1.
Seven Days to Noon
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Seven Days to Noon is a 1950 British drama / thriller film directed by John Boulting and Roy Boulting. Based on the book, Un Nazi en Manhattan, written by Fernando Josseau, paul Dehn and James Bernard won the Academy Award for Best Story for this film and they never give the credits to Josseau for the story. It is an explicit threat that Willingdon will destroy the centre of London in a weeks time, at noon. Detective Superintendent Folland of Scotland Yards Special Branch is charged with tracking down Willingdon, arriving at the Wallingford Research Centre, Follands team find Willingdon missing, along with a nuclear bomb. Willingdons assistant Lane is recruited to help and they return to London to search for him, Willingdon, carrying his bomb in a Gladstone bag, finds lodgings with Mrs Peckitt, but spooks her with his constant pacing around his room during the night. The following morning, he leaves early and, seeing a poster with his face, disguises himself with a new coat. Follands team plan for the worst and get Cabinet approval to evacuate London, rumours begin to fly that another war is about to be declared, and the Prime Minister agrees to do a radio broadcast to try to quash these, and appeal to Willingdon to give himself up. The next day, Willingdons daughter Ann turns up at Follands office to demand some answers, Folland tells her all and asks her to stay and help – she may be the only person the professor will listen to. Unfortunately, Willingdon spots it on his way back to his lodgings, driving back to their hotel from the police operations centre, Lane and Ann Willingdon spot the professor but fail to catch him. An updated description is quickly circulated and that evening Willingdon bumps into Mrs Goldie Phillips, she invites him to buy her a drink, the two of them having met, by chance, earlier at a pawn brokers. As he has no lodgings, Goldie offers him her spare bed for the night, by this time, London is being evacuated and Willingdon decides to lie low. The troops have begun to search and Goldies bedsit seems a good place to remain hidden, Willingdon is forced to hold Goldie hostage, fearing that if he doesnt, she will inform the authorities of his location. The streets cleared, Willingdon makes his escape and finds his final refuge, the net steadily closes and Willingdon is finally found, praying. Lane, Ann and Folland arrive to try to talk the professor away from his bag and he panics, runs from the church, and is killed by an even more panicking soldier. With seconds to spare, Lane has the bomb defused, the film performed reasonably well at the box office. The movie received an Academy Award for Writing at the 24th Academy Awards held in 1952 at the RKO Pantages Theatre, Seven Days to Noon became available on DVD in 2008. It is incorrectly framed in matted widescreen, a process not developed until two years later, the Great British Films, pp 144–146, Jerry Vermilye,1978, Citadel Press, ISBN 0-8065-0661-X Seven Days to Noon in the British Film Institutes Explore film. Database Seven Days to Noon at the Internet Movie Database Seven Days to Noon at AllMovie Seven Days to Noon at the TCM Movie Database Seven Days to Noon at Rotten Tomatoes
2.
Glasgow
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Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland, and third largest in the United Kingdom. Historically part of Lanarkshire, it is now one of the 32 council areas of Scotland and it is situated on the River Clyde in the countrys West Central Lowlands. Inhabitants of the city are referred to as Glaswegians, Glasgow grew from a small rural settlement on the River Clyde to become the largest seaport in Britain. From the 18th century the city grew as one of Great Britains main hubs of transatlantic trade with North America. Glasgow was the Second City of the British Empire for much of the Victorian era and Edwardian period, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries Glasgow grew in population, reaching a peak of 1,128,473 in 1939. The entire region surrounding the conurbation covers about 2.3 million people, at the 2011 census, Glasgow had a population density of 8, 790/sq mi, the highest of any Scottish city. Glasgow hosted the 2014 Commonwealth Games and is well known in the sporting world for the football rivalry of the Old Firm between Celtic and Rangers. Glasgow is also known for Glasgow patter, a dialect that is noted for being difficult to understand by those from outside the city. Glasgow is the form of the ancient Cumbric name Glas Cau. Possibly referring to the area of Molendinar Burn where Glasgow Cathedral now stands, the later Gaelic name Baile Glas Chu, town of the grey dog, is purely a folk-etymology. The present site of Glasgow has been settled since prehistoric times, it is for settlement, being the furthest downstream fording point of the River Clyde, the origins of Glasgow as an established city derive ultimately from its medieval position as Scotlands second largest bishopric. Glasgow increased in importance during the 10th and 11th centuries as the site of this bishopric, reorganised by King David I of Scotland and John, there had been an earlier religious site established by Saint Mungo in the 6th century. The bishopric became one of the largest and wealthiest in the Kingdom of Scotland, bringing wealth, sometime between 1189 and 1195 this status was supplemented by an annual fair, which survives as the Glasgow Fair. Glasgow grew over the following centuries, the first bridge over the River Clyde at Glasgow was recorded from around 1285, giving its name to the Briggait area of the city, forming the main North-South route over the river via Glasgow Cross. The founding of the University of Glasgow in 1451 and elevation of the bishopric to become the Archdiocese of Glasgow in 1492 increased the towns religious and educational status and landed wealth. Its early trade was in agriculture, brewing and fishing, with cured salmon and herring being exported to Europe, Glasgow was subsequently raised to the status of Royal Burgh in 1611. The citys Tobacco Lords created a water port at Port Glasgow on the Firth of Clyde. By the late 18th century more than half of the British tobacco trade was concentrated on Glasgows River Clyde, at the time, Glasgow held a commercial importance as the city participated in the trade of sugar, tobacco and later cotton
3.
