Hathor was a major goddess in ancient Egyptian religion who played a wide variety of roles. As a sky deity, she was the mother or consort of the sky god Horus and the sun god Ra, both of whom were connected with kingship, thus she was the symbolic mother of their earthly representatives, the pharaohs, she was one of several goddesses who acted as the Eye of Ra, Ra's feminine counterpart, in this form she had a vengeful aspect that protected him from his enemies. Her beneficent side represented music, joy, love and maternal care, she acted as the consort of several male deities and the mother of their sons; these two aspects of the goddess exemplified the Egyptian conception of femininity. Hathor crossed boundaries between worlds. Hathor was depicted as a cow, symbolizing her maternal and celestial aspect, although her most common form was a woman wearing a headdress of cow horns and a sun disk, she could be represented as a lioness, cobra, or sycamore tree. Cattle goddesses similar to Hathor were portrayed in Egyptian art in the fourth millennium BC, but she may not have appeared until the Old Kingdom.

With the patronage of Old Kingdom rulers she became one of Egypt's most important deities. More temples were dedicated to her than to any other goddess, she was worshipped in the temples of her male consorts. The Egyptians connected her with foreign lands such as Nubia and Canaan and their valuable goods, such as incense and semiprecious stones, some of the peoples in those lands adopted her worship. In Egypt, she was one of the deities invoked in private prayers and votive offerings by women desiring children. During the New Kingdom, goddesses such as Mut and Isis encroached on Hathor's position in royal ideology, but she remained one of the most worshipped deities. After the end of the New Kingdom, Hathor was overshadowed by Isis, but she continued to be venerated until the extinction of ancient Egyptian religion in the early centuries AD. Images of cattle appear in the artwork of Predynastic Egypt, as do images of women with upraised, curved arms reminiscent of the shape of bovine horns. Both types of imagery may represent goddesses connected with cattle.

Cows are venerated in many cultures, including ancient Egypt, as symbols of motherhood and nourishment, because they care for their calves and supply humans with milk. The Gerzeh Palette, a stone palette from the Naqada II period of prehistory, shows the silhouette of a cow's head with inward-curving horns surrounded by stars; the palette suggests that this cow was linked with the sky, as were several goddesses from times who were represented in this form: Hathor, Mehet-Weret, Nut. Despite these early precedents, Hathor is not unambiguously mentioned or depicted until the Fourth Dynasty of the Old Kingdom, although several artifacts that refer to her may date to the Early Dynastic Period; when Hathor does appear, her horns curve outward, rather than inward like those in Predynastic art. A bovine deity with inward-curving horns appears on the Narmer Palette from near the start of Egyptian history, both atop the palette and on the belt or apron of the king, Narmer; the Egyptologist Henry George Fischer suggested this deity may be Bat, a goddess, depicted with a woman's face and inward-curling horns reflecting the curve of the cow horns.

The Egyptologist Lana Troy, identifies a passage in the Pyramid Texts from the late Old Kingdom that connects Hathor with the "apron" of the king, reminiscent of the goddess on Narmer's garments, suggests the goddess on the Narmer Palette is Hathor rather than Bat, the motif resembles the head of Hathor atop the columns of temples built throughout many dynasties. In the Fourth Dynasty, Hathor rose to prominence, she supplanted an early crocodile god, worshipped at Dendera in Upper Egypt to become Dendera's patron deity, she absorbed the cult of Bat in the neighboring region of Hu, so that in the Middle Kingdom the two deities fused into one. The theology surrounding the pharaoh in the Old Kingdom, unlike that of earlier times, focused on the sun god Ra as king of the gods and father and patron of the earthly king. Hathor ascended with Ra and became his mythological wife, thus divine mother of the pharaoh. Hathor appeared in a wide variety of roles; the Egyptologist Robyn Gillam suggests that these diverse forms emerged when the royal goddess promoted by the Old Kingdom court subsumed many local goddesses worshipped by the general populace, who were treated as manifestations of her.

