title: Tees Maar Khan (2010 film)

text: Shortly after he relays this entire episode to his sidekicks Burger, Dollar and Soda, who have come to pick him up at the airport, Tabrez drives away and expresses his desire to go home and meet his mother and his wife, Aanya Khan, but Burger reveals that Aanya isn't at home and has been shooting for a film titled ""Sheila Ki Jawani"". Tabrez, visibly irked, decides to hijack the film's shooting, and in the process, smashes the director on his head and drags her home. Aanya protests, nearly exposing Tabrez in front of his mother, who is under the impression that he is a renowned film director himself. Chatterjee and Mukherjee appear at his house, but are thrown out by his mother and Aanya.


title: Tees Maar Khan (2010 film)

text: Tabrez next makes a deal with the Johri brothers to hijack the train with the help of a few unwitting villagers, who he is supposed to trick into doing so and smuggling the goods into a truck for the brothers, by posing as an international film director. During one of the two meetings in which this is finalized, well known superstar Aatish Kapoor arrives as a guest of honour at the local dandiya event where Tabrez and the Johri brothers are randomly chosen for the prize, but they are spotted by Chatterjee and Mukherjee and instead decide to flee by creating a commotion, causing Aatish to storm out in anger. Tabrez finds that Aatish enjoys police protection and relays this information to the Johri brothers, who decide that they will be the producers.


title: Tees Maar Khan (2010 film)

text: Tabrez, Dollar, Burger and Soda manage to steal equipment from a film set where actor Chunky Pandey is shooting, and land up in a village called Dhulia, where the chief, Nana Ghanpule and his blind associate, Subedaar welcome him. Realizing that the train passes through the only track in Dhulia, Tabrez settles on the idea of directing his film there, and, posing as an international director Manoj "Day" Ramalin the fair complexioned brother of award-winning director Manoj "Night" Ramalin, approaches Aatish, who agrees to the "Oscar-winning" project, despite the suspicions of his manager Bunty Baweja.


title: Tees Maar Khan (2010 film)

text: Tabrez comes up with the idea of a film centred in the pre-independence era, where Aatish would play a revolutionary, and Aanya would play ""Razia Sultana"", and both of them would protest against Britishers. Midway through, the negatives run out, and one of Nana's associates (Shashi Kiran) overhears this, deciding to raise a few 5-6 lakhs of rupees for Tabrez and the team. At night, since they have the keys to the local bank, Tabrez, Burger, Dollar, and Soda decide to rob the bank, but even as the villagers "mistakenly" assume them to be robbers, their escape and attempts to dodge a ghost-figure leads both the gang of thieves and the villagers to a hideout deep in the forest where several children who went missing from the village are recovered from a gang of militants, after which the entirety of villagers bows in front of Tabrez, who realizes that he made a grave mistake trying to deceive the villagers. Humbled by their gesture of 5-6 lakh rupees as a means of arranging film equipment, he decides that he will leave behind part of the looted treasure for the villagers, even as he trains the villagers in acting, among whom is the local cop, Inspector Dhurinder, as the train has been delayed by a week.


title: Tees Maar Khan (2010 film)

text: With everything set in motion on the day of the hijack, trouble seems to brew with the arrival of Singh, Jagtap, Chatterjee and Mukherjee, even as Tabrez finds his mother joining in after finding out through the unwitting Aanya. However, while he succeeds in tying up the four officers and escaping after successfully executing the entire caper, Singh recovers and slaps Dhurinder, informing the stunned villagers that the director who they met is a wanted criminal.


title: Tees Maar Khan (2010 film)

text: Along with his gang, Tabrez meets up with the Johri brothers and declares that he will leave behind a portion of the loot for the villagers, but the rather irked twins fool them and escape. Meanwhile, Dhurinder holds Tabrez at gunpoint until Singh arrives, and the entire village alter assembles with Tabrez against the officers in attendance, with the Judge deciding that only the guilt-ridden Tabrez be jailed, but while he misinterprets his sentence as that of 7 years, he is shocked to find that it is instead 60 years.


title: Tees Maar Khan (2010 film)

text: Outside the courtroom, Tabrez instructs Burger, Dollar and Soda to complete the film, titled "Bharat Ka Khazana", and release it. At the premiere, he arrives handcuffed, but is found missing and thus escaped after Chatterjee and Mukherjee find Bunty in shackles instead. Singh realizes he has failed and is shocked.


title: Tees Maar Khan (2010 film)

text: Meanwhile, the Johri brothers are stunned to find Tabrez aboard their plane, with Burger, Dollar and Soda revealed to have hijacked it. Finding the twins adamant against his will, Tabrez throws them out with a parachute at their back. A song sequence, in the end, features Aatish finally receiving an Oscar award from the sensational actor Anil Kapoor, Aanya endorsing a hair removal cream.


title: Tees Maar Khan (2010 film)

text: Priyanka Chopra was earlier rumoured to play the part of Aanya, but that rumour was later dropped after Katrina Kaif was chosen to play the female lead.


title: Tees Maar Khan (2010 film)

text: The script is penned by director Farah Khan's husband, Shirish Kunder. Sanjay Dutt was confirmed to play the role of the narrator for the film. Farah stated in an interview that she wanted someone with a voice which people can recognise even in their sleep.


title: Tees Maar Khan (2010 film)

text: Anupama Chopra of NDTV wrote, "Tees Maar Khan, adapted from After the Fox, by writers Shrish and Ashmit Kunder, is disappointingly limp and insistently low on IQ. The film has little of the effervescence and flair of a typical Farah Khan film," giving it 2/5 stars. Aseem Chhabra of Rediff.com, who rated the film 1.5/5, stated, "Even at two hours, the film feels like one long and tedious exercise in bad humour. Some people laughed during the screening I attended in New York City. However, most sat with glum faces, in a sense of disbelief ... How could a talented(..?) person like Khan make such an unfunny film?" Behindwoods review board gave the film a two out of five-star rating and quoted "So is Tees Maar Khan watchable? Good Question. Very good question. The answer is 'Yes' if you are in the mood to celebrate. But watch it in theatres as the fun is only when there is a crowd laughing along with you. The second half can have you in splits." Taran Adarsh of Bollywood Hungama gave a modest rating of 3/5 in his review and said, "Farah Khan's brand new outing Tees Maar Khan will make the most absurd, bizarre and wacky cinema of yore pale in comparison. Not just your cell phone, even your brain needs to be put on 'switched off' mode at the commencement of this film." Nikhat Kazmi of the Times of India awarded 2.5/5 stars while commenting, "Sadly, Tees Maar Khan begins as a spoof and remains a spoof, till the very end. All the characters end up as mere caricatures and completely fail to build up an emotional quotient in the film." Yahoo! Movies gave the film 1.5/5 stars. Komal Nahta of Koimoi.com gave it a rating of 2/5 and stated, "Too much of farcical comedy; lack of emotions; over-the-top characters; unbelievable script ... "Tees Maar Khan" is definitely a disappointment, but it will bring back the invested money and a bit more." Aniruddha Guha of "Daily News and Analysis" gave the film 2 stars and remarked, "Even Sheila can’t make Tees Maar Khan watchable ... Though the story is interesting (Neil Simon of After The Fox should ideally get the credit), the writing is so pedestrian and Farah Khan’s presentation so lacklustre that you wonder how the film was greenlighted at all." Gaurav Malani of "The Economic Times" gave 2 stars saying, "To sum up in "Tees Maar Khan"s trademark style of dialogue delivery, Akshay Kumar se zara hatke comedy expect karna aur Akshaye Khanna se kuch bhi expect karna bekaar hain. "Tees Maar Khan" doesn’t even guarantee thirty good laughs in its three-hour runtime." Kaveree Bamzai of "India Today" rated it 2½/5 saying, "It's an oddly half-hearted film from a woman [Farah Khan] who is never known to do anything in half measure." Rajeev Masand of CNN-IBN rated the movie 2/5 suggesting, "If you’re outraged by such low-brow humour, 'Tees Maar Khan' is going to be a long, hard slog for you." Raja Sen of Rediff.com gave a 2 out of 5 star rating explaining that "Tees Maar Khan looks better, is better acted, and provides far more laughs than the standard Bollywood comic project, but judging Farah by the bar she's set for herself, it has to be termed a disappointment." The Hindu in its review said "So there are at least a dozen gags that will make you laugh but the point is from Farah, we expect a lot, qualitatively and quantitatively, more."


title: Tees Maar Khan (2010 film)

text: "Tees Maar Khan" took a 100% opening at most multiplexes across India. The film collected on its first day of business, becoming the second biggest opening day grosser of all time across India for Hindi movies after "Dabangg". On the second day of its release, the film netted , taking the two-day total to nett. "Tees Maar Khan" collected about nett at the end of its first weekend, thus becoming the second biggest opening weekend net grosser of all time across India for Hindi movies. Despite its initial huge run at the box office, there had been many negative reports about the film. "Box Office India" reported, ""Tees Maar Khan" has not matched the expectations from the film prior to release but it is not that bad either as it is not as if the film just collapsed. The opening weekend collections are around 15% lower than sensible expectations." "Tees Maar Khan" underwent a heavy 65% fall on Monday, its fourth day of business, as it collected . The film further suffered a big drop on Tuesday, its fifth day of business, collecting around nett, taking the five-day business to nett. "Tees Maar Khan" went on to collect nett in its first week of release. The film showed an 85% decline in the second week, on its eight-day of business, as compared to its first day. In its second weekend, the film collected around nett, taking the ten days collections to nett. The film collected about nett in second week, taking the total collections in two weeks to nett. The film collected nett in its third week, taking the total domestic collections nett.


title: Tees Maar Khan (2010 film)

text: In the overseas market, the film grossed around $2.5 million from its extended weekend, which, according to "Box Office India", "is below par for a big film". The breakdown included £320,000 from United Kingdom in 5 days, $750,000 from North America in 5 days, $500,000 from United Arab Emirates in 3 days and $175,000 from Pakistan in 3 days. The nett collections till the end of the second weekend e were: £625,000 from United Kingdom, $1,030,000 from North America, $775,000 from UAE, and $265,000 from Australia.


