Aarushhh/wikipedia-simple-splitted huggingface dataset:
Tristan John Gemmill (born 6 June 1967) is an English actor, most notable for his roles as Dr Adam Trueman on Casualty, and Robert Preston in Coronation Street. He was born in Kensington, London, England.

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1967 births
English movie actors
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Musical theater actors
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People from the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea
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Actors from Kent
Living people
Richard George Scott  (17 November 1923 – 1 January 2020) was a New Zealand historian and journalist. He wrote many books on the history of New Zealand. His first book, 151 Days (1952), was about the 1951 New Zealand waterfront dispute. His most well-known work is Ask That Mountain (1975), which tells the events of the non-violent Māori resistance to European occupation in Parihaka. Former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark called it "one of New Zealand's most influential books." His autobiography, Dick Scott: A Radical Writer's Life, was published in 2004.

Scott was born in Palmerston North. He was the father of writer Rosie Scott (1948–2017).

Scott died on 1 January 2020, at the age of 96.

References

1923 births
2020 deaths
Autobiographers
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New Zealand journalists
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John Nelson Brandenburg (April 29, 1929 – January 14, 2020) was an American lieutenant general in the U.S. Army. He was born in Enid, Oklahoma. He was a commander of the I Corps at Fort Lewis, a post which he served from 1981 to 1984. He was also a commander of the 101st Airborne Division from 1978 to 1980. He retired from the military in May 1984 after 33 years of service.

On January 14, 2020, Brandenburg died at his home in Canton, Georgia. He was 90.

References

1929 births
2020 deaths
American generals
American military personnel of the Vietnam War
People from Enid, Oklahoma
Military people from Oklahoma
Palmerston North is a city in the North Island of New Zealand. It is the seat of the Manawatū-Whanganui region. The city is  north of the capital, Wellington. Palmerston North is the country's seventh-largest city. As of June 2018, the city had an urban population of 86,600.

Other websites

Cities in New Zealand
Manawatū-Whanganui
Canton is a city in and the county seat of Cherokee County, Georgia, United States. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 32,973.

References

Cities in Georgia (U.S. state)
County seats in Georgia
Jane Danson (born Jane Elizabeth Dawson; 8 November 1978) is an English actress. She is best known for her portrayal of Leanne Battersby in the long-running ITV soap opera Coronation Street (1997–2000, 2004–present). Her other television credits include Children's Ward (1995–1997), The Grand (1997), Always and Everyone (2001–2002) and The Bill (2002–2003).

For her role on Coronation Street, Danson won the 2011 British Soap Award for "Best Dramatic Performance".

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1978 births
Living people
English child actors
English television actors
Actors from Greater Manchester
Georgia Taylor (born Claire Jackson; 26 February 1980) is an English actress. She is best known for her roles as Toyah Battersby in the long-running ITV soap opera Coronation Street (1997–2003, 2016–present), Ruth Winters in the BBC One medical drama series Casualty (2007–2011) and Kate Barker in the ITV police drama series Law & Order: UK (2013–2014).

She was born and raised in Wigan, Greater Manchester, United Kingdom.

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1980 births
Living people
English television actors
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Wigan
Actors from Greater Manchester
Alan David Halsall (born 11 August 1982 in Walkden, Worsley, Greater Manchester) is an English actor. He is known for playing Tyrone Dobbs in the ITV soap opera Coronation Street, a role which he has played since 1998. 

He has a daughter with ex-wife Lucy-Jo Hudson.

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1982 births
Living people
English television actors
People from Salford
David Maslanka (August 30, 1943 - August 7, 2017) was a composer. He is best known for his pieces for wind ensemble and his fourth symphony.

Life 
Maslanka learned how to write music with H. Owen Reed.  He taught at Kingsborough Community College and Sarah Lawrence College. After 1990, Maslanka stopped teaching. He only wrote music after then. He lived in Missoula, Montana for most of his career.

References 

21st-century American composers
20th-century American composers
James "Jimmi" Harkishin (born Rajan Harkinshindas; 19 March 1965) is a British actor, best known for his role as shopkeeper Dev Alahan in the long running ITV soap opera Coronation Street, which he has played continuously since 10 November 1999. He also had a small role in the film East is East, as well as Bhaji on the Beach. Harkishin played Gary Lobo in the Jonathan Creek episode "Danse Macabre".

Harkishin was born in Paris, France, to an Indian father, Deepak, and an Italian mother, Soni.

He began acting in 1987 under the stage name James Harkishin, and played the regular character of Jose Cuervo for 18 episodes between 1990–1993 in the children's TV series Uncle Jack.

References

Other websites 
 

1965 births
Living people
British television actors
British movie actors
Actors from Paris
Sue Cleaver (born 2 September 1963) is an English actress.

She is best known for playing Eileen Grimshaw in the long-running ITV soap opera Coronation Street, a role she has played continuously since May 2000. She also played Glenda alongside Victoria Wood in the BBC One sitcom Dinnerladies from 1998 to 2000. She was covering for Denise Robertson as the agony aunt on ITV daytime programme This Morning until Robertson's death in 2016. She is currently participating on the ITV celebrity show I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!. Cleaver was born in Watford, Hertfordshire, England and moved to Manchester as a teenager.

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1963 births
Living people
English television actors
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This Morning is a British daytime television programme that is broadcast on ITV in the United Kingdom and Virgin Media One in the Republic of Ireland. It features news, home, food, health and entertainment segments. The current main presenters are Alison Hammond and Dermot O'Leary.

