The Barbican Centre is a performing arts centre in the Barbican Estate of the City of London and the largest of its kind in Europe. The Centre hosts classical and contemporary music concerts, theatre performances, film screenings and art exhibitions, it houses a library, three restaurants, a conservatory. The Barbican Centre is member of the Global Cultural Districts Network; the London Symphony Orchestra and the BBC Symphony Orchestra are based in the Centre's Concert Hall. In 2013, it once again became the London-based venue of the Royal Shakespeare Company following the company's departure in 2001; the Barbican Centre is owned and managed by the City of London Corporation, the third-largest arts funder in the United Kingdom. It was built as The City's gift to the nation at a cost of £161 million and was opened to the public by Queen Elizabeth II on 3 March 1982; the Barbican Centre is known for its brutalist architecture. Barbican Hall: capacity 1,943. Barbican Theatre: capacity 1,156, it is one of the largest public libraries in London and has a separate arts library, a large music library and a children's library which conducts free events.

The Barbican Library houses the'London Collection' of historical books and resources, some of which date back 300 years, all being available on loan. The library has an art exhibition space for hire; the music library has two free practice pianos for public use. The Barbican Centre had a long development period, only opening long after the surrounding Barbican Estate housing complex had been built, it is situated in an area, badly bombed during World War II. The Barbican Centre, designed by Peter Chamberlin, Geoffry Powell and Christoph Bon of Chamberlin and Bon in the Brutalist style, has a complex multi-level layout with numerous entrances. Lines painted on the ground help would-be audience members avoid getting lost on the walkways of the Barbican Housing Estate on the way to the centre; the Barbican Centre's design – a concrete ziggurat – has always been controversial and divides opinion. It was voted "London's ugliest building" in a Grey London poll in September 2003. In September 2001, arts minister Tessa Blackstone announced that the Barbican Centre complex was to be a Grade II listed building.

It has been designated a site of special architectural interest for its scale, its cohesion and the ambition of the project. The same architectural practice designed the Barbican Housing Estate and the nearby Golden Lane Estate. Project architect John Honer worked on the British Library at St Pancras – a red brick ziggurat. In the mid-1990s, a cosmetic improvement scheme by Theo Crosby, of the Pentagram design studio, added statues and decorative features reminiscent of the Arts and Crafts movement. In 2005–2006, the centre underwent a more significant refurbishment, designed by architects Allford Hall Monaghan Morris and Roger Westman, which improved circulation and introduced bold signage in a style in keeping with the centre's original 1970s Brutalist architecture; that improvement scheme added an internal bridge linking the Silk Street foyer area with the lakeside foyer area. The centre's Silk Street entrance dominated by an access for vehicles, was modified to give better pedestrian access.

The scheme included removing most of the mid-1990s embellishments. Outside, the main focal point of the centre is its neighbouring terrace; the theatre's fly tower has been made into a high-level conservatory. The Barbican Hall's acoustic has been controversial: some praised it as attractively warm, but others found it too dry for large-scale orchestral performance. In 1994, Chicago acoustician Larry Kirkegaard oversaw a £500,000 acoustic re-engineering of the hall "producing a perceptible improvement in echo control and sound absorption", music critic Norman Lebrecht wrote in October 2000 – and returned in 2001 to rip out the stage canopy and drop adjustable acoustic reflectors, designed by Caruso St John, from the ceiling, as part of a £7.5 mn refurbishment of the hall. Art music magazine Gramophone still complained about "the relative dryness of the Barbican acoustic" in August 2007; the theatre was built as the London home of the Royal Shakespeare Company, involved in the design, but decided not to renew its contract in 2002 after claiming a lack of performing space, plus the artistic director, Adrian Noble, wanting to develop the company's touring performances.

The theatre's response was to extend its existing six-month season of international productions, "Barbican International Theatre Event", to the whole year. On 23 January 2013 Greg Doran, RSC artistic director, announced the Company's return to the Barbican Centre in a three-year season of Shakespeare's history plays; the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, where the Barbican Centre theatrical performances are staged, the City of London's Barbican Library, neither part of the centre, are on the site. The Museum of London is nearby at Aldersgate, is within the Barbican Estate; the Barbican Centre features in Michael Paraskos's novel In Search of Sixpence as the home of the lead character, a bar call

Harry Conway Forrester was a visionary American basketball and baseball coach who led the way in integrating the sports teams of Quincy University in the racially segregated 1950s. He was inducted into the Illinois Basketball Coaches Hall of Fame and the Quincy University Hall of Fame for his contributions to sport. During the 1956–57 season, he was honored as Catholic College Coach of the Year. Forrester was born in Illinois, he received the American Pacific Theater of War Ribbon and the American Theater of War Ribbon for his naval service during the Second World War. In 1949, he received his Bachelor's Degree from Millikin University, in 1959 he received his Master's Degree from Eastern Illinois University, he began his coaching career in 1949–54 in Effingham, Illinois, as St. Anthony High School's first full-time basketball coach, leading the team to "unprecedented success" while compiling a 21–7 record in his first year and an overall five-year record of 95–43, his team won the school's first National Trail Conference Championship in 1952–53.