title: Tees Maar Khan (2010 film)

text: The music of the film is composed by the music duo of Vishal–Shekhar and one song from debutant music composer Shirish Kunder for the title track. Lyrics are penned by Vishal Dadlani, Anvita Dutt Guptan and Shirish Kunder. The music was launched on 14 November 2010. The entire cast and crew travelled on a train booked from Mumbai to Lonavala for the music launch. Sonu Nigam has given 54 voices for the title track of the film. The song 'Sheila Ki Jawani' became a chartbuster and fetched Sunidhi Chauhan a Filmfare Award and many other awards.


title: Tees Maar Khan (2010 film)

text: Even before the film was released, Khan and Kunder had planned on converting the film into a franchise, and Kunder was reportedly writing a sequel, with Kumar again in the titular role. However, after his second collaboration with the couple, the comedy film Joker, was also poorly received and was dubbed a disaster, Kumar reportedly avoided further collaborations with Khan, and the sequel was shelved.


title: Kashubian language

text: Kashubian or Cassubian (Kashubian: "", ) is a West Slavic language belonging to the Lechitic subgroup along with Polish and Silesian. Although often classified as a language in its own right, it is sometimes viewed as a dialect of Pomeranian or as a dialect of Polish.


title: Kashubian language

text: In Poland, it has been an officially recognized ethnic-minority language since 2005. Approximately 108,000 people use mainly Kashubian at home. It is the only remnant of the Pomeranian language. It is close to standard Polish with influence from Low German and the extinct Polabian (West Slavic) and Old Prussian (West Baltic) languages.


title: Kashubian language

text: The Kashubian language exists in two different forms: vernacular dialects used in rural areas, and literary variants used in education.


title: Kashubian language

text: Kashubian is assumed to have evolved from the language spoken by some tribes of Pomeranians called Kashubians, in the region of Pomerania, on the southern coast of the Baltic Sea between the Vistula and Oder rivers. The Pomeranians were said to have arrived before the Poles, and certain tribes managed to maintain their language and traditions despite German and Polish settlements. It first began to evolve separately in the period from the thirteenth to the fifteenth century as the Polish-Pomeranian linguistic area began to divide based around important linguistic developments centred in the western (Kashubian) part of the area.


title: Kashubian language

text: In the 19th century, Florian Ceynowa became Kashubian's first known activist. He undertook tremendous efforts to awaken Kashubian self-identity through the establishment of Kashubian language, customs, and traditions. He felt strongly that Poles were born brothers and that Kashubia was a separate nation.


title: Kashubian language

text: The Young Kashubian movement followed in 1912, led by author and doctor Aleksander Majkowski, who wrote for the paper "Zrzësz Kaszëbskô" as part of the "Zrzëszincë" group. The group contributed significantly to the development of the Kashubian literary language.


title: Kashubian language

text: The earliest printed documents in Polish with Kashubian elements date from the end of the 16th century. The modern orthography was first proposed in 1879.


title: Kashubian language

text: Many scholars and linguists debate whether Kashubian should be recognized as a Polish dialect or separate language. From the diachronic view it is a distinct Lechitic West Slavic language, but from the synchronic point of view it is a Polish dialect. Kashubian is closely related to Slovincian, while both of them are dialects of Pomeranian. Many linguists, in Poland and elsewhere, consider it a divergent dialect of Polish. Dialectal diversity is so great within Kashubian that a speaker of southern dialects has considerable difficulty in understanding a speaker of northern dialects. The spelling and the grammar of Polish words written in Kashubian, which is most of its vocabulary, is highly unusual, making it difficult for native Polish speakers to comprehend written text in Kashubian.


title: Kashubian language

text: Like Polish, Kashubian includes about 5% loanwords from German (such as "" "art"). Unlike Polish, these are mostly from Low German and only occasionally from High German. Other sources of loanwords include the Baltic languages.


title: Kashubian language

text: The number of speakers of Kashubian varies widely from source to source, ranging from as low as 4,500 to the upper 366,000. In the 2011 census, over 108,000 people in Poland declared that they mainly use Kashubian at home, of these only 10 percent consider Kashubian to be their mother tongue, with the rest considering themselves to be native speakers of both Kashubian and Polish. The number of people who can speak at least some Kashubian is higher, around 366,000. All Kashubian speakers are also fluent in Polish. A number of schools in Poland use Kashubian as a teaching language. It is an official alternative language for local administration purposes in Gmina Sierakowice, Gmina Linia, Gmina Parchowo, Gmina Luzino and Gmina Żukowo in the Pomeranian Voivodeship. Most respondents say that Kashubian is used in informal speech among family members and friends. This is most likely because Polish is the official language and spoken in formal settings.


title: Kashubian language

text: During the Kashubian diaspora of 1855–1900, 115,700 Kashubians emigrated to North America, with around 15,000 emigrating to Brazil. Among the Polish community of Renfrew County, Ontario, Kashubian is widely spoken to this day, despite the use of more formal Polish by parish priests. In Winona, Minnesota, which Ramułt termed the "Kashubian Capital of America", Kashubian was regarded as "poor Polish," as opposed to the "good Polish" of the parish priests and teaching sisters. Consequently, Kashubian failed to survive Polonization and died out shortly after the mid-20th century.


title: Kashubian language

text: Important for Kashubian literature was "Xążeczka dlo Kaszebov" by Florian Ceynowa (1817–1881). Hieronim Derdowski (1852–1902 in Winona, Minnesota) was another significant author who wrote in Kashubian, as was Aleksander Majkowski (1876–1938) from Kościerzyna, who wrote the Kashubian national epic "The Life and Adventures of Remus". Jan Trepczyk was a poet who wrote in Kashubian, as was Stanisław Pestka. Kashubian literature has been translated into Czech, Polish, English, German, Belarusian, Slovene and Finnish. Aleksander Majkowski and Alojzy Nagel belong to the most commonly translated Kashubian authors of the 20th century. A considerable body of Christian literature has been translated into Kashubian, including the New Testament, much of it by Adam Ryszard Sikora (OFM). Franciszek Grucza graduated from a Catholic seminary in Pelplin. He was the first priest to introduce Catholic liturgy in Kashubian.


title: Kashubian language

text: The earliest recorded artifacts of Kashubian date back to the 15th century and include a book of spiritual psalms that were used to introduce Kashubian to the Lutheran church:


title: Kashubian language

text: The next few texts are also religious catechisms but this time from the Catholic Church, because the majority of Kashubians were Roman Catholic and these texts helped them become more unified in faith:


title: Kashubian language

text: Throughout the communist period in Poland (1948-1989), Kashubian greatly suffered in education and social status. Kashubian was represented as folklore and prevented from being taught in schools. Following the collapse of communism, attitudes on the status of Kashubian have been gradually changing. It has been included in the program of school education in Kashubia although not as a language of teaching or as a required subject for every child, but as a foreign language taught 3 hours per week at parents' explicit request. Since 1991, it is estimated that there have been around 17,000 students in over 400 schools who have learned Kashubian. Kashubian has some limited usage on public radio and had on public television. Since 2005, Kashubian has enjoyed legal protection in Poland as an official regional language. It is the only language in Poland with that status, which was granted by the "Act of 6 January 2005 on National and Ethnic Minorities and on the Regional Language" of the Polish Parliament. The act provides for its use in official contexts in ten communes in which speakers are at least 20% of the population. The recognition means that heavily populated Kashubian localities have been able to have road signs and other amenities with Polish and Kashubian translations on them.


title: Kashubian language

text: Friedrich Lorentz wrote in the early 20th century that there were three main Kashubian dialects. These include the


title: Kashubian language

text: Other researches would argue that each tiny region of the Kaszuby has its own dialect, as in "Dialects and Slang of Poland":


title: Kashubian language

text: A "standard" Kashubian language does not exist despite several attempts to create one; rather a diverse range of dialects takes its place. The vocabulary is heavily influenced by German and Polish and uses the Latin alphabet.


title: Kashubian language

text: There are several similarities between Kashubian and Polish. For some linguists they consider this a sign that Kashubian is a dialect of Polish but others believe that this is just a sign that the two originate from the same location. They are nevertheless related to a certain degree and their proximity has made Kashubian influenced by Polish and its various dialects.


title: Kashubian language

text: Kashubian makes use of simplex and complex phonemes with secondary place articulation , , , and . They follow the Clements and Hume (1995) constriction model, where sounds are represented in terms of constriction. They are then organized according to particular features like anterior, implying the activation of features dominating it. Due to this model, the phonemes above are treated differently from the phonemes , , , and . The vocalic place node would be placed under the C-place node and V-place nodes interpolated to preserve well-forwardness.


title: Kashubian language

text: Kashubian has simple consonants with a secondary articulation along with complex ones with secondary articulation.


title: Kashubian language

text: Among people who speak the northern dialects (including the extinct Slovincian dialect), the stress is free and partially mobile. Linguistic research on northern dialects is important for the reconstruction of the original stress in the Proto-Slavic language.


title: Diablo Canyon Power Plant

text: The Diablo Canyon Power Plant is a nuclear power plant near Avila Beach in San Luis Obispo County, California. Since the permanent shutdown of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station in 2013, Diablo Canyon has been the only operational nuclear plant and largest single power station in California. It was the subject of controversy and protests during its construction, with nearly two thousand civil disobedience arrests in a two-week period in 1981.


title: Diablo Canyon Power Plant

text: The plant has two Westinghouse-designed 4-loop pressurized-water nuclear reactors operated by Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E). Together, the twin 1100 MWe reactors produce about 18,000 GW·h of electricity annually (8.6% of total California generation and 23% of carbon-free generation), supplying the electrical needs of more than 3 million people. The plant produces electricity for about 6 cents per kWh, less than the average cost of 10.1 cents per kWh that PG&E paid for electricity from other suppliers in 2014.


title: Diablo Canyon Power Plant

text: Though it was built less than a mile from the Shoreline fault line, which was not known to exist at the time of construction, and is located less than from the Hosgri fault, a 2016 NRC probabilistic risk assessment of the plant, taking into account seismic risk, estimated the frequency of core damage at one instance per 7.6 million reactor years. The plant is located in Nuclear Regulatory Commission Region IV.


