title: Roberts Blossom

text: Blossom began appearing on screen in 1958. His first appearance in a feature film was in 1971's "The Hospital" starring George C. Scott and written by Paddy Chayefsky. During the 1970s he had roles in films including "The Great Gatsby" (1974) starring Robert Redford and Mia Farrow, "Slaughterhouse-Five" (1972), Steven Spielberg's "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" (1977), and "Escape from Alcatraz" (1979) starring Clint Eastwood. "Escape from Alcatraz" is perhaps Blossom's best known supporting role for the scene where he chopped off his fingers with an axe.


title: Roberts Blossom

text: Blossom is remembered for his role as Ezra Cobb in the 1974 horror film "Deranged" based on American murderer Ed Gein. According to the 2014 book "Mad as Hell: The Making of Network and the Fateful Vision of the Angriest Man in Movies" by David Itzkoff, the cast of Chayefsky's multiple Oscar-winning film "Network" originally included Blossom as media mogul Arthur Jensen, but he was replaced in pre-production by Ned Beatty.


title: Roberts Blossom

text: Blossom is also known for starring in the 1983 horror film "Christine", a film directed by John Carpenter which is an adaptation of the book by Stephen King. He is best known for his role in the 1990 film "Home Alone", in which he played Old Man Marley alongside Macaulay Culkin. He appeared in his final film role in 1995 alongside Sharon Stone and Leonardo DiCaprio in "The Quick and The Dead" (1995). Blossom's other film credits include "Doc Hollywood" (1991) starring Michael J. Fox; "Reuben, Reuben" (1983); "Resurrection" (1980) starring Ellen Burstyn; "Flashpoint" (1984); "Vision Quest" (1985) starring Matthew Modine and Linda Fiorentino; and "Always" (1989).


title: Roberts Blossom

text: Blossom made his first television appearance in 1958 in the television series "Naked City". From 1976 to 1978, he starred on the television soap opera "Another World", for which he won a Soapy Award for Best Villain. His other television credits include "Moonlighting", with Cybill Shepherd and Bruce Willis, "Tales from the Darkside", "The Equalizer", the revived 1980s version of "The Twilight Zone" and "Chicago Hope". His television films include "John Brown's Raid", "Family Reunion", with Bette Davis, the 1985 version of "Noon Wine", "Murder in the Heartland" and Disney's "Balloon Farm", which was his final role as an actor.


title: Roberts Blossom

text: In 2000, Blossom appeared in the biography documentary "Full Blossom: The Life of Poet/Actor Roberts Blossom", in which he talked about his life as an actor and poet. The documentary also featured his children Debbie and Michael, his first wife Beverly, and Ed Asner, Peter Brook and Robert Frank.


title: Roberts Blossom

text: Blossom was formerly married to Beverly Schmidt Blossom, with whom he had a son, Michael, and who died on November 1, 2014, of cancer. He was later married to Marylin Orshan Blossom until her death in 1982, with whom he had a daughter, Deborah Blossom.


title: Roberts Blossom

text: After Blossom retired from acting in the late 1990s, he moved to Berkeley, California, and spent his time writing poetry. He later moved to Santa Monica, where he died in 2011.


title: Roberts Blossom

text: Blossom died on July 8, 2011, at the age of 87 from cerebrovascular disease. He was residing in a nursing home at the time of his death.


title: Good manufacturing practice

text: Current good manufacturing practices (cGMP) are those conforming to the guidelines recommended by relevant agencies. Those agencies control the authorization and licensing of the manufacture and sale of food and beverages, cosmetics, pharmaceutical products, dietary supplements, and medical devices. These guidelines provide minimum requirements that a manufacturer must meet to assure that their products are consistently high in quality, from batch to batch, for their intended use. The rules that govern each industry may differ significantly; however, the main purpose of GMP is always to prevent harm from occurring to the end user. Additional tenets include ensuring the end product is free from contamination, that it is consistent in its manufacture, that its manufacture has been well documented, that personnel are well trained, and that the product has been checked for quality more than just at the end phase. GMP is typically ensured through the effective use of a quality management system (QMS).


title: Good manufacturing practice

text: Good manufacturing practices, along with good agricultural practices, good laboratory practices and good clinical practices, are overseen by regulatory agencies in the United Kingdom, United States, Canada, Europe, China, India and other countries.


title: Good manufacturing practice

text: Good manufacturing practice guidelines provide guidance for manufacturing, testing, and quality assurance in order to ensure that a manufactured product is safe for human consumption or use. Many countries have legislated that manufacturers follow GMP procedures and create their own GMP guidelines that correspond with their legislation.


title: Good manufacturing practice

text: Good manufacturing practices are recommended with the goal of safeguarding the health of consumers and patients as well as producing quality products. In the United States, a food or drug may be deemed "adulterated" if it has passed all of the specifications tests but is found to be manufactured in a facility or condition which violates or does not comply with current good manufacturing guideline.


title: Good manufacturing practice

text: GMP standards are not prescriptive instructions on how to manufacture products. They are a series of performance based requirements that must be met during manufacturing. When a company is setting up its quality program and manufacturing process, there may be many ways it can fulfill GMP requirements. It is the company's responsibility to determine the most effective and efficient quality process that both meets business and regulatory needs.


title: Good manufacturing practice

text: Regulatory agencies have recently begun to look at more fundamental quality metrics of manufacturers than just compliance with basic GMP regulations.  US-FDA has found that manufacturers who have implemented quality metrics programs gain a deeper insight into employee behaviors that impact product quality. In its Guidance for Industry "Data Integrity and Compliance With Drug CGMP" US-FDA states “it is the role of management with executive responsibility to create a quality culture where employees understand that data integrity is an organizational core value and employees are encouraged to identify and promptly report data integrity issues.” Australia's Therapeutic Goods Administration has said that recent data integrity failures have raised questions about the role of quality culture in driving behaviors. In addition, non-governmental organizations such as the International Society for Pharmaceutical Engineering (ISPE) and the Parenteral Drug Association (PDA)  have developed information and resources to help pharmaceutical companies better understand why quality culture is important and how to assess the current situation within a site or organization.


title: Good manufacturing practice

text: GMPs are enforced in the United States by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), under Title 21 CFR. The regulations use the phrase "current good manufacturing practices" (CGMP) to describe these guidelines. Courts may theoretically hold that a product is adulterated even if there is no specific regulatory requirement that was violated as long as the process was not performed according to industry standards. However, since June 2007, a different set of CGMP requirements have applied to all manufacturers of dietary supplements, with additional supporting guidance issued in 2010. Additionally, in the U.S., medical device manufacturers must follow what are called "quality system regulations" which are deliberately harmonized with ISO requirements, not necessarily CGMPs.


title: Good manufacturing practice

text: The World Health Organization (WHO) version of GMP is used by pharmaceutical regulators and the pharmaceutical industry in over 100 countries worldwide, primarily in the developing world. The European Union's GMP (EU-GMP) enforces similar requirements to WHO GMP, as does the FDA's version in the US. Similar GMPs are used in other countries, with Australia, Canada, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Philippines], Vietnam and others having highly developed/sophisticated GMP requirements. In the United Kingdom, the Medicines Act (1968) covers most aspects of GMP in what is commonly referred to as "The Orange Guide," which is named so because of the color of its cover; it is officially known as "Rules and Guidance for Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Distributors".


title: Good manufacturing practice

text: Since the 1999 publication of "GMPs for Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients", by the International Conference on Harmonization (ICH), GMPs now apply in those countries and trade groupings that are signatories to ICH (the EU, Japan and the U.S.), and applies in other countries (e.g., Australia, Canada, Singapore) which adopt ICH guidelines for the manufacture and testing of active raw materials.


title: Good manufacturing practice

text: Within the European Union GMP inspections are performed by National Regulatory Agencies. GMP inspections are performed in Canada by the Health Products and Food Branch Inspectorate; in the United Kingdom by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA); in the Republic of Korea (South Korea) by the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety (MFDS); in Australia by the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA); in Bangladesh by the Directorate General of Drug Administration (DGDA); in South Africa by the Medicines Control Council (MCC); in Brazil by the National Health Surveillance Agency (ANVISA); in India by state Food and Drugs Administrations (FDA), reporting to the Central Drugs Standard Control Organization; in Pakistan by the Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan; in Nigeria by NAFDAC; and by similar national organizations worldwide. Each of the inspectorates carries out routine GMP inspections to ensure that drug products are produced safely and correctly. Additionally, many countries perform pre-approval inspections (PAI) for GMP compliance prior to the approval of a new drug for marketing.


title: Good manufacturing practice

text: Regulatory agencies (including the FDA in the U.S. and regulatory agencies in many European nations) are authorized to conduct unannounced inspections, though some are scheduled. FDA routine domestic inspections are usually unannounced, but must be conducted according to 704(a) of the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act (21 USCS § 374), which requires that they are performed at a "reasonable time". Courts have held that any time the firm is open for business is a reasonable time for an inspection.


title: Good manufacturing practice

text: Collectively, these and other good-practice requirements are referred to as "GxP" requirements, all of which follow similar philosophies. Other examples include good guidance practices, and good tissue practices.


title: Caribbean Community

text: The Caribbean Community (CARICOM or CC) is an intergovernmental organization that is a political and economic union of 15 member states (14 nation-states and one dependency) throughout the Caribbean. They have primary objectives to promote economic integration and cooperation among its members, ensure that the benefits of integration are equitably shared, and coordinate foreign policy. The organization was established in 1973 with its four founding members signing the Treaty of Chaguaramas. Its primary activities involve:


title: Caribbean Community

text: The secretariat headquarters is in Georgetown, Guyana. CARICOM is an official United Nations Observer beneficiary.


title: Caribbean Community

text: CARICOM was established by the English-speaking parts of the Caribbean and currently includes all the independent anglophone island countries plus Belize, Guyana and Montserrat, as well as all other British Caribbean territories and Bermuda as associate members. English was its sole working language into the 1990s. The organization became multilingual with the addition of Dutch-speaking Suriname in 1995 and the French- and Haitian Creole-speaking Haiti in 2002. Furthermore, it added Spanish as the fourth official language in 2003. In July 2012, CARICOM announced they considered making French and Dutch official languages. In 2001, the heads of government signed a revised Treaty of Chaguaramas that cleared the way to transform the idea of a common market CARICOM into the Caribbean (CARICOM) Single Market and Economy. Part of the revised treaty establishes and implements the Caribbean Court of Justice.