Lanarkshire
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Lanarkshire, also called the County of Lanark is a historic county in the central Lowlands of Scotland. Historically, Lanarkshire was the most populous county in Scotland and, in times, had considerably greater boundaries. Lanarkshire was historically divided between two administrative areas, other significant settlements include Coatbridge, East Kilbride, Motherwell, Airdrie, Blantyre, Cambuslang, Rutherglen, Wishaw and Carluke. In 1975, the county council was abolished and the area absorbed into the larger Strathclyde region, there is also a joint health board, which does not cover Rutherglen and the surrounding area in South Lanarkshire. Without the northern portion of North Lanarkshire, this is also a Lieutenancy area, from the mid-eighteenth century to the early twentieth century Lanarkshire profited from its rich seams of coal in places such as Glenboig. Unfortunately, as the industry developed around Glasgow in the 1700s the price of coal to the city rose under the control of a cartel of coal owners. The solution was to out a canal to take advantage of the good coal deposits of the Monklands area. By 1793, the Monklands canal was completed and the Lanarkshire coal industry thrived, the resulting boom lasted for over 100 years but reached its peak by the second decade of the twentieth century and even two world wars failed to halt the contraction. Output in the county continued to fall and the National Coal Board concentrated investment in Ayrshire, Fife, by 1970 there were only four collieries left in Lanarkshire and the closure of Cardowan in 1983 brought the long decline to an end. Lanarkshire hosted the International Childrens Games in August 2011, a total of 1,300 competitors and coaches, along with administrators and delegates, representing 77 cities from 33 countries worldwide attended
4.
Richmond, London
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Richmond is a suburban town in southwest London,8.2 miles west-southwest of Charing Cross. The town is on a meander of the River Thames, with a number of parks and open spaces, including Richmond Park, and many protected conservation areas. A specific Act of Parliament protects the scenic view of the River Thames from Richmond, Richmond was founded following Henry VIIs building of Richmond Palace in the 16th century, from which the town derives its name. During this era the town and palace were particularly associated with Elizabeth I, during the 18th century Richmond Bridge was completed and many Georgian terraces were built, particularly around Richmond Green and on Richmond Hill. These remain well preserved and many have listed building architectural or heritage status, the opening of the railway station in 1846 was a significant event in the absorption of the town into a rapidly expanding London. Richmond was formerly part of the ancient parish of Kingston upon Thames in the county of Surrey, in 1890 the town became a municipal borough, which was later extended to include Kew, Ham, Petersham and part of Mortlake. The municipal borough was abolished in 1965 when, as a result of boundary changes, Richmond is now part of the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, and has a population of 21,469. It has a significant commercial and retail centre with a developed day, the area now known as Richmond was formerly part of Shene. Shene was not listed in Domesday Book, although it is depicted on the maps as Sceon. Henry VII had a palace there and in 1501 he named it Richmond Palace in recognition of his earldom. The town that developed nearby took the name as the palace. Henry I lived briefly in the Kings house in Sheanes, Edward II, following his defeat by the Scots at the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314, founded a monastery for Carmelites at Sheen. When the boy-king Edward III came to the throne in 1327 he gave the manor to his mother Isabella, Edward later spent over two thousand pounds on improvements, but in the middle of the work Edward himself died at the manor, in 1377. Richard II was the first English king to make Sheen his main residence and it was rebuilt between 1414 and 1422, but destroyed by fire 1497. Following that fire Henry VII built a new residence at Sheen, there are unconfirmed beliefs that Shakespeare may have performed some plays there. Once Elizabeth I became queen she spent much of her time at Richmond and she died there on 24 March 1603. The palace was no longer in use after 1649, but in 1688 James II ordered partial reconstruction of the palace. The bulk of the palace had decayed by 1779, but surviving structures include the Wardrobe, Trumpeters House, and this has five bedrooms and was made available on a 65-year lease by the Crown Estate Commissioners in 1986
5.
