title: Léo Santa Cruz

text: In a one-sided beatdown, Santa Cruz stopped Avalos in the eighth round. The end came with Santa Cruz piling hurtful power shots on Avalos, when referee Thomas Taylor had seen enough, he stepped in at 1 minute, 34 seconds. Avalos never got started in the fight, which was all Santa Cruz. After a slow start in the opening round, Santa Cruz began to pick his power shots to the head and body. Avalos connected on his own shots, but lacked the power to hurt Santa Cruz. Avalos was not happy with the stoppage, "I'm very upset with the stoppage. We were fighting the whole time. There was no reason to stop this fight. I wasn't hurt like the referee thought. I want to fight for the title again." Santa Cruz spoke about the game plan for the fight saying, "At the beginning, I wasn't doing what my corner was telling me. I was trying to please the fans. I wanted to give [the fans] a brawl, a toe-to-toe, my dad said, 'What are you doing, you are supposed to beat him from the outside' – and that's what we did in the later rounds." CompuBox stats showed exactly how the fight went with Santa Cruz landing 281 of 692 punches thrown (41%) and Avalos landing 169 of 751 thrown (23%). Mares was also victorious in his fight, setting up a rematch between himself and Santa Cruz. The card averaged 1,483,000 viewers on Fox.


title: Léo Santa Cruz

text: Soon after stopping Avalos, talks re-emerged for the Santa Cruz vs. Mares fight. In December 2017, Ringstar Promotions' Richard Schaefer stated it's a fight both fighters wanted and the only detail to discuss was finding the best venue and date for the fight. A strong candidate for hosting the fight was the Staples Center in Los Angeles, the venue of the first fight. On 24 January 2018 Showtime announced the fight would take place at the Staples Center on 9 June 2018. The fight was made official on 2 April. Santa Cruz defeated Mares via unanimous decision after 12 rounds to retain his WBA (Super) featherweight title. Santa Cruz outworked Mares using his powerful jab, right hand and left hooks. Mares connected with nice shots, but Santa Cruz was the busier boxer and continued to land the more powerful shots to win the rounds. The three judges Rey Danseco of the Philippines, Steve Weisfeld, and Zac Young both of the United States scored the fight 115–113, 116–112 and 117–111, respectively, in favor of Santa Cruz. After the fight, Santa Cruz expressed interest in fighting WBC featherweight champion Gary Russell Jr. in a unification fight. He said "It was a great fight – another war. I had to be smarter. ... Abner is a great fighter. He left his heart out there." He then added, "Hopefully I am [the best featherweight in the world]. But I leave it to the fans to say who is the best. ... I want Gary Russell. Let's unify. I'm not scared of anybody." According to CompuBox, Santa Cruz landed 357 of 1061 punches (34%) and Mares landed 208 of 931 (22%). CompuBox reported for the two fights combined, Santa Cruz landed 730 of 2115 punched thrown (35%) and Mares landed 434 of his 1908 thrown (23%). Combined they landed 1164 of a total 4023 punches thrown (29%) over the 24 rounds.


title: Léo Santa Cruz

text: For the bout, Santa Cruz reportedly earned $1 million and Mares earned a $750,000 purse. The fight averaged 600,000 on Showtime and peaked at 633,000 viewers. These numbers were much lower than their first bout, however that bout was aired on ESPN.


title: Léo Santa Cruz

text: In November 2018, PBC and FOX announced that Santa Cruz would defend his WBA title against Miguel Flores on 16 February 2019. A month later, the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles was confirmed as the venue. However, Flores was forced to withdraw from the fight after suffering an ankle injury in camp. Rafael Rivera was confirmed as the replacement on 24 January. Rafael Rivera was ranked #11 by the WBA at featherweight. Santa Cruz won the bout via unanimous decision, with all three judges scoring it 119–109.


title: Léo Santa Cruz

text: On 26 August 2019, Santa Cruz confirmed that he was planning on moving up to the super featherweight division. In late September, it was revealed that a fight with Miguel Flores was in the works for the vacant WBA (Super) super featherweight title. The match was ultimately confirmed and placed on the main card of Wilder vs. Ortiz II on 23 November. Despite a subpar performance, Santa Cruz managed to outwork Flores and won via unanimous decision with two judges scoring the bout 117–110 and a third scoring it 115–112. In his post-fight interview, Santa Cruz called out Gary Russell and stated that he'd be willing to move up to lightweight for a potential fight with Gervonta Davis.


title: Léo Santa Cruz

text: In April 2020, it was confirmed by Mayweather Promotions that Santa Cruz would be Gervonta Davis’ next opponent, although a June fight date was postponed due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. It was also announced that both fighters would make their pay-per-view debut, with the fight set to be broadcast on Showtime. Davis, who had recently moved up to the lightweight division, agreed to move back down to super featherweight. However, both Davis’ WBA (Regular) lightweight title and Santa Cruz's WBA (Super) featherweight title would be on the line. Having been initially scheduled for 24 October at the Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Connecticut, the fight was rescheduled for 31 October at the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas. This move would allow the event to hold a live audience at 50% capacity. Santa Cruz seemed comfortable during the duration of the fight, however the Mexican constantly left himself vulnerable during his high-volume barrages. In the sixth round, Davis landed a flush left uppercut, knocking out Santa Cruz and leaving him unconscious. Referee Rafael Ramos instantly waved off the fight, handing Santa Cruz his second career loss.


title: MacBook Air (Apple silicon)

text: The MacBook Air with Apple silicon is a line of Macintosh notebook computers developed and manufactured by Apple Inc. since 2020, which employ custom-designed systems-on-a-chip, called the Apple M series. In the current product line, the MacBook Air is Apple's entry-level notebook, situated below the performance range MacBook Pro, and is currently sold with 13-inch screens (13.3-inch for the M1 model and 13.6-inch for the M2 model).


title: MacBook Air (Apple silicon)

text: Apple released its first Apple silicon MacBook Air in November 2020, based on the Apple M1 system on a chip. A redesigned model based on the Apple M2 chip was released in July 2022.


title: MacBook Air (Apple silicon)

text: On November 10, 2020, Apple announced an updated MacBook Air with an Apple-designed M1 system-on-a-chip (SoC), launched alongside an updated Mac Mini and 13-inch MacBook Pro as the first Macs with Apple's new line of custom ARM-based Apple silicon processors. Apple released the device a week later, on November 17. The device uses a fanless design and adds support for Wi-Fi 6, Thunderbolt 3/USB4 and Wide color (P3). The M1 MacBook Air can only run one external display, compared to the previous Intel-based model which was capable of running two 4K displays. The FaceTime camera remains 720p, drawing some criticism, but Apple advertises an improved image signal processor for higher quality video.


title: MacBook Air (Apple silicon)

text: The M1 MacBook Air received positive reviews, with much of the praise going to the capabilities of the M1 chip.


title: MacBook Air (Apple silicon)

text: In his review for Engadget, Devindra Hardawar gave the MacBook Air a score of 94/100, praising the performance as "shockingly responsive" and highlighting the lack of fan noise and "excellent" keyboard and trackpad as among some of the pros. Other than that, he only lightly touched on the notebook's design and feel, citing the fact that it hadn't really changed much since the early 2020 MacBook Air. He did, however, praise the case as feeling "sturdy as ever".


title: MacBook Air (Apple silicon)

text: Writing for Wired, Julian Chokkattu bemoaned the fact that the Air only came with 2 USB-C ports, but praised the keyboard and battery life. He also lauded the fanless design, saying it was something he found himself "appreciating over and over again".


title: MacBook Air (Apple silicon)

text: The M1 MacBook Air has suffered some problems during its lifetime. Some users reported alarmingly high solid-state drive usage and wear, which drew a lot of attention, as if the drive failed, it could not be replaced by the user. Some USB-C docks also caused Apple Silicon MacBooks to stop working.


title: MacBook Air (Apple silicon)

text: During tests, the battery life of the MacBook Air was many hours short of Apple's claims, leading to some questioning the veracity of the claims. However, when the same tests were repeated with a lower brightness setting, the MacBook exceeded Apple's claims. During initial testing, the battery performance of the MacBook was so phenomenal, that Apple initially presumed the slow change of the battery meter to be a bug.


title: MacBook Air (Apple silicon)

text: On June 6, 2022, at WWDC 2022, Apple announced an updated MacBook Air based on the M2 system on a chip. It incorporates several design elements from the M1 Pro and M1 Max MacBook Pro models, such as a flat, slab-shaped design, full-sized function keys, and a Liquid Retina 60 Hz display with rounded corners and a notch for a 1080p webcam. It includes two combination Thunderbolt 3 / USB 4 ports and adds MagSafe charging.


title: MacBook Air (Apple silicon)

text: The M2 MacBook Air was generally well received. Several reviewers praised the new design, as well as the improved display, performance, and webcam. Dan Seifert of The Verge described it as "a success on virtually every level". The price increase over the M1 model was noted, with most concluding that the M1 model was a better value.


title: MacBook Air (Apple silicon)

text: Due to a lack of active cooling, the M2 can overheat on high workloads, leading to thermal throttling issues.


title: Kumar Rocker

text: Kumar Rocker (born November 22, 1999) is an American professional baseball pitcher in the Texas Rangers organization. He played college baseball for the Vanderbilt Commodores. He was selected with the 10th pick in the 2021 Major League Baseball draft by the New York Mets, but was not signed. He was selected the following year by the Texas Rangers with the third overall pick.


title: Kumar Rocker

text: Rocker attended North Oconee High School in Bogart, Georgia. As a junior in 2017, he had a 1.63 earned run average (ERA) with 68 strikeouts in innings. That year, he played in the Under Armour All-America Baseball Game and Perfect Game All-American Classic. Later in the summer, he played for the USA Baseball 18U National Team.


title: Kumar Rocker

text: Rocker committed to Vanderbilt University to play college baseball. He was considered one of the top prospects for the 2018 Major League Baseball draft, but was not selected until the 38th round by the Colorado Rockies, falling due to signability concerns. He did not sign with the Rockies and enrolled at Vanderbilt.


title: Kumar Rocker

text: On June 8, 2019, Rocker became the first pitcher ever to throw a no-hitter in the Super Regional round during the 2019 NCAA Division I baseball tournament. He recorded 19 strikeouts as Vanderbilt beat Duke 3–0. Rocker was named the 2019 College World Series Most Outstanding Player after Vanderbilt captured the 2019 NCAA Division I Baseball Championship on June 26, 2019. Rocker won both his starts in the College World Series and finished his freshman season with a 12–5 record. He was also named the 2019 Baseball America Freshman of the Year.