The show aired its first episode on 3 October 1988. The longest serving presenter of the show is Ruth Langsford who presented the series continously for 21 years since 1999. The show was originally presented by husband and wife duo Richard Madeley and Judy Finnigan until 2001. 

Through most of its history, it was presented by Holly Willoughby and Phillip Scofield from Monday to Thursday, and Dermot O'Leary and Alison Hammond on Fridays and holidays. Josie Gibson and Craig Doyle are also recurring presenters. From 2002 to 2023, Phillip Schofield was also one of the main hosts but he left the show due to several controversies. Holly Willoughby also announced that she was quitting on October 10 2023 following a plot to murder her.
English-language television programs
British television series
Cherokee County is a county in the U.S. state of Georgia. As of the 2020 census, the county had a population of 266,620. The county seat is Canton.

References

1830s establishments in Georgia (U.S. state)
1831 establishments in the United States
Georgia (U.S. state) counties
Shale gas is natural gas that comes from shale, a kind of sedimentary rock. Most natural gas in the Earth is shale gas, but getting it out of the ground is difficult.

The issues with shale gas are rather similar to oil sands. In fact all types of oil and hydrocarbon gas in the ground were made during the far ancient past when the climate was much warmer than today.

References 

Sedimentary rocks
Fossil fuels
Hydrocarbons
James Edward Heath (October 25, 1926 – January 19, 2020), nicknamed "Little Bird", was an American jazz saxophonist, composer, arranger and big band leader. He was the brother of bassist Percy Heath and drummer Albert Heath. In 1975, the brothers formed the Heath Brothers. He worked with notable musicians such as John Coltrane, Stanley Cowell, Benny Golson, Specs Wright, Cal Massey, Johnny Coles, Ray Bryant, Nelson Boyd, Miles Davis, Kenny Dorham, Gil Evans, Milt Jackson, Nancy Wilson, Gerald Wilson and Art Farmer. Heath was nominated for three Grammy Awards.

Heath was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was the father of musician James Mtume.

On January 19, 2020, Heath died of natural causes in Loganville, Georgia. He was 93.

References

Other websites 

1926 births
2020 deaths
African American musicians
American jazz musicians
American saxophonists
Musicians from Philadelphia
Musicians from Queens
Samia Maxine Longchambon (née Ghadie, previously Smith; born 13 July 1982) is an English actress. She is best known for her role as Maria Connor in the ITV soap opera Coronation Street, which she has played since 2000.

Early life
Samia Ghadie was born in Eccles, Greater Manchester to Joseph, a French-Lebanese shop owner and Patsy, an English actress whom he met whilst working in Abu Dhabi. Samia lived there for a period as a child. She has a brother named Tariq.

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1982 births
Living people
English child actors
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Albert "Tootie" Heath (born May 31, 1935) is an American jazz hard bop drummer. He is the brother of saxophonist Jimmy Heath and the bassist Percy Heath. In 1975, the brothers formed the Heath Brothers. He notably worked with musicians such as John Coltrane, J. J. Johnson, Wes Montgomery, Art Farmer and Benny Golson's Jazztet, Cedar Walton, Bobby Timmons, Kenny Drew, Sonny Rollins, Dexter Gordon, Johnny Griffin, Herbie Hancock, Friedrich Gulda, Nina Simone and Yusef Lateef.

Heath was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

References

1935 births
Living people
African American musicians
American drummers
American jazz musicians
Musicians from Philadelphia
Loganville is a city in Walton and Gwinnett counties, Georgia, United States. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 14,127.

References

Cities in Georgia (U.S. state)
Gwinnett County, Georgia
East is East is a 1994 British comedy-drama movie produced by Sky Cinema. It is directed by Damien O'Donnell. It stars Om Puri, Linda Bassett, Jimi Mistry, Jordan Routledge and more.

1994 comedy-drama movies
British comedy-drama movies
The Minié ball, or Minni ball, is a type of muzzle-loading spin-stabilized bullet for rifled muskets named after its developer, Claude-Étienne Minié, inventor of the French Minié rifle. It came to prominence in the Crimean War and American Civil War.

Rifling, the addition of spiral grooves inside a gun barrel, givesa spin to a bullet, greatly increasing the range and accuracy of a gun. Before the Minié ball, balls had to be jammed down the rifle barrel, sometimes with a mallet, and after a relatively small number of shots, gunpowder leftovers built up in the spiral grooves, which then had to be cleaned out. The development of the Minié ball was significant, because it was the first projectile that was small enough to be easily put down the barrel of a rifled long gun. Both the American Springfield Model 1861 and the British Pattern 1853 Enfield rifled muskets, the most common weapons used during the American Civil War, used the Minié ball.
The Minié ball did a lot if damage in the American Civil War. It made it really hard for surgeons to treat wounded soldiers because Minié balls shattered bones often.

References

Weapons
Grace Rhona Wurtele Gillis  (January 21, 1922 – January 17, 2020) and Isabella Rhoda Wurtele Eaves  (born January 21, 1922) were Canadian skiers. They were identical twin sisters. The pair were active in the 1940s and 1950s. The duo won many North American skiing competitions. Together they made up the entire 1948 Winter Olympics women's alpine team for Canada. Rhoda also competed at the 1952 Winter Olympics. The Wurteles were born in Saint-Lambert, Quebec.

