A pike is a pole weapon, a long thrusting spear used extensively by infantry. Pikes were used in European warfare from the Late Middle Ages to the early 18th century, were wielded by foot soldiers deployed in close quarters, until their replacement by the bayonet; the pike found extensive use with Landsknecht armies and Swiss mercenaries, who employed it as their main weapon and used it in pike square formations. A similar weapon, the sarissa, was used by Alexander the Great's Macedonian phalanx infantry to great effect. A spear becomes a pike when it is too long to be wielded with one hand in combat; the pike was a long weapon, varying in size, from 3 to 7.5 metres long. It was 2.5–6 kg in weight, with sixteenth-century military writer Sir John Smythe recommending lighter rather than heavier pikes. It had a wooden shaft with an steel spearhead affixed; the shaft near the head was reinforced with metal strips called "cheeks" or langets. When the troops of opposing armies both carried the pike, it grew in a sort of arms race, getting longer in both shaft and head length to give one side's pikemen an edge in combat.

The extreme length of such weapons required a strong wood such as well-seasoned ash for the pole, tapered towards the point to prevent the pike from sagging on the ends, although drooping or slight flection of the shaft was always a problem in pike handling. It is a common mistake to refer to a bladed polearm as a pike; the great length of the pikes allowed a great concentration of spearheads to be presented to the enemy, with their wielders at a greater distance, but made pikes unwieldy in close combat. This meant that pikemen had to be equipped with an additional, shorter weapon such as a dagger or mace in order to defend themselves should the fighting degenerate into a melee. In general, pikemen attempted to avoid such disorganized combat, in which they were at a disadvantage. To compound their difficulties in a melee, the pikeman did not have a shield, or had only a small shield which would be of limited use in close-quarters fighting; the pike, being unwieldy, was used in a deliberate, defensive manner alongside other missile and melee weapons.

However, better-trained troops were capable of using the pike in an aggressive attack with each rank of pikemen being trained to hold their pikes so that they presented enemy infantry with four or five layers of spearheads bristling from the front of the formation. As long as it kept good order, such a formation could roll right over enemy infantry but it did have weaknesses; the men were all moving forward facing in a single direction and could not turn or efficiently to protect the vulnerable flanks or rear of the formation. Nor could they maintain cohesion over uneven ground, as the Scots discovered to their cost at the Battle of Flodden; the huge block of men carrying such unwieldy spears could be difficult to maneuver in any way other than straightforward movement. As a result, such mobile pike formations sought to have supporting troops protect their flanks or would maneuver to smash the enemy before they could be outflanked themselves. There was the risk that the formation would become disordered, leading to a confused melee in which pikemen had the vulnerabilities mentioned above.

According to Sir John Smythe, there were two ways for two opposing pike formations to confront one another: cautious or aggressive. The cautious approach involved fencing at the length of the pike, while the aggressive approach involved closing distance, with each of the first five ranks giving a single powerful thrust. In the aggressive approach, the first rank would immediately resort to swords and daggers if the thrusts from the first five ranks failed to break the opposing pike formation. Smythe considered the cautious approach laughable. Although a military weapon, the pike could be effective in single combat and a number of 16th-century sources explain how it was to be used in a dueling situation. George Silver considered the 18 feet pike one of the more advantageous weapons for single combat in the open, giving it odds over all weapons shorter than 8 feet or the sword and dagger/shield combination. Although long spears had been used since the dawn of organized warfare, the earliest recorded use of a pike-like weapon in the tactical method described above involved the Macedonian sarissa, used by the troops of Alexander the Great's father, Philip II of Macedon, successive dynasties, which dominated warfare for several centuries in many countries.

After the fall of the last successor of Macedon, the pike fell out of use for the next 1000 or so years. The one exception to this appears to have been in Germany, where Tacitus recorded Germanic tribesmen in the 2nd century AD as using "over-long spears", he refers to the spears used by the Germans as being "massive" and "very long" suggesting that he is describing in essence a pike. Caesar, in his De Bello Gallico, describes the Helvetii as fighting in a tight, phalanx-like formation with spears jutting out over their shields. Caesar was describing an early form of the shieldwall so popular in times. In the Middle Ages, the principal users of the pike were urban militia troops such as the Flemings or the peasant array of the lowland Scots. For example, the Scots used a spear formation known as the schiltron in several battles during the Wars of Scottish Independence including the Battl

