title: Amulet

text: In Muslim cultures, amulets often include texts, particularly prayers, texts from the Quran, hadiths (recorded oral histories of early Islam) and religious narratives, and religious names. The word "Allah" (God) is especially popular, as many believe that touching or seeing it wards off evil. The ninety-nine names of God, and the names of the Islamic prophet Muhammad and his companions, are also used. The names of prophets and religious figures are felt to connect the wearer to the named person, protecting the wearer. The written stories of these people are also considered effective, and are sometimes illustrated with images of the religious figure or omens associated with them. Favoured figures include Solomon, Ali ibn Abi Talib and his sons Hasan and Husain, and the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus. Devotional manuals sometimes also promise that those reading them will be protected from demons and jinn. Apotropaic texts may even be incorporated into clothing. Weapons might also be inscribed with religious texts thought to confer protective powers. Scrolls with Qur'anic quotations, prophetic references and sacred symbols were common during war in the Ottoman Empire with Qur'anic verses such as 'victory is from God and conquest is near' (Qur. 6I:13) found on ta'wiz worn in combat. Texts packaged in ta'wiz were most often pre-made when used by the public, but literate wearers could change the verse upon their discretion. While criticized by some denominations, sunni muslims are permitted to wear ta'wiz as long as it consciously strengthens their bond with Allah and does not come from a belief the ta'wiz itself cures or protects.


title: Amulet

text: Astrological symbols were also used, especially in the Medieval period. These included symbols of the Zodiac, derived from Greek representations of constellations, and especially popular in the Middle East in the twelfth to the fourteenth centuries. Muslim artists also developed personifications of the planets, based on their astrological traits, and of a hypothetical invisible planet named Al Tinnin or Jauzahr. It was believed that objects decorated with these astrological signs developed talismanic power to protect.


title: Amulet

text: Abstract symbols are also common in Muslim amulets, such as the Seal of Solomon and the Zulfiqar (sword of the aforementioned Ali). Another popular amulet often used to avert the evil gaze is the "hamsa" (meaning five) or "Hand of Fatima". The symbol is pre-Islamic, known from Punic times.


title: Amulet

text: In Central and West Asia, amulets (often in the form of triangular packages containing a sacred verse) were traditionally attached to the clothing of babies and young children to give them protection from forces such as the evil eye. Triangular amulet motifs were often also woven into oriental carpets such as kilims. The carpet expert Jon Thompson explains that such an amulet woven into a rug is not a theme: it actually is an amulet, conferring protection by its presence. In his words, "the device in the rug has a materiality, it generates a field of force able to interact with other unseen forces and is not merely an intellectual abstraction."


title: Amulet

text: In the Islamic world, material composition and graphic content are important in determining the apotropaic forces of the amulets. The preferred materials employed by amulets are precious and semi-precious materials, because the inherent protective values of these materials depend hugely upon their natural rarity, monetary value, and symbolic implications. Among the semi-precious materials, carnelian "('aqiq)" is often favoured because it was considered as the stone of Muhammad, who was said to have worn a carnelian seal set in silver on the little finger of his right hand. Besides, materials such as jade and jasper are regarded as to possess protective and medicinal properties, including assuring victory in battles, protection from lightning and treating diseases of the internal organs. Sometimes, amulets combine different materials to achieve multiple protective effects. A combination of jade and carnelian, for instance, connotates fertility and embryogenesis. The reddish, transcalent quality of the cornelian resembles blood, which echoes the clot of congealed blood from which Allah created human (Qur. 96:2). Additionally, recurring apotropaic Qur'anic verses are often inscribed on the amulet, praising Allah as the ultimate bestower of security and power and as the provider of the Qur'an and Muhammad.


title: Amulet

text: Diminutive amulets made in the medieval Mediterranean Islamic world include prayers executed with a block print or die (tarsh). Through folding, these miniature paper amulets are often even further reduced in size in order to fit into a tiny wearable box or tubular pendant cases. In other cases, however, these protective objects remain fully loyal to the book format as miniature Qur'ans, protected by illuminated metal cases.


title: Amulet

text: In the Aga Khan Museum, Toronto, rests an example of an Egyptian block printed amulet, made during the tenth or eleventh century. Here, one can notice the minuscule ink on paper script of the size of 7.2 x 5.5 cm. Its text's final line is a verse from the Qur'an that proclaims: 'So God will safeguard you from them. He is All-Hearing and All-Knowing' (Qur. 20:46). A tension is therefore created between the idea of Allah as protector and the amulet as a material item that encapsulates and transmits this divine energy.


title: Amulet

text: Amulets and talismanic objects were used by early Muslims to appeal to God in the first instance. In this respect, these early Islamic amulets differ substantially from Byzantine, Roman, early Iranian, and other pre-Islamic magic which addressed demonic forces or spirits of the dead. The main function of amulets was to ward off misfortune, "evil eye", and the jinn. They were meant to promote health, longevity, fertility, and potency.


title: Amulet

text: Despite regional variations, what unites these objects is that they are characterized by the use of particular and distinctive vocabulary of writings and symbols. These can appear in a multitude of combinations. The important elements to these amulets are the 'magic'vocabulary used and the heavy implementation of the Qur'an. The regional variations of these amulets each are unique; however, they are tied together through the Quranic inscriptions, images of Muhammad, astrological signs, and religious narratives.


title: Amulet

text: Such text amulets were originally housed within a lead case imprinted with surat al-Ikhlas (Qur. n2: 1-4), a verse that instructs the worshipper to proclaim God's sanctity. As seen in a diverse range of block printed amulets, the lead case should include lugs, which allowed the tiny package to be either sewn onto clothing or suspended from the owner's body. These modest containers were, most likely, kept sealed shut, their printed contents therefore invisible to a possessor who perhaps was not wealthy enough to purchase a non-serialised, handwritten amulet.


title: Amulet

text: The Tibetan Buddhists have many kinds of talismanic and shamanistic amulets and ritual tools, including the dorje, the bell, and many kinds of portable amulets. The Tibetan Buddhists enclose prayers on a parchment scroll within a prayer wheel, which is then spun around, each rotation being one recitation of all of the stanzas within the prayer wheel.


title: Amulet

text: The people of Thailand, with Buddhist and animist beliefs, also have a vast pantheon of amulets, which are still popular and in common use by most people even in the present day. The belief in magic is impregnated into Thai culture and religious beliefs and folk superstitions, and this is reflected in the fact that we can still see commonplace use of amulets and magical rituals in everyday life. Some of the more commonly known amulets are of course the Buddhist votive tablets, such as the Pra Somdej Buddha image, and guru monk coins. But Thailand has an immensely large number of magical traditions, and thousands of different types of amulet and occult charm can be found in use, ranging from the takrut scroll spell, to the necromantic Ban Neng Chin Aathan, which uses the bones or flesh of the corpse of a 'hoeng prai' ghost (a person who died unnaturally, screaming, or in other strange premature circumstances), to reanimate the spirit of the dead, to dwell within the bone as a spirit, and assist the owner to achieve their goals. The list of Thai Buddhist amulets in existence is a lifetime study in its own right, and indeed, many people devote their lives to the study of them, and collection. Thai amulets are still immensely popular both with Thai folk as well as with foreigners, and in recent years, a massive increase in foreign interest has caused the subject of Thai Buddhist amulets to become a commonly known topic around the world. Amulets can fetch prices ranging from a few dollars right up to millions of dollars for a single amulet. Due to the money that can be made with sorcery services, and with rare collector amulets of the master class, there is also a forgery market in existence, which ensures that the experts of the scene maintain a monopoly on the market. With so many fakes, experts are needed for collectors to trust for obtaining authentic amulets, and not selling them fakes.


title: Amulet

text: Amulets vary considerably according to their time and place of origin. In many societies, religious objects serve as amulets, e.g. deriving from the ancient Celts, the clover, if it has four leaves, symbolizes good luck (not the Irish shamrock, which symbolizes the Christian Trinity).


title: Amulet

text: In Bolivia, the god Ekeko furnishes a standard amulet, to whom one should offer at least one banknote or a cigarette to obtain fortune and welfare.


title: Amulet

text: In certain areas of India, Nepal and Sri Lanka, it is traditionally believed that the jackal's horn can grant wishes and reappear to its owner at its own accord when lost. Some Sinhalese believe that the horn can grant the holder invulnerability in any lawsuit.


title: Amulet

text: In the Philippines, amulets are called agimat or "anting-anting". According to folklore, the most powerful "anting-anting" is the "hiyas ng saging" (directly translated as pearl or gem of the banana). The hiyas must come from a mature banana and only comes out during midnight. Before the person can fully possess this agimat, he must fight a supernatural creature called "kapre". Only then will he be its true owner. During Holy Week, devotees travel to Mount Banahaw to recharge their amulets.


title: Central Reserve Police Force

text: The Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) is a federal police organisation in India under the authority of the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) of the Government of India. It is one among the Central Armed Police Forces. The CRPF's primary role lies in assisting the State/Union Territories in police operations to maintain law and order and counter-insurgency. It is composed of Central Reserve Police Force (Regular) and Central Reserve Police Force (Auxiliary).


title: Central Reserve Police Force

text: It came into existence as the Crown Representative's Police on 27 July 1939. After Indian independence, it became the Central Reserve Police Force on enactment of the CRPF Act on 28 December 1949. Besides law and order and counter-insurgency duties, the CRPF has played an increasingly large role in India's general elections. This is especially true for the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir, Bihar and in the North East, with the presence of unrest and often violent conflict. During the Parliamentary elections of September 1999, the CRPF played a major role in the security arrangements. Of late, CRPF contingents are also being deployed in UN missions.


title: Central Reserve Police Force

text: With 246 battalions and various other establishments, the CRPF is considered India's largest central armed police force and has a sanctioned strength of more than 300,000 personnel as of 2019.


title: Central Reserve Police Force

text: The mission of the Central Reserve Police Force shall be to enable the government to maintain Rule of Law, Public Order and Internal Security effectively and efficiently to preserve National Integrity & Promote Social Harmony and Development by upholding supremacy of the Constitution.


title: Central Reserve Police Force

text: In performing these tasks with utmost regard for human dignity and freedom of the citizens of India, the force shall endeavor to achieve excellence in management of internal security and national calamities by placing Service and Loyalty above self.


title: Central Reserve Police Force

text: There are few parallels of such a battle and the then Union Home Minister very appropriately graded it as a "Military Battle" not a Police battle. The service and their sacrifice will now not need turning back to old records for appreciation with that historic moment being picked up for celebration as "Valour Day" of the Force after Year.


