title: John Mayall

text: Mayall had to replace Clapton, and he succeeded in persuading Peter Green to come back. During the following year, with Green on guitar and various other sidemen, some 40 tracks were recorded. The album "A Hard Road" was released in February 1967. Today its expanded versions include most of this material, and the album itself also stands as a classic. In early 1967, Mayall released an EP recorded with American blues harpist Paul Butterfield.


title: John Mayall

text: But Peter Green gave notice and soon started his own project, Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac, which eventually was to include all three of Mayall's Bluesbreakers at this time: Green, McVie, and drummer Mick Fleetwood who was a Bluesbreaker for only a few weeks. Two live albums, "Live in 1967" Volumes I and II, featuring this lineup were released on Forty Below Records in 2015 and 2016.


title: John Mayall

text: Mayall's first choice to replace Green was 18-year-old David O'List, guitarist from the Attack. O'List declined, however, and went on to form the Nice with organist Keith Emerson. Through both a "musicians wanted" ad in "Melody Maker" on 10 June and his own search, Mayall found three other potential guitarists for his Bluesbreakers, a black musician named Terry Edmonds, John Moorshead, and 18-year-old Mick Taylor. The last made the band quickly, but Mayall also decided to hire Edmonds as a rhythm guitarist for a few days.


title: John Mayall

text: In the meantime, on a single day in May 1967, Mayall had assembled a studio album to showcase his own abilities. Former Artwoods drummer Keef Hartley appeared on only half of the tracks, and everything else was played by Mayall. The album was released in November titled "The Blues Alone".


title: John Mayall

text: A six-piece line-up—consisting of Mayall, Mick Taylor as lead guitarist, John McVie still on bass, Hughie Flint or Hartley on drums, and Rip Kant and Chris Mercer on saxophones—recorded the album "Crusade" on 11 and 12 July 1967. These Bluesbreakers spent most of the year touring abroad, and Mayall taped the shows on a portable recorder. At the end of the tour, he had over sixty hours of tapes, which he edited into an album in two volumes: "Diary of a Band, Vols. 1 & 2", released in February 1968. Meanwhile, a few line-up changes had occurred: McVie had departed and was replaced by Paul Williams, who himself soon quit to join Alan Price and was replaced by Keith Tillman; Dick Heckstall-Smith had taken the sax spot.


title: John Mayall

text: Following a US tour, there were more line-up changes, starting with the troublesome bass position. First Mayall replaced bassist Tillman with 15-year-old Andy Fraser. Within six weeks, though, Fraser left to join Free and was replaced by Tony Reeves, previously a member of the New Jazz Orchestra. Hartley was required to leave, and he was replaced by New Jazz Orchestra drummer Jon Hiseman (who had also played with the Graham Bond Organisation). Henry Lowther, who played violin and cornet, joined in February 1968. Two months later the Bluesbreakers recorded "Bare Wires", co-produced by Mayall and Mike Vernon, which came up to UK No. 6.


title: John Mayall

text: Hiseman, Reeves, and Heckstall-Smith then moved on to form Colosseum. The Mayall line-up retained Mick Taylor and added drummer Colin Allen (formerly of Zoot Money's Big Roll Band / Dantalian's Chariot, and Georgie Fame) and a young bassist named Stephen Thompson. In August 1968 the new quartet recorded "Blues from Laurel Canyon".


title: John Mayall

text: Chas Crane filled in briefly on guitar. Drummer Allen departed to join Stone the Crows. This left as the only holdover bassist Thompson who would also eventually join Stone the Crows.


title: John Mayall

text: Mayall tried a new format with lower volume, acoustic instruments, and no drummer. He recruited acoustic fingerstyle guitarist Jon Mark and flautist-saxophonist John Almond. Mark was best known as Marianne Faithfull's accompanist for three years and for having been a member of the band Sweet Thursday (which included pianist Nicky Hopkins and future Cat Stevens collaborator Alun Davies, also a guitarist). Almond had played with Zoot Money and Alan Price and was no stranger to Mayall's music—he had played baritone sax on four cuts of "Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton" and some of "A Hard Road". This new band was markedly different from previous Mayall projects, and its making is well documented both on the 1999 double CD "The Masters" and on the 2004 DVD "The Godfather of British Blues/The Turning Point".


title: John Mayall

text: Along with the big change in sound, Mayall decided on a big change in scenery: a move to Los Angeles. The new band made its US debut at the Newport Jazz Festival on 5 July, whilst the performance of 12 July at the Fillmore East provided the tracks for the live album "The Turning Point". A studio album, "Empty Rooms", was recorded with the same personnel, with Mayall's next bassist, former Canned Heat member Larry Taylor, playing bass in a duet with Thompson on "To a Princess".


title: John Mayall

text: Mayall continued the experiment of formations without drummers on two more albums, although he took on a new electric blues-rock-R&B band in guitarist Harvey Mandel and bassist Larry Taylor, both plucked from Canned Heat, and wailing violinist Don "Sugarcane" Harris, lately of the Johnny Otis Show and formerly with The Mothers of Invention. On "USA Union" (recorded in Los Angeles, 27–28 July 1970), though, Mandel was compelled to make do without his remarkable sustain and usage of feedback as musical, even melodic, technique; and on "Memories" the band was stripped down to a trio with Taylor and Ventures guitarist Gerry McGee.


title: John Mayall

text: In November 1970, Mayall launched a recording project involving many of the most notable musicians with whom he had played during the previous several years. The double album "Back to the Roots" features Clapton, Mick Taylor, Gerry McGee and Harvey Mandel on guitar; Sugarcane Harris on violin; Almond on woodwinds; Thompson and Larry Taylor on bass; and Hartley on drums. Paul Lagos was with Sugarcane and ended up drumming on five. Mayall wrote all the songs and sang all the vocals, as usual by now, plus played harmonica, guitar, keyboards, drums, and percussion. The London sessions took place in January 1971 and as such represent some of Clapton's last work before Derek and the Dominos' attempted "Layla" follow-up sessions and band disintegration that spring.


title: John Mayall

text: "Back to the Roots" did not promote new names, and "USA Union" and "Memories" had been recorded with American musicians. Mayall had exhausted his catalytic role on the British blues-rock scene and was living in Los Angeles. Yet, the list of musicians who benefited from association with him, starting with ruling the London blues scene, remains impressive.


title: John Mayall

text: By the start of the 1970s Mayall had relocated to the United States where he spent most of the next 15 years, recording with local musicians for various labels. In August 1971, Mayall produced a jazz-oriented session for bluesman Albert King and a few months later took on tour the musicians present in the studio.


title: John Mayall

text: A live album "Jazz Blues Fusion" was released in the following year, with Mayall on harmonica, guitar and piano, Blue Mitchell on trumpet, Clifford Solomon and Ernie Watts on saxophones, Larry Taylor on bass, Ron Selico on drums and Freddy Robinson on guitar. A few personnel changes are noted at the release of a similar album in 1973, the live "Moving On".


title: John Mayall

text: In 1974, Mayall recorded The Latest Edition, produced by Tom Wilson for the Polydor label. The group featured jazz saxophonist Red Holloway, drummer Soko Richardson, bassist Larry Taylor, and two guitarists, Randy Resnick and Hightide Harris. The band toured Europe and Asia that year.


title: John Mayall

text: During the next decade Mayall continued shifting musicians and switching labels and released a score of albums. Tom Wilson, Don Nix and Allen Toussaint occasionally served as producers. At this stage of his career most of Mayall's music was rather different from electric blues played by rock musicians, incorporating jazz, funk or pop elements and even adding female vocals. A notable exception is "The Last of the British Blues" (1978), a live album excused apparently by its title for the brief return to this type of music.


title: John Mayall

text: In 1982, Mayall was reunited with Mick Taylor, John McVie and Colin Allen, three musicians of his 1960s line-ups, for a two-year world tour from which a live album would emerge a decade later.


title: John Mayall

text: In 1984, Mayall restored the name Bluesbreakers for a line-up comprising the two lead guitars of Walter Trout and Coco Montoya, bassist Bobby Haynes and drummer Joe Yuele. In the early 1990s, most of the excitement was already spent and Buddy Whittington became the sole lead guitarist in a formation which included then organist Tom Canning.


title: John Mayall

text: On the occasion of the 40th year of his career, Mayall invited fellow musicians for the recording of a celebratory album. "Along for the Ride" appeared in 2001, credited to John Mayall and Friends with twenty names listed on the cover, including some Bluesbreakers, old and new, and also Gary Moore, Jonny Lang, Steve Cropper, Steve Miller, Otis Rush, Billy Gibbons, Greg Rzab, Chris Rea, Jeff Healey and Shannon Curfman.


title: John Mayall

text: To celebrate his 70th birthday, Mayall reunited with special guests Eric Clapton, Mick Taylor and Chris Barber during a fundraiser show. This "Unite for Unicef" concert took place on 19 July 2003 at the Liverpool Arena, and was captured on film for a DVD release.


title: John Mayall

text: In November 2008, Mayall announced on his website he was disbanding the Bluesbreakers, to cut back on his heavy workload and give himself freedom to work with other musicians. Three months later a solo world tour was announced, with: Rocky Athas on guitar, Greg Rzab on bass, and Jay Davenport on drums. Tom Canning, on organ, joined the band for the tour which started in March 2009. An album was released in September 2009. Since then, Mayall has continued to tour with the same backing band, minus Canning, who left due to other priorities.


title: John Mayall

text: In 2015, Dinu Logos published "John Mayall: The Blues Crusader", the first biography of Mayall to include exhaustive details of every band he put together and every recording he made. In 2018, Mayall made a new addition to his band; his first female lead guitarist, Carolyn Wonderland.


title: John Mayall

text: In 2013, Mayall signed with producer Eric Corne's label, Forty Below Records. The two have produced 4 studio albums together, "A Special Life" featuring accordionist C.J. Chenier, "Find a Way to Care", "Talk About That" featuring Joe Walsh and "Nobody Told Me". Corne also re-mastered some live recordings from 1967 featuring Peter Green, John McVie and Mick Fleetwood released as "Live in 1967" Volumes I and II. In 2016, Mayall was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame.


title: John Mayall

text: Mayall's autobiography, "Blues From Laurel Canyon: My Life As A Bluesman", co-written with author Joel McIver, was published by Omnibus Press in August 2019.


title: Coping

text: Coping refers to conscious strategies used to reduce unpleasant emotions. Coping strategies can be cognitions or behaviours and can be individual or social.


