1.
Dublin
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Dublin is the capital and largest city of Ireland. Dublin is in the province of Leinster on Irelands east coast, the city has an urban area population of 1,345,402. The population of the Greater Dublin Area, as of 2016, was 1,904,806 people, founded as a Viking settlement, the Kingdom of Dublin became Irelands principal city following the Norman invasion. The city expanded rapidly from the 17th century and was briefly the second largest city in the British Empire before the Acts of Union in 1800, following the partition of Ireland in 1922, Dublin became the capital of the Irish Free State, later renamed Ireland. Dublin is administered by a City Council, the city is listed by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network as a global city, with a ranking of Alpha-, which places it amongst the top thirty cities in the world. It is a historical and contemporary centre for education, the arts, administration, economy, the name Dublin comes from the Irish word Dubhlinn, early Classical Irish Dubhlind/Duibhlind, dubh /d̪uβ/, alt. /d̪uw/, alt /d̪u, / meaning black, dark, and lind /lʲiɲ pool and this tidal pool was located where the River Poddle entered the Liffey, on the site of the castle gardens at the rear of Dublin Castle. In Modern Irish the name is Duibhlinn, and Irish rhymes from Dublin County show that in Dublin Leinster Irish it was pronounced Duílinn /d̪ˠi, other localities in Ireland also bear the name Duibhlinn, variously anglicized as Devlin, Divlin and Difflin. Historically, scribes using the Gaelic script wrote bh with a dot over the b and those without knowledge of Irish omitted the dot, spelling the name as Dublin. Variations on the name are found in traditionally Irish-speaking areas of Scotland, such as An Linne Dhubh. It is now thought that the Viking settlement was preceded by a Christian ecclesiastical settlement known as Duibhlinn, beginning in the 9th and 10th century, there were two settlements where the modern city stands. Baile Átha Cliath, meaning town of the ford, is the common name for the city in modern Irish. Áth Cliath is a name referring to a fording point of the River Liffey near Father Mathew Bridge. Baile Átha Cliath was an early Christian monastery, believed to have been in the area of Aungier Street, there are other towns of the same name, such as Àth Cliath in East Ayrshire, Scotland, which is Anglicised as Hurlford. Although the area of Dublin Bay has been inhabited by humans since prehistoric times and he called the settlement Eblana polis. It is now thought that the Viking settlement was preceded by a Christian ecclesiastical settlement known as Duibhlinn, beginning in the 9th and 10th century, there were two settlements where the modern city stands. The subsequent Scandinavian settlement centred on the River Poddle, a tributary of the Liffey in an area now known as Wood Quay, the Dubhlinn was a small lake used to moor ships, the Poddle connected the lake with the Liffey. This lake was covered during the early 18th century as the city grew, the Dubhlinn lay where the Castle Garden is now located, opposite the Chester Beatty Library in Dublin Castle
2.
Republic of Ireland
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Ireland, also known as the Republic of Ireland, is a sovereign state in north-western Europe occupying about five-sixths of the island of Ireland. The capital and largest city is Dublin, which is located on the part of the island. The state shares its land border with Northern Ireland, a part of the United Kingdom. It is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, with the Celtic Sea to the south, Saint Georges Channel to the south-east, and it is a unitary, parliamentary republic. The head of government is the Taoiseach, who is elected by the Dáil and appointed by the President, the state was created as the Irish Free State in 1922 as a result of the Anglo-Irish Treaty. It was officially declared a republic in 1949, following the Republic of Ireland Act 1948, Ireland became a member of the United Nations in December 1955. It joined the European Economic Community, the predecessor of the European Union, after joining the EEC, Ireland enacted a series of liberal economic policies that resulted in rapid economic growth. The country achieved considerable prosperity between the years of 1995 and 2007, which known as the Celtic Tiger period. This was halted by a financial crisis that began in 2008. However, as the Irish economy was the fastest growing in the EU in 2015, Ireland is again quickly ascending league tables comparing wealth and prosperity internationally. For example, in 2015, Ireland was ranked as the joint sixth most developed country in the world by the United Nations Human Development Index and it also performs well in several national performance metrics, including freedom of the press, economic freedom and civil liberties. Ireland is a member of the European Union and is a member of the Council of Europe. The 1922 state, comprising 26 of the 32 counties of Ireland, was styled, the Constitution of Ireland, adopted in 1937, provides that the name of the State is Éire, or, in the English language, Ireland. Section 2 of the Republic of Ireland Act 1948 states, It is hereby declared that the description of the State shall be the Republic of Ireland. The 1948 Act does not name the state as Republic of Ireland, because to have done so would have put it in conflict with the Constitution. The government of the United Kingdom used the name Eire, and, from 1949, Republic of Ireland, for the state, as well as Ireland, Éire or the Republic of Ireland, the state is also referred to as the Republic, Southern Ireland or the South. In an Irish republican context it is referred to as the Free State or the 26 Counties. From the Act of Union on 1 January 1801, until 6 December 1922, during the Great Famine, from 1845 to 1849, the islands population of over 8 million fell by 30%
3.
Television
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Television or TV is a telecommunication medium used for transmitting moving images in monochrome, or in color, and in two or three dimensions and sound. The term can refer to a set, a television program. Television is a medium for entertainment, education, news, politics, gossip. Television became available in experimental forms in the late 1920s. After World War II, a form of black-and-white TV broadcasting became popular in the United States and Britain, and television sets became commonplace in homes, businesses. During the 1950s, television was the medium for influencing public opinion. In the mid-1960s, color broadcasting was introduced in the US, for many reasons, the storage of television and video programming now occurs on the cloud. At the end of the first decade of the 2000s, digital television transmissions greatly increased in popularity, another development was the move from standard-definition television to high-definition television, which provides a resolution that is substantially higher. HDTV may be transmitted in various formats, 1080p, 1080i, in 2013, 79% of the worlds households owned a television set. Most TV sets sold in the 2000s were flat-panel, mainly LEDs, major manufacturers announced the discontinuation of CRT, DLP, plasma, and even fluorescent-backlit LCDs by the mid-2010s. In the near future, LEDs are gradually expected to be replaced by OLEDs, also, major manufacturers have announced that they will increasingly produce smart TVs in the mid-2010s. Smart TVs with integrated Internet and Web 2.0 functions became the dominant form of television by the late 2010s, Television signals were initially distributed only as terrestrial television using high-powered radio-frequency transmitters to broadcast the signal to individual television receivers. Alternatively television signals are distributed by cable or optical fiber, satellite systems and. Until the early 2000s, these were transmitted as analog signals, a standard television set is composed of multiple internal electronic circuits, including a tuner for receiving and decoding broadcast signals. A visual display device which lacks a tuner is correctly called a video monitor rather than a television, the word television comes from Ancient Greek τῆλε, meaning far, and Latin visio, meaning sight. The Anglicised version of the term is first attested in 1907 and it was. formed in English or borrowed from French télévision. In the 19th century and early 20th century, other. proposals for the name of a technology for sending pictures over distance were telephote. The abbreviation TV is from 1948, the use of the term to mean a television set dates from 1941
4.
Film
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A film, also called a movie, motion picture, theatrical film or photoplay, is a series of still images which, when shown on a screen, creates the illusion of moving images due to the phi phenomenon. This optical illusion causes the audience to perceive continuous motion between separate objects viewed rapidly in succession, the process of filmmaking is both an art and an industry. The word cinema, short for cinematography, is used to refer to the industry of films. Films were originally recorded onto plastic film through a photochemical process, the adoption of CGI-based special effects led to the use of digital intermediates. Most contemporary films are now fully digital through the process of production, distribution. Films recorded in a form traditionally included an analogous optical soundtrack. It runs along a portion of the film exclusively reserved for it and is not projected, Films are cultural artifacts created by specific cultures. They reflect those cultures, and, in turn, affect them, Film is considered to be an important art form, a source of popular entertainment, and a powerful medium for educating—or indoctrinating—citizens. The visual basis of film gives it a power of communication. Some films have become popular worldwide attractions by using dubbing or subtitles to translate the dialog into the language of the viewer, some have criticized the film industrys glorification of violence and its potentially negative treatment of women. The individual images that make up a film are called frames, the perception of motion is due to a psychological effect called phi phenomenon. The name film originates from the fact that film has historically been the medium for recording and displaying motion pictures. Many other terms exist for a motion picture, including picture, picture show, moving picture, photoplay. The most common term in the United States is movie, while in Europe film is preferred. Terms for the field, in general, include the big screen, the screen, the movies, and cinema. In early years, the sheet was sometimes used instead of screen. Preceding film in origin by thousands of years, early plays and dances had elements common to film, scripts, sets, costumes, production, direction, actors, audiences, storyboards, much terminology later used in film theory and criticism apply, such as mise en scène. Owing to the lack of any technology for doing so, the moving images, the magic lantern, probably created by Christiaan Huygens in the 1650s, could be used to project animation, which was achieved by various types of mechanical slides
5.