title: Kumar Rocker

text: The New York Mets selected Rocker with the 10th pick in the first round of the 2021 MLB draft. Rocker and the Mets had verbally agreed on a $6 million signing bonus, $1.4 million above the slot value for the 10th pick, but the Mets decided not to make him an offer after reviewing his medical information. Rocker had not participated in a program that would have made his medical information available pre-draft; this allowed the Mets not to make him an offer and receive a compensatory selection in the 2022 MLB draft. Rocker's agent, Scott Boras, stated that Rocker "requires no medical attention." However, Rocker had surgery on his shoulder in September. Rocker did not return to Vanderbilt after going unsigned.


title: Kumar Rocker

text: In advance of the 2022 MLB draft, Rocker signed with the Tri-City ValleyCats of the Frontier League. Prior to the draft, Rocker had a 1.35 ERA with 32 strikeouts and four walks in 20 innings pitched for Tri-City, reaching with his fastball.


title: Kumar Rocker

text: The Texas Rangers selected Rocker in the first round, with the third overall selection, reuniting him with his former Vanderbilt teammate Jack Leiter. On July 26, 2022, Rocker signed with Texas for a $5.2 million signing bonus. Rocker did not appear in a game after signing, instead working out at the Rangers’ spring training facility. Following the 2022 season, Rocker played for the Surprise Saguaros of the Arizona Fall League. Over 6 games in the AFL, Rocker went 2–1 with a 4.50 ERA and 18 strikeouts over 14 innings.


title: Kumar Rocker

text: His father, Tracy Rocker, played in the National Football League (NFL), is a College Football Hall of Famer from Auburn University, and is the defensive line coach for the Philadelphia Eagles. His maternal grandparents immigrated to the United States from India. His parents met when his mother, Lalitha, was a student at the University of Maryland and his father was playing for the Washington Redskins.


title: The Ritz Hotel, London

text: The Ritz London is a Grade II listed 5-star hotel in Piccadilly, London, England. A symbol of high society and luxury, the hotel is one of the world's most prestigious and best known. The Ritz has become so associated with luxury and elegance that the word "ritzy" has entered the English language to denote something that is ostentatiously stylish, fancy, or fashionable.


title: The Ritz Hotel, London

text: The hotel was opened by Swiss hotelier César Ritz in 1906, eight years after he established the Hôtel Ritz Paris. It began to gain popularity towards the end of World War I, with politicians, socialites, writers and actors in particular. David Lloyd George held a number of secret meetings at the Ritz in the latter half of the war, and it was at the Ritz that he made the decision to intervene on behalf of Greece against Turkey. Noël Coward was a notable diner at the Ritz in the 1920s and 1930s.


title: The Ritz Hotel, London

text: Owned by the Bracewell Smith family until 1976, David and Frederick Barclay purchased the hotel for £80 million in 1995. They spent eight years and £40 million restoring it to its former grandeur. In 2002, it became the first hotel to receive a Royal warrant from the Prince of Wales for its banquet and catering services. In 2020, it was sold to a Qatari investor.


title: The Ritz Hotel, London

text: The exterior is structurally and visually Franco-American in style, with little trace of English architecture, and heavily influenced by the architectural traditions of Paris. The facade on the Piccadilly side is , on the Arlington Street side, and on the Green Park side. At the corners of the pavilion roofs of the Ritz are large green copper lions, the emblem of the hotel. The Ritz has 111 rooms and 25 suites.


title: The Ritz Hotel, London

text: The interior was designed mainly by London and Paris based designers in the Louis XVI style. Marcus Binney describes the great suite of ground-floor rooms as "one of the all-time masterpieces of hotel architecture" and compares it to a royal palace with its "grand vistas, lofty proportions and sparkling chandeliers".


title: The Ritz Hotel, London

text: The Ritz's most widely known facility is the Palm Court, which has traditionally hosted the famous "Tea at the Ritz". It is an opulently decorated cream-coloured Louis XVI setting, with panelled mirrors in gilt bronze frames. In 2022, afternoon tea has been served in the hotel’s former Ballroom located in The Ritz Club, on the lower ground floor of the hotel. The hotel has six private dining rooms, the Marie Antoinette Suite, with its "boiserie", and the rooms within the Grade II* listed William Kent House. The Rivoli Bar, built in the Art Deco style, was designed in 2001 by interior designer Tessa Kennedy to resemble the bar on the Orient Express.


title: The Ritz Hotel, London

text: Swiss hotelier César Ritz, the former manager of the Savoy Hotel, opened the hotel on 25 May 1906. It was built on the site which had been the Old White Horse Cellar, which by 1805 was one of the best known coaching inns in England. The financial backers of the Ritz felt that they had secured one of the prime sites in London for their project. They began negotiations in 1901, and completed the transactions for the simultaneous purchase of the leasehold for the Walsingham House Hotel and the adjacent freehold estate of the Bath Hotel for £250,000 in 1902. Demolition of both of the hotels began in 1904.


title: The Ritz Hotel, London

text: The building is neoclassical in the Louis XVI manner, built during the Belle Époque to resemble a stylish Parisian block of flats, over arcades that consciously evoked the Rue de Rivoli. Its architects were Charles Mewès, who had previously designed Ritz's Hôtel Ritz Paris, and Arthur Davis, with engineering collaboration by the Swedish engineer Sven Bylander. It was one of the earliest substantial steel frame structures in London, the Savoy Hotel extension of 1903-04 being the first in the capital. Many of the materials used in the construction of the hotel were US-made. The initial fees for suites ranged from 1 1/2 guineas to 3 1/2 guineas.


title: The Ritz Hotel, London

text: After opening, a long-running feud between the hotel and Lord Wimbourne, a steel magnate who lived next door at Wimbourne House, lasted for years in a dispute over land. A number of locals were also concerned about the building and the impact it would have on their health.


title: The Ritz Hotel, London

text: While the Ritz was still under construction, a series of events highlighted the need for another luxury hotel in London. A 3June 1905 "Daily Mail" news story reported it was both Derby Week and the height of the tourist season, making hotel accommodation almost impossible to find. The Savoy had to refuse reservations, while Buckingham Palace turned offices into makeshift hotel rooms for visitors. An estimated 2,500 more persons needing rooms were expected shortly with the coming visit of the King of Spain.


title: The Ritz Hotel, London

text: Though the opening of the Savoy had brought about a marked change in how hotels provided services to its guests, Ritz was determined that his London hotel would surpass its competitor in their delivery. The Ritz installed two large lead-lined tanks on its roof to provide a steady stream of hot and cold water. The hotel's bathrooms were all spacious with each having its own heated towel bar. Every bedroom in the hotel was provided with its own working fireplace.


title: The Ritz Hotel, London

text: Ritz shunned free-standing wardrobes due to his fear of dust settling on them; instead he built cupboards into the rooms with doors matching the panelling. Ritz's ideas of cleanliness and hygiene prompted him to originally have all bedrooms painted in white and all beds made of brass, not wood, for the same reasons. Anything new or potentially useful was available to the guests of the Ritz.


title: The Ritz Hotel, London

text: César Ritz's health had declined after his 1902 collapse at the Carlton, but he was feeling well enough to assume an active role in the plans for the hotel's opening dinner on 24 May 1906. Unlike the opening of the Paris Ritz, which had catered to society, most of those invited to the Ritz, London opening were members of the national and international press. Major British newspapers such as the "Daily Mail", the "Daily Mirror" and "The Daily Telegraph" were invited to the dinner along with newspapers which included the "Berliner Tageblatt", "The Sydney Morning Herald" and "The New York Times". Ritz's guest list also included the engineer and architects of the structure along with key staff members of the new hotel and their wives.


title: The Ritz Hotel, London

text: The hotel was not immensely profitable in its opening years; smaller than many of the new hotels springing up in that period, it was not fashionable initially, and was resented by many of the London elite who considered it vulgar. It took £3628 in 1908, over a thousand pounds less than the previous year, and the hotel lost over £50,000 between 15 May 1906 and 31 July 1908, which led to the replacement of the manager Elles with Theodore Kroell and appointment of Charles Van Gyzelen as manager of the restaurant.


title: The Ritz Hotel, London

text: The hotel also suffered a blow upon the death of King Edward in 1910, when 38 planned dinners and functions were cancelled, but began to prosper the following year, made fashionable by the Prince of Wales who regularly dined here. King Edward was particularly fond of the cakes made at the Ritz. The hotel would regularly send him a supply, but this was kept in confidence so as to not embarrass the King's personal chef. Ritz retained control of much of the hotel's operation for many years. He hired world-famous chef Auguste Escoffier to provide cuisine to match the opulence of the hotel's decorations; he placed a special bell in the entryway by which the doorman could notify the staff of the impending arrival of royalty. By 1929 the hotel was still being praised for its architecture; Professor Charles Reilly wrote about the Ritz in "Building" magazine in 1929, calling it the "finest modern structure" in the street, with "an elegance of general form".


title: The Ritz Hotel, London

text: On 4 August 1914, Lady Diana Cooper's future husband, Duff Cooper, then a Foreign Office official, dined at the Ritz with the Earl of Essex and his American wife, Adele Capell (née Grant) and Patrick Shaw-Stewart, and later that day announced that World War I had broken out to the party. Before the war began, the German and Austrian embassies both retained tables at the Ritz Restaurant. The hotel suffered during the war, and lost nearly £50,000 in 1915 alone; the ballroom was usually empty and lights went out by 10pm, but rooms were still in demand and the hoteliers believed it to be worth keeping open. Socialites such as Lady Cynthia Asquith, daughter-in-law of H. H. Asquith and Lord Basil Blackwood were documented in her diaries to have dined at the Ritz in the spring of 1916. The following year, she held a lavish dinner party with the likes of Osbert Sitwell, Gilbert Russell and Maud Nelke and Clare Tennant.


title: The Ritz Hotel, London

text: In September 1917, a shell exploded in Green Park in close proximity to the Ritz, and according to Lord Ivor Churchill it broke all of the windows to adjacent Wimbourne House. David Lloyd George held a number of secret meetings at the Ritz during the latter half of the war, organised by Sir Basil Zaharoff, and it was at the Ritz that he made the decision to intervene on behalf of Greece against Turkey. The Duke of Marlborough recorded dining at the Ritz; "I lunched at the Ritz. The whole social world goes there, prices being cheap. All women there from M. Paget to the latest tart."