title: Central Reserve Police Force

text: The Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) is the premier central police force of the Union of India for internal security. Originally constituted as the Crown Representative Police in 1939, it is one of the oldest Central para military forces (now termed as Central Armed Police Force). CRPF was raised as a sequel to the political unrest and the agitations in the then princely States of India following the Madras Resolution of the All-India Congress Committee in 1936 and the ever-growing desire of the Crown Representative to help the vast majority of the native States to preserve law and order as a part of the imperial policy.


title: Central Reserve Police Force

text: After Independence, the force was renamed as Central Reserve Police Force by an Act of Parliament on 28 December 1949. This Act constituted CRPF as an armed force of the Union. Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, the then Home Minister, visualised a multi-dimensional role for it in tune with the changing needs of a newly independent nation.


title: Central Reserve Police Force

text: During the early 1950s, the performance of the CRPF detachments in Bhuj, the then Patiala and East Punjab state Union (PEPSU)Patiala and East Punjab States Union and Chambal ravines was appreciated by all quarters. The force played a significant role during the amalgamation of the princely States into the Indian Union. It helped the Union Government in disciplining the rebellious princely States of Junagarh and the small principality of Kathiawar in Gujarat which had declined to join the Indian Union.


title: Central Reserve Police Force

text: Soon after Independence, contingents of the CRPF were sent on Kutch, Rajasthan and Sindh borders to check infiltration and trans-border crimes. They were, subsequently, deployed on the Pakistan border in Jammu and Kashmir following attacks launched by the Pakistani infiltrators. The CRPF bore the brunt of the first Chinese attack on India at Hot Springs (Ladakh) on 21 October 1959. A small CRPF patrol was ambushed by the Chinese in which ten of its men made their supreme sacrifice for the country. Their martyrdom on 21 October is remembered throughout the country as the Police Commemoration Day every year.


title: Central Reserve Police Force

text: During the Sino-Indian War of 1962, the Force once again assisted the Indian Army in Arunachal Pradesh. Eight CRPF personnel were killed in action. In 1965 and 1971 Indo-Pak wars also the Force fought shoulder-to-shoulder with the Indian Army, both on the Western and Eastern borders.


title: Central Reserve Police Force

text: For the first time in the history of para-military Forces in India, thirteen companies of CRPF including a detachment of women were airlifted to join the Indian Peace Keeping Force in Sri Lanka to fight the militant caders. Besides, CRPF personnel were also sent to Haiti, Namibia, Somalia and Maldives to deal with law and order situation there, as a part of the UN Peace Keeping Force.


title: Central Reserve Police Force

text: In the late seventies, when the extremist elements disturbed peace in Tripura and Manipur, CRPF battalions were deployed in strength. Simultaneously, there was a turmoil in the Brahmaputra Valley. The CRPF had to be inducted in strength not only to maintain law and order but also to keep lines of communication free from disruption. The commitments of the Force continue to be very high in the North-East in dealing with the insurgency.


title: Central Reserve Police Force

text: The role of the CRPF and its services rendered have extended beyond the nation's borders as well. The services rendered by the CRPF in Sri Lanka as part of IPKF, as part of the UN Peace Keeping Force in Namibia, Somalia, Haiti, Maldives and also in Bosnia speaks volumes about the ability, agility, versatility and dependability of the Force to adapt to any conflict-situation round the globe. Presently a contingent of 240 personnel of RAF are deployed in KOSOVO as UN Mission in Kosovo is to provide protection and security to the UN officials/UN civil police/ Crowd control etc. RAF coys will also assist local Police to control /mob during violent demonstration, humanitarian and to assist the activities of the ICTY.


title: Central Reserve Police Force

text: Haiti was under the commandment of National Council of Government in 1986 under Jean Claude Duvalier. The country went through a series of political instability moving from one military Government to other from 1986 to 1991. The country experienced 4 military coup. In 1991 military government was replaced by a young priest Jean Bertrand Aristide who took over as president after election in November 1990, he was overthrown after 7 months in Sept 1991 by General Cadres. The Priest Jean Bertrand Aristide took asylum in USA with U.S troops who prepared to enter Haiti under orders from President Bill Clinton of USA. The Wind was favourable for the return of Aristide to power by holding elections in Haiti in Oct 1994.


title: Central Reserve Police Force

text: The duties performed by the contingent included mobile patrolling, saturation patrolling, manning and guarding of Police Stations and the National Prison, combined mounted/dismounted patrols, Prison monitor teams and security escorts. They also trained the prisoners. All such duties were conducted as a special arrangement for peaceful conduct of Presidential elections in Haiti.


title: Central Reserve Police Force

text: Lalgarh was severely affected by the Naxalites in the late 2000s and early 2010s. To solve this menace, WB government requested the deployment of the CRPF and it's newly raised CoBRA battalions. The operation ended after the encounter of Kishenji, who was the root of the rebellion.


title: Central Reserve Police Force

text: On a special request from United Nations and direction of Govt. of India/Ministry of Home Affairs, a fully formed Female Police Unit (FFPU) was formed up with Mahila CRPF personnel which was further deployed in Liberia during Feb 2007, as part of an UN peacekeeping force in the strife-torn African nation.


title: Central Reserve Police Force

text: Out of the 23 nations deployed there, only India has the privilege of having an exclusive women's team there, and it was the first exclusive female team of police which was pressed into action in any UN peacekeeping force.


title: Central Reserve Police Force

text: This deployment is still on as part of the UN mission however is now supplemented by a male Contingent also. Tenure of each contingent is for one year. At present, 8th Batch of Female contingents and 5th Batch of Male contingents have been deployed in Liberia.


title: Central Reserve Police Force

text: CRPF is deployed in Jammu and Kashmir for various reasons. Their duty includes performing CASOs, SADOs, ROPs, providing security to both vital installations and highways, etc. In fact, their way of operating even surpasses the RR of the army operating there. They are the most active in the valley along with the JKP SOG. Their method of doing operations in the valley are highly appreciated and are second to none.


title: Central Reserve Police Force

text: The CRPF is headed by a Director general who is an Indian Police Service officer and is divided into ten administrative sectors, each headed by an Inspector General. Each Sector consists of one or more administrative and/or Operational Ranges, headed by an officer of the rank of Deputy Inspector General (DIG) of Police. Now, Group Centres are also headed by DIGs. The Financial Advisor of the CRPF has been an Indian Revenue Service officer of the rank of Joint Secretary and also has Dy Advisors from the Indian Audit and Accounts Service or the Indian Telecom. Service and Indian Civil Account Service.


title: Central Reserve Police Force

text: There are 243 battalions, (including 204 executive Bns, 6 Mahila Bns, 15 RAF Bns, 10 CoBRA Bns, 5 Signal Bns and 1 Special Duty Group, 1 Parliament Duty Group), of approximately 1200 constables each. Each battalion is commanded by a commanding officer of the rank Commandant, and consists of seven CRPF companies, each containing 135 men. Each company is headed by an Assistant Commandant.


title: Central Reserve Police Force

text: The Ministry of Home Affairs plans to raise 2 Group Centers, 2 Range HQ's, 1 Sector HQ and 12 new battalions including a Mahila (all female) battalion by 2019.


title: Central Reserve Police Force

text: The CRPF force is organized into a Headquarter, three attached wings and fours zones. A zone is either headed by an additional director general or a special director general. A zone is sub-divided into sectors where each sector is headed by an inspector general.


title: Central Reserve Police Force

text: The Rapid Action Force (RAF) is a specialized 15 battalion wing of the Indian Central Reserve Police Force. It was formed in October 1992, to deal with communal riots and related civil unrest. The battalions are numbered from 99 to 108. 5 more battalion also added in year 2017 by converting GD battalion into RAF battalion. The RAF is a zero-response force intended to quickly respond to a crisis situation.


title: Central Reserve Police Force

text: This force also has the distinction of having a unique flag signifying peace. The force was the recipient of the President's colour presented by Shri L.K. Advani, then Deputy Prime Minister of India, on 7 October 2003 for "its selfless service to the nation in the 11th year of coming into existence".


title: Central Reserve Police Force

text: The smallest functional unit in the force is a 'Team' commanded by an inspector, which has three components — a riot control element, a tear gas element and a fire element. It has been organized as an independent strike unit.


title: Central Reserve Police Force

text: One team in each company of the RAF is composed of female personnel so as to deal more effectively with situation where the force faces women demonstrators.


title: Central Reserve Police Force

text: The Parliament Duty Group is an elite CRPF unit tasked with providing armed protection to Parliament House. It comprises 1,540 personnel drawn from various units of Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF). PDG members are trained in combating nuclear and bio-chemical attacks, rescue operations and behavioural management.


title: Central Reserve Police Force

text: The Parliament House complex is protected by teams from the Delhi police, CRPF, ITBP and personnel of the Parliament Security Service. The Parliament Security Service acts as the overall coordinating agency in close cooperation with various security agencies such as the Delhi Police, CRPF, IB, SPG and NSG.


title: Central Reserve Police Force

text: PDG personnel are armed with Glock Pistols, MP5 Submachine Gun, INSAS sniper rifles with telescope and hand-held thermal imagers.


title: Central Reserve Police Force

text: The Special Duty Group is an elite battalion of the CRPF tasked with providing security for the outer cordon of the Prime Minister's official residence on 7, Lok Kalyan Marg and his office in the North Block as well as during outdoor functions. It comprises around a 1000 personnel.


title: Central Reserve Police Force

text: Commando Battalion for Resolute Action (CoBRA) is the special operation unit of CRPF created in 2008 to deal the Naxalite movement in India. This specialised CRPF unit is one of the few units of the "Central Armed Police Forces" in the country who are specifically trained in guerilla warfare. This elite fighting unit has been trained to track, hunt and eliminate small Naxalite groups. There are currently 10 COBRA units.


title: Central Reserve Police Force

text: 10 CoBRA units raised between 2008 and 2011 have been trained, equipped and deployed in all LWE/ Insurgent affected areas of the states of Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Odisha, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, as well as Assam & Meghalaya is one of the best Central Armed Police in the country trained to survive, fight and win in the jungle. CoBRA is unquestionably/undoubtedly the best CAP in the country.


title: Central Reserve Police Force

text: The organization is structured mainly on three rank categories which includes Gazetted Officers(GOs), Subordinate Officers(SOs) and Non-Gazetted Officers(NGOs). The Assistant Commandants are Group 'A' Gazetted officers, directly appointed upon clearing an exam conducted by the UPSC which is held yearly.


title: Central Reserve Police Force

text: Being a central Indian police agency and having high presence of Indian Police Service officers, CRPF follows ranks and insignia similar to other police organisations in India.


