action against the owner of any property that has been defaced under the Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003 (as amended by the Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Act 2005) or, in certain cases, the Highways Act. This is often used against owners of property that are complacent in allowing protective boards to be defaced so long as the property is not damaged.

 

In July 2008, a conspiracy charge was used to convict graffitists for the first time. After a three-month police surveillance operation, nine members of the DPM crew were convicted of conspiracy to commit criminal damage costing at least £1 million. Five of them received prison sentences, ranging from eighteen months to two years. The unprecedented scale of the investigation and the severity of the sentences rekindled public debate over whether graffiti should be considered art or crime.

 

Some councils, like those of Stroud and Loerrach, provide approved areas in the town where graffitists can showcase their talents, including underpasses, car parks, and walls that might otherwise prove a target for the "spray and run".

 

Graffiti Tunnel, University of Sydney at Camperdown (2009)

In an effort to reduce vandalism, many cities in Australia have designated walls or areas exclusively for use by graffitists. One early example is the "Graffiti Tunnel" located at the Camperdown Campus of the University of Sydney, which is available for use by any student at the university to tag, advertise, poster, and paint. Advocates of this idea suggest that this discourages petty vandalism yet encourages artists to take their time and produce great art, without worry of being caught or arrested for vandalism or trespassing.[108][109] Others disagree with this approach, arguing that the presence of legal graffiti walls does not demonstrably reduce illegal graffiti elsewhere. Some local government areas throughout Australia have introduced "anti-graffiti squads", who clean graffiti in the area, and such crews as BCW (Buffers Can't Win) have taken steps to keep one step ahead of local graffiti cleaners.

 

Many state governments have banned the sale or possession of spray paint to those under the age of 18 (age of majority). However, a number of local governments in Victoria have taken steps to recognize the cultural heritage value of some examples of graffiti, such as prominent political graffiti. Tough new graffiti laws have been introduced in Australia with fines of up to A$26,000 and two years in prison.

 

Melbourne is a prominent graffiti city of Australia with many of its lanes being tourist attractions, such as Hosier Lane in particular, a popular destination for photographers, wedding photography, and backdrops for corporate print advertising. The Lonely Planet travel guide cites Melbourne's street as a major attraction. All forms of graffiti, including sticker art, poster, stencil art, and wheatpasting, can be found in many places throughout the city. Prominent street art precincts include; Fitzroy, Collingwood, Northcote, Brunswick, St. Kilda, and the CBD, where stencil and sticker art is prominent. As one moves farther away from the city, mostly along suburban train lines, graffiti tags become more prominent. Many international artists such as Banksy have left their work in Melbourne and in early 2008 a perspex screen was installed to prevent a Banksy stencil art piece from being destroyed, it has survived since 2003 through the respect of local street artists avoiding posting over it, although it has recently had paint tipped over it.

 

In February 2008 Helen Clark, the New Zealand prime minister at that time, announced a government crackdown on tagging and other forms of graffiti vandalism, describing it as a destructive crime representing an invasion of public and private property. New legislation subsequently adopted included a ban on the sale of paint spray cans to persons under 18 and increases in maximum fines for the offence from NZ$200 to NZ$2,000 or extended community service. The issue of tagging become a widely debated one following an incident in Auckland during January 2008 in which a middle-aged property owner stabbed one of two teenage taggers to death and was subsequently convicted of manslaughter.

 

Graffiti databases have increased in the past decade because they allow vandalism incidents to be fully documented against an offender and help the police and prosecution charge and prosecute offenders for multiple counts of vandalism. They also provide law enforcement the ability to rapidly search for an offender's moniker or tag in a simple, effective, and comprehensive way. These systems can also help track costs of damage to a city to help allocate an anti-graffiti budget. The theory is that when an offender is caught putting up graffiti, they are not just charged with one count of vandalism; they can be held accountable for all the other damage for which they are responsible. This has two main benefits for law enforcement. One, it sends a signal to the offenders that their vandalism is being tracked. Two, a city can seek restitution from offenders for all the damage that they have committed, not merely a single incident. These systems give law enforcement personnel real-time, street-level intelligence that allows them not only to focus on the worst graffiti offenders and their damage, but also to monitor potential gang violence that is associated with the graffiti.

 

Many restrictions of civil gang injunctions are designed to help address and protect the physical environment and limit graffiti. Provisions of gang injunctions include things such as restricting the possession of marker pens, spray paint cans, or other sharp objects capable of defacing private or public property; spray painting, or marking with marker pens, scratching, applying stickers, or otherwise applying graffiti on any public or private property, including, but not limited to the street, alley, residences, block walls, and fences, vehicles or any other real or personal property. Some injunctions contain wording that restricts damaging or vandalizing both public and private property, including but not limited to any vehicle, light fixture, door, fence, wall, gate, window, building, street sign, utility box, telephone box, tree, or power pole.

 

To help address many of these issues, many local jurisdictions have set up graffiti abatement hotlines, where citizens can call in and report vandalism and have it removed. San Diego's hotline receives more than 5,000 calls per year, in addition to reporting the graffiti, callers can learn more about prevention. One of the complaints about these hotlines is the response time; there is often a lag time between a property owner calling about the graffiti and its removal. The length of delay should be a consideration for any jurisdiction planning on operating a hotline. Local jurisdictions must convince the callers that their complaint of vandalism will be a priority and cleaned off right away. If the jurisdiction does not have the resources to respond to complaints in a timely manner, the value of the hotline diminishes. Crews must be able to respond to individual service calls made to the graffiti hotline as well as focus on cleanup near schools, parks, and major intersections and transit routes to have the biggest impact. Some cities offer a reward for information leading to the arrest and prosecution of suspects for tagging or graffiti related vandalism. The amount of the reward is based on the information provided, and the action taken.

 

When police obtain search warrants in connection with a vandalism investigation, they are often seeking judicial approval to look for items such as cans of spray paint and nozzles from other kinds of aerosol sprays; etching tools, or other sharp or pointed objects, which could be used to etch or scratch glass and other hard surfaces; permanent marking pens, markers, or paint sticks; evidence of membership or affiliation with any gang or tagging crew; paraphernalia including any reference to "(tagger's name)"; any drawings, writing, objects, or graffiti depicting taggers' names, initials, logos, monikers, slogans, or any mention of tagging crew membership; and any newspaper clippings relating to graffiti crime.

This is an autopsy case of small cell lung carcinoma (SCLC) with extensive tumor involvement of bronchial epipthelium, glands and glandular ducts. Much of the mucosal involvement is not immediately adjacent to areas of invasive SCLC. Although it has been suggested (and it is possible) that mucosal tumor involvement in this case represents invasion by underlying invasive tumor, I believe that that explanation is unlikely. A precursor of SCLC has not yet been identified. Its identification and acceptance would require studies carefully focusing on the examination of the bronchial mucosa in a large number of resection and/or autopsy specimens. At the present time present specimens of this type are not often encountered in any one institution.

This image shows invasive SCLC with lymphatic permeation in both upper quadrants. Even at this low magnification extensive involvement of bronchial epithelium with malignant cells, even in areas that are not adjacent to invasive tumor, can be appreciated.

Graffiti (plural; singular graffiti or graffito, the latter rarely used except in archeology) is art that is written, painted or drawn on a wall or other surface, usually without permission and within public view. Graffiti ranges from simple written words to elaborate wall paintings, and has existed since ancient times, with examples dating back to ancient Egypt, ancient Greece, and the Roman Empire (see also mural).

