1.
Internet Archive
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The Internet Archive is a San Francisco–based nonprofit digital library with the stated mission of universal access to all knowledge. As of October 2016, its collection topped 15 petabytes, in addition to its archiving function, the Archive is an activist organization, advocating for a free and open Internet. Its web archive, the Wayback Machine, contains over 150 billion web captures, the Archive also oversees one of the worlds largest book digitization projects. Founded by Brewster Kahle in May 1996, the Archive is a 501 nonprofit operating in the United States. It has a budget of $10 million, derived from a variety of sources, revenue from its Web crawling services, various partnerships, grants, donations. Its headquarters are in San Francisco, California, where about 30 of its 200 employees work, Most of its staff work in its book-scanning centers. The Archive has data centers in three Californian cities, San Francisco, Redwood City, and Richmond, the Archive is a member of the International Internet Preservation Consortium and was officially designated as a library by the State of California in 2007. Brewster Kahle founded the Archive in 1996 at around the time that he began the for-profit web crawling company Alexa Internet. In October 1996, the Internet Archive had begun to archive and preserve the World Wide Web in large quantities, the archived content wasnt available to the general public until 2001, when it developed the Wayback Machine. In late 1999, the Archive expanded its collections beyond the Web archive, Now the Internet Archive includes texts, audio, moving images, and software. It hosts a number of projects, the NASA Images Archive, the contract crawling service Archive-It. According to its web site, Most societies place importance on preserving artifacts of their culture, without such artifacts, civilization has no memory and no mechanism to learn from its successes and failures. Our culture now produces more and more artifacts in digital form, the Archives mission is to help preserve those artifacts and create an Internet library for researchers, historians, and scholars. In August 2012, the Archive announced that it has added BitTorrent to its file download options for over 1.3 million existing files, on November 6,2013, the Internet Archives headquarters in San Franciscos Richmond District caught fire, destroying equipment and damaging some nearby apartments. The nonprofit Archive sought donations to cover the estimated $600,000 in damage, in November 2016, Kahle announced that the Internet Archive was building the Internet Archive of Canada, a copy of the archive to be based somewhere in the country of Canada. The announcement received widespread coverage due to the implication that the decision to build an archive in a foreign country was because of the upcoming presidency of Donald Trump. Kahle was quoted as saying that on November 9th in America and it was a firm reminder that institutions like ours, built for the long-term, need to design for change. For us, it means keeping our cultural materials safe, private and it means preparing for a Web that may face greater restrictions
2.
Serge Gainsbourg
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Serge Gainsbourg was a French singer, songwriter, pianist, film composer, poet, painter, screenwriter, writer, actor, and director. His lyrical work incorporated a vast amount of word play to hoodwink the listener, often for humorous, provocative. Common types of play in his songs include mondegreen, onomatopoeia, rhyme, spoonerism, dysphemism, paraprosdokian. Through the course of his career, Gainsbourg wrote over 550 songs, since his death, Gainsbourgs music has reached legendary stature in France. He has also gained a following in the English-speaking world. Born in Paris, France, Gainsbourg was the son of Jewish Ukrainian migrants, Joseph Ginsburg and Olga, who fled to Paris after the 1917 Russian Revolution. Joseph Ginsburg was a trained musician whose profession was playing the piano in cabarets and casinos, he taught his children - Gainsbourg. Gainsbourgs childhood was affected by the occupation of France by Germany in World War II. The identifying yellow star Jews were required to wear haunted Gainsbourg, during the occupation, the Jewish Ginsburg family was able to make their way from Paris to Limoges, traveling under false papers. Limoges was in the Zone libre under the administration of the collaborationist Vichy government, after the war, Gainsbourg obtained work teaching music and drawing in a school outside of Paris, in Mesnil-Le-Roi. The school was set up under the auspices of local rabbis, here Gainsbourg heard the accounts of Nazi persecution and genocide, stories that resonated for Gainsbourg far into the future. Before he was 30 years old, Gainsbourg was a disillusioned painter, Gainsbourg changed his first name to Serge, feeling that this was representative of his Russian background and because, as Jane Birkin relates, Lucien reminded him of a hairdressers assistant. He chose Gainsbourg as his last name, in homage to the English painter Thomas Gainsborough and he married Elisabeth Lize Levitsky on 3 November 1951 and divorced in 1957. He married a second time on 7 January 1964, to Françoise-Antoinette Béatrice Pancrazzi and he divorced Béatrice in February 1966. In late 1967 he had a short but ardent love affair with Brigitte Bardot, to whom he dedicated the song, in mid-1968 Gainsbourg fell in love with the younger English singer and actress Jane Birkin, whom he met during the shooting of the film Slogan. Their relationship lasted over a decade, in 1971 they had a daughter, the actress and singer Charlotte Gainsbourg. Although many sources state that they were married, according to their daughter Charlotte this was not the case. Birkin remembers the beginning of her affair with Gainsbourg, he first took her to a nightclub, then to a transvestite club, Birkin left Gainsbourg when pregnant with her third daughter Lou by the film director Jacques Doillon
3.
