AcharyaChanakya/simple-wikipedia huggingface dataset:
Lacrosse has two teams, each with ten players. There is one goalie(using a head much larger than a normal players), three defensemen(using a stick with a longer shaft), three midfielders and three attack men. The goalies defend the goals, and if the ball goes into the goal, the team who scored the goal gains a point. Whoever scores the most goals by the end of the game wins, with an overtime period being played if the game is tied. The game has four quarters and starts with a "face off" at the beginning of each quarter. A face off is when the ball is on the ground to start the game, and one person from each team fights for possession of the ball ball.
Steve Reich
Stephen Michael "Steve" Reich (Born October 3, 1936) is an American composer of music in the style of minimalism. He is known for his music made with tape recordings, and instrumental music with a steady beat (such as Music for 18 Musicians).
He also wrote pieces that used what is called a phasing technique. With phasing technique, two parts might be playing the same part but at slightly different speeds. It is almost like a canon, or round. He wrote pieces like these for piano, violin, and, again, for tape recordings.
He also composed such pieces like In C and Different Trains, some of his most popular works. Others include, Drumming, City Life and The Cave.
The critic Kyle Gann has said Reich "may...be considered...America's greatest living composer."
On January 25, 2007, Reich was named the 2007 recipient of the Polar Music Prize, together with jazz saxophonist Sonny Rollins. On April 20, 2009, Reich was awarded the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Music for his "Double Sextet".
Girl group
A girl group is a music group with a group of female singers who normally harmonise together.
The term "girl group" is also used in a narrower sense in English-speaking countries. It suggests the American female pop singing groups of the late 1950s and early 1960s. They were hugely successful for a time, between the decline of early rock and roll and the British Invasion. Many of them were influenced by doo-wop style.
In the 1950s and 60s, the groups were mostly self-organised, girls who knew each other and often grew up together. The Chantels, for example, were four girl choristers from a Catholic high school in the Bronx, 1957. The Ronettes were two sisters and a cousin. The Supremes were girls from a public housing estate in Detroit, Michigan. They were, and still are, America's most successful vocal group of all time. These groups had managers, of course, because they needed someone to deal with the music industry. But the managers did not set up the groups; they came after the groups were formed.
Later, almost all groups were created by public relations professionals to meet a market need. The Spice Girls were a good example of this. They were put together in the mid-1990s by a family management team. Their managers' idea was to create a girl group to compete with popular boy bands that dominated the pop music scene in the mid- to late-1990s. The Spice Girls sold most albums, and had the best-selling album of all time.
One obvious difference between the earlier groups and the later ones was in their social backgrounds. Earlier American groups, having grown up together, were all of the same social origin and colour. What is more, they had usually sung together, and socialised together, before they formed up as a group. This is also true of most of the earlier British boy groups. The later groups, on the other hand, were deliberately chosen for variety. This was done so that all sections of the audience would have at least one member they could identify with. They had not sung together, or maybe met each other, until their PR manager introduced them.
With the changing times, the marketing of popular music changed greatly, so that direct comparison of sales is not simple. but in many parts of the world digital sales are now the most important.
Heath Ledger
Heath Andrew Ledger (April 4, 1979 – January 22, 2008) was an Academy Award-winning Australian actor. After appearing on television during the 1990s, Ledger began working in Hollywood movies. He starred in many movies, including "The Patriot", "Monster's Ball", and "Brokeback Mountain". He played The Joker in "The Dark Knight". Ledger died in New York City on January 22, 2008. However, the final movie he was in, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, came out in 2009.
Heath Ledger was born in Perth, Western Australia. Ledger's mother is descended from the Clan Campbell of Scotland. Heath (Heathcliff) and his sister Katherine were named after the two main characters in Emily Brontë's "Wuthering Heights". Ledger attended Guildford Grammar School, where he had his first acting experiences. He starred in a school production as Peter Pan at age 10.
At sixteen, Ledger graduated school early to become an actor with girlfriend Jenna Sorrell. With his best friend, Trevor DiCarlo, Ledger drove across Australia to Sydney. He returned to Perth for the television series "Sweat" (1996). In this series, he played a gay cyclist.
In 1996, Ledger was involved in the short lived Fox Broadcasting Company fantasy-drama "Roar". In 1999, Ledger starred in the teen comedy "10 Things I Hate About You". He also had the lead role in the Australian movie "Two Hands", directed by Gregor Jordan.
From 2000 to 2005 he starred in "The Patriot", "Monster's Ball", "A Knight's Tale", "The Four Feathers", "Ned Kelly", "The Order", and "The Brothers Grimm". In 2001, he won a ShoWest Award for the "Male Star of Tomorrow" for on his work in "The Patriot" and "A Knight's Tale". In 2003, he was named one of Australian GQ's "Men of the Year" for acting.
Ledger received "Best Actor of 2005" awards from both the New York Film Critics Circle and the San Francisco Film Critics Circle for his acting in "Brokeback Mountain". In this movie he plays Wyoming ranchhand Ennis Del Mar, who is in love with rodeorider Jack Twist, played by Jake Gyllenhaal. He also received a nomination for Golden Globe "Best Actor in a Drama" and a nomination for Academy Award for Best Actor for this acting.