 

Graffiti is a controversial subject. In most countries, marking or painting property without permission is considered by property owners and civic authorities as defacement and vandalism, which is a punishable crime, citing the use of graffiti by street gangs to mark territory or to serve as an indicator of gang-related activities. Graffiti has become visualized as a growing urban "problem" for many cities in industrialized nations, spreading from the New York City subway system and Philadelphia in the early 1970s to the rest of the United States and Europe and other world regions

 

"Graffiti" (usually both singular and plural) and the rare singular form "graffito" are from the Italian word graffiato ("scratched"). The term "graffiti" is used in art history for works of art produced by scratching a design into a surface. A related term is "sgraffito", which involves scratching through one layer of pigment to reveal another beneath it. This technique was primarily used by potters who would glaze their wares and then scratch a design into them. In ancient times graffiti were carved on walls with a sharp object, although sometimes chalk or coal were used. The word originates from Greek γράφειν—graphein—meaning "to write".

 

The term graffiti originally referred to the inscriptions, figure drawings, and such, found on the walls of ancient sepulchres or ruins, as in the Catacombs of Rome or at Pompeii. Historically, these writings were not considered vanadlism, which today is considered part of the definition of graffiti.

 

The only known source of the Safaitic language, an ancient form of Arabic, is from graffiti: inscriptions scratched on to the surface of rocks and boulders in the predominantly basalt desert of southern Syria, eastern Jordan and northern Saudi Arabia. Safaitic dates from the first century BC to the fourth century AD.

 

Some of the oldest cave paintings in the world are 40,000 year old ones found in Australia. The oldest written graffiti was found in ancient Rome around 2500 years ago. Most graffiti from the time was boasts about sexual experiences Graffiti in Ancient Rome was a form of communication, and was not considered vandalism.

 

Ancient tourists visiting the 5th-century citadel at Sigiriya in Sri Lanka write their names and commentary over the "mirror wall", adding up to over 1800 individual graffiti produced there between the 6th and 18th centuries. Most of the graffiti refer to the frescoes of semi-nude females found there. One reads:

 

Wet with cool dew drops

fragrant with perfume from the flowers

came the gentle breeze

jasmine and water lily

dance in the spring sunshine

side-long glances

of the golden-hued ladies

stab into my thoughts

heaven itself cannot take my mind

as it has been captivated by one lass

among the five hundred I have seen here.

 

Among the ancient political graffiti examples were Arab satirist poems. Yazid al-Himyari, an Umayyad Arab and Persian poet, was most known for writing his political poetry on the walls between Sajistan and Basra, manifesting a strong hatred towards the Umayyad regime and its walis, and people used to read and circulate them very widely.

 

Graffiti, known as Tacherons, were frequently scratched on Romanesque Scandinavian church walls. When Renaissance artists such as Pinturicchio, Raphael, Michelangelo, Ghirlandaio, or Filippino Lippi descended into the ruins of Nero's Domus Aurea, they carved or painted their names and returned to initiate the grottesche style of decoration.

 

There are also examples of graffiti occurring in American history, such as Independence Rock, a national landmark along the Oregon Trail.

 

Later, French soldiers carved their names on monuments during the Napoleonic campaign of Egypt in the 1790s. Lord Byron's survives on one of the columns of the Temple of Poseidon at Cape Sounion in Attica, Greece.

 

The oldest known example of graffiti "monikers" found on traincars created by hobos and railworkers since the late 1800s. The Bozo Texino monikers were documented by filmmaker Bill Daniel in his 2005 film, Who is Bozo Texino?.

 

In World War II, an inscription on a wall at the fortress of Verdun was seen as an illustration of the US response twice in a generation to the wrongs of the Old World:

 

During World War II and for decades after, the phrase "Kilroy was here" with an accompanying illustration was widespread throughout the world, due to its use by American troops and ultimately filtering into American popular culture. Shortly after the death of Charlie Parker (nicknamed "Yardbird" or "Bird"), graffiti began appearing around New York with the words "Bird Lives".

 

Modern graffiti art has its origins with young people in 1960s and 70s in New York City and Philadelphia. Tags were the first form of stylised contemporary graffiti. Eventually, throw-ups and pieces evolved with the desire to create larger art. Writers used spray paint and other kind of materials to leave tags or to create images on the sides subway trains. and eventually moved into the city after the NYC metro began to buy new trains and paint over graffiti.

 

While the art had many advocates and appreciators—including the cultural critic Norman Mailer—others, including New York City mayor Ed Koch, considered it to be defacement of public property, and saw it as a form of public blight. The ‘taggers’ called what they did ‘writing’—though an important 1974 essay by Mailer referred to it using the term ‘graffiti.’

 

Contemporary graffiti style has been heavily influenced by hip hop culture and the myriad international styles derived from Philadelphia and New York City Subway graffiti; however, there are many other traditions of notable graffiti in the twentieth century. Graffiti have long appeared on building walls, in latrines, railroad boxcars, subways, and bridges.

 

An early graffito outside of New York or Philadelphia was the inscription in London reading "Clapton is God" in reference to the guitarist Eric Clapton. Creating the cult of the guitar hero, the phrase was spray-painted by an admirer on a wall in an Islington, north London in the autumn of 1967. The graffito was captured in a photograph, in which a dog is urinating on the wall.

 

Films like Style Wars in the 80s depicting famous writers such as Skeme, Dondi, MinOne, and ZEPHYR reinforced graffiti's role within New York's emerging hip-hop culture. Although many officers of the New York City Police Department found this film to be controversial, Style Wars is still recognized as the most prolific film representation of what was going on within the young hip hop culture of the early 1980s. Fab 5 Freddy and Futura 2000 took hip hop graffiti to Paris and London as part of the New York City Rap Tour in 1983

 

Commercialization and entrance into mainstream pop culture

Main article: Commercial graffiti

With the popularity and legitimization of graffiti has come a level of commercialization. In 2001, computer giant IBM launched an advertising campaign in Chicago and San Francisco which involved people spray painting on sidewalks a peace symbol, a heart, and a penguin (Linux mascot), to represent "Peace, Love, and Linux." IBM paid Chicago and San Francisco collectively US$120,000 for punitive damages and clean-up costs.

 

In 2005, a similar ad campaign was launched by Sony and executed by its advertising agency in New York, Chicago, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and Miami, to market its handheld PSP gaming system. In this campaign, taking notice of the legal problems of the IBM campaign, Sony paid building owners for the rights to paint on their buildings "a collection of dizzy-eyed urban kids playing with the PSP as if it were a skateboard, a paddle, or a rocking horse".

 

Tristan Manco wrote that Brazil "boasts a unique and particularly rich, graffiti scene ... [earning] it an international reputation as the place to go for artistic inspiration". Graffiti "flourishes in every conceivable space in Brazil's cities". Artistic parallels "are often drawn between the energy of São Paulo today and 1970s New York". The "sprawling metropolis", of São Paulo has "become the new shrine to graffiti"; Manco alludes to "poverty and unemployment ... [and] the epic struggles and conditions of the country's marginalised peoples", and to "Brazil's chronic poverty", as the main engines that "have fuelled a vibrant graffiti culture". In world terms, Brazil has "one of the most uneven distributions of income. Laws and taxes change frequently". Such factors, Manco argues, contribute to a very fluid society, riven with those economic divisions and social tensions that underpin and feed the "folkloric vandalism and an urban sport for the disenfranchised", that is South American graffiti art.

 

Prominent Brazilian writers include Os Gêmeos, Boleta, Nunca, Nina, Speto, Tikka, and T.Freak. Their artistic success and involvement in commercial design ventures has highlighted divisions within the Brazilian graffiti community between adherents of the cruder transgressive form of pichação and the more conventionally artistic values of the practitioners of grafite.

 

Graffiti in the Middle East has emerged slowly, with taggers operating in Egypt, Lebanon, the Gulf countries like Bahrain or the United Arab Emirates, Israel, and in Iran. The major Iranian newspaper Hamshahri has published two articles on illegal writers in the city with photographic coverage of Iranian artist A1one's works on Tehran walls. Tokyo-based design magazine, PingMag, has interviewed A1one and featured photographs of his work. The Israeli West Bank barrier has become a site for graffiti, reminiscent in this sense of the Berlin Wall. Many writers in Israel come from other places around the globe, such as JUIF from Los Angeles and DEVIONE from London. The religious reference "נ נח נחמ נחמן מאומן" ("Na Nach Nachma Nachman Meuman") is commonly seen in graffiti around Israel.