title: Diablo Canyon Power Plant

text: In 2016, PG&E announced that it plans to close the two Diablo Canyon reactors in 2024 and 2025, stating that because California's energy regulations give renewables priority over nuclear, the plant would likely only run half-time, making it uneconomical. (Nuclear plants are used for base load in order to spread their large fixed costs over as many kWh of generation as possible.) In 2020, experts at the California Independent System Operator (CAISO) warned that when the plant closes the state will reach a "critical inflection point", which will create a significant challenge to ensure reliability of the grid without resorting to more fossil fuel usage, and could jeopardize California's greenhouse gas reduction targets. In 2021 the California Energy Commission and CAISO warned that the state may have summer blackouts in future years as a result of Diablo's closure coinciding with the shutdown of four natural gas plants of 3.7GW total capacity, and the inability to rely on imported electricity during West-wide heat waves due to reduced hydroelectric capacity (from the decades-long drought) and the closure of coal plants. A 2021 report from researchers at MIT and Stanford states that keeping Diablo Canyon running until 2035 would reduce the state's carbon emissions from electricity generation by 11% every year, save the state a cumulative $2.6 billion (rising to $21 billion if kept open until 2045), and improve the reliability of the grid. Full decommissioning of the plant is estimated to take decades and cost nearly $4 billion.


title: Diablo Canyon Power Plant

text: Diablo Canyon Power Plant is on approximately of land located just west of Avila Beach, California. The power-producing portion of the plant occupies around . PG&E owns a total of 12,820 acres of land at the site.


title: Diablo Canyon Power Plant

text: Unit One is a 1138 MWe pressurized water reactor supplied by Westinghouse. It went online on May 7, 1985, and is licensed to operate through November 2, 2024. In 2006, Unit One generated 9,944,983 MW·h of electricity, at a nominal capacity factor of 99.8 percent.


title: Diablo Canyon Power Plant

text: Unit Two is a 1118 MWe pressurized water reactor supplied by Westinghouse. It went online on March 3, 1986, and is licensed to operate through August 20, 2025. In 2006, Unit Two generated 8,520,000 MW·h of electricity, at a capacity factor of 87.0 percent.


title: Diablo Canyon Power Plant

text: The plant's once-through cooling system (OTC) draws water from the Pacific Ocean to condense steam driving its turbines. Unlike evaporative cooling systems used at other plants, Diablo Canyon's OTC is designed so all water can be recycled, and to assure minimal impact on ocean ecosystems. Reactors can be throttled back during heavy storm surges to prevent an excess of kelp from entering the cooling water intake, and power is limited during operation so that water returned to the ocean is no more than warmer than ambient temperature.


title: Diablo Canyon Power Plant

text: All thermal power stations in California using OTC systems for cooling employ various filtering capabilities to prevent larvae and other aquatic objects from being drawn into impacts with the grids on the intake tubes, known as entrainment. The Diablo Canyon facility was ranked 13th in estimated power station bio-fouling and egg larvae damage in the state of California in 2013; the less productive fossil gas power units 6 & 7 at Moss Landing Power Plant were ranked as having a far higher impact on fish larvae. In 2014, the California Water Board released a white paper detailing the costs to convert Diablo Canyon to utilize cooling towers instead of the once-through cooling cycle. These upgrade cost estimates have been the subject of controversy and debate, with some arguing instead for construction of an artificial reef to better offset the environmental impact of diminished larvae spawning.


title: Diablo Canyon Power Plant

text: The plant produces electricity for about 6 cents per kWh, less than the average cost of 10.1 cents per kWh that PG&E paid for electricity from other suppliers in 2014.


title: Diablo Canyon Power Plant

text: There are approximately 1,200 employees of Pacific Gas & Electric and 200 employees of subcontractors at the Diablo Canyon site. Several unions represent the workforce at Diablo, among them the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) and the International Association of Machinists. The routine outages for maintenance, and the complex process of refueling, create more than 1,000 temporary jobs, according to PG&E.


title: Diablo Canyon Power Plant

text: Pacific Gas & Electric Company went through six years of hearings, referendums and litigation to have the Diablo Canyon plant approved. A principal concern about the plant is whether it can be sufficiently earthquake-proof; the site was deemed safe when construction began in 1968, but a seismic fault (the Hosgri fault) had been discovered several miles offshore by the time the plant was completed in 1973. This fault experienced a 7.1 magnitude quake 10 miles offshore on November 4, 1927, and thus is capable of generating forces equivalent to approximately of those felt in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.


title: Diablo Canyon Power Plant

text: The company updated its plans and added structural supports designed to reinforce stability in case of earthquake. In September 1981, PG&E discovered that a single set of blueprints was used for these structural supports; workers were supposed to have reversed the plans when switching to the second reactor, but did not. Nonetheless, on March 19, 1982, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission decided not to review its 1978 decision approving the plant's safety, despite these and other design errors.


title: Diablo Canyon Power Plant

text: In response to concern that ground acceleration, or shaking, could cause spillage of submerged fuel rod assemblies which could ignite upon exposure to air, PG&E and NRC regulators insist that the foregoing scenario is anticipated and controlled for, and that there is no basis to anticipate spillage. The launch of additional seismic studies did not delay re-issuance of the operating licenses for the two onsite units.


title: Diablo Canyon Power Plant

text: The Nuclear Regulatory Commission's estimate of the risk each year of an earthquake intense enough to cause core damage to the reactor at Diablo Canyon was 1 in 23,810, according to an NRC study published in August 2010.


title: Diablo Canyon Power Plant

text: In 2009, PG&E applied to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) for 20-year license renewals for both reactors.


title: Diablo Canyon Power Plant

text: In April 2011, in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear incident in Japan, PG&E asked the NRC not to issue license renewals until PG&E could complete new seismic studies, which were expected to take at least three years.


title: Diablo Canyon Power Plant

text: On June 24, 2013, at 9:20 PM PDT, Diablo Canyon experienced a loss of offsite power to the startup transformers of both units due to a failure on the 230 kV transmission system. At the time, none of the startup transformers were loaded as both units were online and their electrical systems were at the time being powered by the plant's turbine generators. However, the emergency diesel generators were started with no load during the outage as a precaution in case either unit tripped offline while offsite power was unavailable. The electrical output of the plant via the 500 kV transmission system was not interrupted, allowing both units to remain online during the outage.


title: Diablo Canyon Power Plant

text: Diablo Canyon was built and entered service in the midst of legal challenges and civil disobedience from the anti-nuclear protesters of the Abalone Alliance. Over a two-week period in 1981, 1,900 activists were arrested and sent to jail for protesting at Diablo Canyon Power Plant, including musician/activist Jackson Browne. It was the largest arrest total in the history of the U.S. anti-nuclear movement.


title: Diablo Canyon Power Plant

text: In spring of 2011, State Senator Sam Blakeslee and US Representative Lois Capps both expressed concern for a renewed safety review. Speaking before the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, Representative Capps stated that she believed the "Nuclear Regulatory Commission should stay the license renewal process until the completion of independent, peer reviewed, advanced seismic studies of all faults in the area." The Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility began circulating a petition to similar effect, going further and calling for an outright halt to relicensing. An array of San Luis Obispo-based anti-nuclear groups including Mothers for Peace also called for closure of the plant.


title: Diablo Canyon Power Plant

text: Due to international reactions to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, concerns have continued over the ongoing operations of Diablo Canyon which, like the reactors at Fukushima, is in an area prone to earthquakes and tsunami. The elevation of the Fukushima site is approximately 20 feet above sea level, while Diablo Canyon sits on a bluff 85 feet above sea level. According to Victor Dricks, senior public affairs officer for NRC Region IV, the Commission conducted a nationwide review of nuclear power plants for their capacity to respond to earthquakes, power outages and other catastrophic events, and Diablo was found to have "a high level of preparedness and strong capability in terms of equipment and procedures to respond to severe events."


title: Diablo Canyon Power Plant

text: On June 2, 2011, the NRC announced that it would delay the environmental part of the re-licensing application but that it had completed the safety portion. A few days later, the Atomic Safety Licensing Board (ASLB) indicated that it would defer adjustment of the adjudicatory schedule of the four contentions brought by San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace (SLOMFP), a community-based anti-nuclear organization, accordingly. The ASLB made no findings regarding the merits of the contentions; both PG&E and SLOMFP claimed these developments as victories.


title: Diablo Canyon Power Plant

text: S. David Freeman, a former general manager of the Sacramento Municipal Utility District for four years, criticized the continued operation of Diablo Canyon, calling nuclear power the "most expensive and dangerous source of energy on Earth." According to Freeman, Diablo Canyon and the since-closed San Onofre nuclear plant are both "disasters waiting to happen: aging, unreliable reactors sitting near fault zones on the fragile Pacific Coast, with millions or hundreds of thousands of Californians living nearby."


title: Diablo Canyon Power Plant

text: In January 2016, several authors of An Ecomodernist Manifesto (including Robert Stone, David Keith, Stewart Brand, Michael Shellenberger, Mark Lynas) signed an open letter to California Governor Jerry Brown, Tony Earley, CEO of Pacific Gas & Electric, and California state officials, urging that the plant not be closed. They argued that Diablo is an asset for California in achieving global warming goals since it does not emit greenhouse gases like a natural gas power plant, which are a major contributor to global warming.


title: Diablo Canyon Power Plant

text: S. David Freeman and Damon Moglen from the environmental advocacy group Friends of the Earth, (which was founded in 1969 to oppose Diablo Canyon's construction), commissioned a study to estimate whether it could be cost-effective to replace Diablo with zero-carbon resources. Their study estimated that California will need less grid electricity in the next two decades, and that expected costs to extend Diablo's licenses would be around $17 B vs. $12–15 B for replacing it with renewables and energy efficiency. Freeman and Moglen then arranged for a meeting with PG&E's vice president of policy and federal affairs to present her with their report. The group then invited Ralph Cavanagh from the Natural Resources Defense Council, as well as other environmental groups. They also included the plant's unions in their discussion, who agreed to closing the plant after being offered $350 million for retraining programs and retention bonuses.


title: Diablo Canyon Power Plant

text: On June 21, 2016, PG&E announced a Joint Proposal with Friends of the Earth, the Natural Resources Defense Council, Environment California, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 1245, Coalition of California Utility Employees, and Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility to increase investment in energy efficiency, renewables and storage, while phasing out nuclear power. Critics objected to the proposal, pointing out PG&E had selected parties to the proposal without any public notice or input.


title: Diablo Canyon Power Plant

text: One reason given by PG&E for the closure is that under California's electricity regulations, renewables are given priority over nuclear and fossil-fuel generation, which would likely have resulted in Diablo only running half-time, and because nuclear plants have large fixed costs, this would essentially double its per-kWh generation costs.