title: Coping

text: Hundreds of coping strategies have been proposed in an attempt to understand how people cope. Classification of these strategies into a broader architecture has not been agreed upon. Researchers try to group coping responses rationally, empirically by factor analysis, or through a blend of both techniques. In the early days, Folkman and Lazarus split the coping strategies into four groups, namely problem-focused, emotion-focused, support-seeking, and meaning-making coping. Weiten has identified four types of coping strategies: appraisal-focused (adaptive cognitive), problem-focused (adaptive behavioral), emotion-focused, and occupation-focused coping. Billings and Moos added avoidance coping as one of the emotion-focused coping. Some scholars have questioned the psychometric validity of forced categorisation as those strategies are not independent to each other. Besides, in reality, people can adopt multiple coping strategies simultaneously.


title: Coping

text: Typically, people use a mixture of several types of coping strategies, which may change over time. All these strategies can prove useful, but some claim that those using problem-focused coping strategies will adjust better to life. Problem-focused coping mechanisms may allow an individual greater perceived control over their problem, whereas emotion-focused coping may sometimes lead to a reduction in perceived control (maladaptive coping).


title: Coping

text: Lazarus "notes the connection between his idea of 'defensive reappraisals' or cognitive coping and Freud's concept of 'ego-defenses'", coping strategies thus overlapping with a person's defense mechanisms.


title: Coping

text: Appraisal-focused (adaptive cognitive) strategies occur when the person modifies the way they think, for example: employing denial, or distancing oneself from the problem. Individuals who use appraisal coping strategies purposely alter their perspective on their situation in order to have a more positive outlook on their situation. An example of appraisal coping strategies could be an individual purchasing tickets to a football game, knowing their medical condition would likely cause them to not be able to attend. People may alter the way they think about a problem by altering their goals and values, such as by seeing the humor in a situation: "some have suggested that humor may play a greater role as a stress moderator among women than men".


title: Coping

text: The psychological coping mechanisms are commonly termed "coping strategies" or "coping skills". The term "coping" generally refers to adaptive (constructive) coping strategies, that is, strategies which reduce stress. In contrast, other coping strategies may be coined as maladaptive, if they increase stress. Maladaptive coping is therefore also described, based on its outcome, as non-coping. Furthermore, the term coping generally refers to "reactive coping", i.e. the coping response which follows the stressor. This differs from "proactive coping", in which a coping response aims to neutralize a future stressor. Subconscious or unconscious strategies (e.g. defense mechanisms) are generally excluded from the area of coping.


title: Coping

text: The effectiveness of the coping effort depends on the type of stress, the individual, and the circumstances. Coping responses are partly controlled by personality (habitual traits), but also partly by the social environment, particularly the nature of the stressful environment.


title: Coping

text: People using problem-focused strategies try to deal with the cause of their problem. They do this by finding out information on the problem and learning new skills to manage the problem. Problem-focused coping is aimed at changing or eliminating the source of the stress. The three problem-focused coping strategies identified by Folkman and Lazarus are: taking control, information seeking, and evaluating the pros and cons. However, problem-focused coping may not be necessarily adaptive, but backfire, especially in the uncontrollable case that one cannot make the problem go away.


title: Coping

text: Emotion-focused coping "is oriented toward managing the emotions that accompany the perception of stress". The five emotion-focused coping strategies identified by Folkman and Lazarus are:


title: Coping

text: Emotion-focused coping is a mechanism to alleviate distress by minimizing, reducing, or preventing, the emotional components of a stressor. This mechanism can be applied through a variety of ways, such as:


title: Coping

text: The focus of this coping mechanism is to change the meaning of the stressor or transfer attention away from it. For example, reappraising tries to find a more positive meaning of the cause of the stress in order to reduce the emotional component of the stressor. Avoidance of the emotional distress will distract from the negative feelings associated with the stressor. Emotion-focused coping is well suited for stressors that seem uncontrollable (ex. a terminal illness diagnosis, or the loss of a loved one). Some mechanisms of emotion focused coping, such as distancing or avoidance, can have alleviating outcomes for a short period of time, however they can be detrimental when used over an extended period. Positive emotion-focused mechanisms, such as seeking social support, and positive re-appraisal, are associated with beneficial outcomes. Emotional approach coping is one form of emotion-focused coping in which emotional expression and processing is used to adaptively manage a response to a stressor. Other examples include relaxation training through deep breathing, meditation, yoga, music and art therapy, and aromatherapy, as well as grounding, which uses physical sensations or mental distractions to refocus from the stressor to present.


title: Coping

text: The health theory of coping overcame the limitations of previous theories of coping, describing coping strategies within categories that are conceptually clear, mutually exclusive, comprehensive, functionally homogenous, functionally distinct, generative and flexible, explains the continuum of coping strategies. The usefulness of all coping strategies to reduce acute distress is acknowledged, however, strategies are categorised as healthy or unhealthy depending on their likelihood of additional adverse consequences. Healthy categories are self-soothing, relaxation/distraction, social support and professional support. Unhealthy coping categories are negative self-talk, harmful activities (e.g., emotional eating, verbal or physical aggression, drugs such as alcohol, self-harm), social withdrawal, and suicidality. Unhealthy coping strategies are used when healthy coping strategies are overwhelmed, not in the absence of healthy coping strategies.


title: Coping

text: Research has shown that everyone has personal healthy coping strategies (self-soothing, relaxation/distraction), however, access to social and professional support varies. Increasing distress and inadequate support results in the additional use of unhealthy coping strategies. Overwhelming distress exceeds the capacity of healthy coping strategies and results in the use of unhealthy coping strategies. Overwhelming distress is caused by problems in one or more biopsychosocial domains of health and wellbeing. The continuum of coping strategies (healthy to unhealthy, independent to social, and low harm to high harm) have been explored in general populations, university students, and paramedics.


title: Coping

text: Most coping is reactive in that the coping response follows stressors. Anticipating and reacting to a future stressor is known as "proactive coping" or future-oriented coping. Anticipation is when one reduces the stress of some difficult challenge by anticipating what it will be like and preparing for how one is going to cope with it.


title: Coping

text: "Social coping" recognises that individuals are bedded within a social environment, which can be stressful, but also is the source of coping resources, such as seeking social support from others. (see help-seeking)


title: Coping

text: Humor used as a positive coping method may have useful benefits to emotional and mental health well-being. However, maladaptive humor styles such as self-defeating humor can also have negative effects on psychological adjustment and might exacerbate negative effects of other stressors.


title: Coping

text: By having a humorous outlook on life, stressful experiences can be and are often minimized. This coping method corresponds with positive emotional states and is known to be an indicator of mental health. Physiological processes are also influenced within the exercise of humor. For example, laughing may reduce muscle tension, increase the flow of oxygen to the blood, exercise the cardiovascular region, and produce endorphins in the body. Using humor in coping while processing through feelings can vary depending on life circumstance and individual humor styles. In regards to grief and loss in life occurrences, it has been found that genuine laughs/smiles when speaking about the loss predicted later adjustment and evoked more positive responses from other people. A person might also find comedic relief with others around irrational possible outcomes for the deceased funeral service. It is also possible that humor would be used by people to feel a sense of control over a more powerless situation and used as way to temporarily escape a feeling of helplessness. Exercised humor can be a sign of positive adjustment as well as drawing support and interaction from others around the loss.


title: Coping

text: Whereas adaptive coping strategies improve functioning, a maladaptive coping technique (also termed non-coping) will just reduce symptoms while maintaining or strengthening the stressor. Maladaptive techniques are only effective as a short-term rather than long-term coping process.


title: Coping

text: Examples of maladaptive behavior strategies include anxious avoidance, dissociation, escape (including self-medication), use of maladaptive humor styles such as self-defeating humor, procrastination, rationalisation safety behaviors, and sensitization. These coping strategies interfere with the person's ability to unlearn, or break apart, the paired association between the situation and the associated anxiety symptoms. These are maladaptive strategies as they serve to maintain the disorder.


title: Coping

text: Further examples of coping strategies include emotional or instrumental support, self-distraction, denial, substance use, self-blame, behavioral disengagement and the use of drugs or alcohol.


title: Coping

text: Many people think that meditation "not only calms our emotions, but...makes us feel more 'together'", as too can "the kind of prayer in which you're trying to achieve an inner quietness and peace".


title: Coping

text: Low-effort syndrome or low-effort coping refers to the coping responses of a person refusing to work hard. For example, a student at school may learn to put in only minimal effort as they believe if they put in effort it could unveil their flaws.


title: Coping

text: Otto Fenichel summarized early psychoanalytic studies of coping mechanisms in children as "a gradual substitution of actions for mere discharge reactions...[&] the development of the function of judgement" – noting however that "behind all active types of mastery of external and internal tasks, a readiness remains to fall back on passive-receptive types of mastery."


title: Coping

text: In adult cases of "acute and more or less 'traumatic' upsetting events in the life of normal persons", Fenichel stressed that in coping, "in carrying out a 'work of learning' or 'work of adjustment', [s]he must acknowledge the new and less comfortable reality and fight tendencies towards regression, towards the misinterpretation of reality", though such rational strategies "may be mixed with relative allowances for rest and for small regressions and compensatory wish fulfillment, which are recuperative in effect".


title: Coping

text: In the 1940s, the German Freudian psychoanalyst Karen Horney "developed her mature theory in which individuals cope with the anxiety produced by feeling unsafe, unloved, and undervalued by disowning their spontaneous feelings and developing elaborate strategies of defence." Horney defined four so-called coping strategies to define interpersonal relations, one describing psychologically healthy individuals, the others describing neurotic states.


title: Coping

text: The healthy strategy she termed "Moving with" is that with which psychologically healthy people develop relationships. It involves compromise. In order to move with, there must be communication, agreement, disagreement, compromise, and decisions. The three other strategies she described – "Moving toward", "Moving against" and "Moving away" – represented neurotic, unhealthy strategies people utilize in order to protect themselves.


title: Coping

text: Horney investigated these patterns of neurotic needs (compulsive attachments). The neurotics might feel these attachments more strongly because of difficulties within their lives. If the neurotic does not experience these needs, they will experience anxiety. The ten needs are:


title: Coping

text: In Compliance, also known as "Moving toward" or the "Self-effacing solution", the individual moves towards those perceived as a threat to avoid retribution and getting hurt, "making any sacrifice, no matter how detrimental." The argument is, "If I give in, I won't get hurt." This means that: if I give everyone I see as a potential threat whatever they want, I won't be injured (physically or emotionally). This strategy includes neurotic needs one, two, and three.