Also in 2005, Ledger played a version of Giacomo Casanova in "Casanova". The movie was a romantic comedy. It co-starred Sienna Miller.
In 2006, Ledger was asked to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. In 2007, he was one of six actors to play different sides of singer Bob Dylan in the movie "I'm Not There".
Ledger played comic book villain The Joker in "The Dark Knight". This is the sequel to the 2005 movie "Batman Begins". The movie was released on July 18, 2008.
Ledger started a record company with singer Ben Harper. In 2006, Ledger directed three music videos: "Cause an Effect" and "Seduction Is Evil (She's Hot)" for Australian hip-hop artist N'fa, as well as "Morning Yearning" for Ben Harper.
Ledger had problems with paparazzi photographers. It is said that he spat at and assaulted a photographer in Sydney in 2004. A relative of his also is said to have spat on a photographer in 2005. Ledger said this was not true.
Ledger caused problems after he was quoted in January 2006 in Australia's "Herald Sun" as saying that West Virginia had banned "Brokeback Mountain" (which it had not). He also said the state had lynchings as recently as the 1980s. These statements have been said to not be true by historians, who said that the last non-legal public hanging in West Virginia happened in 1931.
From August 2002 to April 2004, Ledger had a relationship with actress Naomi Watts. They met during the filming of "Ned Kelly". Before that, he had dated actresses and Heather Graham.
Ledger was engaged to actress Michelle Williams, whom he met while filming "Brokeback Mountain". Their daughter, Matilda Rose, was born on October 28, 2005 in New York City.
In August 2007, "Us Weekly" said that Ledger and Williams ended their relationship. Neither Ledger nor Williams said the rumor was true at that time. In September 2007, Williams' father, Larry, told the "Sydney Daily Telegraph" that Ledger and Williams had separated.
Ledger was found dead in his apartment in the SoHo neighborhood of New York City on January 22, 2008. Ledger's body was found by a housekeeper and a massage therapist, who entered the bedroom to find him face down on the floor with sleeping pills on a nearby table. Police said that there were "no obvious signs" of suicide. They also did not think his death was caused by someone else.
On January 23, 2008, Ledger's parents and sister appeared outside Ledger's mother's house in Applecross, a Perth suburb, and read a short statement to the media:
Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd released a statement saying, "It was with great sadness that I have learned of the passing of Heath Ledger... It is tragic that we have lost one of our nation's finest actors in the prime of his life."
Exposure comes from the Latin word "expōnere" which means to put out. It can mean:
Exposure (photography)
In photography, exposure is used to mean two things. Photograhic films or sensors have a certain senitivity. That means that a certain amount of light needs to be able to reach the film or sensor, before the image is correctly exposed. An exposure can also refer to a photo exposed that way.
Bury (disambiguation)
Bury can mean the following:
Metropolitan Borough of Bury
The Metropolitan Borough of Bury is one of the ten Metropolitan boroughs in the metropolitan county of Greater Manchester, England.
It was set up in 1974 from the county borough of Bury and the boroughs of Prestwich and Radcliffe, along with the urban districts of Tottington and Whitefield, and part of the urban district of Ramsbottom.
The metropolitan borough, has an area of .
Metic
In Ancient Greece, a metic () was a foreigner living in a Greek city-state ("polis"). The metic did not have the same citizen rights as a citizen who was born in the state he was living in.
The term 'metic' was especially used in ancient Athens in the 4th and 5th centuries BC. A notable metic was Aristotle, who was born in Stageira but lived in Athens for a long time.
Regardless of how many generations of the family had lived in the city, metics did not become citizens unless the city chose to bestow citizenship on them as a gift. This was rarely done. Citizenship at Athens brought eligibility for numerous state payments such as jury and assembly pay, which could be significant to working people. During emergencies the city could distribute rations to citizens. None of these rights were available to metics. They were not permitted to own real estate in Attica, whether farm or house, unless granted a special exemption.
Metics shared the burdens of citizenship without any of its privileges. Like citizens, they had to perform military service and, if rich enough, were subject to special tax contributions. Citizenship was very rarely granted to metics. More common was the special status of "equal rights" ("isoteleia") under which they were freed from the usual liabilities.
The system came to an end in Hellenistic Athens, when the purchase of citizenship became very frequent. The census of 317 BC gave 21,000 citizens, 10,000 metics and 400,000 slaves in Attica.
In the Greco-Roman world, free people (non-citizens) living on the territory of a polis were called "paroikoi" (see etymology of parish), in Asia Minor "katoikoi".
Democracy in Athens
Democracy in Ancient Athens was very different from modern democracy.
To be classed as a citizen in fifth-century Athens you had to be male, born from two Athenian parents, over eighteen years old, and complete your military service. Women, slaves, metics and children under the age of 20 were not allowed to become citizens.
Citizens could be involved in the running of Athens and could be chosen for important positions. They were also allowed to own land. Citizens were between 10% and 20% of the total population at various times in the 5rh and 4th centuries.