References

Other websites
Rhona Wurtele  at Sports-Reference.com
Rhoda Wurtele  at Sports-Reference.com

1922 births
2020 deaths
Living people
1952 Winter Olympics
Canadian Olympians
Order of Canada
Sibling duos
Sportspeople from Quebec
Twin people from Canada
Weekend is a Polish band. They have made disco polo music and dance music.

Discography

Albums

Singles

Other charted songs

References

Other websites 
 
 

Musical groups established in 2000
Disco groups
2000 establishments in Europe
Pop music groups
Globe Town is an area of Bethnal Green in East London. It is in the borough of Tower Hamlets, in London, United Kingdom. Known for its poverty, deprivation and gang subculture.

Globe Town can be described as being east of the rest of Bethnal Green.

References 

Bethnal Green
John Mackey (born October 1, 1973) is an American composer. He writes for wind ensemble most of the time. He used to write for dance companies. He studied at Cleveland Institute of Music first and then Juillard. Mackey currently lives in San Francisco, California.

References 

1973 births
20th-century American composers
21st-century American composers
Living people
People from Cambridge, Massachusetts
People from Ohio
Ludovico Maria Enrico Einaudi  (born 23 November 1955) is an Italian pianist and composer. He has made several original albums of piano music and has made the soundtracks for several films, including This is England, The Father and Nomadland. He now lives in Milan, Italy.

References

1955 births
Living people
Italian pianists
20th-century Italian composers
People from Turin
21st-century Italian composers
Crossroads (later known as Crossroads Motel) is  a British television soap opera. It was shown on ITV. It began in 1964 and finished in 1988. There was a revival from 2001 to 2003.

Crossroads was set in a fictional motel in the Midlands. Crossroads was later called a hotel. The show became a byword for cheap production values. Despite this, the series regularly attracted huge audiences. It had as many as 15 million viewers.

It was created by Hazel Adair and Peter Ling and produced by ATV. In 1981, Central Independent Television took over ATV's broadcast licence and continued the programme until it was cancelled in 1988. In 2001, the series was revived by Carlton Television. It was cancelled again in 2003.

Storylines
Storylines

1964–1988
The original idea of Crossroads was based around two feuding sisters, Kitty Jarvis, played by Beryl Johnstone, and Meg Richardson, played by Noele Gordon. Meg is a wealthy woman. She had her late husband Charles' insurance money, and compensation money from the council. The compensation was for them building a motorway through her land. Meg used her money to turn her large Georgian house into a motel.

"The Crossroads Motel" was located near the fictional small village of King's Oak. This was on the edge of Birmingham. Meg had two children. A girl named Jill, played by Jane Rossington), born in 1946, and a boy Alexander, born in 1950. Alexander was called "Sandy" and played by Roger Tonge.
The other sister, Kitty, is married to the unemployed Dick played by Brian Kent. She is not wealthy. Dick and Kitty bought a newsagents and tobacconists shop in the nearby town of Heathbury a few years after the show started. Kitty and Dick had a son called Brian, played by David Fennell, born in 1945. The story idea of the sisters feuding was dropped early in the series.

Characters in the show's early years included Meg and Kitty's brother, Andy Fraser, played by Ian Patterson. In 1965, Andy marries motel secretary Ruth Bailey, played by Pamela Greenhall. Other characters in the first series include
 the hotel chef Carlos Raphael, played by Anthony Morton
 his wife Josefina, played by Gillian Betts
 waitress Marilyn Gates, played by Sue Nicholls and later played by Nadine Hanwell
 kitchen assistant Amy Turtle, played by Ann George
 postmistress Edith Tatum, played by Elisabeth Croft
 motel handyman Philip Winter, played by Malcolm Young

Amy was briefly arrested as a suspected Soviet spy.
In 1966, long running character Diane Lawton, played by Susan Hanson arrived. Other additions included
 Meg's close friend andformer actress, Tish Hope, played by Joy Andrews
 manager and later motel director, David Hunter, played by Ronald Allen
 David's first wife Rosemary, played by Janet Hargreaves
 their son Chris, played by Freddy Foote and later by Stephen Hoye
 David's second wife Barbara, played by Sue Lloyd
 chef Gerald Lovejoy, played by William Avenell
 chef Bernard Booth, played by David Lawton
 chef Shughie McFee, played by Angus Lennie
 hairdresser Vera Downend, played by Zeph Gladstone
 accountant and later motel manager Adam Chance, played by Tony Adams
 cleaner Doris Luke, played by Kathy Staff
Perhaps the most memorable character was the "village idiot" Benny Hawkins, played by Paul Henry. His trademark was a woolly hat that he wore all the time. His fans included British troops serving in the Falklands War. In 1982, they nicknamed the Falkland Islanders "Bennies" after the character. Instructed to stop using the name, the troops came up with "Stills" for locals - because they were "still Bennies".

The series had storylines which were controversial at the time. These include
 A single parent working at the motel.
 The first paraplegic regular character portrayed in British soap opera. Sandy Richardson was injured in a car accident in 1972 and needed to use a wheelchair,
The series also saw black characters appearing regularly. This followed from the 1960s BBC soap Compact. This was also created by Hazel Adair and Peter Ling. Melanie Harper, played by Cleo Sylvestre, arrived at the motel in 1970 as Meg's foster daughter. Sylvestre was given the role by producer Reg Watson after press coverage of racial tensions in Birmingham.
In 1977, an interracial summer romance took place between Cockney garage mechanic Dennis Harper, played by Guy Ward, and motel receptionist Meena Chaudri, played by Karen David.
In 1978, garage mechanic Joe MacDonald, played by Carl Andrews, arrived.