title: Coping

text: In Withdrawal, also known as "Moving away" or the "Resigning solution", individuals distance themselves from anyone perceived as a threat to avoid getting hurt – "the 'mouse-hole' attitude ... the security of unobtrusiveness." The argument is, "If I do not let anyone close to me, I won't get hurt." A neurotic, according to Horney desires to be distant because of being abused. If they can be the extreme introvert, no one will ever develop a relationship with them. If there is no one around, nobody can hurt them. These "moving away" people fight personality, so they often come across as cold or shallow. This is their strategy. They emotionally remove themselves from society. Included in this strategy are neurotic needs three, nine, and ten.


title: Coping

text: In Aggression, also known as the "Moving against" or the "Expansive solution", the individual threatens those perceived as a threat to avoid getting hurt. Children might react to parental in-differences by displaying anger or hostility. This strategy includes neurotic needs four, five, six, seven, and eight.


title: Coping

text: Related to the work of Karen Horney, public administration scholars developed a classification of coping by frontline workers when working with clients (see also the work of Michael Lipsky on street-level bureaucracy). This coping classification is focused on the behavior workers can display towards clients when confronted with stress. They show that during public service delivery there are three main families of coping:


title: Coping

text: - Moving "towards" clients: Coping by helping clients in stressful situations. An example is a teacher working overtime to help students.


title: Coping

text: - Moving "away from" clients: Coping by avoiding meaningful interactions with clients in stressful situations. An example is a public servant stating "the office is very busy today, please return tomorrow."


title: Coping

text: - Moving "against" clients: Coping by confronting clients. For instance, teachers can cope with stress when working with students by imposing very rigid rules, such as no cellphone use in class and sending everyone to the office when they use a cellphone. Furthermore, aggression towards clients is also included here.


title: Coping

text: In their systematic review of 35 years of the literature, the scholars found that the most often used family is moving "towards" clients (43% of all coping fragments). Moving "away from" clients was found in 38% of all coping fragments and Moving "against" clients in 19%.


title: Coping

text: In 1937, the psychoanalyst (as well as a physician, psychologist, and psychiatrist) Heinz Hartmann marked it as the evolution of ego psychology by publishing his paper, "Me" (which was later translated into English in 1958, titled, "The Ego and the Problem of Adaptation"). Hartmann focused on the adaptive progression of the ego "through the mastery of new demands and tasks". In fact, according to his "adaptive point of view", once infants were born they have the ability to be able to cope with the demands of their surroundings. In his wake, ego psychology further stressed "the development of the personality and of 'ego-strengths'...adaptation to social realities".


title: Coping

text: Emotional intelligence has stressed the importance of "the capacity to soothe oneself, to shake off rampant anxiety, gloom, or irritability...People who are poor in this ability are constantly battling feelings of distress, while those who excel in it can bounce back far more quickly from life's setbacks and upsets". From this perspective, "the art of soothing ourselves is a fundamental life skill; some psychoanalytic thinkers, such as John Bowlby and D. W. Winnicott see this as the most essential of all psychic tools."


title: Coping

text: Object relations theory has examined the childhood development both of "[i]ndependent coping...capacity for self-soothing", and of "[a]ided coping. Emotion-focused coping in infancy is often accomplished through the assistance of an adult."


title: Coping

text: Gender differences in coping strategies are the ways in which men and women differ in managing psychological stress. There is evidence that males often develop stress due to their careers, whereas females often encounter stress due to issues in interpersonal relationships. Early studies indicated that "there were gender differences in the sources of stressors, but gender differences in coping were relatively small after controlling for the source of stressors"; and more recent work has similarly revealed "small differences between women's and men's coping strategies when studying individuals in similar situations."


title: Coping

text: In general, such differences as exist indicate that women tend to employ emotion-focused coping and the "tend-and-befriend" response to stress, whereas men tend to use problem-focused coping and the "fight-or-flight" response, perhaps because societal standards encourage men to be more individualistic, while women are often expected to be interpersonal. An alternative explanation for the aforementioned differences involves genetic factors. The degree to which genetic factors and social conditioning influence behavior, is the subject of ongoing debate.


title: Coping

text: Hormones also play a part in stress management. Cortisol, a stress hormone, was found to be elevated in males during stressful situations. In females, however, cortisol levels were decreased in stressful situations, and instead, an increase in limbic activity was discovered. Many researchers believe that these results underlie the reasons why men administer a fight-or-flight reaction to stress; whereas, females have a tend-and-befriend reaction. The "fight-or-flight" response activates the sympathetic nervous system in the form of increased focus levels, adrenaline, and epinephrine. Conversely, the "tend-and-befriend" reaction refers to the tendency of women to protect their offspring and relatives. Although these two reactions support a genetic basis to differences in behavior, one should not assume that in general females cannot implement "fight-or-flight" behavior or that males cannot implement "tend-and-befriend" behavior. Additionally, this study implied differing health impacts for each gender as a result of the contrasting stress-processes.


title: Low-cost carrier

text: A low-cost carrier or low-cost airline (occasionally referred to as "no-frills", "budget" or "discount carrier" or "airline", and abbreviated as "LCC") is an airline that is operated with an especially high emphasis on minimizing operating costs and without some of the traditional services and amenities provided in the fare, resulting in lower fares and fewer comforts. To make up for revenue lost in decreased ticket prices, the airline may charge extra fees – such as for carry-on baggage. As of April 2020, the world's largest low-cost carrier is Southwest Airlines, which operates primarily in the United States, as well as in some surrounding areas.


title: Low-cost carrier

text: The term originated within the airline industry referring to airlines with a lower operating cost structure than their competitors. While the term is often applied to any carrier with low ticket prices and limited services, regardless of their operating models, low-cost carriers should not be confused with regional airlines that operate short flights without service, or with full-service airlines offering some reduced fares.


title: Low-cost carrier

text: Some airlines advertise themselves as low-cost while maintaining products usually associated with traditional mainline carrier's services. These products include preferred or assigned seating, catering, differentiated premium cabins, satellite or ground-based Wi-Fi internet, and in-flight audio and video entertainment. More recently, the term "ultra low-cost carrier" (ULCC) has been used, particularly in North America and Europe to refer to carriers that do not provide these services and amenities.


title: Low-cost carrier

text: The low-cost carrier business model practices vary widely. Some practices are more common in certain regions, while others are generally universal. The common theme among all low-cost carriers is the reduction of cost and reduced overall fares compared to legacy carriers.


title: Low-cost carrier

text: Most low-cost carriers operate aircraft configured with a single passenger class, and most operate just a single aircraft type, so cabin and ground crew will only have to be trained to work on one type of aircraft, however some low-cost carriers choose to operate more than one type and configure their aircraft with more than one passenger class. This is also beneficial from a maintenance standpoint as spare parts and mechanics will only be dedicated to one type of aircraft. These airlines tend to operate short-haul flights that suit the range of narrow-body (single aisle) planes. As of lately however there is also a rise in demand for long range low-cost flights and the availability of next generation planes that make long haul routes more feasible for LCCs.


title: Low-cost carrier

text: In the past, low-cost carriers tended to operate older aircraft purchased second-hand, such as the McDonnell Douglas DC-9 and older models of the Boeing 737. Since 2000, fleets generally consist of the newest aircraft, commonly the Airbus A320 family and Boeing 737. Although buying new aircraft is usually more expensive than second-hand, new planes are cheaper to operate in the long run since they are extremely efficient in terms of fuel, training, maintenance, and crew costs per passenger.


title: Low-cost carrier

text: In 2013, ch-aviation published a study about the fleet strategy of low-cost carriers. They summarized that major LCCs that order aircraft in large numbers get large discounts for doing so, and due to this they can sell their aircraft just a few years after delivery at a price high enough to keep their operating costs relatively low.


title: Low-cost carrier

text: Aircraft often operate with a minimum set of optional equipment, further reducing costs of acquisition and maintenance, as well as keeping the weight of the aircraft lower and thus saving fuel. Ryanair seats do not recline and do not have rear pockets, to reduce cleaning and maintenance costs. Others have no window shades. Pilot conveniences, such as ACARS, may be excluded. Often, no in-flight entertainment systems are made available, though many US low-cost carriers do offer satellite television or radio in-flight. It is also becoming a popular approach to install LCD monitors onto the aircraft and broadcast advertisements on them, coupled with the traditional route–altitude–speed information. Most do not offer reserved seating, hoping to encourage passengers to board early and quickly, thus decreasing turnaround times. Some allow priority boarding for an extra fee instead of reserved seating, and some allow reserving a seat in an emergency exit row (for longer leg room) at an extra cost.


title: Low-cost carrier

text: Like the major carriers, many low-cost carriers develop one or more bases to maximize destination coverage and defend their market. Many do not operate traditional hubs, but rather focus cities.


title: Low-cost carrier

text: Airlines often offer a simpler fare scheme, such as charging one-way tickets half that of round-trips. Typically fares increase as the plane fills up, which rewards early reservations.


title: Low-cost carrier

text: In Europe (and early in Southwest's history) luggage is not transferred from one flight to another, even if both flights are with the same airline. This saves costs and is thought to encourage passengers to take direct flights. Tickets are not sold with transfers, so the airline can avoid responsibility for passengers' connections in the event of a delay. Low-cost carriers often have a sparse schedule with one flight per day and route, so it would be hard to find an alternative for a missed connection. Modern US-based low-cost carriers generally transfer baggage for continuing flights, as well as transferring baggage to other airlines. Many airlines opt to have passengers board via stairs, since jetways generally cost more to lease.


title: Low-cost carrier

text: Often, low-cost carriers fly to smaller, less congested secondary airports and/or fly to airports during off-peak hours to avoid air traffic delays and take advantage of lower landing fees. This is why Ryanair flies to Gatwick Airport, Luton Airport, and Stansted Airport in the London area and how easyJet is able to fly to Paris-Charles de Gaulle, and Amsterdam Airport Schiphol. In London's case however, low-cost carriers would not be able to use Heathrow anyway as the airport is running at near capacity, so there is no room to build a base. The airlines tend to offload, service and re-load the aircraft (turnaround) in shorter time periods and don't wait for late passengers, allowing maximum utilization of aircraft.