Surreal humour
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Surreal humour is a form of humour predicated on deliberate violations of causal reasoning, producing events and behaviours that are obviously illogical. Constructions of surreal humour tend to involve bizarre juxtapositions, non-sequiturs, the humour arises from a subversion of audiences expectations, so that amusement is founded on unpredictability, separate from a logical analysis of the situation. The humour derived gets its appeal from the fact that the situation described is so ridiculous or unlikely, the genre has roots in Surrealism in the arts. People speak of surreal humour when illogic and absurdity are used for humorous effect, many of Edward Lears children stories and poems contain nonsense and are basically surreal in approach. Besides that, it was bordered by evanescent isthmuses with a great Gulf-stream running about all over it, so that it was perfectly beautiful, and contained only a single tree,503 feet high. In the early 20th century, several movements, including the dadaists, surrealists. The goals of these movements were in some serious, and they were committed to undermining the solemnity. As a result, much of their art was intentionally amusing, a famous example is Marcel Duchamps Fountain, an inverted urinal signed R. Mutt. This became one of the most famous and influential pieces of art in history and it is also a joke, relying on the inversion of the items function as expressed by its title as well as its incongruous presence in an art exhibition. The word surreal first began to be used to describe a type of aesthetic of the early 1920s, surreal humour is also found frequently in avant-garde theatre such as Waiting for Godot and Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead. In the United States, S. J. Perelman has been identified as the first surrealist humour writer, artists like Yoko Ono, Andy Warhol, Donald Barthelme, Italo Calvino, John Hodgman, and many others have relied on this technique in their work. Surrealist humour has played an important role in culture, especially since The Goon Show, Ernie Kovacs. Spike Milligan has been an influence with his absurdist pieces. One of his earliest works in radio, The Goon Show, has inspired many other absurdist comedians and was popular at the time. Spike Milligan went on to create a TV show in 1969, in turn, the Pythons influenced many with their groundbreaking series Monty Pythons Flying Circus. In the 1980s, when the alternative comedy era had begun, absurdist comedians were working the circuit, with the success of The Comic Strip Presents. Featuring as one of the first aired pieces for Channel 4 and this was a very absurdist sitcom based on four university students. Both Monty Python and The Young Ones featured a structure and many absurdities
6.
Father Ted
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The fictional Craggy Island was the primary setting for the Channel 4 sitcom Father Ted. Craggy Island is a bleak, desolate community with no redeeming features whatsoever and where nothing happens, populated by various lunatics. The weather is harsh and just about every house and business is shoddily built. As testament to the islands enduring unpopularity, the Irish state have given the British government permission to use the islands coast for dumping nuclear waste, the island isnt mentioned on any map and is frequently used by sailors as a navigational device. Despite there rarely being any news of note, the island has its own broadsheet, because they never have anything worth writing about, the staff usually blow up any small event or piece of gossip into a major scandal, such as when a peeping toms whistle was stolen. The story helped make way for a full-colour pullout on whistles as a way of exploiting the bored locals excitement. R, t-shirt, usually while sporting a gun. A bizarre fact about the island is that in poor conditions the roads are taken in. There are also several significantly unimpressive landmarks, such as The Field, the island has a long-running feud with its almost identical counterpart, Rugged Island, which is ministered to by Teds arch nemesis, Father Dick Byrne. It was briefly removed following an altercation between Father Jack and a Bishop, when Jack caused the relic to become lodged in the bishops anus, the filming location providing a backdrop for the holy stone was the Cliffs of Moher, one of Irelands most popular tourist destinations. Ted admits to not knowing why the stone is holy and claims it is just a kind of general holiness that supposedly gave Dougal of moment of serenity which Dougal himself described as a great buzz. The Field, While not actually a field, the area has fewer rocks in it than most other places on the island and it was filmed in Portrane, Co. The Craggy Island Crazy Golf Course, The course consisted of one hole with the easily discarded obstacle of a windmill. The Picnic Spot, Even bleaker than other parts on the island, the spot is home to a few deckchairs, a sign, and a list of rules. The spot is watched by Mr. Benson and his whistle and its only regular visitors are an aggressively territorial couple who drive away anyone else wishing to sit at the lone picnic table. They do, however, abide by the no swearing rule religiously, telling Father Ted to fup off and calling him a backstard, vaughans, A pub located in town that is visited by many of Craggy Islands Chinese residents. The threshold of this pub is the site of the mysterious Mud Angel, legend had it that every Friday night, about closing time, the mysterious figure of a man appeared in the mud outside the pub. It was later revealed to be Father Jack rolling in the mud in a drunken stupor, OLearys, A small shop, which provides services ranging from groceries to book-makers to record sales. It is run by John and Mary O Leary who are involved in domestic violence moments before the priests enter the shop
7.
The IT Crowd
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The IT Crowd is a British sitcom by Channel 4, written by Graham Linehan, produced by Ash Atalla and starring Chris ODowd, Richard Ayoade, Katherine Parkinson, and Matt Berry. The show also focuses on the bosses of Reynholm Industries, Denholm Reynholm and later, the comedy premiered on Channel 4 on 3 February 2006, and ran for four series of six episodes each. Although a fifth series was commissioned, it was never produced, the programme was concluded with a special, one-off episode, that aired on 27 September 2013. The show was acclaimed and has an 8.6 rating on IMDb. The IT Crowd is set in the offices of Reynholm Industries, Douglas Reynholm claims his father Denholm Reynholm described the IT department as being run by a dynamic go-getter, a genius and a man from Ireland. Roy and Moss, the two technicians, are portrayed as socially inept geeks or, in Denholm Reynholms words, standard nerds, despite the companys dependence on their services, they are despised, ignored, and considered losers by the rest of the staff. Roys exasperation is reflected in his techniques of ignoring the phone in the hope it will stop ringing. He expresses his personality by wearing a different geek T-shirt in each episode, Moss is completely unable to deal with others in a rational manner, often citing bizarre facts about himself or technology, and is occasionally arrogant around others when it comes to computers. Jen, the newest member of the team, is hopelessly non-technical, as Denholm, the company boss, is equally tech-illiterate, he is convinced by Jens interview bluffing and appoints her head of the IT department. Chris ODowd as Roy Trenneman – a cheeky chappy IT technician from Ireland, however, when something does happen, he is the one who gets the wrong end of the stick and is constantly either injured or embarrassed. Richard Ayoade as Maurice Moss – highly intelligent nerd with a lack of social skills, Matt Berry as Douglas Reynholm – the womanising son of Denholm who inherits Reynholm Industries in series 2 after his father commits suicide. Christopher Morris as Denholm Reynholm – the founder and executive of Reynholm Industries, noel Fielding as Richmond Avenal – an IT technician and goth who was banished to the departments server room. Linehan wrote the series alone. The show was filmed before a studio audience, which at the time was considered by some as risky. The first series was recorded in front of a audience at Teddington Studios but moved to Pinewood Studios for series 2 onwards. Cinematic-style footage was recorded before live tapings. The title sequence of the show was produced by Shynola, in Australia the show has been broadcast on ABC1 and UKTV. In Bulgaria, GTV began airing the show in July 2008, ETV has aired the show in Estonia
8.
Black Books
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Black Books is a British sitcom created by Dylan Moran and Graham Linehan that was broadcast on Channel 4 from 2000 to 2004. The series was produced by Big Talk Productions, in association with Channel 4, the debut episode premiered on 29 September 2000 and three seasons followed, with the final episode airing on 15 April 2004. Black Books was a success, winning a number of awards. Bernard Black is the proprietor of Black Books, a small bookshop, the series revolves around the lives of Bernard, Manny and Fran. It is suggested that Fran and Bernard once slept together, but now they remain happy to be friends, sharing a love of smoking heavily, Fran otherwise has a rather hopeless love life. Manny is introduced in the first episode as an accountant who enters the bookshop seeking The Little Book of Calm. During a drunken night out, Bernard offers him a job as a shop assistant, sobering up, Bernard realises Mannys optimistic nature is not suited to this kind of operation. Fran, however, seeing that Manny is good for Bernard, many episodes are driven by Manny and Frans attempts to force Bernard into a more socially acceptable lifestyle. Their efforts usually result in chaos, sucking them back into Bernards nihilistic view of the world, Mannys attempts to improve both the shop and the residence often fail. In October 2011, Graham Linehan was asked what Bernard, Manny, Linehan responded, Theyll grow up, like everyone else. The series revolves around the three characters of Bernard Ludwig Black, Manny Bianco and Fran Katzenjammer, who all appeared in every episode. Supporting characters appear briefly in episodes, while the show also featured several guest stars, such as actor Simon Pegg. Black Books ran for a total of 18 half-hour episodes, broadcast over three series of six episodes each. Series 1 premiered on 29 September 2000 and ran until 3 November 2000, series 2 from 1 March 2002 to 5 April 2002, a pilot for the show was featured in the 1998 Channel 4 sitcom festival in Riverside Studios. This early version was darker, revolving around Bernards, and later Mannys. It featured Manny and the Fran character as Valerie, a philosophy lecturer, the pilot was an original creation of Morans and the series was his first creation as a writer for a television series. The characters were Morans original creation, created over a month-long process he calls spitballing, the concept of Bernard owning a bookshop came about because of Morans view of bookshops as doomed enterprises. Moran said Running a second-hand bookshop is a commercial failure
9.
The Walshes
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The Walshes is an Irish comedy television series that was first broadcast on RTÉ One on 6 March and BBC Four on 13 March 2014. The three-part series was written by Graham Linehan and the comedy group Diet of Worms, the show follows the Walshes, a tight-knit family living in the fictional West Dublin suburb of Strollinstown. Diet of Worms portray the family, reprising their roles from the web series, the show was originally shown on BBC Four and was broadcast again on BBC Two in November 2014. The writer, Graham Linehan has said if the show gets higher viewing figures this time it may come back with a new series. In January 2015, Graham Linehan announced on Twitter that the show was cancelled, the series has yet to be released on DVD. In November 2013, it was reported that Linehan had directed a pilot based on the web series, the show is co-produced by Boom Pictures and Delightful Industries for RTÉ and the BBC, but was originally intended for ITV. Studio filming took place at Teddington Studios in London, while location filming took place in Dublin. The Walshes at BBC Programmes The Walshes at the Internet Movie Database The Walshes at Radio Times The Walshes at British Comedy Guide
10.