title: The Ritz Hotel, London

text: When asked to summarise hotels in London in the early 1920s, Barbara Cartland remarked that "The Ritz stood for stuffiness and standards, the Carlton was for businessman, the Savoy was rather fast, some other ones were frankly scandalous, and the Berkeley, where you could dance all night for ten shillings, was for the young". In 1921, Bonvin, the manager of the Ritz, died, and was replaced with J.S. Walters. Walters was a "tireless salesman" in promoting the hotel, especially in mainland Europe, and flaunted the hotel in the "Tatler" at a time when it was unpopular to do so. Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma frequented the Ritz from his time as a Sub-Lieutenant onwards, and when his friend Charlie Chaplin arrived in London in September 1921 after a nine-year absence, great crowds gathered at Waterloo station and Chaplin had to be ushered to the hotel by some 40 policemen. He stayed in the first-floor Regal Suite and was photographed throwing carnations to his fans from the Arlington Street balcony.


title: The Ritz Hotel, London

text: The Ritz became popular with film stars and executives when staying in London, although the hotel has kept most of the names of many of its luminaries a secret in its records. Douglas Fairbanks was known though to frequent the Ritz in the 1920s, and director Alexander Korda's talent scout held a table at the Ritz in the 1930s. Noël Coward, also a regular diner at the Ritz in the 1920s and 1930s, met with Michael Arlen in the restaurant in 1924 to discuss the urgent problem of generating the funding for his new play, "The Vortex". Arlen gave Coward a cheque for $250 without question, and "The Vortex" would go on to be his first major success. Coward's song, "Children of the Ritz", which featured in the 1932 revue "Words and Music" was penned while Coward was lunching in the Ritz with Beverley Nichols. Numerous authors began to meet at the Ritz during the same period, and it began to creep into literature itself. In Michael Arlen's 1922 novel "Piracy", the hotel was described as a "very stout and solid building in the manner of the old Bastille, originally conceived no doubt with a fearful eye on class prejudice", and R. Firbank had a running gag in his novels about there being "fleas in the Ritz". Later, the hotel appears in Anthony Powell's "A Dance to the Music of Time". The narrator Nicholas Jenkins meets poet Mark Members at the Ritz, and the golden nymph in the Palm Court of the hotel is mentioned.


title: The Ritz Hotel, London

text: William Brownlow, 3rd Baron Lurgan, who succeeded Henry V Higgins as chairman of the Ritz upon his death in 1928, was especially keen on attracting American guests to the hotel. He was a close friend of the Earl of Carnavon and his American wife Catherine Wendell, and at times the couple were freely given the entire second floor of the hotel to accommodate guests. Upon the death of Lord Lurgan in 1937, Carnavon was told that he had to begin paying for his staying at the hotel, but was given a "slight reduction for old time's sake". Carnarvon later remarked: "The Ritz has been my London home for over fifty years. I'm very fond of the place. Nobody knows it better". In 1931, the Aga Khan was involved with organising the Round Table Conference at the hotel, which was attended by Mahatma Gandhi and many others. On one occasion the Aga Khan took over the Palm Court to hold a meeting with his followers.


title: The Ritz Hotel, London

text: In the 1930s, Aletto became the restaurant manager of the Ritz, a "popular and much-mimicked character" according to Montgomery-Massingberd and Watkin. The future Edward VIII and his associates were often seen at the Ritz in the 1930s. In 1932 the "Evening Standard" observed the Prince performing on the dance floor: "The Prince of Wales never misses an opportunity to raise the stand of his dancing... He danced three tangoes each of which lasted about thirty-five minutes!" In 1934, Edward's brother, the Duke of Kent, married Princess Marina of Greece and Denmark at the Ritz and scaffolding was put up in the garden for the celebration. The Queen Mother would also attend private parties at the Ritz during this period, as did King Boris of Bulgaria and Queen Marie of Romania. At one point, the Ritz hosted four reigning monarchs simultaneously: King Boris, King Farouk of Egypt, Spain's King Alfonso and Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands. After the romance of Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson became public knowledge, both parties could be found at separate tables near the restaurant's door, in case a speedy exit was necessary.


title: The Ritz Hotel, London

text: The Ritz suffered from the effects of the General Strike of 1926, subsequently seeing competition from the likes of the Dorchester Hotel and Grosvenor House. The Great Depression brought a sharp decline in business to the hotel, and in the summer of 1931 staff wages were reduced—the chefs, kitchen workers and the directors had a 25% cut in their wages. To increase earnings, in 1935 Fred Cavendish-Bentinck recommended that the hotel commence putting on a Cabaret show. Advertised in the "Evening Standard", the programme was an immediate success. In January 1936, Austrian comedian Vic Oliver was one of the entertainers hired to perform at the hotel for two weeks, and Cyril Fletcher appeared in the show for a month the following year. The BBC began broadcasting live performances from the restaurant of the hotel, with pianist Billy Milton and others. It was through the show that the Irving Berlin song "Puttin' On the Ritz" grew in popularity, performed by Joe Kaye's Dance Band. In 1937, James Stephens shortly succeeded Lurgan as director of the Ritz before being replaced by Hans Pfyffer von Altishofen, who had been on the board of the Ritz Hotel Development Company from 1910 and was also the chairman of the Paris Ritz.


title: The Ritz Hotel, London

text: During World War II, the Ritz became integral to political and social life among the elite, and a number of eminent royals, aristocrats and politicians moved into the hotel. Camilla Russell, the wife of writer Christopher Sykes, stated that the Ritz "enjoyed a tremendous vogue during the war and was, even more than ever, much used as a meeting place", and at night was "crowded yet somehow safe". Angela, Countess of Antrim, Syke's sister, remarked that the Ritz was the ideal meeting place for "gathering news of husbands at the wars". Emerald Cunard took up residence in the Ritz for a period, but later moved to the Dorchester. In the summer of 1940, the Albanian royal family, including King Zog I, Queen Geraldine, Crown Prince Leka, the King's six sisters, two nieces, three nephews and others moved into the hotel and were given their own floor, escorted by a chamberlain, the Albanian diplomats from Paris, and numerous bodyguards. Zog brought the royal gold and jewels with him, which were kept in the storeroom of the Ritz before being deposited in the Bank of England.


title: The Ritz Hotel, London

text: Due to Zog's concerns about safety during air raids, the ladies' cloakroom was converted into a private shelter for the Albanians. Following an air raid, when a bomb fell between the Ritz and the Berkeley in Piccadilly, shattering glass in the Ritz, most of the Albanian royal family moved to Chelsea, but Zog remained until the spring of 1941 until he was offered Lord Parmoor's house in Buckinghamshire. In total, the Ritz was damaged nine times during bombing raids, and the Restaurant had to be closed twice.


title: The Ritz Hotel, London

text: Edvard Beneš would entertain guests at a private luncheon at the hotel several times a week during the war years. In 1942, Winston Churchill, Dwight Eisenhower and Charles de Gaulle met in the Marie Antoinette suite of the hotel to discuss operations, Brendan Bracken, who served as an observer and mouthpiece on political society in London, and Anglo-American politician Ronald Tree spent much time at the Ritz, and Tree lived there during the winter of 1940. Laura Long, who would later become Laura Spencer-Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough, the second wife of John Spencer-Churchill, 10th Duke of Marlborough, the architectural writer James Lees-Milne, Harold Acton and writer Norman Douglas were regular diners at the Ritz during wartime.


title: The Ritz Hotel, London

text: According to Alastair Forbes and Felix Hope-Nicholson, during World War II, the basement bar at the Ritz was reserved for gay and lesbian guests, while the one upstairs was for heterosexual guests. Hope Nicholson described it as "notoriously queer", and stated that "the Ritz bar became too chic, too popular and above all, too queer for the authorities". Evan Morgan, 2nd Viscount Tredegar, MP Harold Nicolson, Brian Howard, and Pauline Tennant were all regulars at the basement bar.


title: The Ritz Hotel, London

text: The hotel was owned for some thirty years by the Bracewell-Smith family, who also had significant stakes in the nearby Park Lane Hotel. Although the family were quick to earn a profit from the hotel, there was a turbulent period in the years after World War II, with a workers strike in 1946, and the restaurant attracting significant criticism in its quality of cuisine. On one occasion, a group of patrons of the Ritz, known as the "Friends of the Ritz", met with Sir Bracewell Smith in Park Lane Hotel to complain about the standards; Smith himself dined at the Ritz and informed them that it was quite satisfactory.


title: The Ritz Hotel, London

text: Several suicides also darkened the reputation of the Ritz in the postwar years, including that of horse trainer Peter Beatty from the sixth-floor window in October 1949, and that of French gangster Baron Pierre de Laitre, who strangled love interest Eileen Hill to death in his second-floor room in March 1953 when she refused to marry him, before killing himself by stuffing a silk sock down his throat.


title: The Ritz Hotel, London

text: Nonetheless the Ritz continued to be a social hub for the aristocracy and attract the world's elite in the 1950s. It was very popular with the wealthy family of the Aga Khan, and oil magnate J. Paul Getty, reputedly the richest man in the world at the time, lived at the Ritz after the war. On one occasion a photographer working for "Time" and "Life" magazines staged an incident outside the hotel by arranging for the barrowboy to pour coppers onto the pavement as Getty emerged from the hotel and photographed just as he went to pick them up. Shell Oil heiress Olga Deterding lived at hotel for several years, and in one altercation with her lover she threw his trousers out of the window. In 1956 she tired of the high life and spent a period working at Albert Schweitzer's leper colony in French Equatorial Africa. Film stars Rita Hayworth and Tallulah Bankhead were regular guests at the hotel; Hayworth was married to Prince Aly Khan between 1949 and 1953. Another notable resident of the Ritz during this period was Nubar Gulbenkian, an "expansive extrovert" who kept a permanent suite at the Ritz and made exorbitant demands for luxuries and foods, even if out of season.


title: The Ritz Hotel, London

text: In January 1959, Patrice Lumumba, the Prime Minister of Congo, stayed at the hotel and met with Sir Edward Adjaye, the Ghanaian High Commissioner in London and others in the restaurant. The event was picketed by Mosleyites, who in concern with human rights issues in Congo at the time, demonstrated outside of the hotel, displaying banners such as "RAPERS OF CHILDREN – GO HOME" and issuing racial epithets. Adjaye was attacked as he left the hotel, although it has been speculated that he was mistaken for Lumumba.


title: The Ritz Hotel, London

text: George Criticos served as head porter of the Ritz for 45 years, retiring in 1960 for health reasons; he had been recommended for a job at the Ritz by Sir Basil Zaharoff. In his 1959 book, "George of the Ritz", Criticos remembered some of the notable people and events during his years of service. Criticos once acted as an agent to the Aga Kahn at the racetrack, having been given US$45,000 by the monarch to place bets in his name. He was also asked to take the 18-year-old Prince Aly Khan on a monthlong tour of the United States to help the young man forget a failed romance. When Criticos saw an unshaven man in coveralls entering the hotel, he called out to the man to stop him. When the man turned to face Criticos, he recognised him as King Boris of Bulgaria, who was a railroad buff and was returning from driving a special train.