 

Graffiti has played an important role within the street art scene in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), especially following the events of the Arab Spring of 2011 or the Sudanese Revolution of 2018/19. Graffiti is a tool of expression in the context of conflict in the region, allowing people to raise their voices politically and socially. Famous street artist Banksy has had an important effect in the street art scene in the MENA area, especially in Palestine where some of his works are located in the West Bank barrier and Bethlehem.

 

There are also a large number of graffiti influences in Southeast Asian countries that mostly come from modern Western culture, such as Malaysia, where graffiti have long been a common sight in Malaysia's capital city, Kuala Lumpur. Since 2010, the country has begun hosting a street festival to encourage all generations and people from all walks of life to enjoy and encourage Malaysian street culture.

 

The modern-day graffitists can be found with an arsenal of various materials that allow for a successful production of a piece. This includes such techniques as scribing. However, spray paint in aerosol cans is the number one medium for graffiti. From this commodity comes different styles, technique, and abilities to form master works of graffiti. Spray paint can be found at hardware and art stores and comes in virtually every color.

 

Stencil graffiti is created by cutting out shapes and designs in a stiff material (such as cardboard or subject folders) to form an overall design or image. The stencil is then placed on the "canvas" gently and with quick, easy strokes of the aerosol can, the image begins to appear on the intended surface.

 

Some of the first examples were created in 1981 by artists Blek le Rat in Paris, in 1982 by Jef Aerosol in Tours (France); by 1985 stencils had appeared in other cities including New York City, Sydney, and Melbourne, where they were documented by American photographer Charles Gatewood and Australian photographer Rennie Ellis

 

Tagging is the practice of someone spray-painting "their name, initial or logo onto a public surface" in a handstyle unique to the writer. Tags were the first form of modern graffiti.

 

Modern graffiti art often incorporates additional arts and technologies. For example, Graffiti Research Lab has encouraged the use of projected images and magnetic light-emitting diodes (throwies) as new media for graffitists. yarnbombing is another recent form of graffiti. Yarnbombers occasionally target previous graffiti for modification, which had been avoided among the majority of graffitists.

 

Theories on the use of graffiti by avant-garde artists have a history dating back at least to the Asger Jorn, who in 1962 painting declared in a graffiti-like gesture "the avant-garde won't give up"

 

Many contemporary analysts and even art critics have begun to see artistic value in some graffiti and to recognize it as a form of public art. According to many art researchers, particularly in the Netherlands and in Los Angeles, that type of public art is, in fact an effective tool of social emancipation or, in the achievement of a political goal

 

In times of conflict, such murals have offered a means of communication and self-expression for members of these socially, ethnically, or racially divided communities, and have proven themselves as effective tools in establishing dialog and thus, of addressing cleavages in the long run. The Berlin Wall was also extensively covered by graffiti reflecting social pressures relating to the oppressive Soviet rule over the GDR.

 

Many artists involved with graffiti are also concerned with the similar activity of stenciling. Essentially, this entails stenciling a print of one or more colors using spray-paint. Recognized while exhibiting and publishing several of her coloured stencils and paintings portraying the Sri Lankan Civil War and urban Britain in the early 2000s, graffitists Mathangi Arulpragasam, aka M.I.A., has also become known for integrating her imagery of political violence into her music videos for singles "Galang" and "Bucky Done Gun", and her cover art. Stickers of her artwork also often appear around places such as London in Brick Lane, stuck to lamp posts and street signs, she having become a muse for other graffitists and painters worldwide in cities including Seville.

 

Graffitist believes that art should be on display for everyone in the public eye or in plain sight, not hidden away in a museum or a gallery. Art should color the streets, not the inside of some building. Graffiti is a form of art that cannot be owned or bought. It does not last forever, it is temporary, yet one of a kind. It is a form of self promotion for the artist that can be displayed anywhere form sidewalks, roofs, subways, building wall, etc. Art to them is for everyone and should be showed to everyone for free.

 

Graffiti is a way of communicating and a way of expressing what one feels in the moment. It is both art and a functional thing that can warn people of something or inform people of something. However, graffiti is to some people a form of art, but to some a form of vandalism. And many graffitists choose to protect their identities and remain anonymous or to hinder prosecution.

 

With the commercialization of graffiti (and hip hop in general), in most cases, even with legally painted "graffiti" art, graffitists tend to choose anonymity. This may be attributed to various reasons or a combination of reasons. Graffiti still remains the one of four hip hop elements that is not considered "performance art" despite the image of the "singing and dancing star" that sells hip hop culture to the mainstream. Being a graphic form of art, it might also be said that many graffitists still fall in the category of the introverted archetypal artist.

 

Banksy is one of the world's most notorious and popular street artists who continues to remain faceless in today's society. He is known for his political, anti-war stencil art mainly in Bristol, England, but his work may be seen anywhere from Los Angeles to Palestine. In the UK, Banksy is the most recognizable icon for this cultural artistic movement and keeps his identity a secret to avoid arrest. Much of Banksy's artwork may be seen around the streets of London and surrounding suburbs, although he has painted pictures throughout the world, including the Middle East, where he has painted on Israel's controversial West Bank barrier with satirical images of life on the other side. One depicted a hole in the wall with an idyllic beach, while another shows a mountain landscape on the other side. A number of exhibitions also have taken place since 2000, and recent works of art have fetched vast sums of money. Banksy's art is a prime example of the classic controversy: vandalism vs. art. Art supporters endorse his work distributed in urban areas as pieces of art and some councils, such as Bristol and Islington, have officially protected them, while officials of other areas have deemed his work to be vandalism and have removed it.

 

Pixnit is another artist who chooses to keep her identity from the general public. Her work focuses on beauty and design aspects of graffiti as opposed to Banksy's anti-government shock value. Her paintings are often of flower designs above shops and stores in her local urban area of Cambridge, Massachusetts. Some store owners endorse her work and encourage others to do similar work as well. "One of the pieces was left up above Steve's Kitchen, because it looks pretty awesome"- Erin Scott, the manager of New England Comics in Allston, Massachusetts.

 

Graffiti artists may become offended if photographs of their art are published in a commercial context without their permission. In March 2020, the Finnish graffiti artist Psyke expressed his displeasure at the newspaper Ilta-Sanomat publishing a photograph of a Peugeot 208 in an article about new cars, with his graffiti prominently shown on the background. The artist claims he does not want his art being used in commercial context, not even if he were to receive compensation.

 

Territorial graffiti marks urban neighborhoods with tags and logos to differentiate certain groups from others. These images are meant to show outsiders a stern look at whose turf is whose. The subject matter of gang-related graffiti consists of cryptic symbols and initials strictly fashioned with unique calligraphies. Gang members use graffiti to designate membership throughout the gang, to differentiate rivals and associates and, most commonly, to mark borders which are both territorial and ideological.

 

Graffiti has been used as a means of advertising both legally and illegally. Bronx-based TATS CRU has made a name for themselves doing legal advertising campaigns for companies such as Coca-Cola, McDonald's, Toyota, and MTV. In the UK, Covent Garden's Boxfresh used stencil images of a Zapatista revolutionary in the hopes that cross referencing would promote their store.

 

Smirnoff hired artists to use reverse graffiti (the use of high pressure hoses to clean dirty surfaces to leave a clean image in the surrounding dirt) to increase awareness of their product.

