title: Rob Page

text: In May 2008, Page signed with League Two side Chesterfield. Manager Lee Richardson initially appointed Page as club captain, but after a string of poor performances and a red card at Dagenham & Redbridge, Page was dropped from the squad and his captaincy was relinquished. By the end of the season he made just eighteen starts, and Richardson announced he was willing to listen to offers for the player.


title: Rob Page

text: In July 2009, Page was offered a player-coach role at Port Vale under Micky Adams, but he decided to stay at Chesterfield. Richardson was relieved of his duties in summer 2009 and his replacement, John Sheridan brought Ian Breckin to the club, who formed a strong early defensive partnership with Page. He played a total of 42 games in the 2009–10 campaign. After an Achilles tendon injury limited Page to just two appearances in the 2010–11 season, he was released by the club in March 2011.


title: Rob Page

text: Page represented Wales, gaining 41 caps, captaining the side once. He said that captaining Wales to a 2–0 victory over Hungary in February 2005 was the proudest moment of his career. He retired from international football in September 2006, at the age of 32, citing a wish to see more of his young family. He made the decision to retire days after being re-called to the Wales squad by manager John Toshack for the Euro 2008 qualifiers.


title: Rob Page

text: In July 2011, Micky Adams again offered Page a coaching role at League Two club Port Vale. Page accepted and was given a role in the club's youth set-up. He was promoted to first team coach in May 2012, following the retirement of Geoff Horsfield. In October 2012, Page was named as the bookmaker's favourite to become the next AFC Wimbledon manager. The job instead went to Neal Ardley. In May 2013, Page was reported to be one of two names considered for the vacant management position at former club Sheffield United; however David Weir was instead appointed as manager. At the end of the 2012–13 season Port Vale were promoted into League One. On 22 September 2013, Page was put in temporary charge of first team affairs at Vale Park after Micky Adams took the decision to take time off work to have hip replacement surgery. In his first match in charge the "Valiants" recorded a 1–0 win over Tranmere Rovers at Prenton Park.


title: Rob Page

text: He was promoted to the role of assistant manager in July 2014. He was appointed caretaker-manager following Adams resignation on 18 September 2014 and was initially given "until the end of October" to prove his capabilities as manager. He won his first game in charge at Vale Park two days later after a late Mark Marshall goal gave the Vale a 2–1 victory over Barnsley. He made his first two signings at the end of the month, bringing in defenders Stéphane Zubar and Reiss Greenidge on loan. In October he made his first permanent signing, bringing in free agent striker Dany N'Guessan on a two-month contract. Having taken the club up seven league places within six weeks he was appointed as manager on a permanent basis on 29 October. He introduced a more possession-based style to the club, relying less on direct football. He was nominated for the League One Manager of the Month award in February after overseeing a run of three successive clean sheet victories in the club's six games. Following this the club went on a run of just one win in eleven games, but still finished above the relegation zone. He signed a new two-year contract in May 2015.


title: Rob Page

text: Page needed to avoid a poor start to the 2015–16 season as chairman Norman Smurthwaite warned he was prepared to make "ruthless decisions" if the club were struggling by September. Page made nine new signings during pre-season – Sam Kelly, Sam Foley, Anthony Grant, Ben Purkiss, Remie Streete, A-Jay Leitch-Smith, Jak Alnwick, Uche Ikpeazu and Ryan Inniss – citing the need to sign players who "desire success". He was nominated for the League One Manager of the Month award in November following a sequence of three wins out of four which moved Vale to the fringes of the promotion race. However a defeat to League Two side Exeter City in the Second Round of the FA Cup brought speculation over Page's future as manager. He retained his position, however, and was named as Football League manager of the week after his side overcame a 2–0 half-time deficit to beat Peterborough United 3–2 on 12 March. He led the club to a 12th-place finish he was linked with various management vacancies in the summer.


title: Rob Page

text: On 19 May 2016, Page joined Northampton Town as their new manager on a three-year contract; Northampton had just won promotion into League One as champions of League Two. He stated that he saw Northampton as "the next step for me and something I'm really looking forward to", and cited the positivity of chairman Kelvin Thomas as a major factor in his decision to join the club. The Cobblers went unbeaten in his first six games in charge and Page was named as EFL manager of the week after overseeing a 3–2 win over Milton Keynes Dons at Sixfields. The unbeaten run also included a penalty shoot-out victory over Premier League side West Bromwich Albion in the second round of the EFL Cup. Northampton's reward for eliminating West Brom was a home tie with Manchester United. However he apologised for stating that it was "men against girls" after his side slumped to a ninth defeat in eleven games with a 5–0 defeat to Bristol Rovers on 7 January. He was sacked two days later, with Northampton 16th in League One and eliminated from the FA Cup by non-league Stourbridge.