title: Central Reserve Police Force

text: V. G. Kanetkar was the first Director General of the Central Reserve Police Force, serving from 3 August 1968 to 15 September 1969. The current Director General is Dr. Sujoy Lal Thaosen, in office since 1 October 2022.


title: Central Reserve Police Force

text: CRPF has six Mahila (Female) Battalions. After its training in March 1987, 88(M) Bn won laurels for its work assisting the Meerut riots and later with the IPKF in Sri Lanka. Personnel of second Mahila battalion (135 Bn) performed creditably during the Lok Sabha elections 1996 in many states. At present female personnel are deployed in active duty in Jammu & Kashmir, Ayodhya, Manipur, Assam and other parts of the country where they are doing commendable job. In addition each RAF battalion has a component of 96 female operators.


title: Central Reserve Police Force

text: The successful experiment of the 88 (Mahila) Bn and the ever-increasing necessity of female officers in dealing with emerging law and order situation as well as the Government emphasis on equality and women empowerment ,crpf raised the second and third Mahila Bn i.e. the 135 (M) Bn with HQR at Gandhinagar (Gujarat) in 1995 and the 213 Bn with HQR at Nagpur (Maharastra) in 2011.


title: Central Reserve Police Force

text: CRPF uses basic Infantry weapons which are manufactured indigenously at the Indian Ordnance Factories under control of the Ordnance Factories Board: They are also equipped with weapons like CGRL, 81mm mortars, AGLs, etc.


title: Central Reserve Police Force

text: CRPF bagged highest humber of gallantary medals amongst all paramilitary forces. The force was awarded 30 gallantary medals on Republic Day 2022.


title: Central Reserve Police Force

text: The acronym CRPF has been expanded as ""Chalte Raho Pyare Force"" () since they are constantly on the move from one troubled place in India to another.


title: Tubular Bells

text: Tubular Bells is the debut studio album by English musician Mike Oldfield, released on 25 May 1973 as the first album on Virgin Records. Oldfield, who was 19 years old when it was recorded, played almost all the instruments on the mostly instrumental album.


title: Tubular Bells

text: The album initially sold slowly, but gained worldwide attention in December 1973 when its opening theme was used for the soundtrack to the horror film "The Exorcist". This led to a surge in sales which increased Oldfield's profile and played an important part in the growth of the Virgin Group. It stayed in the top ten of the UK Albums Chart for one year from March 1974, during which it reached number one for one week. It peaked at number three on the US "Billboard" 200, and reached the top position in Canada and Australia. The album has sold over 2.7 million copies in the UK and an estimated 15 million worldwide.


title: Tubular Bells

text: An orchestral version produced by David Bedford was released in 1975 as "The Orchestral Tubular Bells". Oldfield has recorded three sequels: "Tubular Bells II" (1992), "Tubular Bells III" (1998), and "The Millennium Bell" (1999). For the album's 30th anniversary Oldfield re-recorded the album as "Tubular Bells 2003". A remastered edition was released in 2009. Its contribution to British music was recognised when Oldfield played extracts during the 2012 Summer Olympics opening ceremony in London. In 2010, "Tubular Bells" was one of ten classic album covers from British artists commemorated on a series of UK postage stamps issued by the Royal Mail.


title: Tubular Bells

text: Oldfield learned to play the guitar at an early age, and as a teenager he became the bass player for the Whole World, a band put together by former Soft Machine member Kevin Ayers. The Whole World recorded their album "Shooting at the Moon" (1970) at Abbey Road Studios over a period of several months in 1970, and when the group did not have a recording session booked in the morning, the 17-year-old Oldfield would arrive early and experiment with the different instruments in the studios, including pianos, harpischords, a Mellotron and various orchestral percussion instruments, and learn to play each of them.


title: Tubular Bells

text: The Whole World broke up in mid-1971 and Ayers lent Oldfield a two-track Bang & Olufsen Beocord " tape recorder. Oldfield modified the recorder by blocking off the erase head of the tape machine, which allowed him to record onto one track, bounce the recording onto the second, and record a new instrument onto the first track, thus overdubbing his playing one instrument at a time and effectively making multi-track recordings. In his flat in Tottenham in north London, Oldfield recorded demos of four tracks he had been composing in his head for some years, using the tape recorder, his guitar and bass, some toy percussion instruments, and a Farfisa organ borrowed from the Whole World's keyboardist David Bedford. The demos comprised three shorter melodies (early versions of what would become the sections titled "Peace", "Bagpipe Guitars", and "Caveman" on "Tubular Bells 2003"), and a longer piece he had provisionally titled "Opus One". Oldfield stated that he had been inspired to write a long instrumental piece after hearing "Septober Energy" (1971), the only album by Centipede. He was also influenced by classical music, and by "A Rainbow in Curved Air" (1969) by experimental composer Terry Riley, on which Riley played all the instruments himself and used tape loops and overdubs to build up a long, repetitive piece of music.


title: Tubular Bells

text: Late in 1971 Oldfield joined the band of Arthur Louis who were recording demos at The Manor Studio. The studio was being constructed in the former squash court of an old manor house in Shipton-on-Cherwell, Oxfordshire, which had recently been bought by the young entrepreneur Richard Branson and which was being turned into a residential recording facility run by his music production team of Tom Newman and Simon Heyworth. Oldfield was shy and socially awkward, but struck up a friendship with the two producers after they heard his guitar playing. Oldfield asked Newman to listen to his demos, but they were in his Tottenham flat, so one of Louis' roadies drove Oldfield to London and back to retrieve them. Newman and Heyworth made a copy of the demos onto 4-track tape, and promised Oldfield that they would speak to Branson and his business partner Simon Draper about them. After the album was released, Newman said he preferred the demo versions: "They were complete melodies in themselves – with intros and fade-outs or ends. I liked them very much and was a little nonplussed when Mike strung them all together."


title: Tubular Bells

text: Oldfield spent much of 1972 working with his old bandmates from the Whole World on their solo projects, while simultaneously trying to find a record label interested in his demos. Oldfield approached EMI, CBS, and various other labels, but all the companies rejected him, believing the piece to be unmarketable without vocals. Increasingly frustrated with the record company rejections and short of money, Oldfield heard that the Soviet Union paid musicians to give public performances, and was at the point of looking through the telephone directory for the phone number of the Soviet embassy when Draper called him with an invitation to dinner with Branson and himself on Branson's houseboat moored in London. Over dinner Branson told Oldfield that he liked the demos, and wanted Oldfield to spend a week at the Manor recording "Opus One".


title: Tubular Bells

text: "Tubular Bells" was recorded on an Ampex 2-inch 16-track tape recorder with the Dolby noise-reduction system, which was the Manor's main recording equipment at the time. To create his work Oldfield asked Virgin for various instruments to be hired, which included guitars, various keyboards and percussion instruments. Oldfield has recounted differing stories over the years regarding the inclusion of the tubular bells; in 2001 he suggested that they were among the instruments he asked Branson to hire, but in 2013, he stated that he saw them among the instruments being removed from the studios after John Cale had finished recording there, and asked for them to be left behind for his own recording sessions. Oldfield, Newman, and Heyworth spent their evenings drinking in the local pub, after which they returned to the Manor and record through the night. Heyworth recalled several disasters happening during the recording, including one instance where half a day's work was accidentally erased. Final mixing of the album was an involved process, with the faders being operated by Oldfield, Newman, Heyworth, and two others simultaneously. They followed detailed tracking charts and the process was restarted if one person made even a slight mistake. Heyworth recalled difficulty in cutting the album to vinyl due to the limited dynamic range of the medium, and insisted on heavy vinyl normally used for classical music records.


title: Tubular Bells

text: Oldfield played the majority of the instruments on the album as a series of overdubs, which was an uncommon recording technique at the time. In total, 274 overdubs were made and an estimated two thousand "punch-ins" added later, although Newman said "it was really only 70 or 80" in total. Despite various guitars being listed on the album sleeve, such as "speed guitars", "fuzz guitars" and "guitars sounding like bagpipes", the only electric guitar used on the album was a 1966 blonde Fender Telecaster which used to belong to Marc Bolan and to which Oldfield had added an extra Bill Lawrence pick-up. All the guitars were recorded via direct injection into the mixing desk. To create the "speed guitar" and "mandolin-like guitar" named in the sleeve notes, the tape was simply run at half speed during recording. An actual mandolin was used only for the ending of Part Two. Oldfield also used a custom effects unit, named the Glorfindel box, to create the "fuzz guitars" and "bagpipe guitars" distortion on some pieces on the album. In 2011, Oldfield's Fender Telecaster was sold for £6,500, and the money was donated to the mental health charity SANE. According to engineer Phil Newell, the bass guitar used on the album was one of his Fender Telecaster Basses.


title: Tubular Bells

text: Oldfield recorded side one, still known as "Opus One" at the time, during his one allotted week at the Manor in November 1972. He was particularly interested in starting the piece with a repeating riff, and devised the opening piano sequence after experimenting with an idea for several minutes on Bedford's Farfisa organ. He wanted a slight variation on its 16/8 time signature by dropping the sixteenth beat, and chose the key of A minor as it was easy to play. Oldfield recorded the opening riff on a Steinway grand piano, but struggled to perform in time. Heyworth solved the problem by placing a microphone next to a metronome in another room and feeding it into Oldfield's headphones. The short honky-tonk piano section was included as a tribute to Oldfield's grandmother, who had played the instrument in pubs before World War II. The staff and workers at the Manor made up the "nasal choir" that accompanies it. Oldfield had difficulty in producing a sound from the tubular bells, as he wanted a loud note from them but both the standard leather-covered and bare metal hammers did not produce the volume that he wanted. In the end, Newman obtained a heavier claw hammer and Oldfield used it to produce the desired sound intensity but cracked the bells in the process.


title: Tubular Bells

text: The track closes with a segment featuring Vivian Stanshall, formerly of the comedic rock group Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, introducing each instrument being played one by one. The idea originated when the band were due to use the Manor after Oldfield, and had arrived while he was still recording. Oldfield had liked the way Stanshall introduced the instruments one at a time on the Bonzos' song "The Intro and the Outro" on "Gorilla" (1967), and told Newman that he would like Stanshall to do the same. Newman agreed, but had to persuade the shy Oldfield to ask Stanshall if he would carry out the request. Stanshall readily agreed to the idea and is credited on the liner notes as "Master of Ceremonies", but Newman recalled that the job proved to be more difficult than anticipated, as Stanshall forgot the names of the instruments and introduced them at the wrong points. Oldfield wrote a list of the instruments in order, indicating where Stanshall should introduce them. The way in which Stanshall said "plus... tubular bells" inspired Oldfield to use it as the album's title.