 

Graffiti often has a reputation as part of a subculture that rebels against authority, although the considerations of the practitioners often diverge and can relate to a wide range of attitudes. It can express a political practice and can form just one tool in an array of resistance techniques. One early example includes the anarcho-punk band Crass, who conducted a campaign of stenciling anti-war, anarchist, feminist, and anti-consumerist messages throughout the London Underground system during the late 1970s and early 1980s. In Amsterdam graffiti was a major part of the punk scene. The city was covered with names such as "De Zoot", "Vendex", and "Dr Rat". To document the graffiti a punk magazine was started that was called Gallery Anus. So when hip hop came to Europe in the early 1980s there was already a vibrant graffiti culture.

 

The student protests and general strike of May 1968 saw Paris bedecked in revolutionary, anarchistic, and situationist slogans such as L'ennui est contre-révolutionnaire ("Boredom is counterrevolutionary") and Lisez moins, vivez plus ("Read less, live more"). While not exhaustive, the graffiti gave a sense of the 'millenarian' and rebellious spirit, tempered with a good deal of verbal wit, of the strikers.

 

I think graffiti writing is a way of defining what our generation is like. Excuse the French, we're not a bunch of p---- artists. Traditionally artists have been considered soft and mellow people, a little bit kooky. Maybe we're a little bit more like pirates that way. We defend our territory, whatever space we steal to paint on, we defend it fiercely.

 

The developments of graffiti art which took place in art galleries and colleges as well as "on the street" or "underground", contributed to the resurfacing in the 1990s of a far more overtly politicized art form in the subvertising, culture jamming, or tactical media movements. These movements or styles tend to classify the artists by their relationship to their social and economic contexts, since, in most countries, graffiti art remains illegal in many forms except when using non-permanent paint. Since the 1990s with the rise of Street Art, a growing number of artists are switching to non-permanent paints and non-traditional forms of painting.

 

Contemporary practitioners, accordingly, have varied and often conflicting practices. Some individuals, such as Alexander Brener, have used the medium to politicize other art forms, and have used the prison sentences enforced on them as a means of further protest. The practices of anonymous groups and individuals also vary widely, and practitioners by no means always agree with each other's practices. For example, the anti-capitalist art group the Space Hijackers did a piece in 2004 about the contradiction between the capitalistic elements of Banksy and his use of political imagery.

 

Berlin human rights activist Irmela Mensah-Schramm has received global media attention and numerous awards for her 35-year campaign of effacing neo-Nazi and other right-wing extremist graffiti throughout Germany, often by altering hate speech in humorous ways.

 

In Serbian capital, Belgrade, the graffiti depicting a uniformed former general of Serb army and war criminal, convicted at ICTY for war crimes and crimes against humanity, including genocide and ethnic cleansing in Bosnian War, Ratko Mladić, appeared in a military salute alongside the words "General, thank to your mother". Aleks Eror, Berlin-based journalist, explains how "veneration of historical and wartime figures" through street art is not a new phenomenon in the region of former Yugoslavia, and that "in most cases is firmly focused on the future, rather than retelling the past". Eror is not only analyst pointing to danger of such an expressions for the region's future. In a long expose on the subject of Bosnian genocide denial, at Balkan Diskurs magazine and multimedia platform website, Kristina Gadže and Taylor Whitsell referred to these experiences as a young generations' "cultural heritage", in which young are being exposed to celebration and affirmation of war-criminals as part of their "formal education" and "inheritance".

 

There are numerous examples of genocide denial through celebration and affirmation of war criminals throughout the region of Western Balkans inhabited by Serbs using this form of artistic expression. Several more of these graffiti are found in Serbian capital, and many more across Serbia and Bosnian and Herzegovinian administrative entity, Republika Srpska, which is the ethnic Serbian majority enclave. Critics point that Serbia as a state, is willing to defend the mural of convicted war criminal, and have no intention to react on cases of genocide denial, noting that Interior Minister of Serbia, Aleksandar Vulin decision to ban any gathering with an intent to remove the mural, with the deployment of riot police, sends the message of "tacit endorsement". Consequently, on 9 November 2021, Serbian heavy police in riot gear, with graffiti creators and their supporters, blocked the access to the mural to prevent human rights groups and other activists to paint over it and mark the International Day Against Fascism and Antisemitism in that way, and even arrested two civic activist for throwing eggs at the graffiti.

 

Graffiti may also be used as an offensive expression. This form of graffiti may be difficult to identify, as it is mostly removed by the local authority (as councils which have adopted strategies of criminalization also strive to remove graffiti quickly). Therefore, existing racist graffiti is mostly more subtle and at first sight, not easily recognized as "racist". It can then be understood only if one knows the relevant "local code" (social, historical, political, temporal, and spatial), which is seen as heteroglot and thus a 'unique set of conditions' in a cultural context.

 

A spatial code for example, could be that there is a certain youth group in an area that is engaging heavily in racist activities. So, for residents (knowing the local code), a graffiti containing only the name or abbreviation of this gang already is a racist expression, reminding the offended people of their gang activities. Also a graffiti is in most cases, the herald of more serious criminal activity to come. A person who does not know these gang activities would not be able to recognize the meaning of this graffiti. Also if a tag of this youth group or gang is placed on a building occupied by asylum seekers, for example, its racist character is even stronger.

By making the graffiti less explicit (as adapted to social and legal constraints), these drawings are less likely to be removed, but do not lose their threatening and offensive character.

 

Elsewhere, activists in Russia have used painted caricatures of local officials with their mouths as potholes, to show their anger about the poor state of the roads. In Manchester, England, a graffitists painted obscene images around potholes, which often resulted in them being repaired within 48 hours.

 

In the early 1980s, the first art galleries to show graffitists to the public were Fashion Moda in the Bronx, Now Gallery and Fun Gallery, both in the East Village, Manhattan.

 

A 2006 exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum displayed graffiti as an art form that began in New York's outer boroughs and reached great heights in the early 1980s with the work of Crash, Lee, Daze, Keith Haring, and Jean-Michel Basquiat. It displayed 22 works by New York graffitists, including Crash, Daze, and Lady Pink. In an article about the exhibition in the magazine Time Out, curator Charlotta Kotik said that she hoped the exhibition would cause viewers to rethink their assumptions about graffiti.

 

From the 1970s onwards, Burhan Doğançay photographed urban walls all over the world; these he then archived for use as sources of inspiration for his painterly works. The project today known as "Walls of the World" grew beyond even his own expectations and comprises about 30,000 individual images. It spans a period of 40 years across five continents and 114 countries. In 1982, photographs from this project comprised a one-man exhibition titled "Les murs murmurent, ils crient, ils chantent ..." (The walls whisper, shout and sing ...) at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris.

 

In Australia, art historians have judged some local graffiti of sufficient creative merit to rank them firmly within the arts. Oxford University Press's art history text Australian Painting 1788–2000 concludes with a long discussion of graffiti's key place within contemporary visual culture, including the work of several Australian practitioners.

 

Between March and April 2009, 150 artists exhibited 300 pieces of graffiti at the Grand Palais in Paris.

 

Spray paint has many negative environmental effects. The paint contains toxic chemicals, and the can uses volatile hydrocarbon gases to spray the paint onto a surface.

 

Volatile organic compound (VOC) leads to ground level ozone formation and most of graffiti related emissions are VOCs. A 2010 paper estimates 4,862 tons of VOCs were released in the United States in activities related to graffiti.

 

In China, Mao Zedong in the 1920s used revolutionary slogans and paintings in public places to galvanize the country's communist movement.

 

Based on different national conditions, many people believe that China's attitude towards Graffiti is fierce, but in fact, according to Lance Crayon in his film Spray Paint Beijing: Graffiti in the Capital of China, Graffiti is generally accepted in Beijing, with artists not seeing much police interference. Political and religiously sensitive graffiti, however, is not allowed.

 

In Hong Kong, Tsang Tsou Choi was known as the King of Kowloon for his calligraphy graffiti over many years, in which he claimed ownership of the area. Now some of his work is preserved officially.