title: The Ritz Hotel, London

text: The social scene changed dramatically in London in the 1960s, with Beatlemania and the sexual revolution, and British aristocracy in the capital was not what it had been.


title: The Ritz Hotel, London

text: By this time the general impeccable standards of the Ritz had fallen. Peregrine Worsthorne noted the change: "Precisely that it was not all Ritzy, in the sense of being conspicuously luxurious...the glitter had long since faded and shabbiness set in. The place was usually empty, kept alive by memories of former glories and a clientele who preferred nostalgia to comfort".


title: The Ritz Hotel, London

text: Yet celebrities often held parties at the hotel, and the Rolling Stones were guests for many years. British Prime Ministers Harold Wilson, Edward Heath and Harold Macmillan often lunched at the Ritz; Heath would always reserve table 29 in the restaurant.


title: The Ritz Hotel, London

text: In the 1970s, the hotel fell into a turbulent period. Terrorist threats from the Provisional Irish Republican Army became the chief concern, and bomb scares were not uncommon. The oil crisis in the early 1970s directly affected business and prompted the Bracewell-Smith family to sell their stake to Trafalgar House on 5 April 1976 for £2.75 million. At the time of the sale, the hotel's occupancy rate was just 45 percent; the Ritz Grill Room had been closed and it had lost quite a bit of money in recent times. In 1984, the Ritz brought back its weekly Sunday tea dances which were popular during the 1920s and 1930s. Because of demand, the hotel considered restricting afternoon tea at the Ritz to hotel guests only, as those staying at the Ritz were often unable to get a table. Many Londoners who would have been barred by this restriction voiced disapproval and the Ritz compromised by requiring reservations for afternoon tea at the hotel. Proper attire for tea is a must; the Ritz once refused to admit Mick Jagger for tea because he was not wearing a jacket and tie.


title: The Ritz Hotel, London

text: The Barclay twins of The Ellerman Group of Companies purchased the hotel for £80 million from Trafalgar House, in October 1995, through their company Ellerman Investments. They spent eight years and £40 million restoring it to its former grandeur. Prince Charles and Camilla Parker-Bowles made their first public appearance together at the Ritz, as they left a birthday party for Parker-Bowles' sister. The couple returned to the hotel in November 2002 for the Prince's birthday party attended by Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip. In 2002, the Ritz became the first hotel to receive the Royal Warrant from the Prince of Wales for banqueting and catering services.


title: The Ritz Hotel, London

text: The Ritz acquired the adjoining Wimbourne House in 2005. On 27 January 2007, around 300 people were evacuated to the nearby May Fair Hotel following a fire alarm in the hotel. No one was hurt in the blaze, which started in the basement casino kitchen's extraction vents. The Ritz casino only suffered "minor damage". Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was convalescing at the Ritz when she died following a stroke on 8 April 2013.


title: The Ritz Hotel, London

text: There has been criticism because the Ritz has not paid any corporation tax since being taken over by the Barclay twins. The accounts indicate that the profitable hotel uses a series of tax reliefs to reduce its corporation tax to zero. David Barclay’s son, Aidan, has stated that the company abides by UK law. In March 2020, it was sold to a Qatari investor.


title: The Ritz Hotel, London

text: Authors Montgomery-Massingberd and Watkin describe the Ritz as "the product of one of those near miraculous convergences of civilised patron and architects and craftsmen of genius working together in complete harmony both with each other and with the social and architectural fashions of the day. The building has been regarded as a masterpiece from the day it was finished..."


title: The Ritz Hotel, London

text: Both of the architects, Charles Mewès and Arthur J. Davis, were educated at the prestigious École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, and the education which they received is clear in the design of the buildings, particularly the Renaissance influence, delivering "an authentic fabric of traditional French classicism". Mewès had previously designed the Hotel Ritz of Paris for Cesar in 1897–8, after which he met Arthur Davis, and began working together preparing designs for the Grand Petit Palais in the Paris Exhibition of 1900. Both architects worked on the plans for the London Ritz in 1904–5.


title: The Ritz Hotel, London

text: According to Montgomery-Massingberd and Watkin the exterior is both structurally and visually Franco-American in influence with little trace of English architecture. For them the exterior "represents an evocative confluence of various Parisian architectural traditions"; the Piccadilly arcade echoes the arcaded ground floor in the Place Vendrome and the Rue de Rivoli, the steep mansarded skyline on the Green Park facade echoes Hector Lefuel's work on the Pavillon de Flore of the Louvre, while the tall windows and wall panels of the facades resemble those of Mewès's earlier work on a smaller building made as a home for Jules Ferry on Rue Bayard.


title: The Ritz Hotel, London

text: Excavation for the hotel began by contractors Waring White Building Co. Ltd in June 1904, and it was completed by 1 October 1905, and opened the following May. The building progress was documented each month by "The Builder's Journal and Architectural Engineer", and in one edition noted the difficulties of some of the aspects of construction such as hoisting 20-ton steel joists in a narrow building site. "The Architect and Contract Reporter" noted that the limited space did not allow for the storage of materials on site. All mortar had to be mixed in the basement and the stone was dressed "on a platform with a watertight roof over the footway". The red-brick foundations of the earlier Walsingham House had to be blasted away to facilitate the foundations of the steel structure in concrete.


title: The Ritz Hotel, London

text: The total estimated cost was £345,227. 8s. 1d., with £102,000 going to Messrs Waring and Gillow, £49,000 to French decorators and over £15,000 to the English decorators. John P. Bishop and the Swedish-born Sven Bylander were consultant engineers during the building phase.


title: The Ritz Hotel, London

text: The facade on the Piccadilly side is roughly , on the Arlington Street side, and on the Green Park side. The irregularity of the site presented initial problems for the builders. Davis dealt with this by "brilliant perspective effects" according to Binney, using curving walls to "cleverly conceal the rapidly diminishing space at the back of the hotel". The purpose of the arcaded front was to provide more space for the bedrooms above. Expensive Norwegian granite is the material on ground floor, with Portland stone above it.


title: The Ritz Hotel, London

text: The steel frame of the building was made in Germany and is based on a model made in the early 1880s in Chicago to increase fire resistance. It was erected by Messrs Potts & Co. of Oxford Street. Fireproofing of the walls were conducted by the Columbian Fireproofing Company Ltd. of Pittsburgh and London, with steel-ribbed bars allowing for ventilation, while remaining sound proof and free from vibration. The internal walls consist of "hollow, porous, terra-cotta blocks" covered with plaster, and the hotel's flooring was also made fireproof. At the corners of the pavilion roofs of the Ritz are large green copper lions, the emblem of the hotel.


title: The Ritz Hotel, London

text: The hotel was designed mainly by London and Paris based designers in the Louis XVI style, which is consistent throughout, giving the hotel its "special atmosphere of perfect appropriateness and elegant restraint". Marcus Binney describes the great suite of ground-floor rooms as "one of the all-time masterpieces of hotel architecture" and compares it to a royal palace with its "grand vistas, lofty proportions and sparkling chandeliers". Waring & Gallow were responsible for many of the fine design work of the interiors The ground floor plan dated to 1906 illustrated a large main restaurant overlooking the terrace and garden, a large central Grand Gallery and Winter Garden, a circular vestibule beyond the reception room, the Marie Antoinette Suite near the restaurant, and numerous shops. The Grill Room had its own entrance on the right side of the entrance doors on Piccadilly, with a staircase leading down. The Grill Room was on the eastern side, and the Banqueting Hall lay at the western end, beneath the restaurant. Today this is home to the Ritz Club. A wide vaulted corridor, the Long Gallery, runs from the Arlington Street entrance on the east side to the restaurant on the west side, with finely woven Savonnerie carpets. Along it are several intricate horseshoe archways. A triangular-shaped staircase features in the building's southwest corner. The curving main staircase was built to allow women to make a "dramatic entrance and show off their gowns to best effect".


title: The Ritz Hotel, London

text: The Ritz's most widely known facility is the Palm Court, an opulently decorated cream-coloured Louis XVI setting. It is decorated with lavish furnishings, including gilded Louis XVI armchairs with oval backs, which the architects had designed based on research into French neo-classical furniture design of the 1760s and 1770s, which were made by Waring and Gillow. The room, with its, "panelled mirrors of bevelled glass in gilt bronze frames" and "high coving ornamented with gilded trellis-work", according to Montgomery-Massingberd and Watkin "epitomizes the elegantly frivolous comfort of Edwardian high life".


title: The Ritz Hotel, London

text: There were originally large windows at either end of the court, then known as the Winter Garden, and were replaced with twenty panels of mirrors after 1972. The fountain of the court, known as "La Source", is made of Echaillon marble and is extravagantly sculpted. A nymph, gold in colour, is featured in a lair. A wrought-iron and glass roof of the Palm Court contains two gilded wrought-iron lanterns, and the ceiling contains lion skin motifs. The room is done in soft apricot and has remained so since 1906. César Ritz chose the colour to flatter the complexions of women after weeks of experimentation with various hues.


title: The Ritz Hotel, London

text: Until 2022, The Palm Court has been the setting for the world-famous institution that is "Tea at the Ritz", once frequented by King Edward VII, Sir Winston Churchill, Judy Garland, Evelyn Waugh and Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother. It acquired its reputation as ""the" place for tea" in London after World War I. In the 1920s a small orchestra would play regularly on the court; film producer John Sutro for instance recalled that Hermione Baddeley once requested the violinist to "play something "hot"". Between the Winter Garden and the central Grand Gallery is a screen featuring two Ionic columns.


title: The Ritz Hotel, London

text: The hotel has six private dining rooms, the Marie Antoinette Suite, with its "boiserie", and the rooms within the Grade II* listed William Kent House. Marcus Binney states that the restaurant is "not only one of the most beautiful interiors in London, it can be claimed as the most beautiful restaurant in the world".


title: The Ritz Hotel, London

text: César Ritz once commented that the room was so heavily designed in bronze that it was fortunate that the hotel was built from steel, or the "walls would collapse with the weight of all that bronze". Flanking the entrance to the main restaurant are two life-sized figures set in "bronze vert after Clodion, holding gilded bronze lustres with six lights each, mounted on pedestals of polished Echaillon marble ornamented with bronze". The restaurant and adjacent guest room were designed by P. H. Remon and Sons of Paris. The ceiling is a described by Montgomery-Massingberd and Watkin as a "painted "trompe-l'oeil" ceiling on which pinkish clouds drift across the blue sky encircled by a garlanded balustrade". Bronze chandeliers are also a feature, influenced by an 18th-century Augustin de Saint-Aubin engraving known as "Le Bal Pare et Masque", and "Le Festin" by Moreau le Jeune, which was given by the City of Paris to the King and Queen on 21 January 1782.