title: Tubular Bells

text: After Part One had been recorded, Oldfield was allowed to stay on at the Manor to record additional overdubs during studio downtime. He spent Christmas and New Year at his family's home, but returned to the Manor from February to April 1973 to record the second part of his planned album. Oldfield had "Part Two" mapped out and sequenced by the time he came to record it.


title: Tubular Bells

text: The "caveman" section is the only part of "Tubular Bells" that features a drum kit, which is played by Steve Broughton of the Edgar Broughton Band. The section begins with a backing track of bass and drums, with Oldfield overdubbing all other instruments. The shouting vocals developed near the end of the recording, when he had practically finished recording the instruments for the section but felt it needed something else. Heyworth recalled that Branson was getting impatient and pressured Oldfield to deliver the album, and to include vocals on one of the tracks so he could release it as a single. Angered by Branson's suggestion, Oldfield returned to the Manor where he drank half a bottle of Jameson's whiskey from the studio's cellar and demanded that the engineer take him to the studio where, intoxicated, he "screamed his brains out for 10 minutes" into a microphone. The incident left Oldfield so hoarse that he was unable to speak for two weeks. The engineer ran the tape at a higher speed during the recording, so that upon playback the tape ran at normal speed, thus dropping the pitch of the voice track and producing the "Piltdown Man" vocals listed on the credits.


title: Tubular Bells

text: Side two closes with a rendition of "The Sailor's Hornpipe", a track Oldfield had been performing since he was in the Whole World. It was originally preceded by a longer version of the piece, featuring a vocal contribution from Stanshall over musical backing and marching footsteps. This session occurred at 4 a.m. after Oldfield, Stanshall, and Newman had spent the night drinking. Newman placed microphones in various rooms of the Manor and began recording, and the trio set off on an unplanned tour of the house, with Oldfield on mandolin and Newman on acoustic guitar playing "The Sailor's Hornpipe" while Stanshall gave an inebriated, improvised tour of the Manor. In the end, a more traditional instrumental version of the tune was put on the album although Stanshall's version was included on the "Boxed" compilation. It is also found on the 2001 and 2009 remasters as a bonus track.


title: Tubular Bells

text: The cover of "Tubular Bells" was created by designer and photographer Trevor Key, who was suggested by Sue Steward, a press officer at Virgin Records at the time. Key was invited to present his portfolio, and one of his designs depicted a boiled egg with blood dripping from it, which Branson liked and wanted to use for the cover because he wanted to call the album "Breakfast in Bed". Oldfield hated both the image and the title and rejected them. A modified version of the image, with the blood replaced by egg yolk, was used as the cover for "Heaven's Open" (1991), Oldfield's final album for Virgin.


title: Tubular Bells

text: Steward accompanied Key to a beach on the Sussex coast to photograph the cover's backdrop. Key brought with him bones shown burning on the beach on the back cover, but the day was bitterly cold and it took some time to set light to them. The perfectionist Key also spent several hours photographing the seascape until he had a shot of the waves that he was happy with. The triangular "bent bell" on the front was inspired by the damage Oldfield had caused to the tubular bells while playing them on the record. Key designed and constructed one, which he then photographed in his studio and superimposed on the beach backdrop. Oldfield was captivated by the finished artwork, and insisted that his name and the album title be in small letters and coloured pale orange, so as not to distract from the overall image. According to Steward, Key was paid £100 for his work, but he went on to design several other sleeves for Virgin and Factory Records artists, including "Technique" (1989) by New Order and "Genetic Engineering" (1983) by Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark.


title: Tubular Bells

text: The "bent bell" has become the image most associated with Oldfield, appearing on the cover of every "Tubular Bells" sequel album. It is also the logo of his personal music company, Oldfield Music Ltd. The cover of "Tubular Bells" was among ten images chosen by Royal Mail for a set of "Classic Album Cover" postage stamps, issued in January 2010.


title: Tubular Bells

text: In January 1973, Branson visited the MIDEM music conference in Cannes, France and pitched side one to various music companies with the hope of securing a record deal. One American executive offered $20,000 if vocals were added to the music. The unsuccessful visit led Branson and Draper to consider putting the album out through mail order, before they chose to form their own label, Virgin Records, and use "Tubular Bells" as their first release. The album was released on 25 May 1973 in the UK; its North American release followed in October. Initial sales were slow, and the album did not appear on the UK Albums Chart until July 1973, and reached its initial chart peak of number 7.


title: Tubular Bells

text: The situation changed following the release of "The Exorcist" in December 1973, causing an increase in sales. From February 1974 to May 1975, the album spent just four weeks outside the UK top ten and during this time, after spending ten consecutive weeks in second place behind "Band on the Run" (1973) by Wings and Oldfield's second album "Hergest Ridge" (1974), "Tubular Bells" finally went to number one for the week ending 5 October 1974, sixteen months after its release. In surpassing "Hergest Ridge" for the number one album, Oldfield became the second artist in history to replace himself at the top of the UK album chart, after The Beatles had managed it once in 1963 and again in 1964. The feat was later achieved by Michael Jackson and David Bowie, both times following their deaths. The album has re-entered the charts in every decade since its release, its most recent appearance being in the week ending 22 March 2018, its 287th week in total.


title: Tubular Bells

text: On 22 April 2007, British newspaper "The Mail on Sunday" gave away 2.25 million free copies of "Tubular Bells" to its readers in a card packet displaying the artwork. The release was organised by EMI, who had bought out Virgin Records, and the newspaper claimed that its promotion increased sales of the album by 30%. Oldfield was unhappy about the deal, as he had not been consulted about it and felt it devalued the work.


title: Tubular Bells

text: "Tubular Bells" has sold more than 2.63 million copies in the UK, and an estimated 15 million worldwide. As of July 2016, it was the 42nd best-selling album of all time in the UK.


title: Tubular Bells

text: The first single released from the album was created by the original US distributor, Atlantic Records. The single was an edit of the first three sections from Part One and was not authorised by Oldfield. The single was released in February 1974 in the United States and Canada only, where it peaked at number seven on the U.S. "Billboard" Hot 100 chart on 11 May 1974, making Oldfield a one-hit wonder on the US charts. The track also reached number 15 on the Adult Contemporary chart. In Canada, the single was released as "Tubular Bells (Theme from "Exorcist")", peaking at number three on the "RPM" Top Singles chart on 18 May 1974, and was placed at number 103 in the top 200 singles of the year.


title: Tubular Bells

text: "Mike Oldfield's Single (Theme from "Tubular Bells")" was the first 7-inch single released by Oldfield in the UK, in June 1974, peaking at number 31. The A-side was a re-recording of Part Two's "bagpipe guitars" section, arranged in a more pastoral version with acoustic guitars and featuring the oboe (played by Lindsay Cooper) as the lead instrument, with "Froggy Went A-Courting" as the B-side.


title: Tubular Bells

text: In 2008, Oldfield's original 35-year deal with Virgin Records ended and the rights to the album returned to him. After signing to Mercury Records in 2005, Oldfield's albums originally released on Virgin were transferred to Mercury and re-released, starting the following year. "Tubular Bells" was reissued in June 2009 in a number of formats, including vinyl, 2-CD and DVD, and includes a new stereo mix by Oldfield in March 2009 from his home studio in Nassau, Bahamas. The Deluxe Edition contains a 5.1 surround sound mix and the Ultimate Edition contains an accompanying book and memorabilia.


title: Tubular Bells

text: The release was promoted by a series of bell-ringing events at 6 p.m. on 6 June 2009, a reference to the Number of the Beast. One of the events was held at the British Music Experience at The O, featuring the 29-piece Handbell Ringers of Great Britain and a performance by The Orb named "Orbular Bells". There were also bell-ringing workshops and competitions at the Experience. The album reached number 11 in the UK.


title: Tubular Bells

text: After recording "Tubular Bells", Oldfield felt he had "got it out of his system" and was reluctant to do any promotional engagements. However, Branson and Draper felt a live performance of the work was the best way to present it to journalists and the public, and organised a concert at London's Queen Elizabeth Hall on 25 June 1973. Oldfield was convinced that the music would not come off well in a live setting, and despite several well-known and accomplished musicians agreeing to the one-off show, refused to do it. Desperate to prevent Oldfield pulling out, Branson offered to give Oldfield his Bentley car, which he had bought from George Harrison and knew Oldfield liked, if he went through with the gig. Oldfield agreed, and following rehearsals at Shepperton film studios, Oldfield still had reservations about the performance until Mick Taylor of The Rolling Stones brought frontman Mick Jagger backstge to meet Oldfield, whose support gave Oldfield the confidence to "at least walk on stage." The concert duly went ahead and was well-received, leaving Oldfied "stunned" at the reaction, despite him considering it a disaster with out-of-tune instruments and Stanshall introducing the instruments in the wrong order.


title: Tubular Bells

text: The concert featured members of Henry Cow and musicians associated with the Canterbury Scene, as well as Mick Taylor of the Rolling Stones. Steve Winwood and Robert Wyatt were also due to take part, but Winwood pulled out as he was unable to find time to attend the rehearsals, and Wyatt was recovering from the recent accident that had left him paralysed.


title: Tubular Bells

text: Oldfield and many of the musicians who had taken part in the Queen Elizabeth Hall concert performed Part One again later in the year for the BBC arts programme "2nd House", this time as a pre-recorded performance in a studio setting without an audience. The performance was recorded on 30 November 1973 and transmitted on BBC2 on 5 January 1974. The arrangement included a new part for oboe, played by Soft Machine's Karl Jenkins, and accompanied on-screen visuals of tubular steel sculptures and sequences from the film "Reflections", both created by artist William Pye. The performance was released on the "Elements" (2004) DVD and as part of the Deluxe and Ultimate Editions of the 2009 reissue of "Tubular Bells".


title: Tubular Bells

text: Influential British DJ John Peel was an early admirer of the record, and played it on his "Top Gear" radio show on BBC Radio 1 on 29 May 1973, four days after the album's release, calling it "one of the most impressive LPs I've ever had the chance to play on the radio, really a remarkable record". Branson and Oldfield were listening to the show on Branson's houseboat, and Oldfield stated in his autobiography that Peel played the album in its entirety, although the running order from the BBC archives and existing audio copies of the programme show that Peel played Part One only.