Brass Eye
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Brass Eye is a British comedy series parodying the current affairs news programming of the mid-1990s. A series of six episodes aired on Channel 4 in 1997, the series was created by Chris Morris, written by Morris, David Quantick, Peter Baynham, Jane Bussmann, Arthur Mathews, Graham Linehan and Charlie Brooker and directed by Michael Cumming. Drugs The second episode, Drugs, has described by Professor Michael Gossop as illustrative of the ease in which anti-drug hysteria can be evoked in the United Kingdom. In the opening scene of episode, a voiceover tells viewers that there are so many drugs on the streets of Britain that not even the dealers know them all. He also explained that possession of drugs without physical contact and the exchange of drugs through a mandrill were perfectly legal in English law, in response, the Home Office minister incorrectly identified the fictitious drug Cake as a pseudonym for the hallucinogenic drug methylenedioxybenzylamphetamine. Just imagine how his mother felt, Sex In one scene of the Sex episode, Morris posed as a talk-show host who took a starkly discriminatory attitude in favour of those with Good AIDS over those with Bad AIDS. A special one-off edition of the show aired four years after the series had ended and it eventually aired on 28 July 2001. It tackled paedophilia and the panic in parts of the British media following the murder of Sarah Payne. This included an incident in 2000 in which a paediatrician in Newport had the word PAEDO daubed in yellow paint on her home, nOTWs then Editor Rebekah Brooks would years later discuss this campaign at the Leveson Inquiry. To illustrate the medias reaction to the subject, various celebrities were duped into presenting fatuous. Gary Lineker and Phil Collins endorsed a spoof charity, Nonce Sense, with Collins saying, at one point, bogus CCTV footage was shown of a paedophile attempting to seduce children by stalking the streets while disguised as a school. Lineker described paedophile text slang, stating that BALTIMORA translates to literally, labour MP Syd Rapson related that paedophiles were using an area of internet the size of Ireland. Blackwood also warned watching parents that exposure to the fumes would make their children smell like hammers, prior to the launch, an eight-year-old boy had been placed on board the spaceship with Cooke by mistake. During the programme, the studio was invaded by a fictional militant pro-paedophile activism organisation called Milit-pede, when it returned, presenter Chris Morris confronted a spokesman, Gerard Chote, who had been placed in a pillory, asking if he wanted sex with Morriss six-year-old son. Hesitantly, the spokesman refused, apologetically explaining I dont fancy him, the episode won a Broadcast magazine award in 2002. The series was repeated in 2001 to tie in with the paedophilia special, a disclaimer was also added to the Drugs episode at the request of David Amess. In a particularly infamous portrayal, Hindley was the topic of a song by a fictitious indie band called Blouse. The lyrics to part of the read, Every time I see your picture, Myra/I have to phone my latest girlfriend up and fire her/And find a prostitute who looks like you and hire her/Oh
11.
The Fast Show
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The Fast Show, known as Brilliant in the US, is a BBC comedy sketch show programme that ran from 1994 to 1997, with specials in 2000 and 2014. It was one of the most popular shows of the 1990s in the UK. The shows central performers were Paul Whitehouse, Charlie Higson, Simon Day, Mark Williams, John Thomson, Arabella Weir, other significant cast members included Paul Shearer, Rhys Thomas, Jeff Harding, Maria McErlane, Eryl Maynard, Colin McFarlane and Donna Ewin. It was loosely structured and relied on character sketches, recurring running gags and its innovative style and presentation influenced many later series such as Little Britain and The Catherine Tate Show. The show was released on VHS, DVD and audio CD, some of its characters, Ron Manager, Ted and Ralph, Swiss Toni and Billy Bleach have had their own spin-off programmes. It also produced two national tours, the first in 1998, with the cast of the BBC surrealist comedy quiz show Shooting Stars, Charlie Higson announced on 5 September 2011 that The Fast Show would return for a new online only series starting 14 November. The premiere date was changed later to 10 November, the Fast Show was the brainchild of Paul Whitehouse and friend and writing partner, Charlie Higson, Higson had previously enjoyed some success in the UK as a musician in the band The Higsons. After meeting through a friend, comedian Harry Enfield invited Whitehouse to write for him. Whitehouse in turn asked Higson to help him out and these series also featured numerous appearances by future Fast Show cast members Caroline Aherne, Simon Day, Mark Williams and Rhys Thomas. The Fast Show was a working title disliked by both Whitehouse and Higson but it went unchanged through production and eventually remained as the final title, many characters were never given any official name, with their sketches being written to give their catchphrase as the punchline of each sketch. Examples include Anyone fancy a pint, a sarcastic elderly woman played by Weir. and has since become a reality thanks to UK TV chef Jamie Oliver. However, the intent of this character is broader, and portrays how often football pundits have little to say of any real substance. Paul Whitehouse said that Ron Manager was based on ex-Luton Town, Arthur Atkinson is a composite of Arthur Askey and Max Miller. The theme tune was Release Me, a song which had been a hit for pop singer Engelbert Humperdinck, in the first series it was performed over the opening credits by Whitehouse in the guise of abnormally transfiguring singer Kenny Valentine. In subsequent series, the tune appeared in the closing credits. The show featured characters and sketches. Some of the prominent recurring characters/sketches are, Unlucky Alf. He often predicts an unfortunate, but obvious, event, only to encounter an event as he tries to avoid the first problem
12.
Catholic University School
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Catholic University School is a Private school for boys in Dublin, Ireland. The school was established by Bartholomew Woodlock and Cardinal John Henry Newman as a Preparatory school for the Catholic University of Ireland and it is one of the oldest Catholic schools in Ireland. The school has educated Irish politicians, leading academic and literary figures and it is run by the Marist Fathers on Leeson Street. The foundation of the Catholic University School has its basis in the Catholic Revival movement of the late 1820s, for over 250 years, the only university in Ireland had been Trinity College, Dublin – the sole constituent college of the University of Dublin. While the Trinity College, Dublin had been opened to Catholics in 1793 and those Catholics who did were mainly educated in England at schools such as Stonyhurst College. In response to this issue, in 1850, Queen Victoria granted a Royal Charter founding three colleges of the Queens University of Ireland, the colleges in Cork, Belfast and Galway were non-denominational. However, at the Synod of Thurles in 1850, the Catholic Church officially condemned these institutions as Godless Colleges, thus, the Catholic University of Ireland was founded in 1851 – though not fully established until 18 May 1854 with Cardinal John Henry Newman as its first Rector. St. Laurences Academy, founded in 1850, was accompanied by the establishment of Belvedere College by the Jesuits in 1832 on the side of the city. The University, as yet, had no dedicated preparatory or feeder school, by 1862, Dr. Bartholomew Woodlock took over as rector of the Catholic University, and suggested that the university proceed with the foundation of its own feeder school. Over time, St. Laurences Academy developed a relationship with the University. Woodlock was the first President of the school and professors from the University also taught in the school, the school was given a name reflecting its function, the Catholic University School. The first teachers in the school were mostly young Dublin priests who had studied at the Irish College in Rome, among them was Dr. James Quinn, who set about enrolling students from wealthy Catholic families. Within a year the school had an enrollment of 130 students, the subjects taught were classical rather than practical and included Greek, Latin, French, German, Italian and the Arts. Pope Pius XI eventually chose Quinn as the first Roman Catholic Archbishop of Brisbane, Australia –, in the early 1860s, the finances of the Catholic University School and University were intertwined, and the rent for the Harcourt Street premises was a high £2600 per annum. Neither the school nor the University were able to cope with this burden. Archbishop of Dublin, Paul Cullen was adamant that it was not possible for C. U. S to close even for a year – because it would be possible that the school would never open again. In 1867 both Cardinal Cullen and Woodlock travelled to Dundalk for the consecration of Michael Kiernan as Archbishop of Armagh, while there, they visited the Marist College and believed that Marist administration would be beneficial to the Catholic University School. Subsequently, Cullenbrought the offer to the General Council of the Marist Fathers in Lyons in France, after a two-day petition, he convinced the Council of the benefit of taking on the Dublin school
13.
London
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London /ˈlʌndən/ is the capital and most populous city of England and the United Kingdom. Standing on the River Thames in the south east of the island of Great Britain and it was founded by the Romans, who named it Londinium. Londons ancient core, the City of London, largely retains its 1. 12-square-mile medieval boundaries. London is a global city in the arts, commerce, education, entertainment, fashion, finance, healthcare, media, professional services, research and development, tourism. It is crowned as the worlds largest financial centre and has the fifth- or sixth-largest metropolitan area GDP in the world, London is a world cultural capital. It is the worlds most-visited city as measured by international arrivals and has the worlds largest city airport system measured by passenger traffic, London is the worlds leading investment destination, hosting more international retailers and ultra high-net-worth individuals than any other city. Londons universities form the largest concentration of education institutes in Europe. In 2012, London became the first city to have hosted the modern Summer Olympic Games three times, London has a diverse range of people and cultures, and more than 300 languages are spoken in the region. Its estimated mid-2015 municipal population was 8,673,713, the largest of any city in the European Union, Londons urban area is the second most populous in the EU, after Paris, with 9,787,426 inhabitants at the 2011 census. The citys metropolitan area is the most populous in the EU with 13,879,757 inhabitants, the city-region therefore has a similar land area and population to that of the New York metropolitan area. London was the worlds most populous city from around 1831 to 1925, Other famous landmarks include Buckingham Palace, the London Eye, Piccadilly Circus, St Pauls Cathedral, Tower Bridge, Trafalgar Square, and The Shard. The London Underground is the oldest underground railway network in the world, the etymology of London is uncertain. It is an ancient name, found in sources from the 2nd century and it is recorded c.121 as Londinium, which points to Romano-British origin, and hand-written Roman tablets recovered in the city originating from AD 65/70-80 include the word Londinio. The earliest attempted explanation, now disregarded, is attributed to Geoffrey of Monmouth in Historia Regum Britanniae and this had it that the name originated from a supposed King Lud, who had allegedly taken over the city and named it Kaerlud. From 1898, it was accepted that the name was of Celtic origin and meant place belonging to a man called *Londinos. The ultimate difficulty lies in reconciling the Latin form Londinium with the modern Welsh Llundain, which should demand a form *lōndinion, from earlier *loundiniom. The possibility cannot be ruled out that the Welsh name was borrowed back in from English at a later date, and thus cannot be used as a basis from which to reconstruct the original name. Until 1889, the name London officially applied only to the City of London, two recent discoveries indicate probable very early settlements near the Thames in the London area
14.