Brigitte Bardot
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Brigitte Anne-Marie Bardot is a French actress, singer and fashion model, who later became an animal rights activist. She was one of the best known sex symbols of the 1950s and 1960s and was referred to by her initials. She started her career in 1952. After appearing in 16 routine comedy films that had limited international release, Bardot caught the attention of French intellectuals. She later starred in Jean-Luc Godards 1963 film Le Mépris, for her role in Louis Malles 1965 film Viva Maria. Bardot was nominated for a BAFTA Award for Best Foreign Actress, from 1969 to 1978, Bardot was the official face of Marianne to represent the liberty of France. Bardot retired from the entertainment industry in 1973, during her career in show business, she starred in 47 films, performed in several musical shows and recorded over 60 songs. She was awarded the Legion of Honour in 1985 but refused to accept it, after her retirement, she established herself as an animal rights activist. During the 2000s, she generated controversy by criticizing immigration and Islam in France and has been fined five times for inciting racial hatred, Bardot was born in Paris, the daughter of Louis Bardot and Anne-Marie Toty Bardot. Louis had a degree and worked with his father, Charles Bardot. Louis and Anne-Marie married in 1933, Bardot grew up in an upper middle-class Roman Catholic observant home. When she was seven she was admitted to the Cours Hattemer and she went to school three days a week, and otherwise studied at home. This gave time for lessons at Madame Bourgets dance studio three days a week, Brigittes mother also enrolled Brigittes younger sister, Marie-Jeanne, in dance. Marie-Jeanne eventually gave up dancing lessons and did not tell her mother, in 1947, Bardot was accepted to the Conservatoire de Paris. For three years she attended classes by Russian choreographer Boris Knyazev. One of her classmates was Leslie Caron, the other ballerinas nicknamed Bardot Bichette. At the invitation of an acquaintance of her mother, she modelled in a show in 1949. In the same year, she modelled for a fashion magazine Jardin des Modes managed by journalist Hélène Lazareff, aged 15, she appeared on an 8 March 1950 cover of Elle and was noticed by a young film director, Roger Vadim, while babysitting
4.