title: The Ritz Hotel, London

text: On the northern end against the Piccadilly arcade are floor-to-ceiling mirrors, divided into panes, which give the room a spacious effect, especially when the lights are on all day during the winter. At the south end of the restaurant is a watercolour by Davis and gilded figures known as "The Thames and the Ocean", with a buffet made from Norwegian pink marble below it, believed to be inspired by Louis Seize's "Buffet of Mansart".


title: The Ritz Hotel, London

text: During the 1977 major renovation of the hotel, the scaffolding used in the project was hidden by a clean cloth during mealtimes in the Louis XVI restaurant so as not to upset diners with a possibly disturbing sight. During the renovation, the columns in the hotel's lobbies were stripped of many coats of cream-coloured paint to display their original pink marble. Most of the work done in the renovation was done to restore and clean while keeping the original 1906 colour scheme. Much of the furniture from the original opening was still in use; new items were faithful copies styled after the originals. The hotel retained its nightstand call buttons for maid, waiter, valet and servant, refusing to make its patrons dial a telephone for services.


title: The Ritz Hotel, London

text: From its inception, the kitchen was run mainly by French chefs, and it had a specialist in Russian soups and Viennese pastry; its cakes became so famous that King Edward made regular orders from Buckingham Palace. M. Malley, who had been "saucier" at the Paris Ritz was appointed Chef des Cuisines, and invented dishes such as "Saumon Marquise de Sevignre" (Salmon with a crayfish mousse), "Filet de Sole Romanoff" (served with mussels, small slices of apple and artichokes), and "Poulet en Chaudfroid" (chicken accompanied by a curry-flavoured pinkish mousse) at the hotel. The Ritz is renowned for its supreme catering service, as well as using its fine rooms for conferencing between executives and directors of multi-national firms. A table at the restaurant still needs to be booked weeks in advance. The Rivoli Bar, built in the Art Deco style, was designed in 2001 by interior designer Tessa Kennedy, to look like a bar on the Orient Express. The lounge was decorated by Marcel Boulanger in the Louis VIV style, the clubroom was by Lenygon and Morant, who were influenced by the Palladian design of Cumberland House in Brettingham, and other rooms were decorated with clear William Chambers and Robert Adam influences. Meals can be served on Nanking china in the Trafalgar Suite. The banquet and catering services received a Royal warrant from the Prince of Wales in 2005.


title: The Ritz Hotel, London

text: The Marie Antoinette Suite is accessed from the main restaurant. According to Marcus Binney "the gilded detail of the room has the lustre and crispness of gilt bronze, even the egg-and-dart in the boldly modelled cornice". Floral motifs are a common feature of the room, given the namesake, Marie Antoinette, and represents the flowers at one of her feasts. Over the overmantel is a basket of flowers, with "flowers spilling out over the frames of the oval lunettes". In the small entrance lobby of the suite are two terracotta statues of Spring and Summer, with "drum-shaped pedestals ornamented with gilt-bronze flowers and ribbons". The ventilation grilles, of considerable size, are decorated in bronzed lattice. On the walls are a series lamp holders held by miniature Apollo lyres, with each bulb holder containing around 25 leaves opened out. The lights, according to Binney, are hung on "cords from ribbons tied in bows, entwined at intervals with flowers, descending to a cluster of tassels". The panels of the walls are treated like picture frames, with inner and outer mouldings, in contrast to the window frames and the wall mirrors which are surrounded by "clusters of reeds, with an inset behind which a curtain could hang without obscuring the moulding", according to Binney.


title: The Ritz Hotel, London

text: As of 2015, The Ritz London has 136 guestrooms, of which 111 are bedrooms and 25 are suites. The main bedrooms are divided into three principal categories: Superior Queen/King/Twin, Executive King/Twin and Deluxe King/Twin. The Superior Queen and King rooms are and in size respectively, while the Executive and Deluxe king rooms are and The suites are divided into the categories: Junior Suite, Superior Suite, Executive Suite, Deluxe Suite, the Trafalgar Suite and the Berkeley Suite, and also include the signature suites the Royal Suite and the Prince of Wales Suite, each with their own unique style. The Executive Suites typically face south, and are in size, with a small lounge area and antique furniture. The Junior Suites, with "fireplaces, gilded mouldings and antique furniture" are above Piccadilly, and are in size, while the 3-5 bedroom suites range in size from to .


title: The Ritz Hotel, London

text: William Kent House, also known as Wimbourne House, was opened as an extension of the Ritz. The house has been converted into a complete function area with the Music Room, the Burlington Room, the Queen Elizabeth Room and the William Kent room. It also accommodates three of the Ritz' top suites: The Arlington Suite, the Royal Suite as well as the Prince of Wales Suite.


title: The Ritz Hotel, London

text: Several of the rooms have Louis XVI chimneypieces. The Grade II building was carefully restored and given a modern touch with period furnishings concealing things like flat screen televisions. The restoration won a Royal Institute of British Architects national gold medal in 2007.


title: The Ritz Hotel, London

text: The Ritz Club was a casino in the basement of the hotel, occupying the space which was formerly the Ritz Bar and Grill. In the original structure, this was where the Ritz ballroom was located. A May 1906 edition of "Truth" magazine described the basement with the Grill Room and Banqueting Hall as palatial, ivory-white in decor, with "mirrors on all the walls reflecting an endless intersection of arched ceilings". The rooms were used for dinners, balls and theatrical shows, with a stage at the south end of the Banqueting Hall. By the mid 1920s the Grill Room had been relocated into the Banqueting Hall, and furnished with circular tables with oval back wicker chairs. One 1926 brochure stated that it was the scene of "some of the finest private and public balls ever given in London".


title: The Ritz Hotel, London

text: During World War II it became known as the nightclub "La Popote". The interior of the club was made to simulate a combat dugout complete with sandbags. The club's chandeliers were made out of various types of empty liquor bottles with candles in their necks for light. The dance floor was crowded during wartime, but it later declined in popularity. Laurie Ross was in charge of the Ritz Bar and Grill for many years. The bar, known to its regulars as "Laurie's Bar", closed when Ross retired in 1976. By the 1970s the basement rooms were closed to the public.


title: The Ritz Hotel, London

text: In 1977, Trafalgar House agreed to lease the basement to Mecca Sportsman and Pleasurama, and the Ritz Club was opened the following year, under separate management from the hotel. The basement was restored in the hotel's Louis XVI style of 1906, and the decorations included 6,000 sheets of gold leaf. Gold leaf was not spared on moldings, cupids and garlands and a blue sky with fluffy clouds painted on the ceiling above the gaming tables. The restoration consisted of repainting, cleaning and recovering all in the original color scheme. Furniture was restored to its original state and replicas replaced what could not be restored. Stephen Pulman was appointed Head Chef, after being recruited from the exclusive club and restaurant Annabel’s. When it opened, the Ritz Club was open to members and hotel guests only. However, unlike most casinos, it charges a fee to enter. The games are considered "high stakes" in that the minimum bet is usually very high. They offer roulette, black jack, baccarat, and poker, as well as some slot machines.


title: The Ritz Hotel, London

text: In 1998, the club was purchased by London Clubs, who moved their premises from the Devonshire Club on St James's Street to the basement of the Ritz. A new company was formed in June 1998, the Ritz Hotel Casino Ltd., which was granted legal permission to open a casino. After very quick refurbishment, it reopened on 12 September with exclusive membership, although members are permitted to invite a guest. In 2006, The Ritz Club was divided into four main areas—the restaurant, bar, lounge and the private gaming room, situated in the former Banqueting Hall. In 2022, The Ritz Club hosted afternoon tea in the hotel's original ballroom.


title: The Ritz Hotel, London

text: Evelyn Waugh's 1942 novel "Work Suspended" features a scene at the Ritz in which the narrator falls in love with a friend's wife during a luncheon. Alan Bennett's allegorical play, "Forty Years On" was later set in the basement of the Ritz during the war. In the universe of the book "Good Omens", two primary characters, the angel Aziraphale and the demon Crowley, often frequent the Ritz. The hotel is mentioned in the song "A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square" as well as in Queen's "Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy". The hotel is the source of the word "ritz" and the expression "to put on the Ritz" (meaning to act or dress in an opulent, extravagant matter), the latter of which inspired the Irving Berlin song "Puttin' on the Ritz". Large portions of the 1999 romantic comedy "Notting Hill" were filmed in and around the hotel.


title: The Ritz Hotel, London

text: In recent years the Ritz has taken measures to enforce their trademark against infringement. Lawyers have notified competitors using the name to surrender their websites and Facebook accounts marketing under the trademark, even though they had been using these names for many years. The Desborough Ritz, which had been using the name since the 1930s, changed its name in 2012 after being advised by solicitors to do so. That same year, a Northamptonshire wedding location named The Ritz changed its name to the Banqueting & Conference Suites at the Kettering Ritz after another notification. The Brighouse Ritz, which has operated under the name since 1938, was notified in 2017 to change its name or face legal action.


title: Tony Mowbray

text: Anthony Mark Mowbray (born 22 November 1963) is an English former professional footballer who is currently the manager of Sunderland. Mowbray played for Middlesbrough, Celtic and Ipswich Town as a defender.


title: Tony Mowbray

text: He began his coaching career with Ipswich Town and took his first managerial job at Scottish Premier League side Hibernian, where he won the Scottish Football Writers' Association Manager of the Year award in his first season. He moved on to West Bromwich Albion in 2006, where he won the Football League Championship in 2008, but then suffered relegation from the Premier League the following year. Mowbray was then appointed as manager of Celtic, but was dismissed after nine months.


title: Tony Mowbray

text: Mowbray subsequently took the manager's role at another of his former clubs, Middlesbrough. After a poor start to the 2013–14 season, Mowbray left Middlesbrough in October 2013. After a spell with Coventry City, he was appointed Blackburn Rovers manager in February 2017. He was unable to prevent Rovers being relegated to League One, but then won promotion back to the Championship at the first attempt.


title: Tony Mowbray

text: After playing his first match for the club in 1982, Mowbray became captain of Middlesbrough in 1986 when he was just 22 years old. Affectionately known to Boro fans as "Mogga", Mowbray became a legend in Middlesbrough for being a local lad who led the club from liquidation back into the top league of English football within two seasons.