Athens had a direct democracy. This meant that each citizen had an equal say and opportunity in the governing of Athens. The citizens of Athens would meet on a hillside (the Pnyx) 30 to 40 times a year to discuss how to run the city better. Usually a few thousand actually came to the meeting.
All citizens could attend the meetings. People would stand on a raised platform called the bema to speak. Speakers wore a garland whilst speaking. Any citizen could speak.
All major decisions concerning the running of Athens were decided here – taxes, war, policy, etc. Any decisions were made by a show of hands.
A black pig would be sacrificed to the gods at the start of the meeting to make sure the meeting went well.
All democratic countries now have an indirect democracy. This means members of parliament are elected to make decisions concerning government. There are now too many people in different countries for them to meet on a hillside, and many people are too busy to be able to go many times per year.
Cleisthenes, a democratic reformer, divided Attica into ten tribes in 510 BC. The Boule was made up of 50 male Athenian citizens chosen at random from each of the ten tribes (all over 30 years old). This meant that 500 men were elected, but only 50 served at any one time.
Gucci, is an Italian fashion house (fashion design company).
It was started by Guccio Gucci (1881 – 1953) in Florence in 1909. Gucci is seen as one of the most famous, successful, and easily recognizable fashion brands in the world. Gucci is now owned by the French conglomerate company, Pinault-Printemps-Redoute (PPR).
BusinessWeek magazine says that Gucci made more than US$7 billion in 2006, and was 46th in the magazine's yearly "Top 100 Brands". For this reason Gucci is the second biggest selling fashion brand after LVMH. Most importantly Gucci is the biggest selling Italian brand in the world. Gucci has about 425 shops in the world and it sells its products to other shops by franchisees and department stores.
Gucci was started in 1906 by Guccio Gucci. In 1938, Gucci grew bigger, and a small shop opened in Rome. Guccio Gucci designed many of the company's famous clothes. In 1947, Gucci made the bamboo-handle handbag, which is still used. In the 1950s, Gucci also made the striped webbing (a type of material), and the suede and metal moccasin shoes.
Guccio Gucci's wife, Aida Calvelli had a large family, with six children, but only their sons (Vasco, Aldo, Ugo, and Rodolfo), not their daughters help lead the company. After Guccio's death in 1953 , Aldo helped lead the company to being a major fashion shop in more than one country, opening the company’s first small shops in London, Paris, and New York. Even in Gucci’s younger years, the family was well known for its arguments. Arguments about inheritances, stock holdings, and day-to-day operations of the shops often divided the family, and caused alliances to be made. Gucci grew in other countries. Gucci decided to grow a lot in East Asia in the late 1960s, opening shops in Hong Kong (China), Tokyo (Japan), and Korea. At that time, the company also made its famous GG logo (Guccio Gucci's initials), and the Flora silk scarf (worn most by Hollywood actress Grace Kelly), and the "Jackie O shoulder" bag, which was made famous by Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, the widow of U.S. President John F. Kennedy.
Gucci stayed as one of the biggest luxury clothes companies in the world, until the late 1970s, when some bad business decisions and family arguments almost made the company bankrupt. At the time, the brothers 'Aldo' and 'Rodolfo' controlled equal 50% shares of the company, but contributed less to the company than Guccio Gucci and all his sons did. In 1979, 'Aldo' made the 'Gucci Accessories Collection', or 'GAC', which was meant to increase sales for the Gucci Parfums sector, which his sons controlled. GAC sold small accessories, such as cosmetic bags, lighters, and pens, which were cheaper than the other items in the company’s accessories catalogue. Aldo relegated control of Parfums to his son Roberto in an effort to weaken Rodolfo’s control of the overall operations of the company.
Aldo Gucci grew into new markets, such as an agreement with American Motors Corporation (AMC), so that in 1972 AMC Hornet small "Sportabout" car became one of the first American cars to give a special luxury made by a famous fashion designer. The Gucci cars had striped green, red, and buff material inside, as well as the Gucci's logos and outside color selections.
The "Gucci Accessories Collection" was popular, but it brought the Gucci strength down. After a few years, the "Parfums section" started to sell better than the "Accessories section". The newly-made wholesaling business brought the once-exclusive brand to over a thousand stores in the United States alone with the GAC line, deteriorating the brand’s standing with fashionable customers. "In the 1960s and 1970s," writes Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter, "Gucci had been at the pinnacle of chic, thanks to icons such as Audrey Hepburn, Grace Kelly, and Jacqueline Onassis. But by the 1980s, Gucci had lost its appeal, becoming a tacky airport brand."
A ghoul is a monster from ancient Arabian folklore. Ghouls live in burial grounds and other uninhabited places. The English word comes from the Arabic name for the creature: الغول "ghūl", which literally means "demon". The "ghul" is a devilish type of jinn believed to be sired by Iblis.
The female form is given as "ghouleh" in Muhawi and Kanaana (see ref below). The plural is "ghilan".
"Ghoul" is also a shapeshifting demon that lives in the desert. The demon can take the form of an animal, especially a hyena. It lures unwary travellers into the [desert]]. It will then kill and eat them. The creature also preys on young children, robs graves, and eats the dead. Because of this habit the word "ghoul" is sometimes used to refer to an ordinary human such as a grave robber, or to anyone who likes the macabre.