Surrey
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Surrey is a county in the south east of England. It shares borders with Kent to the east, East Sussex to the south-east, West Sussex to the south, Hampshire to the west and south-west, Surrey County Council sits extraterritorially at Kingston upon Thames, administered as part of Greater London since 1965. With a resident population of 1.1 million, Surrey is the most densely populated and third most populated county in the South East region, after Kent, the London boroughs of Lambeth, Southwark, Wandsworth, and parts of Lewisham and Bromley were in Surrey until 1889. The boroughs of Croydon, Kingston upon Thames, Merton, Sutton and Richmond upon Thames south of the River Thames were part of Surrey until 1965, when they too were absorbed into Greater London. In the same year, the county was extended north of the Thames by the addition of Spelthorne, due to this expansion, modern Surrey also borders on the London boroughs of Hounslow and Hillingdon. It has the highest GDP per capita of any English county, Surrey is divided in two by the chalk ridge of the North Downs, running east-west. To the north of the Downs the land is mostly flat, the geology of this area is dominated by London Clay in the east, Bagshot Sands in the west and alluvial deposits along the rivers. Much of Surrey is in the Metropolitan Green Belt and it contains a good deal of mature woodland. Among its many notable beauty spots are Box Hill, Leith Hill, Frensham Ponds, Newlands Corner and Puttenham & Crooksbury Commons. Surrey is the most wooded county in England, with 22. 4% coverage compared to an average of 11. 8%. Box Hill has the oldest untouched area of woodland in the UK. Surrey also contains Englands principal concentration of lowland heath, on soils in the west of the county. Agriculture not being intensive, there are many commons and access lands, together with a network of footpaths and bridleways including the North Downs Way. Accordingly, Surrey provides much in the way of leisure activities. The highest elevation in Surrey is Leith Hill near Dorking and it is either 293,294 or 295 metres above sea level and is the second highest point in southeastern England after Walbury Hill 297 metres in West Berkshire. Surrey has a population of approximately 1.1 million people and its largest town is Guildford, with a population of 66,773, Woking comes a close second with 62,796. They are followed by Ewell with 39,994 people and Camberley with 30,155, towns of between 25,000 and 30,000 inhabitants are Ashford, Epsom, Farnham, Staines and Redhill. Guildford is the county town, although the county administration was moved to Newington in 1791
6.
Scotland
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Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and covers the northern third of the island of Great Britain. It shares a border with England to the south, and is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, with the North Sea to the east. In addition to the mainland, the country is made up of more than 790 islands, including the Northern Isles, the Kingdom of Scotland emerged as an independent sovereign state in the Early Middle Ages and continued to exist until 1707. By inheritance in 1603, James VI, King of Scots, became King of England and King of Ireland, Scotland subsequently entered into a political union with the Kingdom of England on 1 May 1707 to create the new Kingdom of Great Britain. The union also created a new Parliament of Great Britain, which succeeded both the Parliament of Scotland and the Parliament of England. Within Scotland, the monarchy of the United Kingdom has continued to use a variety of styles, titles, the legal system within Scotland has also remained separate from those of England and Wales and Northern Ireland, Scotland constitutes a distinct jurisdiction in both public and private law. Glasgow, Scotlands largest city, was one of the worlds leading industrial cities. Other major urban areas are Aberdeen and Dundee, Scottish waters consist of a large sector of the North Atlantic and the North Sea, containing the largest oil reserves in the European Union. This has given Aberdeen, the third-largest city in Scotland, the title of Europes oil capital, following a referendum in 1997, a Scottish Parliament was re-established, in the form of a devolved unicameral legislature comprising 129 members, having authority over many areas of domestic policy. Scotland is represented in the UK Parliament by 59 MPs and in the European Parliament by 6 MEPs, Scotland is also a member nation of the British–Irish Council, and the British–Irish Parliamentary Assembly. Scotland comes from Scoti, the Latin name for the Gaels, the Late Latin word Scotia was initially used to refer to Ireland. By the 11th century at the latest, Scotia was being used to refer to Scotland north of the River Forth, alongside Albania or Albany, the use of the words Scots and Scotland to encompass all of what is now Scotland became common in the Late Middle Ages. Repeated glaciations, which covered the land mass of modern Scotland. It is believed the first post-glacial groups of hunter-gatherers arrived in Scotland around 12,800 years ago, the groups of settlers began building the first known permanent houses on Scottish soil around 9,500 years ago, and the first villages around 6,000 years ago. The well-preserved village of Skara Brae on the mainland of Orkney dates from this period and it contains the remains of an early Bronze Age ruler laid out on white quartz pebbles and birch bark. It was also discovered for the first time that early Bronze Age people placed flowers in their graves, in the winter of 1850, a severe storm hit Scotland, causing widespread damage and over 200 deaths. In the Bay of Skaill, the storm stripped the earth from a large irregular knoll, when the storm cleared, local villagers found the outline of a village, consisting of a number of small houses without roofs. William Watt of Skaill, the laird, began an amateur excavation of the site, but after uncovering four houses
7.