Peter Serafinowicz
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Peter Szymon Serafinowicz is an English actor, comedian, musician, writer, and voice artist. He played Pete in Shaun of the Dead, and provided the voice of Darth Maul in Star Wars and he has also appeared in a variety of British and American comedy series. Serafinowicz was born 10 July 1972 in Liverpool and he was raised Roman Catholic, and is of Belarusian descent on his fathers side. He attended Our Lady of the Assumption Primary School and St Francis Xavier Secondary School, Serafinowicz made his broadcasting debut in 1993 on Radio 1 show The Knowledge, a spoof documentary about the music industry. From there he went on to perform in Radio 4 shows Week Ending, Harry Hills Fruit Corner, Grievous Bodily Radio, The Two Dannys, in 1998 he appeared on TV in Comedy Nation and You are Here. He also had a role in the Simon Nye-penned sitcom How Do You Want Me, in 1999, he made a number of appearances in Channel 4 sitcom Spaced, playing principal character Tim Bisleys nemesis, Duane Benzie. He made another appearance in the series when it returned in 2001, in 2001 Serafinowicz took the lead in BBC Two sitcom World of Pub, playing the same character as he had done in the shows run on Radio 4. He was also in The Junkies, an Internet sitcom, in 2002 the critically acclaimed Look Around You, a series of 10-minute 1970s school science video spoofs, debuted on BBC Two in which Serafinowicz played a scientist. He co-wrote the show alongside Robert Popper, whom he met on the set of Spaced, the show returned in 2005 as a spoof of the 1980s show Tomorrows World, with Serafinowicz playing Peter Packard, one of the presenters. In 2003, he appeared in another Nye-written sitcom, Hardware and he reprised this role in the second series in 2004. Also in 2004 he appeared in British rom-zom-com Shaun of the Dead, playing Pete and he also appeared in boxing film The Calcium Kid. In Sixty Six, the 2006 British film about a Jewish boy whose Bar Mitzvah is scheduled for the day as the 1966 FIFA World Cup Final. In the week before the 2006 Academy Awards a video circulated on the Internet of a news item about a new Oscar statue, in which Serafinowicz imitated Alan Alda, Paul McCartney. A second O. News video later appeared, parodying the 2006 Apple Corps v. Apple Computer lawsuit and this attracted the interest of the BBC, and a pilot was commissioned for The Peter Serafinowicz Show. A full series was broadcast on BBC Two in 2007, for his performance, Serafinowicz was presented with the Best Entertainer prize at the 2008 Rose dOr ceremony. The series was nominated for Best Comedy Programme at the 2009 BAFTA Television Awards. He has made a number of guest appearances on television and radio panel shows. He regularly appeared on The 99p Challenge and appeared on Have I Got News for You in 2005,2006 and 2008,8 Out of 10 Cats in 2005, and QI in 2003
15.
Amnesty International
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Amnesty International is a non-governmental organisation focused on human rights that claims to have over 7 million members and supporters around the world. The stated objective of the organisation is to research and generate action to prevent and end grave abuses of human rights. Amnesty International was founded in London in 1961, following the publication of the article The Forgotten Prisoners in The Observer on 28 May 1961, Amnesty draws attention to human rights abuses and campaigns for compliance with international laws and standards. It works to public opinion to put pressure on governments that let abuse take place. Amnesty considers capital punishment to be the ultimate, irreversible denial of human rights, the organisation was awarded the 1977 Nobel Peace Prize for its campaign against torture, and the United Nations Prize in the Field of Human Rights in 1978. Amnesty International was founded in London in July 1961 by English labour lawyer Peter Benenson, researchers have never traced the alleged newspaper article in question. In 1960, Portugal was ruled by the Estado Novo government of António de Oliveira Salazar, the government was authoritarian in nature and strongly anti-communist, suppressing enemies of the state as anti-Portuguese. The newspaper reader feels a sense of impotence. Yet if these feelings of disgust could be united into common action, Benenson worked with friend Eric Baker. It marked the launch of Appeal for Amnesty,1961, the aim of which was to mobilise public opinion, quickly and widely, in defence of these individuals, the Appeal for Amnesty was reprinted by a large number of international newspapers. In the same year, Benenson had a published, Persecution 1961. In July 1961 the leadership had decided that the appeal would form the basis of a permanent organisation, Amnesty, Benenson ensured that all three major political parties were represented, enlisting members of parliament from the Labour Party, the Conservative Party, and the Liberal Party. On 30 September 1962, it was officially named Amnesty International, between the Appeal for Amnesty,1961 and September 1962 the organisation had been known simply as Amnesty. From the very beginning, research and campaigning were present in Amnesty Internationals work, a library was established for information about prisoners of conscience and a network of local groups, called THREES groups, was started. Each group worked on behalf of three prisoners, one each of the then three main ideological regions of the world, communist, capitalist and developing. The international movement was starting to agree on its principles and techniques. In 1967 Peter Benenson resigned after an independent inquiry did not support his claims that AI had been infiltrated by British agents, later he claimed that the Central Intelligence Agency had become involved in Amnesty. Leading Amnesty International in the 1970s were key figures Seán MacBride, Amnesty International believed that the reasons underlying torture of prisoners by governments, were either to acquire and obtain information or to quell opposition by the use of terror, or both
16.
Atheist Bus Campaign
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The Atheist Bus Campaign aims to place peaceful and upbeat messages about atheism on transport media in Britain, in response to evangelical Christian advertising. It was created by comedy writer Ariane Sherine and launched on October 21,2008, with support from the British Humanist Association. The campaigns original goal was to raise £5,500 to run 30 buses across London for four weeks early in 2009 with the slogan, now stop worrying and enjoy your life. Richard Dawkins, author of The God Delusion, agreed to all donations up to a maximum of £5,500. The campaign reached that target by 10, 06AM on 21 October and had raised £100,000 by the evening of 24 October, the campaign closed on 11 April 2009, having raised a total of £153,523.51. The first buses started running on 6 January 2009 –800 are running around the UK, subsequently, two large LCD screens were placed on Oxford Street, central London. Sherine first proposed the campaign in June 2008 in a guardian. co. uk Comment is Free blog post, Sherine called on atheists to counter this kind of evangelical advertising by donating five pounds towards a positive philosophical advert. Her idea was taken up by political blogger Jon Worth, who went on to set up a PledgeBank page, the PledgeBank page closed on 31 July 2008, having received 877 of the 4,679 pledges necessary for the original target of £23,400. This event attracted some limited comment in the mainstream media early in August, Sherine then wrote a follow-up Comment is free article, Dawkin bout a Revolution, detailing events since the original piece. In response, the British Humanist Association offered to lend the campaign its official support, Sherine then asked Richard Dawkins for a quote for the campaign, at which point he offered to match the first £5,500 raised. The Atheist Bus Campaigns donation phase launched on Tuesday 21 October 2008 with another article by Sherine, All aboard the atheist bus campaign, on Comment is free. To the surprise of the organisers the fundraising target was broken within hours of the launch, after four days the campaign had raised more than £100,000. There have been donations to the Justgiving page every day since the campaigns launch, the BHA has reported a flood of interest in its activities and the Atheist Bus Campaign Facebook group has been growing rapidly since the launch. Many atheists feel the campaign has given them a voice and represented them in a way they have hoped for. The story attracted media attention around the world. Writing in The Times, Joan Bakewell observed that Not since Going to Work on an Egg has an advertising initiative made such an impact, There has been some opposition to the adverts. Hanne Stinson of the BHA has suggested that if the ASA rule on this complaint, on 21 January the ASA ruled that the adverts were not in breach of its rules as the advert was an expression of the advertisers opinion and was incapable of substantiation. They also claimed that although the advert was contrary to peoples beliefs
17.
Alas Smith and Jones
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The show also had a brief run in the United States on A&E and PBS in the late 1980s, as well as on CBS in the early 1990s during their late night block. The shows creation followed the ending of Not the Nine OClock News, rowan Atkinson and Pamela Stephenson followed individual career paths, whilst Smith and Jones opted to form a double act. Shortly afterwards the BBC offered the pair their own show, with much of the written by themselves with help from a large team of other writers. The shows title was a pun on that of the American television series Alias Smith and Jones, the show continued partly along the same steps of Not. of using taboo-breaking material and sketches in questionable taste, and also featured head-to-head duologues between Smith and Jones. The head-to-head sketches were much in the Pete and Dud mould - Smith was the idiot who knew everything. The format of the head-to-head with similar characters was used by Smith, the final full series to be produced solely by the BBC was series 4 in 1987, also the last series to be broadcast on BBC2. Pearson PLC sold Pearson Television to CLT-UFA in 2001 to form the RTL Group, Pearson Television was renamed FremantleMedia and its UK division took the Thames Television name. However, in 2011 it was announced the brand names would return. The show ran for ten series across 14 years, each comprising six 30 minute episodes, the duo produced a six-part series for London Weekend Television called The World According to Smith and Jones. The BBC was not happy about the move to a rival, reviews for this series were mixed, critics did not know what to make of it. Smith and Jones soon appeared back with the BBC for a series later that year. Despite the criticism, The World According to Smith and Jones returned for a second series in 1988. It was the last show the duo made for BBC2, broadcast shortly before the series of Smith. Following on from the success of The Two Ronnies Sketchbook the previous year, Smith and Jones returned in 2006 with The Smith, the six-part series consisted primarily of Smith and Jones introducing highlights from the shows original run from 1984 to 1998. Some of the classic head-to-head sketches were updated with new material written especially for the programme, the series was broadcast on BBC One on Friday nights at 9. 30pm, from 21 April 2006 to 26 May 2006. It has not been repeated since its original broadcast or released commercially, in 1991, a compilation of footage from series 5 and 6 was compiled for a VHS release - simply titled Smith and Jones. The second video released in 1993 featured footage from series 1 to 4, a compilation DVD release The Best of Smith and Jones was scheduled for 8 August 2005 by the BBC, but has been delayed many times and is unlikely to be released. However, in October 2009, FremantleMedia released a two disc set titled At Last Smith and Jones - Volume 1 and this contained compilations of the first four series, as well as the two Christmas specials, The Homemade Xmas Video and Alas Sage and Onion
18.