 

In Taiwan, the government has made some concessions to graffitists. Since 2005 they have been allowed to freely display their work along some sections of riverside retaining walls in designated "Graffiti Zones". From 2007, Taipei's department of cultural affairs also began permitting graffiti on fences around major public construction sites. Department head Yong-ping Lee (李永萍) stated, "We will promote graffiti starting with the public sector, and then later in the private sector too. It's our goal to beautify the city with graffiti". The government later helped organize a graffiti contest in Ximending, a popular shopping district. graffitists caught working outside of these designated areas still face fines up to NT$6,000 under a department of environmental protection regulation. However, Taiwanese authorities can be relatively lenient, one veteran police officer stating anonymously, "Unless someone complains about vandalism, we won't get involved. We don't go after it proactively."

 

In 1993, after several expensive cars in Singapore were spray-painted, the police arrested a student from the Singapore American School, Michael P. Fay, questioned him, and subsequently charged him with vandalism. Fay pleaded guilty to vandalizing a car in addition to stealing road signs. Under the 1966 Vandalism Act of Singapore, originally passed to curb the spread of communist graffiti in Singapore, the court sentenced him to four months in jail, a fine of S$3,500 (US$2,233), and a caning. The New York Times ran several editorials and op-eds that condemned the punishment and called on the American public to flood the Singaporean embassy with protests. Although the Singapore government received many calls for clemency, Fay's caning took place in Singapore on 5 May 1994. Fay had originally received a sentence of six strokes of the cane, but the presiding president of Singapore, Ong Teng Cheong, agreed to reduce his caning sentence to four lashes.

 

In South Korea, Park Jung-soo was fined two million South Korean won by the Seoul Central District Court for spray-painting a rat on posters of the G-20 Summit a few days before the event in November 2011. Park alleged that the initial in "G-20" sounds like the Korean word for "rat", but Korean government prosecutors alleged that Park was making a derogatory statement about the president of South Korea, Lee Myung-bak, the host of the summit. This case led to public outcry and debate on the lack of government tolerance and in support of freedom of expression. The court ruled that the painting, "an ominous creature like a rat" amounts to "an organized criminal activity" and upheld the fine while denying the prosecution's request for imprisonment for Park.

 

In Europe, community cleaning squads have responded to graffiti, in some cases with reckless abandon, as when in 1992 in France a local Scout group, attempting to remove modern graffiti, damaged two prehistoric paintings of bison in the Cave of Mayrière supérieure near the French village of Bruniquel in Tarn-et-Garonne, earning them the 1992 Ig Nobel Prize in archeology.

 

In September 2006, the European Parliament directed the European Commission to create urban environment policies to prevent and eliminate dirt, litter, graffiti, animal excrement, and excessive noise from domestic and vehicular music systems in European cities, along with other concerns over urban life.

 

In Budapest, Hungary, both a city-backed movement called I Love Budapest and a special police division tackle the problem, including the provision of approved areas.

 

The Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003 became Britain's latest anti-graffiti legislation. In August 2004, the Keep Britain Tidy campaign issued a press release calling for zero tolerance of graffiti and supporting proposals such as issuing "on the spot" fines to graffiti offenders and banning the sale of aerosol paint to anyone under the age of 16. The press release also condemned the use of graffiti images in advertising and in music videos, arguing that real-world experience of graffiti stood far removed from its often-portrayed "cool" or "edgy'" image.

 

To back the campaign, 123 Members of Parliament (MPs) (including then Prime Minister Tony Blair), signed a charter which stated: "Graffiti is not art, it's crime. On behalf of my constituents, I will do all I can to rid our community of this problem."

 

In the UK, city councils have the power to take action against the owner of any property that has been defaced under the Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003 (as amended by the Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Act 2005) or, in certain cases, the Highways Act. This is often used against owners of property that are complacent in allowing protective boards to be defaced so long as the property is not damaged.

 

In July 2008, a conspiracy charge was used to convict graffitists for the first time. After a three-month police surveillance operation, nine members of the DPM crew were convicted of conspiracy to commit criminal damage costing at least £1 million. Five of them received prison sentences, ranging from eighteen months to two years. The unprecedented scale of the investigation and the severity of the sentences rekindled public debate over whether graffiti should be considered art or crime.

 

Some councils, like those of Stroud and Loerrach, provide approved areas in the town where graffitists can showcase their talents, including underpasses, car parks, and walls that might otherwise prove a target for the "spray and run".

 

Graffiti Tunnel, University of Sydney at Camperdown (2009)

In an effort to reduce vandalism, many cities in Australia have designated walls or areas exclusively for use by graffitists. One early example is the "Graffiti Tunnel" located at the Camperdown Campus of the University of Sydney, which is available for use by any student at the university to tag, advertise, poster, and paint. Advocates of this idea suggest that this discourages petty vandalism yet encourages artists to take their time and produce great art, without worry of being caught or arrested for vandalism or trespassing.[108][109] Others disagree with this approach, arguing that the presence of legal graffiti walls does not demonstrably reduce illegal graffiti elsewhere. Some local government areas throughout Australia have introduced "anti-graffiti squads", who clean graffiti in the area, and such crews as BCW (Buffers Can't Win) have taken steps to keep one step ahead of local graffiti cleaners.

 

Many state governments have banned the sale or possession of spray paint to those under the age of 18 (age of majority). However, a number of local governments in Victoria have taken steps to recognize the cultural heritage value of some examples of graffiti, such as prominent political graffiti. Tough new graffiti laws have been introduced in Australia with fines of up to A$26,000 and two years in prison.

 

Melbourne is a prominent graffiti city of Australia with many of its lanes being tourist attractions, such as Hosier Lane in particular, a popular destination for photographers, wedding photography, and backdrops for corporate print advertising. The Lonely Planet travel guide cites Melbourne's street as a major attraction. All forms of graffiti, including sticker art, poster, stencil art, and wheatpasting, can be found in many places throughout the city. Prominent street art precincts include; Fitzroy, Collingwood, Northcote, Brunswick, St. Kilda, and the CBD, where stencil and sticker art is prominent. As one moves farther away from the city, mostly along suburban train lines, graffiti tags become more prominent. Many international artists such as Banksy have left their work in Melbourne and in early 2008 a perspex screen was installed to prevent a Banksy stencil art piece from being destroyed, it has survived since 2003 through the respect of local street artists avoiding posting over it, although it has recently had paint tipped over it.

 

In February 2008 Helen Clark, the New Zealand prime minister at that time, announced a government crackdown on tagging and other forms of graffiti vandalism, describing it as a destructive crime representing an invasion of public and private property. New legislation subsequently adopted included a ban on the sale of paint spray cans to persons under 18 and increases in maximum fines for the offence from NZ$200 to NZ$2,000 or extended community service. The issue of tagging become a widely debated one following an incident in Auckland during January 2008 in which a middle-aged property owner stabbed one of two teenage taggers to death and was subsequently convicted of manslaughter.

 

Graffiti databases have increased in the past decade because they allow vandalism incidents to be fully documented against an offender and help the police and prosecution charge and prosecute offenders for multiple counts of vandalism. They also provide law enforcement the ability to rapidly search for an offender's moniker or tag in a simple, effective, and comprehensive way. These systems can also help track costs of damage to a city to help allocate an anti-graffiti budget. The theory is that when an offender is caught putting up graffiti, they are not just charged with one count of vandalism; they can be held accountable for all the other damage for which they are responsible. This has two main benefits for law enforcement. One, it sends a signal to the offenders that their vandalism is being tracked. Two, a city can seek restitution from offenders for all the damage that they have committed, not merely a single incident. These systems give law enforcement personnel real-time, street-level intelligence that allows them not only to focus on the worst graffiti offenders and their damage, but also to monitor potential gang violence that is associated with the graffiti.