Aphex Twin
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Richard David James, known by his stage name Aphex Twin, is an Irish-born English electronic musician and composer. He is known for his influential and idiosyncratic work in music styles such as IDM and acid techno in the 1990s. He is also the co-founder of Rephlex Records with Grant Wilson-Claridge and he rose to mainstream popularity with his 1997 EP Come to Daddy and his 1999 single Windowlicker. James was born in Limerick, Ireland, and grew up in Lanner, Cornwall, UK and he enjoyed living there, feeling apart from nearby cities and the rest of the world. You couldnt make sound on a ZX81, but I played around with machine code, according to musician Benjamin Middleton, James began producing music the following year. As a teenager he was a jockey at the Shire Horse Inn in St Ives, with Tom Middleton at the Bowgie Inn in Crantock. James studied at Cornwall College from 1988 to 1990 for a National Diploma in engineering, about his studies, he said music and electronics went hand in hand. James graduated from college, according to a lecturer he often wore headphones during practical lessons. In 1989, James befriended Grant Wilson-Claridge when they were working alternate weeks as a DJ at the Bowgie pub near Newquay, Wilson-Claridge was intrigued by his sets, and when he discovered that James was playing tapes of his own music he suggested that they make records. James first release as Aphex Twin, later changed to AFX, was the 1991 12-inch EP Analogue Bubblebath on Mighty Force Records, the track En Trance to Exit was recorded with Tom Middleton, also known as Schizophrenia. The EP made the playlist of Kiss FM, an influential London radio station, from 1991 to 1993 James released two Analogue Bubblebath EPs and an EP, Bradleys Beat, as Bradley Strider. Although he allegedly lived on the roundabout in Elephant and Castle, South London, during his years in the city. The first full-length Aphex Twin album, Selected Ambient Works 85–92, was released in 1992 on R&S Records to critical acclaim, John Bush of Allmusic described it as a watershed of ambient music. In 2002 Rolling Stone said about the album, Aphex Twin expanded way beyond the ambient music of Brian Eno by fusing lush soundscapes with oceanic beats, Pitchfork Media called it among the most interesting music ever created with a keyboard and a computer. However, critics noted that the songs were recorded on cassette, in 1992 James also released the Xylem Tube EP and Digeridoo as Aphex Twin, the Pac-Man EP as Power-Pill, and two of his four Joyrex EPs as Caustic Window. Digeridoo reached #55 on the UK Singles Chart, and was described by Rolling Stone as foreshadowing drum. He wrote Digeridoo to clear up his audience after a rave and these early releases were on Rephlex Records, Mighty Force of Exeter and R&S Records of Belgium. Warp Records released Selected Ambient Works Volume II in 1994, with a less beat-, the track names were described with pie chart symbols, each of which was meant to be paired with a corresponding image in the album jacket
5.
BBC World Service
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The BBC announced in November 2016 that It would start broadcasting in additional languages including Igbo, Nigerian Pidgin, Yoruba and Amharic, in its biggest expansion since the 1940s. In 2015 World Service reached an average of 210 million people a week, the English-language service broadcasts 24 hours a day. The World Service is funded by the United Kingdoms television licence fee, limited advertising, the service also gets £289 million each year from the UK government. The World Service was funded for decades by grant-in-aid through the Foreign, the Director of the BBC World Service Group is Francesca Unsworth. The controller of BBC World Service, English, is Mary Hockaday, the BBC World Service began in 1932 as the BBC Empire Service, broadcasting on shortwave and aimed principally at English speakers across the British Empire. In his first Christmas Message, King George V stated that the service was intended for men and women, so cut off by the snow, the desert, or the sea, first hopes for the Empire Service were low. The programmes will neither be very interesting nor very good and this address was read out five times as it was broadcast live to different parts of the world. On 3 January 1938, the first foreign-language service was launched in Arabic, programmes in German started on 29 March 1938, and by the end of 1942 broadcasts were being made in all major European languages. As a result, the Empire Service was renamed the BBC Overseas Service in November 1939, and these were financed not from the domestic licence fee but from government grant-in-aid, and known administratively as the External Services of the BBC. The External Services broadcast propaganda during the Second World War and its French service Radio Londres also sent coded messages to the French Resistance. George Orwell broadcast many news bulletins on the Eastern Service during World War II. By the end of the 1940s the number of broadcast languages had expanded and reception had improved, following the opening of a relay in modern-day Malaysia and of the Limassol relay, Cyprus, in 1957. In recent years, financial pressures have decreased the number and type of services offered by the BBC, in countries with wide access to Internet services, there is less need for a radio station. Broadcasts in German ended in March 1999, after research showed that the majority of German listeners tuned into the English service, broadcasts in Dutch, Finnish, French, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese and Malay were stopped for similar reasons. Additionally, Romanian broadcasts ceased on 1 August 2008, in January 2011 the closure of the Albanian, Macedonian, Portuguese for Africa, Serbian, and English for the Caribbean services was announced. The British government announced that the three Balkan countries had access to international information, and so broadcasts in the local languages had become unnecessary. 650 jobs went as part of the 16% budget cut and this led to allegations that these measures would encourage a pro-American bias within the Service and help America win the information war. The Service broadcasts from Broadcasting House in London, which is headquarters of the Corporation
6.