The Lexington Financial Center, locally known as "Fifth Third" or the "Big Blue Building", is a 357,361 sq ft, 410 ft 31-floor high-rise in Lexington, Kentucky. It is located between Main Street at South Mill Street, its exterior features blue tinted glass. It is the tallest building in Kentucky outside Louisville, it was proposed as a 26-story skyscraper in 1984 across from the Vine Center and replaced the failed project, the Galleria. The Lexington Financial Center was to be four stories and several linear feet taller than the then-tallest Kincaid Towers, it was projected. $7.5 million in state aid was announced by then-Governor Martha Layne Collins towards the construction of a six-level parking structure that would serve Triangle Center and the Lexington Financial Center. Construction was completed in 1987. Upon completion, it housed the Webb Company, the Bank of Lexington, Carter, Barnhart Architects and a law firm. Today, it houses the Fifth Third Bank among other financial institutions, including Kentucky Employers' Mutual Insurance Cityscape of Lexington, Kentucky

The Higher Education Funding Council for Wales is the Welsh Government Sponsored Body responsible for funding the higher education sector. HEFCW distributes funds for education and related activities at Wales's higher education institutions, funds the teaching activities of the Open University in Wales, it funds higher education courses at further education colleges. The body uses resources from the Welsh Government and others to: secure higher education learning and research of the highest quality; these activities contribute to supporting a buoyant economy. HEFCW has identified the following in its Corporate Strategy as the areas on which it will work: Widening access: ensuring equity and success in higher education. Student experience: ensuring that the student learning experience is of high quality. Skills: ensuring that all graduates are equipped for the world of work and for their role as citizens. Knowledge transfer: ensuring more productive relationships between higher education institutions and public/private sectors, local communities and other agencies.

Research: ensuring improved research performance to underpin the knowledge economy and cultural and social renewal. Reconfiguration and Collaboration: delivering a reconfigured higher education system with strong providers that, through partnership working regionally, offers more accessible higher education opportunities. Governance: delivering continual improvement in the quality of governance and long term sustainability of the higher education system. All Welsh universities that want to charge tuition fees above the basic fee level must first seek approval from HEFCW through submitting a'fee plan' which satisfies certain requirements in relation to widening access and inclusion; the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales was established in May 1992 under the Further and Higher Education Act 1992. HEFCW's responsibilities for initial teacher training, including the accreditation of ITT providers, are covered under the Education Regulations 2004 and the Education Act 2005; as a Welsh Government Sponsored Body, HEFCW receives its funds from, is accountable to, the Welsh Government.

At the same time, HEFCW provides advice to the Welsh Government on the funding needs and concerns of the higher education sector. HEFCW promotes Welsh interests in the wider UK higher education arena. Around 45 members of staff work for HEFCW's Executive, based in Bedwas, Caerphilly County Wales. HEFCW is governed by a Council of up to 12 members, including the Chairman, Mr David Allen, the Chief Executive, Dr David Blaney. Official website

Clarence Jordan, a farmer and New Testament Greek scholar, was the founder of Koinonia Farm, a small but influential religious community in southwest Georgia and the author of the Cotton Patch paraphrase of the New Testament. He was instrumental in the founding of Habitat for Humanity, his nephew, Hamilton Jordan, served as White House Chief of Staff during the Jimmy Carter administration. Jordan was born in Talbotton, Georgia, to J. W. and Maude Josey Jordan, prominent citizens of that small town. From an early age the young Jordan was troubled by the racial and economic injustice that he perceived in his community. Hoping to improve the lot of sharecroppers through scientific farming techniques, Jordan enrolled in the University of Georgia, earning a degree in agriculture in 1933. During his college years, Jordan became convinced that the roots of poverty were spiritual as well as economic; this conviction led him to the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, from which he earned a Ph.

D. in the Greek New Testament in 1938. While at seminary Jordan met Florence Kroeger, the couple were soon married. In 1942, the Jordans and another couple and Mabel England, who had served as American Baptist missionaries, their families moved to a 440-acre tract of land near Americus, Georgia, to create an interracial, Christian farming community, they called it Koinonia, a word meaning communion or fellowship that in Acts 2:42 is applied to the earliest Christian community. The Koinonia partners bound themselves to the equality of all persons, rejection of violence, ecological stewardship, common ownership of possessions. For several years the residents of Koinonia lived in relative peace alongside their Sumter County neighbors, but as the Civil Rights Movement progressed, white citizens of the area perceived Koinonia as a threat. In the 1950s and early 1960s, Koinonia became the target of a stifling economic boycott and repeated violence, including several bombings; when Jordan sought help from President Eisenhower, the federal government refused to intervene, instead referring the matter to the governor of Georgia.

The governor, a staunch supporter of racial segregation, responded by ordering the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to investigate Koinonia's partners and supporters for purported Communist ties. Jordan chose not to participate in the demonstrations of the era, he believed that the best way to effect change in society was by living, in community, a radically different life. In the late 1960s, the hostilities subsided, Jordan turned his energies to speaking and writing. Among the latter are his well-known Cotton Patch series, homey translations of New Testament writings. Jordan believed it was necessary not only to translate individual words and phrases, but the context of Scripture. Thus, Jordan retitled Paul's letter to the Ephesians "The Letter to the Christians in Birmingham." His translation of Ephesians 2:11-13 is typical: So always remember that you Negroes, who sometimes are called "niggers" by thoughtless white church members, were at one time outside the Christian fellowship, denied your rights as fellow believers, treated as though the gospel didn't apply to you and God-forsaken in the eyes of the world.