Harry Enfield's Television Programme
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Harry Enfield and Chums is a British sketch show starring Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse. It first broadcast on BBC Two in 1990 in the 9 pm slot on Thursdays nights which became the time for alternative comedy on television. The 1990 series was written solely by Enfield, Whitehouse, Charlie Higson, there was also a Christmas special produced for this series. After the original series, there were a couple of radio appearances, during the period between series, Enfield concentrated on straight acting parts, and Whitehouse worked on other projects. Through repeats, the characters proved popular, and in 1994, BBC One commissioned a new series called Harry Enfield and this series was produced with a pool of writers, rather than the cast alone. The format of the credits was the same, although Enfield was now joined by co-stars Whitehouse. There were two Christmas specials produced for this series, based on the TV series about Lovejoy. His catchphrases were Oh, I getcha. and You drive a hard bargain, always followed by Bob offering more money to his harassed victim. Two middle-aged men prone to having achingly dull conversations at parties, revolving mostly around cars, Two brothers with an irritating propensity for double takes whenever the unexpected occurs. A blond softly spoken TV doctor and he is often seen on a morning show couch, reading letters from menopausal women about their fantasies of him. Two Dutch policemen who are interested in smoking marijuana and conducting a homosexual affair with each other than doing any police work. A parody of liberal attitudes in the Netherlands, a fat, jolly-looking man who made his first appearance in a script for Lee and Lance. He later formed a running gag where, for no apparent reason, he would walk into the middle of a sketch, hand something to a character, be told Thank you Fat Bloke. and walk off. In Harry Enfield and Chums, he would be introduced at the end of the credits by Enfield who would announce. Whereupon he sing a song in operatic style, a Colombian footballer who has recently joined Newcastle United. Probably inspired by the arrival of Faustino Asprilla at Newcastle United in 1995, a young German tourist in England who cant stop apologising for his countrys actions during ze Var but often resorts to displaying aggressive Nazi-like tendencies. A pair of toddlers played by Enfield and Burke in oversized sets, Harry deliberately hurts Lulu, or more often tricks her into hurting herself, but then plays the innocent when their mother arrives to investigate, and asks for a big hug. On Channel 4s Sunday Night Project on 8 February 2009, Harry admitted the characters were based on a young Lily and Alfie Allen, at the time of them being toddlers, One of the most memorable of Enfields comic creations
19.
The Day Today
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The Day Today is a British comedy television show which parodies television current affairs programmes, broadcast in 1994 on BBC2. For The Day Today, Peter Baynham joined the writing team, the principal cast of On the Hour was retained for The Day Today. The Day Today is composed of six episodes and a selection of shorter. The six half-hour episodes were originally broadcast from 19 January to 23 February 1994 on BBC2, the Day Today has won many awards, including Morris winning the 1994 British Comedy Award for Best Newcomer. All six episodes are available on BBC DVD, having previously issued on VHS. Each episode is presented as a news programme, and the episodes rely on a combination of ludicrous fictitious news stories, covered with a serious. Each episode revolves around one or two stories, which are pursued throughout the programme, along with a host of other stories usually only briefly referred to. The final episode features reports from the fictitious documentary The Office, other non-news segments of the programme include the occasional physical cartoons of current events set in the studio. The programme occasionally features producer Armando Iannucci and writer Peter Baynham, John Thomson, Graham Linehan, Tony Haase, and Minnie Driver also appear. Michael Alexander St John provides the voiceover stings, as he did in On the Hour, much of the programmes humour derives from its excessively brash style of reporting, and its unnecessarily complex format. Morris presents aggressively, often arguing with reporters and guests on-air, the programme frequently lambasts Conservative government politicians in office at the time of the programmes production. Those repeatedly lampooned by the series include John Major, Michael Heseltine, Chris Patten, Douglas Hurd, Virginia Bottomley, Michael Portillo, each episode ends in a familiar style for news reports, with the camera panning out as the studio lights dim on Morris. The programme features surreal news items, examples include, Reports that explosive-packed terrorist dogs were being released in London by the IRA. These bomb dogs wreak havoc, and prompt the British police to begin executing any dog on sight and this story is accompanied by a clip of Steve Coogan impersonating a Gerry Adams-esque Sinn Féin leader, spouting rhetoric while inhaling helium to subtract credibility from his statement. Coverage of a feud between John Major and the Queen, coverage of an ongoing rail crisis, following a train trapped on the tracks in Hampshire. Trapped by a signal post, the stranded train rapidly becomes the scene of anarchy and paganism. In the fifth episode, Morris provokes a war between Hong Kong and Australia, and much of the episode revolves around the resulting conflict, subsequent reports of the war, delivered from Eastmanstown in the Upper Cataracts on the Australio-Hong-Kong border, are humorously blown out of proportion. Morris has several computers giving him the news instantly from around the world and he is always confrontational and aggressive, frequently picking fights with his staff and guests while on-air, and his efforts to resolve problems frequently make bad situations even worse
20.
Paul Whitehouse
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Paul Julian Whitehouse is a British actor, writer and comedian. He became known for his work with Harry Enfield and as one of the stars of the popular BBC sketch comedy series The Fast Show, in a 2005 poll to find The Comedians Comedian, he was in the top 50 comedy acts voted for by comedians and comedy insiders. He is most well known for his characters in The Fast Show, Harry and Paul and Harry Enfield. He also appears in AVIVA insurance adverts, Whitehouse was born in Stanleytown in the Rhondda Valley, Rhondda Cynon Taf, Wales. His father worked for the National Coal Board and his mother was a singer with the Welsh National Opera, I think it was because everyone was speaking so differently from how it had been in Wales. Then, after four weeks, I came home one day and said, Muumm, for her that was the end because I had lost my lovely Welsh lilt. So I became very conscious of speech and the effects it can have, but when I went back to Wales I would start talking all Welsh, lyke that you see before going all Alf Garnett while coming back the other way. Whitehouse attended the University of East Anglia in Norwich from autumn 1977, Whitehouse dropped out and lived with other drop-outs in a council flat in Hackney, east London and occasionally worked as a plasterer. After Higson graduated in 1980, he moved in with Whitehouse, working by day as a decorator and performing at night, the pair began working as tradesmen on a house shared by comedians Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry, which inspired them to start writing comedy. They moved to an estate where in a pub they met Harry Enfield, a neighbour with an act, and after he gained a place on Channel 4s Saturday Live. While watching a tape of highlights from Enfields program, Whitehouse and Higson were inspired to create a rapid-fire delivery comedy series. In 2001 and 2002, Whitehouse wrote and performed in two series of the BBC comedy drama Happiness, in which he played a voice-over actor with a mid-life crisis, Whitehouse wrote, produced and appeared with Chris Langham in the 2005 comedy drama Help, also for the BBC. In this series he took 25 roles, all patients of Langhams psychotherapist, the pairs collaboration resulted in Whitehouse taking the witness stand on 24 July 2007 in the trial of Langham, in regard to the charge of holding explicit images and videos of minors. Langham claimed he downloaded this material as research for a character in the series of Help. Whitehouse appeared in the BBC sketch series Harry & Paul, starring alongside Harry Enfield, Whitehouse starred alongside Charlie Higson in the BBC2 comedy series Bellamys People, with the first episode broadcast on 21 January 2010. The comedy evolved from the BBC Radio 4 program Down the Line, the show originally had the working title of Bellamys Kingdom. In October 2014, Harry Enfield and Whitehouse returned to the characters of Frank, in 2015, his sitcom Nurse, based on his Radio 4 series of the same name, debuted on BBC2 on 10 March. In August 2015, Whitehouse, alongside Enfield, in celebration of their 25-year partnership, presented An Evening With Harry Enfield, Whitehouse and Charlie Higson produced and appeared in a spoof phone-in show Down the Line on BBC Radio 4
21.