Jerry Springer
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Gerald Norman Jerry Springer is an American television presenter, a former lawyer, Democratic mayor of Cincinnati, news presenter, actor, and musician. He has hosted the talk show Jerry Springer since its debut in 1991. Springer was born in Highgate tube station in London, England, while the station was in use as a shelter from German bombing during World War II and his parents, Margot and Richard Springer, were Jewish refugees who escaped from Landsberg an der Warthe, Germany. His maternal grandmother Marie Kallmann, who was left behind, died in the gas trucks of Chelmno extermination camp and his paternal grandmother, Selma Springer, died at the hospital in the Theresienstadt concentration camp. Selma Springers brother, Dr. Hermann Elkeles, was a renowned Berlin doctor who died at Theresienstadt concentration camp. In January 1949, Springer immigrated with his parents to the United States, settling in Kew Gardens, Queens, New York, and attended Forest Hills High School. One of his earliest memories about current events was when he was 12, Springer earned a B. A. degree from Tulane University in 1965, majoring in political science. He earned a J. D. degree from Northwestern University in 1968, Springer was a partner in the law firm of Grinker, Sudman & Springer from 1973-1985, alongside former NBA agent Ronnie Grinker and current Butler County magistrate Harry Sudman. Springer became a campaign adviser to Robert F. Kennedy. After Kennedys assassination, he joined the Cincinnati law firm of Frost & Jacobs, in 1970, Springer ran for Congress. He failed to unseat incumbent Republican Donald D. Clancy, and he had previously spearheaded the effort to lower the voting age, including testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee in support of ratification of the 26th Amendment. Three days after announcing his candidacy, Springer, who was also an Army reservist at the time, was called to active duty and he resumed his campaign after he was discharged. Springer was elected to the Cincinnati city council in 1971 and he resigned in 1974 after admitting to hiring a prostitute. Springer came clean at a press conference, long-time Cincinnati newsman Al Schottelkotte pronounced Springers career over, but Springers honesty helped him win back his seat in 1975 by a landslide. In a post-election interview, Schottelkotte good-naturedly reminded Springer that he had declared Springers career over, Springer told the newsman, Im glad that you were wrong. In 1977, he was chosen to one year as mayor by the City Council. In 1982, Springer sought the Democratic nomination for governor of Ohio, TV commercials for Springers campaign referenced his use of a check to pay a prostitute, saying that he was not afraid of the truth even if it hurts. In the late 1980s he played a role in saving the historic Cincinnati Union Terminal
7.