The star Algol takes its name from this creature.
In Iranian mythologies, Ghouls are creatures very similar to humans, but larger. Usually they are less intelligent and not necessarily evil.
Most Persian speakers use Ghoul to describe large people (figuratively "giants"). This may or may not be considered an insult, depending on the situation.
Ghouls and ghoul-like creatures have been portrayed in different ways in fiction, including a series of dark fantasy, short stories by Brian McNaughton, a Michael Slade novel, "Ghoul", Larry Niven's "Ringworld" series, J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series, "The Chronicles of Narnia", the works of Caitlín R. Kiernan, Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake series, and Jim Butcher's The Dresden Files.
Morlocks are a fictional species of cannibalistic ghouls, created by H. G. Wells for his 1895 novel, "The Time Machine". The Morlocks, as well as another supposed offshoot of humans, the , exist in the future world in the year 802,701 A.D. in "The Time Machine".
Bram Stoker's 1897 novel "Dracula" has a character that acts much like a ghoul. The character is named Renfield. Under the vampire's influence, Renfield becomes his willing slave. He develops a craving to eat living creatures in the hope of obtaining their life-force for himself. After being confined to an asylum, he considers eating a human hospital orderly, but finds he can only capture and consume flies, spiders, and the occasional bird.
In the fiction of H. P. Lovecraft, a ghoul is a member of a nocturnal race that lives underground. Some ghouls were once human, but a diet of human corpses, and perhaps the tutelage of proper ghouls, changed them into horrific bestial humanoids. In the short story "Pickman's Model" (1927), the first of Lovecraft's ghoul stories, they are unutterably terrible monsters; however, in his earlier novella "The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath" (1926), the ghouls are somewhat less disturbing, even comical at times, and both helpful and loyal to the protagonist. Richard Upton Pickman, a noteworthy Boston painter who disappeared mysteriously in "Pickman's Model", appears as a ghoul himself in "Dream-Quest". Similar themes appear in "The Lurking Fear" (1922) and "The Rats in the Walls" (1924). Both of stories claim there are subterranean clans of degenerate, cannibals or carrion-eating humans.
In modern and contemporary fiction, ghouls are often confused with other types of undead, usually the mindless varieties of zombies. Although modern fiction (post-1954), particularly 1954's "I Am Legend", suggests that the latter beings share cannibalistic habits with ghouls, it is nonetheless generally believed that vampires and zombies prefer live prey.
In 's Dune series, a "Ghola" is a deceased person who has been brought back to life, via a secret, almost illegal Tleilaxu technology. Traditionally, the "Ghola" is stripped of memories from his or her past life and taught new skills. "Ghola" are often sold to nobles by the Tleilaxu as servants and retainers. Given their highly superstitious nature, Fremen are distrustful of ghola, despite the potential usefulness of the living dead. The ambiguity as to whether or not latent memories of the "old self" are still present in the ghola's mind is a long-drawn debate throughout the story. It has been suggested that the term "ghola" originates in Arabic, as do other terms in the Dune series.
Although many screenplays have featured ghouls, the first major motion picture of this theme was the 1933 British movie entitled "The Ghoul". The actor Boris Karloff plays a dying Egyptologist who possesses an occult gem, known as The Eternal Light, which he believes will grant immortality if he is buried with it, and thereby able to present it to Anubis in the afterlife. Of course, his bickering covetous heirs and associates would rather keep the jewel for themselves. Karloff vows to rise from his grave and avenge himself against anyone who meddles with his plan, and he keeps this promise when one of his colleagues steals The Eternal Light after his death.
In 1968, George A. Romero's movie "Night of the Living Dead" combined reanimated corpses (zombies) with cannibalistic monsters (ghouls). With this, it created new movie monsters more terrifying than either of the two alone. The term "ghoul" was the one actually used in the movie. The term zombies came later, after the movie was released. Romero had never thought of them that way; he said he thought of the Caribbean creatures, when he heard the term "zombies".
The 1976 Turkish movie 'Milk Brothers' (original story by H. Rahmi Gurpinar's 'Ghoul') is a Turkish comedy. Here, a ghoul is a monster with extra power. Ghoul is a monster that was used to frighten little children in the old times, so here the ghoul is used to frighten not only little children, but as well big people.
The 1975 British movie "The Ghoul" (unrelated to the Karloff movie) stars Peter Cushing as a defrocked missionary whose son has developed a taste for human flesh while traveling in India. As the son's mind and body degenerate, Cushing has several young people dispatched and prepared as food for his offspring, whom he keeps locked up in the attic.
The 1975 anthology movie "The Monster Club" featured a scene where a village of ghouls stumbled upon by an unwary traveller (Stuart Whitman), who temporarily escapes the creatures with the help of one half-human girl, but he is recaptured when it turns out that the ghouls have representatives inhabiting our normal human world.