Charlie Higson
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Charles Murray Charlie Higson is an English actor, comedian, author, and former singer. He has also written and produced for television, born in Frome, Somerset, Higson was educated at Sevenoaks School, Kent and at the University of East Anglia in Norwich where he met Paul Whitehouse, David Cummings and Terry Edwards. Higson, Cummings and Edwards formed the band The Higsons of which Higson was the singer from 1980 to 1986. They released two singles on the Specials 2 Tone Records label and this was after he had formed the punk band The Right Hand Lovers, wherein he performed as Switch. Higson then became a decorator – including decorating the house of Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie – before he turned to writing for Harry Enfield with Paul Whitehouse and he came to public attention as one of the main writers and performers of the BBC Two sketch show The Fast Show. He worked with Whitehouse on the radio comedy Down the Line and is to work with him again on a television project, in 1994 Higson co-wrote the screenplay for the film thriller Suite 16. He worked as producer, writer, director and occasional guest star on Randall & Hopkirk from 2000 to 2001, subsequent television work has included writing and starring in BBC Threes Fast Show spin-off sitcom Swiss Toni. He has starred in Tittybangbang on BBC Three and appeared as a panellist on QI, in 2010 he co-directed and starred in the series Bellamys People. This has led Time Out to describe him as The missing link between Dick Emery and Brett Easton Ellis, in 2004, it was announced that Higson would pen the Young Bond series of James Bond novels, aimed at younger readers and concentrating on the characters school-days at Eton. Higson was himself educated at Sevenoaks School, where he was a contemporary of Jonathan Evans, the first novel, SilverFin, was released on 3 March 2005 in the UK and on 27 April 2005 in the US. A second novel, Blood Fever, was released on 5 January 2006 in the UK and 1 June in the US, the third novel, Double or Die, was published on 4 January 2007 having had its title announced the day before. The next, Hurricane Gold, came out in hardcover in the UK in September 2007, in this year he also made a debut performance on the panel show QI. His final Young Bond novel, By Royal Command, was released in hardcover in the UK on 4 September 2008, Higson is currently writing a post-apocalyptic, zombie-horror series of books for young adults. The eponymous first book in the series, titled The Enemy, was released in the UK by Puffin Books in 2009, book 2, The Dead, was released in the UK in September 2010. Book 3, The Fear, was published on 15 September 2011, book 4, The Sacrifice, was released 20 September 2012. Book 5, The Fallen, was released 12 September 2013, at another, in John Lyons School, he revealed that the last book in his series would be called The End. The Hunted was published on 1 January 2014 and The End was published in October 2015, in 2011, Higson appeared with the original cast in an online-only version of The Fast Show sponsored by Fosters Lager. In June 2013 Higson wrote an adaptation of A Caribbean Mystery
22.
The Observer
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The Observer is a British newspaper, published on Sundays. First published in 1791, it is the worlds oldest Sunday newspaper, the first issue, published on 4 December 1791 by W. S. Bourne, was the worlds first Sunday newspaper. Believing that the paper would be a means of wealth, Bourne instead soon found himself facing debts of nearly £1,600, though early editions purported editorial independence, Bourne attempted to cut his losses and sell the title to the government. When this failed, Bournes brother made an offer to the government, as a result, the paper soon took a strong line against radicals such as Thomas Paine, Francis Burdett and Joseph Priestley. In 1807, the decided to relinquish editorial control, naming Lewis Doxat as the new editor. Seven years later, the brothers sold The Observer to William Innell Clement, the woodcut pictures published of the stable and hayloft where the conspirators were arrested reflected a new stage of illustrated journalism that the newspaper pioneered during this time. Clement maintained ownership of The Observer until his death in 1852, during that time, the paper supported parliamentary reform, but opposed a broader franchise and the Chartist leadership. After Doxat retired in 1857, Clements heirs sold the paper to Joseph Snowe, under Snowe, the paper adopted a more liberal political stance, supporting the North during the American Civil War and endorsing universal manhood suffrage in 1866. These positions contributed to a decline in circulation during this time, in 1870, wealthy businessman Julius Beer bought the paper and appointed Edward Dicey as editor, whose efforts succeeded in reviving circulation. Though Beers son Frederick became the owner upon Juliuss death in 1880, henry Duff Traill took over the editorship after Diceys departure, only to be replaced in 1891 by Fredericks wife, Rachel Beer, of the Sassoon family. Though circulation declined during her tenure, she remained as editor for thirteen years, combining it in 1893 with the editorship of The Sunday Times, upon Fredericks death in 1901, the paper was purchased by the newspaper magnate Lord Northcliffe. After maintaining the editorial leadership for a couple of years. Garvin quickly turned the paper into an organ of political influence, yet the revival in the papers fortunes masked growing political disagreements between Garvin and Northcliffe. These disagreements ultimately led Northcliffe to sell the paper to William Waldorf Astor in 1911, during this period, the Astors were content to leave the control of the paper in Garvins hands. Under his editorship circulation reached 200,000 during the interwar years, politically the paper pursued an independent Tory stance, which eventually brought Garvin into conflict with Waldorfs more liberal son, David. Their conflict contributed to Garvins departure as editor in 1942, after which the paper took the step of declaring itself non-partisan. Ownership passed to Waldorfs sons in 1948, with David taking over as editor and he remained in the position for 27 years, during which time he turned it into a trust-owned newspaper employing, among others, George Orwell, Paul Jennings and C. A. Lejeune. Under Astors editorship The Observer became the first national newspaper to oppose the governments 1956 invasion of Suez, in 1977, the Astors sold the ailing newspaper to US oil giant Atlantic Richfield who sold it to Lonrho plc in 1981
23.
Jon Ronson
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Jon Ronson is a Welsh journalist, author, documentary filmmaker and radio presenter whose works include the best-selling The Men Who Stare at Goats and The Psychopath Test. He has been described as a gonzo journalist, becoming something of a faux-naïf character himself in his stories and he is known for his informal but sceptical investigations of controversial fringe politics and science. He has published nine books and his work has appeared in British publications such as The Guardian, City Life and he has made several BBC Television documentary films and two documentary series for Channel 4. Ronson was born in Cardiff in Wales and attended Cardiff High School and he worked for CBC Radio in Cardiff before moving to London for a degree in Media Studies at the Polytechnic of Central London. Ronson, who is culturally Jewish, is a supporter of the British Humanist Association. He is married to Elaine and they have a son, Ronson is a supporter of the football team Arsenal and has spoken of his adoration of the club. Ronsons first book, Clubbed Class, is a travelogue in which he bluffs his way into a jet set lifestyle and his second book, Them, Adventures with Extremists chronicles his experiences with people labelled as extremists. Subjects in the book include David Icke, Randy Weaver, Omar Bakri Muhammad, Ian Paisley, Alex Jones, Ronson also follows independent investigators of secretive groups such as the Bilderberg Group. The narrative tells of Ronsons attempts to infiltrate the shadowy cabal fabled, by these conspiracy theorists, the book, a best-seller, was described by Louis Theroux as funny and compulsively readable picaresque adventure through a paranoid shadow world. Variety magazine announced in September 2005 that Them has been purchased by Universal Pictures to be turned into a feature film, the screenplay is being written by Mike White, produced by White and the comedian Jack Black, and directed by Edgar Wright. Ronson contributed the memoir A Fantastic Life to the Picador anthology Truth or Dare, Ronsons third book, The Men Who Stare at Goats, deals with the secret New Age unit within the United States Army called the First Earth Battalion. Much was based on the ideas of Lt. Col. Jim Channon, ret. who wrote the First Earth Battalion Operations Manual in 1979, the book suggests that these New Age military ideas mutated over the decades to influence interrogation techniques at Guantanamo Bay. An eponymous film of the book was released in 2009, in which Ronsons investigations were fictionalised and structured around a journey to Iraq, Ronson is played by the actor Ewan McGregor in the film. Ronsons fourth book, Out of the Ordinary, True Tales of Everyday Craziness is a collection of his Guardian articles, a companion volume was What I Do, More True Tales of Everyday Craziness. The Psychopath Test, A Journey Through the Madness Industry is Ronsons fifth book, in it, he explores the nature of psychopathic behaviour, learning how to apply the Hare Psychopathy Checklist, and investigating its reliability. He interviews people in facilities for the insane as well as potential psychopaths in corporate boardrooms. The book has been rejected by The Society for the Scientific Study of Psychopathy and by Robert D. Hare, Hare described the book as frivolous, shallow, and professionally disconcerting. Lost at Sea, The Jon Ronson Mysteries is Ronsons sixth book, Ronsons book, So Youve Been Publicly Shamed, concerns the effect of the internet age on acts of public humiliation
24.
Dylan Moran
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Dylan William Moran is an Irish comedian, writer, actor and filmmaker. He is best known for his comedy, the UK television sitcom Black Books and his work with Simon Pegg in Shaun of the Dead. He appeared as one of the two characters in the Irish black comedy titled A Film with Me in It in 2008. Morans most recent film is Calvary, an Irish black comedy film written. In 2007, Moran was voted the 17th greatest stand-up comic on Channel 4s 100 Greatest Stand-Ups and he lives in Edinburgh with his wife, Elaine, and two children. Moran was born in Brent, Middlesex, England and he and his parents moved to Navan, County Meath, Ireland when he was 2 years old. He attended St. Patricks Classical School, where he experimented early on with standup, with fellow comics Tommy Tiernan and Hector Ó hEochagáin, after leaving school, it has been said that Moran spent four years unemployed drinking and writing bad poetry. At one point, Moran worked as a florist but quit after a week because he hated the job and he began his stand up there in 1992 and, although nervous, got a good reception. In 1993, he won the So You Think Youre Funny award at the Edinburgh Festival and he went on to become the youngest person to win the Perrier Comedy Award in 1996 at the Edinburgh Festival at age 24. Gurgling For Money was Morans first major one man stand up UK tour in 1997 and he went on to perform at many other festivals including the Hay Festival, Montreal comedy festival, Vancouver Comedy Festival and the Edinburgh Festival. Between 1995 and 1997 Moran wrote a column for The Irish Times. Moran won his first major role in 1998 playing Ian Lyons in the BBC2 sitcom How Do You Want Me. with Charlotte Coleman. He went on to appear in a role in the 1999 movie Notting Hill as Rufus the thief. In 2000, Black Books was launched on Channel 4, the second series was televised in 2002, and the third, which aired in 2004, was greeted with great enthusiasm by critics and fans alike. In the same year Moran appeared in his first major role playing David in the horror comedy. The tour was described by The Times as a masterclass of comic charisma, swinging from topic to topic in a seemingly spontaneous. A live DVD of the Monster II tour, filmed on 28 May at Dublins Vicar Street, was released that year, as Morans first live stand-up DVD. After a successful run in New York City in 2004 as part of the British/Irish Comedy Invasion Moran returned to New York for a run at the Village Theatre
25.