title: Tony Mowbray

text: In 2007, Mowbray was placed at number 7 in a chronological list of Middlesbrough legends compiled by local newspaper the "Evening Gazette". The Middlesbrough club fanzine "Fly me to the Moon" is named after a quote about Mowbray from ex-Middlesbrough manager Bruce Rioch – "If I had to fly to the moon I'd take Tony Mowbray, my captain, with me. He's a magnificent man". In 1991 after 348 appearances for "Boro", Mowbray moved to Scottish club Celtic for £1 million.


title: Tony Mowbray

text: During his playing career with Celtic, Mowbray's wife Bernadette, a native of Renfrewshire, died of breast cancer. The episode is recalled in Mowbray's book, "Kissed by an Angel." It is often asserted that the "huddle" which Celtic players still perform before each match was arranged as a tribute to Bernadette. However, it was merely suggested by Mowbray on a pre-season tour of Germany to bring the squad together at a time of uncertainty.


title: Tony Mowbray

text: He later moved on to Ipswich Town, where he played for five years, becoming the team captain. He scored an equalising goal in the 2000 Division One playoff final victory against Barnsley. Ipswich won the match 4–2 and secured promotion to the FA Premier League. This match was both Mowbray's Wembley debut and the last of his playing career.


title: Tony Mowbray

text: Once his playing career finished he moved into coaching, starting as a first team coach at Ipswich Town. He had a brief spell as caretaker manager of Ipswich, following the sacking of George Burley and prior to the appointment of Joe Royle.


title: Tony Mowbray

text: In May 2004, Mowbray was appointed manager of Hibernian, replacing Bobby Williamson. He gained much acclaim for the job he did, winning the Scottish Football Writers' Association manager of the year award in his first season. Hibs finished in the top four in the SPL in his only two full seasons in charge, which was the first time that Hibs had done this in the top division in consecutive seasons since Eddie Turnbull was manager.


title: Tony Mowbray

text: Hibs progressed to the later stages of every domestic cup competition in his tenure and made two appearances in European football. Hibs lost heavily to Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk in the first round of the 2005–06 UEFA Cup and on the away goals rule to OB Odense in the 2006 Intertoto Cup. During mid-2006, Mowbray was interviewed for the vacant managerial position at Ipswich Town, but he rejected their approach. In September 2006 he signed a 12-month rolling deal with Hibs that was due to take effect from July 2007. Just one month later however, Mowbray moved to West Bromwich Albion.


title: Tony Mowbray

text: West Bromwich Albion appointed Mowbray as their manager on 13 October 2006. Mowbray faced the task of returning the "Baggies" to the Premier League after relegation the previous season. Although he managed to turn around the club's poor away form, an indifferent run of results at home towards the end of the season meant that Albion finished fourth in The Championship table behind Sunderland, Birmingham City and Derby County, and faced the lottery of the Championship play-offs. Despite two famous victories over old rivals Wolverhampton Wanderers in the semi finals, Albion lost 1–0 to Derby County in the Wembley final.


title: Tony Mowbray

text: As a result, during the close season, Mowbray set about restructuring his squad, moving out several of Robson's players for multimillion-pound fees, after press reports of dressing room division.


title: Tony Mowbray

text: High-profile players such as Jason Koumas, Diomansy Kamara and Curtis Davies were sold to Premier League clubs for large fees, in addition to the departures of Paul McShane, Nathan Ellington, Darren Carter and Steve Watson. Mowbray replaced them by signing a total of 14 permanent and loan players in the summer transfer window, making an overall profit in the process. His most expensive signings were Chris Brunt from Sheffield Wednesday for £3 million, Leon Barnett from Luton Town for £2.5 million, and James Morrison from Middlesbrough for £1.5 million.


title: Tony Mowbray

text: Despite the large changes in his squad, Mowbray won the Championship Manager of the Month award in September 2007, after Albion gained 13 out of the maximum 15 points and climbed to 2nd in the Division.


title: Tony Mowbray

text: At the start of 2008, Mowbray's young Albion team topped the table, receiving growing plaudits from the media and supporters alike for their attractive brand of attacking one touch passing football, a reflection of Mowbray's staunch footballing philosophy.


title: Tony Mowbray

text: Mowbray guided West Brom to the EFL Championship title, meaning promotion to the Premier League and reached the semi-final of the FA Cup. The semi-final, the first to be played at the new Wembley Stadium, pitted West Brom against Portsmouth, the only remaining Premier League team left in the FA Cup. Portsmouth won the match 1–0 with the only goal of the game coming from Kanu. Mowbray won the Championship manager of the month award for April, as well as the League Managers Association manager of the year award.


title: Tony Mowbray

text: After a poor 2008–09 season, West Bromwich were relegated from the Premier League, finishing 20th. Mowbray was still thought highly of by the fans, however, and this was evidenced by them wearing Mowbray masks at their last game of the season. Mowbray left the club for Celtic shortly afterwards.


title: Tony Mowbray

text: On 8 June 2009, it was reported that Celtic had approached West Bromwich Albion for permission to speak to Mowbray about their managerial vacancy. A compensation fee of £2 million was agreed, and Celtic declared Mowbray as their new manager on 16 June 2009. He was unveiled as Celtic manager at a press conference a day later. His coaching team was Neil Lennon, Peter Grant, Mark Venus, and Stevie Woods. On 12 September 2009 was named as the Coach of the Month of August in the Scottish Premier League.


title: Tony Mowbray

text: Mowbray was described as "beleaguered" by "The Herald" after Celtic fell 10 points behind Old Firm rivals Rangers in the SPL title race after a 2–1 home defeat by Hibs.


title: Tony Mowbray

text: Mowbray decided to make significant changes to his squad during the January 2010 transfer window, selling Gary Caldwell and Barry Robson, which apparently caused disruption to the team in the immediate aftermath of those deals being completed. Robbie Keane was recruited early in 2010 on a loan deal from Tottenham Hotspur amid great excitement, however further poor results, particularly a record 4–0 defeat by St Mirren, led to Mowbray being sacked on 25 March. It was reported in May 2010 that Celtic had yet to agree compensation with Mowbray and his management team.


title: Tony Mowbray

text: Mowbray was appointed Middlesbrough manager on 26 October 2010, replacing Gordon Strachan. He lost his first match in charge, 2–1 against Bristol City, but followed this with wins against Crystal Palace and Scunthorpe. Mowbray guided Boro to Championship safety, having joined the club when they were 22nd in the league. The club finished the season well, winning their last four league games and finished 12th in the league table. The same season, Mowbray started giving youngsters a first team place such as Joe Bennett, Luke Williams and Richard Smallwood. Mowbray also started giving Marvin Emnes more playing time after returning on loan from Swansea City.


title: Tony Mowbray

text: Middlesbrough began the 2011–12 season well and Mowbray won manager of the month for September. Middlesbrough relinquished the only unbeaten record in the league after a 2–0 defeat to Nottingham Forest in October 2011. After a poor start to 2012, Middlesbrough's form picked up in late February with four wins in five games. Middlesbrough finished 7th in the 2011–12 season, missing out on a play-off place by one position.


title: Tony Mowbray

text: After an unbeaten run in October 2012, Mowbray won the accolade of Championship Manager of the Month for that month. On 21 October 2013, it was announced that Mowbray had left the club with immediate effect after a run of two wins in 12 games in the 2013–14 campaign.


title: Tony Mowbray

text: On 3 March 2015, Mowbray was appointed manager of Coventry City on a deal until the end of the 2014–15 season. With the club facing the possibility of relegation to the fourth-tier for the first time since the late 1950s, Tony Mowbray's initial brief was to keep the club in the third-tier. A final day victory away at Crawley Town was enough for Mowbray to secure League One football for the Sky Blues for the 2015–16 season.


title: Tony Mowbray

text: Following protracted negotiations at the end of the season, Tony Mowbray agreed to sign a two-year contract extension to remain as Coventry City manager.


title: Tony Mowbray

text: On 22 February 2017, Mowbray was appointed head coach of Blackburn Rovers on an 18-month contract, effectively lasting until the end of the 2017–18 season. Despite an improvement in form that offered some hope of survival, Blackburn were relegated to League One at the end of the 2016–17 season.


title: Tony Mowbray

text: Mowbray signed a new contract that would keep him at the club until 2019, with an option of a further 12 months after that as well. Under his managership, Blackburn won promotion back to the Championship after a single year in League One. Their promotion was assured on 24 April, after a 1–0 away win against Doncaster Rovers.


title: Tony Mowbray

text: In the 2018–19 season Mowbray led Blackburn to a final finish of 15th in the Championship. In the EFL Cup they reached the third round before being eliminated at AFC Bournemouth. In the FA Cup Blackburn were eliminated in the third round after extra time in a replay against Newcastle United.


title: Tony Mowbray

text: In the 2019–20 season Mowbray secured an 11th-place finish in the Championship. In the EFL Cup they reached the second round before defeat at Sheffield United. The club were beaten in the third round of the FA Cup at fellow Championship side Birmingham City.


title: Tony Mowbray

text: Mowbray left Blackburn at the conclusion of his contract in May 2022 and was replaced by Jon Dahl Tomasson as head coach. He had served five years in the post.


title: Tony Mowbray

text: Mowbray has three sons with his wife, Amber Mowbray. His first wife, Bernadette Doyle Mowbray, died of breast cancer on New Year's Day 1995, aged 26.


title: Neon Genesis Evangelion (manga)

text: Sadamoto was the original character designer for the anime with Hideaki Anno as the supervisor and animated only part of the original anime for the purpose of writing the manga version. However, in the early days, he was involved in some way up to the sixth episode by coming up with ideas, and in the 24th episode he was the animation supervisor.


title: Neon Genesis Evangelion (manga)

text: Like the anime, the manga is focused on Shinji Ikari, a teenage boy who was recruited by his father Gendo to the shadowy organization NERV to pilot a giant bio-machine mecha named "Evangelion" into combat against beings called "Angels". The plot, however, features numerous small differences from the plot of the anime, including Toji Suzuhara's death, the omission of five Angels, and an earlier introduction of Kaworu/Tabris. Shinji's character and personality, alongside various other characters from the series, such as Asuka Langley Soryu's, are also slightly different in the manga.


title: Neon Genesis Evangelion (manga)

text: The manga volumes do not always begin or end at points corresponding to episode breaks. Volume 10, for example, begins halfway through the battle with Armisael in episode 23, while Volume 11 adapts the events depicted in episode 24 and the first several minutes of End of Evangelion.


title: Neon Genesis Evangelion (manga)

text: "Neon Genesis Evangelion" was created after a meeting between Hideaki Anno and King Records. Although the anime series was conceived before the manga, due to production delays the manga was released first, in the third issue of Kadokawa Shoten's "Monthly Shōnen Ace" on December 26, 1994, to spread public interest in the upcoming TV series while it was still under production. Due to severe production delays, the anime ultimately aired a full 10 months after the manga first appeared in "Shōnen Ace".