title: Rob Page

text: Page began coaching at Nottingham Forest in January 2017. He was appointed manager of the Wales under-21 team on 15 March 2017, signing a four-year deal. He was also put in charge of the under-17 and under-19 teams, and stood down from his position as a coach at Nottingham Forest. In August 2019, Page was appointed assistant coach to the senior Wales squad under manager Ryan Giggs, taking the place of Osian Roberts. His organisational skills were credited with an improvement in the team's defence.


title: Rob Page

text: Page became the caretaker-manager of the Wales senior team on 3 November 2020, following Giggs's arrest. Page oversaw a 0–0 draw with the United States in a friendly, as well as UEFA Nations League wins over the Republic of Ireland and Finland that secured Wales promotion out of League B as winners of Group 4. With Giggs on extended leave, Page continued to deputise in his place for the three international games in March 2021. After Giggs was charged with assault in April 2021, it was confirmed that Page would manage Wales at the delayed UEFA Euro 2020 finals. Wales qualified out of Group A in second-place with a 1–1 draw with Switzerland, 2–0 win over Turkey and 1–0 defeat to Italy. They went on to be eliminated at the Round of 16 stage following a 4–0 defeat to Denmark.


title: Rob Page

text: For 2022 World Cup qualification, Wales were drawn in Group E with Belgium, Czech Republic, Belarus and Estonia with Page again acting as interim manager. Wales finished second in Group E and progressed to the qualification play-off stage. On 5 June 2022, Page led Wales to a 1–0 win over Ukraine in the European qualification play-off final, to qualify for the 2022 FIFA World Cup, the country's first World Cup appearance since 1958. Fifteen days later, Giggs resigned ahead of his trial, making Page the permanent manager until the end of the World Cup. In September 2022, Page signed a four-year contract with the Football Association of Wales. Wales were eliminated from the World Cup finals with one point from the group stages, holding the United States to a 1–1 draw and losing 2–0 to Iran and 3–0 to England; Page said that his team had failed to show their "true colours" in Qatar.


title: Rob Page

text: Speaking in December 2015, Page described his preferred tactics as including attacking full-backs playing high up the pitch, a defensive midfielder allied to a more attacking central midfielder, and pace in the forward positions and on the wings.


title: Fay Ripley

text: Fay Ripley (born 26 February 1966) is an English actress, television presenter and recipe author. She is a graduate of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama (1990). Her first professional role was in the chorus of a pantomime version of "Around the World in 80 Days". Ripley's early film and television appearances were limited, so she supplemented her earnings by working as a children's entertainer and by selling menswear door-to-door. After her scenes as a prostitute were cut from "Frankenstein" (1994), Ripley gained her first major film role playing Karen Hughes in "Mute Witness" (1995).


title: Fay Ripley

text: In 1996, Ripley was cast in her breakthrough role of Jenny Gifford in the ITV series "Cold Feet". Initially a supporting role in the pilot episode, Ripley's character was expanded when a series was commissioned in 1998. She stayed with the show for three full series before leaving to take more varied roles and to spend more time with her family. She returned for a guest appearance in the fifth series.


title: Fay Ripley

text: After leaving "Cold Feet", Ripley played a succession of leading roles in comedies and dramas including "Green-Eyed Monster" (2001), "I Saw You" (2002), "The Stretford Wives" (2002), and "Dead Gorgeous" (2002). Each role won her critical acclaim. In 2006, she filmed a leading role in the ITV drama "Bon Voyage", before taking time away from acting after the birth of her second child. Ripley returned to television in 2009, starring as human resources manager Christine Frances in the ITV comedy drama "Monday Monday", and Nicola Perrin alongside Martin Clunes in BBC One's "Reggie Perrin".


title: Fay Ripley

text: Since 2009, Ripley has authored three recipe books; "Fay's Family Food" in 2009, "What's for Dinner?" in 2012 and "Fay Makes it Easy" in 2014. She is married to actor Daniel Lapaine, with whom she has two children—a daughter and a son—and is an advocate of several charities and causes.