title: Diablo Canyon Power Plant

text: PG&E's CEO stated: “I am sorry to see it go, because from a national energy policy standpoint, we need greenhouse gas-free electricity,” Earley said. “But we are regulated by the state of California, and California’s policies are driving this."


title: Diablo Canyon Power Plant

text: Specifically, the operating licenses for Diablo Canyon Units 1 and 2 would not be renewed when they expire on November 2, 2024 and August 26, 2025, respectively. PG&E's application to close Diablo Canyon, including the Joint Proposal, was approved by the California Public Utilities Commission in January 2018. In February, PG&E withdrew its application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for a licensing extension.


title: Diablo Canyon Power Plant

text: In October 2020, experts at the California Independent System Operator (CAISO) warned that when the plant retires the state will reach a "critical inflection point", which will create a significant challenge to ensure reliability of the grid without resorting to more fossil fuel usage, and could jeopardize California's greenhouse gas reduction targets.


title: Diablo Canyon Power Plant

text: According to David G. Victor, professor of innovation and public policy at UC San Diego: "The politics against nuclear power in California are more powerful and organized than the politics in favor of a climate policy."


title: Diablo Canyon Power Plant

text: A 2021 report from researchers at MIT and Stanford states that keeping Diablo Canyon running until 2035 would reduce the state's carbon emissions from electricity generation by 11% every year, save the state a cumulative $2.6 billion, and improve the reliability of the grid. They state that three factors have changed since the 2018 decision to close the plant: the state passed a new law (sb100) which requires 100% emissions-free electricity generation by 2045, the whole western US region is in a continuing mega-drought (limiting hydroelectric generation), and demand for electricity has outpaced supply, especially during heatwaves. They also stated that keeping Diablo operating until 2045 would save the state a cumulative $21 billion.


title: Diablo Canyon Power Plant

text: Steven Chu, energy secretary in the Obama administration, endorsed the study and said: “We are not in a position in the near-term future to go to 100% renewable energy, and there will be times when the wind doesn’t blow, the sun doesn’t shine and we will need some power that we can turn on and dispatch at will, and that leaves two choices: fossil fuel or nuclear" and he noted that countries that have shut down their nuclear plants have ended up using more fossil fuels. He also called the decision to shutdown the plant "distressing" and said “Nuclear power is something we should reconsider, and we should ask PG&E to reconsider.”


title: Diablo Canyon Power Plant

text: Some of the continued generation from the plant could be used for relieving the drought-caused water shortages by powering a desalination plant (costing half as much as the Carlsbad desalination plant for the same capacity), or to generate hydrogen as a carbon-free fuel for manufacturing and transportation uses, at half the cost of producing it with wind or solar power, with a smaller land footprint.


title: Diablo Canyon Power Plant

text: In October 2021 the California Energy Commission and CAISO stated that the state may have summer blackouts in future years as a result of Diablo's closure coinciding with the shutdown of four natural gas plants of 3.7GW total capacity, and inability to rely on imported electricity during West-wide heat waves. (The reduction of importable electricity is due to both the decades-long drought reducing hydroelectric capacity, and the closing of coal plants.)


title: Diablo Canyon Power Plant

text: In a November 2021 opinion article, the editorial board of "The Washington Post" said: "If the state is serious about achieving carbon neutrality over the next few decades — and it should be — it cannot start by shutting down a source of emissions-free energy that accounts for nearly 10 percent of its in-state electricity production. A new report from experts at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stanford University has made that point clearly: Closing down Diablo Canyon would be the definition of climate incoherence." and "The report finds that without Diablo Canyon, the state’s electricity shortage would have been three times as severe during last year’s [2020] massive blackouts." and "Closing Diablo Canyon would make the state’s energy transition costlier, longer and more chaotic."


title: Diablo Canyon Power Plant

text: In February 2022 a group of 79 scientists published an open letter highlighting that the plant provides 18 TWh of low-carbon electricity annually and its closure is at odds with decarbonization goals.


title: Diablo Canyon Power Plant

text: In response to these concerns, in August 2022 California Governor Gavin Newsom proposed providing PG&E with a $1.4 billion loan to support the continued operation of Diablo Canyon for another five to 10 years. The California Legislature approved the loan on September 1 with the passage of Senate Bill 846. The bill also charged the California Public Utilities Commission with monitoring cost increases that might make the plant uneconomical to operate and to close the plant if its operations “prove to be economically disadvantageous, or even financially catastrophic, for California electricity consumers”. PG&E is also expected to seek funding from a $6 billion federal program intended to support the continued operation of nuclear plants facing closure. PG&E filed to renew the plant's operating licenses with the NRC in October 2022. Regulatory approvals will also be needed from the U.S. Department of Energy, California State Lands Commission, California Energy Commission, California Coastal Commission, and California Public Utilities Commission.


title: Diablo Canyon Power Plant

text: The Department of Energy approved $1.1 billion in funding in November from the Civil Nuclear Credit program which was included in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.


title: Diablo Canyon Power Plant

text: In 2011, Angela Merkel announced that Germany would shut down all its nuclear plants (which at the time generated 25% of the country's electricity) by 2022 and replace that lost generation with renewables. The nuclear reductions that have taken place have resulted in 27% of the country's electricity coming from coal, and increased usage of natural gas, with 40% of that coming from Russia. David Frum states that Americans, particularly Californians, should take a lesson from this as it relates to Diablo Canyon's scheduled closure.


title: Diablo Canyon Power Plant

text: Diablo Canyon was originally designed to withstand a 6.75 magnitude earthquake from four faults, including the nearby San Andreas and Hosgri faults, but was later upgraded to withstand a 7.5 magnitude quake. It has redundant seismic monitoring and a safety system designed to shut it down promptly in the event of significant ground motion.


title: Diablo Canyon Power Plant

text: The Diablo Canyon Independent Safety Committee (DCISC) was established as a part of a settlement agreement entered into in June 1988 between the Division of Ratepayer Advocates of the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), the Attorney General for the State of California, and Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E). It consists of three members, one each appointed by the Governor, the Attorney General and the Chairperson of the California Energy Commission. They serve staggered three-year terms. The committee has no authority to direct PG&E personnel.


title: Diablo Canyon Power Plant

text: The Nuclear Regulatory Commission defines two emergency planning zones around nuclear power plants: a plume exposure pathway zone with a radius of , concerned primarily with exposure to, and inhalation of, airborne radioactive contamination, and an ingestion pathway zone of about , concerned primarily with ingestion of food and liquid contaminated by radioactivity.


title: Diablo Canyon Power Plant

text: The 2010 U.S. population within of Diablo Canyon was 26,123, an increase of 50.2% in a decade, according to an analysis of U.S. Census data for msnbc.com. The 2010 U.S. population within was 465,521, an increase of 22.4% since 2000. Cities within 50 miles include San Luis Obispo (12 miles to city center) and Paso Robles (31 miles to city center).


title: Diablo Canyon Power Plant

text: Emergency sirens were installed when the plant initially went operational. Federal law requires an early warning system that radiates out 10 miles from any nuclear facility. The county siren coverage goes farther, extending from Cayucos in the north to upper Nipomo to the south. All businesses are required to have a siren information sticker in their business generally located within the restrooms. Schools, government offices, and any other public building will have a PAZ card (Protective Action Zone). These cards show the 12 zones of evacuation with zone one being the plant itself. The cards also show the direction of evacuation on the highways.


title: Clive James

text: Clive James (born Vivian Leopold James; 7 October 1939 – 24 November 2019) was an Australian critic, journalist, broadcaster, writer and lyricist who lived and worked in the United Kingdom from 1962 until his death in 2019. He began his career specialising in literary criticism before becoming television critic for "The Observer" in 1972, where he made his name for his wry, deadpan humour.


title: Clive James

text: During this period, he earned an independent reputation as a poet and satirist. He achieved mainstream success in the UK first as a writer for television, and eventually as the lead in his own programmes, including "...on Television".


title: Clive James

text: James was born Vivian Leopold James in Kogarah, a southern suburb of Sydney. He was allowed to change his name as a child because "after Vivien Leigh played Scarlett O'Hara the name became irrevocably a girl's name no matter how you spelled it". He chose "Clive", the name of Tyrone Power's character in the 1942 film "This Above All".


title: Clive James

text: James's father, Albert Arthur James, was taken prisoner by the Japanese during World War II. Although he survived the prisoner-of-war camp, he died when the American B-24 carrying him and other freed allied POWs ran into the tail of a typhoon en route from Okinawa to Manila, and crashed into the mountains of southeastern Taiwan. He was buried at Sai Wan War Cemetery in Hong Kong. James would later state that his life's works originated in his father's death.


title: Clive James

text: James, an only child, was brought up by his mother (Minora May, née Darke), a factory worker, in the Sydney suburbs of Kogarah and Jannali, living some years with his English maternal grandfather.


title: Clive James

text: He was educated at Sydney Technical High School (despite winning a bursary award to Sydney Boys High School) and the University of Sydney, where he studied English and psychology from 1957 to 1960, and became associated with the Sydney Push, a libertarian intellectual subculture. At the university, he contributed to the student newspaper, "Honi Soit", and directed the annual students' union revue. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts with Honours in English in 1961. After graduating, James worked for a year as an assistant editor for the magazine page at "The Sydney Morning Herald".


title: Clive James

text: In 1962, James moved to England, which became his home for the rest of his life. During his first three years in London, he shared a flat with the Australian film director Bruce Beresford (disguised as "Dave Dalziel" in the first three volumes of James's memoirs), was a neighbour of Australian artist Brett Whiteley, became acquainted with Barry Humphries (disguised as "Bruce Jennings") and had a variety of occasionally disastrous short-term jobs – sheet metal worker, library assistant, photo archivist and market researcher.


title: Clive James

text: James gained a place at Pembroke College, Cambridge, to read English literature. While there, he contributed to all the undergraduate periodicals, was a member and later President of the Cambridge Footlights, and appeared on "University Challenge" as captain of the Pembroke team, beating St Hilda's, Oxford, but losing to Balliol on the last question in a tied game.