Hutchesons' Grammar School
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Hutchesons Grammar School is a co-educational independent school in the southside of Glasgow, Scotland. For much of its life the boys school was situated at Crown Street in the Gorbals. In 1876 a girls school was opened in the former Gorbals Youth School in Elgin Street, the Boys and Girls schools amalgamated in 1976 at Beaton Road where the Boys school had moved to in 1957. Kingarth Street became the primary school. In 2001, the school expanded into Glasgows West End when it merged with Laurel Park School and created a nursery and primary school on Lilybank Terrace, the building suffered heavy damage in a fire in November 2008. Today, Hutchie, as the school is informally, has around 1,300 pupils at Kingarth Street. The current rector is Colin Gambles BSc, george and Thomas Hutcheson set aside money for their school in 1641. The brothers originally intended the School to be for orphans, archibald Edmiston, an orphan himself, became the Schools first pupil in 1643 and, seven years later, the School had 12 boys on the roll, to whom the school song refers. The brothers built Hutchesons Hospital Building in the Trongate which survived the fire destroyed much of the city in 1652. The school required several moves to accommodate its growing number of pupils and it twice changed address before the school moved to Ingram Street in 1802. By 1815 the school had 76 pupils, by 1839 it stood at 120 which prompted the Patrons decision to build a new school in Crown Street, Gorbals. The new building was opened in 1841 and remained in use until 1960, in 1876, Hutchesons Girls School was opened on Elgin Street. Hutchesons Girls Grammar School, as it was now known, re-located in 1912 to the present primary school building in Kingarth Street, Beaton Road in Crossmyloof became the new home to the primary school of Hutchesons Boys Grammar School in 1957 with the secondary school moving in 1960. In 1975 Hutchesons Girls Grammar School and Hutchesons Boys Grammar School were amalgamated to form Hutchesons Grammar School, the co-educational institution which remains in this form today. The girls site in Kingarth Street became the primary school and also housed S1. Twenty years later additional building at Beaton Road allowed S1 and S2 to move there, the school has over 30 clubs and societies, many of which are over 50 years old. In 2011, S5 pupils Usman Abdul-Quayum and Mazen Allam formed the schools Medical Union, the society was the schools first independently run society which normally has up to 50 members enrolled at any one time. In 1991, a 3-storey Science Block was erected in the Beaton Road carpark, a new Sports Building was developed on the Playing Fields at Beaton Road in 1998, allowing the old gymnasium in the Senior School to be converted into a library the following year
8.