In the anime and manga series "Hellsing", ghouls are zombie-like creatures that are created when a "chipped" (technological) vampire drains a victim to death, or, in the Manga, where a vampire drains the blood of someone who is not a virgin. If fatally wounded, they instantly crumble to dust. They are under the control of the vampire who bites them, eat human flesh, and are intelligent enough to use firearms. It is not rare to see a vampire make a small army of Ghouls for attack or defense.
"The Ghoul" is the stage name of Cleveland-area horror television host Ron Sweed.
The Batman comics-based franchise, including the 2005 movie, "Batman Begins", has an antagonist named, Rā's al-Ghūl, whose name derives from the original Arabic name for the star Algol in the constellation Perseus meaning "the monster's (i.e. Medusa's) head".
Most Haunted
Most Haunted is a British paranormal television program based on investigating possible paranormal activity. It is shown on the satellite and cable channels Living, Living2 and Virgin 1 (Formerly Ftn), mainly for the UK market. It is also shown in the United States on the Travel Channel and on the W Channel in Australia. It is made by Antix Productions, and is led by Yvette Fielding and her husband Karl Beattie.
The show will start their 10th series on February 19, 2008.
The team travel around the UK, and also Ireland, the Netherlands and the United States, investigating possible paranormal 'hotspots' for 24 hours.
Most Haunted has a main presenter, a psychic medium and a parapsychologist. The parapsychologist's role is to be the skeptic, and to give possible scientifical suggestions for the paranormal activity that happens during the night. These are supported by some of the production crew, who appear in the show and generally have some involvement with many parts of the investigation as they are performing their normal crew role. Most of these on-screen crew members also take part in séances.
The show has also featured guest mediums. So far these have been Ian Lawman, Ian Shillito, Gordon Smith, Uri Geller and Kevin Wade. Some episodes have also included at least one celebrity. So far celebrities have included Vic Reeves, Nancy Sorrell, Gaby Roslin, Scott Mills, Mark Chapman, Simon Gregson, Sue Cleaver, Carol Thatcher, Paul O'Grady and Lee Ryan.
The following is a list of former team and crew members who have given a lot of their time to the show.
Many times, former "psychic medium" Derek Acorah was possessed by a spirit, sometimes evil or sometimes "lost and confused". One such case that exposed Acorah was at Bodmin Gaol, Cornwall. Before the filming, Acorah had been fed misinformation about a non-existent ghost of Kreed Kafer by the show parapsychologist Dr. Ciaran O' Keeffe. During the investigation, which was later broadcast, he presented the information as fact and even behaved as though being possessed by the fictional ghost. O'Keeffe later revealed Kreed Kafer is an anagram of 'Derek Faker' in a national newspaper. Even though O' Keeffe exposed Acorah, the paper also claimed that O' Keeffe had exposed the rest of the "Most Haunted" team. O'Keeffe later reported that he had been grossly misquoted and misrepresented in the article, and produced a response outlining his version of the show based on his observations and findings, saying he had exposed Derek Acorah and NOT "Most Haunted". The show's presenter and executive producer, Yvette Fielding said in an interview that she believes it was a fake possession.
Although not mentioned by O'Keeffe, the "Mirror" article also brought into question unedited footage which appeared to show Fielding and Karl Beattie faking 'paranormal' occurrences such as ghostly bumps and knocks. Fielding denied the claims. Thus far none of this footage has come to light, leading to the belief that the "Mirror"'s claims were false. Videos purporting to show the team faking paranormal activity have often popped up on the web but are conclusively show nothing damning.
Further controversy centred on Derek Acorah again in the West Country, this time in Devon. On the first night filming "Terror in Torbay", Acorah mentioned a woman incarcerated by her jealous sister in the cellar of Lupton House, even coming up with the names Margaret and Eleanor. In this case, the facts were right, but the location was wrong. This is the well-known legend of Berry Pomeroy Castle which was to be the last night's location. On the final night, at Berry Pomeroy, Fielding reminded Acorah that he had mentioned the incarcerated sister two nights prior. Acorah glossed over his mistake and changed the subject.
List of Most Haunted episodes
Most Haunted is a British television programme based on a group of paranormal investigators (people who investigate things) going and doing paranormal investigations of places. The following is a list of episodes and locations for the series since it began in 2002.
Note: Most of these episodes were only 30 minutes long, however, some have been made the full hour and titled 'Most Haunted Unseen'. Footage added has a note that says that it is not part of the original broadcast. The first episode to be produced, and the last to appear in the series was "Michelham Priory". In Series 8, the team revisited this location to mark the 100th episode.
Note: Phil Whyman left at the end of the 4th Series.
Note: David Wells became a medium on this show in this series alongside the long-time favorite, Derek Acorah. This was the last series that Derek Acorah would be the medium in and he did not appear in the final episode at Sinai House. The original run for Series 6 was only to be 18 episodes, with the last 11 as Series 7, but due to the leaving of Acorah, the series was made longer.
Note: The last 3 episodes were meant to be from Series 7, but were made part of the eighth series. They are known as the "lost episodes" and had more guest showings from Medium Gordon Smith. Also appearing were Ian Lawman, Ian Shillito and Kevin Wade. Richard Felix departed the programme after Series 8 because their producers dropped his role from the show.