title: Clive James

text: During one summer vacation, he worked as a circus roustabout to save enough money to travel to Italy. His contemporaries at Cambridge included Germaine Greer (known as "Romaine Rand" in the first three volumes of his memoirs), Simon Schama and Eric Idle. Having, he claimed, scrupulously avoided reading any of the course material (but having read widely otherwise in English and foreign literature), James graduated with a 2:1—better than he had expected—and began a PhD thesis on Percy Bysshe Shelley.


title: Clive James

text: James became the television critic for "The Observer" in 1972, remaining in the role until 1982. Mark Lawson described a James review as "so funny it was dangerous to read while holding a hot drink". He was at times merciless. Selections from the column were published in three books – "Visions Before Midnight", "The Crystal Bucket" and "Glued to the Box" – and finally in a compendium, "On Television". He wrote literary criticism for newspapers, magazines and periodicals in Britain, Australia and the United States, including, among many others, the "Australian Book Review", "The Monthly", "The Atlantic", "The New York Review of Books", "The Liberal" and "The Times Literary Supplement". John Gross included James's essay "A Blizzard of Tiny Kisses" in the "Oxford Book of Essays" (1992, 1999).


title: Clive James

text: "The Metropolitan Critic" (1974), his first collection of literary criticism, was followed by "At the Pillars of Hercules" (1979), "From the Land of Shadows" (1982), "Snakecharmers in Texas" (1988), "The Dreaming Swimmer" (1992), "Even As We Speak" (2001), "The Meaning of Recognition" (2005) and "Cultural Amnesia" (2007), a collection of miniature intellectual biographies of over 100 significant figures in modern culture, history and politics. A defence of humanism, liberal democracy and literary clarity, the book was listed among the best of 2007 by "The Village Voice". Another volume of essays, "The Revolt of the Pendulum", was published in June 2009.


title: Clive James

text: He also published "Flying Visits", a collection of travel writing for "The Observer". For many years, until mid-2014, he wrote the weekly television critique page in the "Review" section of the Saturday edition of "The Daily Telegraph".


title: Clive James

text: James published several books of poetry, including "Poem of the Year" (1983), a verse-diary; "Other Passports: Poems 1958–1985", a first collection; and "The Book of My Enemy" (2003), a volume that takes its title from his poem "The Book of My Enemy Has Been Remaindered".


title: Clive James

text: He published four mock-heroic poems – "The Fate of Felicity Fark in the Land of the Media: a moral poem" (1975), "Peregrine Prykke's Pilgrimage Through the London Literary World" (1976), "Britannia Bright's Bewilderment in the Wilderness of Westminster" (1976) and "Charles Charming's Challenges on the Pathway to the Throne" (1981) – and one long autobiographical epic, "The River in the Sky" (2018).


title: Clive James

text: Atkin and James toured together to promote both the final album – a "contractual obligation" collection consisting of parodies and humour numbers written over the years - and James's own "Felicity Fark" epic poem. James wrote the album sleeve notes, which mostly linked the songs with thinly disguised jibes at popular artists and trends. On stage James both read from his poem, and introduced the album songs. Despite the success of the tour, there were no more recordings by Atkin, who pursued other opportunities and eventually became a BBC radio producer.


title: Clive James

text: A revival of interest in the songs in the late 1990s, triggered largely by the creation by Steve Birkill of an Internet mailing list "Midnight Voices" in 1997, led to the reissue of the six albums on CD between 1997 and 2001, as well as live performances by the pair. A double album of previously unrecorded songs written in the seventies and entitled "The Lakeside Sessions: Volumes 1 and 2" was released in 2002 and "Winter Spring", an album of new material written by James and Atkin was released in 2003. This was followed by "Midnight Voices", an album of remakes of the best Atkin/James songs from the early albums, and, in 2015, by "The Colours of the Night", which included several newly completed songs.


title: Clive James

text: James acknowledged the importance of the "Midnight Voices" group in bringing to wider attention the lyric-writing aspect of his career. He wrote in November 1997, "That one of the midnight voices of my own fate should be the music of Pete Atkin continues to rank high among the blessings of my life".


title: Clive James

text: In 2013, he issued his translation of Dante's "Divine Comedy". The work, adopting quatrains to translate the original's terza rima, was well received by Australian critics. Writing for "The New York Times", Joseph Luzzi thought it often failed to capture the more dramatic moments of the "Inferno", but that it was more successful where Dante slows down, in the more theological and deliberative cantos of the "Purgatorio" and "Paradiso".


title: Clive James

text: In 1980 James published his first book of autobiography, "Unreliable Memoirs", which recounted his early life in Australia and extended to over 100 reprintings. It was followed by four other volumes of autobiography: "Falling Towards England" (1985), which covered his London years; "May Week Was in June" (1990), which dealt with his time at Cambridge; "North Face of Soho" (2006); and "The Blaze of Obscurity" (2009), concerning his subsequent career as a television presenter. An omnibus edition of the first three volumes was published under the generic title of "Always Unreliable". James also wrote four novels: "Brilliant Creatures" (1983); "The Remake" (1987); "Brrm! Brrm!" (1991), published in the United States as "The Man from Japan"; and "The Silver Castle" (1996).


title: Clive James

text: In 1999, John Gross included an excerpt from "Unreliable Memoirs" in "The New Oxford Book of English Prose". John Carey chose "Unreliable Memoirs" as one of the 50 most enjoyable books of the 20th century in his book "Pure Pleasure" (2000).


title: Clive James

text: James developed his television career as a guest commentator on various shows, including as an occasional co-presenter with Tony Wilson on the first series of "So It Goes", the Granada Television pop music show. On the show when the Sex Pistols made their TV debut, James commented: "During the recording, the task of keeping the little bastards under control was given to me. With the aid of a radio microphone, I was able to shout them down, but it was a near thing ... they attacked everything around them and had difficulty in being polite even to each other".


title: Clive James

text: James subsequently hosted the ITV show "Clive James on Television", in which he showcased unusual or (often unintentionally) amusing television programmes from around the world, notably the Japanese TV show "Endurance". After his move to the BBC in 1988, he hosted a similarly-formatted programme called "Saturday Night Clive" (1989–1991), which began on BBC2 but was popular enough to move to BBC1 in 1991. It returned in 1994 on Sunday nights, under the title "Sunday Night Clive".


title: Clive James

text: In 1995 he set up Watchmaker Productions to produce "The Clive James Show" for ITV, and a subsequent series launched the British career of singer and comedian Margarita Pracatan. James hosted one of the early chat shows on Channel 4 and fronted the BBC's "Review of the Year" programmes in the late 1980s ("Clive James on the '80s") and 1990s ("Clive James on the '90s"), which formed part of the channel's New Year's Eve celebrations.


title: Clive James

text: In the mid-1980s, James featured in a travel programme called "Clive James in..." (beginning with "Clive James Live in Las Vegas") for LWT (now ITV) and later switched to BBC, where he continued producing travel programmes, this time called "Clive James's Postcard from..." (beginning with "Clive James's Postcard from Miami") – these also eventually transferred to ITV. He was also one of the original team of presenters of the BBC's "The Late Show", hosting a round-table discussion on Friday nights.


title: Clive James

text: His major documentary series "Fame in the 20th Century" (1993) was broadcast in the United Kingdom by the BBC, in Australia by the ABC and in the United States by the PBS network. This series dealt with the concept of "fame" in the 20th century, following over a course of eight episodes (each one chronologically and roughly devoted to one decade of the century, from the 1900s to the 1980s) discussions about world-famous people of the 20th century. Through the use of film footage, James presented a history of "fame" which explored its growth to today's global proportions. In his closing monologue he remarked, "Achievement without fame can be a rewarding life, while fame without achievement is no life at all."


title: Clive James

text: Clive also participated as a contestant on the 42nd episode of Japanese game show "Takeshi's Castle" and made a short documentary about it.


title: Clive James

text: A well known fan of motor racing, James presented the , and official Formula One season review videos produced by the Formula One Constructors Association, more commonly known as FOCA. James, who attended most F1 races during the 1980s and was a friend of former FOCA boss Bernie Ecclestone, added his own humour to the reviews which became popular with fans of the sport. He also presented "The Clive James Formula 1 Show" for ITV to coincide with their Formula One coverage in .


title: Clive James

text: He summed up the medium in the introduction to "Glued to the Box": "Anyone afraid of what he thinks television does to the world is probably just afraid of the world."


title: Clive James

text: In 2007, James started presenting the BBC Radio 4 series "A Point of View", with transcripts appearing in the "Magazine" section of BBC News Online. In this programme James discussed various issues with a slightly humorous slant. Topics covered included media portrayal of torture, young black role models and corporate rebranding. Three of James's broadcasts in 2007 were shortlisted for the 2008 Orwell Prize.


title: Clive James

text: In October 2009, James read a radio version of his book "The Blaze of Obscurity" on BBC Radio 4's "Book of the Week" programme. In December 2009, James talked about the P-51 Mustang and other American fighter aircraft of World War II in "The Museum of Curiosity" on BBC Radio 4.


title: Clive James

text: In May 2011, the BBC published a new podcast, "A Point of View: Clive James", which features all sixty "A Point of View" programmes presented by James between 2007 and 2009.


title: Clive James

text: He posted vlog conversations from his internet show "Talking in the Library", including conversations with Ian McEwan, Cate Blanchett, Julian Barnes, Jonathan Miller and Terry Gilliam. In addition to the poetry and prose of James himself, the site featured the works of other literary figures such as Les Murray and Michael Frayn, as well as the works of painters, sculptors and photographers such as John Olsen and Jeffrey Smart.


title: Clive James

text: In 2008 James performed in two eponymous shows at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe: "Clive James in Conversation" and "Clive James in the Evening". He took the latter show on a limited tour of the UK in 2009.


title: Clive James

text: He famously described Arnold Schwarzenegger, in his bodybuilding days, as looking like "a brown condom full of walnuts".


title: Clive James

text: He described the outfit Cher wore in her 1989 music video of "If I Could Turn Back Time" as a "Dress-less Evening Strap".


title: Clive James

text: He described Murray Walker, the motor-racing commentator, as "talking as if his trousers are on fire".


title: Clive James

text: He described the voice of Greek singer Demis Roussos of "having the sound of a Chihuahua caught in a revolving Dalmatian".


title: Clive James

text: He described the romantic novelist Barbara Cartland as having "Twin miracles of mascara, her eyes looked like the corpses of two small crows that had crashed into the white cliffs of Dover." He also used to call the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat by the female name "Yasmin Arafat".