In 1981, a storyline about a false accusation of rape.
In 1983, a storyline about a test tube baby born to Glenda and Kevin Banks, played by Lynette McMorrough and David Moran.
In 1983, the subject of Down syndrome was also raised when a little girl was befriended by three of the regular characters.
The character of Meg Mortimer was axed in 1981. She was thought to have died in a motel fire. Later she turned up alive aboard the QE2, about to sail to a new life overseas. Newspapers reported that two endings were planned for Meg. She would either die in the fire or disappear and turn up on the QE2. Viewers were surprised to see producers had used both. Meg returned briefly in 1983 for a reunion with Jill and Adam on their honeymoon in Venice.

In 1985, new producer Phillip Bowman was planning to bring the character of Meg Mortimer back into the show as a "permanent occasional." Plans were well advanced when Noele Gordon died in April of that year, aged 65. Edward Clayton was brought back as Jill's ex-husband Stan Harvey to read the lines originally written for Gordon.

In 1986, the new character Ray Grice played by Al Hunter Ashton was introduced as part of an attempt to create wider storylines.
2001–2003
In 2001, the show was revived. Changes were made to characters and stories. Jill Chance had married John Maddingham, played by Jeremy Nicholas. She had been widowed and was calling herself Jill Harvey again. This had been her name before her marriage to Adam Chance in 1983. References were also made to the Russell family taking over a "failing motel", despite Crossroads having become a hotel in the late 1980s. In the final episode of the original series, the name 'King's Oak Country Hotel' was seen over the entrance doors.
Lack of real links to the past, and the killing of Jill a few months into the new run, turned many fans away. Popular characters in the new Crossroads included new owner Kate Russell, played by Jane Gurnett. Receptionist Virginia Raven, played by Sherrie Hewson, and womanising deputy manager Jake Booth, played by Colin Wells. The storyline of the final episode was the revelation that the revived series and glamorous hotel had been a dream of supermarket worker and Crossroads fan Angela, with all the other characters revealed as shoppers. Angela even approaches a female customer in the supermarket and tells her she recognises her as "Tracey Booth from Crossroads". Tracey's mother-in-law, Kate, was also shown as one of Angela's colleagues in the supermarket.

Characters

Production history
Production history

Original start dates
 2 November 1964: ATV, Border Television and Ulster Television
 4 January 1965: Anglia, Associated Rediffusion, Grampian Television, TWW, Southern Television,  Westward Television and Channel Television.
 11 January 1965: Tyne Tees, but the series was dropped and then picked up again several times until January 1972.
 29 March 1965: Scottish Television.
 5 November 1968: Yorkshire Television, but also dropped the series for a short period, until January 1972.
 11 September 1972: Granada.
ATV era
Crossroads began its run on Monday 2 November 1964. It was shown five days a week. The episodes were recorded "as live", a common practice at the time, with few opportunities for retakes. Within a few months, 10 of the ITV companies had started broadcasting the series. Granada never screened it during the 1960s. The Independent Television Authority (ITA) decreed in 1967 that Crossroads should be reduced to four episodes per week to improve its quality.
The series was no longer networked and each ITV station broadcast the show on different days.
The series was widely derided by critics who criticised the wobbly sets and fluffed lines, but gained many fans. Prime Minister Harold Wilson's wife Mary complained when the newly formed Thames Television decided to stop showing it in 1968. The decision proved unpopular with viewers and was reversed six months later. As a result of the gap in transmission, viewers in the Thames region were six months behind the rest of the country for several years. In 1972, Granada became the last ITV company to show Crossroads. By the early 1970s it was second only to Coronation Street in the ratings. In the mid-1970s it beat Coronation Street gaining audiences of up to 15 million viewers.
From April 1980, the Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA), commercial television's regulator, decided production should be reduced further to three episodes a week. The chairman of the IBA Lady Plowden described the soap opera as "distressingly popular".
ATV planned to replace the fourth episode with a spin-off series called A Family Affair but this idea was dropped. Series star Noele Gordon, who played Meg Richardson, regularly won the TV Times Most Popular Female Personality viewers award during the 1970s.