title: Caribbean Community

text: Currently, CARICOM has 15 full members, five associate members and eight observers. All associate members are British Overseas Territories, and it is currently not established what the role of the associate members will be. The observers are states which engage in at least one of CARICOM's technical committees.


title: Caribbean Community

text: Under Article 4 CARICOM breaks its 15 member states into two groups: Less Developed Countries (LDCs) and More Developed Countries (MDCs).


title: Caribbean Community

text: The post of Chairman (Head of CARICOM) is held in rotation by the regional Heads of State (for the republics) and Heads of Government (for the realms) of CARICOM's 15 member states. These include Antigua and Barbuda, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Haiti, Montserrat, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, The Bahamas, Barbados, Guyana, Jamaica, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago.


title: Caribbean Community

text: CARICOM contains a quasi-Cabinet of the individual Heads of Government. These heads are given specialised portfolios of responsibility for regional development and integration.


title: Caribbean Community

text: The Secretariat of the Caribbean Community is the Chief Administrative Organ for CARICOM. The Secretary-General of the Caribbean Community is the chief executive and handles foreign and community relations. Five years is the term of office of the Secretary-General, which may be renewed. The Deputy Secretary-General of the Caribbean Community handles human and Social Development. The General Counsel of the Caribbean Community handles trade and economic integration.


title: Caribbean Community

text: The goal statement of the CARICOM Secretariat is: "To provide dynamic leadership and service, in partnership with Community institutions and Groups, toward the attainment of a viable, internationally competitive and sustainable Community, with improved quality of life for all."


title: Caribbean Community

text: The Community Council comprises ministers responsible for community affairs and any other Minister designated by the member states at their discretion. It is one of the community's principal organs; the other is the Conference of the Heads of Government. Four other organs and three bodies support it.


title: Caribbean Community

text: The Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) is based in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago and was chiefly developed to act as a settlement unit for disputes on the functioning of the Caribbean (CARICOM) Single Market and Economy (CSME) (known as "original jurisdiction"). In addition, some of the region's Commonwealth Caribbean member states of CARICOM have opted to supplement original jurisdiction with "appellate jurisdiction" which by practice replaces the Privy Council (in London, United Kingdom) with the CCJ.


title: Caribbean Community

text: The Caribbean Public Health Agency (CARPHA) is a regional public health agency headquartered in Trinidad and Tobago which was established by CARICOM leaders in July 2011 and began operation in 2013.


title: Caribbean Community

text: As of 2018, the majority of member states continue to utilize the Privy Council as their final appellate court and three member states do not use the CCJ for either its original jurisdiction or its appellate jurisdiction because they have either not signed the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas (The Bahamas and Haiti) or are a current United Kingdom Overseas Territory (Montserrat). A handful of various public propositions have been held in several countries of CARICOM polling on public support for transitioning of appellate jurisdiction to the CCJ, and to date the majority of these measures held have failed.


title: Caribbean Community

text: The flag of the Caribbean Community was chosen and approved in November 1983 at the Conference of Heads of Government Meeting in Port of Spain, Trinidad. The original design by the firm of WINART Studies in Georgetown, Guyana was substantially modified at the July 1983 Meeting of the Conference of Heads of Government. The flag was first flown on 4 July 1984 in Nassau, The Bahamas at the fifth Meeting of the Conference of Heads of Government.


title: Caribbean Community

text: The flag features a blue background, but the upper part is a light blue representing sky and the lower, a darker blue representing the Caribbean Sea. The yellow circle in the centre represents the sun on which is printed in black the logo of the Caribbean Community, two interlocking Cs. The two Cs are in the form of broken links in a chain, symbolising both unity and a break with the colonial past. The narrow ring of green around the sun represents the vegetation of the region.


title: Caribbean Community

text: For CARICOM's 40th anniversary, a competition to compose an official song or anthem for CARICOM was launched in April 2013 to promote choosing a song that promoted unity and inspired CARICOM identity and pride. A regional panel of judges comprising independent experts in music was nominated by member states and the CARICOM Secretariat. Three rounds of competition condensed 63 entries to a final three, from which judges chose "Celebrating CARICOM" by Michele Henderson of Dominica in March 2014. Henderson won a US$10,000 prize. Her song was produced by her husband, Roland Delsol Jr., and arranged by Earlson Matthew. It also featured Michael Ferrol on drums and choral input from the St. Alphonsus Choir. It was re-produced for CARICOM by Carl Beaver Henderson of Trinidad and Tobago.


title: Caribbean Community

text: A second-place entry titled "My CARICOM" came from Jamaican Adiel Thomas who won US$5,000, and a third-place song titled "One CARICOM" by Carmella Lawrence of St. Kitts and Nevis, won US$2,500. The other songs from the top-ten finalists (in no particular order) were:


title: Caribbean Community

text: The first official performance of "Celebrating CARICOM" by Henderson took place on Tuesday 1 July 2014 at the opening ceremony for the Thirty-Fifth Regional Meeting of the Conference of Heads of Government in Antigua and Barbuda.


title: Caribbean Community

text: The celebration of CARICOM Day is the selected day some Caribbean Community (CARICOM) countries officially recognise the commemorative date of signing of the Treaty of Chaguaramas, the agreement that established CARICOM on July 4, 1973. The Treaty was signed in Chaguaramas, Trinidad & Tobago by then leaders of: Barbados, Guyana, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago. CARICOM Day is recognised as an official public holiday in Guyana where the secretariat is based, and is observed on the first Monday of July. The government of Antigua and Barbuda has also implemented CARICOM Day as a holiday.


title: Caribbean Community

text: The day features activities that are organised by government entities such as parades, pageants, and campaigns to educate people about CARICOM.


title: Caribbean Community

text: Caribbean Festival of Arts, commonly known as CARIFESTA, is an annual festival for promoting arts of the Caribbean with a different country hosting the event each year. It was started to provide a venue to "depict the life of the people of the Region, their heroes, morals, myths, traditions, beliefs, creativity and ways of expression" by fostering a sense of Caribbean unity, and motivating artists by showing the best of their home country. It began under the auspices of Guyana's then President Forbes Burnham in 1972, who was inspired by other singular arts festivals in the region.


title: Caribbean Community

text: CARICOM, originally the Caribbean Community and Common Market, was established by the Treaty of Chaguaramas which took effect on 1 August 1973. The first four signatories were Barbados, Jamaica, Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago.


title: Caribbean Community

text: CARICOM superseded the 1965–1972 Caribbean Free Trade Association (CARIFTA) organised to provide a continued economic linkage between the English-speaking countries of the Caribbean after the dissolution of the West Indies Federation, which lasted from 3 January 1958 to 31 May 1962.


title: Caribbean Community

text: A revised Treaty of Chaguaramas established the Caribbean Community including the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME) and was signed by the CARICOM Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community on 5 July 2001 at their Twenty-Second Meeting of the Conference in Nassau, The Bahamas. The revised treaty cleared the way to transform the idea of a common market CARICOM into the Caribbean (CARICOM) Single Market and Economy.


title: Caribbean Community

text: Haiti's membership in CARICOM remained effectively suspended from 29 February 2004 through early June 2006 following the 2004 Haitian coup d'état and the removal of Jean-Bertrand Aristide from the presidency. CARICOM announced that no democratically elected government in CARICOM should have its leader deposed. The fourteen other heads of government sought to have Aristide fly from Africa to Jamaica and share his account of events with them, which infuriated the interim Haitian prime minister, Gérard Latortue, who announced he would take steps to take Haiti out of CARICOM. CARICOM thus voted on suspending the participation of Haitian officials from the councils of CARICOM. Following the presidential election of René Préval, Haitian officials were readmitted and Préval himself gave the opening address at the CARICOM Council of Ministers meeting in July.


title: Caribbean Community

text: Since 2013 the CARICOM-bloc and with the Dominican Republic have been tied to the European Union via an Economic Partnership Agreements signed in 2008 known as CARIFORUM. The treaty grants all members of the European Union and CARIFORUM equal rights in terms of trade and investment. Under Article 234 of the agreement, the European Court of Justice handles dispute resolution between CARIFORUM and European Union states.


title: Caribbean Community

text: An estimated 30,000 Jamaicans legally reside in other CARICOM member states, mainly in The Bahamas (6,200), Antigua & Barbuda (estimated 12,000), Barbados and Trinidad & Tobago). Also, an estimated 150 Jamaicans live and work in Montserrat. A November 21, 2013 estimated put 16,958 Jamaicans residing illegally in Trinidad & Tobago, as according to the records of the Office of the Chief Immigration Officer, their entry certificates would have since expired. By October 2014, the estimated Jamaicans residing illegally in Trinidad and Tobago was 19,000 along with an estimated 7,169 Barbadians and 25,884 Guyanese residing illegally. An estimated 8,000 Trinidadians and Tobagonians live in Jamaica.


title: Caribbean Community

text: Barbados hosts a large diaspora population of Guyanese, of whom (in 2005) 5,032 lived there permanently as citizens, permanent residents, immigrants (with immigrant status) and Caricom skilled nationals; 3,200 were residing in Barbados temporarily under work permits, as students, or with "reside and work" status. A further 2,000–3,000 Guyanese were estimated to be living illegally in Barbados at the time. Migration between Barbados and Guyana has deep roots, going back over 150 years, with the most intense period of Barbadian migration to then-British Guiana occurring between 1863 and 1886, although as late as the 1920s and 1930s Barbadians were still leaving Barbados for British Guiana.


title: Caribbean Community

text: Migration between Guyana and Suriname also goes back a number of years. An estimated 50,000 Guyanese had migrated to Suriname by 1986 In 1987 an estimated 30–40,000 Guyanese were in Suriname. Many Guyanese left Suriname in the 1970s and 1980s, either voluntarily by expulsion. Over 5,000 were expelled in January 1985 alone. in the instability Suriname experienced following independence, both coups and civil war. In 2013 an estimated 11,530 Guyanese had emigrated to Suriname and 4,662 Surinamese to Guyana.