title: Fay Ripley

text: Ripley was born in Wimbledon, southwest London to Bev(erley) William Deacon Ripley and Tina Ripley (née Forster) on 26 February 1966. Her father was a successful businessman – the son of Greater London Councilman Sydney William Leonard Ripley, J.P., D.L., whose family had owned a printing company that produced movie posters - and brother of 1960s pop singer Twinkle, and her mother an antiques dealer. They separated when Ripley was two years old and both remarried, so Ripley spent her childhood moving around Surrey between two families.


title: Fay Ripley

text: She was the only child from her parents' marriage but had several half-brothers and sisters from their new relationships. In her early life, she lived in various Surrey towns, including Walton-on-Thames, Weybridge, Esher and Cobham. Her father wanted her to have a good education so, despite the family's Protestant religion, sent her to various Catholic convent schools around the county. One was St Maur's Convent School in Weybridge, which she attended with Liza Tarbuck. Ripley did not feel academically challenged there, and later declared the school mediocre.


title: Fay Ripley

text: At school, Ripley enjoyed drama lessons, spurred on by the positive remarks she received from her drama teacher Susan Ford. She said of Ford, "When I was 15, one of the few people who said, 'Well done', was my drama teacher, and she was really brilliant. She was a powerful woman. Those women change your life. You always remember them. There was something about her. She basically made me feel very good about myself as a 15-year-old girl." Abandoning her childhood ambition to become a nurse, Ripley decided to go into acting.


title: Fay Ripley

text: Her father wanted to send her to a finishing school in Switzerland but, in an effort to rebel from her middle class Home Counties background, Ripley instead went to a local state college in Surrey, where she took A-levels in communication studies, art, and drama. During her time at the college, Ripley performed her own small shows at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. In an effort to "bring Brecht to the masses", she performed "The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui" at the 1983 festival.


title: Fay Ripley

text: After completing her A-levels, Ripley sought entry to the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. It took her three attempts before she was accepted onto an acting course at the age of 20. While at drama school, Ripley lived in a flat in Streatham, South London, during a time she described as "horrible and penniless". To support herself financially, she sold menswear door-to-door, timeshares on Kensington High Street and Oxford Street, worked as a receptionist at a health club, and spent five years as children's entertainer "Miss Chief the Clown". As Miss Chief, Ripley performed magic tricks and painted faces at children's parties. The work paid off when she was able to get a mortgage on her first flat, stating clown as her occupation.


title: Fay Ripley

text: Ripley graduated from drama school in 1990. Her first role afterwards was playing Osatko in the chorus of "Around the World in 80 Days" at the Liverpool Playhouse during the 1990–1991 pantomime season. She had ten lines in Japanese. Her next role came at the end of the year in the Manchester Royal Exchange's production of "Medea". Ripley recalled, "It was only my second job, and I took it all very seriously, in my Greek sarong and my torch of fire, having to burble in tongues."


title: Fay Ripley

text: Ripley's early television and film career was characterised by minor roles as prostitutes or mistresses; in what was to be her film debut, she filmed two scenes as a prostitute in the film "Frankenstein" (1994), directed by Kenneth Branagh. In the first scene, her character was strangled by the creature (played by Robert De Niro's stand-in). The second scene featured De Niro himself, though Ripley's character was lying dead in a mortuary throughout. Pleased with what looked like her breakout role, Ripley bought a dress for the premiere, though she was distraught when Branagh sent her a card apologising for cutting her scenes from the finished film.


title: Fay Ripley

text: The same year, she filmed the role of Karen Hughes, the sister of a mute character who believes she sees a murder, in the low-budget film "Mute Witness" (1995), directed by Anthony Waller. After "Mute Witness"s British television premiere in 1999, a "Daily Record" critic wrote that Ripley's dramatic scenes were not as good as her comic ones. In 1995, she appeared in an episode of Channel 4's Alan Davies vehicle "One for the Road" and made her last theatre appearance as a cast member in the Bush Theatre's "Two Lips, Indifferent Red".


title: Fay Ripley

text: In 1996, she had a role in Stephen Poliakoff's "Frontiers", and played a club barmaid in Dennis Potter's penultimate television series "Karaoke". The following year she had roles in the comedy film "Roseanna's Grave" (Paul Weiland, 1997), an episode of "The Bill"—as a woman whose nanny is accused of stealing from her—and a two-part episode of the Kevin Whately series "The Broker's Man" as a police officer. Her role in "The Broker's Man" was one of the few occasions on which Ripley played a police officer; she has frequently declined offers of similar roles because she does not want to "summon up the misery" to play a character that performs post-mortem examinations or investigates murders when she could be starring in more true to life and funny programmes.