Viewers reacted negatively at the dismissal of Gordon in 1981, an action taken by head of programming Charles Denton. He became a "national hate figure".
The series producer Jack Barton agreed with Denton that Gordon's character had become too dominant.
Why Gordon was sacked remains a mystery to TV historians as she was the most popular character on the soap and no real reason was given other than that producers felt it was time for a change. The actress herself was terribly upset by the decision. She was the only cast member on a permanent contract. She had been misled that the meeting where she was dismissed was to be the annual negotiation for the next years contract. In interviews she made it clear that she did not want to go. There is debate about the reason for her dismissal. Some people have said that Gordon's attitude within the company had upset some executives and they simply wanted rid of her. Gordon was very passionate about the soap and would regularly defend it against the many critics. Others believe that ITV found Crossroads an embarrassment and wanted to find a way of decreasing the viewing figures by sacking Gordon. She was the biggest audience draw. With fewer viewers it could be justified to axe it
. Whatever the reason, the series never recovered from her loss.
Central era
ATV lost its ITV franchise at the end of 1981. It was ordered by the IBA to reform into Central Independent Television. It took over the franchise on 1 January 1982. It was thought to have little enthusiasm for the programmes it inherited.
Further changes were introduced in March 1985, when new filming locations, sets and characters were introduced. Many storylines were about the new motel owner, Nicola Freeman, played by Gabrielle Drake. Long-term characters, such as David and Barbara Hunter, were axed. The theme tune was updated and the opening titles replaced with a longer version. Finally, the show was renamed Crossroads Motel with the word "Motel" added in the opening titles. The closing titles, which had scrolled in multiple 'crossroad' directions since the start, were replaced with conventional scrolling credits.
Further changes included the series being renamed Crossroads Kings Oak for a time, with the intention in the future of shortening this to King's Oak. This final change was overtaken by the decision in June 1987 by Andy Allen, Central's director of programmes, to axe the series. The familiar theme tune was replaced in September 1987 by a new theme composed by Max Early and Raf Ravenscroft. New titles were introduced to accompany the new theme, which featured stills of King's Oak and the new King's Oak Country Hotel. Michele Buck guided the show through its final few months on air as series producer, with William Smethurst still on hand as executive producer.
In January 1988, the series was reduced to only two episodes a week, with Crossroads King's Oak finally coming to an end on 4 April 1988 (the Easter bank holiday). The last, extended episode saw the character of Jill (Jane Rossington) riding off with her lover, John Maddingham (Jeremy Nicholas). Asked what name she would give the hotel she would be running in her new life, the character remarked, a little sadly, "I always thought Crossroads was an awfully good name".

Carlton era

In 1994, Carlton Television bought Central Television.
In April 2000, Carlton announced that they would be reviving Crossroads for the daytime slot on ITV. The first episode was shown on 5 March 2001. The revived series was sponsored by washing detergent Surf and was broadcast each weekday at 1.30pm and 5.05pm on ITV, with a Sunday omnibus on ITV2. The revived series was also broadcast in Ireland on RTÉ One and in New Zealand on TV One.
Four characters from the original series returned: Doris Luke (Kathy Staff), Jill Harvey (née Richardson), Jill's ex-husband Adam Chance (Tony Adams), and Jill's daughter Sarah-Jane Harvey (Joanne Farrell/Holly Newman). Initial reactions were favourable. However, changes in the story from the original puzzled fans and did not help ratings. Kathy Staff left in dismay at the amount of sex. She told ITV Teletext she felt it was no longer the family-friendly show she had originally been part of.

The story where original character Adam Chance murders ex-wife Jill Harvey three months into the new series' was unpopular with fans. Jane Rossington said she did not want to commit herself to another long run in the show, but warned Carlton it would be suicidal to kill Jill.
Episode 137 of the second revived series remains the only episode never to be shown in full on ITV. The lunchtime screening on Tuesday 11 September 2001 began at 14:10 BST. At the halfway commercial-break point however, the programme was interrupted to hand over to ITV News for then very sketchy details of the 9/11 attacks in New York City, USA. As the afternoon went on and the seriousness of the situation became clear, all ITV Network daytime programmes, starting with CITV transmissions at 15:15, were relegated to ITV2 to continue rolling news coverage. The semi-dropped episode was therefore transmitted in full on ITV2 at 17:30 BST. However, at the time, the channel was only available to a small number of viewers able to view the subscription-based ITV Digital, Telewest or NTL. As a result, the episode remains unseen by most of the programme's regular fanbase, including the entire Channel Islands who could not receive ITV Digital
. A short re-cap of events in Episode 137 was screened before both the 14:10 and 17:05 showings of Episode 138 on 12 September 2001. The episode was included in the Omnibus edition that Sunday. This also only was shown on ITV2.
The series was reduced to four episodes a week from November 2001 until January 2002.

The series paused in August 2002. In January 2003, a changed series, under producer Yvon Grace, reappeared. It seemed to be a self-consciously camp parody, with Jane Asher playing a new central character - the glamorous and bitchy Angel Samson. The series also had appearances from Kate O'Mara, and people associated with light entertainment, such as Lionel Blair, Les Dennis and Tim Brooke-Taylor. The revived series also launched the careers of Freema Agyeman (Doctor Who, Law & Order: UK), Luke Roberts (Holby City and Mile High), Lucy Pargeter, Shauna Shim and Jessica Fox.

Yvon Grace admitted she was aiming the new Crossroads towards the LGBT TV audience.
Plans were in place to bring Adam Chance back on a three-month contract in a last attempt to bring in more viewers; actor Tony Adams said that a down-on-his luck Adam would have been taken under Angel's wing as her personal assistant.
With ratings continuing to decline, the revived series was axed in March 2003. The final episode was shown on Friday 30 May 2003.

The 2003 series was criticised by fans who felt the series had moved away from the 1964-88 series and the 2001-02 series, as well as being "too gay".

Theme tune
The Crossroads theme tune was composed by Tony Hatch. In 2004 Hatch said:

A selection of cues were recorded, including Meg's Theme which eventually became the standard opening theme, Kitty's Theme which was phased out as action focussed on the motel, the closing theme which combined both Meg's and Kitty's themes,  and a variety of background pieces.
A rerecording by The Tony Hatch Sound was issued as a single by Pye Records in 1965. A special arrangement of the theme by Paul McCartney and Wings, was also used from the late seventies, usually when an episode ended with a dramatic event. Central Independent Television's head of music Johnny Patrick rearranged the tune in 1985 for piano and synthesiser, upon the show's relaunch as Crossroads Motel by producer Philip Bowman. Following William Smethurst's arrival as producer in 1987, this recording was overdubbed with added synthesisers.