title: Caribbean Community

text: CARICOM was instrumental in the formation of the Association of Caribbean States (ACS) on 24 July 1994. The original idea for the Association came from a recommendation of the West Indian Commission, established in 1989 by the CARICOM heads of state and government. The Commission advocated both deepening the integration process (through the CARICOM Single Market and Economy) and complimenting it through a separate regional organisation encompassing all states in the Caribbean.


title: Caribbean Community

text: CARICOM accepted the commission's recommendations and opened dialogue with other Caribbean states, the Central American states and the Latin American nations of Colombia, Venezuela and Mexico which border the Caribbean, for consultation on the proposals of the West Indian Commission.


title: Caribbean Community

text: At an October 1993 summit, the heads of state and government of CARICOM and the presidents of the then-Group of Three (Colombia, Mexico and Venezuela) formally decided to create an association grouping all states of the Caribbean basin. A work schedule for its formation was adopted. The aim was to create the association in less than a year, an objective which was achieved with the formal creation of the ACS.


title: Caribbean Community

text: CARICOM was also involved in the formation of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) on 3 December 2010. The idea for CELAC originated at the Rio Group–Caribbean Community Unity Summit on 23 February 2010 in Mexico. This act caters to the integration of the Americas process, complimenting well-established initiatives of the Organization of American States.


title: Caribbean Community

text: Since 2013, the CARICOM-bloc and the Dominican Republic have been tied to the European Union via an Economic Partnership Agreements known as CARIFORUM signed in 2008. The treaty grants all members of the European Union and CARIFORUM equal rights in terms of trade and investment. Within the agreement under Article 234, the European Court of Justice also carries dispute resolution mechanisms between CARIFORUM and the states of the European Union.


title: Caribbean Community

text: In May 2016, Caricom's court of original jurisdiction, the CCJ, signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the ACP Legal Association based in Guadeloupe recognising and supporting the goals of implementing a harmonised business law framework in the Caribbean through ACP Legal Association's OHADAC Project.


title: Caribbean Community

text: OHADAC is the acronym for the French "Organisation pour l'Harmonisation du Droit des Affaires en les Caraïbes", which translates into English as "Organisation for the Harmonisation of Business Law in the Caribbean". The OHADAC Project takes inspiration from a similar organisation in Africa and aims to enhance economic integration across the entire Caribbean and facilitate increased trade and international investment through unified laws and alternative dispute resolution methods.


title: Caribbean Community

text: In 2017 the Republic of Cuba and the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) signed the "CARICOM-Cuba Trade and Economic Cooperation Agreement" to facilitate closer trade ties.


title: Caribbean Community

text: In December, 2022 President of the Republic of Cuba, H.E. Miguel Díaz-Canel met in Bridgetown, Barbados with the Heads of State and Government of CARICOM. On the occasion of the 8th CARICOM-Cuba Summit to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of establishing diplomatic relations with the independent States of CARICOM and Cuba and the 20th Anniversary of CARICOM-Cuba Day. CUBA also accepted CARICOM's offer to deepen bilateral cooperation and to join robust discussions in the bloc's regional 'Joint Ministerial Taskforce on Food production and Security'.


title: My Policeman

text: My Policeman is a 2012 romance novel written by Bethan Roberts. It is set in Brighton, East Sussex, England, in the 1950s.


title: My Policeman

text: The novel is set in Brighton in 1957. Tom Burgess, a policeman, is gay. Marion, a schoolteacher, falls in love with him nonetheless. So does Patrick Hazelwood, a museum curator. Because of the social constraints of the era, Tom and Marion get married, even though Tom is in love with Patrick. Tom is torn between the safety his marriage to Marion offers him and the feelings he has for Patrick. When Marion becomes jealous, she exposes Patrick and gets him arrested for indecency.


title: My Policeman

text: The novel received positive reviews in the press. Writing for "The Guardian", Natasha Tripney said the style was "fluid and tender". In "The Independent", Richard Canning wrote a positive review, suggesting the novel had "a strong period feel and a sprightly structure." Moreover, he added that the "euphemistic references to homosexuality and rich period slang" were congruous.


title: My Policeman

text: In February 2021, it was reported that a film adaptation of the novel was in the works, directed by Michael Grandage and starring Emma Corrin as Marion, David Dawson as Patrick Hazelwood, and Harry Styles as Tom Burgess with shooting to begin in April of that year. It was later reported the film would also featured Gina McKee as an older Marion, Rupert Everett as an older Patrick Hazelwood, and Linus Roache as an older Tom Burgess with the film starting with the arrival of Patrick to Marion and Tom's home during the late 1990s, triggering an exploration of the events from 40 years ago in the 1950s.


title: Rectus abdominis muscle

text: The rectus abdominis muscle, () also known as the "abdominal muscle" or simply the "abs", is a paired straight muscle. It is a paired muscle, separated by a midline band of connective tissue called the linea alba. It extends from the pubic symphysis, pubic crest and pubic tubercle inferiorly, to the xiphoid process and costal cartilages of ribs V to VII superiorly. The proximal attachments are the pubic crest and the pubic symphysis. It attaches distally at the costal cartilages of ribs 5-7 and the xiphoid process of the sternum.


title: Rectus abdominis muscle

text: The rectus abdominis muscle is contained in the rectus sheath, which consists of the aponeuroses of the lateral abdominal muscles. The outer, most lateral line, defining the rectus is the linea semilunaris. Bands of connective tissue traverse the rectus abdominis, separating it into distinct muscle bellies. In the abdomens of people with low body fat, these muscle bellies can be viewed externally. They can appear in sets of as few as two to as many as twelve, although, six is the most common.


title: Rectus abdominis muscle

text: The rectus abdominis is a very long flat muscle, which extends along the whole length of the front of the abdomen, and is separated from its fellow of the opposite side by the linea alba. Tendinous intersections (intersectiones tendineae) further subdivide each rectus abdominis muscle into a series of smaller muscle bellies. Tensing of the rectus abdominis causes the muscle to expand between each tendinous intersection.


title: Rectus abdominis muscle

text: The upper portion, attached principally to the cartilage of the fifth rib, usually has some fibers of insertion into the anterior extremity of the rib itself.


title: Rectus abdominis muscle

text: The rectus abdominis has many sources of arterial blood supply. Classification of the vascular anatomy of muscles: First, the inferior epigastric artery and vein (or veins) run superiorly on the posterior surface of the rectus abdominis, enter the rectus fascia at the arcuate line, and serve the lower part of the muscle. Second, the superior epigastric artery, a terminal branch of the internal thoracic artery, supplies blood to the upper portion. Finally, numerous small segmental contributions come from the lower six intercostal arteries as well.


title: Rectus abdominis muscle

text: The muscles are innervated by thoraco-abdominal nerves, these are continuations of the T7-T11 intercostal nerves and pierce the anterior layer of the rectus sheath. Sensory supply is from the 7-12 thoracic nerves.


title: Rectus abdominis muscle

text: The sternalis muscle may be a variant form of the pectoralis major or the rectus abdominis. Some fibers are occasionally connected with the costoxiphoid ligaments, and the side of the xiphoid process.


title: Rectus abdominis muscle

text: The rectus abdominis is an important postural muscle. It is responsible for flexing the lumbar spine, as when doing a crunch. The rib cage is brought up to where the pelvis is when the pelvis is fixed, or the pelvis can be brought towards the rib cage (posterior pelvic tilt) when the rib cage is fixed, such as in a leg-hip raise. The two can also be brought together simultaneously when neither is fixed in space.


title: Rectus abdominis muscle

text: The rectus abdominis assists with breathing and plays an important role in respiration when forcefully exhaling, as seen after exercise as well as in conditions where exhalation is difficult such as emphysema. It also helps in keeping the internal organs intact and in creating intra-abdominal pressure, such as when exercising or lifting heavy weights, during forceful defecation or parturition (childbirth).


title: Rectus abdominis muscle

text: An abdominal muscle strain, also called a pulled abdominal muscle, is an injury to one of the muscles of the abdominal wall. A muscle strain occurs when the muscle is stretched too far. When this occurs the muscle fibers are torn. Most commonly, a strain causes microscopic tears within the muscle, but occasionally, in severe injuries, the muscle can rupture from its attachment.


title: Rectus abdominis muscle

text: A rectus sheath hematoma is an accumulation of blood in the sheath of the rectus abdominis muscle. It causes abdominal pain with or without a mass. The hematoma may be caused by either rupture of the epigastric artery or by a muscular tear. Causes of this include anticoagulation, coughing, pregnancy, abdominal surgery and trauma. With an ageing population and the widespread use of anticoagulant medications, there is evidence that this historically benign condition is becoming more common and more serious.


title: Rectus abdominis muscle

text: The rectus abdominis is similar in most vertebrates. The most obvious difference between animal and human abdominal musculature is that in animals, there are a different number of tendinous intersections.


title: Mayflower Compact

text: The Mayflower Compact, originally titled Agreement Between the Settlers of New Plymouth, was the first governing document of Plymouth Colony. It was written by the men aboard the "Mayflower," consisting of separatist Puritans, adventurers, and tradesmen. The Puritans were fleeing from religious persecution by King James I of England.


title: Mayflower Compact

text: The Mayflower Compact was signed aboard ship on , 1620. Signing the covenant were 41 of the ship's 101 passengers; the "Mayflower" was anchored in Provincetown Harbor within the hook at the northern tip of Cape Cod.


title: Mayflower Compact

text: The Pilgrims had originally hoped to reach America in early October using two ships, but delays and complications meant they could use only one, the "Mayflower". Their intended destination had been the Colony of Virginia, with the journey financed by the Company of Merchant Adventurers of London. Storms forced them to anchor at the hook of Cape Cod in Massachusetts, however, as it was unwise to continue with provisions running short. This inspired some of the non-Puritan passengers (whom the Puritans referred to as "Strangers") to proclaim that they "would use their own liberty; for none had power to command them" since they would not be settling in the agreed-upon Virginia territory. To prevent this, the Pilgrims determined to establish their own government, while still affirming their allegiance to the Crown of England. Thus, the Mayflower Compact was based simultaneously upon a majoritarian model and the settlers' allegiance to the king. It was in essence a social contract in which the settlers consented to follow the community's rules and regulations for the sake of order and survival.