 

Many restrictions of civil gang injunctions are designed to help address and protect the physical environment and limit graffiti. Provisions of gang injunctions include things such as restricting the possession of marker pens, spray paint cans, or other sharp objects capable of defacing private or public property; spray painting, or marking with marker pens, scratching, applying stickers, or otherwise applying graffiti on any public or private property, including, but not limited to the street, alley, residences, block walls, and fences, vehicles or any other real or personal property. Some injunctions contain wording that restricts damaging or vandalizing both public and private property, including but not limited to any vehicle, light fixture, door, fence, wall, gate, window, building, street sign, utility box, telephone box, tree, or power pole.

 

To help address many of these issues, many local jurisdictions have set up graffiti abatement hotlines, where citizens can call in and report vandalism and have it removed. San Diego's hotline receives more than 5,000 calls per year, in addition to reporting the graffiti, callers can learn more about prevention. One of the complaints about these hotlines is the response time; there is often a lag time between a property owner calling about the graffiti and its removal. The length of delay should be a consideration for any jurisdiction planning on operating a hotline. Local jurisdictions must convince the callers that their complaint of vandalism will be a priority and cleaned off right away. If the jurisdiction does not have the resources to respond to complaints in a timely manner, the value of the hotline diminishes. Crews must be able to respond to individual service calls made to the graffiti hotline as well as focus on cleanup near schools, parks, and major intersections and transit routes to have the biggest impact. Some cities offer a reward for information leading to the arrest and prosecution of suspects for tagging or graffiti related vandalism. The amount of the reward is based on the information provided, and the action taken.

 

When police obtain search warrants in connection with a vandalism investigation, they are often seeking judicial approval to look for items such as cans of spray paint and nozzles from other kinds of aerosol sprays; etching tools, or other sharp or pointed objects, which could be used to etch or scratch glass and other hard surfaces; permanent marking pens, markers, or paint sticks; evidence of membership or affiliation with any gang or tagging crew; paraphernalia including any reference to "(tagger's name)"; any drawings, writing, objects, or graffiti depicting taggers' names, initials, logos, monikers, slogans, or any mention of tagging crew membership; and any newspaper clippings relating to graffiti crime.

This was the re-enactment of some gun battle or festival celebrating something involving lots of guns, extremely loud bangs, lots of smoke and men dressed in costume that we found ourselves caught up in. I took far more photos than there are here and come to think about it, I have videos to edit yet.

 

We decided to go for a city break rather than sun in Tenerife again this September. Other than a few days in the North East we haven’t been away since last March and wanted a change and hopefully some sun. The problem is getting flights from the north of England to the places we want to go to. We chose Valencia as we could fly from East Midlands – which was still a pain to get to as it involved the most notorious stretch of the M1 at five in the morning. In the end we had a fairly good journey, the new Ryanair business class pre-booked scheme worked quite well and bang on time as usual. It was dull when we landed with storms forecast all week, the sky was bright grey – the kiss of death to the photography I had in mind. I was full of cold and wishing I was at work. It did rain but it was overnight on our first night and didn't affect us. There has been a drought for eleven months apparently and it rained on our first day there! The forecast storms didn't materialise in Valencia but they got it elsewhere.

 

You May notice discrepancies in the spelling of some Spanish words or names, this is because Valencian is used on signs, in some guide books and maps. There are two languages in common use with distinct differences. There may also be genuine mistakes - it has been known!

 

Over the course of a Monday to Sunday week we covered 75 miles on foot and saw most of the best of Valencia – The City of Bell Towers. The Old City covers a pretty large area in a very confusing layout. There was a lot of referring to maps – even compass readings! – a first in a city for us. The problem with photography in Valencia is that most of the famous and attractive building are closely built around, some have poor quality housing built on to them. Most photographs have to be taken from an extreme angle looking up. There are no high points as it is pan flat, there are a small number of buildings where you can pay to go up on to the roof for a better view and we went up them – more than once!

 

The modern buildings of The City of Arts and Sciences – ( Ciutat de Las Arts I de les Ciencies ) are what the city has more recently become famous for, with tourists arriving by the coachload all day until late at night. They must be photographed millions of times a month. We went during the day and stayed till dark one evening, I gave it my best shot but a first time visit is always a compromise between ambition and realism, time dictates that we have to move on to the next destination. I travelled with a full size tripod – another first – I forgot to take it with me to TCoAaS! so It was time to wind up the ISO, again! Needless to say I never used the tripod.

 

On a day when rain was forecast but it stayed fine, albeit a bit dull, we went to the Bioparc north west of the city, a zoo by another name. There are many claims made for this place, were you can appear to walk alongside some very large animals, including, elephants, lions, giraffe, rhino, gorillas and many types of monkey to name a few. It is laid out in different geographical regions and there is very little between you and the animals, in some cases there is nothing, you enter the enclosure through a double door arrangement and the monkeys are around you. It gets rave reviews and we stayed for most of the day. The animals it has to be said gave the appearance of extreme boredom and frustration and I felt quite sorry for them.

 

The course of The River Turia was altered after a major flood in the 50’s. The new river runs west of the city flanked by a motorway. The old river, which is massive, deep and very wide between ancient walls, I can’t imagine how it flooded, has been turned into a park that is five miles long. There is an athletics track, football pitches, cycle paths, restaurants, numerous kids parks, ponds, fountains, loads of bridges, historic and modern. At the western end closest to the sea sits The City of Arts and Sciences – in the river bed. Where it meets the sea there is Valencia’s urban Formula One racetrack finishing in the massive marina built for The Americas Cup. The race track is in use as roadways complete with fully removable street furniture, kerbs, bollards, lights, islands and crossings, everything is just sat on the surface ready to be moved.

 

We found the beach almost by accident, we were desperate for food after putting in a lot of miles and the afternoon was ticking by. What a beach, 100’s of metres wide and stretching as far as the eye could see with a massive promenade. The hard thing was choosing, out of the dozens of restaurants, all next door to each other, all serving traditional Paella – rabbit and chicken – as well as seafood, we don’t eat seafood and it constituted 90% of the menu in most places. Every restaurant does a fixed price dish of the day, with a few choices, three courses and a drink. Some times this was our only meal besides making the most of the continental breakfast at the hotel. We had a fair few bar stops with the local wine being cheap and pleasant it would have been a shame not to, there would have been a one woman riot – or strike!

 

On our final day, a Sunday, we were out of bed and down for breakfast at 7.45 as usual, the place was deserted barring a waiter. We walked out of the door at 8.30 – in to the middle of a mass road race with many thousands of runners, one of a series that take place in Valencia – apparently! We struggled to find out the distance, possibly 10km. The finish was just around the corner so off we went with the camera gear, taking photos of random runners and groups. There was a TV crew filming it and some local celebrity (I think) commentating. Next we came across some sort of wandering religious and musical event. Some sort of ritual was played out over the course of Sunday morning in various locations, it involved catholic priests and religious buildings and another film crew. The Catholic tourists and locals were filling the (many) churches for Sunday mass. Amongst all of this we had seen men walking around in Arab style dress – the ones in black looked like the ones from ISIS currently beheading people – all carrying guns. A bit disconcerting. We assumed that there had been some sort of battle enactment. We were wrong, it hadn’t happened yet. A while later, about 11.30 we could hear banging, fireworks? No it was our friends with the guns. We were caught up in total mayhem, around 60 men randomly firing muskets with some sort of blank rounds, the noise, smoke and flames from the muzzles were incredible. We were about to climb the Torres de Serranos which is where, unbeknown to us, the grand, and deafening, finale was going to be. We could feel the blast in our faces on top of the tower. Yet again there was a film camera in attendance. I couldn’t get close ups but I got a good overview and shot my first video with the 5D, my first in 5 years of owning a DLSR with the capability. I usually use my phone ( I used my phone as well). Later in the day there was a bullfight taking place, the ring was almost next to our hotel, in the end we had other things to do and gave it a miss, it was certainly a busy Sunday in the city centre, whether it’s the norm or not I don’t know.