Egyptian texts speak of the manifestations of the goddess as "Seven Hathors" or, less of many more Hathors—as many as 362. For these reasons, Gillam calls her "a type of deity rather than a single entity". Hathor's diversity reflects the diversity of traits. More than any other deity, she exemplifies the Egyptian perception of femininity. Hathor was given the epithets "mistress of the sky" and "mistress of the stars", was said to dwell in the sky with Ra and other sun deities. Egyptians thought of the sky as a body of water through which the sun god sailed, they connected it with the waters from which, according to their creation myths, the sun emerged at the beginning of time; this cosmic mother goddess was represented as a cow. Hathor and Mehet-Weret were both thought of as the cow who birthed the sun god and placed him b

Mr Gay World 2010, the 2nd Mr Gay World pageant, was held at the Nedre Vollgate 11, in Oslo, Norway on February 13, 2010. Charl Van Den Berg of South Africa, was crowned Mr Gay World 2010 by outgoing titleholder Max Krzyzanowski from Ireland. 23 countries and territories competed for the title. Carlene Ang Aguilar - Miss Philippines Earth 2001, top 10 in Miss Earth 2001, Binibining Pilipinas - World 2005, top 15 semi-finalist in Miss World 2005. Eric Butter - President of Mr. Gay World Ltd. Andrew Craig - Founding Editor DNA Magazine. Jarl Haugedal - International businessman and entrepreneur. Will Kapfer - Journalist and Vice President, Principal of Edge Media. Mirka Kraus - Psychologist, specialist in clinical psychology. Max Krzyzanowski - Mr Gay World 2009. Bruce Tallon - Chief Innovation Officer Consultant at Kempinski Hotels. Countries who made into the top 10 previous year were Australia and South Africa. Australia & South Africa placed for the second consecutive year. Brazil, Hong Kong, Philippines, Poland and Spain placed for the first time.

Austria Bulgaria Colombia Lithuania Paraguay Venezuela Sergio Lara is Mr Gay Europe 2009. Pablo Salvador Sepúlveda was contestant in the 2011 International Mr Gay Competition and won the title. Cédric Fievet, Magnús Guðbergur Jónsson, Antony Cortinovis, Walter Heidkampf, Kamil Szmerdt, David Baramia and Sergio Lara competed in Mr Gay Europe 2009 in Oslo, Norway. Sergio Lara won Mr Gay Europe 2009, Magnús Guðbergur Jónsson placed in the Top 3 and Cédric Fievet, Antony Cortinovis, Walter Heidkampf and David Baramia placed in the Top 12. Sameul Adu was contestant in the 2009 International Mr Gay Competition, he was placed 1st Runner-up. The IMG was scheduled for Manila in the Philippines for the summer of 2009, but the Manila team failed to produce the contest; the 2009 International Mr Gay winner was selected by an online popularity vote that named Switzerland’s Ricco Müller as the International Mr. Gay title holder for 2009. Xindai Muyi, took part in the Mr Gay World pageant despite Beijing's attempts to prevent him doing so.

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"Burn My Candle" was Shirley Bassey's first single. It was recorded in February 1956, when Bassey was nineteen years old, released that month on a 78 rpm shellac disc, with Stormy Weather on the B side; the record was produced with Wally Stott and his Orchestra backing Bassey. The song was written for Bassey by Ross Parker at the behest of Bassey's then-manager, Michael Sullivan, seeking a song to make Bassey stand out; the BBC banned the playing of the record due to its suggestive lyrics. In his 2010 biography of Bassey, John L. Williams writes that:The song taken in isolation, is blatantly sexual but hardly convincing, as the double entendres of the title give way to single entendres in the bridge –'There's "S" for Scotch, that's so direct / And for straight and simple sex / "I" for invitation to / A close relationship with you / "N" for nothing bad nor less / "S-I-N", that's sin, I guess.'... And that, right there, is the key to Shirley Bassey's early success: she was blatantly sexy and yet somehow, if not innocent, at least not too knowing.

Despite being popular with audiences, the record failed to chart. In a 2009 interview on the BBC series Imagine, Bassey stated:It was banned by the BBC, I didn't know why, and I said,'Why are they banning it?' And my manager said, well—the lyrics may have something to do with it—and I said,'Yah? But what?' I didn't know what it was about. I'd never sung a risqué song and I think they purposefully didn't tell me so that I could give it that innocence, its first appearance on an album was The Bewitching Miss Bassey in 1959. On subsequent appearances the song is sometimes listed as "Burn My Candle". Most it appears on the CD compilation Burn My Candle - The Complete Early Years. Shirley Bassey re-recorded this song in 1966, but it remained unreleased until 1975 when it appeared on the 2-LP set The Shirley Bassey Collection II