title: Mayflower Compact

text: Similar arguments had been unsuccessfully made by the shipwrecked passengers of the Sea Venture, a similar, earlier group bound for the Colony of Virginia, and specifically by one Stephen Hopkins, who had, as a result, been convicted of mutiny and sentenced to death, but pardoned, and is thought to be the Stephen Hopkins aboard the "Mayflower" and among the Compact signatories.


title: Mayflower Compact

text: The Pilgrims had lived for some years in Leiden, a city in the Dutch Republic. Historian Nathaniel Philbrick states, "Just as a spiritual covenant had marked the beginning of their congregation in Leiden, a civil covenant would provide the basis for a secular government in America."


title: Mayflower Compact

text: The original document has been lost, but three versions exist from the 17th century: printed in "Mourt's Relation" (1622), which was reprinted in "Purchas his Pilgrimes" (1625); hand-written by William Bradford in his journal "Of Plimoth Plantation" (1646); and printed by Bradford's nephew Nathaniel Morton in "New-Englands Memorial" (1669). The three versions differ slightly in wording and significantly in spelling, capitalization, and punctuation. William Bradford wrote the first part of "Mourt's Relation", including its version of the compact, so he wrote two of the three versions. The wording of those two versions is quite similar, unlike that of Morton. Bradford's handwritten manuscript is kept in a vault at the State Library of Massachusetts.


title: Mayflower Compact

text: A list of 41 male passengers who signed the document was supplied by Bradford's nephew Nathaniel Morton in his 1669 "New England's Memorial". Thomas Prince first numbered the names in his 1736 "A Chronological History of New-England in the form of Annals". The original document has been lost, so Morton is the sole source for the signers. He probably had access to the original document, but he could not have known the actual order in which it was signed simply by inspecting it. Morton's arrangement of names might not have been the arrangement on the original document, and the names on the original may not have been arranged in any orderly fashion. Prince's numbers are based solely on Morton, as he himself stated.


title: Mayflower Compact

text: Morton's list of names was unnumbered and untitled in all six editions (1669–1855), although their order changed with successive editions. In his original 1669 edition, the names were placed on two successive pages forming six short columns, three per page. In subsequent editions, these six short columns were combined into three long columns on a single page in two different ways, producing two different orders in unnumbered lists of signers. The second (1721) and third (1772) editions changed the order of the first edition by combining the first and fourth columns into the first long column, and similarly for the other columns. The fifth (1826) and sixth (1855) editions returned the names to their original first edition order by combining the first and second short columns into the first long column, and similarly for the other columns. Prince numbered the names in their original 1669 Morton order. He added titles (Mr. or Capt.) to 11 names that were given those titles by William Bradford in the list of passengers at the end of his manuscript.


title: Mayflower Compact

text: The following list of signers is organized into the six short columns of Morton (1669) with the numbers and titles of Prince. The names are given their modern spelling according to Morison. Use the numbers for the order used by genealogists and half of unnumbered lists (Samuel Fuller will be the eighth name), but merge the half columns vertically into full columns for the order used by the other half of unnumbered lists (John Turner will be the eighth name).


title: Mayflower Compact

text: During the commemoration of the 300th anniversary of the "Mayflower" landing, Governor Calvin Coolidge, who became President a few years later, stated the following in an address:


title: English cuisine

text: English cuisine encompasses the cooking styles, traditions and recipes associated with England. It has distinctive attributes of its own, but also shares much with wider British cuisine, partly through the importation of ingredients and ideas from the Americas, China, and India during the time of the British Empire and as a result of post-war immigration.


title: English cuisine

text: Some traditional meals, such as bread and cheese, roasted and stewed meats, meat and game pies, boiled vegetables and broths, and freshwater and saltwater fish have ancient origins. The 14th-century English cookbook, the "Forme of Cury", contains recipes for these, and dates from the royal court of Richard II.


title: English cuisine

text: English cooking has been influenced by foreign ingredients and cooking styles since the Middle Ages. Curry was introduced from the Indian subcontinent and adapted to English tastes from the eighteenth century with Hannah Glasse's recipe for chicken "currey". French cuisine influenced English recipes throughout the Victorian era. After the rationing of the Second World War, Elizabeth David's 1950 "A Book of Mediterranean Food" had wide influence, bringing Italian cuisine to English homes. Her success encouraged other cookery writers to describe other styles, including Chinese and Thai cuisine. England continues to absorb culinary ideas from all over the world.


title: English cuisine

text: English cooking has developed over many centuries since at least the time of "The Forme of Cury", written in the Middle Ages around 1390 in the reign of King Richard II. The book offers imaginative and sophisticated recipes, with spicy sweet and sour sauces thickened with bread or quantities of almonds boiled, peeled, dried and ground, and often served in pastry. Foods such as gingerbread are described. It was not at all, emphasises Clarissa Dickson Wright in her "A History of English Food", a matter of large lumps of roast meat at every meal as imagined in Hollywood films.


title: English cuisine

text: Instead, medieval dishes often had the texture of a pureé, possibly containing small fragments of meat or fish: 48% of the recipes in the Beinecke manuscript are for dishes similar to stews or pureés. Such dishes could be broadly of three types: somewhat acid, with wine, vinegar, and spices in the sauce, thickened with bread; sweet and sour, with sugar and vinegar; and sweet, using then-expensive sugar. An example of such a sweet pureé dish for meat (it could also be made with fish) from the Beinecke manuscript is the rich, saffron-yellow "Mortruys", thickened with egg:


title: English cuisine

text: Another manuscript, "Utilis Coquinario", mentions dishes such as "pyany", poultry garnished with peonies; "hyppee", a rose-hip broth; and birds such as cormorants and woodcocks.


title: English cuisine

text: The early modern period saw the gradual arrival of printed cookery books, though the very first, the printer Richard Pynson's 1500 "Boke of Cokery" was compiled from medieval texts. The next, "A Proper Newe Booke of Cokerye", was published sometime after 1545. "The Secretes of the Reverende Maister Alexis of Piermont" was published in 1558, translated from a French translation of Alessio Piemontese's original Italian work on confectionery. The number of titles expanded rapidly towards the end of the century to include Thomas Dawson's "The Good Huswifes Jewell" in 1585, the "Book of Cookrye" by "A. W." in 1591, and John Partridge's "The Good Hous-wives Handmaide" in 1594. These books were of two kinds: collections of so-called secrets on confectionery and health remedies, aimed at aristocratic ladies; and advice on cookery and how to manage a household, aimed at women from more ordinary backgrounds, most likely wives of minor aristocrats, clergymen, and professional men.


title: English cuisine

text: English tastes evolved during the sixteenth century in at least three ways. First, recipes emphasise a balance of sweet and sour. Second, butter becomes an important ingredient in sauces, a trend which continued in later centuries. Third, herbs, which could be grown locally but had been little used in the Middle Ages, started to replace spices as flavourings. In A. W.'s "Book of Cookrye", 35% of the recipes for meat stews and sauces include herbs, most commonly thyme. On the other hand, 76% of those meat recipes still used the distinctly mediaeval combination of sugar and dried fruit, together or separately. New ingredients were arriving from distant countries, too: "The Good Huswifes Jewell" introduced sweet potatoes (from the tropical Americas) alongside familiar Medieval recipes.


title: English cuisine

text: "Elinor Fettiplace's Receipt Book", compiled in 1604 (and first published in 1986) gives an intimate view of Elizabethan cookery. The book provides recipes for various forms of bread, such as buttered loaves; for apple fritters; preserves and pickles; and a celebration cake for 100 people. New ingredients appear; a recipe for dressing a shoulder of mutton calls for the use of the newly available citrus fruits:


title: English cuisine

text: Pies were important both as food and for show; the nursery rhyme "Sing a Song of Sixpence", with its lines "Four and Twenty blackbirds / Baked in a pie. // When the pie was opened, The birds began to sing" refers to the conceit of placing live birds under a pie crust just before serving at a banquet.


title: English cuisine

text: The bestselling cookery book of the early seventeenth century was Gervase Markham's "The English Huswife", published in 1615. It appears that his recipes were from the collection of a deceased noblewoman, and therefore dated back to Elizabethan times or earlier. Women were thus becoming both the authors of cookery books and their readers, though only about 10% of women in England were literate by 1640. Markham's recipes are distinctively different from mediaeval ones; three quarters of his sauces for meat and meat pies make use of a combination of sweet and sour, and he advises:


title: English cuisine

text: Robert May's "The Accomplisht Cook" was published in 1660 when he was 72 years old. The book included a substantial number of recipes for soups and stews, 38 recipes for sturgeon, and a large number of pies variously containing fish (including sturgeon), meat (including battalia pie), and sweet fillings.


title: English cuisine

text: French influence is evident in Hannah Woolley's "The Cooks Guide", 1664. Her recipes are designed to enable her non-aristocratic readers to imitate the fashionable French style of cooking with elaborate sauces. She combined the use of "Claret wine" and anchovies with more traditional cooking ingredients such as sugar, dried fruit, and vinegar.


title: English cuisine

text: John Nott's "The Cooks and Confectioners Dictionary" (1723), still with rather few precedents to go by, chose an alphabetical treatment for its recipes, from Al to Zest. The book covered everything from soups and salads to meat and fish, as well as pastries of many kinds, confectionery, and the making of beer, cider, and wine. Bills of fare are given for each month of the year.


title: English cuisine

text: James Woodforde's "Diary of a Country Parson" gives a good idea of the sort of food eaten in England in the eighteenth century by those who were reasonably prosperous. To welcome some neighbours on 8 June 1781, he gave them for dinner:


title: English cuisine

text: Another country clergyman, Gilbert White, in "The Natural History of Selborne" (1789) recorded the increased consumption of vegetables by ordinary country people in the south of England, to which, he noted, potatoes, from the Americas, had only been added during the reign of King George III:


title: English cuisine

text: Hannah Glasse's "The Art of Cookery made Plain and Easy" was the best-selling cookery book for a century from its publication in 1747. It ran to at least 40 editions, and was widely pirated.


title: English cuisine

text: English cooking was systematized and made available to the middle classes by a series of popular books, their authors becoming household names. One of the first was Mrs Rundell's "A New System of Domestic Cookery", 1806; it went through sixty-seven editions by 1844, selling hundreds of thousands of copies in Britain and America. This was followed by Eliza Acton's "Modern Cookery for Private Families" 1845, which Bee Wilson has called "the greatest cookery book in our language", but "modern" only in a nineteenth-century sense.