 

There is a tram system in Valencia but it goes from the port area into the newer part of the city on the north side, it wouldn’t be feasible to serve the historic old city really. A quick internet search told me that there are 55,000 university students in the city, a pretty big number. I think a lot of the campus is on the north side and served by the tram although there is a massive fleet of buses as well. There is a massive, very impressive market building , with 100’s of stalls that would make a photo project on its own, beautiful on the inside and out but very difficult to get decent photos of the exterior other than detail shots owing to the closeness of other buildings and the sheer size of it. Across town, another market has been beautifully renovated and is full of bars and restaurants and a bit of a destination in its own right.

 

A downside was the all too typical shafting by the taxi drivers who use every trick in the book to side step the official tariffs and rob you. The taxi from the airport had a “broken” meter and on the way home we were driven 22 km instead of the nine that is the actual distance. Some of them seem to view tourists as cash cows to be robbed at all costs. I emailed the Marriot hotel as they ordered the taxi, needless to say no answer from Marriot – they’ve had their money. We didn’t get the rip off treatment in the bars etc. that we experienced in Rome, prices are very fair on most things, certainly considering the city location.

 

All in all we had a good trip and can highly recommend Valencia.

Sandia chemical engineer and volunteer LaRico Treadwell leads a class during the 36th annual Hands-On Minds-On Technologies (HMTech) summer program.

 

Learn more at bit.ly/3OlccYu

 

Photo by Tyrese Green

The race involving the drivers of the Iveco Petronas team starts from Argentina. Follow all the stages!

Aktselbstbildnis/Nude Self-Portrait, 1910

Schwarze Kreide, Aquarell und Deckfarben/Black chalk, watercolor and gouache

Albertina

 

The nude self-portrait cutting across the sheet diagonally shows us the artist's unwelcoming face, subverting the sheet's vertical static equilibrium. The representation contradicts all academic ideals of a beautiful physique: Schiele's iconograhy of the maltreated body becomes a cipher for the suffering artist as such.

 

Das schräg ins Bild stürzende Aktselbstbildnis zeigt uns sein abweisendes Gesicht; der diagonal angelegte Körper durchschneidet das dadurch aus der vertikalen Statik geworfene Blatt. Die Darstellung widerspricht jeglichem akademischen Ideal eines schönen Körpers: Schieles Ikonografie des geschundenen Leibes wird zur Chiffre für den leidenden Künstler schlechthin.

 

The Albertina

The architectural history of the Palais

(Pictures you can see by clicking on the link at the end of page!)

Image: The oldest photographic view of the newly designed Palais Archduke Albrecht, 1869

"It is my will that ​​the expansion of the inner city of Vienna with regard to a suitable connection of the same with the suburbs as soon as possible is tackled and at this on Regulirung (regulation) and beautifying of my Residence and Imperial Capital is taken into account. To this end I grant the withdrawal of the ramparts and fortifications of the inner city and the trenches around the same".

This decree of Emperor Franz Joseph I, published on 25 December 1857 in the Wiener Zeitung, formed the basis for the largest the surface concerning and architecturally most significant transformation of the Viennese cityscape. Involving several renowned domestic and foreign architects a "master plan" took form, which included the construction of a boulevard instead of the ramparts between the inner city and its radially upstream suburbs. In the 50-years during implementation phase, an impressive architectural ensemble developed, consisting of imperial and private representational buildings, public administration and cultural buildings, churches and barracks, marking the era under the term "ring-street style". Already in the first year tithe decided a senior member of the Austrian imperial family to decorate the facades of his palace according to the new design principles, and thus certified the aristocratic claim that this also "historicism" said style on the part of the imperial house was attributed.

Image: The Old Albertina after 1920

It was the palace of Archduke Albrecht (1817-1895), the Senior of the Habsburg Family Council, who as Field Marshal held the overall command over the Austro-Hungarian army. The building was incorporated into the imperial residence of the Hofburg complex, forming the south-west corner and extending eleven meters above street level on the so-called Augustinerbastei.

The close proximity of the palace to the imperial residence corresponded not only with Emperor Franz Joseph I and Archduke Albert with a close familial relationship between the owner of the palace and the monarch. Even the former inhabitants were always in close relationship to the imperial family, whether by birth or marriage. An exception here again proves the rule: Don Emanuel Teles da Silva Conde Tarouca (1696-1771), for which Maria Theresa in 1744 the palace had built, was just a close friend and advisor of the monarch. Silva Tarouca underpins the rule with a second exception, because he belonged to the administrative services as Generalhofbaudirektor (general court architect) and President of the Austrian-Dutch administration, while all other him subsequent owners were highest ranking military.

In the annals of Austrian history, especially those of military history, they either went into as commander of the Imperial Army, or the Austrian, later kk Army. In chronological order, this applies to Duke Carl Alexander of Lorraine, the brother-of-law of Maria Theresa, as Imperial Marshal, her son-in-law Duke Albert of Saxe-Teschen, also field marshal, whos adopted son, Archduke Charles of Austria, the last imperial field marshal and only Generalissimo of Austria, his son Archduke Albrecht of Austria as Feldmarschalil and army Supreme commander, and most recently his nephew Archduke Friedrich of Austria, who held as field marshal from 1914 to 1916 the command of the Austro-Hungarian troops. Despite their military profession, all five generals conceived themselves as patrons of the arts and promoted large sums of money to build large collections, the construction of magnificent buildings and cultural life. Charles Alexander of Lorraine promoted as governor of the Austrian Netherlands from 1741 to 1780 the Academy of Fine Arts, the Théâtre de Ja Monnaie and the companies Bourgeois Concert and Concert Noble, he founded the Academie royale et imperial des Sciences et des Lettres, opened the Bibliotheque Royal for the population and supported artistic talents with high scholarships. World fame got his porcelain collection, which however had to be sold by Emperor Joseph II to pay off his debts. Duke Albert began in 1776 according to the concept of conte Durazzo to set up an encyclopedic collection of prints, which forms the core of the world-famous "Albertina" today.

Image : Duke Albert and Archduchess Marie Christine show in family cercle the from Italy brought along art, 1776. Frederick Henry Füger.

1816 declared to Fideikommiss and thus in future indivisible, inalienable and inseparable, the collection 1822 passed into the possession of Archduke Carl, who, like his descendants, it broadened. Under him, the collection was introduced together with the sumptuously equipped palace on the Augustinerbastei in the so-called "Carl Ludwig'schen fideicommissum in 1826, by which the building and the in it kept collection fused into an indissoluble unity. At this time had from the Palais Tarouca by structural expansion or acquisition a veritable Residenz palace evolved. Duke Albert of Saxe-Teschen was first in 1800 the third floor of the adjacent Augustinian convent wing adapted to house his collection and he had after 1802 by his Belgian architect Louis de Montoyer at the suburban side built a magnificent extension, called the wing of staterooms, it was equipped in the style of Louis XVI. Only two decades later, Archduke Carl the entire palace newly set up. According to scetches of the architect Joseph Kornhäusel the 1822-1825 retreaded premises presented themselves in the Empire style. The interior of the palace testified from now in an impressive way the high rank and the prominent position of its owner. Under Archduke Albrecht the outer appearance also should meet the requirements. He had the facade of the palace in the style of historicism orchestrated and added to the Palais front against the suburbs an offshore covered access. Inside, he limited himself, apart from the redesign of the Rococo room in the manner of the second Blondel style, to the retention of the paternal stock. Archduke Friedrich's plans for an expansion of the palace were omitted, however, because of the outbreak of the First World War so that his contribution to the state rooms, especially, consists in the layout of the Spanish apartment, which he in 1895 for his sister, the Queen of Spain Maria Christina, had set up as a permanent residence.