title: Neon Genesis Evangelion (manga)

text: When the series finally appeared on TV in October 1995, Sadamoto's manga storyline had completed what would later become volumes 1 to 3, matching the storyline of episodes 5 and 6 of the TV series. The anime rapidly outpaced the manga, to the point that the chapters comprising volume 4 (which included content corresponding to TV episode 8) were not released until over a year after the TV series had finished airing.


title: Neon Genesis Evangelion (manga)

text: Despite an ostensible publishing schedule of one "stage" (chapter) each month in "Shōnen Ace", Sadamoto's actual publication schedule was irregular as he divided his time between other projects, releasing a new volume roughly every year and a half. For example, between the publication in Japan of volume 4 and volume 5, two years elapsed. While the manga ran for more than 18 years, only 14 volumes were published.


title: Neon Genesis Evangelion (manga)

text: In 2008, it was announced that the "Neon Genesis Evangelion" manga was approaching its conclusion. In July 2009, it was moved to a new Kadokawa Shoten "seinen" magazine, "Young Ace", where it was published until the February 2010 issue. At that point Sadamoto stopped writing the manga, putting the publication on hiatus in order to work on the latest "Rebuild of Evangelion" film. The December 2010 issue of "Young Ace" announced that the manga would resume that winter (early 2011); the April 2011 issue announced the next stage would be published April 4, 2011.


title: Neon Genesis Evangelion (manga)

text: On February 12, 2012, half of the 90th Stage was published, telling different events from the ones seen in episode 26 from "The End of Evangelion". This was reportedly the final chapter. On May 2, 2012, Kadokawa Shoten announced that the 13th volume of the manga would be released on November 2, 2012, with ANN noting that "neither Sadamoto nor Kadokawa has confirmed that the 13th manga volume is still the final one", and indeed it was not. Serialization resumed, and in April 2013 Kadokawa Shoten announced that the manga would end in two more chapters. The last chapter was published on June 4, 2013, and the 14th and last volume was released on November 20, 2014.


title: Neon Genesis Evangelion (manga)

text: Viz Media published the series in multiple versions, the first phase like regular comic issues was published from December 6, 1998 to May 2003, a "tankōbon" Collector's Edition was published from February 1, 2002 to May 2003 as Volumes 1-7. Viz claims that its releases of "Evangelion" were the first releases of an unflipped manga in English. In August 2011, Viz announced that the manga would be serialized at $1 a chapter online and through its Apple apps.


title: Neon Genesis Evangelion (manga)

text: With the success of the anime, the manga has also become a commercial success; the first 10 volumes have sold over 15 million copies, and the 11th volume reached #1 on the Tohan charts, taking the total to over 17 million. In particular, as the manga drew closer to its conclusion, attention surrounding it reached new heights, with the 11th volume staying on top of the Japanese Comic Ranking charts for 4 straight weeks, a remarkable achievement even for a long-running series. It won the 1996 "Comicker" fan manga poll. Volume 12 opened at #1 on Oricon's manga rankings and has sold over 600,000 copies. The manga sold 25 million copies in Japan.


title: Neon Genesis Evangelion (manga)

text: Unlike it is sometimes assumed, the manga is in fact not the original version of the story, but instead it was created as a supplemental designed to promote the TV series. Sadamoto has also repeatedly stated that the manga is his own individual work and should never be used as reference for anything in the anime. Sadamoto has also stated he made the manga entirely on his own, without consulting anyone, in contrast to the anime's more collaborative production, and that all differences were decided by him. He has also denied links to the Rebuild movies, specifying that the bonus chapter featuring Mari is fan service.


title: AU Small Finance Bank

text: AU Small Finance Bank Limited is an Indian Small finance bank, based in Jaipur, India. It was founded as vehicle finance company AU Financiers (India) Ltd in 1996 and converted to a small finance bank on 19 April 2017. AU Small Finance Bank serves low and middle income individuals and micro and small businesses that have limited or no access to formal banking and finance channels. The Bank offers loans, deposits and payment products and services.


title: AU Small Finance Bank

text: AU Small Finance Bank ranked 355 in the list of Fortune India 500 (2019) companies, with annual revenue of and Total B/S Assets of . AU Bank enjoys long term credit rating of “AA-/Stable” from CRISIL Ratings, ICRA Ratings, India Ratings and CARE Ratings.


title: AU Small Finance Bank

text: The company was founded by Sanjay Agarwal (managing director and CEO of AU Small Finance Bank) as a private limited company, and publicly listed in an IPO on 29 June 2017. A merit holder Chartered Accountant and a first generation entrepreneur, he holds ~28.5% stake in the Bank. He is supported by a team of 23,486 employees.


title: AU Small Finance Bank

text: AU Small Finance Bank is listed on NSE & BSE with market capitalization of ~Rs. 37,942 crore. On its first day of trading, the stock rose 51% to be the most expensive bank in India based on price-to-book.


title: AU Small Finance Bank

text: In November 2017, the Reserve Bank of India added the bank to its schedule of commercial banks, further improving the bank's growth prospects by reducing the cost of short-term funds and improving the bank's ability to provide services.


title: AU Small Finance Bank

text: Over the years, the Bank has attracted marquee investors like IFC, Warburg Pincus, Temasek Holdings, Nomura, Kotak Mahindra MF, etc. Private equity companies that provided venture capital, including Warburg Pincus and International Finance Corporation, made partial exits for as much as nine times their original investment.


title: AU Small Finance Bank

text: May 2020 - Bharti (SBM) Holdings Pvt. Ltd, a firm owned by Sunil Mittal family has acquired 0.79% for a consideration of INR100 crores.


title: AU Small Finance Bank

text: Due to its history as a vehicle finance company, as of March 2018 almost all the loans made by AU Small Finance Bank were secured, unlike most small finance banks that have unsecured loans due to their background in microfinance. This provides lower yields (lower interest rates) than unsecured loans, so the bank has been particularly active in growing its deposits, as bank deposits have lower cost than other sources of funds. It has also sought to diversify into savings products like deposits, payment / transaction banking, distribution of third-party products, and additional loan products thereby positioning itself as a holistic financial products and services provider.


title: AU Small Finance Bank

text: As on June 30, 2021, AU Small Finance Bank's distribution network comprises 758 Banking Touchpoints, 23,486 employees spread contiguously across 15 states and two Union Territories with over 2 million customers.


title: AU Small Finance Bank

text: The bank has operations in 15 states and two union territory, with Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh being key states. It is one of the largest banks by number of locations in its home state of Rajasthan.


title: Who Dares Wins

text: Who Dares Wins (Latin: "Qui audet adipiscitur"; , "O tolmón niká"; ; ; Portuguese: "Quem ousa vence"; German: "Wer wagt, gewinnt") is a motto made popular in the English-speaking world by the British Special Air Service.


title: Who Dares Wins

text: The is attested from at least the 18th century. Slight variations go back further. The same is likely true of other languages.


title: Who Dares Wins

text: As motto of the SAS it is normally credited to its founder, Sir David Stirling. Among the SAS themselves, it is sometimes humorously corrupted to "Who cares [who] wins?".


title: Who Dares Wins

text: The catchphrase "He Who Dares Wins" was commonly used by Del Boy in British sitcom "Only Fools and Horses". The shortened form "Qui Audet" is also heard on the second episode of "Pennyworth".


title: Who Dares Wins

text: The motto has been used by twelve elite special forces units around the world that in some way have historical ties to the British SAS.


title: Who Dares Wins

text: The phrase is the motto of Baron Alvingham of Woodfold in the County Palatine of Lancaster, a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom.


title: Clarence Thomas Supreme Court nomination

text: On July 1, 1991, President George H. W. Bush nominated Clarence Thomas for the Supreme Court of the United States to replace Thurgood Marshall, who had announced his retirement. At the time of his nomination, Thomas was a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit; President Bush had appointed him to that position in March 1990.


text: The nomination proceedings were contentious from the start, especially over the issue of abortion. Many women's groups and civil rights groups opposed Thomas on the basis of his conservative political views, just as they had opposed Bush's Supreme Court nominee from the previous year, David Souter.


text: Toward the end of the confirmation process, sexual harassment allegations against Thomas by Anita Hill, a law professor who had previously worked under Thomas at the United States Department of Education and then at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, were leaked to the media from a confidential FBI report. The allegations led to further investigations and to a media frenzy about sexual harassment. Televised hearings were re-opened and held by the Senate Judiciary Committee before the nomination was moved to the full, Democratic-controlled Senate for a vote.


text: On October 15, 1991, Thomas was confirmed to the Supreme Court of the United States by a narrow Senate majority of 52 to 48. He took the oath of office on October 23, 1991.


text: Justice William Brennan stepped down from the Supreme Court in 1990. Thomas was one of five candidates on Bush's shortlist and was the one Bush was most interested in nominating. However, Bush's staff made three arguments against nominating Thomas at the time: Thomas had only served eight months as a judge; Bush could expect to replace Justice Thurgood Marshall with Thomas in due time; and multiple senior advisors told Bush that they did not feel that Thomas was ready. Bush eventually decided to nominate Judge David Souter of the First Circuit instead, who was easily confirmed.


text: White House Chief of Staff John H. Sununu promised that Bush would fill the next Supreme Court vacancy with a "true conservative" and predicted a "knock-down, drag-out, bloody-knuckles, grass-roots fight" over confirmation. On July 1, 1991, President Bush nominated Judge Clarence Thomas of the District of Columbia Circuit to replace retiring justice Thurgood Marshall, a civil rights icon and the court's first African American justice. When introducing Thomas that day, The president called him "the best person" in the country to take Marshall's place on the court, a characterization belied, according to constitutional law expert Michael Gerhardt, by Thomas' "limited professional distinction, with his most significant legal experiences having been a controversial tenure as chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and barely more than one year of experience as a federal court of appeals judge."


text: In 1992, Gerhardt described the Thomas nomination as "a bold political move calculated to make it more difficult for many of the same civil rights organizations and southern blacks, who opposed Judge [Robert] Bork's [Supreme Court] nomination, to oppose Justice Thomas." He also wrote that, "in selecting Justice Thomas, President Bush returned to a practice – nominating extreme ideologues for the Supreme Court – that many hoped had ended with the Senate's rejection of Judge Bork."


text: Attorney General Richard Thornburgh had previously warned Bush that replacing Thurgood Marshall, who was widely revered as a civil rights icon, with any candidate who was not perceived to share Marshall's views would make the confirmation process difficult; and the Thomas nomination filled various groups with indignation, among them the: NAACP, Urban League and the National Organization for Women, who believed he would likely swing the ideological balance on the court to the right. They especially opposed Thomas' appointment because of his criticism of affirmative action and also because they were suspicious of his position on "Roe v. Wade".