Jam (TV series)
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Jam was a British horror/comedy sketch show, created, written, and directed by Chris Morris. It was broadcast on Channel 4 between 23 March and 27 April 2000 and it was based on the earlier BBC Radio 1 show, Blue Jam, and consists of a series of disturbing and surreal sketches, unfolding over an ambient soundtrack. Many of the sketches re-used the original soundtracks with the actors lip-syncing their lines. Morris introduced each episode in the style of a surreal compère, reading free form poetry over a nightmarish montage, Jam was co-written by Peter Baynham, with additional material contributed by Jane Bussmann, David Quantick, Graham Linehan, Arthur Mathews, and the cast themselves. The show perplexed audiences and critics on its initial broadcast, some hailed it as breakthrough, daringly original television, while others dismissed it as merely sickening and juvenile. It came in at #26 on Channel 4s 100 Greatest Scary Moments, beating other, more examples of the horror genre, such as Carrie. The show had no opening or closing titles, the latter replaced with its web address. Instead, it would begin with a monologue by Morris. These would, to degree or other, follow a character as their nightmares are made real, or their preconceptions are shattered. Morris would then say, Then welcome, followed by a sentence, before finally announcing. The word jam would rarely be said normally, it would either be heavily distorted, spoken in a strange accent, Morris has said that he asked Channel 4 to broadcast it without a break so as to not spoil the atmosphere. Sketches often had a feel to them, the characters acting as if they were being interviewed about recent events. The series had a remix version during the 4Later slot. Its audiovisual distortions of the series introduced the musical remix concept to British television. The show received a number of complaints and was criticised by the Broadcasting Standards Commission and it is not generally as recognised as Morriss earlier, satirical TV work, and remains a cult show. Three complaints about Jam were upheld and these concerned the sketches Coffin Mistake, Sex for Houses, and Plumber Baby, as they were deemed insensitive to the bereaved and those with learning difficulties. Five of the six episodes were classified 18 by the BBFC for very strong language. Despite its content, the broadcast attracted nowhere near the controversy that the following years Brass Eye special, Paedogeddon, about media panic surrounding paedophilia and its mood was so grim that I just found it difficult to join in
26.
Channel 4
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Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster that began transmission on 2 November 1982. With the conversion of the Wenvoe transmitter group in Wales to digital on 31 March 2010, before Channel 4 and S4C, Britain had three terrestrial television services, BBC1, BBC2, and ITV. The Broadcasting Act 1980 began the process of adding a fourth, after some months of test broadcasts, it began scheduled transmissions on 2 November 1982. Indeed, television sets throughout the 1970s and early 1980s had a spare channel called ITV/IBA2. It was most likely politics which had the biggest impact in leading to a delay of almost three decades before the commercial channel became a reality. The campaign was taken so seriously by Gwynfor Evans, former president of Plaid Cymru, the result was that Channel 4 as seen by the rest of the United Kingdom would be replaced in Wales by Sianel Pedwar Cymru. Operated by a specially created authority, S4C would air programmes in Welsh made by HTV, since then, carriage on digital cable, satellite and digital terrestrial has introduced Channel 4 to Welsh homes where it is now universally available. The first programme to air on the channel was the game show Countdown. The first person to be seen on Channel 4 was Richard Whiteley with Ted Moult being the second, the first woman on the channel, contrary to popular belief, was not Carol Vorderman and was a lexicographer only ever identified as Mary. Whiteley opened the show with the words, On its first day, Channel 4 also broadcast controversial soap opera Brookside, which ran until 2003. On its launch, Channel 4 committed itself to providing an alternative to the existing channels, Channel 4 co-commissioned Robert Ashleys ground-breaking television opera Perfect Lives, which it premiered over several episodes in 1984. The channel often did not receive mass audiences for much of period, however. Channel 4 for many years had a poorer quality signal compared to other channels, Channel 4 also began the funding of independent films, such as the Merchant-Ivory docudrama The Courtesans of Bombay, during this time. In 1992, Channel 4 also faced its first libel case by Jani Allan, a South African journalist, who objected to her representation in the documentary The Leader, His Driver and the Drivers Wife. After control of the station passed from the Channel Four Television Company to the Channel Four Television Corporation in 1993, instead of aiming for the fringes of society, it began to focus on the edges of the mainstream, and the centre of the mass market itself. It began to show many US programmes in peak viewing time and it gave such shows as Friends and ER their UK premières. In the early 2000s, Channel 4 began broadcasting reality formats such as Big Brother and obtained the rights to broadcast mass appeal sporting events like cricket and this new direction increased ratings and revenues. In addition, the corporation launched a number of new channels through its new 4Ventures offshoot, including Film4, At the Races, E4
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Situation comedy
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A situation comedy, or sitcom, is a genre of comedy centered on a fixed set of characters who carry over from episode to episode. Sitcoms can be contrasted with sketch comedy, where a troupe may use new characters in each sketch, and stand-up comedy, Sitcoms originated in radio, but today are found mostly on television as one of its dominant narrative forms. This form can also include mockumentaries, a situation comedy television program may be recorded in front of a studio audience, depending on the programs production format. The effect of a studio audience can be imitated or enhanced by the use of a laugh track. The terms situational comedy or sitcom werent commonly used until the 1950s, there were prior examples on radio, but the first television sitcom is said to be Pinwrights Progress, ten episodes being broadcast on the BBC in the United Kingdom between 1946 and 1947. There have been few long-running Australian-made sitcoms, but many U. S. UK sitcoms are a staple of government broadcaster Australian Broadcasting Corporation, in the 1970s and 1980s many UK sitcoms also screened on the Seven Network. By 1986, UK comedies Bless This House and Are You Being Served, had been repeated by ABC Television several times, and were then acquired and screened by the Seven Network, in prime time. In 1981, Daily at Dawn was the first Australian comedy series to feature a gay character. In 1987, Mother and Son was winner of the Television Drama Award presented by the Australian Human Rights Commission, in 2013, Please Like Me was praised by the critics, receiving an invitation to screen at the Series Mania Television Festival in Paris. And has garnered three awards and numerous nominations, nominated to the 2012 Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts Awards for Best Television Comedy Series. Conversely, however, Canadian television has had greater success with sketch comedy and dramedy series. The popular show King of Kensington, aired from 1975 to 1980, corner Gas, which ran for six seasons from 2004 to 2009, became an instant hit, averaging a million viewers per episode. It has been the recipient of six Gemini Awards, and has been nominated almost 70 times for various awards, other noteworthy recent sitcoms have included Call Me Fitz and Schitts Creek, Letterkenny and Kims Convenience. Sitcoms started appearing on Indian television in the 1980s, with serials like Yeh Jo Hai Zindagi, since it ceased production in 1992, the show has earned an estimated billion in syndication fees alone for Televisa. Gliding On, a popular sit-com in New Zealand in the early 1980s, won awards over the course of its run, including Best Comedy, Best Drama. The first Russian sitcom series was Strawberry, which was aired in 1996-1997 on the RTR channel, however, the boom of Russian sitcoms began only in the 2000s - when in 2004 the STS started very successful sitcom My Fair Nanny. Since that time sitcoms in Russia were produced by the two largest entertainment channels of the country - STS and TNT, in 2007 the STS released the first original domestic sitcom - Daddys Daughters, and in 2010 TNT released Interns - the first sitcom, filmed as a comedy. Most American sitcoms generally include episodes of 20 to 30 minutes in length, some popular British shows have been successfully adapted for the U. S
28.
Mockumentary
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A mockumentary or docucomedy is a type of movie or television show depicting fictional events but presented as a documentary. These productions are used to analyze or comment on current events and issues by using a fictional setting. While not always comedic, comedic mockumentaries are common, a dramatic mockumentary should not be confused with docudrama, a fictional genre in which dramatic techniques are combined with documentary elements to depict real events. Mockumentaries are often presented as documentaries, with B roll and talking heads discussing past events. Examples emerged during the 1950s when archival film footage became relatively easy to locate, a very early example was a short piece on the Swiss Spaghetti Harvest that appeared as an April fools joke on the British television program Panorama in 1957. The term mockumentary, which originated in the 1960s, was popularized in the mid-1980s when This Is Spinal Tap director Rob Reiner used it in interviews to describe that film. Mockumentaries are often partly or wholly improvised, as a style of acting helps to maintain the pretense of reality. Comedic mockumentaries rarely have laugh tracks, also to sustain the atmosphere, albert Brooks was also an early popularizer of the mockumentary style with his film Real Life,1979, a spoof of a PBS documentary. Woody Allens Take the Money and Run is presented in documentary-style with Allen playing a criminal, Virgil Starkwell. Jackson Beck, who used to narrate documentaries in the 1940s, fictional interviews are interspliced throughout, especially those of Starkwells parents who wear Groucho Marx noses and mustaches. The style of film was widely appropriated by others and revisited by Allen himself in films such as Zelig and Sweet. Since the beginning of the 1980s, the format has enjoyed considerable attention. In 1984, Christopher Guest co-wrote and starred in the mockumentary This is Spinal Tap, directed by Rob Reiner, films such as Waiting for Guffman, Best in Show, and A Mighty Wind, all written with costar Eugene Levy, were critical successes. Man Bites Dog is a 1992 Belgian black comedy crime mockumentary written, produced, and directed by Rémy Belvaux, André Bonzel, in 1995, directed by Peter Jackson and Costa Botes, Forgotten Silver claimed New Zealand director Colin McKenzie to be a pioneer in filmmaking. When the film was revealed to be a mockumentary, Jackson received criticism for tricking viewers. In 1999, Drop Dead Gorgeous by Michael Patrick Jann used the style to narrate a fictional small-town beauty pageant as a way to satirize Middle America. Dark Side of the Moon is a 2002 French mockumentary by director William Karel, the premise for the film is the theory that the television footage from the Apollo 11 Moon landing was faked and actually recorded in a studio by the CIA with help from director Stanley Kubrick. FUBAR is a 2002 Canadian mockumentary film, directed by Michael Dowse, the Confederate States of America is a 2004 mockumentary presenting an alternative history in which the Confederacy won the American Civil War
29.