title: Low-cost carrier

text: Low-cost carriers generate ancillary revenue from a variety of activities, such as à la carte features and commission-based products. Some airlines may charge a fee for a pillow or blanket or for carry-on baggage. In Europe, it is common for each and every convenience and service to have an additional charge. AirAsia, for example, generates revenue by courier services and hotels as well as flights.


title: Low-cost carrier

text: Low-cost carriers intend to be low-cost, so in many cases employees work multiple roles. At some airlines flight attendants also work as gate agents or assume other roles, thereby limiting personnel costs. Southwest Airlines is well known for using fuel hedging programs to reduce its overall fuel costs. Check-in at the gate of luggage requires fees, as it requires addition to the weight calculation and last-minute baggage handling.


title: Low-cost carrier

text: Where permissible, some airlines have a disinclination to handle Special Service passengers, for instance by placing a higher age limit on unaccompanied minors than full-service carriers. Often these airlines don't offer connecting tickets, since the airline will have to pay for ground crew to transfer luggage. A customer may create a connection manually by purchasing two separate tickets, but these are considered separate contracts, and the passenger bears the risk if a delayed inbound flight causes a missed connection.


title: Low-cost carrier

text: When most countries had national monopolies, crews could negotiate pay raises and good pension benefits (something that costs money for the airlines only in the long term). During this period, most passengers were business travelers who paid high fares that covered these costs. After deregulation, which led to lower fares, many airlines remained bound to these salary agreements and pensions, whereas new low-cost carriers employed new staff with lower salaries, especially for cabin crew, keeping personnel costs low and allowing for competitive fares. In some cases airlines have gone bankrupt (e.g., Alitalia, Sabena, and Swissair), and new airlines replaced them.


title: Low-cost carrier

text: Traditional carriers followed the low-cost carriers by enabling web check-in, encouraging machine check-in at the airport, and generally reducing ground personnel cost. Ryanair is unique because it primarily operates at secondary airports without any competition, so it can easily negotiate large cost reductions and deals with the airport owners.


title: Low-cost carrier

text: The number of crew members follow international conventions that require one flight attendant per 50 passenger seats and two pilots. No carrier can save money by reducing flight crew, but they can reduce ground crew.


title: Low-cost carrier

text: Carriers like Ryanair hire pilots through third-party agencies based in low-tax countries without benefits for sick pay, pensions or health insurance. Traditional carriers have also started to try this, including starting their own low-tax agencies. These agencies can easily find less experienced co-pilots and cabin crew, as the profession is popular, but there are problems for low-cost carriers to recruit and keep captains who have to be experienced.


title: Low-cost carrier

text: At IATA, a LCC operation is defined as including the following characteristics, at least to some degree:


title: Low-cost carrier

text: While low-cost airlines differ in service offerings, by definition they feature most of the following:


title: Low-cost carrier

text: Some airlines resort to very innovative practices. Many airlines these days work with aircraft manufacturers, but airlines such as AirAsia goes a step further, working with airports to develop specially designed low-cost terminals that require far less overhead. Lower costs are passed on to the airline, and in turn to the customer. Ryanair generally make the airports accept their boarding passes which passengers print themselves, although at some airports (where Ryanair is not dominating) passengers have to replace it with a normal boarding pass from the airport. Other practices that reduce expenses are the use of UAVs for aircraft checkups, tablet PCs instead of logs on paper (reduces airplane weight), and smartglasses for the pilot.


title: Low-cost carrier

text: Not every low-cost carrier implements all of the above points. For example, some try to differentiate themselves with allocated seating, while others operate more than one aircraft type, still others have relatively high operating costs but lower fares. JetBlue, for instance, has in-flight entertainment in every passenger seat. Other airlines are limited on what points they can implement based on local laws. For example, Ryanair cannot remove window blinds from its aircraft, as they are required by the Irish Aviation Authority. As supply increases, this sort of differentiation by brand is an important criteria for the future success of low-cost carriers, since many experts believe price competition alone is not enough, given the number of carriers.


title: Low-cost carrier

text: As the number of low-cost carriers has grown, these airlines have begun to compete with one another in addition to the traditional carriers. In the US, airlines have responded by introducing variations to the model. JetBlue advertises satellite television. Advertiser-supported Skybus Airlines launched from Columbus in 2007, but ceased operations in April 2008. In Europe, the emphasis has remained on reducing costs and no-frills service. In 2004, Ryanair announced proposals to eliminate reclining seats, window blinds, seat headrest covers, and seat pockets from its aircraft.


title: Low-cost carrier

text: A secondary term "ultra low-cost carrier" (ULCC) has been used to differentiate some low-cost airlines whose model deviates further from that of a standard low-cost carrier, with ultra low-cost carriers having minimal inclusions in the fare and a greater number of add-on fees.


title: Low-cost carrier

text: In the US market, Spirit Airlines and Allegiant Air have been most commonly referred to as Ultra Low-Cost carriers, with Frontier Airlines repositioning as ultra low-cost in 2015.


title: Low-cost carrier

text: In Europe, Ryanair and Wizz Air are the most prominent ULCCs. Following the appointment of former Allegiant Air COO Jude Bricker as their new CEO, Sun Country Airlines began transitioning to an ultra low-cost carrier model in 2017.


title: Low-cost carrier

text: The pricing policy of the low-cost carriers is usually very dynamic, with discounts and tickets in promotion. Like other carriers, even if the advertised price may be very low, it often does not include charges and taxes. With some airlines, some flights are advertised as free (plus applicable taxes, fees and charges). Depending on the airline, perhaps as many (or as few) as ten percent of the seats on any flight are offered at the lowest price and are the first to sell. The prices steadily rise thereafter to a point where they can be comparable or more expensive than a flight on a full-service carrier.


title: Low-cost carrier

text: Most airlines charge additional taxes and fees on their tickets. Some low-cost airlines have been known to charge fees for the seemingly ridiculous, such as levying a credit card charge if credit card is the only payment method accepted.


title: Low-cost carrier

text: Some elements of the low-cost model have been subject to criticism by governments and regulators; and in the UK in particular, the issue of "unbundling" of ancillary charges by both low-cost carriers and other airlines (showing airport fees or taxes as separate charges rather than as part of the advertised fare) to make the "headline fare" appear lower has resulted in enforcement action. Considering that this amounts to a misleading approach to pricing, the United Kingdom's Office of Fair Trading (OFT) in February 2007 gave all carriers and travel companies three months to include all fixed non-optional costs in their basic advertised prices. Although the full-service carriers had complied within the specified timescales, the low-cost carriers have been less compliant in this respect, leading to the prospect of legal action by the OFT.


title: Low-cost carrier

text: Some destination cities lie relatively far from the airports that low-cost airlines use to save costs. Examples of this are Hahn, Weeze and Girona airports—which low-cost airlines advertise as the destinations for Frankfurt, Düsseldorf, and Barcelona, respectively—even though these airports are 50 to 90 kilometres away. This has drawn criticism, mostly from competing airlines that fly closer to the destinations.


title: Low-cost carrier

text: IAG CEO Willie Walsh found established airlines arrogant facing the LCC model. For instance, Aer Lingus turned down the opportunity to buy Ryanair for "£"29 million Irish pounds (€29/0.787564round1 million). The company further stated that it would not have developed Ryanair and instead would have shut it down.


title: Low-cost carrier

text: While tour and package operators have offered lower-priced, lower-frilled traveling for a large part of modern airline history, not until during the post–Vietnam War era did this business model escalate. Through various ticket consolidators, charter airlines, and innovators in lower-frills flying, such as Channel Airways and Court Line, the traveling public had been conditioned to want to travel to new and increasingly further away and exotic locations on vacation, rather than short-haul trips to nearby beach resorts.


title: Low-cost carrier

text: The world's first low-cost airline was Pacific Southwest Airlines, which started intrastate flights connecting Southern and Northern California on 6 May 1949. PSA's light-hearted atmosphere and efficient operations were a runaway success early on, and inspired a number of low-cost start-ups across the United States, beginning in the mid-60s. Herb Kelleher studied the success of PSA, and copied their culture closely when he established Southwest Airlines in 1971.


title: Low-cost carrier

text: The first airline to offer cheaper transatlantic fares was Icelandic airline Loftleiðir in 1964, often referred to as "the Hippie Airline". Many young Americans travelled to Europe after graduation, to experience the "old-world culture", and they were more concerned with getting there cheaply than comfortably or even exactly on time. Loftleiðir were not famous for speed or punctuality, but flying with the company became a sort of rite of passage for those young "hippies", one of whom was Bill Clinton, later US President.


title: Low-cost carrier

text: The first airline offering no-frills transatlantic service was Freddie Laker's Laker Airways, which operated its famous "Skytrain" service between London and New York City during the late 1970s. The service was suspended after Laker's competitors, British Airways and Pan Am, were able to price Skytrain out of the market.


title: Low-cost carrier

text: In the United States, airline carriers such as Midway Airlines and America West Airlines, which commenced operations after 1978, soon realized a cost of available seat mile (CASM) advantage in relation to the traditional and established, legacy airlines such as Trans World Airlines and American Airlines. Often this CASM advantage has been attributed solely to the lower labor costs of the newly hired and lower pay grade workers of new start-up carriers, such as ValuJet, Midway Airlines, and their like. However, these lower costs can also be attributed to the less complex aircraft fleets and route networks with which these new carriers began operations, in addition to their reduced labor costs.


title: Low-cost carrier

text: To combat the new round of low-cost and start-up entrants into the very competitive and deregulated United States airline industry, the mainline major carriers and network legacy carriers strategically developed no-frills divisions within the main airlines brand and corporate structures. Among these were Continental Lite, Delta Express, MetroJet, Shuttle by United, Song, and Ted. However, most of these "airlines within an airline" were short-lived and quickly disposed-of when economic rationalization or competitive pressures subsided.


title: Low-cost carrier

text: Taking a page from the mainline, major, or legacy carriers' desire to reduce costs in all ways possible in regards regional route networks by outsourcing regional operations to the lowest expense airline bidder capable of operating regional aircraft, a new generation of low-cost airlines (in name only) soon evolved in the US with varying levels of success. Among these varieties of low-cost and discount operators were noteworthy starts-ups that managed to get off the ground by using the larger aircraft services of established charter airlines. Among this group were the virtual airlines; Direct Air, PeoplExpress, Western, and those that never began service such as JetAmerica.