University of Glasgow
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The University of Glasgow is the fourth oldest university in the English-speaking world and one of Scotlands four ancient universities. Along with the University of Edinburgh, the University was part of the Scottish Enlightenment during the 18th century and it is currently a member of Universitas 21, the international network of research universities, and the Russell Group. Glasgow University served all of students by preparing them for professions, the law, medicine, civil service, teaching. It also trained smaller but growing numbers for careers in science, originally located in the citys High Street, since 1870 the main University campus has been located at Gilmorehill in the West End of the city. Additionally, a number of university buildings are located elsewhere, such as the Veterinary School in Bearsden, and it is the second-oldest university in Scotland after St Andrews and the fourth-oldest in the English-speaking world. The universities of St Andrews, Glasgow and Aberdeen were ecclesiastical foundations, as one of the Ancient Universities of the United Kingdom, Glasgow University is one of only eight institutions to award undergraduate masters degrees in certain disciplines. The University has been without its original Bull since the mid-sixteenth century, in 1560, during the political unrest accompanying the Scottish Reformation, the then chancellor, Archbishop James Beaton, a supporter of the Marian cause, fled to France. He took with him, for safe-keeping, many of the archives and valuables of the Cathedral and the University, including the Mace, although the Mace was sent back in 1590, the archives were not. If they had not been lost by time, they certainly went astray during the French Revolution when the Scots College was under threat. Its records and valuables were moved for safe-keeping out of the city of Paris, the Bull remains the authority by which the University awards degrees. Teaching at the University began in the chapterhouse of Glasgow Cathedral, subsequently moving to nearby Rottenrow, the University was given 13 acres of land belonging to the Black Friars on High Street by Mary, Queen of Scots, in 1563. The Lion and Unicorn Staircase was also transferred from the old site and is now attached to the Main Building. To continue this work in his will he founded Andersons College, in 1973, Delphine Parrott became its first woman professor, as Gardiner Professor of Immunology. In October 2014, the university court voted for the University to become the first academic institution in Europe to divest from the fuel industry. The University is currently spread over a number of different campuses, the main one is the Gilmorehill campus, in Hillhead. The University has also established joint departments with the Glasgow School of Art, the Universitys initial accommodation including Glasgow University Library was part of the complex of religious buildings in the precincts of Glasgow Cathedral. In the mid-seventeenth century, the Hamilton Building was replaced with a very grand two-court building with a decorated west front facing the High Street, called the Nova Erectio, over the following centuries, the Universitys size and scope continued to expand. In 1757 it built the Macfarlane Observatory and later Scotlands first public museum and it was a centre of the Scottish Enlightenment and subsequently of the Industrial Revolution, and its expansion in the High Street was constrained
9.
The Old Vic
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The Old Vic is a theatre located just south-east of Waterloo station in London on the corner of The Cut and Waterloo Road. Established in 1818 as the Royal Coburg Theatre, and renamed in 1833 the Royal Victoria Theatre, in 1871 it was rebuilt and reopened as the Royal Victoria Palace. It was taken over by Emma Cons in 1880 and formally named the Royal Victoria Hall, in 1898, a niece of Cons, Lilian Baylis assumed management and began a series of Shakespeare productions in 1914. The building was damaged in 1940 during air raids and it became a Grade II* listed building in 1951 after it reopened. It was also the name of a company that was based at the theatre and formed the core of the National Theatre of Great Britain on its formation in 1963. The National Theatre remained at the Old Vic until new premises were constructed on the South Bank, the Old Vic then became the home of Prospect Theatre Company, at that time a highly successful touring company which staged such acclaimed productions as Derek Jacobis Hamlet. However, with the withdrawal of funding for the company by the Arts Council of Great Britain in 1980 for breaching its touring obligations, the theatre underwent complete refurbishment in 1985. In 2003, Kevin Spacey was appointed as new director of the Old Vic Theatre Company which received considerable media attention. In 2015, Matthew Warchus succeeded Spacey as artistic director, the theatre was a minor theatre and was thus technically forbidden to show serious drama. Nevertheless, when the theatre passed to George Bolwell Davidge in 1824 he succeeded in bringing legendary actor Edmund Kean south of the river to play six Shakespeare plays in six nights. More popular staples in the repertoire were sensational and violent melodramas demonstrating the evils of drink, churned out by the house dramatist, confirmed teetotaller Douglas Jerrold. On 1 July 1833, the theatre was renamed the Royal Victoria Theatre, under the protection and patronage of Victoria, Duchess of Kent, mother to Princess Victoria, the 14-year-old heir presumptive. The duchess and the princess visited only once, on 28 November of that year, the single visit scarcely justified the Old Vic its later billing as Queen Victorias Own Theayter. By 1835, the theatre was advertising itself simply as the Victoria Theatre, in 1841, David Osbaldiston took over as lessee, succeeded on his death in 1850 by his lover and the theatres leading lady, Eliza Vincent, until her death in 1856. Under their management, the theatre remained devoted to melodrama, in 1867, Joseph Arnold Cave took over as lessee. In 1871 he transferred the lease to Romaine Delatorre, who raised funds for the theatre to be rebuilt in the style of the Alhambra Music Hall, jethro Thomas Robinson was engaged as the architect. In September 1871 the old theatre closed, and the new building opened as the Royal Victoria Palace in December of the same year, by 1873, however, Cave had left and Delatorres venture failed. The penny lectures given in the led to the foundation of Morley College, an adult education college