title: Tubular Bells

text: Peel reviewed the album for "The Listener" magazine the following week, describing it as "a new recording of such strength and beauty that to me it represents the first break-through into history that any musician has made". The UK's major music magazines were also unanimous in their praise of the album. Al Clark of "NME" said that the "veritable orgy of over-dubbing results in a remarkable piece of sustained music, never content with the purely facile yet equally disinclined towards confusing the listener". He concluded that ""Tubular Bells" ... is a superlative record which owes nothing to contemporary whims. It is one of the most mature, vital, rich and humerous ["sic"] pieces of music to have emerged from the pop idiom." "Melody Maker"s Geoff Brown observed that ""Tubular Bells" is a vast work, almost classical in its structure and in the way a theme is stated and deftly worked upon" and that it was "an enjoyable, evocative album which bodes well for the future of both the country's newest label and of Mike Oldfield". Reviewing the whole batch of Virgin's first album releases in "Sounds", Steve Peacock singled out "Tubular Bells" as the best of the bunch, saying that after careful listening he "ended up convinced that it really is a remarkable album", noting the "complex, interlocking carefully woven music that works its way through an enormous dynamic and emotional range", and stating, "I can't think of another album that I'd as unhesitatingly recommend to everyone who's likely to read this". A more reserved review came from Simon Frith in "Let It Rock" who felt that "Tubular Bells" was "more than an attractive wall-paper, more than a nature-film score, because of Mike Oldfield's ability to make what happens to the music self-sufficient and satisfying", but questioned why Peel and other critics viewed the album as rock music, and concluded that "Oldfield's concern is the sound of rock, but "Tubular Bells" lacks rock's other essence — energy. This is no way body music — no sex, no violence, no ecstasy; nothing uncontrolled, nothing uncontrollable."


title: Tubular Bells

text: Paul Gambaccini wrote an enthusiastic review of the album for "Rolling Stone", calling it "the most important one-shot project of 1973" and "a debut performance of a kind we have no right to expect from anyone. It took Mike Oldfield half a year to lay down the thousands of overdubs required for his 49 minutes of exhilarating music. I will be playing the result for many times that long." He concluded, "I can say that this is a major work". On the other hand, in an article in the same magazine seven months later which discussed the current top twenty albums on the "Billboard" chart, Jon Landau dismissed the record as "a clever novelty" and said, "Light, rather showy and cute in places, it probably makes pleasant background music for a dinner or conversation". Writing for "Creem", Robert Christgau was also left unmoved, saying, "The best I can come up with here is 'pleasant' and 'catchy'. Oldfield isn't Richard Strauss or even Leonard Cohen — this is a soundtrack because that's the level at which he operates."


title: Tubular Bells

text: In a retrospective review for AllMusic Mike DeGagne called the album "arguably the finest conglomeration of off-centered instruments concerted together to form a single, unique piece" and stated that "the most interesting and overwhelming aspect of this album is the fact that so many sounds are conjured up, yet none go unnoticed, allowing the listener a gradual submergence into each unique portion of the music. "Tubular Bells" is a divine excursion into the realm of new-age music."


title: Tubular Bells

text: Oldfield won the 1974 Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Composition. The album was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2018.


title: Tubular Bells

text: In "Q" magazine's 1998 list of "The 50 Best Albums of the '70s", "Tubular Bells" was placed at number six. In the "Q" & "Mojo" Classic special issue "Pink Floyd & The Story of Prog Rock" in 2005, the album was listed at number nine in its list of "40 Cosmic Rock Albums". The album was also included in the book "1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die".


title: Tubular Bells

text: The most important promotion for the record came from an unexpected source, when the introduction to Part One was chosen to feature in the film "The Exorcist", which was released in the United States in December 1973 and in European cinemas in March 1974. According to British film critic Mark Kermode, the decision to include the music was the result of pure chance – director William Friedkin had decided to scrap the original score by Lalo Schifrin and was looking for music to replace it. Friedkin was visiting the offices of Ahmet Ertegun, president of Atlantic Records (which distributed "Tubular Bells" in the US), and picking up a white label of the album from the selection of records in Ertegun's office, he put it on the record player and instantly decided that the music would be perfect for the movie. Although the introduction only features briefly in two scenes in the movie, it has become the track most commonly associated with it. Oldfield has stated that he did not want to see the film because he believed he would find it too frightening.


title: Tubular Bells

text: "Tubular Bells" remains the album most identified with Oldfield, and he has released three sequels. "Tubular Bells II" was released in 1992 which, like its predecessor, reached number one in the UK. It was followed by the electronic and dance-oriented "Tubular Bells III" (1998) and "The Millennium Bell" (1999). On the thirtieth anniversary of "Tubular Bells", Oldfield re-recorded the original "Tubular Bells" with contemporary technology, making several corrections to what he saw as flaws in the album's original production. Since Stanshall died in 1995, the re-recording features new narration provided by actor John Cleese. "Tubular Bells 2003" went to number 51 in the UK.


title: Tubular Bells

text: In 1975, an orchestral arrangement of the original album was released as "The Orchestral Tubular Bells".


title: Tubular Bells

text: Oldfield and York's 2013 remix album "Tubular Beats" refers to the album name, and contains two remixes of sections of "Tubular Bells".


title: Tubular Bells

text: Richard Branson recognised the significance of "Tubular Bells" to the Virgin Group's success, who named one of his first Virgin America aircraft, an Airbus A319-112, N527VA "Tubular Belle". Prior to this Virgin Atlantic had named a Boeing 747-4Q8, G-VHOT "Tubular Belle", in 1994.


title: Tubular Bells

text: In the United Kingdom Virgin Money signalled its entry into the banking sector in January 2012 with a television advertisement titled '40 Years of Better'. The advertisement opened with an image of a record orbiting the earth accompanied by the music of the introduction to "Tubular Bells", signifying the beginnings of Virgin, and ended with a shot of the same record framed and hanging on the wall of the new bank. Two months later a Virgin Media TV advertisement starring Branson and actor David Tennant also featured the record, where a younger version of Branson is seen holding a copy of "Tubular Bells" under his arm upon exiting a time machine. However, the advert was withdrawn shortly afterwards following objections from the BBC that it was being used to endorse a rival TV service (in the advert Tennant is shown searching on Virgin's TiVo on-demand service for episodes of "Doctor Who", a BBC series in which he formerly played the titular character).


title: Tubular Bells

text: In May 2021, Virgin Orbit, the commercial rocket launch provider subsidiary of the Virgin Group, announced the first operational mission of their LauncherOne air-launched rocket would be named after the first track of the album, Tubular Bells, Part One.


title: Tubular Bells

text: The use of the opening theme in the 1973 film "The Exorcist" gained the record considerable publicity and introduced the work to a broader audience. Along with a number of other Oldfield pieces the theme was used in the 1979 NASA movie "The Space Movie". It has gained cultural significance as a "haunting theme", partly due to the association with "The Exorcist", and has been sampled by many other artists.


title: Tubular Bells

text: In television it was used in several episodes of the Dutch children's series "Bassie en Adriaan", an episode ("Ghosts") of the BBC series "My Family". It was used in a television advertisement for the Volkswagen Golf Diesel in 2002 and in various films.


title: Tubular Bells

text: With the aid of the software house CRL and distributor Nu Wave, Mike Oldfield released an interactive Commodore 64 version of the album in 1986, which used the computer's SID sound chip to play back a simplified re-arrangement of the album, accompanied by some simple 2D visual effects. The "interactivity" offered by the album/program was limited to controlling the speed and quantity of the visual effects, tuning the sound's volume and filtering, and skipping to any part of the album.


title: Tubular Bells

text: In 2004, Oldfield launched a virtual reality project called "Maestro" which contains music from "Tubular Bells 2003". The original title of the game was "The Tube World". This was the second game which was released under the MusicVR banner, the first being "Tres Lunas". MusicVR set out to be a real-time virtual reality experience combining imagery and music, as a non-violent and essentially a non-goal driven game.


title: Tubular Bells

text: In 2012 Universal and Indaba Music created a "Tubular Bells" remix contest, where users could download original stem recordings to create their own pieces and the winner of the $1,000 prize was judged by Oldfield.


title: Tubular Bells

text: On 27 July 2012 at the 2012 Summer Olympics opening ceremony Mike Oldfield performed during a segment about the NHS and children’s literature. The show's director Danny Boyle stated that he had wanted to make "Tubular Bells" a "cornerstone" of a 20-minute sequence of the ceremony. A studio version of Oldfield's performance appears on the soundtrack album "". Although listed as "Tubular Bells"/"In Dulci Jubilo", the track consists of a number of parts, the first being the introduction piece to his "Tubular Bells" in its normal arrangement, then this is followed by a rearranged version of that same theme that during interviews Oldfield has called "swingular bells". The piece that is used when children's literature villains appear features two arrangements of "Far Above the Clouds" (from "Tubular Bells III"), and finally as the "Mary Poppins" characters appear to drive off the villains, there is a rendition of "In Dulci Jubilo" followed by a short coda.


title: Tubular Bells

text: The Olympics version was released as a 500-copy limited edition pink/blue vinyl single on 8 October 2012. This was also released on iTunes as "Tubular Bells/In Dulci Julio (Music from the Opening Ceremony of the London 2012 Olympic Games)".


title: Tubular Bells

text: American artist Tori Amos has frequently used the opening "Tubular Bells" theme in her live shows. It began during the 1996 Dew Drop Inn Tour where she let "Father Lucifer" segue into "Tubular Bells" on the piano while singing words from Bronski Beat's "Smalltown Boy" as well as playing it on the harpsichord during songs "Love Song" (a Cure cover) and "Bells for Her" (from the album "Under the Pink"), usually while mixing in lyrics from a third song such as Björk's "Hyperballad" or "Blue Skies". It appeared again in 2005 as part of "Yes, Anastasia", and on the 2007 tour promoting her album "American Doll Posse" where it was performed with full band as an intro to "Devils and Gods". On the 2011 tour, promoting her album "Night of Hunters" it is being performed as the intro to and backing melody for "God."


title: Tubular Bells

text: "Tubular Bells for Two" is a music-theatre production created by two Australian multi-instrumentalists, Aidan Roberts and Daniel Holdsworth, in 2009. The two musicians perform over twenty instruments to recreate the original album 'as faithfully as physically possible'. The show won a Sydney Fringe Award for "Best Musical Moment" in the 2010 Festival, and has been performed at festivals around Australia and the Pacific. The show made its European debut at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2012, where it won two awards.


title: Tubular Bells

text: In 2013, Oldfield invited Branson to the opening of St. Andrew's International School of The Bahamas, where two of Oldfield's children were pupils. This was the occasion of the debut of "Tubular Bells for Schools", a piano solo adaptation of Oldfield's work.


title: Tubular Bells

text: All music by Mike Oldfield, except on "Tubular Bells, Part Two" which includes "The Sailor's Hornpipe".