He was head basketball and baseball coach and athletic director at Quincy College from 1954 to 1957. During his first year at Quincy, his basketball team earned a berth in the quarterfinals of the NAIA national tournament in Kansas City, Quincy College's first athletic team to qualify for a national competition; that team's 17–9 season set the best record in the school's history at the time. Forrester did something other colleges refused to do during the segregation era - play black players. To African-American guard Dick Thompson, Coach Harry Forrester was a visionary: "He had the courage to look a little ahead of the curve," Thompson said of his Quincy College basketball coach. "He played guys. It didn't matter the color of your skin. That's a tribute to him as a person, that he looked far beyond the situation and had the courage to do what he did in playing guys of color."African-American forward Edsel Bester said that Coach Forrester pre-dated the principles of Martin Luther King by refusing to judge a person by the color of his skin.

"He judged each one of us by the content of our character. He let us know we were not only representing ourselves but our parents, our coach and our school, he didn't want you to forget that. I loved Coach Harry Forrester and I thank God every day in my life that I knew him."In his ground-breaking work on behalf of racial equality in sport, Harry Forrester was a decade ahead of the integrated basketball teams at Loyola University Chicago and Texas Western, which gained greater fame in the 1960s. In an article on 29 September 2012, Stever Eighinger of the Quincy Herald-Whig noted that "Harry Forrester did not spend much time in Quincy, but it's safe to say his impact will be remembered forever," recalling that his decision, as Quincy College's head basketball coach, to play five black basketball players "came at the height of racial insensitivity in the mid-to-late 1950s and was a full decade before Texas Western started five black players in what is now the NCAA Division I national championship game.

A movie was made about that Texas Western team, but outside of Quincy, only a handful of people to this day realize history was first made in West-Central Illinois." Eighinger observed that Forrester "eventually earned as much respect for his decision to play five black players as he did for leading the Hawks to their first national tournament appearance." A second article by Eighinger in the Quincy Herald-Whig on 3 October 2012, reflected on the death of Ed Crenshaw, the Quincy basketball team's captain and leading scorer in the 1950s: "'Easy Ed' was one of the nicest men I met, if you are a longtime Quincy University basketball fan that name rings a bell. And if you have never heard of Easy Ed, Dick Thompson, Edsel Bester, Ben Bumbry and Bill Lemon, well... you should have. "Those five men, their coach, the late Harry Forrester, made history in the mid-1950s with the Hawks basketball program. The problem, at the time, was no one realized it. "A decade it was a big deal when Texas Western, now known as UTEP, started five black players in the NCAA Tournament championship game against Kentucky.

A few years ago, they made a movie about their coach, Don Haskins, those players. Harry Forrester and the players from Quincy never received that kind of attention. "The 1950s and 1960s were a much different time in America when it came to racism and sports at the amateur level. This was a time when the Mississippi State basketball team declined an invitation to take part in the NCAA Tournament because it might have to play against an opponent with black players. At that time, many black players preferred to attend'historically black colleges' rather than be subjected to the treatment those from Quincy received. Easy Ed, Dick Thompson, Edsel Bester, Ben Bumbry and Bill Lemon were subjected to racial taunts and threats when they played on the road. Somehow and those players led Quincy College to its first appearance in a national tournament - the NAIA event in Kansas City, Mo. - during the coach's 1954-57 stay here. "After winning its opening-round game in the 32-school tournament, Quincy lost its next start by four points to a team considered far inferior—but white.

Quincy's black players were in foul trouble and the Hawks got few, if any, breaks when it came to officials' calls. To this day, if you ask any of those Quincy players, they will tell you they did not lose the second game of that national tournament; the other team wound up with more points on the scoreboard. Harry Forrester's life has been chronicled in the 2011 memoir, Hunter, Blaw Thy Horn, published by Ma

"I Can't Read" is a song written by David Bowie and Reeves Gabrels for Tin Machine on their debut album in 1989. Bowie recorded a new version of the song in 1997 for the film The Ice Storm; this version was released as a single in Germany and Scandinavia by Velvel Records in December 1997. In January 1998 it was released in Australia by Shock Records under exclusive license from Velvel Records; the single stayed in the UK Top 200 for 3 weeks, peaking at No. 73. When Bowie performed the song in 1996 he described it as "full of remorse and agony, I expect, it's when jobs go wrong, home doesn't feel warm any more, you don't need anybody - you don't pretend you do - and you end up in this kind of state." "I Can't Read" – 4:40 "I Can't Read" – 5:30 "This Is Not America" – 3:48 A live version recorded in 1989 was released on the 12" and CD version of the single "Tin Machine" A live version recorded during Tin Machine's 1991 It's My Life Tour was released on the live album Tin Machine Live: Oy Vey, Baby A live version recorded 1999, released on VH1 Storytellers Tim Bowness and Samuel Smiles - Diamond Gods: Interpretations of Bowie Lyrics of this song at MetroLyrics