title: Low-cost carrier

text: In Japan, low-cost airlines made major inroads into the market in 2012 when Peach, Jetstar Japan and AirAsia Japan began operations, each with financial sponsorship by a domestic legacy airline and one or more foreign investors. By mid-2013, these new LCCs were operating at a unit cost of around 8 yen per seat-kilometer, compared to 10–11 yen per seat-kilometer for domestic legacy airlines. However, their unit cost was still much higher than the 3 yen per seat-kilometer for AirAsia in Malaysia, due to the higher cost of landing fees and personnel in Japan.


title: Low-cost carrier

text: By 2017, low-cost carriers had achieved market share of 57.2% in South Asia and 52.6% in Southeast Asia. Market share remained somewhat lower in Europe at 37.9% and North America at 32.7%.


title: Low-cost carrier

text: For the European Commission, the LCCs market share (44.8%) exceeded legacy carriers (42.4%) in 2012: between 2002 and 2017, LCC share of international seat capacity rose from 23% to 57% in the UK, from 10% to 55% in Italy and from 9% to 56% in Spain but have still room for growth in domestic seat-capacity In France with 19% and in Germany with 25% in 2017, compared with 66% in the UK, 48% in Spain and 47% in Italy.


title: Low-cost carrier

text: By early 2019, there were more than 100 LCCs operating 6,000 aircraft, doubled from 2,900 aircraft at the end of 2009, while seat capacity reached nearly 1.7 billion in 2018.


title: Low-cost carrier

text: LCCs accounted for 33% of intra-regional seat capacity in 2018 with 1.564 billion, up from 25% in 2008 with 753 million, and 13% of seat capacity between regions with 101 million, up from 6% in 2009 with 26 million.


title: Low-cost carrier

text: In 2018, penetration rate was 41% of seats within Europe, 36% within Latin America, 32% within North America, 29% within Asia Pacific, 17% within the Middle East and 12% within Africa.


title: Low-cost carrier

text: A long-haul low-cost operation would be harder to differentiate from a conventional airline as there are few cost savings possibilities, while the seat costs would have to be lower than the competition. Long-haul aircraft scheduling is often determined by time zone constraints, like leaving the US East Coast in the evening and arriving in Europe the following morning, and the longer flight times mean there is less scope to increase aircraft utilization as in short-haul. The business model is financially risky, and many companies have entered bankruptcy, like Laker Airways.


title: Low-cost carrier

text: In 2004, Irish Aer Lingus maintains a full service on transatlantic flights while it lowered its prices to compete with Ryanair on short haul.


title: Low-cost carrier

text: Late in 2004, Oasis Hong Kong Airlines offered London to Hong Kong flights from £199, and Canadian Zoom Airlines started selling transatlantic flights between the UK and Canada for £89. In August 2006, Zoom announced a UK subsidiary to offer low-cost long-haul flights to the United States and India, but suspended its operations from 28 August 2008 due to high fuel prices inducing financial problems.


title: Low-cost carrier

text: In 2005, Emirates' Tim Clark viewed long-haul low-cost as inevitable, flights could be operated on 760 seats all-economy Airbus A380s, or 870 for an hypothetical A380 stretch.


title: Low-cost carrier

text: Since 2005, Australia's Jetstar Airways operates international flights, starting with Christchurch, New Zealand. In late 2006, others followed from Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, to popular tourist destinations within 10 hours like Honolulu, Japan, Vietnam, Thailand and Malaysia. With new aircraft deliveries, it hopes to fly to the continental US and Europe.


title: Low-cost carrier

text: In April 2006, the industry magazine "Airline Business" analysed the potential for low-cost long-haul service and concluded that a number of Asian carriers, including AirAsia, were closest to making such a model work.


title: Low-cost carrier

text: On 26 October 2006, Oasis Hong Kong Airlines started flying from Hong Kong to London-Gatwick. The lowest prices for flights between Hong Kong to London could be as low at £75 (approximately US$150) per leg (not including taxes and other charges) for economy class and £470 (approximately US$940) per leg for business class for the same route. From 28 June 2007, a second long-haul route to Vancouver, British Columbia was started. The company ceased operations on 9 April 2008, after over a billion Hong Kong dollars in losses.


title: Low-cost carrier

text: On 2 November 2007, AirAsia X, a subsidiary of AirAsia and Virgin Group flew its inaugural flight from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to Gold Coast, Australia. AirAsia X claims that it is the first true low-cost long-haul carrier since the end of Skytrain.


title: Low-cost carrier

text: In late 2007, Cebu Pacific, the Philippines' largest low-cost carrier, announced non-stop flights from the Philippines to the United States West Coast and other US cities from mid-2009. The airline also intends to launch low-cost service to Middle East, where around a million Filipinos are based, and in Europe. As of October 2017, it operates flights to Dubai daily and Guam three times a week.


title: Low-cost carrier

text: On 11 March 2009, AirAsia X started its first low-cost long-haul service into Europe, to London Stansted. The daily flights are operated by two leased Airbus A340-300s. A one-way economy-class ticket often costs £150, and the premium-class one-way often costs £350. On 12 January 2012, AirAsia announced that it would be suspending services to London on 1 April 2012.


title: Low-cost carrier

text: Low-cost European airline, Norwegian Air Shuttle, started long-haul low-cost operations in May 2013 under their Norwegian Long Haul arm. Norwegian initially operated flights to Bangkok and New York from Scandinavia using leased Airbus A340 aircraft, switching to new Boeing 787s in the second half of 2013 after Boeing resumed deliveries following extensive problems and delays. It served direct routes from the United States (Los Angeles, Fort Lauderdale, New York City, Oakland-San Francisco, Boston and Orlando) into Scandinavia (Oslo, Stockholm, Copenhagen). In January 2021 Norwegian announced the immediate cessation of their long-haul operations, along with a large-scale reduction of its fleet of Boeing 737 aircraft and operations.


title: Low-cost carrier

text: In March 2017, International Airlines Group established Level, a long-haul low-cost virtual airline based in Barcelona Airport and serving destinations in North and South America.


title: Low-cost carrier

text: Long-haul low-cost carriers are emerging on the transatlantic flights market with 545,000 seats offered over 60 city pairs in September 2017 (a 66% growth over one year), compared to 652,000 seats over 96 pairs for Leisure airlines and 8,798,000 seats over 357 pairs for mainline carriers.


title: Low-cost carrier

text: Ex American Airlines CEO Bob Crandall thinks the legacy carriers will force Long-haul LCCS to lose too much money and will continue to dominate.


title: Low-cost carrier

text: While Asian carriers like AirAsia X, Scoot, Cebu Pacific and Jetstar Airways are successful, the October 2018 demise of Primera Air and its $99 transatlantic flights illustrates the difficulties of the model, as the US World Airways will be relaunched in 2019.


title: Low-cost carrier

text: A trend from the mid-2000s was the formation of new low-cost carriers exclusively targeting the long-haul business market. Aircraft are generally configured for a single class of service, initially on transatlantic routings.


title: Low-cost carrier

text: Similarly, Midwest Express (later Midwest Airlines) which operated from 1984 until it was absorbed into Frontier Airlines in 2010, and Legend Airlines which ceased operations in late 2000 were also founded on this operating model.


title: Low-cost carrier

text: Probably best described as "fewer frills" rather than "no frills", the initial entrants in this market utilized second-hand, mid-sized, twin jets, such as Boeing 757 and Boeing 767, in an attempt to service the lucrative London-US Eastern Seaboard market:


title: Confessions of a Shopaholic (film)

text: Confessions of a Shopaholic is a 2009 American romantic comedy film based on the first two entries in the "Shopaholic" series of novels by Sophie Kinsella. Directed by P. J. Hogan, the film stars Isla Fisher as the shopaholic journalist and Hugh Dancy as her boss.


title: Confessions of a Shopaholic (film)

text: Rebecca "Becky" Bloomwood is a shopping addict who lives in New York City with her best friend Suze. She works as a journalist for a gardening magazine but dreams of joining the fashion magazine "Alette". On the way to an interview with "Alette", she tries to purchase a green scarf, but her credit card is declined. Rebecca goes to a hot dog stand and offers to buy all the hot dogs with a check if the seller gives her back change in cash, claiming that the scarf is meant to be a gift for her sick aunt. The vendor refuses but another customer gives her the $20 she needs for the scarf.


title: Confessions of a Shopaholic (film)

text: When Rebecca arrives at the interview, she's told that the position has been filled internally. However, the receptionist tells her there is an open position with the magazine "Successful Saving", explaining that getting a job at "Successful Saving" could eventually lead to a position at "Alette" magazine. Rebecca interviews with Luke Brandon, the editor of "Successful Saving" and the man who had given her the $20. She hides her scarf outside his office, but Luke's assistant comes into the office and gives it back to her. Knowing she has been caught, Rebecca leaves.


title: Confessions of a Shopaholic (film)

text: That evening, she and Suze get drunk and write letters to "Alette" and "Successful Saving", respectively, but in her intoxicated state she mails each to the wrong magazine. Luke likes the letter she meant to send to "Alette" and hires her. Rather than completing a work assignment for a new column, Rebecca goes to a clothing sale. While inspecting a cashmere coat that she had just purchased, she realizes it is not 100% cashmere and she has been duped. This gives her an idea for the column, which she writes and submits to Luke. As Rebecca is hesitant to use her real name, Luke publishes it under the moniker "The Girl in the Green Scarf."


title: Confessions of a Shopaholic (film)

text: "The Girl in The Green Scarf" becomes a huge hit among business groups, and even Rebecca's own parents advise her to read her articles. The articles are referenced in business groups in Asia, causing the "Successful Saving" magazine to go international. This brings much praise to Rebecca, from her peers in the workplace, and her friend Suze. "The Girl In The Green Scarf" becomes so popular that she is asked to participate in a TV interview. Rebecca meets with the editor of "Alette" to purchase a dress for the interview.


title: Confessions of a Shopaholic (film)

text: Rebecca later returns home to renewed confrontations with her debt collector, Derek Smeath. Suze makes her attend Shopaholics Anonymous. After purchasing dresses for her interview and Suze’s wedding, she meets a seemingly friendly woman, Miss Korch, only to learn that she is the new Shopaholics Anonymous group leader. Miss Korch forces Rebecca to donate all the clothes she just bought, not believing her when Rebecca says one of the dresses is for her friend’s wedding. After the meeting, Rebecca can't afford to buy back both dresses and buys back the interview dress, leaving the bridesmaid's dress behind. During the interview, Derek Smeath is in the audience and confronts Rebecca. "Successful Saving" terminates Rebecca's column after the public confrontation for bringing discredit on the magazine and believing she is a risk for not paying her debts.