Note: The series became known as New Most Haunted after Episode 4 in the television listings on screen, with the word 'New' covering the corner of the logo for the show.
Yvette Fielding
Yvette Fielding (born 23 September 1968) is an English television presenter. She is the presenter of the shows "Most Haunted", "Most Haunted Live!" and "Ghosthunting with...". She is also the executive producer of the shows.
Yvette was educated at Pownall Green Primary School and Bramhall High School in Bramhall, Stockport, in Greater Manchester and Poynton. She also attended Hillcrest Grammar School, Davenport.
Fielding presented the children's television show, "Blue Peter" from 1987 to 1992, and was the youngest ever person to do so; she was only 18 years old when she started. Previously, she had acted in the children's television comedy series "Seaview".
Since leaving "Blue Peter", Fielding has worked on television shows such as "What's Up Doc?", "Heaven and Earth", "The General" and "City Hospital", and also had acting roles in "Last of the Summer Wine" (making an appearance in the series while making a "Blue Peter" report on the show) and "Juliet Bravo". She also appeared as a regular alongside Fred Dineage and Toyah Willcox on a property-pricing based game-show called "Under Offer" made for Meridian Television.
She appeared in a guest-role in the popular BBC drama "Holby City" in 2007 and appeared in the ITV2 reality television programme "Deadline", finishing second.
Since 2002, Yvette Fielding and her husband Karl Beattie have both made "Most Haunted" for the British TV channel Living through their production company, "Antix." Viewers can see Fielding at many possible haunted locations around Britain, in the hopes for paranormal activity that could be caught on film.
Fielding and her husband have a daughter, Mary.
Eccentric British pop duo, Astrojade, started their musical career with a song titled "Yvette Fielding" as a homage to her and "Most Haunted".
She likes cars and has 3 Aston Martins, a Land Rover and a Range Rover.
Eurotrash
Eurotrash could mean:
ASUS Eee PC
The ASUS Eee PC is a very small laptop made by ASUS and Intel. It is designed to have a light weight and low price. It runs Linux as its operating system.
The name "Eee" (pronounced as the letter "e", IPA /iː/) comes from "the three Es," ASUS used in their advertisements for the device: "Easy to learn, Easy to work, Easy to play".
Tutsan
Telluride Bluegrass Festival
Singer-songwriter
A singer-songwriter is a person who writes and performs their own works. They often accompany themselves on a musical instrument. Singer-songwriters write the music, the lyrics, sing, play the musical instruments, and often manage themselves.
The term became popular in the 1960s. It referred to a specific type of performer who wrote certain kinds of music and lyrics.
List of current champions in WWE
The colors indicate the home brand of the champions.
Last 5 WWE Champions:
Facts about the WWE Championship:
Last 5 WWE Universal Champions:
Some facts about the WWE Universal Championship:
Braun Strowman
Last 5 WWE Intercontinental Champions
Some facts about the WWE Intercontinental Championship:
Bayley
Last 5 Smackdown Women’s Champions:
Some facts about the Smackdown Women’s Championship:
Last 5 WWE United States Champions:
Some facts about the WWE United States Championship:
John Morrison and The Miz
Last 5 Smackdown Tag Team Champions:
Some facts about the Smackdown Tag Team Championships:
Seth Rollins and Buddy Murphy
Last 5 RAW Tag Team Champions:
Some facts about the RAW Tag Team Championships:
Nikki Cross and Alexa Bliss
Some facts about the WWE Women’s Tag Team Champions:
Becky Lynch
Last 5 RAW Women’s Champions:
Some facts about the RAW Women’s Championship:
Rob Gronkoswki
Some facts about the WWE 24/7 Championship:
Jordan Devlin
Last 5 WWE Cruiserweight Champions:
Some facts about the WWE Cruiserweight Championship:
Adam Cole
Last 5 NXT Champions
Charlotte Flair
List 5 NXT Women’s Champions:
Some facts about the NXT Women’s Championship:
The Broserweights
Last 5 NXT Tag Team Champions:
Some facts about the NXT Tag Team Championships:
Last 5 NXT North American Champions:
Some facts about the NXT North American Championship:
WALTER
Last 5 WWE United Kingdom Champions:
Some facts about the WWE United Kingdom Championship:
Kay Lee Ray
Last 5 WWE UK Women’s Champions:
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Complutense University of Madrid
The Complutense University of Madrid (, UCM) is one of the oldest universities in the world and the top public university in Spain. It is located on a sprawling campus that occupies the entirety of the Ciudad Universitaria district of Madrid, with annexes in the district of Somosaguas in the neighbouring city of Pozuelo de Alarcón.
According to the annual university rankings conducted by "El Mundo", the Complutense University ranks as the top public university in Spain.
Opera is a drama set to music. An opera is like a play in which everything is sung instead of spoken. Operas are usually performed in opera houses. The singers who sing and act out the story are on the stage, and the orchestra is in front of the stage but lower down, in the orchestra pit, so that the audience can see the stage.
An opera is normally divided into two, three, four or even five acts. In older operas the music was mostly recitative and arias. During the recitative things would happen in the story. The aria was a song for a solo singer, a setting of a lyric. As well as recitative and aria there would be choruses. The chorus were a group of singers who sing in the crowd scenes. The opera would start with an overture for the orchestra. The overture would usually include tunes that are going to be heard later in the opera.