title: Fay Ripley

text: In 1996, Ripley auditioned for Granada Television's "Cold Feet", a television pilot about the romances of three couples living in Manchester. She believed she was reading for the role of Rachel, the "young, pretty one", and was surprised to discover that she was wanted for Jenny, the "northern housewife". In the audition, she performed with an inelegant approximation of a local Manchester accent. The producers found her approach to the role refreshing from other actresses, who were seen as too "finger-wagging". Ripley won the role, and appeared opposite John Thomson and James Nesbitt in the programme. After the pilot won an award, ITV's director of programmes commissioned a series of "Cold Feet", so Ripley worked on improving her character's accent by speaking to locals and mimicking their speech. Her supporting character from the pilot episode was given a bigger role in the series; in the first episode (broadcast in 1998), Jenny gives birth to her first child. At that time, Ripley had never experienced childbirth, so copied birth scenes she had seen in other television series. An "Independent" review of the first series in November 1998 noted, "Fay Ripley has a range of quirky mannerisms that are more reminiscent of Elaine in "Seinfeld" than of any other Brit-com woman."


title: Fay Ripley

text: Ripley's performance in the first series won her a nomination for Best TV Comedy Actress at the British Comedy Awards 1999. For her performance in the third series (2000), in which her character separates from her husband and dates another man (played by Ben Miles), she was nominated for the British Academy Television Award for Best Actress. During pre-production of the fourth series (2001), Ripley announced to the producers that she would be leaving the show, partly because she did not want to spend five months living in Manchester away from her home in London and wanted to spend more time with her husband, and partly to take other roles which she would otherwise not be able to do. She asked the writer Mike Bullen to either kill off Jenny or have her lose a limb. Bullen refused and instead wrote a plot in which Jenny moves to New York. Ripley returned to the series for a guest appearance in the final episode (2003).


title: Fay Ripley

text: In 2000, Ripley appeared in the British dogme film "The Announcement", as well as playing lead female character Grace Bingley—opposite Paul Rhys—in the Granada television pilot "I Saw You", which used many of the same production staff as "Cold Feet". David Belcher of "The Herald" called Ripley "perfectly scatty, tousled and self-sufficient" in the role, and Joe Joseph of "The Times" complimented her comic timing. Ripley returned to "I Saw You" for a three-episode miniseries in 2002. She considers "I Saw You", in which she acted alongside her husband Daniel Lapaine, the television show she is most proud to have worked on.


title: Fay Ripley

text: Having left "Cold Feet", Ripley began to take on more leading roles; her first role was as housewife Deanna in the BBC thriller "The Green-Eyed Monster", which was broadcast in September 2001. She researched her character, a murderer, by visiting a coroner. "Guardian" critic Gareth McLean wrote of her performance, "Ripley did a good job of exorcising the ghost of Jenny Gifford [...] by coolly cranking up the insane desperation and needy malevolence to an impressive degree." In 2002, she played domestic abuse victim Donna Massey in Danny Brocklehurst's "The Stretford Wives". Ripley was initially not eager to play another character from around Manchester so soon after leaving "Cold Feet", but she changed her mind after reading the script. She did not research spousal abuse to play her character, a woman struggling to bring up her two children in a run-down house while her husband is imprisoned, because she did not find it difficult to "work out what it's like to be scared and want to protect your kids".


title: Fay Ripley

text: Also in 2002, Ripley played Rose Bell in the ITV post-war period drama "Dead Gorgeous", alongside Helen McCrory. The following year, she provided the voice of Meg in the ITV adaptation of the "Meg and Mog" children's books, before playing Jill in the third series of the BBC One sitcom "Bedtime" at the end of 2003. In 2004, Ripley had her first of three on-screen partnerships with Martin Clunes, playing Jane White in the CBBC adaptation of "Fungus the Bogeyman". The following year, she played the guest role of corrupt police inspector Sam Phillips in the BBC TV series "Hustle", a role that received praise from "The Times".