title: Confessions of a Shopaholic (film)

text: Suze is furious and hurt when she finds out that Rebecca lost the bridesmaid dress. Rebecca's father, Graham, is more sympathetic, remarking that the United States has not fallen despite its gigantic national debt, and offers to sell his recreational vehicle to help her. Rebecca declines his offer, saying that he earned the camper through years of hard work and saving, and that she will need to tackle her debts on her own. "Alette" offers Rebecca a position at the magazine, but she declines after realizing she’d be expected to lie to the readers. Meanwhile, Luke starts a new company, Brandon Communications.


title: Confessions of a Shopaholic (film)

text: In order to earn the money to repay her debts, the members of Shopaholic Anonymous help Rebecca stage a clothes sale, which generates a lot of revenue, but not enough to retire her debts. She finally sells her green scarf when a woman bids on it for $300, making it possible for her to give all the cash to the debt collector, which she pays in pennies—to give it to him in the "most inconvenient way possible".


title: Confessions of a Shopaholic (film)

text: Rebecca makes it to the wedding after reclaiming her bridesmaid dress and Suze forgives her. After the wedding, Rebecca walks past an Yves Saint Laurent store window. She is briefly tempted to buy a new purse and dress, but eventually walks away. Rebecca then runs into Luke who returns the green scarf to her, revealing that the woman who bought it was his agent. Rebecca and Luke kiss and Rebecca begins working with Luke at his new company.


title: Confessions of a Shopaholic (film)

text: The film adapts the two books "The Secret Dreamworld of a Shopaholic" and "Shopaholic Abroad" which in the United States were known as "Confessions of a Shopaholic" and "Shopaholic Takes Manhattan" respectively. The film uses the novel's American title "Confessions of a Shopaholic" reinterpreting Rebecca as an American rather than English.


title: Confessions of a Shopaholic (film)

text: According to DVD commentary, Lithgow turned down the role of Edgar West twice before accepting it. Armisen was approached for the West role after Lithgow initially turned it down, but after Lithgow changed his mind, the Ryan Koenig role was written for Armisen. Ed Helms was cast as Derek Smeath but scheduling conflicts prevented him from taking the role. He shot the Garret role in one day.


title: Confessions of a Shopaholic (film)

text: Filming took place in New York, Connecticut, and Florida from February to May 2008. To change the ending to be more sympathetic to audiences during a time of recession, re-shoots took place in New York City on December 4 and 8, 2008.


title: Confessions of a Shopaholic (film)

text: Production on the film also included creating a group of faux upscale brand stores at the base of the Hearst Tower. Present were brands such as Valentino, Anna Sui, Catherine Malandrino and Alberta Ferretti. Several of the costumes were from the collection of French "couture" designer Gilles Montezin.


title: Confessions of a Shopaholic (film)

text: "Confessions of a Shopaholic" received generally negative reviews from critics. On Rotten Tomatoes the film holds an approval score of 27% based on 171 reviews, with an average score of 4.40/10. The site's consensus reads: "This middling romantic comedy underutilizes a talented cast and delivers muddled messages on materialism and conspicuous consumption." On Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film holds an average score of 38 based on 30 reviews, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews".


title: Confessions of a Shopaholic (film)

text: Isla Fisher's performance generated good reviews and she was nominated for Choice Movie Actress: Comedy at the Teen Choice Awards 2009, but she lost to Anne Hathaway for "Bride Wars". The film itself was also nominated for Choice Movie: Romance but lost to "Twilight".


title: Confessions of a Shopaholic (film)

text: On its opening weekend without Presidents' Day, the film opened #4 behind "Taken", "He's Just Not That Into You", and "Friday the 13th" grossing $15,054,000 in 2,507 theaters with a $6,005 average. As of May 22, 2009, the film grossed $44,277,350 at the domestic box office, while its worldwide box office is $106,904,619.


title: Confessions of a Shopaholic (film)

text: The film was released by Touchstone Home Entertainment on DVD and Blu-ray on June 23, 2009 in North America and in Australia on August 5, 2009, and on Disney+ on September 17, 2021.


title: Confessions of a Shopaholic (film)

text: The soundtrack of "Confessions of a Shopaholic" was released on February 17, 2009 under Hollywood Records. However, an alternate track listing was posted on Tommy2.net on January 25, 2009. In the alternate track listing, Adrienne Bailon also sing "Big Spender" instead of Girlicious, and the Pussycat Dolls sing "Bad Girl" instead of Rihanna featuring Chris Brown. In addition, Ric Ocasek is said to sing "Emotion in Motion" instead, and "Music of the Sun" by Rihanna has been replaced by "Calling You" by Kat DeLuna. Shontelle sings "Stuck with Each Other" with Akon for the soundtrack, Lady Gaga's "Fashion" was also in the soundtrack.


title: Mehrgarh

text: Mehrgarh (; ) is a Neolithic archaeological site (dated ) situated on the Kacchi Plain of Balochistan in Pakistan. It is located near the Bolan Pass, to the west of the Indus River and between the modern-day Pakistani cities of Quetta, Kalat and Sibi. The site was discovered in 1974 by an archaeological team led by the French archaeologists Jean-François Jarrige and his wife, Catherine Jarrige. Mehrgarh was excavated continuously between 1974 and 1986, and again from 1997 to 2000. Archaeological material has been found in six mounds, and about 32,000 artifacts have been collected from the site. The earliest settlement at Mehrgarh—located in the northeast corner of the site—was a small farming village dated between 7000 BCE and 5500 BCE.


title: Mehrgarh

text: Mehrgarh is one of the earliest known sites that shows evidence of farming and herding in South Asia. It was influenced by the Neolithic culture of the Near East, with similarities between "domesticated wheat varieties, early phases of farming, pottery, other archaeological artefacts, some domesticated plants and herd animals." According to Asko Parpola , the culture migrated into the Indus Valley and became the Indus Valley Civilization of the Bronze Age.


title: Mehrgarh

text: Jean-Francois Jarrige argues for an independent origin of Mehrgarh. Jarrige notes "the assumption that farming economy was introduced full-fledged from Near-East to South Asia," and the similarities between Neolithic sites from eastern Mesopotamia and the western Indus Valley, which are evidence of a "cultural continuum" between those sites. However, given the originality of Mehrgarh, Jarrige concludes that Mehrgarh has an earlier local background," and is not a "'backwater' of the Neolithic culture of the Near East."


title: Mehrgarh

text: Lukacs and Hemphill suggest an initial local development of Mehrgarh, with continuity in cultural development but a population change. According to Lukacs and Hemphill, while there is a strong continuity between the Neolithic and Chalcolithic cultures of Mehrgarh, dental evidence shows that the Chalcolithic population did not descend from the Neolithic population of Mehrgarh, which "suggests moderate levels of gene flow." They wrote that "the direct lineal descendants of the Neolithic inhabitants of Mehrgarh are to be found to the south and the east of Mehrgarh, Pakistan in northwestern India and the western edge of the Deccan Plateau," with Neolithic Mehrgarh showing greater affinity with Chalcolithic Inamgaon, south of Mehrgarh, than with Chalcolithic Mehrgarh.


title: Mehrgarh

text: Gallego Romero et al. (2011) state that their research on lactose tolerance in India suggests that "the west Eurasian genetic contribution identified by Reich et al. (2009) principally reflects gene flow from Pakistan, Iran and the Middle East." Gallego Romero notes that Indians who are lactose-tolerant show a genetic pattern regarding this tolerance which is "characteristic of the common European mutation." According to Romero, this suggests that "the most common lactose tolerance mutation made a two-way migration out of the Middle East less than 10,000 years ago. While the mutation spread across Europe, another explorer must have brought the mutation eastward to India – likely traveling along the coast of the Persian Gulf where other pockets of the same mutation have been found." They further note that "[t]he earliest evidence of cattle herding in south Asia comes from the Indus River Valley site of Mehrgarh and is dated to 7,000 YBP."


title: Mehrgarh

text: The Mehrgarh Period I (pre-7000 BCE – 5500 BCE) was Neolithic and aceramic (without the use of pottery). The earliest farming in the area was developed by semi-nomadic people using plants such as wheat and barley and animals such as sheep, goats and cattle. The settlement was established with unbaked mud-brick buildings and most of them had four internal subdivisions. Numerous burials have been found, many with elaborate goods such as baskets, stone and bone tools, beads, bangles, pendants, and occasionally animal sacrifices, with more goods left with burials of males. Ornaments of sea shell, limestone, turquoise, lapis lazuli and sandstone have been found, along with simple figurines of women and animals. Seashells from far seashores, and lapis lazuli from as far away as present-day Badakshan, show good contact with those areas. One ground stone axe was discovered in a burial, and several more were obtained from the surface. These ground stone axes are the earliest to come from a stratified context in South Asia.


title: Mehrgarh

text: Periods I, II, and III are considered contemporaneous with another site called Kili Gul Mohammad. The aceramic Neolithic phase in the region had originally been called the 'Kili Gul Muhammad phase'. While the Kili Gul Muhammad site, itself, probably started c. 5500 BC, the subsequent discoveries now allow to define the dates of 7000-5000 BC for this aceramic Neolithic phase.


title: Mehrgarh

text: In 2001, archaeologists studying the remains of nine men from Mehrgarh discovered that the people of this civilization knew proto-dentistry. In April 2006, it was announced in the scientific journal "Nature" that the oldest (and first "early Neolithic") evidence for the drilling of human teeth "in vivo" ("i.e." in a living person) was found in Mehrgarh. According to the authors, their discoveries point to a tradition of proto-dentistry in the early farming cultures of that region. "Here we describe eleven drilled molar crowns from nine adults discovered in a Neolithic graveyard in Pakistan that dates from 7,500 to 9,000 years ago. These findings provide evidence for a long tradition of a type of proto-dentistry in early farming culture."