title: Clive James

text: The origins of his famous remark "Whoever called snooker 'chess with balls' was rude but right" are set out by Edward Winter in his article "Clive James and Chess".


title: Clive James

text: In 1992, James was made a Member of the Order of Australia (AM). This was enhanced to Officer level (AO) in the 2013 Australia Day Honours. James was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2012 New Year Honours for services to literature and the media. In 2003 he was awarded the Philip Hodgins Memorial Medal for Literature. He received honorary doctorates from the Universities of Sydney and East Anglia. In April 2008, James was awarded a Special Award for Writing and Broadcasting by the judges of the Orwell Prize.


title: Clive James

text: He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2010. He was an Honorary Fellow of Pembroke College, Cambridge (his alma mater). In the 2015 BAFTAs, James received a special award honouring his 50-year career. In 2014, he was awarded the President's Medal by the British Academy.


title: Clive James

text: James is celebrated with a plaque on the Sydney Writers Walk on Circular Quay. It includes an excerpt on Sydney Harbour from "Unreliable Memoirs".


title: Clive James

text: James's political views were prominent in much of his later writing. While critical of communism for its tendency towards totalitarianism, he identified with the left for much of his life. In a 2006 interview in "The Sunday Times", James said of himself: "I was brought up on the proletarian left, and I remain there. The fair go for the workers is fundamental, and I don't believe the free market has a mind." In a speech given in 1991, he criticised privatisation: "The idea that Britain's broadcasting system—for all its drawbacks one of the country's greatest institutions—was bound to be improved by being subjected to the conditions of a free market: there was no difficulty in recognising that notion as politically illiterate. But for some reason people did have difficulty in realising that it was economically illiterate too." In 2001, James identified as a liberal social democrat.


title: Clive James

text: His later views were more commonly aligned with the political right. James strongly supported the 2003 invasion of Iraq, saying in 2007 that "the war only lasted a few days" and that the continuing conflict in Iraq was "the Iraq peace". He also wrote that it was "official policy to rape a woman in front of her family" during Saddam Hussein's regime and that women have enjoyed more rights since the invasion.


title: Clive James

text: In 2017, James contributed a chapter to a book on climate change published by the Institute of Public Affairs, advocating climate denialism.


title: Clive James

text: Describing religions as "advertising agencies for a product that doesn't exist", James was an atheist and saw it as the default and obvious position.


title: Clive James

text: He was also a patron of the Burma Campaign UK, an organisation that campaigns for human rights and democracy in Burma.


title: Clive James

text: In 1968, at Cambridge, James married Prudence A. "Prue" Shaw, also Australian, a graduate of the University of Sydney, the University of Florence and Somerville College, Oxford. Shaw taught Italian language and literature at the University of Cambridge, and at University College London where, since retirement in 2003, she has been emeritus reader in Italian studies. She is the author of "Reading Dante: From Here to Eternity". James and Shaw had two daughters, one of whom is the artist Claerwen James. In April 2012, the Australian Channel Nine programme "A Current Affair" ran an item in which the former model Leanne Edelsten admitted to an eight-year affair with James beginning in 2004. Shaw evicted her husband from the family home following the revelation. Before this, for most of his working life, James divided his time between a converted warehouse flat in London and the family home in Cambridge.


title: Clive James

text: After the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, James wrote a piece for "The New Yorker" entitled "Requiem", recording his overwhelming grief. From then he mainly declined to comment about their friendship, apart from some remarks in his fifth volume of memoirs, "Blaze of Obscurity".


title: Clive James

text: James was able to read, with varying fluency, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian and Japanese. A tango enthusiast, he travelled to Buenos Aires for dance lessons and had a dance floor in his house.


title: Clive James

text: James was a lifelong fan of the St George Dragons and wrote admiringly of Rugby League Immortal Reg Gasnier who was a schoolmate at Sydney Technical High School. He guest presented one episode of "The Footy Show" in 2005.


title: Clive James

text: For much of his life, James was a heavy drinker and smoker. He recorded in "May Week Was in June" his habit of filling a hubcap ashtray daily. At various times he wrote of attempts – intermittently successful – to give up drinking and smoking. He smoked 80 cigarettes a day for a number of years before giving up in 2005. He had also given up, for 13 years, from his early 30s.


title: Clive James

text: In April 2011, after media speculation that he had suffered kidney failure, James confirmed in June 2012 that B-cell chronic lymphocytic leukemia "had beaten him" and that he was "near the end". He said that he was also diagnosed with emphysema and kidney failure in early 2010.


title: Clive James

text: On 3 September 2013, an interview with journalist Kerry O'Brien, "Clive James: The Kid from Kogarah", was broadcast by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. The interview was filmed in the library of his old college at Cambridge University. In the extended interview, James discussed his illness and confronting mortality. James wrote the poem "Japanese Maple" which was published in "The New Yorker" in 2014 and described as his "farewell poem". "The New York Times" called it "a poignant meditation on his impending death".


title: Clive James

text: In a BBC interview with Charlie Stayt, broadcast on 31 March 2015, James described himself as "near to death but thankful for life". In October 2015, he admitted to feeling "embarrassment" at still being alive thanks to experimental drug treatment.


title: Gigi D'Agostino

text: Luigino Celestino di Agostino (; born 17 December 1967), known professionally as Gigi D'Agostino (), is an Italian DJ, remixer, singer and record producer. In 1986, he started his career as a DJ spinning Italo disco. His biggest chart successes include "Bla Bla Bla", "Another Way", a cover of Nik Kershaw's "The Riddle", "La Passion", "Super" and "L'Amour Toujours", all in the years 1999 and 2000. The hookline of "L'Amour Toujours" was also used for the 2018 hit remix/mashup "In My Mind".


title: Gigi D'Agostino

text: Born in Turin, Italy on 17 December 1967, to parents from Salerno, Campania, D'Agostino spent his childhood between Turin and Brescia, where the Media Records studios are located. As a child, D'Agostino wanted to be someone in the world of disco music. Starting out working as a stonemason and a fitter, he began his musical career as a DJ by organizing parties in clubs. His debut was in a club near Turin called "Woodstock". He worked also in a small club called Palladio in Cascinette d'Ivrea (30 km north from Turin) from 1987 until around 1992 and in a club called Le Palace in the Valentino Castle Garden in Turin. He was resident DJ of an Italian disco named Ultimo Impero from 1993 to 1998.


title: Gigi D'Agostino

text: D'Agostino's first release was "Noise Makers Theme", a double-A-sided record with a track by Daniele Gas on the other side, which launched the Noise Maker label, under the direction of Italo house producer Gianfranco Bortolotti. D'Agostino would continue working with Gas, as well as Mauro Picotto's production team in the following years. As a DJ, D'Agostino is known as one of the "pioneers of Mediterranean Progressive Dance", consisting of minimalistic sounds and Latin and Mediterranean melodies. As a record producer, D'Agostino's uses the pseudonym "Gigi Dag"; he transforms a piece, originally destined for the discos, into a success for the mainstream public.


title: Gigi D'Agostino

text: After successes like the track "Sweetly", he joined the team of Bortolotti, the general manager of Media Records and suddenly reached the top of the hit parades. His single "FLY", published in 1996 with BXR Noise Maker, the label created by Media Records for Mediterranea progressive house, reached the top of the sales in Italy. This was followed by his single "Gigi's Violin".


title: Gigi D'Agostino

text: Subsequently, D'Agostino released the song "Angel's Symphony" with R.A.F. by Mauro Picotto, a friend from Media Records. His biggest project was the self-titled album "Gigi D'Agostino", consisting of 19 tracks, which sold over 60,000 copies.


title: Gigi D'Agostino

text: After his rise to success, D'Agostino's musical style changed, with his sound becoming more melodic, at midway between house and progressive, with more energetic and melodious sonorities and less obsessive rhythms, also known as Italo dance.


title: Gigi D'Agostino

text: In 1997, he released the single "Gin Lemon", followed by "Your Love (Elisir)" (1998), "Cuba Libre" (1999), and "Bla Bla Bla" (1999). He later released the album "Eurodance Compilation", which contained five unpublished tracks. With this compilation, he earned a platinum disc and was awarded "Best Producer in 1999" at the Italian Dance Awards. In October, D'Agostino released another hit single, entitled "Another Way".


title: Gigi D'Agostino

text: In 1999, his album "L'Amour Toujours" (released in 2001 in the United States) included 23 tracks on two CDs, with the hit song "L'Amour Toujours" bringing him to the 10th position in the sales parade in Italy; as a result, he earned another Platinum Disc. His 1999 single "Bla Bla Bla" became a major hit in Europe. He described the single as "a piece I wrote thinking of all the people who talk and talk without saying anything!"


title: Gigi D'Agostino

text: In 2000, his remake of the Nik Kershaw song "The Riddle" sold 1,000,000 copies in Germany and 200,000 copies in France. He also released the albums "Tecno Fes" (August 2000) and "Tecno Fes - EP, Vol. 2" (December 2000).


title: Gigi D'Agostino

text: In 2001, he released "L'Amour Toujours EP", consisting of three songs: two new versions of "L'amour Toujours" and "Un Giorno Credi", a single made in collaboration with Edoardo Bennato. "Un Giorno Credi" reached the top of the parades in Italy and became one of the most played songs in the national and international music networks. He was also awarded with "Best DJ-Producer of the Year" at the "Red Bull Awards" in Italy.


title: Gigi D'Agostino

text: In 2001, he also released the hit "Super", as a result of a collaboration with Albertino (an Italian music artist), which won him the awards "Best Dance Producer" at the PIM (Italian Music Award) and "Public Award" at the Danish DJs Award in Copenhagen, Denmark. In December of that year, he released "Il Grande Viaggio", a compilation of his favourite songs, including old electronic pieces and new rhythms and melodies. As a result, he was awarded with "Best Dance Producer" at the Italian Dance Awards.


title: Gigi D'Agostino

text: In 2003, he released the song "Ripassa" in the EP "", a hit which is very important for his next productions. This song helped influence Lento Violento, a subgenre that had yet to be distinguished.


title: Gigi D'Agostino

text: On 15 July 2004, his compilation "Euro Dance" won Platinum certification with 120,000 copies sold in just a few weeks.