title: Fay Ripley

text: In 2006, Ripley played the role of child abductor Linda Holder in the two-part ITV drama "Bon Voyage", starring alongside Ben Miles, Rachael Blake and Daniel Ryan. She was offered the part without having to audition, and took it because she wanted the opportunity to play an antagonist. She liked the style of Canadian director John Fawcett in making the thriller, as it differed to that of other British thrillers, which she believed were poorly filmed. Ripley filmed the role in Canada during the later weeks of her second pregnancy, so her character was dressed in baggy clothes to hide her bump. Her pregnancy also caused changes to the script; originally her character was to run through a forest, fall off a cliff and "die a gruesome death". Reviewing, Thomas Sutcliffe of "The Independent" and Gareth McLean of "The Guardian" noted that Ripley's pregnancy was poorly disguised. In complimenting the performance of the whole cast, Brian McIver of the "Daily Record" praised Ripley's portrayal of Linda as "scary but sympathetic".


title: Fay Ripley

text: "Bon Voyage" marked Ripley's last television acting appearance until 2009. During that time she appeared as a guest on panel shows and talk shows. In 2009, she returned to television screens as Nicola Perrin alongside Martin Clunes' eponymous character in the BBC One sitcom "Reggie Perrin". She took the role because she had previously worked with Clunes and the writer Simon Nye. As the series was Ripley's first studio sitcom, she approached the role with apprehension; she told "The Independent on Sunday", "I basically just hung off Martin's coat-tails and hoped for the best." Ripley compared Nicola to Reggie's house-bound wife Elizabeth in the original series, noting that the modern character needed a job and independence from her husband because of changes in society. She reprised the role in the second series in 2010, after which the series was cancelled.


title: Fay Ripley

text: 2009 also saw the broadcast of "Monday Monday", an ITV comedy drama series in which Ripley plays Christine Frances, an alcoholic human resources manager at a supermarket head office that moves from London to Leeds. She took the role because it was different to characters she had previously played.


title: Fay Ripley

text: During her time on "Cold Feet", Ripley hosted the Channel 4 show "Sofa Melt", a relationships chat show in the vein of "Trisha". The show lasted for one series of 60 episodes, broadcast in 1999. In "Scotland on Sunday", critic Stewart Hennessey called Ripley's presenting fantastic and called the show itself "utterly without any intelligent merit whatsoever. It is just unmissable because the people on it are hilariously stupid. Set the vid, show it at parties." Ripley said of the show retrospectively, "It was the most terrifying thing I've ever done." In 2003, she presented a short film advocating "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" for the BBC's "Big Read" series and in 2009, she presented an episode of the Blighty documentary series "My Brilliant Britain".


title: Fay Ripley

text: In 2004, she appeared on the Star in a Reasonably Priced Car segment of "Top Gear", where she discussed her car history with presenter Jeremy Clarkson. On her celebrity lap of the "Top Gear" test track, she achieved a lap time of 1:53, making her 38th on the Suzuki Liana leader board. The same year, she participated in a major advertising venture by The National Lottery, playing "Lady Luck" alongside a unicorn voiced by Graham Norton. In 2008, she appeared alongside Martin Clunes in a series of advertisements for Tesco Direct and, since 2009, has starred with Mark Addy in a series of adverts for Tesco's various brands.


title: Fay Ripley

text: In 2007, Ripley announced that she would be writing a cookbook about family food. She said, "I want to help people prepare good food for their kids, really practical stuff that's easy, quick, healthy and you can whizz up in the blender for the baby." "Fay's Family Food" was published by Michael Joseph, an imprint of Penguin Books, in April 2009 and was selected by Marie-Claire Digby of "The Irish Times" as a "summer read". Ripley's second book, entitled "What's For Dinner", was published in April 2012. Since the release of her first book, she has resisted offers from television production companies to make her own cookery series. In November 2016, Ripley guest presented an episode of "The One Show" with Alex Jones. She guest presented an episode with Angela Scanlon in January 2017. Ripley currently narrates Grime & Punishment on C5.


title: Fay Ripley

text: Ripley met English actor James Purefoy when the two were starring in the eponymous roles in a college production of "Romeo and Juliet" in 1983. They began an 11-year relationship that ended when Ripley was 27. She was single for five years, before being introduced to Australian actor Daniel Lapaine at a party hosted by mutual friends. Neither of them thought the other was interested in dating and they drifted apart.


title: Fay Ripley

text: After meeting again on separate holidays in New York, they began dating and married in October 2001 in a ceremony in Tuscany, Italy. Ripley gave birth to the couple's first child, a daughter, in October 2002. She gave birth to a son in October 2006.