In operas from the 19th century onwards there is often little or no difference between recitative and aria. Composers like Wagner wanted to get away from operas which had lots of separate arias in which the singers showed off, with the audience clapping loudly after each one. He wanted continuous music so that the mood would not be broken.
Sometimes operas have a lot of dancing in them. French opera especially would often have one act which was full of dances.
Not all operas have music all the time.
Grand opera is opera which is all set to music.
Opéra bouffe (French) or Opera buffa (Italian) is comic opera. The story is very light-hearted and funny.
Opéra comique is a French term for opera which has some spoken words. Surprisingly it does not mean a “comic” opera. An opera like "Carmen", which is a tragedy, is still an opéra comique due to the fact that it uses spoken dialogues instead of recitatives.
Singspiel is a German term for a type of opera with lots of magic and fantasy in the story. There were spoken words between the songs. Mozart’s "Magic Flute" is an example.
Operetta is a short opera which is light-hearted and usually has some spoken words.
Opera singers have to have powerful voices as well as a good technique. Most opera houses are very big, and the singers need to be heard at the back. They also need to be good at acting. They need to be able to learn their music quickly and to sing from memory. It is a help to be good at languages because operas are often in Italian, German, French, English or Russian etc. Some opera companies, like the English National Opera, sing their operas in English. Others, like the Royal Opera House, sing operas in whatever language they were composed in. Translations are printed on a screen above the front of the stage ("surtitles") so that the audience can understand what is being sung.
Although singers train to get a wide range (good top and bottom notes) they cannot be expected to sing any role in their voice range. For example: some sopranos may have big, dramatic voices, suitable for parts like Tosca in Puccini’s opera "Tosca". Some may have a very light and high voice, called “coloratura”, suitable for parts like the Queen of the Night in Mozart’s "Magic Flute". Some may have a medium range, called mezzo-soprano, suitable for parts like Carmen in Bizet’s opera "Carmen".
Very often in opera the heroine is a soprano and the hero is a tenor. Basses may often have the part of a powerful king, or he may be the bad guy.
The 18th century lexicographer and critic Dr Johnson described opera as an “exotic and irrational entertainment”. By “exotic” he meant that it came from a foreign country (which in those days was true: all opera at the time came from Italy). By “irrational” he meant that the things which happened in the stories were strange and not like real life. A play can be like real life, but an opera is being sung, so things are not going to happen like they normally do in real life. A singer might be singing “I must go, I must go!” and he may stand on the stage and sing this for several minutes before at last he goes! A singer may be pretending to die, and will sing a beautiful song before he or she finally dies. These things are “conventions”, which means that they are a kind of habit we have to accept when watching and listening to opera. Another convention of earlier operas was to have the part of young men sung by women. This is sometimes called a breeches role or trouser role. They are often small parts such as page boys, or teenagers who flirt with older women, such as the part of Cherubino in Mozart’s " The Marriage of Figaro" or Oktavian in Richard Strauss’s "Der Rosenkavalier". It should be remembered that in the 18th century it was usual for the main female part to be sung by a man who was a castrato.
There are lots of famous operas, and the best ones have some of the greatest music ever written. The music could not have been written like that if it had not been written for opera. For example: Mozart is very clever at writing music where maybe six people are all singing different things at once because they all have different ideas about the situation in the story.
Medieval Opera (mid 12th century)
One of the first operas ever written was by Hildegard of Bingen. Ordo Virtutum (Latin for "Order of the Virtues") is an allegorical , or , composed c. 1151, during the construction and relocation of Bingen's Abbey at Rupertsberg. It is the earliest morality play by more than a century, and the only Medieval musical drama to survive with an attribution for both the text and the music.
A short version of "Ordo Virtutum" without music appears at the end of "", Hildegard's most famous account of her visions. It is also included in some manuscripts of the "Symphonia armoniae celestium revelationum" ("Symphony of the Harmony of Celestial Revelations"), a cycle of more than 70 liturgical songs. It may have been performed by the convent nuns at the dedication of the St. church in 1152 or possibly before the at the convent .
The first Baroque opera ever written was performed in 1597 in Florence in Italy. It was called "Dafne" and the composer was Jacopo Peri. This opera is now lost, but three years later, in 1600, he worked together with another composer called Giulio Caccini to write an opera called "Euridice". The music for this still exists. It was nearly all recitative. This kind of writing was new, but if opera was to tell a story it was important to have a solo voice singing words that could be heard. They were trying to produce something like an ancient Greek tragedy. It was performed at a kind of club, called “camerata”, for intellectual (clever) people to a small audience. It was not great music, but the amazing thing was that there was a composer of genius around. His name was Claudio Monteverdi, and only seven years later, in 1607, he wrote the first really good opera: "Orfeo", which was produced in Mantua. Monteverdi must have realized that opera had the possibilities of putting poetry, music, scenery and acting all together. He took the kind of songs that were popular at the time and joined them with speaking or recitative. Later in life he joined these so that the music flowed more dramatically.