title: Gigi D'Agostino

text: In December 2004, D'Agostino released his fourth studio album, "L'Amour Toujours II".D'Agostino has played in some well-known clubs throughout Europe, including in Italy, Spain, France, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, Germany, Switzerland, and England (in 1996, he played at the Ministry of Sound in London with Mauro Picotto).


title: Gigi D'Agostino

text: In 2006, he created his own new record label called "Noisemaker Hard" to differentiate the style of music released under his older record label, "Noisemaker".


title: Gigi D'Agostino

text: In 2007, D'Agostino released "Lento Violento ...e altre storie", a compilation which contains two CDs and his new 35 Lento Violento songs. Most important "hits" of the album are "Cammino" (a collaboration with Dimitri Mazza) and "Vorrei Fare una Canzone" (a collaboration with Gerolamo Sacco) according to YouTube views.


title: Gigi D'Agostino

text: After some months, he released the compilation "La musica che pesta" under the name "Lento Violento Man", which contains two CDs for a total of 38 unmixed tracks.


title: Gigi D'Agostino

text: From 2005 until January 2010, he had radio programs, on the Italian "Radio m2o Musica allo Stato Puro" (in English: "Music at the Pure State"), called "Il Cammino di Gigi D'Agostino" and "Quello che mi piace


title: Gigi D'Agostino

text: ". They consist of DJ sets played by Gigi, and featured new remixes of his songs and songs by Italian and international artists.


title: Gigi D'Agostino

text: In August 2011, he released a digital single "Stay With Me". This was released a few months after he postponed the release of his upcoming album "Mondo Reale".


title: Gigi D'Agostino

text: In May 2017, CBC News reported that his music is popular in the remote Canadian Inuit community of Arviat, where D'Agostino's "slicing, bass-heavy beats have a lot in common with the music of traditional Inuit drum-dancing."


title: Gigi D'Agostino

text: Since the release of his album Bla Bla Bla in 1999, many of his future covers will feature the following logo.


title: Gigi D'Agostino

text: The mark represents the character 舞, and is taken from the Chinese language and translated to English means "dance".


title: Edward Bonham Carter

text: Edward Henry Bonham-Carter (born 24 May 1960) is the vice chairman of a British fund management group, Jupiter Fund Management plc.


title: Edward Bonham Carter

text: Edward Henry Bonham-Carter was born and raised in Golders Green, London. He is the elder son of Raymond Bonham Carter, who was a merchant banker, and Elena (née Proper de Callejón), a psychotherapist of Jewish descent. He has two younger siblings: his sister is the actress Helena Bonham Carter and his brother is Thomas Bonham-Carter, who co-manages a corporate governance agency. He went to Harrow School and the University of Manchester where he studied Economics and Politics.


title: Edward Bonham Carter

text: He was appointed chief investment officer of Jupiter Fund Management in July 1999. In 2000, he took over as joint chief executive when John Duffield left over disagreements with the management of Commerzbank. In 2007 he led a management buy-out, supported by US private equity firm TA Associates in which Jupiter staff (95% of whom bought shares in Jupiter) took a majority stake in the business.


title: Edward Bonham Carter

text: In 2022, he announced his retirement from Jupiter to focus on his non-executive roles with ITV and Land Securities.


title: Larry Charles

text: Larry Charles (born ) is an American comedian, screenwriter, director, actor, and producer. He was a staff writer for the sitcom "Seinfeld" for its first five seasons. He has also directed the documentary film "Religulous" and the mockumentary comedy films "Borat", "Brüno", and "The Dictator". His Netflix documentary series "Larry Charles' Dangerous World of Comedy" premiered in 2019.


title: Larry Charles

text: Charles was raised in a Jewish family in Trump Village, located between Brighton Beach and Coney Island in Brooklyn, New York.


title: Larry Charles

text: After graduating from John Dewey High School, he attended college at Rutgers University in New Jersey, but he left school to perform comedy routines.


title: Larry Charles

text: Charles performed stand-up comedy during the 1970s until he was hired to write for the short-lived sketch comedy show "Fridays", where he worked with Larry David. This began Charles's career in television writing that included "The Arsenio Hall Show" and eventually "Seinfeld". David gave him the job as a writer on "Seinfeld" and his directorial debut on "Curb Your Enthusiasm".


title: Larry Charles

text: Although series co-creators Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld wrote the bulk of the show's episodes during the early seasons, Charles was their second in command during this period. Charles had met "Seinfeld" co-creator David when he was part of the writing staff of the ABC sketch show "Fridays", on which David and Michael Richards were also part of the show's ensemble cast. Charles had been unable to write for the show's first season, as he had been writing for "The Arsenio Hall Show".


title: Larry Charles

text: Charles is noted for contributing some of the show's darker storylines and scenes. In the season two episode "The Baby Shower" Charles wrote a dream sequence in which the title character, Jerry Seinfeld, was killed. Charles's episodes also covered such controversial topics as Nazis (in "The Limo"), a psychotic stalker (in "The Opera") and a hospital patient committing suicide (in "The Bris"). A season two episode he wrote, "The Bet", concerning Elaine buying a handgun to protect herself, was never filmed because NBC, some of the cast, and the show's director felt the gun content was too provocative. Charles claimed that his writing on "Seinfeld" was heavily influenced by "Dragnet", "Superman" and Abbott and Costello.


title: Larry Charles

text: Charles said he was instrumental in the development of Cosmo Kramer; he felt that "Jerry and George were so well-defined through Larry David and Jerry, that there was less room for me to, sort of, expand on those personas. But Kramer was very unformed at the beginning of the show and it gave me an area of creativity to, sort of, expand upon. So I spent a lot of time with Kramer because he was a character that I could have an impact on in the future of the show". It was Charles who imbued in Kramer a distrust of authority (especially in his episodes "The Baby Shower" and "The Heart Attack"), and who created the character of Kramer's notorious unseen friend Bob Sacamano, after his real-life friend of the same name.


title: Larry Charles

text: Charles's feature debut was "Masked and Anonymous" (2003) which he directed, and co-wrote with Bob Dylan (under the pseudonyms Rene Fontaine and Sergei Petrov, respectively). The film received a mixed reaction from audiences and critics alike; it did poorly at the box office. Charles maintains it takes many viewings to get true enjoyment from the film: "I want the movie to be like a great Bob Dylan song that is listened to over and over and for people to [go] back and see it again and get a lot more things, or totally different things."


title: Larry Charles

text: His second feature film as director, the Sacha Baron Cohen comedy mockumentary "Borat!", was much more successful; it "set new records in terms of profitability; on a budget of 18 million dollars, it grossed in excess of 261 million dollars." In an interview, Charles discussed how, because of the nature of the mockumentary process, he had to act as well, even if none of his performance made it to the screen: "We all, especially me, had to play a character as well. I wasn't Larry Charles when we were on the road. We all had to be in character, and we had to balance that with our aesthetic and logistical needs to produce the movie properly [...] The director also had to act." The film was nominated for Best Motion Picture — Musical or Comedy at the Golden Globes.


title: Larry Charles

text: Charles's third film was "Religulous" — a documentary about Bill Maher's take on the state of contemporary religion — which was released in October 2008.


title: Larry Charles

text: Charles rarely performs live, but has appeared at Un-Cabaret and can be heard on several of its podcasts.


title: Larry Charles

text: In 1995, Charles left the writing staff of "Seinfeld" to join that of another hugely successful mid-1990s sitcom: Paul Reiser's "Mad About You".


title: Larry Charles

text: Charles served as executive producer on two short-lived programs, "The Tick" (for which he wrote two episodes), and the "Dilbert" animated series, which he co-developed with Scott Adams and co-wrote the following episodes:


title: Larry Charles

text: In 2000, Charles began his first job as a director on "Curb Your Enthusiasm", Larry David's follow-up series to "Seinfeld" (which Larry David co-created). Charles directed 18 episodes of the hit HBO show.


title: Larry Charles

text: Charles served as an executive producer and writer on the HBO show "Entourage" for the first two seasons. The episodes that he wrote were:


title: Gaston (Beauty and the Beast)

text: Gaston is a fictional character and the main antagonist of Walt Disney Pictures' 30th animated feature film "Beauty and the Beast" (1991). Voiced by American actor and singer Richard White, Gaston is an arrogant and aggressive though charismatic and admired hunter whose unrequited advances to the intellectual Belle drive him to murder his adversary, the Beast, once he realizes she cares for him instead. Gaston is not really in love with Belle, he just wants to have her as a trophy wife, so another "hunting-trophy" to be displayed publicly as a sign of conquest, and as the most handsome man in town he must consequently have the most beautiful girl in town as his wife. Someone who can't take a "no" as a response and whose end justifies the means, thus bringing out his dark, mean, calculating and manipulative side, despite his initial appearance. Gaston serves as a foil personality to the Beast, who was once as vain as Gaston prior to his transformation.


title: Gaston (Beauty and the Beast)

text: Gaston is a character original to Disney, as he is not present in the "Beauty and the Beast" fairy tale by Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont upon which the 1991 film is based. Imagined by screenwriter Linda Woolverton, who based the character on the ex-boyfriends she dated in her past, Gaston was developed specifically for Disney's adaptation of "Beauty and the Beast" because the studio felt that the film could benefit from a strong villain, who is lacking in the original fairy tale. As the character evolves from a non-threatening aristocrat into an arrogant man relentlessly seeking Belle's hand in marriage, Gaston ultimately replaced a female relative of Belle's who the filmmakers had originally created to serve as the film's villain.


title: Gaston (Beauty and the Beast)

text: In direct contrast to his adversary the Beast, Gaston is depicted as physically handsome with an unattractive personality, both physically and emotionally embodying hypermasculinity. Both Disney and supervising animator Andreas Deja initially struggled with the concept of animating a handsome villain, which had never been attempted by the studio before. Deja ultimately based Gaston's appearance on those of handsome soap opera actors in order to create a grotesque version of the Prince Charming stock character, while some of White's own operatic mannerisms were incorporated into the character.


title: Gaston (Beauty and the Beast)

text: Gaston has been generally positively received by film critics, although some of them dismissed the character as an inferior, less memorable villain than some of the studio's previous efforts. Considered to be one of Disney's most famous villains, Gaston is frequently ranked within the top-tens of Disney villain rankings released by several media publications.