text: In the second half of the 20th century, Supreme Court nominees were customarily evaluated by a committee of the American Bar Association (ABA) before being considered by the Senate Judiciary Committee. Anticipating that the ABA would rate Thomas poorly, the White House and Republican Senators pressured the ABA for at least the mid-level "qualified" rating, and simultaneously attempted to discredit the ABA as partisan. Ultimately, on a scale of well-qualified, qualified, or unqualified, 12 members of the Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary voted that he was "qualified", one abstained, and the other two voted "not qualified", for an overall vote of qualified. This vote represented one of the lowest levels of support for Supreme Court nominees. Although the ABA vote was viewed as a "significant embarrassment to the Bush administration", it ultimately had little impact on Thomas' nomination.


text: Some of the public statements of Thomas' opponents foreshadowed the confirmation fight that would occur. One such statement came from African-American activist attorney Florynce Kennedy at a July 1991 conference of the National Organization for Women in New York City. Referring to the failure of Ronald Reagan's nomination of Robert Bork, she said of Thomas, "We're going to 'bork' him." The liberal campaign to defeat the Bork nomination served as a model for liberal interest groups opposing Thomas. Likewise, in view of what had happened to Bork, Thomas' confirmation hearings were also approached as a political campaign by the White House and Senate Republicans.


text: Public confirmation hearings on the Thomas nomination began on September 10, 1991, and lasted for ten days. The senators' focus as they questioned Thomas and an array of witnesses for and against the nomination was on Thomas' legal views, as expressed in his speeches, writings, and the decisions he had handed down as a federal appeals court judge.


text: Under questioning, Thomas repeatedly asserted that he had not formulated a position on "Roe v. Wade", or had any conversations with anyone regarding the issue.


text: At one point in the beginning of the proceedings, Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Joe Biden asked Thomas if he believed the Constitution granted any sort of property rights to individuals as described in Richard Epstein's book "Takings: Private Property and the Power of Eminent Domain", which had been published by Harvard University Press in 1985. Biden held the book up for Thomas to see and denounced its contents. In his book, Epstein argues that the government should be regarded with the same respect as any other private entity in a property dispute. The Cato Institute later paraphrased Biden's general line of questioning in the hearing as, "Are you now or have you ever been a libertarian?"


text: On October 6, 1991, after the conclusion of the confirmation hearings, and while the full Senate was debating whether to give final approval to Thomas' nomination, NPR Supreme Court correspondent Nina Totenberg aired information from a leaked Judiciary Committee/FBI report stating that a former colleague of Thomas, University of Oklahoma law school professor Anita Hill, accused him of making unwelcome sexual comments to her when the two worked together at the Department of Education (ED) and then at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). In the same FBI report, Thomas testified that he had once promoted Allyson Duncan over Hill as his chief of staff at the EEOC.


text: It was shortly after the president selected Thomas as his nominee that Democratic committee staffers began hearing rumors that Thomas had in the past sexually harassed one or more women, and in early September that committee chairman Joe Biden asked the Bush White House to authorize an FBI investigation into Hill's charges. FBI agents interviewed Hill on September 23, and interviewed Thomas on September 25. Notwithstanding the allegations, Biden saw no reason to postpone the committee's scheduled vote on Thomas' nomination.


text: After Totenberg's story aired, Biden quickly came under pressure to reopen the hearings, from House Democratic women, and from various groups that had opposed the Thomas nomination earlier in the process. As a result, the final Senate vote on the nomination was postponed and the confirmation hearings were reopened. It was only the third time in the Senate's history that such an action had been taken (and had not been done since 1925, when the nomination of Harlan F. Stone was recommitted to the Judiciary Committee). Amid the resulting frenzy the president declared that he had "total confidence" in Thomas.


text: On October 11, 1991, Hill was called to testify during the hearing. She said she was testifying as to the character and fitness of Thomas to serve on the high court and was ambivalent about whether his alleged conduct had in fact risen to the level of being illegal sexual harassment.


text: Ten years earlier, in 1981, Hill had become an attorney-adviser to Clarence Thomas at the United States Department of Education (ED). When Thomas became chairman of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) in 1982, Hill followed Thomas to serve as his special assistant until she resigned in mid-1983. Hill alleged in her 1991 testimony that it was during her employment at ED and EEOC that Thomas made sexually provocative statements.


text: She testified that she followed Thomas to EEOC because "[t]he work, itself, was interesting, and at that time, it appeared that the sexual overtures ... had ended." She also testified that she wanted to work in the civil rights field, and that she believed that "at that time the Department of Education, itself, was a dubious venture."


text: Hill provided lurid details about Thomas' alleged inappropriate behavior at the Department of Education: "He spoke about acts that he had seen in pornographic films involving such matters as women having sex with animals and films showing group sex or rape scenes ...On several occasions, Thomas told me graphically of his own sexual prowess ... and made embarrassing references to a porn star by the name of Long Dong Silver". She also said that the following incident occurred later after they had both moved to new jobs at the EEOC: "Thomas was drinking a Coke in his office, he got up from the table at which we were working, went over to his desk to get the Coke, looked at the can and asked, 'Who has put pubic hair on my Coke?'"


text: Two women, Angela Wright and Rose Jourdain, made statements to Senate staffers in support of Hill. Ultimately, however, Wright and Jourdain were dismissed by the Judiciary Committee without testifying. The reasons why Wright was not called (or chose not to be called) to testify are complex and a matter of some dispute; Republican Senators wanted to avoid the prospect of a second woman describing inappropriate behavior by Thomas, while Democratic Senators were concerned about Wright's credibility and Wright herself was reluctant to testify after seeing the Committee's treatment of Hill, including Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter stating that he felt Hill's testimony was perjurious in its entirety. During the Thomas nomination proceedings, Wright and Hill were the only people who publicly alleged that then-Judge Thomas had made unsolicited sexual advances, and Hill was the only one who testified to that effect.


text: Wright, who was one of Thomas' subordinates at the EEOC until he fired her, told Senate Judiciary Committee staff that Thomas had repeatedly made comments to her much like those he allegedly made to Hill, including pressuring her for dates, asking her the size of her breasts, and frequently commenting on the anatomy of other women. Wright said that after she turned down Thomas for a date, Thomas began to express discontent with her work and eventually fired her. Thomas said that he fired Wright for poor performance and for using a homophobic epithet.


text: Rose Jourdain also did not testify but corroborated Wright's statements, saying Wright had spoken to her about Thomas' statements at the time they were allegedly made. Jourdain stated that Wright had become "increasingly uneasy" around Thomas because of his constant commentary about her body and looks, and that Wright once came to Jourdain's office in tears as a result.


text: Another former Thomas assistant, Sukari Hardnett, did not accuse Thomas of sexual harassment, but told the Judiciary Committee staff that "if you were young, black, female, reasonably attractive and worked directly for Clarence Thomas, you knew full well you were being inspected and auditioned as a female."


text: Thomas testified that the accusations against him were false and that, "I deny each and every single allegation against me today that suggested in any way that I had conversations of a sexual nature or about pornographic material with Anita Hill, that I ever attempted to date her, that I ever had any personal sexual interest in her, or that I in any way ever harassed her."


text: Clarence Thomas also stated that, "This is a case in which this sleaze, this dirt, was searched for by staffers of members of this committee. It was then leaked to the media. And this committee and this body validated it and displayed it in prime time over our entire nation." He called the hearing a "high tech lynching":


text: Senator Orrin Hatch asked Thomas his response to Hill's graphic claims inquiring: "[D]id you ever say in words or substance something like there is a pubic hair in my Coke?" and "Did you ever use the term 'Long Dong Silver' in conversation with Professor Hill?" Thomas firmly denied having said either, as well as denying having read "The Exorcist", in which the character Burke Dennings says at a party, "There appear[s] to be an alien pubic hair floating around in my gin."


text: In addition to Hill and Thomas, the Judiciary heard from several other witnesses over the course of three days, on October 11-13, 1991. Several witnesses testified in support of Clarence Thomas and rebutted Hill's testimony. Phone logs were also submitted into the record showing contact between Hill and Thomas in the years after she left the EEOC.


text: Among those testifying on behalf of then-Judge Thomas was Jane Campa "J.C." Alvarez, a woman who for four years was Thomas' special assistant at EEOC. Alvarez said that "[t]he Anita Hill I knew before was nobody's victim." Alvarez went on to say that Thomas "demanded professionalism and performance." According to Alvarez, Thomas would not tolerate "the slightest hint of impropriety, and everyone knew it." Alvarez asserted that Hill's allegations were a personal move on her part to advance her own interests: "Women who have really been harassed would agree, if the allegations were true, you put as much distance as you can between yourself and that other person. What's more, you don't follow them to the next job – especially, if you are a black female, Yale Law School graduate. Let's face it, out in the corporate sector, companies are fighting for women with those kinds of credentials."


text: Another witness who testified on behalf of then-Judge Thomas was Nancy Fitch, a special assistant historian to Thomas at EEOC, who said "[t]here is no way" Thomas did what Hill alleged. "I know he did no such thing", she declared. Also Diane Holt, Thomas' personal secretary for six years, said that, "At no time did Professor Hill intimate, not even in the most subtle of ways, that Judge Thomas was asking her out or subjecting her to the crude, abusive conversations that have been described. Nor did I ever discern any discomfort, when Professor Hill was in Judge Thomas' presence." Additionally, Phyllis Berry-Myers, another special assistant to Thomas, said that he "was respectful, demand[ing] of excellence in our work, cordial, professional, interested in our lives and our career ambitions". Berry-Myers said that her "impression" was that Professor Hill desired a greater relationship with Judge Thomas than "just a professional one".


text: Nancy Altman who worked with Hill and Thomas at the Department of Education testified that, "It is not credible that Clarence Thomas could have engaged in the kinds of behavior that Anita Hill alleges, without any of the women who he worked closest with – dozens of us, we could spend days having women come up, his secretaries, his chief of staff, his other assistants, his colleagues – without any of us having sensed, seen or heard something." Senator Alan K. Simpson was puzzled by why Hill and Thomas met, dined, and spoke by phone on various occasions after they no longer worked together.


text: After extensive debate, the Judiciary Committee voted 13–1 on September 27, 1991 to send the Thomas nomination to the full Senate without recommendation. A motion earlier in the day to give the nomination a "favorable" recommendation had failed 7–7. Anita Hill's sexual harassment allegations against Clarence Thomas became public after the nomination had been reported out from the committee. Up to that time, there had been no public suggestion of inappropriate behavior or misconduct in Thomas' past.