title: Fay Ripley

text: Ripley is a patron of several charities and causes. In 2007 she took part in "What's it going to take?", a campaign by Women's Aid to raise awareness of domestic abuse against women. She visited Tanzania with ActionAid in October 2008 to raise awareness of child sponsorship. While in the country, Ripley visited community projects set up by ActionAid in Bagamoyo and Mkuranga. Ripley was already sponsoring a child and had been asked by ActionAid to participate in a visit but had always declined because of conflicts with her work.


title: Fay Ripley

text: Ripley also fronted a "Climate Action Now" protest with novelist Rebecca Frayn and actress Rula Lenska in 2008, opposing government support of the then planned third runway at Heathrow Airport.


title: Servilia (mother of Brutus)

text: Servilia ( 101 BC – after 42 BC) was a Roman matron from a distinguished family, the Servilii Caepiones. She was the daughter of Quintus Servilius Caepio and Livia, thus the half-sister of Cato the Younger. She married Marcus Junius Brutus, with whom she had a son, the Brutus who, along with others in the Senate, would assassinate Julius Caesar. After her first husband's death in 77, she married Decimus Junius Silanus, and with him had a son and three daughters.


title: Servilia (mother of Brutus)

text: She gained fame as the mistress of Julius Caesar, whom her son Brutus and son-in-law Gaius Cassius Longinus, would assassinate in 44 BC. Her affair with Caesar seems to have been publicly known in Rome at the time. Plutarch stated that she in turn was madly in love with Caesar. The relationship between the two probably started in 59, after the death of Servilia's second husband although Plutarch implied it began when they were teenagers.


title: Servilia (mother of Brutus)

text: Servilia was a patrician who could trace her line back to Gaius Servilius Ahala, and was the of Livia and Quintus Servilius Caepio. Her parents had two other children, a younger Servilia and a Gnaeus Servilius Caepio; her father also likely had another son named Quintus Servilius Caepio from an earlier marriage. They divorced when she was three or four, and her mother then married Marcus Porcius Cato. From this union, Servilia's half-brother, Cato the Younger, and half-sister, Porcia, were born.


title: Servilia (mother of Brutus)

text: However, her mother and stepfather both died before 91 BC. As a result, Servilia, her younger siblings, and her half-siblings were all brought up in the house of their maternal uncle, Marcus Livius Drusus. He was assassinated during his tribunate in 91 BC, in his own atrium, when Servilia was nine. Her father was ambushed and killed in the immediately ensuing Social War, a war triggered by Drusus' assassination, mere months after her uncle's murder. After this she was probably brought up either by her other maternal uncle Mamercus Aemilius Lepidus Livianus, her maternal grandmother Cornelia or her paternal aunt Servilia. At adulthood, Servilia became legally independent and gained a considerable estate.


title: Servilia (mother of Brutus)

text: Servilia truly had great influence on her half-brother Cato the Younger. He was considered to be tough and wild as a child, which frames Servilia as his equal in those respects.


title: Servilia (mother of Brutus)

text: As a young girl belonging to Roman ruling class, Servilia would have been well educated. She likely would have been taught to read, write, sing, dance, and play an instrument. She would have read poetry, epics, and histories.


title: Servilia (mother of Brutus)

text: At the age of 13 or 14, she married Marcus Junius Brutus in the early 80s, who later was tribune of the plebs (83 BC) and founder of a colony at Capua. They had one child, the future tyrannicide Marcus Junius Brutus, born around 85 BC. This was a profitable marriage for Brutus, who would gain fortune, stability, and political traction through Servilia. Although the elder Brutus survived Sulla's proscriptions, he was treacherously killed by Pompey after surrendering at Mutina in 77 BC. After the death of the elder Brutus, Servilia's bond with her son grew. She also arranged for her son to be adopted into her family, allowing for the name of the Servilii Caepiones to be preserved.


title: Servilia (mother of Brutus)

text: Servilia subsequently married Decimus Junius Silanus, by whom she had three daughters. Her daughters were all married into prominent and politically active families, Her first daughter married Publius Servilius Vatia Isauricus; her second married Marcus Aemilius Lepidus (later triumvir); and her third daughter married Gaius Cassius Longinus. Servilia was well connected and facilitated these advantageous marriages herself.