title: Gaston (Beauty and the Beast)

text: Gaston is one of several elements unique to Disney's animated adaptation of the "Beauty and the Beast" fairy tale, written by Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont. Under Richard and Jill Purdum's direction, Gaston originally resembled a "foppish aristocrat" as opposed to the strong, arrogant hunter he would ultimately be revised into; "The Huffington Post" described early drafts of Gaston as "a weaselly, sort of wimpy character." In fact, Gaston was originally intended to resemble more of an annoying than antagonistic character, while the main villainous role belonged to Belle's aunt Marguerite instead, who plotted to force Belle into marrying Gaston. This version of Gaston was abandoned along with much of the original film treatment's elements, including Marguerite, at the behest of Disney chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg.


title: Gaston (Beauty and the Beast)

text: After Katzenberg insisted that development on the film be completely overhauled, the studio ultimately decided to incorporate elements from filmmaker Jean Cocteau's 1946 film adaptation of the fairy tale into their own version of "Beauty and the Beast". Gaston, a character who does not exist in the original fairy tale, was among several elements borrowed from the live-action version of the story, based on a character Cocteau himself had created specifically for his film: Avenant, portrayed by French actor Jean Marais who also plays the Beast in a dual role. Similar to Cocteau's addition of Avenant, Gaston was created for the animated adaptation because Disney felt that the story could potentially benefit from a legitimate villain, which the original text lacks, in addition to instilling "Beauty and the Beast" with a more prominent element of danger. With Marguerite eliminated, Gaston replaced her and ultimately became a more formidable villain. Thomas S. Hischak, author of "Musicals in Film: A Guide to the Genre", observed that Gaston himself had been developed as "a new kind of Disney villain" because he is introduced as a harmless, comic individual who gradually changes and evolves into a much more sinister character as the film progresses. With its handsome villain and liberated heroine, both of whom had been developed into fully realized, multi-dimensional characters, finally established, "Beauty and the Beast"s storyline began to solidify. However, some filmmakers continued to contest whether or not Gaston was actually a strong enough villain.


title: Gaston (Beauty and the Beast)

text: In addition to eliminating Belle's sisters, screenwriter and creator Linda Woolverton introduced Gaston as a "blockheaded suitor" for the heroine, basing the character on boyfriends she had dated in the past. Several darker elements originally conceived for the film were ultimately written out of the final version, among them the idea of Gaston himself first visiting the insane asylum in which he plans on imprisoning Belle's father Maurice. After Woolverton re-wrote Belle into a more liberated Disney heroine, the animators struggled to realize the screenwriter's vision and briefly depicted the character shoving Gaston into a closet after he proposes to her, an idea Woolverton strongly contested and fought to have written out of the film in favor of Belle rejecting her suitor's proposal in a less "bitchy" way. During Gaston and the Beast's climactic battle, the character was originally intended to yell "Time to die!" to his opponent, but the writers ultimately replaced this line with "Belle is mine!" in order to return some of the scene's focus to the heroine of the story, over whom the two men are fighting. Additionally, Gaston's death was originally intended to have resulted from him being eaten alive by wolves after surviving his fall from the Beast's castle, suffering only a broken leg; this idea was ultimately discarded and eventually resurrected for Scar's death in "The Lion King" (1994). The writers also briefly deliberated having Gaston kill himself once he realizes that Belle will never love him, but this idea was also quickly discarded. Small skulls were drawn in Gaston's eyes as he descends from the Beast's castle to confirm that he does, in fact, die from his fall.


title: Gaston (Beauty and the Beast)

text: Disney hosted an open casting call for the character, which several actors attended. Among the actors who auditioned for the role was Rupert Everett, who Disney decided not to cast because the filmmakers felt that he did not sound arrogant enough to voice such a proud character; Everett would ultimately go on to voice Prince Charming, a similar character who appears in the "Shrek" film series, using the critique of not sounding arrogant enough to play Gaston to secure the role, although Charming's motives and vindictive traits were more in resemblance to that of Jafar's (as he only wanted Fiona for the throne and seized it in the same manner). American actor and opera singer Richard White was selected to voice Gaston. His initial audition was first recorded on audio cassette, a copy of which was then forwarded to Disney. White's feature film debut, the actor recalled that lyricist and executive producer Howard Ashman guided him through discovering how he would approach voicing Gaston without telling him exactly how to do it, describing having the opportunity to voice a character like Gaston as "freeing... cathartic, in a way." Although White did not feel like it was necessary for him to physically "become" his character in order to voice him, in retrospect, he admits that he acted much more like Gaston during recording sessions. Dave Kehr of the "Chicago Tribune" compared White's "brash" vocal performance to that of actor Howard Keel.


title: Gaston (Beauty and the Beast)

text: Andreas Deja served as Gaston's supervising animator. The first villainous character to whom Deja had been assigned by Disney, the animator immediately recognized that Gaston was unique in terms of Disney villains because he was not designed to frighten both the film's hero and audience, as previous Disney villains had been. In the case of Gaston, Deja stated that viewers are unable to immediately decipher whether or not the character is actually an antagonist based on his physical appearance alone. White agreed that Gaston is "full of himself, of course, but he's not recognizably villainous" until his opinions and expectations of Belle are further explored. Deja initially struggled with the idea of designing a "supremely handsome" villain, a specific instruction administered to him by Katzenberg, but he eventually grew to understand the concept upon studying the film's underlying themes of not judging a book by its cover and "deceptive appearances". Deja explained, "I understood him from a story point of view, but visually was hard", and at times argued with Katzenberg over whether or not the character was handsome enough. Some Disney executives also shared Deja's initial hesitation over the character's appearance. Deja ultimately overcame his deliberations about the character's appearance by modeling Gaston based on handsome soap opera actors, a creative decision Katzenberg approved of, explaining to the animator "the story we're trying to tell here is don't judge a book by its cover, so Gaston has to have the opposite qualities of the Beast...no one said it was going to be easy!'".


title: Gaston (Beauty and the Beast)

text: White's casting ultimately influenced Gaston's design; the animators adjusted the character's appearance after hearing White's operatic singing voice for the first time, making Gaston similarly operatic in his movements, gestures and mannerisms. According to White, Gaston's early designs initially looked "much more Brutish" before the animators ultimately decided to go in a "more beautiful" direction, basing the character "on a grotesque version" of the Prince Charming character. Describing the design process as highly collaborative between actor and animator, White would record his lines while the animators drew his character, alternating back and forth for several months. This process allowed the animators to incorporate White's acting performance into Gaston. Because White continued to perform on Broadway while working on "Beauty and the Beast", Disney would accommodate his stage career by hiring a studio to work wherever he was located. White recalled, "The experience is kind of like an actor's sandbox. You're in a room by yourself and are invited to be as creative as you can be. Anything you could imagine...they could draw!" In his book "Tradigital Animate CC: 12 Principles of Animation in Adobe Animate", author Stephen Brooks observed that Deja's challenge "was to let [audiences] know that Gaston is not as courageous as everyone says he is ... but also keep him a real and credible threat" since he is a villain nonetheless.


title: Gaston (Beauty and the Beast)

text: Both Gaston's personality and physical appearance evolved dramatically during production over the course of two and a half years. Deja incorporated physical attributes of several of Disney's "classic" villains into Gaston's design, specifically the wide chest and square jawline of Captain Hook from "Peter Pan" (1953). One particular challenge of animating a realistic-looking character like Gaston was the difficulty of having him express certain emotions that would not result in him looking too "cartoony," but at the same time trying to instill the character's performance with "life." Gaston's expressions were exaggerated to the point of which they exceeded normalcy, essentially "overacting." Deja recalled that he was constantly "walking a fine line by drawing and animating Gaston in subtle ways, yet he also had to be able to articulate emotions like arrogance, anger and evil." To make Gaston a multi-dimensional character, Deja worked to incorporate various "expressions—the sarcasm, the broadness and the expressiveness—that the handsome leading man seldom gets to show". According to Den of Geek's Simon Brew, Gaston is "animated really carefully, as it would have been easy to slip, and allow us to see the less jovial, more sinister side of his character earlier." Deja maintains "a real discipline here in holding Gaston back, to let the audience hook into him, before allowing his gradual slide." Deja also exaggerated Gaston's proportions to help audiences believe that the character could actually physically face the beast head-on. In terms of research, Deja sought inspiration from male Los Angeles residents who constantly adore themselves, observing them as they fix their hair and admire themselves in mirrors, explaining, "It was fun to observe them and bring some of that attitude to Gaston." Creating the character's chest hair, which he exposes during his performance of "Gaston", was a fiercely debated subject among animators. Deja described early renditions of the character's chest hair as "peculiar" in design because of the way in which it was combed, "from the inside out." The final version was decided via a contest, in which the animators vied to determine who could best design Gaston's chest hair. Colors were used to indicate characters' emotions and affiliations in the film; while Gaston is dressed in red to represent evil, Belle and the Beast wear blue to depict goodness. Following Gaston's success, Deja would develop a reputation of animating Disney villains, continuing with Jafar from "Aladdin" (1992) and Scar from "The Lion King" (1994).


title: Gaston (Beauty and the Beast)

text: Gaston is depicted as a very narcissistic, self-centered and superficial individual, motivated by extreme jealousy. Identified as the film's villain by the "Orlando Sentinel"s Joy Boyar, Gaston is not ugly in appearance, nor does the audience realize that he is a villain until approximately midway through the film and during "The Mob Song", a musical number he uses to convince his loyal followers to storm the Beast's castle and kill him, although traces of his villainy are first hinted after he proposes to Belle. Simon Brew of Den of Geek attributes Gaston's increasing villainy to "his raging jealousy and insecurity" that ultimately "transforms him into the story's antagonist" after he finally succumbs to "circumstance[s] of his life." The character's villainy peaks after he attempts to have Maurice incarcerated, although his transformation remains far from complete. Further distinguishing Gaston from the villains in Disney's "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" (1937) and "Sleeping Beauty" (1959), respectively, the character does not undergo a hideous physical transformation before he dies. Mania.com's Rob Vaux observed that Gaston is "small-minded" in comparison to other Disney villains because his ideas tend to resemble those of school bullies, particularly one whose ego has been inflated "by the people around him," as opposed to "grand schemes;" the character has no known desire to conquer the world, lacking ambitions beyond simply marrying the woman he is attracted to. The character is also void of both magical powers and political influence. "The Huffington Post"s Lauren Duca agreed that Gaston is "more aggressively intolerable than horrifying."