An entirely new theme aired in late 1987 when the series was relaunched as Crossroads, Kings Oak, composed by Johnny Patrick, with Raf Ravenscroft and Max Early, with the CBSO. This later formed the basis of the single released by actress Shona Linsdey, "Goodbye", to commemorate the end of the show in 1988.
The 2001 revival brought back the original Tony Hatch theme, this time arranged and performed by TV theme composer Tony Flynn. Another version, in 2003, was arranged by Patrick Dineen and performed by the Liverpool Philharmonic.

Locations
The fictional Crossroads Motel was in a fictional village near Birmingham called Kings Oak. There are real suburbs in south-west Birmingham called Kings Heath, Kings Norton and Selly Oak). A number of real-life hotels doubled for location filming. The 1982 Crossroads Special said that the Longshoot Motel in Nuneaton) was used in designing the motel. It is likely that some scenes were filmed there.

In 1970, the series gained an O.B unit, giving it the freedom to do location shooting. Originally, Tanworth-in-Arden was used for King's Oak. Outside scenes were only occasionally used. From 1981 more location filming was used. Some early King's Oak location material was also filmed in Wolverhampton.
The most famous location, seen in the programme during the 1960s and 1970s, was not a motel. It was the Shropshire Agricultural Institution, now called North Shropshire College. In October 2019 two of the buildings used during filming, a teaching block and Bridden accommodation block were demolished.

It has been suggested that Crossroads was filmed at a 1960s motel on Stratford Road in Alcester Warwickshire. It was called CherryTrees. The buildings were demolished in 2001. A nearby petrol station, since closed, was used in the early 1980s to film a couple of outdoor scenes of the Crossroads garage.

In 1982, the fictional motel was destroyed by fire. The revamped motel was filmed at the Golden Valley Hotel (now Jurys Inn) in Cheltenham.

From 1985 filming moved to the Penns Hall Hotel (now Ramada Jarvis Birmingham) in Sutton Coldfield. The changed appearance was explained as being due to rebuilding. New studio sets were also introduced.
Other locations included the canal (including Gas Street Basin) behind the studios in Birmingham. in the story this was the King's Oak Canal, on which Vera had a barge. The Chateau Impney Hotel, called the Droitwich Hotel in the story, was also used. In 1983, St Laurence's Church in Alvechurch was the setting for Jill and Adam Chance's wedding. Hagley Hall was used for the wedding reception. Helios Health Club in Brierley Hill was used as the location for the Motel Health Club. It was filmed on Mondays when the health club was closed.

In 1985, Crossroads gained its first set of full length opening titles, filmed around Sutton Coldfield, Tanworth-in-Arden and in Birmingham city centre.

The revived Crossroads from 2001 was still set in the West Midlands. Exterior shots were filmed at locations in and around Nottingham, such as Bingham and Redmile.

The original series was recorded at ATV's/Central's Broad Street studios in Birmingham, while the revived series was filmed at Carlton Studios in Nottingham.
Critical reception
Despite the popularity of Crossroads with the viewing public, the show was often criticised by TV reviewers and ridiculed by British comedians. Television historian Hilary Kingsley stated that Crossroads never failed "to provide its critics with ammunition. Some of the acting would have disgraced the humblest of village halls; many of the plots were so farcical they could have been written in a bad dream, and much of the dialogue was pathetic." The Guinness Book of Classic British TV noted that "Crossroads was the series that no-one seemed to love. Yet at its peak, it was watched by more viewers than any other soap except Coronation Street."

The revived series also received mixed reviews from critics.
Acorn Antiques 
Spoof soap opera Acorn Antiques, created by comedian Victoria Wood as part of Victoria Wood As Seen On TV, is a deliberate parody of Crossroads. The final episode of As Seen on TV in 1987 features a hoax documentary, 'The Making of Acorn Antiques', in which the actress playing Mrs Overall (Julie Walters) - a character based on Crossroads characters Amy Turtle and Mavis Hooper - is revealed as a rather grand character who considers herself a huge star. This portrayal, plus a later pretend news item in which it is revealed she has been sacked from the show, both suggest the actress character (later given the name Bo Beaumont in the musical based on the sketches) is based on Noele Gordon, with Bo making her 'goodbye' appearance to the press in headscarf and large sunglasses and making a dramatic speech, just as Gordon did.
DVD release
In 2005, Network DVD issued four volumes of the series on DVD (UK Region 2). Each volume has 12 of the original ATV episodes. The first volume includes Meg's 1975 wedding, the highest rated episode.

In February 2007, Crossroads Volume 3 was released. There are two versions of the DVD, one being a special limited edition, which contains an extra third disc - featuring recently found episodes from 1976.

In September 2007, Crossroads Volume 4 was released.

In 2008, Network DVD started to release all the surviving episodes in transmission order through its website. The first set of 16 episodes was released in January 2008 and contained some episodes not available on earlier DVD releases.
There are 1,700 episodes of Crossroads in existence; most of these are from Central Television's run of the show from 1982 to 1988.
A black and white Crossroads Archive Volume 1.1 has also been released, containing the episode from April 1965, along with 2 further episodes, numbered 1884 and 1886 from March 1973. These were both originally made in colour but now survive only as black and white telerecordings.