title: Francis X. Suarez

text: Francis Xavier Suarez (; born October 6, 1977) is an American lawyer and politician serving as the 43rd mayor of Miami. He was elected on November 7, 2017, with 86 percent of the vote and was re-elected on November 2, 2021, with 78 percent of the vote. He is a registered Republican, but the office of the Miami mayor is nonpartisan. He previously served as City of Miami Commissioner for District 4, a position he held since he was elected in a runoff election on November 17, 2009. Suarez is the son of former Miami mayor and former Miami-Dade County Commissioner Xavier Suarez.


title: Francis X. Suarez

text: Suarez is the first ever local-born Miami mayor. He is also the first mayor to not be born in Cuba since 1996, when Stephen P. Clark left office.


title: Francis X. Suarez

text: Suarez also serves as vice-chair of the Miami-Dade Transportation Planning Organization (TPO) and is the former President of the Miami-Dade County League of Cities. In his role at the TPO, Suarez championed the Strategic Miami Area Rapid Transit (SMART) Plan, which was unanimously approved. The SMART Plan expands mass transit options in Miami-Dade County through six main corridors and new bus routes.


title: Francis X. Suarez

text: In June 2020, he was elected by American mayors to serve as the Second Vice President of the United States Conference of Mayors and in June 2021, he was elected as the First Vice President of the organization. He is currently serving as the president of the US Conference of Mayors for the 2022–2023 term.


title: Francis X. Suarez

text: The oldest of four siblings, Suarez is the son of two-time Miami mayor Xavier Suarez. His aunt, Lala, is the mother of U.S. Congressman Alex Mooney from West Virginia.


title: Francis X. Suarez

text: Suarez attended Immaculata-LaSalle High School. He graduated in 1996 and went on to graduate in the top 10% of his class from Florida International University with a bachelor's degree in finance. Following college, Suarez chose to attend the University of Florida Fredric G. Levin College of Law, receiving his J.D. degree "cum laude" in 2004. He then became an attorney with the law firm Greenspoon Marder, specializing in corporate and real estate transactions.


title: Francis X. Suarez

text: Suarez was first elected as City of Miami Commissioner for District 4 in 2009. The general election to replace Tomás Regalado was on November 3, 2009. Suarez made it to the runoff election against Manolo Reyes after he received 44.74% of the vote, while Reyes received 40.50%. The other candidates in the general election were Denis Rod who had 5.15% and Oscar Rodriguez-Fonts with 9.61%.


title: Francis X. Suarez

text: The runoff election was on November 17, 2009. Suarez won with 51.41% of the vote. He was reelected unopposed in 2011 and 2015.


title: Francis X. Suarez

text: As Mayor, Suarez has overseen a $400 million municipal bond initiative, sometimes called the Miami Forever Bond, to combat rising sea levels and support affordable housing.


title: Francis X. Suarez

text: In January 2019, he told the Miami Herald that his three major themes for governance would be quality of life, a pathway to prosperity, and resiliency. Suarez claimed that Miami benefitted from his leadership with a new online permitting system and a historically low homicide rate, among other things.


title: Francis X. Suarez

text: In February 2019, he wrote an article with former Secretary-General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon about how Miami is defending itself from the effects of climate change.


title: Francis X. Suarez

text: Suarez is a cryptocurrency-friendly politician, who has promoted the development of Miami as a cryptocurrency hub. In 2021, Suarez was included in "Fortune" magazine's "World's 50 Greatest Leaders" list. In September 2021, he revealed that his ultimate plan for the city of Miami is to abolish taxes. Instead, he hopes to fund the city's activities via the issuance and continued mining of a city-specific blockchain token called MiamiCoin. He also stated that Miami is looking to allow its residents to get paid in bitcoin, and to be able to pay their taxes using bitcoin. In November 2021, Suarez became the first U.S. politician to take their salary in crypto.


title: Francis X. Suarez

text: In 2018, Suarez voted against Republican nominee and later Governor of Florida Ron DeSantis in the 2018 Florida gubernatorial election and instead voted for his Democratic opponent Andrew Gillum for which he was criticized by fellow Republicans. Suarez did not vote for the Incumbent Republican Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election.


title: Francis X. Suarez

text: On March 2, 2020, Suarez responded to the COVID-19 pandemic by announcing preparations for a potential outbreak in Miami. Though no cases had yet to reported in Miami, two cases were confirmed by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in other areas of the state of Florida. On March 4, 2020. Suarez announced plans to cancel the upcoming Ultra Music Festival, stating that the tourists attending would greatly enhance the likelihood of Miami having cases of COVID-19. On March 6, 2020, Suarez and the Miami municipal government responded to the outbreak, which by then had resulted in even more confirmed coronavirus cases in the state of Florida, by cancelling the local Calle Ocho Festival as well. Suarez and two other city officials confirmed this during a press conference.


title: Francis X. Suarez

text: Suarez contracted the virus, which he confirmed during an interview with the "Miami Herald" on March 13. He was the second person confirmed to be infected in Miami-Dade County. He began posting daily video diaries to Instagram, showing the progression of his COVID-19 infection.


title: Francis X. Suarez

text: In July 2020, Suarez dedicated 39 police officers to the task of enforcing a Miami-wide mask-wearing ordinance.


title: Francis X. Suarez

text: In April 2021, reports that Suarez could serve as a running-mate to potential 2024 presidential candidate Nikki Haley emerged. A report by "The Hill" in September 2021 indicated that Suarez is interested in running for President in his own right.


title: Sharad Kelkar

text: Sharad Kelkar (born 7 October 1976) is an Indian actor and voice artist who appears in mainly Hindi films, Marathi films and television serials. Kelkar has appeared in television series, web series, and films of Bollywood, Marathi, Telugu and Tamil film industries.


title: Sharad Kelkar

text: Kelkar married his co-star Keerti Gaekwad Kelkar on 3 June 2005. They both have participated in "Nach Baliye 2".


title: Sharad Kelkar

text: Kelkar was a Grasim Mr. India finalist. In 2004, he made his television debut with the show "Aakrosh" which aired on Doordarshan in which he played the role of Inspector Sachin Kulkarni.


title: Sharad Kelkar

text: His wife Keerti Gaekwad Kelkar is a television actress who has appeared in "" as Chandni / Devika in a negative role. Together, in 2006 the couple also appeared on the dance reality show "Nach Baliye 2".


title: Sharad Kelkar

text: In 2007, Kelkar hosted "Rock-N-Roll Family" along with former Hero Honda "Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Challenge 2007" contestant Mauli Dave. Kelkar was host of the show "Pati Patni Aur Woh" on NDTV Imagine in 2009. Then he appeared as "Thakur Digvijay Singh Bhadoria" in "Bairi Piya" which earned him critical acclaim for his performance. In 2010, he participated in reality comedy TV series, "Comedy Circus Mahasangram" (2010) paired with Bharti Singh and Paresh Ganatra. In 2011, Kelkar played a grey character role of Satya in Uttaran he entered the show along with Harsha Khandeparkar who played his sister in the show. His role lasted for about six months in the show. Kelkar was also part of Marath film "Chinu" where he played the hero to the female protagonist who plays the title role of "Chinu". In 2012, he replaced Mohnish Behl as Dr. Ashutosh in the serial "Kuch Toh Log Kahenge" which aired on Sony Entertainment Television India. From 2010 to 2013, he presented a crime show, "Shaitaan - A Criminal Mind".


title: Sharad Kelkar

text: In 2013, Kelkar was offered a role in Sanjay Leela Bhansali's "Goliyon Ki Raasleela Ram-Leela" where he plays the role of a possessive elder brother. Then in 2014, he was seen in "Lai Bhaari" where he played Sangram the main antagonist. The film became the highest-grossing Marathi film. In 2015, he was seen in "Hero" and did a special appearance for a single song in "A Paying Ghost".


title: Sharad Kelkar

text: From September 2015 to April 2016, Kelkar was seen as Agent Raghav Sinha in his crime and mystery thriller "Agent Raghav - Crime Branch" which aired on &TV. He describes his role as "Here's a guy who is suave and dapper, with an IQ that can give even the most intelligent and shrewd criminal a run for his money. He can do things that very few can - read people's minds and use deductive reasoning. I haven't played such a character or taken up a crime series like this before. Besides, the premise of the show was unique and I couldn't let it go.". In 2016 he was seen in "Mohenjo Daro", "Rocky Handsome" which released on 25 March 2016. In the same year, he also did his Telugu Debut through "Sardaar Gabbar Singh" where he played the main antagonist Bhairav Singh.


title: Sharad Kelkar

text: In 2017, he was seen in Indian television show "Koi Laut Ke Aaya Hai" as Rishabh Singh Shekhari. He also played the main antagonist Dhauli in Sanjay Dutt starrer "Bhoomi". He also appeared in "Irada" as Paddy F Sharma a business tycoon. He also acted in "Sangharsh Yatra" Biopic of late Gopinath Munde a famous BJP politician in Maharashtra. He did guest appearances in movies like "Guest in London" and "Baadshaho". He also debuted as a producer for Marathi film "Idak : The Goat" which was screened at the Cannes festival.


title: Sharad Kelkar

text: In 2018, he acted in three Marathi films "Rakshas", "Madhuri," and "Youngraad". He was also seen in a Music video Majbooriyan.


title: Sharad Kelkar

text: In 2019, he did his debut short film "Through Purple". He also did his digital debut web series through "The Family Man," an Amazon prime series. Then he was seen in "Housefull 4" where he played as Suryabhan/Michael Bhai one of the antagonists. His another web-series "Rangbaaz phirse (season 2)" released in December 2019.


title: Sharad Kelkar

text: In 2020 January, he played the role of "Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj" in the film "Tanhaji". He also appeared in "Laxmii" where playing a transgender for the first time, he was appreciated for his performance. Anna M. M. Vetticad of "Firstpost" praised the portrayal of Laxmii by Sharad Kelkar calling it a matured performance. He was also seen in ZEE5 series Black Widows opposite Mona Singh in December 2020


title: Sharad Kelkar

text: In 2022, he will be debuting in Tamil through "Ayalaan". Also he will be Debuting as a Lead Actor through Hindi film "Deja vu". He is reported to be doing a Historical character in the film "Har Har Mahadev" playing a maratha warrior. He is also playing a role in the film "oh my dog". He has some upcoming films and web series which are awaiting release, some are in post production. His latest film is Operation Romeo. In the film, he played the character of a police officer.


title: Göktürks

text: The Göktürks, Celestial Turks or Blue Turks (; ; ) were a nomadic confederation of Turkic peoples in medieval Inner Asia. The Göktürks, under the leadership of Bumin Qaghan (d. 552) and his sons, succeeded the Rouran Khaganate as the main power in the region and established the First Turkic Khaganate, one of several nomadic dynasties that would shape the future geolocation, culture, and dominant beliefs of Turkic peoples.