Jo Whiley
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Johanne Jo Whiley is an English radio DJ and television presenter. She was the host of the long-running weekday Jo Whiley Show on BBC Radio 1, Whiley was born in Northampton to Martin, an electrician, and Christine, a postmistress. She attended Campion School at Bugbrooke, near Northampton and then studied applied languages at Brighton Polytechnic, the illness is congenital and Whiley is a carrier. In 2006, she said that she had tested at each of her pregnancies. In Whileys final year of her degree, still unsure of what she wanted to do and it allowed anyone to get on the radio and required Whiley to attend shows and interview the musicians. After a year, Whiley left for City University London for a course on radio journalism. After writing many letters, she got a job as a researcher on WPFM, when the presenters Terry Christian and Gary Crowley left, she took over, gaining her first presenting role. Whiley moved on to BBC Radio 1 from September 1993 until March 2011, during the heyday of Britpop with bands such as Blur and she hosted a weekday evening show called The Evening Session with Steve Lamacq, which was oriented towards less-mainstream, non-dance music. Whiley presented her own show on Saturday afternoon in late 1995, from 1995 to 1998, Whiley was a regular guest presenter on Top of the Pops, initially co-presenting with fellow DJ Steve Lamacq before flying solo and alternating with Zoë Ball and Jayne Middlemiss. The three women are referred to by the Top of the Pops website as the 90s girls, however, the only occasion when all three presented together was on Christmas Day 1997. Whiley returned to the show twice between 2005–06 to co-present with lead presenter Fearne Cotton, in July 2009, Whiley published her autobiography, My World in Motion, on CD from Random House Audiobooks. From February 1997, Whiley had a weekday show, called The Jo Whiley Show. This included elements of the show, such as tour dates. When Simon Mayo left Radio 1 for Radio Five Live in February 2001, as of 2005, the BBC paid Whiley a salary of £250,000. In July 2008, The Jo Whiley Show was fined £75,000 for misleading listeners for an incident involving a member of BBC staff posing as a member of the taking part in a competition. The BBC claim Whiley herself was unaware of the deception at the time of its broadcast, in July 2009, it was announced that the Jo Whiley show would end broadcasting in September as part of a major shake-up of Radio 1s weekday schedule. The shake-up, billed as the biggest at Radio 1 for five years, would see Greg James move to the afternoon slot, Cotton took over many of Whileys popular features including the famous Live Lounge segment. Her final weekday programme took place on 18 September 2009, following the Jo Whiley Show, Whiley went on to present a weekend show on Radio 1 between 1pm and 4pm
8.
Massive Attack
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Massive Attack are an English trip hop group formed in 1988 in Bristol, consisting of Robert 3D Del Naja, Grant Daddy G Marshall and formerly Andy Mushroom Vowles & Adrian Tricky Kid Thaws. Their debut album Blue Lines was released in 1991, with the single Unfinished Sympathy reaching the charts, 1998s Mezzanine, containing Teardrop, and 2003s 100th Window charted in the UK at number one. Both Blue Lines and Mezzanine feature in Rolling Stones list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, the group has won numerous music awards throughout their career, including a Brit Award—winning Best British Dance Act, two MTV Europe Music Awards, and two Q Awards. They have released five albums that have sold over 11 million copies worldwide. DJs Daddy G and Andrew Vowles and graffiti artist-turned-rapper Robert Del Naja met as members of partying collective The Wild Bunch, One of the first homegrown soundsystems in the UK, The Wild Bunch became dominant on the Bristol club scene in the mid-1980s. Circa became a subsidiary of, and was subsumed into, Virgin Records. Blue Lines, was co-produced by Jonny Dollar and Cameron McVey, Geoff Barrow, who went on to form Portishead, was an intern and trainee tape operator at Bristols Coach House studio when the album was recorded. In the nineties, the became known for often not being able to easily get along with one another. Marshall returned to a role in 2005, having joined the touring line-up in 2003 and 2004. Unsigned, Mushroom, Daddy G and 3D put out Any Love as a single, 3D co-wrote Neneh Cherrys Manchild, which peaked at number 5 in the UK single chart. Cameron McVey and Neneh Cherry helped them to record their first LP Blue Lines, partly in their house, the album used vocalists including Horace Andy and Shara Nelson, a former Wild Bunch cohort. MCs Tricky and Willie Wee, also part of The Wild Bunch, featured. Neneh Cherry sang backing vocals on environmentalist anthem, Hymn of the Big Wheel, the group temporarily shortened their name to Massive on the advice of McVey to avoid controversy relating to the Gulf War. They went back to being Massive Attack for their next single, after Shara Nelson left, the band brought in Everything but the Girls Tracey Thorn as a vocalist and released Protection on 26 September 1994. With McVey out of the picture, Massive Attack enlisted the talents of former Wild Bunch Nellee Hooper to co-produce some songs on it. Other tracks were co-produced by The Insects and 3D, a dub version, No Protection, was released the following year by Mad Professor. Protection won a Brit award for Best Dance Act, the other collaborators on Protection were Marius de Vries, Craig Armstrong, a Scottish classical pianist, and Tricky. Trickys solo career was taking off at time and he decided not to collaborate with Massive Attack after this
9.