title: English cuisine

text: An example recipe from Acton's "Modern Cookery for Private Families" is her "Quince Blanc-Mange (Delicious)":


title: English cuisine

text: Acton was supplanted by the most famous English cookery book of the Victorian era, Isabella Beeton's "Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management", 1861, which sold nearly two million copies up to 1868. Where Acton's was a book to be read and enjoyed, Beeton's, substantially written in later editions by other hands, was a manual of instructions and recipes, to be looked up as needed. "Mrs Beeton" was substantially plagiarized from authors including Elizabeth Raffald and Acton. The Anglo-Italian cook Charles Elmé Francatelli became a celebrity, cooking for a series of aristocrats, London clubs, and royalty including Queen Victoria. His 1846 book "The Modern Cook" ran through 29 editions by 1896, popularising an elaborate cuisine described throughout with French terminology, and offering bills of fare for up to 300 people.


title: English cuisine

text: Three of the major hot drinks popular in England, tea, coffee, and chocolate, originated from outside Europe and were already staple items by Victorian times.


title: English cuisine

text: Catherine of Braganza brought the Portuguese habit of tea to England around 1660. Initially, its expense restricted it to wealthy consumers, but the price gradually dropped, until by the 19th century its use was widespread. Introduced in the 16th century, coffee became popular by the 17th century, especially in the coffee houses, the first opening in Oxford in 1650. Hot chocolate was a popular drink by the 17th century, long before it was used as a food. Chocolate bars were developed and marketed by three English Quaker-founded businesses, Joseph Fry's (1847), Rowntree's (1862), and Cadbury's (1868).


title: English cuisine

text: After the First World War, many new food products became available to the typical household, with branded foods advertised for their convenience. Kitchen servants with time to make custards and puddings were replaced with instant foods in jars, or powders that the housewife could quickly mix. American-style dry cereals began to challenge the porridge and bacon and eggs of the middle classes, and the bread and margarine of the poor. While wartime shipping shortages had sharply narrowed choice, the 1920s saw many new kinds of fruit imported from around the world, along with better quality, packaging, and hygiene, aided by refrigerators and refrigerated ships. Authors in the 1930s such as Lady Sysonby drew on recipes from a wide range of countries.


title: English cuisine

text: Rationing was introduced in 1940 to cope with the shortages caused by the wartime blockade. Foods such as bananas, onions and chocolate became hard to find, while unfamiliar items such as dried egg, dried potato, whale meat, snook (a South African fish), and the tinned pork product Spam appeared in the national diet. Since butter, sugar, eggs and flour were all rationed, English dishes such as pies and cakes became hard to make from traditional recipes. Instead, foods such as carrots were used in many different dishes, their natural sugars providing sweetness in novel dishes like carrot fudge. The diet was less than enjoyable, but paradoxically, rationing meant that the population was healthier than ever before, and perhaps ever since. The Ministry of Food employed home economists such as Marguerite Patten to demonstrate how to cook economically. After the war, Patten became one of the first television cooks, and sold 17 million copies of her 170 books.


title: English cuisine

text: Elizabeth David profoundly changed English cooking with her 1950 "A Book of Mediterranean Food". Written at a time of scarcity, her book began with "perhaps the most evocative and inspirational passage in the history of British cookery writing":


title: English cuisine

text: All five of David's early books remained in print half a century later, and her reputation among cookery writers such as Nigel Slater and Clarissa Dickson Wright is of enormous influence. The historian of food Panikos Panayi suggests that this is because she consciously brought foreign cooking styles into the English kitchen; she did this with fine writing, and with practical experience of living and cooking in the countries she wrote about. She deliberately destroyed the myths of restaurant cuisine, instead describing the home cooking of Mediterranean countries. Her books paved the way for other cookery writers to use foreign recipes. Post-David celebrity chefs, often ephemeral, included Philip Harben, Fanny Cradock, Graham Kerr ("the galloping gourmet"), and Robert Carrier.


title: English cuisine

text: In 1953, Britain's first celebrity chef, Philip Harben, published "Traditional Dishes of Britain". Its chapter titles simply listed "the stereotypical stalwarts of the British diet", from Cornish pasty and Yorkshire pudding to shortbread, Lancashire hotpot, steak and kidney pudding, jellied eels, clotted cream and fish and chips. Panayi noted that Harben began with contradictions and unsupported claims, naming Britain's supposed reputation for the worst food in the world, but claiming that the country's cooks were technically unmatched and that the repertoire of national dishes was the largest of any country's.


title: English cuisine

text: The sociologist Bob Ashley observed in 2004 that while people in Britain might agree that the core national diet consisted of items such as the full English breakfast, roast beef with all the trimmings, tea with scones, and fish and chips, few had ever eaten the canonical English breakfast, lunch and dinner in any single day, and many probably never ate any item from the list at all regularly. In any case, Ashley noted, the national diet changes with time, and cookery books routinely include dishes of foreign origin. He remarked that a National Trust café, whose manager claimed "We're not allowed to do foreign food ... I can't do lasagne or anything like that", in fact served curry, because "seemingly curry is English". Anglo-Indian cuisine has indeed been part of the national diet since the eighteenth century.


title: English cuisine

text: Some English dishes are relatively new and can be dated to the century, and sometimes to the year, of their introduction. Thus piccalilli was introduced from India in the 18th century, as recorded by Hannah Glasse who gave a recipe for it in 1758. Conversely, dishes and sauces still considered foreign, such as fish in sweet and sour sauce, have been in English recipe books since the Middle Ages. Other dishes took their present form only gradually, as with the so-called "full English breakfast". Breakfasts of this kind are indeed described in later editions of "Mrs Beeton", but as one of many variations. Thus her list of "Family Breakfasts for a Week in Winter" has for Wednesday something that looks fairly modern: "bread, muffins, butter, brawn, grilled bacon, boiled eggs"; but on other days less modern-looking breakfasts include mince, mutton cutlets, grilled kidneys, baked fresh herrings, and hash of cold game or poultry, while suggestions for "Family Breakfasts for a Week in Summer" included sardine toast, cold tongue, kedgeree and rissoles, and "Guests' Breakfast (Autumn)" included cold pheasant, game pie, and pressed beef.


title: English cuisine

text: English cookery has been open to foreign ingredients and influence from as early as the thirteenth century, and in the case of a few foods like sausages from Roman times. The Countess of Leicester, daughter of King John purchased large amounts of cinnamon, while King Edward I ordered large quantities of spices such as pepper and ginger, as well as of what was then an expensive imported luxury, sugar. Dickson Wright refutes the popular idea that spices were used to disguise bad meat, pointing out that this would have been as fatal then as it would be today. She suggests instead that spices were used to hide the taste of salt, which was used to preserve food in the absence of refrigeration.


title: English cuisine

text: The English celebrity cook Fanny Cradock asserted: "The English have never had a cuisine. Even Yorkshire pudding comes from Burgundy." Nicola Humble observed that in "Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management", there are about the same number of recipes from India as from Wales, Scotland and Ireland together. Panayi created controversy by asserting, with evidence, that fish and chips had foreign origins: the fried fish from Jewish cooking, the potato chips from France; the dish only came to signify national identity from about 1930. French cuisine powerfully influenced English cooking throughout the nineteenth century, and French celebrity chefs such as the Roux brothers and Raymond Blanc continue to do so in twenty-first-century England.


title: English cuisine

text: Curry was created by the arrival of the British in India in the seventeenth century, beginning as bowls of spicy sauce used, Lizzie Collingham writes, to add "bite to the rather bland flavours of boiled and roasted meats." The 1758 edition of Hannah Glasse's "The Art of Cookery" contains what Clarissa Dickson Wright calls a "famous recipe" which describes how "To make a currey the Indian way"; it flavours chicken with onions fried in butter, the chicken being fried with turmeric, ginger and ground pepper, and stewed in its own stock with cream and lemon juice. Dickson Wright comments that she was "a bit sceptical" of this recipe, as it had few of the expected spices, but was "pleasantly surprised by the end result" which had "a very good and interesting flavour".


title: English cuisine

text: The process of adapting Indian cooking continued for centuries. Anglo-Indian recipes could completely ignore Indian rules of diet, such as by using pork or beef. Some dishes, such as "liver curry, with bacon" were simply ordinary recipes spiced up with ingredients such as curry powder. In other cases like kedgeree, Indian dishes were adapted to British tastes; "khichari" was originally a simple dish of lentils and rice. Curry was accepted in almost all Victorian era cookery books, such as Eliza Acton's "Modern Cookery for Private Families" (1845): she offered recipes for curried sweetbreads and curried macaroni, merging Indian and European foods into standard English cooking. By 1895, curry was included in "Dainty Dishes for Slender Incomes", aimed at the poorer classes.


title: English cuisine

text: Foreign influence was by no means limited to specific dishes. James Walvin, in his book "Fruits of Empire", argues that potatoes, sugar (entirely imported until around 1900 and the growing of sugar beet), tea, and coffee as well as increasing quantities of spices were "Fruits of Empire" that became established in Britain between 1660 and 1800, so that by the nineteenth century "their exotic origins had been lost in the mists of time" and had become "part of the unquestioned fabric of local life".


title: English cuisine

text: During the British Raj, Britain first started borrowing Indian dishes, creating Anglo-Indian cuisine, with dishes such as Kedgeree (1790) and Mulligatawny soup (1791). Indian food was served in coffee houses from 1809, and cooked at home from a similar date as cookbooks of the time attest. The Veeraswamy restaurant in Regent Street, London, was opened in 1926, at first serving Anglo-Indian food, and is the oldest surviving Indian restaurant in Britain. There was a sharp increase in the number of curry houses in the 1940s, and again in the 1970s.