title: Göktürks

text: Strictly speaking, the common name "Göktürk" emerged from the misreading of the word "Kök" meaning Ashina, ruling clan of the historical ethnic group's endonym: which was attested as , or . It is generally accepted that the name "Türk" is ultimately derived from the Old-Turkic migration-term 𐱅𐰇𐰼𐰰 "Türük"/"Törük", which means 'created, born'.


title: Göktürks

text: They were known in Middle Chinese historical sources as the "Tūjué" (; reconstructed in Middle Chinese as romanized: *"dwət-kuɑt" > "tɦut-kyat").


title: Göktürks

text: The ethnonym was also recorded in various other Middle Asian languages, such as Sogdian *"Türkit ~ Türküt", "tr'wkt", "trwkt", "turkt" > "trwkc", "trukč"; Khotanese Saka "Ttūrka"/"Ttrūka", Ruanruan "to̤ro̤x"/"türǖg" and Old Tibetan "Drugu".


title: Göktürks

text: According to Chinese sources, Tūjué meant "combat helmet" (), reportedly because the shape of the Altai Mountains, where they lived, was similar to a combat helmet. Róna-Tas (1991) pointed to a Khotanese-Saka word, "tturakä" "lid", semantically stretchable to "helmet", as a possible source for this folk etymology, yet Golden thinks this connection requires more data.


title: Göktürks

text: Göktürk means "Celestial Turk", or sometimes "Blue Turk" (i.e. because sky blue is associated with celestial realms). This is consistent with "the cult of heavenly ordained rule" which was a recurrent element of Altaic political culture and as such may have been imbibed by the Göktürks from their predecessors in Mongolia. The name of the ruling Ashina clan may derive from the Khotanese Saka term for "deep blue", "āššɪna".


title: Göktürks

text: According to the American Heritage Dictionary the word Türk meant "strong" in Old Turkic; though Gerhard Doerfer supports this theory, Gerard Clauson points out that "the word Türk is never used in the generalized sense of 'strong'" and that the noun Türk originally meant "'the culminating point of maturity' (of a fruit, human being, etc.), but more often used as an [adjective] meaning (of a fruit) 'just fully ripe'; (of a human being) 'in the prime of life, young, and vigorous'".


title: Göktürks

text: The name as used by the Göktürks only applied to themselves, the, Göktürk khanates, and their subjects. The Göktürks did not consider other Turkic speaking groups such as the Uyghurs, Tiele, and Kyrgyz to be Türks. In the Orkhon inscriptions, the Toquz Oghuz and the Yenisei Kyrgyz are not referred to as Türks. Similarly, the Uyghurs called themselves Uyghurs and used "Türk" exclusively for the Göktürks, whom they portrayed as enemy aliens in their royal inscriptions. The Khazars may have kept the Göktürk tradition alive by claiming descent from the Ashina. When tribal leaders built their khanates, ruling over assorted tribes and tribal unions, the collected people identified themselves politically with the leadership. Turk became the designation for all subjects of the Turk empires. Nonetheless, subordinate tribes and tribal unions retained their original names, identities, and social structures. Memory of the Göktürks and the Ashina had faded by the turn of the millennium. The Karakhanids, Qocho Uyghurs, and Seljuks did not claim descent from the Göktürks.


title: Göktürks

text: The Göktürk rulers originated from the Ashina clan, who were first attested to in 439. The "Book of Sui" reports that in that year, on October 18, the Tuoba ruler Emperor Taiwu of Northern Wei overthrew Juqu Mujian of the Northern Liang in eastern Gansu, whence 500 Ashina families fled northwest to the Rouran Khaganate in the vicinity of Gaochang.


title: Göktürks

text: According to the "Book of Zhou" and "History of the Northern Dynasties", the Ashina clan was a component of the Xiongnu confederation, specifically, the Northern Xiongnu tribes or southern Xiongnu "who settled along the northern Chinese frontier", according to Edwin G. Pulleyblank. However, this view is contested. Göktürks were also posited as having originated from an obscure Suo state (索國) (MC: *"sâk") which was situated north of the Xiongnu and had been founded by the Sakas. According to the "Book of Sui" and the "Tongdian", they were "mixed Hu (barbarians)" () from Pingliang (平涼), now in Gansu, Northwest China. Pointing to the Ashina's association with the Northern tribes of the Xiongnu, some researchers (e.g. Duan, Lung, etc.) proposed that Göktürks belonged in particular to the Tiele confederation, likewise Xiongnu-associated, by ancestral lineage. However, Lee and Kuang (2017) state that Chinese sources do not describe the Ashina-led Göktürks as descending from the Dingling or beloning to the Tiele confederation.


title: Göktürks

text: Chinese sources linked the Hu on their northern borders to the Xiongnu just as Graeco-Roman historiographers called the Pannonian Avars, Huns and Hungarians “Scythians". Such archaizing was a common literary topos, implying similar geographic origins and nomadic lifestyle but not direct filiation.


title: Göktürks

text: As part of the heterogeneous Rouran Khaganate, the Turks lived for generations north of the Altai Mountains, where they 'engaged in metal working for the Rouran'. According to Denis Sinor, the rise to power of the Ashina clan represented an 'internal revolution' in the Rouran Khaganate rather than an external conquest.


title: Göktürks

text: According to Charles Holcombe, the early Turk population was rather heterogeneous and many of the names of Turk rulers, including the two founding members, are not even Turkic. This is supported by evidence from the Orkhon inscriptions, which include several non-Turkic lexemes, possibly representing Uralic or Yeniseian words. Peter Benjamin Golden points out that the khaghans of the Turkic Khaganate, the Ashina, who were of an undetermined ethnic origin, adopted Iranian and Tokharian (or non-Altaic) titles, he also adds that this hypothesis assumes that they were not themselves lranian or Tokharian in speech. German Turkologist W.-E. Scharlipp points out that many common terms in Turkic are Iranian in origin. Whatever language the Ashina may have spoken originally, they and those they ruled would all speak Turkic, in a variety of dialects, and create, in a broadly defined sense, a common culture.


title: Göktürks

text: The Göktürks reached their peak in late 6th century and began to invade the Sui Dynasty of China. However, the war ended due to the division of Turkic nobles and their civil war for the throne of Khagan. With the support of Emperor Wen of Sui, Yami Qaghan won the competition. However, the Göktürk empire was divided to Eastern and Western empires. Weakened by the civil war, Yami Qaghan declared allegiance to Sui Dynasty. When Sui began to decline, Shibi Khagan began to assault its territory and even surrounded Emperor Yang of Sui in Siege of Yanmen (615 AD) with 100,000 cavalry troops. After the collapse of Sui dynasty, the Göktürks intervened in the ensuing Chinese civil wars, providing support to the northeastern rebel Liu Heita against the rising Tang in 622 and 623. Liu enjoyed a long string of success but was finally routed by Li Shimin and other Tang generals and executed. The Tang dynasty was then established.


title: Göktürks

text: Although the Göktürk Khaganate once provided support to the Tang Dynasty in the early period of the civil war during the collapse of the Sui dynasty, the conflicts between the Göktürks and Tang finally broke out when Tang was gradually reunifying China proper. The Göktürks began to attack and raid the northern border of the Tang Empire and once marched their main force to Chang'an, the capital of Tang. Having not recovered from the civil war, the Tang briefly had to pay tribute to Göktürk nobles. Allied with tribes opposing the Göktürk Khaganate, the Tang defeated the main force of Göktürk army in Battle of Yinshan four years later and captured Illig Qaghan in 630 AD. With the submission of the Turkic tribes, the Tang conquered the Mongolian Plateau.


title: Göktürks

text: After a vigorous court debate, Emperor Taizong decided to pardon the Göktürk nobles and offered them positions as imperial guards. However, the proposition was ended by a plan for the assassination of the emperor. On May 19, 639 Ashina Jiesheshuai and his tribesmen directly assaulted Emperor Taizong of Tang at Jiucheng Palace (, in present-day Linyou County, Baoji, Shaanxi). However, they did not succeed and fled to the north, but were caught by pursuers near the Wei River and were killed. Ashina Hexiangu was exiled to Lingbiao. After the unsuccessful raid of Ashina Jiesheshuai, on August 13, 639 Taizong installed Qilibi Khan and ordered the settled Turkic people to follow him north of the Yellow River to settle between the Great Wall of China and the Gobi Desert. However, many Göktürk generals still remained loyal in service to the Tang Empire.


title: Göktürks

text: In 679, Ashide Wenfu and Ashide Fengzhi, who were Turkic leaders of the Chanyu Protectorate (), declared Ashina Nishufu as qaghan and revolted against the Tang dynasty. In 680, Pei Xingjian defeated Ashina Nishufu and his army. Ashina Nishufu was killed by his men. Ashide Wenfu made Ashina Funian a qaghan and again revolted against the Tang dynasty. Ashide Wenfu and Ashina Funian surrendered to Pei Xingjian. On December 5, 681 54 Göktürks, including Ashide Wenfu and Ashina Funian, were publicly executed in the Eastern Market of Chang'an. In 682, Ilterish Qaghan and Tonyukuk revolted and occupied Heisha Castle (northwest of present-day Hohhot, Inner Mongolia) with the remnants of Ashina Funian's men. The restored Göktürk Khaganate intervened in the war between Tang and Khitan tribes. However, after the death of Bilge Qaghan, the Göktürks could no longer subjugate other Turk tribes in the grasslands. In 744, allied with Tang Dynasty, the Uyghur Khaganate defeated the last Göktürk Khaganate and controlled the Mongolian Plateau.


title: Göktürks

text: The religion was a monotheism with multiple gods. The great god was the sky, Tengri, who dispensed the viaticum for the journey of life (qut) and fortune (ulug) and watched over the cosmic order and the political and social order. People prayed to him and sacrificed to him, preferably with a white horse. The ruler, who came from him and derived his authority from him, was raised on a felt saddle to meet him. Tengri issued decrees, brought pressure to bear on human beings, and enforced capital punishment, often by striking the offender with lightning. The many secondary powers – sometimes named deities, sometimes spirits or simply said to be sacred, and almost always associated with Tengri – were the Earth, the Mountain, Water, the Springs, and the Rivers; the master/possessors of all objects, particularly of the land and the waters of the nation; trees, cosmic axes, and sources of life; fire, the symbol of the family and alterego of the shaman; the stars, particularly the sun and the moon, the Pleiades, and Venus, whose image changes over time; Umay, a mother goddess who is none other than the placenta; the threshold and the doorjamb; personifications of Time, the Road, Desire, etc.; heroes and ancestors embodied in the banner, in tablets with inscriptions, and in idols; and spirits wandering or fixed in Penates or in all kinds of holy objects. These and other powers have an uneven force which increases as objects accumulate, as trees form a forest, stones form a cairn, arrows form a quiver, and drops of water form a lake.