Michael Franti
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Michael Franti is an American rapper, musician, poet, spoken word artist and singer-songwriter. Michael Franti is known for having participated in musical projects, including the Beatnigs. He is also a supporter for a wide spectrum of peace and social justice issues. Michael Franti was born in Oakland, California and his mother, Mary Lofy, had Irish, German, and Belgian ancestry, and his father, Thomas Hopkins, was of African-American and Native American descent. However, his mother put him up for adoption because she was afraid that her racist family would not accept him. He was adopted by Carole Wisti and Charles Franti, a Finnish American couple in Oakland, Charles Franti was a professor in the department of epidemiology and preventive medicine of the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine and died in 2003. Michaels four adoptive siblings are named Rebecca, Sara, Dan, Michael spent his grade 9 school year at Highland Junior High School in Edmonton, Alberta. He then attended Davis Senior High School and graduated from the University of San Francisco, during his time at school there he met a priest who taught him how to tell a story on paper, and soon he was writing poetry. He purchased a bass at a shop and started creating music inspired by hip hop, punk. Franti also has four siblings, Thea, Thomas, Charles. Franti began his career in 1986 as part of the industrial punk/spoken word band The Beatnigs. While attending the University of San Francisco and living above KUSF he developed a fascination with music, the Beatnigs included dancer and percussionist Rono Tse, the band released a self-titled LP and an EP Television on Alternative Tentacles records. The records received some acclaim but little fame beyond the San Francisco Bay Area. The 1988 LP release The Beatnigs was recorded at Dancin Dog Studio in Emeryville, in addition to Michael Franti and Ron Tse, the band included Henry Flood on percussion, Andre Flores on keyboards, and Kevin Carnes on vocals. All of the members made multiple instrumental contributions, including industrial percussion. The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy wrote politically charged lyrics that railed against the injustices of the world, set to a fusion of industrial music and hip hop. Their first album, Hypocrisy is the Greatest Luxury, won plaudits for its social commentary and it is important to note that this album is one of Frantis remarkable works as an artist activist. The first song of the album Hypocrisy is the Greatest Luxury is Satanic Reverses and it satellite links, our United States of unconsciousness, apathetic therapeutic and extremely addictive
10.
Kevin Eldon
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Kevin Eldon is an English actor and comedian. He featured in British comedy television shows of the 1990s including Fist of Fun, Knowing Me, Knowing You with Alan Partridge, Big Train, Brass Eye, in 2013 he appeared in his own BBC sketch series, Its Kevin. In 2016 Eldon joined the HBO series Game of Thrones, Eldon was born in Chatham, Kent. He has been a practising Nichiren Buddhist since 1990 and he has a daughter with his long-term girlfriend Holly whom he met on the set of Hyperdrive where she was the art director. He started on the circuit in the early 1990s performing an act in character as the political poet Paul Hamilton. Lee and Herring would usually refer to him as the actor Kevin Eldon, in reference to his claim to be an actor, rather than a comedian. He played recurring characters Simon Quinlank, the self-confessed King of Hobbies and Rod Hull an nonsensical version of Rod Hull with a prosthetic limb and an obsession with jelly. In 1994 and 1997, he appeared at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival as part the comedy troupe Cluub Zarathustra other comedians included Roger Mann, Johnny Vegas, Simon Munnery and they were given a Channel 4 pilot which led to the television series Attention Scum. The book You Are Nothing by Robert Wringham praises the performers talent, from March 2009, Eldon appeared in Stewart Lees Comedy Vehicle in a number of the shows sketches most often with Paul Putner. Eldon has appeared in many British comedy shows from the 1990s onwards, during the 1990s he worked with comedians such as Simon Pegg, Mark Heap, Julia Davis, Amelia Bullmore and others in the sketch comedy series Big Train. He had worked previously with some of the cast in the satirical series Brass Eye, dark