Picture: The "audience room" after the restoration: Picture: The "balcony room" around 1990

The era of stately representation with handing down their cultural values ​​found its most obvious visualization inside the palace through the design and features of the staterooms. On one hand, by the use of the finest materials and the purchase of masterfully manufactured pieces of equipment, such as on the other hand by the permanent reuse of older equipment parts. This period lasted until 1919, when Archduke Friedrich was expropriated by the newly founded Republic of Austria. With the republicanization of the collection and the building first of all finished the tradition that the owner's name was synonymous with the building name:

After Palais Tarouca or tarokkisches house it was called Lorraine House, afterwards Duke Albert Palais and Palais Archduke Carl. Due to the new construction of an adjacently located administration building it received in 1865 the prefix "Upper" and was referred to as Upper Palais Archduke Albrecht and Upper Palais Archduke Frederick. For the state a special reference to the Habsburg past was certainly politically no longer opportune, which is why was decided to name the building according to the in it kept collection "Albertina".

Picture: The "Wedgwood Cabinet" after the restoration: Picture: the "Wedgwood Cabinet" in the Palais Archduke Friedrich, 1905

This name derives from the term "La Collection Albertina" which had been used by the gallery Inspector Maurice von Thausing in 1870 in the Gazette des Beaux-Arts for the former graphics collection of Duke Albert. For this reason, it was the first time since the foundation of the palace that the name of the collection had become synonymous with the room shell. Room shell, hence, because the Republic of Austria Archduke Friedrich had allowed to take along all the movable goods from the palace in his Hungarian exile: crystal chandeliers, curtains and carpets as well as sculptures, vases and clocks. Particularly stressed should be the exquisite furniture, which stems of three facilities phases: the Louis XVI furnitures of Duke Albert, which had been manufactured on the basis of fraternal relations between his wife Archduchess Marie Christine and the French Queen Marie Antoinette after 1780 in the French Hofmanufakturen, also the on behalf of Archduke Charles 1822-1825 in the Vienna Porcelain Manufactory by Joseph Danhauser produced Empire furnitures and thirdly additions of the same style of Archduke Friedrich, which this about 1900 at Portois & Ffix as well as at Friedrich Otto Schmidt had commissioned.

The "swept clean" building got due to the strained financial situation after the First World War initially only a makeshift facility. However, since until 1999 no revision of the emergency equipment took place, but differently designed, primarily the utilitarianism committed office furnitures complementarily had been added, the equipment of the former state rooms presented itself at the end of the 20th century as an inhomogeneous administrative mingle-mangle of insignificant parts, where, however, dwelt a certain quaint charm. From the magnificent state rooms had evolved depots, storage rooms, a library, a study hall and several officed.

Image: The Albertina Graphic Arts Collection and the Philipphof after the American bombing of 12 März 1945.

Image: The palace after the demolition of the entrance facade, 1948-52

Worse it hit the outer appearance of the palace, because in times of continued anti-Habsburg sentiment after the Second World War and inspired by an intolerant destruction will, it came by pickaxe to a ministerial erasure of history. In contrast to the graphic collection possessed the richly decorated facades with the conspicuous insignia of the former owner an object-immanent reference to the Habsburg past and thus exhibited the monarchial traditions and values ​​of the era of Francis Joseph significantly. As part of the remedial measures after a bomb damage, in 1948 the aristocratic, by Archduke Albert initiated, historicist facade structuring along with all decorations was cut off, many facade figures demolished and the Hapsburg crest emblems plunged to the ground. Since in addition the old ramp also had been cancelled and the main entrance of the bastion level had been moved down to the second basement storey at street level, ended the presence of the old Archduke's palace after more than 200 years. At the reopening of the "Albertina Graphic Collection" in 1952, the former Hapsburg Palais of splendour presented itself as one of his identity robbed, formally trivial, soulless room shell, whose successful republicanization an oversized and also unproportional eagle above the new main entrance to the Augustinian road symbolized. The emocratic throw of monuments had wiped out the Hapsburg palace from the urban appeareance, whereby in the perception only existed a nondescript, nameless and ahistorical building that henceforth served the lodging and presentation of world-famous graphic collection of the Albertina. The condition was not changed by the decision to the refurbishment because there were only planned collection specific extensions, but no restoration of the palace.

Image: The palace after the Second World War with simplified facades, the rudiment of the Danubiusbrunnens (well) and the new staircase up to the Augustinerbastei

This paradigm shift corresponded to a blatant reversal of the historical circumstances, as the travel guides and travel books for kk Residence and imperial capital of Vienna dedicated itself primarily with the magnificent, aristocratic palace on the Augustinerbastei with the sumptuously fitted out reception rooms and mentioned the collection kept there - if at all - only in passing. Only with the repositioning of the Albertina in 2000 under the direction of Klaus Albrecht Schröder, the palace was within the meaning and in fulfillment of the Fideikommiss of Archduke Charles in 1826 again met with the high regard, from which could result a further inseparable bond between the magnificent mansions and the world-famous collection. In view of the knowing about politically motivated errors and omissions of the past, the facades should get back their noble, historicist designing, the staterooms regain their glamorous, prestigious appearance and culturally unique equippment be repurchased. From this presumption, eventually grew the full commitment to revise the history of redemption and the return of the stately palace in the public consciousness.

Image: The restored suburb facade of the Palais Albertina suburb

The smoothed palace facades were returned to their original condition and present themselves today - with the exception of the not anymore reconstructed Attica figures - again with the historicist decoration and layout elements that Archduke Albrecht had given after the razing of the Augustinerbastei in 1865 in order. The neoclassical interiors, today called after the former inhabitants "Habsburg Staterooms", receiving a meticulous and detailed restoration taking place at the premises of originality and authenticity, got back their venerable and sumptuous appearance. From the world wide scattered historical pieces of equipment have been bought back 70 properties or could be returned through permanent loan to its original location, by which to the visitors is made experiencable again that atmosphere in 1919 the state rooms of the last Habsburg owner Archduke Frederick had owned. The for the first time in 80 years public accessible "Habsburg State Rooms" at the Palais Albertina enable now again as eloquent testimony to our Habsburg past and as a unique cultural heritage fundamental and essential insights into the Austrian cultural history. With the relocation of the main entrance to the level of the Augustinerbastei the recollection to this so valuable Austrian Cultural Heritage formally and functionally came to completion. The vision of the restoration and recovery of the grand palace was a pillar on which the new Albertina should arise again, the other embody the four large newly built exhibition halls, which allow for the first time in the history of the Albertina, to exhibit the collection throughout its encyclopedic breadh under optimal conservation conditions.

Image: The new entrance area of the Albertina

64 meter long shed roof. Hans Hollein.

The palace presents itself now in its appearance in the historicist style of the Ringstrassenära, almost as if nothing had happened in the meantime. But will the wheel of time should not, cannot and must not be turned back, so that the double standards of the "Albertina Palace" said museum - on the one hand Habsburg grandeur palaces and other modern museum for the arts of graphics - should be symbolized by a modern character: The in 2003 by Hans Hollein designed far into the Albertina square cantilevering, elegant floating flying roof. 64 meters long, it symbolizes in the form of a dynamic wedge the accelerated urban spatial connectivity and public access to the palace. It advertises the major changes in the interior as well as the huge underground extensions of the repositioned "Albertina".

 

Christian Benedictine

Art historian with research interests History of Architecture, building industry of the Hapsburgs, Hofburg and Zeremonialwissenschaft (ceremonial sciences). Since 1990 he works in the architecture collection of the Albertina. Since 2000 he supervises as director of the newly founded department "Staterooms" the restoration and furnishing of the state rooms and the restoration of the facades and explores the history of the palace and its inhabitants.

 

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