title: Göktürks

text: A genetic study published in "Nature" in May 2018 examined the remains of four elite Türk soldiers buried between ca. 300 AD and 700 AD. The extracted samples of Y-DNA belonged to haplogroup Q (sample DA86), haplogroup R1 (samples DA89, DA224) and Haplogroup O (sample DA228). The extracted samples of mtDNA belonged to C4b1 (sample DA86), A14(samples DA89), H2a (samples DA224) and A15c (sample DA228). The examined Türks were found to have more East Asian ancestry than the preceding Tian Shan Huns. Evidence of European ancestry was also detected, suggesting ongoing contacts with Europe. Succeeding Turkic states of Central Asia displayed even higher levels of East Asian ancestry, indicating that the Turkification of Central Asia was carried out by dominant minorities of East Asian origin.


title: William Goldman

text: William Goldman (August 12, 1931 – November 16, 2018) was an American novelist, playwright, and screenwriter. He first came to prominence in the 1950s as a novelist before turning to screenwriting. He won Academy Awards for his screenplays "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" (1969) and "All the President's Men" (1976).


title: William Goldman

text: His other well-known works include his thriller novel "Marathon Man" (1974) and his cult classic comedy/fantasy novel "The Princess Bride" (1973), both of which he also adapted for film versions.


title: William Goldman

text: Goldman was born into a Jewish family in Chicago in 1931 and grew up in the Chicago suburb of Highland Park, Illinois, the second son of Marion (née Weil) and Maurice Clarence Goldman. Goldman's father initially was a successful businessman, working in Chicago and in a partnership, but he suffered from alcoholism, which cost him his business. He "came home to live and he was in his pajamas for the last five years of his life," according to Goldman. His father committed suicide while Goldman was still in high school. His mother was deaf, which created additional stress in the home.


title: William Goldman

text: Goldman received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Oberlin College in Ohio in 1952. The Korean War was on, so he was drafted into the Army shortly thereafter. Because he knew how to type, he was assigned as a clerk in the Pentagon, Defense headquarters. He was discharged with the rank of corporal in September 1954. He returned to graduate studies under the GI Bill, earning a Master of Arts degree at Columbia University, graduating in 1956. Throughout this period, he was writing short stories in the evenings, but struggled to have them published.


title: William Goldman

text: According to his memoir "Adventures in the Screen Trade" (1983), Goldman began to write when he took a creative-writing course in college. His grades in the class were "horrible". He was an editor of Oberlin's literary magazine. He submitted his short stories to the magazine anonymously; he recalls that the other editors read his submissions and remarked, "We can't possibly publish this shit." He did not originally intend to become a screenwriter. His main interests were poetry, short stories, and novels. In 1956, he completed a master's thesis at Columbia University on the comedy of manners in America.


title: William Goldman

text: His older brother James Goldman was a playwright and screenwriter. They shared an apartment in New York with their friend John Kander. Kander, who also an alumnus of Oberlin, was working on his PhD in music, and the Goldman brothers wrote the libretto for his dissertation. Kander was the composer of more than a dozen musicals, including "Cabaret" and "Chicago", and all three of them eventually won Academy Awards. On June 25, 1956, Goldman began writing his first novel "The Temple of Gold", completing it in less than three weeks. He sent the manuscript to agent Joe McCrindle, who agreed to represent him; McCrindle submitted the novel to Knopf, who agreed to publish it if he doubled the length. It sold well enough in paperback to launch Goldman on his career. He wrote his second novel "Your Turn to Curtsy, My Turn to Bow" (1958) in a little more than a week. It was followed by "Soldier in the Rain" (1960), based on Goldman's time in the military. It sold well in paperback and was turned into a film, though Goldman had no involvement in the screenplay.


title: William Goldman

text: Goldman and his brother received a grant to do some rewriting on the musical "Tenderloin" (1960). They then collaborated on their own play, "Blood, Sweat and Stanley Poole" (1961), and on the musical, "A Family Affair" (1962), written with John Kander. Both plays had short runs.


title: William Goldman

text: Goldman began writing "Boys and Girls Together", but found that he suffered writer's block. His writer's block continued, but he had an idea for the novel "No Way to Treat a Lady" (1964) based on the Boston Strangler. He wrote it in two weeks, and it was published under the pseudonym Harry Longbaugh—a variant spelling of the Sundance Kid's real name, which Goldman had been researching since the late 1950s. He then finished "Boys and Girls Together", which became a best seller.


title: William Goldman

text: Cliff Robertson read an early draft of "No Way to Treat a Lady" and hired Goldman to adapt the short story "Flowers for Algernon" for the movies. Before he had even finished the script, Robertson recommended him to do some rewriting on the spy spoof "Masquerade" (1965), in which Robertson was starring. Goldman did that, then finished the "Algernon" script. Robertson disliked it, though, and hired Stirling Silliphant, instead, to work on what became "Charly" (1968).


title: William Goldman

text: Producer Elliot Kastner had optioned the film rights to "Boys and Girls Together". Goldman suggested that Kastner make a film of the Lew Archer novels of Ross Macdonald and offered to do an adaptation. Kastner agreed, and Goldman chose "The Moving Target". The result was "Harper" (1966) starring Paul Newman, which was a big hit.


title: William Goldman

text: Goldman returned to novels, writing "The Thing of It Is..." (1967). He taught at Princeton and wished to write something, but he could not come up with an idea for a novel. Instead, he wrote "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid", his first original screenplay, which he had been researching for eight years. He sold it for $400,000, the highest price ever paid for an original screenplay at that time. The movie was released in 1969, a critical and commercial success that earned Goldman an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. The money enabled Goldman to take some time off and research the nonfiction "" (1969).


title: William Goldman

text: Goldman adapted Steven Linakis's novel "In the Spring the War Ended" into a screenplay, but it was not filmed. Neither were scripts of "The Thing of It Is", which came close to being made several times in the early '70s, and "Papillon", on which he worked for six months and three drafts; the book was filmed, but little of Goldman's work was used. He returned to novels with "Father's Day" (1971), a sequel to "The Thing of It Is…". He also wrote the screenplay for "The Hot Rock" (1972).


title: William Goldman

text: Goldman's next novel was "The Princess Bride" (1973); he also wrote a screenplay, but it was more than a decade before the film was made. That same year, he contracted a rare strain of pneumonia, which resulted in his being hospitalized and affected his health for months. This inspired him into a burst of creativity, including several novels and screenplays.


title: William Goldman

text: Goldman's novel writing moved in a more commercial direction following the death of his editor Hiram Haydn in late 1973. This started with the children's book "Wigger" (1974), followed by the thriller "Marathon Man" (1974), which he sold to Delacorte as part of a three-book deal worth $2 million. He sold movie rights to "Marathon Man" for $450,000.


title: William Goldman

text: His second book for Delacorte was the thriller "Magic" (1976), which he sold to Joe Levine for $1 million. He did the screenplays for the film versions of "Marathon Man" (1976) and "Magic" (1978). He also wrote the screenplay for "The Stepford Wives" (1975), which he says was an unpleasant experience because director Bryan Forbes rewrote most of it; Goldman tried to take his name off it, but they would not let him. He was reunited with director George Roy Hill and star Robert Redford on "The Great Waldo Pepper" (1975), which Goldman wrote from an idea of Hill's.


title: William Goldman

text: Goldman wrote the famous line "Follow the money" for the screenplay of "All the President's Men"; while the line is often attributed to Deep Throat, it is not found in Bob Woodward's notes nor in Woodward and Carl Bernstein's book or articles. The book does have the far less-quotable line from Woodward to Senator Sam Ervin, who was about to begin his own investigation: "The key was the secret campaign cash, and it should all be traced..."


title: William Goldman

text: Goldman was unhappy with the movie. "The Guardian" says that he changes the subject when asked about the movie, but suggests that his displeasure may be because he was pressured to add a romantic interest to the film. In his memoir, Goldman says of the film that if he could live his life over, he would have written the same screenplays, "Only I wouldn't have come near "All the President's Men"." He said that he has never written as many versions of a screenplay as he did for that movie. Speaking of his choice to write the script, he said: "Many movies that get made are not long on art and are long on commerce. This was a project that seemed it might be both. You don't get many and you can't turn them down."


title: William Goldman

text: In Michael Feeney Callan's book "Robert Redford: The Biography", Redford is reported as stating that Goldman did not actually write the screenplay for the movie, a story that was excerpted in "Vanity Fair". "Written By" magazine conducted a thorough investigation of the screenplay's many drafts and concluded, "Goldman was the sole author of "All The President's Men". Period."


title: William Goldman

text: Goldman had a happier experience when hired by Joseph E. Levine to write "A Bridge Too Far" (1977) based on the book by Cornelius Ryan. Goldman later wrote a promotional book, "Story of A Bridge Too Far" (1977), as a favor to Levine, and signed a three-film contract with the producer worth $1.5 million.


title: William Goldman

text: He wrote a novel about Hollywood, "Tinsel" (1979), which sold well. He wrote two more films for Levine, "The Sea Kings" and "Year of the Comet", but did not write a third. He did a script about Tom Horn; "Mr. Horn" (1979), was filmed for TV.


title: William Goldman

text: Goldman was the original screenwriter for the film version of Tom Wolfe's novel "The Right Stuff"; director Philip Kaufman wrote his own screenplay without using Goldman's material, because Kaufman wanted to include Chuck Yeager as a character; Goldman did not.


title: William Goldman

text: He wrote a number of other screenplays around this time, including "The Ski Bum"; a musical adaptation of "Grand Hotel" (1932) that was going to be directed by Norman Jewison; and "Rescue", the story of the rescue of Electronic Data Systems employees during the Iranian Revolution. None were made into films.


title: William Goldman

text: After several of his screenplays were not filmed, Goldman found himself in less demand as a screenwriter. He published a memoir about his professional life in Hollywood, "Adventures in the Screen Trade" (1983), which summed up the entertainment industry in the opening sentence of the book, "Nobody knows anything."


title: William Goldman

text: He focused on novels: "Control" (1982), "The Silent Gondoliers" (1983), "The Color of Light" (1984), "Heat" (1985), and "Brothers" (1986). The latter, a sequel to "Marathon Man", was Goldman's last published novel.


title: William Goldman

text: Goldman attributed his return to Hollywood to signing with talent agent Michael Ovitz at Creative Artists Agency. He went to work on "Memoirs of an Invisible Man", although he left the project relatively early.