On 2 November 2009, to coincide with the show's 45th anniversary, Network DVD re-released 21 volumes in a 41-disc box-set. Susan Hanson, who played Diane Hunter, appeared on The Alan Titchmarsh Show and Loose Women on 6 and 13 November 2009 respectively, to promote the box-set.

Repeats
From 1996 until 2001, episodes of the original series were repeated on UKTV channel UK Gold.

From February to September 2015, the original series aired on Big Centre TV on Freeview channel 8 in the Midlands or available online live at 9.00pm each evening Monday to Saturday, which could also be watched free on their catchup service.

Spin-offs
Spin-offs

Comic strip
Crossroads was adapted into a weekly comic strip in 1972 by Dutch comics artist Alfred Mazure, published in TVTimes.

References

Other websites
 Crossroads Appreciation Society Unofficial fan club's tribute website, website has been down for 6 months
 Crossroads 2001  All about the second series of ITV's hotel soap opera.
 Destination Crossroads Views and opinions on all three series of the soap.
 
 
 Planet Crossroads  fan site
 
  Features about Crossroads

1964 television series debuts
English-language television programs
2003 British television series endings
2003 television series endings
British soap operas
ITV television programmes
The British television soap opera Crossroads had its original run from 1964 to 1988. The only character in all twenty-four years was  Jill Richardson, played by Jane Rossington.

Characters

ITV (TV network)
The Brian May Band was an English-American rock band formed by Queen guitarist Brian May. The band was originally formed in October 1991 for May's performance at Guitar Legends guitar festival in Seville, Spain. They toured with May to promote some of his studio albums.

The rhythm section for the band was Cozy Powell and Neil Murray, who had already worked together in Black Sabbath and Whitesnake. Spike Edney, who was the tour keyboardist for Queen between 1984 and 1986 took the keyboard spot.

The band soon went on a tour of the United States, Europe and Japan. The tour ended in December 1993, when May returned to the studio with fellow Queen band mates Roger Taylor and John Deacon for Queen's final studio album, Made In Heaven. Meanwhile, Cozy Powell and Neil Murray returned to work with Black Sabbath, and both later joined Peter Green's Band.
The band reunited in 1998 to promote Brian May's Another World album. Eric Singer, of later KISS fame, was brought as the last minute replacement for Cozy Powell, who had died in a car accident earlier that year.

In 2005, both Jamie Moses and Spike Edney joined the Queen + Paul Rodgers collaboration on their worldwide tour.

Their only release was the live album, Live at the Brixton Academy in 1993.

American rock bands
English rock bands
1991 establishments
Paola Santana is a Dominican entrepreneur and lawyer. She is a member of the faculty at Singularity University. She is best known for creating  the first constitutional court in the Dominican Republic. She also founded the drone based logistics company, Matternet . It was the first drone delivery platform allowed for permanent operations in any city. Santana has also founded Social Glass, a software product for the government system.

Education 
Santana got her Bachelor's degree in Law from the Pontificia Universidad Católica Madre y Maestra in 2009. She enrolled at Ecole nationale d'administration for a Master of Public Administration and thereafter completed a program in the Foundations of American Law and Legal Education from the Georgetown University. In 2012, she completed an LLM from The George Washington University and also enrolled for a program in Policy, Law and Ethics of Exponential Technologies from Singularity University.
Career 
In 2011, Santana was appointed as the Chief of Staff and Strategic Technical Advisor at Tribunal Constitucional de la República Dominicana, where she co-led to establish the first constitutional court in the Dominican Republic. She has worked as a legal consultant at The Organisation for Economic Co-operation & Development (OECD) and The World Bank. Santana co-founded Matternet, a drone delivery platform which received an FAA regulatory waiver to operate in the United States.
Santana has also worked with NASA to work on the UAS Traffic Management Software System for low-altitude airspace operations under Matternet’s partnership program. Since then she has co-led several advisory committees for drone including the Federal Drone Advisory Committee, Unmanned Aircraft Systems Advisory Group and F38 Subcommittee on Markings for Small UAS. Santana also co-drafted the public-private partnership for Hyperloop Transportation Technologies, to enable a multi-state Hyperloop system in the United States. In 2017, she founded a software company, Social Glass that builds an artificial intelligence based software to help the government with automation of processes and help in the decision making.

References

Other websites
 Matternet
 Social Glass

Dominican Republic people
Business people
Lawyers
Andrew "Andy" Whyment (born 2 April 1981) is an English actor. He is best known for his roles as Darren Sinclair-Jones in the BBC One sitcom The Royle Family and Kirk Sutherland in the long-running ITV soap opera Coronation Street, which he has played since 2000.

References

Other websites 
 

1981 births
Living people
English child actors
English television actors
Actors from Greater Manchester
People from Salford
Gross indecency is a legal term used in some English-speaking countries. It was first used to criminalize sexual acts between men, in 1855. Oscar Wilde was charged with gross indecency, in 1895. Alan Turing also pleaded guilty to the charge of gross indecency. If two men either have oral or anal sex, this is called sodomy. It is punished differently, in places where it is a crime.

Sex crimes
Realism theory is a way of thinking about politics and world history, that focuses on being realistic. It is one of the main styles of international relations theory. It gives the theoretic background to Realpolitik statesmanship of early modern Europe. According to Realism, world politics is always and necessarily a field of conflict among actors who want power. The theories of realism are contrasted by the cooperative ideals of liberalism.