title: English cuisine

text: The post-colonial Anglo-Indian dish chicken tikka masala was apparently invented in Glasgow in the early 1970s, while balti cuisine was introduced to Britain in 1977 in Birmingham. In 2003, there were roughly 9000 restaurants serving Indian cuisine in Britain. The majority of Indian restaurants in Britain are run by entrepreneurs of Bangladeshi (often Sylhet) and Pakistani origin. According to Britain's Food Standards Agency, the Indian food industry in the United Kingdom was worth £3.2 billion in 2003, accounting for two-thirds of all eating out, and serving about 2.5 million British customers every week. Indian restaurants typically allow the diner to combine base ingredients — chicken, prawns or "meat" (lamb or mutton) — with curry sauces — from the mild korma to the scorching phall — without regard to the authenticity of the combination. The reference point for flavour and spice heat is the Madras curry sauce (the name represents the area of India where restaurateurs obtained their spices, rather than an actual dish). Other sauces are sometimes variations on a basic curry sauce: for instance, vindaloo is often rendered as a fiery dish of lamb or chicken in a Madras sauce with extra chilli, rather than the Luso-Indian dish of pork marinated in wine vinegar and garlic, based on a Goan Portuguese dish "carne de vinha d'alhos".


title: English cuisine

text: Indian restaurants and their cuisine in Britain gradually improved from the stereotypical flock wallpaper and standardised menus. One of the pioneers was the Bombay Brasserie, which opened in Gloucester Road, London, in 1982, serving the kind of food actually eaten in India. It was followed in 1990 by Chutney Mary in Chelsea. In 2001, two Indian restaurants in London, Tamarind (opened 1995) and Zaika (opened 1999) gained Michelin stars for the quality of their cooking.


title: English cuisine

text: Indian cuisine is the most popular alternative to traditional cooking in Britain, followed by Chinese and Italian food. By 2015, chicken tikka masala was one of Britain's most popular dishes.


title: English cuisine

text: Oriental cuisines have become widely available across England. Chinese cuisine became established in England by the 1970s, with large cities often having a Chinatown district; the one in London's Soho developed between the two world wars, following an informal area in Limehouse. Deriving from Cantonese cuisine, the food served by Chinese restaurants has been adapted to suit English taste. From around 1980 onwards, Southeast Asian cuisines, especially Thai and Vietnamese, began to gain popularity in England.


title: English cuisine

text: Italian cuisine is the most popular Mediterranean cuisine in England. In its current form, with plenty of pizza and pasta, inspired by Elizabeth David, its rise began after 1945. There were some Italian restaurants before World War II, but they mostly served a generalised haute cuisine. Soon after the war, Italian coffee bars appeared, the first places to trade on their Italianness; they soon started to sell simple and cheap Italian food such as minestrone soup, spaghetti bolognese and pizza. From the early 1960s, the slightly more elegant trattoria restaurants offered "Italian specialities" such as lasagne verde al forno (baked lasagne, coloured with spinach). Other Mediterranean influences include Greek moussaka, feta and taramasalata, Turkish doner and shish kebabs, and Middle Eastern hummus.


title: English cuisine

text: French cuisine is largely restricted to expensive restaurants, although there are some inexpensive French bistros.


title: English cuisine

text: For many years, English writers including Hannah Glasse in the 18th century and Andrew Kirwan in the 19th century were ambivalent about French cooking. However, restaurants serving French haute cuisine developed for the upper and middle classes in England from the 1830s and Escoffier was recruited by the Savoy Hotel in 1890. Marcel Boulestin's 1923 "Simple French Cooking for English Homes" did much to popularise French dishes.


title: English cuisine

text: The English cafe is a small, inexpensive eating place. A working men's cafe serves mainly fried or grilled food, such as fried eggs, bacon, bangers and mash‚ black pudding, bubble and squeak, burgers, sausages, mushrooms and chips. These may be accompanied by baked beans, cooked tomatoes, and fried bread. These are referred to as "breakfast" even if they are available all day. Traditional cafes have declined with the rise of fast-food chains, but remain numerous all over the UK.


title: English cuisine

text: A tea shop is a small restaurant that serves soft drinks and light meals, often in a sedate atmosphere. Customers may eat a cream tea in Cornish or Devonshire style, served from a china set, and a scone with jam and clotted cream.


title: English cuisine

text: Fish and chips is a hot dish consisting of battered fish, commonly Atlantic cod or haddock, and chips. It is a common take-away food.


title: English cuisine

text: Western Sephardic Jews settling in England from the 16th century would have prepared fried fish like "pescado frito", coated in flour and fried in oil. Chips appeared in the Victorian era; Dickens's 1859 "A Tale of Two Cities" mentions "husky chips of potatoes, fried with some reluctant drops of oil". Panayi states that fish and chip shops in the 1920s were often run by Jews or Italians. Despite this, the new dish was popularly attributed to France; "The Times" recorded that "potatoes chipped and fried in the French manner were introduced in Lancashire with great success about 1871." The "Fish Trades Gazette" of 29 July 1922 stated that "Later there was introduced into this country the frying and purveying of chip potatoes from France ... which had made the fried fish trade what it is today."


title: English cuisine

text: The public house, or pub, is a famous English institution. In the mid-20th century, pubs were drinking establishments with little emphasis on the serving of food, other than "bar snacks", such as pork scratchings, pickled eggs, salted crisps, and peanuts, which helped to increase beer sales. If a pub served meals these were usually basic cold dishes such as a ploughman's lunch, invented in the 1950s.


title: English cuisine

text: In the 1950s some British pubs started to offer "a pie and a pint", with hot individual steak and ale pies made on the premises by the landlord or his wife. In the 1960s this was developed into the then-fashionable "chicken in a basket", a portion of roast chicken with chips, served on a napkin, in a wicker basket, by the Mill pub at Withington. Quality dropped but variety increased with the introduction of microwave ovens and freezer food. "Pub grub" expanded to include British food items such as steak and kidney pudding, shepherd's pie, fish and chips, bangers and mash, Sunday roast, and pasties. The gastropub movement of the 21st century, on the other hand, has sought to serve restaurant-quality food, cooked to order from fresh ingredients, in a pub setting; one pub, The Hand & Flowers in Marlow has been awarded two Michelin stars, and several have one star. In 1964, pubs were serving 9.1% of meals eaten outside the home; this rose rapidly to 37.5% by 1997.


title: English cuisine

text: Modern Western vegetarianism was founded in the United Kingdom in 1847 with the world's first Vegetarian Society. It has increased markedly since the end of World War II, when there were around 100,000 vegetarians in the country. By 2003 there were between 3 and 4 million vegetarians in the UK, one of the highest percentages in the Western world, while around 7 million people claim to eat no red meat. By 2015, 11 of 22 restaurant chains studied by the Vegan Society had at least one vegan main course on their menu, though only 6 of these explicitly labelled them as vegan dishes. Top-end vegetarian restaurants remain relatively few, though they are increasing rapidly: there were some 20 in Britain in 2007, rising to 30 in 2010.


title: English cuisine

text: English cuisine in the twentieth century suffered from a poor international reputation. Keith Arscott of Chawton House Library comments that "at one time people didn't think the English knew how to cook and yet these [eighteenth and nineteenth century] female writers were at the forefront of modern day cooking." English food was popularly supposed to be bland, but English cuisine has made extensive use of spices since the Middle Ages; introduced curry to Europe; and makes use of strong flavourings such as English mustard. It was similarly reputed to be dull, like roast beef: but that dish was highly prized both in Britain and abroad, and few people could afford it; the "Roast Beef of Old England" lauded by William Hogarth in his 1748 painting celebrated the high quality of English cattle, which the French at the "Gate of Calais" (the other name of his painting) could only look at with envy. The years of wartime shortages and rationing certainly did impair the variety and flavour of English food during the twentieth century, but the nation's cooking recovered from this with increasing prosperity and the availability of new ingredients from soon after the Second World War.


title: English cuisine

text: In 2005, 600 food critics writing for the British "Restaurant" magazine named 14 British restaurants among the 50 best restaurants in the world, the number one being The Fat Duck in Bray, Berkshire, led by its chef Heston Blumenthal. The quality of London's best restaurants has made the city a leading centre of international cuisine.


title: English cuisine

text: Meanwhile, the list of United Kingdom food and drink products with protected status (PDO) under European Union law has increased rapidly, with 59 items including Cornish sardines, Yorkshire Wensleydale cheese and Yorkshire forced rhubarb, Fenland celery, West Country lamb and beef and traditional Cumberland sausage listed as registered in 2015, and a further 13 including Birmingham Balti listed as applied for. By 2016 there were 12 cheeses from England with PDO status.


title: David Packard

text: David Packard ( ; September 7, 1912 – March 26, 1996) was an American electrical engineer and co-founder, with Bill Hewlett, of Hewlett-Packard (1939), serving as president (1947–64), CEO (1964–68), and chairman of the board (1964–68, 1972–93) of HP. He served as U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense from 1969 to 1971 during the Nixon administration. Packard served as president of the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USU) from 1976 to 1981 and chairman of its board of regents from 1973 to 1982.


title: David Packard

text: He was a member of the Trilateral Commission. Packard was the recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1988 and is noted for many technological innovations and philanthropic endeavors.


title: David Packard

text: Packard was born in Pueblo, Colorado, the son of Ella (Graber) and Sperry Sidney Packard, an attorney. He attended Centennial High School, where early on he showed an interest in science, engineering, sports, and leadership. Packard earned his B.A. from Stanford University in 1934, where he earned letters in football and basketball and attained membership in the Phi Beta Kappa Society and was a Brother of the Alpha Delta Phi Literary Fraternity. Stanford is where he met two people who were important to his life, Lucile Salter and Bill Hewlett. Packard briefly attended the University of Colorado at Boulder before taking a position with the General Electric Company in Schenectady, New York. In 1938, he returned to Stanford, where he earned a master's degree in electrical engineering later that year. In the same year, he married Lucile Salter, with whom he had four children: David, Nancy, Susan, and Julie. Lucile Packard died in 1987 (age 72).


title: David Packard

text: In 1939, Packard and Hewlett established Hewlett-Packard (HP) in Packard's garage with an initial capital investment of $538 (). Packard mentions in his book "The HP Way" that the name Hewlett-Packard was determined by the flip of a coin: HP, rather than PH. Their first product was an audio frequency oscillator, 8 of which were sold to Walt Disney Studios for testing sound equipment used to produce "Fantasia".


title: David Packard

text: The company grew into the world's largest producer of electronic testing and measurement devices. It also became a major producer of calculators, computers, and laser and ink jet printers.