title: Servilia (mother of Brutus)

text: It is speculated that either soon after she married Silanus, or after the births of her daughters, Servilia's notorious affair with Caesar began. Silanus is not depicted to have been against the affair. Servilia did not remarry after the death of Silanus around 59 BC, and remained unmarried for the rest of her life. She was able to live independently as a widow, owning various estates due to inheritances from various wealthy relatives.


title: Servilia (mother of Brutus)

text: Caesar had numerous affairs with women married and unmarried, but none lasted as long, nor were they as passionate as his affair with Servilia. An intimate relationship between the two probably started in 59, after the death of Servilia's second husband. The affair was well known and Servilia suffered no damage to her reputation because of this relationship. Unlike most other aristocratic affairs, this one seemed also to have lasted over many years.


title: Servilia (mother of Brutus)

text: The relationship broadly is first recorded in extant sources in 63, when Servilia apparently was caught sneaking a love note to Caesar in the senate by her brother Cato. Cato was greatly displeased to find out about Caesar's correspondence with his half-sister. Modern scholars have made use of this incident to indicate the passion between Servilia and Caesar, noting that Servilia maintained long-distance contact while Caesar was away. as both Cato and Brutus espoused the side of Pompey, despite the latter's role in the death of her former husband.


title: Servilia (mother of Brutus)

text: Plutarch only emphasized Servilia's devotion for Caesar, claiming that she was madly in love with him, but it is widely accepted that Caesar held a deep affection for Servilia. Scholars speculate that it was Caesar's affections which allowed the affair to continue for as long as it did. During his consulship in 59, Caesar supposedly presented Servilia with an outrageously expensive pearl worth some six million sesterces.


title: Servilia (mother of Brutus)

text: Another popular rumor was that Servilia was prostituting her daughter Tertia to Caesar in 47 BC. At an estate auction where Caesar received several properties at a low rate to give to Servilia, Cicero remarked, "It's a better bargain than you think, for there is a third ("tertia") off." Some ancient sources refer to the possibility of Caesar being Brutus' real father, despite Caesar being only fifteen years old when Brutus was born. Ancient historians were sceptical of this possibility and "on the whole, scholars have rejected the possibility that Brutus was the love-child of Servilia and Caesar on the grounds of chronology". Perhaps out of a desire to avoid offending Servilia, Caesar gave orders that Brutus should not be harmed if encountered after the Pompeian defeat at Pharsalus.


title: Servilia (mother of Brutus)

text: When her son – Marcus Junius Brutus – divorced his wife Claudia to marry Cato's daughter Porcia in 45, she disapproved, having been instrumental in arranging the match and also disagreeing with the anti-Caesarian stance taken by her half-brother Cato. Servilia may also have been jealous of the affection that Brutus showed his new bride. Later that year, Caesar appointed her son urban praetor for 44.


title: Servilia (mother of Brutus)

text: After Caesar's assassination by a conspiracy which included Servilia's son – Brutus – and son-in-law – Gaius Cassius Longinus – on the Ides of March of 44 BC, . It is unlikely she knew anything of the conspiracy, having been on good terms with Caesar until his death; regardless, she worked to protect her relatives from the ensuing political storm. Apart from Servilia, the only women in attendance were Porcia and Junia Tertia.


title: Servilia (mother of Brutus)

text: Servilia worked extensively in 44 BC to ensure the safety of her family both by , and by contributing greatly to the discourses during their meetings. Cicero's letters detail other meetings of the senate that Servilia had called to discuss what actions should be taken which would protect her son and sons-in-law. Cicero described her as a 'nervous lady', which could be understood as politically cautious.


title: Servilia (mother of Brutus)

text: Servilia's opinions were often held in higher esteem than those of Cicero during meetings of the "liberatores". Due to women being unable to hold office or vote, Servilia focused her political efforts on strategic marriages for her daughters and helping create her political career for her son Brutus.


title: Servilia (mother of Brutus)

text: Due to life-threatening unrest in the city, her son Brutus was able to get a special dispensation to leave the capital for more than 10 days, and he withdrew to one of his estates in Lanuvium, 20 miles south-east of Rome. By mid-May, Antony proposed reassigning Brutus and Cassius from their provinces to instead purchase grain in Asia and Sicily. There was a meeting at Brutus' house attended by Cicero, Brutus and Cassius (and wives), and Brutus' mother, in which Cassius announced his intention to go to Syria while Brutus wanted to return to Rome, but ended up going to Greece. His initial plan to go to Rome, however, was to put on games in early July commemorating his ancestor Lucius Junius Brutus and promoting his cause; he instead delegated the games to a friend. Servilia assisted in organising Brutus' games, in charge of decisions concerning the ceremony, finances, and senatorial contacts. Antony's proposed reassignment also was dropped by the senate; Cicero claims that it was because of some action by Servilia.