Now, because of Christ's supreme sacrifice, you who once were so segregated are warmly welcomed into the Christian fellowship. Along with his rendering of "Jew and Gentile" as "white man and Negro," Jordan converted all references to "crucifixion" into references to "lynching," believing that no other term was adequate for conveying the sense of the event into a modern American idiom: there just isn't any word in our vocabulary which adequately translates the Greek word for "crucifixion." Our crosses are so shined, so polished, so respectable that to be impaled on one of them would seem to be a blessed experience. We have thus emptied the term "crucifixion" of its original content of terrific emotion, of violence, of indignity and stigma, of defeat. I have translated it as "lynching," well aware. Jesus was tried and condemned, elements lacking in a lynching, but having observed the operation of Southern "justice," and at times having been its victim, I can testify that more people have been lynched "by judicial action" than by unofficial ropes.

Pilate at least had the courage and the honesty to publicly wash his hands and disavow all legal responsibility. "See to it yourselves," he told the mob. And they did, they crucified him with a noose tied to a pine tree. The Cotton Patch series used American analogies for places in the New Testament. C. Judaea became Georgia, Jerusalem became Atlanta, Bethlehem became Gainesville, Georgia. Jordan's translations of scripture portions led to the creation of a musical, Cotton Patch Gospel, telling the life of Jesus Christ using his style and set in Georgia, incorporating some passages from his translations. In 1965, Millard and Linda Fuller visited Koinonia. Inspired by Jordan, the Fullers chose to make Koinonia their permanent home in mid-1968. A marital crisis and dissatisfaction with their millionaire lifestyle had earlier persuaded the couple to sell their possessions and seek a life together in Christian service; the Fuller family brought renewed energy to Koinonia. The organization changed its name to Koinonia Partners and started a number of partnership type ventures such as "Partnership Housing," a project to build and sell quality, affordable homes at cost with a

Dmitri Kugryshev is a Russian professional ice hockey forward. He is playing with Salavat Yulaev Ufa in the Kontinental Hockey League. Kugryshev was selected by the Washington Capitals in the 2nd round of the 2008 NHL Entry Draft, he pursued his NHL ambition in transitioning to a major junior career in North America with the Quebec Remparts of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League before signing a three-year entry-level contract with the Capitals on March 9, 2010. At the completion of the 2016–17 season, Kugryshev alongside Semyon Koshelyov was traded by CSKA to Avangard Omsk in exchange for Anton Burdasov on May 2, 2017. After spending the 2017–18 season, with Avangard posting 11 goals and 25 points in 50 games, Kugryshev left as a free agent to sign a one-year deal with Salavat Yulaev Ufa on May 1, 2018. Biographical information and career statistics from NHL.com, or Eliteprospects.com, or Eurohockey.com, or The Internet Hockey Database

Kooba Radio was an independent, non-profit, Internet-based radio station focused on alternative rock, playing unsigned bands and artists with independent record labels. Kooba is PRS played to a listenership in over 20 countries. Created 21 December 2002, Kooba Radio began. Starting with founders Jon Chappell, Alex Malloy and She Who Must Not Be Named, the main ethos behind the station was "if you've signed, you've sold out" with a strong impetus towards the promotion of promising bands hitherto ignored by major record labels; this slogan was abandoned when it became prevalent that bands would release their music on their own labels. The flagship show of the station is the Jonny and Alex Show featuring the principal founders with the added participation of both occasional and regular guests appearing on a random basis; the content of the show, which takes on the feel of the zoo format features occasional comedy sketches, irreverent chat and guest performances from musicians. One of the many local scenes from South East London which Kooba helped promote was the Basement Rock movement.

The station started out with a once a week show which streamed on-demand over the Internet using SHOUTcast via a link on the website. It has since expanded its listening audience following the advent of the popular podcast broadcast platform, going on to be noted in Time Out London's Podcast of the Week in 2006; the style of music played on the shows is varied and includes alt rock, post rock, post punk, classic rock, folk, hip hop and roll, blues, experimental and a myriad of other styles. By far Kooba's most successful creation is Christathon – Kooba Radio’s annual crucifixion themed pub crawl. Christathon went viral in 2011 leading to media attention from AllInLondon. Although Kooba Radio closed in 2012 another Christathon is planned for Easter Sunday 2014, this time organised by people unaffiliated to Kooba Radio. Kooba Radio ceased recording new shows at the end of 2012, marking the end of a decade broadcasting unsigned bands and new music; the last show-proper was the run down of the 2012 Band of the Year Competition.

This will be followed by Christathon 2013 and a 1-off live special in 2013. Official website