title: David Packard

text: HP incorporated in 1947, with Packard becoming its first president, serving in that role until 1964. He was then elected chief executive officer and chairman of the board, holding those positions through 1968. Packard left HP in 1969 to serve in the Nixon administration until 1971, at which time he returned to HP and was re-elected chairman of the board, serving from 1972 to 1993. In 1991, Packard oversaw a major reorganization at HP. He retired from HP in 1993. At the time of his death in 1996, Packard's stake in the company was worth more than $1 billion.


title: David Packard

text: Packard was criticized for expanding into South Africa, where HP equipment was used to implement apartheid. In 1980, he presided over the groundbreaking ceremony for HP's headquarters in Johannesburg. When Nebraska became the first US state government to divest from South Africa, Packard remarked "I'd rather lose business in Nebraska than with South Africa."


title: David Packard

text: At Packard's instruction, the domain name "HP.com" was registered on March 3, 1986, and as such was one of the earliest to be registered.


title: David Packard

text: Upon entering office in 1969, President Richard M. Nixon appointed Packard U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense under Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird. Packard resigned in December 1971 and returned to Hewlett-Packard in 1972 as chairman of the board.


title: David Packard

text: While serving in the Department of Defense (DoD), he brought concepts of resource management used in business to the military, as well as establishing the Defense Systems Management College. In 1970, Packard issued a memorandum that contained a number of major reforms designed to address "the real mess we have on our hands." A key reform was elimination of Robert MacNamara's Total Package Procurement except in rare situations.


title: David Packard

text: Near the end of his time at DoD, Packard wrote the "Packard Memo" or "Employment of Military Resources in the Event of Civil Disturbances". Enacted in February 1972, the act describes exceptions to the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act, which limited the powers of the federal government to use the U.S. military for law enforcement, except where expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress — noting that the Constitution provides an exception when needed "to prevent loss of life or wanton destruction of property and to restore governmental functioning and public order when sudden and unexpected civil disturbances, disasters, or calamities seriously endanger life and property and disrupt normal governmental functions to such an extent that duly constituted local authorities are unable to control the situations" and "to protect Federal property and Federal governmental functions when the need for protection exists and duly constituted local authorities are unable or decline to provide adequate protection". § 214.5 states that "employment of DoD military resources for assistance to civil authorities in controlling civil disturbances will normally be predicated upon the issuance of a Presidential Executive order or Presidential directive authorizing", with exceptions "limited to:


title: David Packard

text: According to Lindorff, these exceptions reinstate the possibility of martial law in the U.S., prohibited since 1878.


title: David Packard

text: In the 1970s and 1980s Packard was a prominent advisor to the White House on defense procurement and management. He served as chairman of The Business Council in 1973 and 1974. From 1985 to 1986, he served as chairman of The Packard Commission.


title: David Packard

text: From the early 1980s until his death in 1996, Packard dedicated much of his time and money to philanthropic projects. In 1964, Packard and his wife had established the David and Lucile Packard Foundation. In 1986, they donated $40 million toward building what became the Lucile Packard Children's Hospital at Stanford University; the new hospital opened in June 1991. Prompted by his daughters Nancy and Julie, in 1978 David and Lucile had created the Monterey Bay Aquarium Foundation. The couple eventually donated $55 million to build the new aquarium, which opened in 1984 with Julie Packard as its executive director. In 1987, Packard gave $13 million to create the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute. Packard and Hewlett made a combined donation of $77 million to Stanford in 1994, for which the university named the David Packard Electrical Engineering Building in his honor.


title: David Packard

text: Packard was a member of the American Enterprise Institute's board of trustees. He died on March 26, 1996, at age 83 in Stanford, California, leaving approximately $4 billion (the bulk of his estate) to the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, including large amounts of valuable real property in Los Altos Hills. All three Packard daughters sit on the foundation's board of trustees. David Woodley Packard, his son, serves as president of the Packard Humanities Institute.


title: David Packard

text: Packard's old home and garage in Palo Alto, California were placed on the California registry of historic places as "The Birthplace of Silicon Valley". He also had an oil tanker named for him. The "David Packard", built in 1977, was operated for Chevron, had a capacity and was registered under the Bahamian flag.


title: Natural nuclear fission reactor

text: A natural nuclear fission reactor is a uranium deposit where self-sustaining nuclear chain reactions occur. The conditions under which a natural nuclear reactor could exist had been predicted in 1956 by Japanese American chemist Paul Kuroda. The remnants of an extinct or fossil nuclear fission reactor, where self-sustaining nuclear reactions have occurred in the past, can be verified by analysis of isotope ratios of uranium and of the fission products (and the stable daughter nuclides of those fission products). An example of this phenomenon was discovered in 1972 in Oklo, Gabon by French physicist Francis Perrin under conditions very similar to Kuroda's predictions.


title: Natural nuclear fission reactor

text: Oklo is the only location where this phenomenon is known to have occurred, and consists of 16 sites with patches of centimeter-sized ore layers. Here self-sustaining nuclear fission reactions are thought to have taken place approximately 1.7 billion years ago, during the Statherian period of the Paleoproterozoic, and continued for a few hundred thousand years, probably averaging less than 100 kW of thermal power during that time.


title: Natural nuclear fission reactor

text: In May 1972 at the Tricastin uranium enrichment site at Pierrelatte in France, routine mass spectrometry comparing UF samples from the Oklo Mine, located in Gabon, showed a discrepancy in the amount of the isotope. Normally the concentration is 0.72% while these samples had only 0.60%, a significant difference (some 17% less U-235 was contained in the samples than expected). This discrepancy required explanation, as all civilian uranium handling facilities must meticulously account for all fissionable isotopes to ensure that none are diverted to the construction of nuclear weapons. Furthermore since fissile material is why people mine uranium, a significant amount "going missing" was also of direct economic concern.


title: Natural nuclear fission reactor

text: Thus the French Commissariat à l'énergie atomique (CEA) began an investigation. A series of measurements of the relative abundances of the two most significant isotopes of the uranium mined at Oklo showed anomalous results compared to those obtained for uranium from other mines. Further investigations into this uranium deposit discovered uranium ore with a concentration as low as 0.44% (almost 40% below the normal value). Subsequent examination of isotopes of fission products such as neodymium and ruthenium also showed anomalies, as described in more detail below. However, the trace radioisotope did not deviate significantly in its concentration from other natural samples. Both depleted uranium and reprocessed uranium will usually have concentrations significantly different from the secular equilibrium of 55 ppm relative to . This is due to being enriched together with and due to it being both consumed by neutron capture and produced from by fast neutron induced (n,2n) reactions in nuclear reactors. In Oklo any possible deviation of concentration present at the time the reactor was active would have long since decayed away. must have also been present in higher than usual ratios during the time the reactor was operating, but due to its half life of years being almost two orders of magnitude shorter than the time elapsed since the reactor operated, it has decayed to roughly its original value and thus basically nothing and below any abilities of current equipment to detect.


title: Natural nuclear fission reactor

text: This loss in is exactly what happens in a nuclear reactor. A possible explanation was that the uranium ore had operated as a natural fission reactor in the distant geological past. Other observations led to the same conclusion, and on 25 September 1972 the CEA announced their finding that self-sustaining nuclear chain reactions had occurred on Earth about 2 billion years ago. Later, other natural nuclear fission reactors were discovered in the region.


title: Natural nuclear fission reactor

text: Neodymium and other elements were found with isotopic compositions different from what is usually found on Earth. For example, Oklo contained less than 6% of the isotope while natural neodymium contains 27%; however Oklo contained more of the isotope. Subtracting the natural isotopic Nd abundance from the Oklo-Nd, the isotopic composition matched that produced by the fission of .


title: Natural nuclear fission reactor

text: Similar investigations into the isotopic ratios of ruthenium at Oklo found a much higher concentration than otherwise naturally occurring (27–30% vs. 12.7%). This anomaly could be explained by the decay of to . In the bar chart the normal natural isotope signature of ruthenium is compared with that for fission product ruthenium which is the result of the fission of with thermal neutrons. It is clear that the fission ruthenium has a different isotope signature. The level of in the fission product mixture is low because fission produces neutron rich isotopes which subsequently beta decay and Ruthenium-100 would only be produced in appreciable quantities by double beta decay of the very long-lived (half life = years) isotope of molybdenum. On the time scale of when the reactors were in operation very little (about 0.17 ppb) decay to will have occurred. Other pathways of production like neutron capture in or (quickly followed by beta decay) can only have occurred during high neutron flux and thus ceased when the fission chain reaction stopped.


title: Natural nuclear fission reactor

text: The natural nuclear reactor formed when a uranium-rich mineral deposit became inundated with groundwater, which could act as a moderator for the neutrons produced by nuclear fission. A chain reaction took place, producing heat that caused the groundwater to boil away; without a moderator that could slow the neutrons, however, the reaction slowed or stopped. The reactor thus had a negative void coefficient of reactivity, something employed as a safety mechanism in human-made light water reactors. After cooling of the mineral deposit, the water returned, and the reaction restarted, completing a full cycle every 3 hours. The fission reaction cycles continued for hundreds of thousands of years and ended when the ever-decreasing fissile materials, coupled with the build-up of neutron poisons, no longer could sustain a chain reaction.


title: Natural nuclear fission reactor

text: Fission of uranium normally produces five known isotopes of the fission-product gas xenon; all five have been found trapped in the remnants of the natural reactor, in varying concentrations. The concentrations of xenon isotopes, found trapped in mineral formations 2 billion years later, make it possible to calculate the specific time intervals of reactor operation: approximately 30 minutes of criticality followed by 2 hours and 30 minutes of cooling down (exponentially decreasing residual decay heat) to complete a 3-hour cycle. Xenon-135 is the strongest known neutron poison. However, it is not produced directly in appreciable amounts but rather as a decay product of Iodine-135 (or one of its parent nuclides). Xenon-135 itself is unstable and decays to Caesium-135 if not allowed to absorb neutrons. While Caesium-135 is relatively long lived, all Caesium-135 produced by the Oklo reactor has since decayed further to stable Barium-135. Meanwhile Xenon-136, the product of neutron capture in Xenon-135 only decays extremely slowly via double beta decay and thus scientists were able to determine the neutronics of this reactor by calculations based on those isotope ratios almost two billion years after it stopped fissioning uranium.