Emmy Award
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An Emmy Award, or simply Emmy, recognizes excellence in the television industry, and corresponds to the Academy Award, the Tony Award, and the Grammy Award. Because Emmy Awards are given in various sectors of the American television industry, Regional Emmy Awards are also presented throughout the country at various times through the year, recognizing excellence in local and statewide television. In addition, International Emmys are awarded for excellence in TV programming produced, each is responsible for administering a particular set of Emmy ceremonies. The Los Angeles-based Academy of Television Arts & Sciences established the Emmy Award as part of an image-building and public relations opportunity. The first Emmy Awards ceremony took place on January 25,1949, at the Hollywood Athletic Club, shirley Dinsdale has the distinction of receiving the very first Emmy Award for Most Outstanding Television Personality, during that first awards ceremony. In the 1950s, the ATAS expanded the Emmys into a national event, in 1955, the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences was formed in New York City as a sister organization to serve members on the East Coast, and help to also supervise the Emmys. The NATAS also established regional chapters throughout the United States, with each one developing their own local Emmy awards show for local programming, the ATAS still however maintained its separate regional ceremony honoring local programming in the Los Angeles Area. Originally there was only one Emmy Awards ceremony held per year to honor shows nationally broadcast in the United States, in 1974, the first Daytime Emmy Awards ceremony was held to specifically honor achievement in national daytime programming. Other area-specific Emmy Awards ceremonies soon followed, also, the International Emmy Awards, honoring television programs produced and initially aired outside the U. S. was established in the early 1970s. Meanwhile, all Emmys awarded prior to the emergence of these separate, in 1977, due to various conflicts, the ATAS and the NATAS agreed to split ties. However, they agreed to share ownership of the Emmy statue and trademark. With the rise of television in the 1980s, cable programs first became eligible for the Primetime Emmys in 1988. The ATAS also began accepting original online-only web television programs in 2013, the Emmy statuette, depicting a winged woman holding an atom, was designed by television engineer Louis McManus, who used his wife as the model. The TV Academy rejected a total of forty-seven proposals before settling on McManus design in 1948. The statuette has become the symbol of the TV Academys goal of supporting and uplifting the art and science of television, The wings represent the muse of art. When deciding a name for the award, Academy founder Syd Cassyd originally suggested Ike, however, Ike was also the popular nickname of World War II hero and future U. S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, and the Academy members wanted something unique. Finally, television engineer and the third president, Harry Lubcke, suggested the name Immy. After Immy was chosen, it was feminized to Emmy to match their female statuette
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International Standard Book Number
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The International Standard Book Number is a unique numeric commercial book identifier. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an e-book, a paperback and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, the method of assigning an ISBN is nation-based and varies from country to country, often depending on how large the publishing industry is within a country. The initial ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 based upon the 9-digit Standard Book Numbering created in 1966, the 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108. Occasionally, a book may appear without a printed ISBN if it is printed privately or the author does not follow the usual ISBN procedure, however, this can be rectified later. Another identifier, the International Standard Serial Number, identifies periodical publications such as magazines, the ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 in the United Kingdom by David Whitaker and in 1968 in the US by Emery Koltay. The 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108, the United Kingdom continued to use the 9-digit SBN code until 1974. The ISO on-line facility only refers back to 1978, an SBN may be converted to an ISBN by prefixing the digit 0. For example, the edition of Mr. J. G. Reeder Returns, published by Hodder in 1965, has SBN340013818 -340 indicating the publisher,01381 their serial number. This can be converted to ISBN 0-340-01381-8, the check digit does not need to be re-calculated, since 1 January 2007, ISBNs have contained 13 digits, a format that is compatible with Bookland European Article Number EAN-13s. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an ebook, a paperback, and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, a 13-digit ISBN can be separated into its parts, and when this is done it is customary to separate the parts with hyphens or spaces. Separating the parts of a 10-digit ISBN is also done with either hyphens or spaces, figuring out how to correctly separate a given ISBN number is complicated, because most of the parts do not use a fixed number of digits. ISBN issuance is country-specific, in that ISBNs are issued by the ISBN registration agency that is responsible for country or territory regardless of the publication language. Some ISBN registration agencies are based in national libraries or within ministries of culture, in other cases, the ISBN registration service is provided by organisations such as bibliographic data providers that are not government funded. In Canada, ISBNs are issued at no cost with the purpose of encouraging Canadian culture. In the United Kingdom, United States, and some countries, where the service is provided by non-government-funded organisations. Australia, ISBNs are issued by the library services agency Thorpe-Bowker
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Alternative rock
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Alternative rock is a genre of rock music that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1980s and became widely popular in the 1990s and 2000s. In this instance, the word refers to the genres distinction from mainstream rock music. The terms original meaning was broader, referring to a generation of musicians unified by their debt to either the musical style or simply the independent. Ethos of punk rock, which in the late 1970s laid the groundwork for alternative music, Alternative rock is a broad umbrella term consisting of music that differs greatly in terms of its sound, its social context, and its regional roots. Most of these subgenres had achieved minor mainstream notice and a few bands representing them, such as Hüsker Dü, with the breakthrough of Nirvana and the popularity of the grunge and Britpop movements in the 1990s, alternative rock entered the musical mainstream and many alternative bands became successful. By the end of the decade, alternative rocks mainstream prominence declined due to a number of events that caused grunge and Britpop to fade, emo attracted attention in the larger alternative rock world, and the term was applied to a variety of artists, including multi-platinum acts. Post-punk revival artists such as Modest Mouse and The Killers had commercial success in the early, before the term alternative rock came into common usage around 1990, the sort of music to which it refers was known by a variety of terms. In 1979, Terry Tolkin used the term Alternative Music to describe the groups he was writing about, in 1979 Dallas radio station KZEW had a late night new wave show entitled Rock and Roll Alternative. College rock was used in the United States to describe the music during the 1980s due to its links to the radio circuit. In the United Kingdom, dozens of small do it yourself record labels emerged as a result of the punk subculture, according to the founder of one of these labels, Cherry Red, NME and Sounds magazines published charts based on small record stores called Alternative Charts. The first national chart based on distribution called the Indie Chart was published in January 1980, at the time, the term indie was used literally to describe independently distributed records. By 1985, indie had come to mean a particular genre, or group of subgenres, at first the term referred to intentionally non–mainstream rock acts that were not influenced by heavy metal ballads, rarefied new wave and high-energy dance anthems. The use of alternative gained further exposure due to the success of Lollapalooza, for which festival founder, in the late 1990s, the definition again became more specific. Defining music as alternative is often difficult because of two conflicting applications of the word, the name alternative rock essentially serves as an umbrella term for underground music that has emerged in the wake of punk rock since the mid-1980s. Alternative bands during the 1980s generally played in clubs, recorded for indie labels. Sounds range from the gloomy soundscapes of gothic rock to the guitars of indie pop to the dirty guitars of grunge to the 1960s/1970s revivalism of Britpop. This approach to lyrics developed as a reflection of the social and economic strains in the United States and United Kingdom of the 1980s, by 1984, a majority of groups signed to independent record labels mined from a variety of rock and particularly 1960s rock influences. This represented a break from the futuristic, hyper-rational post-punk years
32.
I'm Alan Partridge
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Im Alan Partridge is a 1997 BBC situation comedy starring Steve Coogan and written by Coogan, Peter Baynham and Armando Iannucci. It features Alan Partridge, a tactless and inept radio DJ, after he has left by his wife. The show follows Partridge as he lives in a hotel, presents a graveyard slot on Norwich local radio. A second series followed in 2002, with Partridge now living in a static caravan after recovering from a mental breakdown, Iannucci said the writers used the sitcom as a kind of social X-ray of male middle-aged Middle England. Supporting Coogan are Felicity Montagu as his faithful but timid personal assistant, Lynn Benfield, Simon Greenall as Geordie handyman Michael, the series was nominated for three BAFTAs, two British Comedy Awards, and a Royal Television Society award. In a list drawn up by the British Film Institute in 2000, voted by industry professionals, the main character of the series, Alan, a former host on Knowing Me, Knowing You. By series two, following a mental breakdown, Alan has fixed himself slightly. He lives in a static caravan next to the house he is having built. Besides this, he has a show in the evening, hosts a military-based quiz show on digital television, has published his autobiography. Alan is generally loathsome and narcissistic with very poor social skills, Lynn is a member of a local Baptist church, which Alan finds strange but is willing to tolerate. Her mother, with whom Lynn possibly lives, is apparently housebound, when accompanying Alan, Lynn appears inhibited by him, but seems capable of easily blending into social situations when Alan is not present. Despite her intense and frequently ludicrous workload, Lynn receives a paltry £8,000 per year, by the second series, her mother has died, and Lynn finds romance with a fellow churchgoer, a retired policeman. At the celebration following her church baptism, she is shown to have friends and is held in high regard by other churchmembers. An all-purpose worker at the Linton Travel Tavern, Michael speaks with a heavy Geordie accent, Partridge and Alan clearly regards Michael with a great deal of disdain. Michael is almost as desperate and neurotic a character as Alan, Michael frequently tells stories of his time in the British army, to the delight of Alan, especially if they are of a salacious or violent nature. During a period of military placement in the Philippines, Michael married a Filipino woman, however, his wife left him and now lives with his brother in Sunderland, possibly shedding light on the origins of Michaels neuroticism. In the last episode of the first series, Michael appears at Alans party already drunk on Scrumpy Jack and he is also a recurring character in the second series of Im Alan Partridge, where he has left the Linton Travel Tavern and now works in a BP petrol station. Dave is a Radio Norwich DJ who runs the right after Alans graveyard slot show
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