In 1637 the first public opera house was opened in Venice. Soon lots of theatres in Italy started to produce operas. The stories were usually about ancient times, like the Roman Empire or Greek myths. They started to put in comic (funny) bits to make people laugh. Soon there was opera in Paris, Vienna, Hamburg and in the small courts of Germany which in those days was lots of little countries, each with their own prince who ruled and who kept musicians at court. The composers who are best remembered today include Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632-1687) who was an Italian who moved to France and wrote operas for the French king, and George Frideric Handel (1685-1759) who was a German who moved to England and wrote operas for the opera houses in London. In Italy there were composers like Francesco Cavalli (1602-1676) who had been a choirboy in Monteverdi’s church choir in Venice, and Alessandro Scarlatti 1660-1725 who lived in Naples.
During this period, known as the Baroque period, the opera was an entertainment for the upper classes who went to the opera to be seen in public. Opera was a social occasion where you could meet people and talk, even during the music. Both the singers and the audience behaved in ways that we would think were bad manners.
Christoph Willibald Gluck was a composer who tried to make people take opera more seriously. In 1762 he wrote an opera called "" which was performed in Vienna. It had lots of choruses and ballet numbers, like French opera, but the words were in Italian and the music really concentrated on the story rather than being just a display for clever singers to show off. Some of its music is very famous today, e.g. the "Dance of the Blessed Spirits" which is played on a flute, and Orfeo’s aria "Che faró senza Euridice?" ("What shall I do without Euridice?").
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart learned from Gluck’s ideas about opera. This can be seen in his opera "Idomeneo" which is about a Greek story. Other Italian operas by Mozart include: "Don Giovanni", "Le Nozze di Figaro" and "Cosi fan tutte". He also wrote operas in German: "The Abduction from the Serail" and "The Magic Flute". These are Singspiel: operas which tell magic and fantasy stories.
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) only wrote one opera: "Fidelio". It is a story of a woman who rescues her lover from prison. Rescue operas were popular in France, but this one is in German. It is a serious opera about how a woman can save a man by being true and faithful.
In the 19th century Richard Wagner (1813-1883) continued Gluck’s ideas. Wagner had very personal ideas about how his operas should be performed, and he liked to train the singers himself. He wanted them to take the drama of his operas seriously instead of treating the music as a way of showing off their voices. He always wrote the libretti (words for the opera) himself, and they were always in German. They are mostly about serious subjects from German folklore and myths, although he did write one comic opera: "The Mastersingers of Nürnberg". Wagner used “leitmotifs” which means that there are tunes which are used for particular characters or ideas in the opera. This allows the music to develop with the story, and can be used in interesting ways. For example: when Sigmund (in the opera "Die Walküre") says that he does not know who his father is, we hear his father’s tune in the orchestra! The audience, of course, know (this is called: dramatic irony).
In Italy Gioachino Rossini (1792-1868) wrote lots of operas. There was no difference in style between his comic and his serious operas. Often the same overture was used for both. He wrote exactly all the notes that the singers were to sing, he did not want to leave it to them to improvise their own ornamental notes. Everything was carefully thought out. Musicians are not sure whether to call him a Classical or Romantic composer. Composers like Vincenzo Bellini (1801-1835) and Gaetano Donizetti (1797-1848) are definitely Romantic. They had the ability to write lovely lyrical tunes. The most famous Italian opera composer of the 19th century was Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901). His music is not always continuous like Wagner’s. Sometimes it stopped for the audience to applaud. Verdi had a wonderful sense of drama, and could write beautiful melodies which captured people’s hearts. He loved Shakespeare, and based several of his operas on Shakespeare plays: "Othello", "Macbeth" and "Falstaff".
The 19th century was the time when Nationalism was important. Composers were writing music typical of their own countries. Wagner, as we have seen, took German myths for his opera stories. In Spain they had their own kind of opera called “zarzuela”. In Russia Mikhail Glinka (1804-1857) wrote "Ruslan and Lyudmila" which was based on a Russian fairy tale. Other Russian composers include Alexander Borodin who wrote "Prince Igor", and Modest Mussorgsky (1839-1881) who wrote "Boris Godunov". Both these operas are about stories from Russian history. Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908) wrote a fairy tale opera "Sadko", and Pyotr Tchaikovsky (1840-1893) used some very Russian tunes in "Eugene Onegin" and "The Queen of Spades".
Czech composers wrote national operas. The most famous Czech opera composers were Antonín Dvořák (1841-1904), Bedřich Smetana (1824-1884) and Leoš Janáček (1854-1928). In France the most famous composer was Charles Gounod (1818-1893) who wrote an opera called "Faust".
In the 20th century composers had many different styles of composing. This was true of all kinds of music, including opera. Richard Strauss (1864-1949) was really a Romantic, although almost all his operas were written in the 20th century. His harmonies show that he had studied Wagner’s operas. "Der Rosenkavalier" (1909) has lots of romantic tunes, although it is a story about Vienna in the Classical period. In Italy composers like Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924) wrote operas in the verismo style. This meant operas with stories that felt like real life. The characters in the stories were usually from the lower classes.