title: Natural nuclear fission reactor

text: A key factor that made the reaction possible was that, at the time the reactor went critical 1.7 billion years ago, the fissile isotope made up about 3.1% of the natural uranium, which is comparable to the amount used in some of today's reactors. (The remaining 96.9% was non-fissile and roughly 55 ppm .) Because has a shorter half-life than , and thus decays more rapidly, the current abundance of in natural uranium is only 0.72%. A natural nuclear reactor is therefore no longer possible on Earth without heavy water or graphite.


title: Natural nuclear fission reactor

text: The Oklo uranium ore deposits are the only known sites in which natural nuclear reactors existed. Other rich uranium ore bodies would also have had sufficient uranium to support nuclear reactions at that time, but the combination of uranium, water and physical conditions needed to support the chain reaction was unique, as far as is currently known, to the Oklo ore bodies. It is also possible, that other natural nuclear fission reactors were once operating but have since been geologically disturbed so much as to be unrecognizable, possibly even "diluting" the uranium so far that the isotope ratio would no longer serve as a "fingerprint". Only a small part of the continental crust and no part of the oceanic crust reaches the age of the deposits at Oklo or an age during which isotope ratios of natural uranium would have allowed a self sustaining chain reaction with water as a moderator.


title: Natural nuclear fission reactor

text: Another factor which probably contributed to the start of the Oklo natural nuclear reactor at 2 billion years, rather than earlier, was the increasing oxygen content in the Earth's atmosphere. Uranium is naturally present in the rocks of the earth, and the abundance of fissile was at least 3% or higher at all times prior to reactor startup. Uranium is soluble in water only in the presence of oxygen. Therefore, increasing oxygen levels during the aging of the Earth may have allowed uranium to be dissolved and transported with groundwater to places where a high enough concentration could accumulate to form rich uranium ore bodies. Without the new aerobic environment available on Earth at the time, these concentrations probably could not have taken place.


title: Natural nuclear fission reactor

text: It is estimated that nuclear reactions in the uranium in centimeter- to meter-sized veins consumed about five tons of and elevated temperatures to a few hundred degrees Celsius. Most of the non-volatile fission products and actinides have only moved centimeters in the veins during the last 2 billion years. Studies have suggested this as a useful natural analogue for nuclear waste disposal. The overall mass defect from the fission of five tons of is about . Over its lifetime the reactor produced roughly in thermal energy, including neutrinos. If one ignores fission of plutonium (which makes up roughly a third of fission events over the course of normal burnup in modern humanmade light water reactors), then fission product yields amount to roughly of Technetium-99 (since decayed to Ruthenium-99) of Zirconium-93 (since decayed to Niobium-93), of Caesium-135 (since decayed to Barium-135, but the real value is probably lower as its parent nuclide, Xenon-135, is a strong neutron poison and will have absorbed neutrons before decaying to Cs-135 in some cases), of Palladium-107 (since decayed to Silver), of Strontium-90 (long since decayed to Zirconium) and of Caesium-137 (long since decayed to Barium).


title: Natural nuclear fission reactor

text: The natural reactor of Oklo has been used to check if the atomic fine-structure constant α might have changed over the past 2 billion years. That is because α influences the rate of various nuclear reactions. For example, captures a neutron to become , and since the rate of neutron capture depends on the value of α, the ratio of the two samarium isotopes in samples from Oklo can be used to calculate the value of α from 2 billion years ago.


title: Natural nuclear fission reactor

text: Several studies have analysed the relative concentrations of radioactive isotopes left behind at Oklo, and most have concluded that nuclear reactions then were much the same as they are today, which implies α was the same too.


title: Yue Chinese

text: Yue () is a group of similar Sinitic languages spoken in Southern China, particularly in Liangguang (the Guangdong and Guangxi provinces).


title: Yue Chinese

text: The name Cantonese is often used for the whole group, but linguists prefer to reserve that name for the variety used in Guangzhou (Canton), Wuzhou (Ngchow), Hong Kong and Macau, which is the prestige dialect. Taishanese, from the coastal area of Jiangmen (Kongmoon) located southwest of Guangzhou, was the language of most of the 19th-century emigrants from Guangdong to Southeast Asia and North America. Most later migrants have been speakers of Cantonese.


title: Yue Chinese

text: Yue varieties are not mutually intelligible with other varieties of Chinese. They are among the most conservative varieties with regard to the final consonants and tonal categories of Middle Chinese, but have lost several distinctions in the initial consonants and medial glides that other Chinese varieties have retained.


title: Yue Chinese

text: The prototypical use of the name "Cantonese" in English is for the Yue variety of Guangzhou (Canton), but it is also used for Yue as a whole. To avoid confusion, academic texts may call the primary branch of Chinese "Yue", following the Mandarin pinyin spelling, and either restrict "Cantonese" to its common usage for the Guangzhou variety, or avoid the term "Cantonese" altogether and distinguish Yue from Guangzhou (Canton) dialect.


title: Yue Chinese

text: In Chinese, people of Hong Kong and Macau, as well as Cantonese immigrants abroad, usually call their language "Gwóngdūng wá" (廣東話) "speech of Guangdong". The people of Guangdong and Guangxi also use the term "Yuht Yúh" (粵語) "Yue language" and the term "baahk wá" (), as for example in an expression like "南寧白話", which means the ""baak waa" of Nanning".


title: Yue Chinese

text: The area of China south of the Nanling Mountains, known as the Lingnan (roughly modern Guangxi and Guangdong), was originally home to peoples known to the Chinese as the Hundred Yue (Baiyue). Large-scale Han Chinese migration to the area began after the Qin conquest of the region in 214 BC. Successive waves of immigration followed at times of upheaval in Northern and Central China, such as the collapse of the Han, Tang and Song dynasties. The most popular route was via the Xiang River, which the Qin had connected to the Li River by the Lingqu Canal, and then into the valley of the Xi Jiang (West River). A secondary route followed the Gan River and then the Bei Jiang (North River) into eastern Guangdong. Yue-speakers were later joined by Hakka-speakers following the North River route, and Min-speakers arriving by sea.


title: Yue Chinese

text: After the fall of Qin, the Lingnan area was part of the independent state of Nanyue for about a century, before being incorporated in the Han empire in 111 BC. After the Tang dynasty collapsed, much of the area became part of the state of Southern Han, one of the longest-lived states of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, between 917 and 971.


title: Yue Chinese

text: Large waves of Chinese migration throughout succeeding Chinese dynasties assimilated huge numbers of Yue aborigines, with the result that today's Southern Han Chinese Yue-speaking population is descended from both groups. The colloquial layers of Yue varieties contain elements influenced by the Tai languages formerly spoken widely in the area and still spoken by people such as the Zhuang or the Dong.


title: Yue Chinese

text: The port city of Guangzhou lies in the middle of Pearl River Delta, with access to the interior via the West River, North River and East River, which all converge at the delta. It has been the economic centre of the Lingnan region since Qin times, when it was an important shipbuilding centre. By 660, it was the largest port in China, part of a trade network stretching as far as Arabia. During the Southern Song, it also became the cultural centre of the region. Like many other Chinese varieties it developed a distinct literary layer associated with the local tradition of reading the classics. The Guangzhou dialect (Cantonese) was used in the popular "Yuèōu", "Mùyú" and "Nányīn" folksong genres, as well as Cantonese opera.


title: Yue Chinese

text: There was also a small amount of vernacular literature, written with Chinese characters extended with a number of non-traditional characters for Cantonese words.


title: Yue Chinese

text: Guangzhou became the centre of rapidly expanding foreign trade after the maritime ban was lifted, with the British East India Company establishing a chamber of commerce in the city in 1715.


title: Yue Chinese

text: The ancestors of most of the Han Chinese population of Hong Kong came from Guangzhou after the territory was ceded to Britain in 1842. As a result, Hong Kong Cantonese, the most widely spoken language in Hong Kong and Macau, is an offshoot of the Guangzhou dialect. The popularity of Cantonese-language media, Cantopop and the Cinema of Hong Kong has since led to substantial exposure of Cantonese to China and the rest of Asia. On the Mainland, the national policy is to promote Standard Chinese, which is also the medium of instruction in schools. The place of local Cantonese language and culture remains contentious. In 2010, a controversial proposal to switch some programming on Guangzhou local television from Cantonese to Mandarin was abandoned following widespread backlash accompanied by public protests.


title: Yue Chinese

text: Yue languages are spoken in the southern provinces of Guangdong and Guangxi, an area long dominated culturally and economically by the city of Guangzhou (Canton) at the delta of the Pearl River. The Cantonese variety, also spoken in Hong Kong and Macau, is the prestige variety of Yue.


title: Yue Chinese

text: The influence of Guangzhou has spread westward along the Pearl River system, so that, for example, the speech of the city of Wuzhou some upstream in Guangxi is much more similar to that of Guangzhou than dialects of coastal districts that are closer but separated from the city by hilly terrain. One of these coastal languages, Taishanese, is the most common Yue variety among overseas communities. Yue varieties are not totally mutually intelligible with one another.


title: Yue Chinese

text: In the "Language Atlas of China", some varieties spoken in western Guangxi formerly classified as Yue are placed in a separate Pinghua group.


title: Yue Chinese

text: The Dapeng dialect is a Cantonese-Hakka mixed language spoken by 3,000 to 5,500 people in Dapeng, Shenzhen.


title: Yue Chinese

text: The Guangzhou (Canton) dialect of "Yuehai", usually called "Cantonese", is the prestige dialect of Guangdong province and social standard of Yue. It is the most widely spoken dialect of Yue and is an official language of Hong Kong and of Macau, alongside English and Portuguese respectively. It is the "lingua franca" of not only Guangdong province but also of overseas Cantonese emigrants, though in many areas abroad it is numerically second to the Taishanese dialect of Yue.


title: Yue Chinese

text: By law, Mandarin ("Putonghua" or "guoyu") is the standard language of mainland China and Taiwan and is taught nearly universally as a supplement to local languages such as Cantonese in Guangdong and Guangxi. In Guangzhou, many distinctively Yue vocabulary items have been replaced with Cantonese pronunciations of corresponding "Putonghua" terms.


title: Yue Chinese

text: Cantonese is the "de facto" official language of Hong Kong (along with English) and Macau (along with Portuguese), though legally the official language is just "Chinese".