title: Mehrgarh

text: The Mehrgarh Period II (5500 BCE–4800 BCE) and Merhgarh Period III (4800 BCE–3500 BCE) were ceramic Neolithic, using pottery, and later chalcolithic. Period II is at site MR4 and Period III is at MR2. Much evidence of manufacturing activity has been found and more advanced techniques were used. Glazed faience beads were produced and terracotta figurines became more detailed. Figurines of females were decorated with paint and had diverse hairstyles and ornaments. Two flexed burials were found in Period II with a red ochre cover on the body. The number of burial goods decreased over time, becoming limited to ornaments and with more goods left with burials of females. The first button seals were produced from terracotta and bone and had geometric designs. Technologies included stone and copper drills, updraft kilns, large pit kilns, and copper melting crucibles. There is further evidence of long-distance trade in Period II: important as an indication of this is the discovery of several beads of lapis lazuli, once again from Badakshan. Mehrgarh Periods II and III are also contemporaneous with an expansion of the settled populations of the borderlands at the western edge of South Asia, including the establishment of settlements like Rana Ghundai, Sheri Khan Tarakai, Sarai Kala, Jalilpur, and Ghaligai.


title: Mehrgarh

text: Period III was not much explored, but it was found that Togau phase (c. 4000-3500 BCE) was part of this level, covering around 100 hectares in the areas MR.2, MR.4, MR.5 and MR.6, encompassing ruins, burial and dumping grounds, but archaeologist Jean-François Jarrige concluded that "such wide extension was not due to contemporaneous occupation, but rather due to the shift and partial superimposition in time of several villages or settlement clusters across a span of several centuries."


title: Mehrgarh

text: At the beginning of Mehrgarh III, Togau ceramics appeared at the site. Togau ware was first defined by Beatrice de Cardi in 1948. Togau is a large mound in the Chhappar Valley of Sarawan, 12 kilometer northwest of Kalat in Baluchistan. This type of pottery is found widely in Baluchistan and eastern Afghanistan, at sites such as Mundigak, Sheri Khan Tarakai, and Periano Ghundai. According to Possehl it is attested at 84 sites up to date. Anjira is a contemporary ancient site near Togau.


title: Mehrgarh

text: The time in Mehrgarh Period III, during the second half of the 4th millennium BCE, is characterized by important new developments. There's a big increase in the number of settlements in the Quetta Valley, the Surab Region, the Kachhi Plain and elsewhere in the area. Kili Ghul Mohammad (II−III) pottery is similar to Togau Ware.


title: Mehrgarh

text: Period IV was 3500 to 3250 BCE. Period V from 3250 to 3000 BCE and period VI was around 3000 BCE. The site containing Periods IV to VII is designated as MR1.


title: Mehrgarh

text: Somewhere between 2600 BCE and 2000 BCE, the city seems to have been largely abandoned in favor of the larger and fortified town Nausharo five miles away when the Indus Valley civilisation was in its middle stages of development. Historian Michael Wood suggests this took place around 2500 BCE.


title: Mehrgarh

text: Archaeologist Massimo Vidale considers a series of semi-columns found in a structure at Mehrgarh, dated around 2500 BCE by the French mission there, is very similar to semi-columns found in Period IV at Shahr-i Sokhta.


title: Mehrgarh

text: Early Mehrgarh residents lived in mud brick houses, stored their grain in granaries, fashioned tools with local copper ore, and lined their large basket containers with bitumen. They cultivated six-row barley, einkorn and emmer wheat, jujubes and dates, and herded sheep, goats and cattle. Residents of the later period (5500 BCE to 2600 BCE) put much effort into crafts, including flint knapping, tanning, bead production, and metal working. Mehrgarh is probably the earliest known center of agriculture in South Asia.


title: Mehrgarh

text: The oldest known example of the lost-wax technique comes from a 6,000-year-old wheel-shaped copper amulet found at Mehrgarh. The amulet was made from unalloyed copper, an unusual innovation that was later abandoned.


title: Mehrgarh

text: The oldest ceramic figurines in South Asia were found at Mehrgarh. They occur in all phases of the settlement and were prevalent even before pottery appears. The earliest figurines are quite simple and do not show intricate features. However, they grow in sophistication with time, and by 4000  BC begins to show their characteristic hairstyles and typical prominent breasts. All the figurines up to this period were female. Male figurines appear only from period VII and gradually become more numerous. Many of the female figurines are holding babies, and were interpreted as depictions of the "mother goddess". However, due to some difficulties in conclusively identifying these figurines with the "mother goddess", some scholars prefer using the term "female figurines with likely cultic significance".


title: Mehrgarh

text: Evidence of pottery begins from Period II. In period III, the finds become much more abundant as the potter's wheel is introduced, and they show more intricate designs and also animal motifs. The characteristic female figurines appear beginning in Period IV and the finds show more intricate designs and sophistication. Pipal leaf designs are used in decoration from Period VI. Some sophisticated firing techniques were used from Periods VI and VII and an area reserved for the pottery industry has been found at mound MR1. However, by Period VIII, the quality and intricacy of designs seem to have suffered due to mass production, and a growing interest in bronze and copper vessels.


title: Mehrgarh

text: There are two types of burials in the Mehrgarh site. There were individual burials where a single individual was enclosed in narrow mud walls and collective burials with thin mud-brick walls within which skeletons of six different individuals were discovered. The bodies in the collective burials were kept in a flexed position and were laid east to west. Child bones were found in large jars or urn burials (4000~3300 BCE).


title: Irudhi Suttru

text: Irudhi Suttru () is a 2016 Indian sports drama film written and directed by Sudha Kongara. Filmed simultaneously in Tamil and Hindi, with the latter being titled as Saala Khadoos (), the film stars R. Madhavan as boxing coach who is ignored by the boxing association, tries to accomplish his dream by training an amateur boxer, Madhi, played by Ritika Singh in her acting debut. Both the Tamil and Hindi versions are produced by S. Sashikanth for YNOT Studios and UTV Motion Pictures, while C. V. Kumar's Thirukumaran Entertainment and Dream Factory distributed the Tamil version and the Hindi version was jointly distributed by Madhavan himself under the Tricolour Films banner along with Rajkumar Hirani Films.


title: Irudhi Suttru

text: Kongara wrote the script for the film in early 2011, and approached Madhavan for the leading role, for whom the film marks his comeback to Tamil cinema after four years. The pre-production works of the film began during 2013, and was officially announced by Sashikanth in May 2014. The film's shooting began in July 2014 and completed that December, with the entire film was shot within fifty days. Featuring music composed by Santhosh Narayanan, with a background score by Sanjay Wandrekar and Atul Raninga (for the Hindi version), the film has cinematography by Sivakumar Vijayan and editing by Sathish Suriya.


title: Irudhi Suttru

text: Both versions "Irudhi Suttru" and "Saala Khadoos" opened on 29 January 2016. Unlike the Hindi version which received mixed reviews, the Tamil version opened to critical acclaim, praising the performances of Madhavan and Singh, whilst the story, direction and other technical aspects, too received appreciation. A commercial success at the box office, "Irudhi Suttru" won the National Award for Special Mention (Ritika Singh), three Filmfare Awards: Best Director (Kongara), Best Actor (Madhavan), Best Actress (Ritika Singh). In addition, the film won three awards each at the Ananda Vikatan Cinema Awards, IIFA Utsavam Awards and SIIMA Awards. The film was later remade by Kongara herself in Telugu language as "Guru" (2017) with several members of the cast reprising their respective roles and Venkatesh playing Madhavan's role.


title: Irudhi Suttru

text: Prabhu Selvaraj/Aditya "Adi" Tomar is a talented yet failed boxer who, despite being very gifted in boxing, falls victim to the dirty politics in the boxing association, and loses his chance to go to 1996 Summer Olympics. 15 years later, he is a government coach for the national women's boxing training academy but is always extremely angry with the lethargic attitude of boxers and frustrated with the partiality in selection. Due to his constant rift with the association head Dev Khatri, he is falsely charged with sexual harassment in Delhi and gets transferred to Chennai to identify and develop new women boxers. Despite the very poor infrastructure, Prabhu/Adi manages to find natural talent in a roadside fish seller named Ezhil Madhi, who he notices while she is thrashing the judges during her elder sister Lakshmi "Lux"'s tournament.


title: Irudhi Suttru

text: Ignoring Lux who has been boxing for eight years to get a sports quota government job, Prabhu/Adi offers to pay and train Madhi for a few hours daily. Unfortunately, the two do not get along due to Prabhu/Adi's ruthless training methods and Madhi's aggressive nature. As a result, Madhi intentionally loses a local match. Prabhu/Adi later asks Lux and Madhi's parents, Saamikannu and Damayanthi, to send them to stay in a hostel with him so that their daughters can work hard on training. Madhi misunderstands him but later regrets it when she finds out that Prabhu/Adi has sold his beloved bike to buy new training equipment for her. Madhi then starts training with Prabhu/Adi and develops feelings for him. On the day of a qualifying match, she reveals her feelings to Prabhu/Adi, but he promptly rejects her. During the warm-up before the match, a now jealous Lux injures Madhi's hand, causing Madhi to lose the chance to the Olympics. Angry, Prabhu/Adi thinks that Madhi lost intentionally again and throws her out of training camp.


title: Irudhi Suttru

text: Dev takes advantage of the situation by calling Madhi to Delhi for a cultural exchange tournament and makes her fight with a heavyweight Russian boxer, who knocks out Madhi in 30 seconds. A demotivated Madhi is then approached by Dev with an indecent proposal, to which she reacts by injuring him. Dev takes revenge by getting her arrested on false theft charges. Prabhu/Adi comes to the rescue and bails her out. He later takes Madhi to Delhi to get her a wild-card entry into the World Boxing Championship, to be held in Goa, two months later. Many people in the association, including Lux, accuse Madhi of offering sexual favours to Prabhu/Adi. Ignoring all the accusations, Madhi works hard, enters the tournament representing India and goes on to win the semifinal.


title: Irudhi Suttru

text: One hour before finals, Dev refuses to sign Madhi's boxer entry to the match and blackmails Prabhu/Adi to resign immediately if he wants to see Madhi in the final, with the same Russian boxer who knocked her out in Delhi. Prabhu/Adi resigns from his government job, and Madhi who gets to fight in the final round is dejected after learning about Prabhu/Adi's resignation. She keeps losing points in the early rounds and gets badly injured before Prabhu/Adi shows up at the stadium and indicates her to attack her opponent's arms to make her weak as Genghis Khan did to his enemies. Madhi follows the game plan and knocks out the opponent with seconds to go in the final round. Dev quickly jumps into the ring to take the credit for training Madhi, but she heavily punches him and runs to Prabhu/Adi. Madhi and Prabhu/Adi hug each other, showing their emotional reunion.