comedy Jam, Eldon would later act in Nathan Barley and in the 2010 film Four Lions as a police sniper also written by Christopher Morris. In 2004, Eldon appeared in the BAFTA-award-winning dark comedy Nighty Night as Terry Tyrrell and they also appeared later in Hunderby, another dark comedy written by Julia Davis, Little Crackers and Psychobitches. He worked again with Pegg in an episode in the sitcom Spaced with Mark Gatiss, Eldon has appeared on stage and screen numerous times with the comedian Bill Bailey. He played the role in Baileys 2007 Tinselworm tour, Channel 4s Comedy Gala in 2010. In late 2006, Eldon helped, alongside Bill Bailey, to organise and produce a short tour, the show was a collection of sketches written by Harold Pinter also starring Geraldine McNulty and Sally Philips. They also appeared together when Eldon was a panellist on Nevermind the Buzzcocks in 2007 and they also acted together in the sitcom Black Books episode Grapes of Wrath, where Eldon played The Cleaner. Eldon has also had minor guest starring roles in numerous projects, including Smack the Pony, Green Wing, The IT Crowd. In February 2010, Eldon appeared in the pilot for a sort-of-sketch-show called Missing Scene, in 2011 he appeared in sketches throughout How TV Ruined Your Life, and, with Paul Whitehouse, as one of a pair of women 1950s typists in Series 4 of Harry and Paul
11.
Graham Linehan
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Graham Linehan is an Irish television comedy writer and director who, often in partnership with Arthur Mathews, has written or co-written a number of popular television comedies. He is most noted for the sitcoms Father Ted, Black Books, amongst others, he has also worked on Big Train, Count Arthur Strong, Brass Eye and The Fast Show. He also had a column with the magazine In Dublin before moving to London, Linehan is married to Helen Serafinowicz, a writer and the sister of Peter Serafinowicz, and the couple have two children. Linehan and Mathews first met while working at Hot Press, the two continued their collaboration with Paris and Father Ted. They then wrote the first series of the sketch show Big Train and they also wrote the Dearth of A Salesman episode for the series Coogans Run, which featured the character Gareth Cheeseman. In late 2003, they were named one of the 50 funniest acts to work in television by The Observer, Linehan has since written for other shows, including Brass Eye. With Dylan Moran, he co-wrote the first series of Black Books, Linehan has also contributed material to Blue Jam, and its television adaptation Jam. In November 2008, he was awarded an International Emmy for The IT Crowd, in 2013, he wrote and directed The Walshes. Linehan and Mathews have had one book published, Father Ted and they have also contributed to various magazines and written surreal liner notes for the popular Volume series of alternative music compilations. This film appears as an extra on The IT Crowd, Version 1.0 DVD and he was also an executive producer of the first series of The IT Crowd, and an associate producer of one episode of Father Ted. Both Linehan and Mathews have made appearances in programmes they have written. They also made an appearance in the sitcom Im Alan Partridge as two Irish TV producers considering Alan Partridge for a contract and he appeared in the Identity Parade round of Never Mind the Buzzcocks. Linehan was one of the writers interviewed by Charlie Brooker in a special episode of the fifth series of Brookers Screenwipe programme. Linehan also appeared as a guest panellist on Have I Got News for You in 2011 and again in 2012 and he received a score of −19 on his only appearance on QI. In 2007, a documentary about Linehan, his life and his career was produced by Wildfire Films for RTÉ One and this documentary explored the art, craft and deeply competitive business of creating contemporary television comedy. It was directed by Adrian McCarthy and produced by Martha ONeill, in 2011, Linehan also appeared with several members of the cast in Channel 4s Father Ted Night, an evening of the writers favourite episodes and two retrospective documentaries. On 6 June 2011, Linehan appeared on BBC Radio 4s Today programme to discuss his adaption of the Ealing comedy film The Ladykillers for the West End stage. During this appearance, Linehan took issue with Today presenter Justin Webb over what he saw as the staging of an artificial argument between himself and the critic Michael Billington
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