Depending on what they see as the cause of the conflict between states, realists can be divided into three classes: Classical realists believe it follows from human nature; neorealists attribute it to the dynamics of the anarchic state system; neoclassical realists believe it results from both, in combination with domestic politics. Neorealists are also divided between defensive and offensive realism. Realists trace the history of their ideas back through classical antiquity, beginning with Thucydides.
Jonathan Haslam defines realism as "a spectrum of ideas." Its theories revolve around four main rules:

 states are the central actors in international politics, rather than leaders or international organizations;
 the international political system is anarchic, as there is no supranational authority to enforce rules;
 states act in their rational self-interest within the international system; and
 states desire power to ensure self-preservation.
Realism is often associated with Realpolitik, as both deal with the pursuit, possession, and application of power. Realpolitik, however, is an older prescriptive guideline limited to policy-making, while realism is a wider theoretical and methodological paradigm to describe, explain, and predict events in international relations. As an academic pursuit, realism is not tied to ideology; it does not favor any particular moral philosophy, nor does it consider ideology to be a major factor in the behavior of nations. Priorities of realists have been described as Machiavellian, single-mindedly seeking the power of one's own nation over others.

References 

International relations
Political philosophy
Loris Zanatta (born 19 September 1962) is Professor of Latin American History at the University of Bologna (Italy).

He is author of several books and articles, published in Europe and Latin America, and commentator on Latin America in various media.

Zanatta was featured in the 2018 documentary El pueblo soy yo.

Bibliography 

 Del Estado liberal a la Nación católica. Iglesia y Ejército en los orígenes del peronismo. 1930-1943 (Buenos Aires, 1996)
 Perón y el mito de la Nación católica. 1943-1946 (Buenos Aires, 1999)
 Historia de la Iglesia argentina (Buenos Aires, 2000)
 Breve Historia del peronismo clásico (Buenos Aires, 2009)
 Eva Perón. Una biografía política (Buenos Aires, 2011)
 Historia de América Latina: de la Colonia al siglo XXI (Buenos Aires, 2012)
 La internacional justicialista (Buenos Aires, 2012)
 El populismo (Buenos Aires, 2014)
 La larga agonía de la nación católica (Buenos Aires, 2015)

Other websites
 Department of Political and Social Sciences / Università di Bologna
Italian historians
1962 births
Living people
Italian academics
Blagovest Hristov Sendov (; 8 February 1932 – 19 January 2020) was a Bulgarian diplomat, mathematician and politician. He served as the chairperson of the National Assembly from 1995 to 1997. He was also the National Assembly's deputy chairperson from 1997 to 2002. He was the Bulgarian ambassador to Japan from 2004 to 2009. He was born in Asenovgrad.

On 19 January 2020, Sendov died at the age of 87.

References

1932 births
2020 deaths
Ambassadors to Japan
Bulgarian politicians
Mathematicians
Bulgarian scientists
Cláudio Roditi (28 May 1946 – 17 January 2020) was a Brazilian jazz trumpeter. He was born in Rio de Janeiro. In 1976, he moved to New York City. Roditi was a member of Dizzy Gillespie's United Nations Orchestra. He also notably worked with Herbie Mann, Charlie Rouse and Paquito D'Rivera. He was nominated for two Grammy Awards in 1995 and 2010.

On 17 January 2020, Roditi died of prostate cancer in South Orange, New Jersey. He was 73.

References

1946 births
2020 deaths
Deaths from prostate cancer
Cancer deaths in New Jersey
Musicians from Rio de Janeiro
Trumpeters
Jaroslav Kubera (16 February 1947 – 20 January 2020) was a Czech politician. He was a member of the Civic Democratic Party (ODS). At the time of his death, he was the President of the Senate since November 2018. He was Senator from Teplice from 2000 until his death in 2020. He served as mayor of Teplice from 1994 to 2018.

Kubera was born in Louny. He had a small role as Edvard Beneš in historical drama movie Toman, directed by Ondřej Trojan.

Kubera died on 20 January 2020 in Ústí nad Labem. He was 72.

References

Other websites

1947 births
2020 deaths
Czech politicians
Czech mayors
ZAPiT Games, Inc. was a company from Mississauga, Canada. It started in 2003 to make a home video game console for families. To do that, they worked with companies such as National Semiconductor, Panasonic and Altera to make the Game Wave Family Entertainment System.

ZAPiT Games also makes games for the BlackBerry and iPhone.

Game Wave Family Entertainment System
The Game Wave Family Entertainment System is a hybrid DVD player and video game console. That means it can play both DVDs and video games. It first came out in October 2005 during the seventh generation of video game consoles. The games for the system are trivia games, video game versions of traditional board or card games.

References

Other websites
 

Video game companies of Canada
Companies based in Mississauga
Lech Raczak (27 January 1946 – 17 January 2020) was a Polish theatre director. He was born in Krzyżanowo, Greater Poland Voivodeship, lived in  Poznań. He was one of the founders of the Theatre of the Eighth Day. From 1995 to 1998, Raczak was an artistic director of the Polish Theatre in Poznań. He also worked for Malta Festival as an artistic director between 1993 and 2012. He was a professor at University of Arts in Poznań from 2003.

Raczak died of a heart attack on 17 January 2020 at the age of 73.

References

1946 births
2020 deaths
Polish educators
People from Poznań
Polish entertainers