title: Irudhi Suttru

text: During the production of her first directorial venture "Drohi" in 2010, Kongara began writing a sports drama film on boxing after reading an editorial in "The Hindu" about North Chennai and its boxing culture. Kongara consequently began gathering further information about female boxers and networked with Indian Olympic athletes including Mary Kom, in order to help write her script. In September 2011, she approached R. Madhavan, who was on a sabbatical from Tamil films, to portray the lead role in the film and his presence in the project helped take the financial viability of the venture to a higher level. The pair had previously collaborated in Madhavan's films under the direction of Mani Ratnam, where Kongara had been an assistant director. Portraying a retired boxer, Madhavan grew a thick beard and sported long hair for his role in the film, while embarking on an intense body conditioning regime in Los Angeles during 2013. Reports erroneously suggested that Madhavan was playing a role in another sports drama film, a biopic of the Indian boxer Mary Kom, and he clarified that he was acting on a separate film on boxing. Ashvini Yardi was initially announced as the film's producer and began casting real life boxers including fighters from the Super Fight League for the film. But, YNOT Studios and Thirukumaran Entertainment agreed to jointly produce the film in May 2014, with Santhosh Narayanan subsequently signed on to compose the film's music. The team also brought in director Rajkumar Hirani, as a result of his close association with Madhavan, to act as creative producer for the film and he helped doctor the script to give it a pan-Indian appeal.


title: Irudhi Suttru

text: The Film was also loosely based on the real life story and incidents shared by Tamil Nadu boxer Thulasi Helen, which was narrated and portrayed in the documentary film Light Fly, Fly High (2013)


title: Irudhi Suttru

text: The film's Hindi title was first revealed to be "Laal" and then was changed to "Saala Khadoos" in June 2014, with reports suggesting that the film would be loosely based on the life of boxing icon Muhammad Ali, a claim the team denied. The film's Tamil title "Irudhi Suttru" was announced shortly after, with the team beginning production from 14 July 2014. Two professional boxers from a boxing academy, Ritika Singh and Mumtaz Sorcar, who has done films in Bengali, were signed to play the two female leads. Singh had been initially spotted by Kongara on an advert for the Super Fight League competition, and successfully auditioned for the lead character's role after being reached through the competition's organiser Raj Kundra. Kaali Venkat and Baljinder Kaur were signed to play the parents of Singh and Mumtaz, while veteran actors Nassar, Radharavi and Zakir Hussain were all also signed on to play pivotal roles, and took part in pre-filming rehearsals with the rest of the cast. Action choreographers "Stunner" Sam from Chennai and Tom Delmar from London were signed on to work on the film, while Alexander Cortes worked as Madhavan's personal trainer. Madhavan's friend, actress Shilpa Shetty, also helped Madhavan gain and lose weight effectively during the period, doubling up as a dietician and fitness coach.


title: Irudhi Suttru

text: A small official launch event was held on 8 August 2014 and the team began a schedule shoot in Chennai thereafter. Scenes were shot in the tsunami-hit region slums of Srinivasapuram for the initial days of shoot. By October 2014, it was reported that the film was sixty percent complete, with most scenes being shot in the areas surrounding Chennai. The team then shot for a schedule in Dharamshala, before returning to Ooty to finish filming portions. Madhavan suffered a minor injury on the sets during the last week, but continued through the pain to finish the film. Filming portions for the venture were completed in mid-November 2014 after forty two days of shoot. Post-production works took place throughout 2015 and several potential release dates were evaded. Rajkumar Hirani's late inclusion in the project meant that he requested the team to re-shoot certain portions, with Madhavan regrowing a long beard after having removed it in December 2014. The team subsequently shot for ten further days in late 2015, while completing patchwork. Throughout the production of the film and dubbing purposes, Madhavan wore metal braces inside his teeth, in order to create the effect of having a lisp that most boxers have from sporting injuries.


title: Irudhi Suttru

text: The film's soundtrack album is composed by Santhosh Narayanan for both Tamil and Hindi versions. While Santhosh composed the film score for the Tamil version, the Hindi version "Saala Khadoos", had background music composed Sanjay Wandrekar and Atul Raninga, as per the suggestion of Rajkumar Hirani (the distributor of "Saala Khadoos"), since both of them had worked on the score for his films "3 Idiots" (2010) and "PK" (2014). Lyrics for the soundtrack of "Saala Khadoos" in its entirety was penned by Swanand Kirkire, whilst Vivek and Muthamil wrote the tracks for "Irudhi Suttru". The album of Hindi version was released first on 2 January 2016, while the album of the Tamil version was released on 4 January 2016 at an event held at Sathyam Cinemas, Chennai.


title: Irudhi Suttru

text: Varun Manian's Radiance Media initially agreed to distribute the Tamil version of the film, collaborating with YNOT Studios and Thirukumaran Entertainment, but later opted out of the agreement. The Hindi version was jointly distributed by Rajkumar Hirani's production house and Madhavan's Tricolour Films, for which the film is the first project. A teaser trailer for the Hindi version was attached to the theatrical release of Rajkumar Hirani's "PK", while the Tamil version's teaser was also released with Prabhu Solomon's "Kayal" in December 2014. During the period of post-production work throughout 2015, Madhavan and Hirani held several screenings of the film to select audiences in order to observe opinions and gather feedback. Promotions for the film began again in late November 2015, when UTV Motion Pictures announced that they would also be a part of the production and would distribute the film alongside the other production houses. The trailer of the Hindi version "Saala Khadoos" released on 15 December 2015, while a differently edited Tamil version was released two days later. The trailers received widespread critical acclaim and were promoted by several members of the Indian film industry.


title: Irudhi Suttru

text: In early January 2016, the film began their marketing campaign with the makers travelling to Madurai and Coimbatore for promotions, after launching the Tamil version of the soundtrack in Chennai. With a publicity budget of 9 crore rupees, the promotions were described by "The Hindu" to be "unlike other film promotions in the South", considering that most film teams in the Tamil film industry do not usually tour around the state publicising their project. During his time in Coimbatore, Madhavan visited a college and delivered a motivational speech, while he also made several television appearances for special shows to be broadcast on Pongal and Republic Day. The team travelled extensively between Mumbai and Chennai to promote the film, while a further trailer for the Tamil version was cut and released ten days before the film opened. Before the release of the film, the team held several screenings to select Hindi and Tamil audiences and edited the film accordingly to the taste of the audiences. The team also held two première shows in Hindi and Tamil for the film industry, in the week leading up to the film's release. The satellite rights of the film's Tamil version were sold to Jaya TV and the Hindi version were sold to SET Max. "Irudhi Suttru" was later screened at the 29th Tokyo International Film Festival during October 2016 and was then also selected to be a part of the Indian Panorama section at 47th International Film Festival of India.


title: Irudhi Suttru

text: Malini Mannath from The New Indian Express stated that "Irudhi Suttru" had "a finely crafted screenplay, deft treatment and some fine performances which make it an engaging watch", while giving particular praise to Madhavan and Singh's performances. Similarly, Business Standard stated that "Madhavan breathes life into the role of a grumpy coach with ease and élan, while the extremely impressive newbie Ritika Singh steals the show with a knockout performance", adding that "there's no way any other actress could've done a better job than Ritika in this role". Behindwoods noted that "Sudha’s "Irudhi Suttru" has all the emotional elements in it to strike a chord with the audiences and the lady renders a match winning performance" and particularly praised the "apt casting and performance" stating that "everyone from Madhavan to Ritika Singh to the supporting cast, has rendered their best performances". Sify stated that the film was "a perfect sports drama, which should not be missed" and added that "this inspirational effort has a superb screenplay with all the typical elements of a good sports film in place", while Rediff.com agreed that the film was "not to be missed", adding "its refreshing characters, enjoyable plot, great music and visuals keeps you hooked". IndiaGlitz.com rated the film 4.3 out of 5 and wrote it is "a must watch for lovers of good cinema which entertains and engages through out", while Baradwaj Rangan of The Hindu stated it was "a heart-warming boxing drama".


title: Irudhi Suttru

text: "Saala Khadoos" received primarily mixed reviews. Bollywood Hungama described it as a "euphoric and electrifying film with amazing performances from the lead cast" and "is definitely engaging, and inspiring". The critic added "it truly deserves an ovation and is worth your time and money", while stating Madhavan "delivers an extraordinary and extremely realistic performance", while Singh "is definitely a revelation and a find of Bollywood". Critic Subhash K. Jha wrote ""Saala Khadoos" promised a rugged sports film and it delivers", while adding "the film itself doesn’t match up to the glory of its stunning visual velocity or its leading man towering performance". Other critics felt that the film "failed to rise above the clichés of a sports film", though CNN-IBN stated it "succeeds in creating a credible world and, thanks to affecting performances from its principal players, gives us characters that we can care about". Similarly, NDTV wrote "it has enough heart, it’s the heat that is missing".


title: Irudhi Suttru

text: The Tamil version of the film collected close to to total of and in first weekend. The film collected in UK and in Australia.


title: Irudhi Suttru

text: Sudha Kongara announced a Telugu remake of this film, following its success. It was titled as "Guru" (2017) with Venkatesh in the lead role alongside Ritika Singh, reprising her role from the original film.


title: 2022 Nepalese general election

text: General elections were held in Nepal on 20 November 2022 to elect the 275 members of the House of Representatives. There were two ballots in the election; one to elect 165 members from single-member constituencies via FPTP, and the other to elect the remaining 110 members from a single nation-wide constituency via party-list proportional representation.


title: 2022 Nepalese general election

text: The fifth House of Representatives elected in 2017 had a five year term ending in March 2023. In May 2018, the CPN (Unified Marxist–Leninist) and CPN (Maoist Centre) parties merged to form the Nepal Communist Party. The merger between the two coalition partners took their total strength in the House of Representatives to 174. The leaders of the two parties had an agreement to share the post of Prime Minister with the CPN (Unified Marxist–Leninist) chairman KP Sharma Oli handing over the post to Maoist Centre chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal after two and a half years. On 20 November 2019, the two leaders agreed to let Oli complete his full term as prime minister. In a secretariat meeting of the Nepal Communist Party on 14 November 2020, Dahal presented a political document which accused Oli not following party orders and being individualistic. In response to Dahal, Oli rejected Dahal's accusations and presented his own political document which accused Dahal of not letting Oli run the government. As the strife within the party continued, Oli requested President Bidhya Devi Bhandari to dissolve the House of Representatives on 20 December 2020 as a no-confidence motion was being prepared against him. In protest of the decision by Oli, seven ministers of the cabinet resigned.