title: Servilia (mother of Brutus)

text: Servilia led a council meeting in July 43 to discuss the possible return of Brutus and Cassius from exile, which serves as the most explicit depiction of a woman overseeing a meeting in this period.


title: Servilia (mother of Brutus)

text: Despite her connections with the conspirators, Servilia escaped the purges of the second triumvirate unscathed due to the protection of her long-time friend Titus Pomponius Atticus. After Brutus' death, her son's ashes were sent to her by Antony from Philippi.


title: Servilia (mother of Brutus)

text: Very little is known about Servilia's life after the death of Brutus. She is suspected to have died a natural death between 27 and 23 BC. Her youngest daughter, Junia Tertia, out-lived Augustus and was noticed by Tacitus to have had a splendid funeral which kept the memory of Brutus and Cassius alive.


title: Servilia (mother of Brutus)

text: Servilia is the subject of a poem by John Dryden. A fictionalized Servilia appears in the "Emperor" series of novels by Conn Iggulden, who has portrayed her as a courtesan. Servilia is a character in Colleen McCullough's "Masters of Rome" series.


title: Servilia (mother of Brutus)

text: A fictionalised version of Servilia was among the principal characters in the 2005 HBO television series "Rome", played by Lindsay Duncan. The Servilia of HBO's Rome was depicted as instigating actor in the plot against Caesar's life; there is no historical evidence thereof. A similarly fictionalised Servilia makes an appearance in the 2005 six-part mini series "Empire", played by Trudie Styler. Natalie Medlock portrays Servilia in the 2018 Netflix television docudrama series "Roman Empire".


title: Catch Me If You Can (book)

text: Catch Me If You Can is a semi-autobiographical book about criminal exploits allegedly engaged in by Frank Abagnale Jr., a onetime con artist. Abagnale claims that, as a young man, he cashed $2.5 million worth of bad checks while impersonating a Pan Am pilot, a doctor, a teacher, and an attorney. The book is acknowledged to have been partly fictionalized, and the factual basis for the events contained in the book has been challenged. Co-written by Abagnale and Stan Redding, "Catch Me If You Can" was adapted into a film of the same name by director Steven Spielberg in 2002. In the film, Abagnale was portrayed by actor Leonardo DiCaprio.


title: Catch Me If You Can (book)

text: The book is loosely based on the real con artistry exploits of Frank Abagnale. It is written in the first person and describes how Abagnale cashed $2.5 million worth of bad checks. He assumed various jobs, such as pretending to be a Pan Am pilot, a doctor, a teacher, and an attorney. Abagnale was eventually caught by the FBI while living in France and served approximately five years in prison—six months in France, six months in Europe, and four years in the United States. The book ends with an epilogue telling the story of Abagnale's final capture and his rehabilitation, which resulted in the creation of his security firm.


title: Catch Me If You Can (book)

text: Abagnale's parents discover his smalltime scheme. He has been profiting recklessly from a line of credit for auto work that was never done and car parts that were never sold. His father forgives him, but his mother sends him to boarding school for boys.


title: Catch Me If You Can (book)

text: Between school terms, Frank is devastated when his parents decide to divorce. He runs away and takes up forging checks. He is easily mistaken for an adult, and uses this to his advantage by impersonating a 26-year-old in New York.


title: Catch Me If You Can (book)

text: Inspired when he sees smiling pilots and pretty stewardesses leaving a hotel, Frank does some research on airline work culture. After some time, he successfully forges a pilot's license and lies his way into a warehouse. He gets a tailored uniform there identifying him as first officer for a commercial airline.


title: Catch Me If You Can (book)

text: Frank begins passing himself off as a deadhead (a pilot riding along in cockpits on the way to scheduled takeoff points) thus conning his way into free air travel. He explores cities throughout the U.S. and stays well ahead of his expenses with increasingly innovative check fraud.


title: Catch Me If You Can (book)

text: One tense situation arises when he's brought in for questioning for reasons unclear. All those with whom he has direct interaction, though, see only a charismatic pilot with a license that looks real to their discerning eyes. He accepts their apologies for the inconvenience. (See also "Close calls" below.)


title: Catch Me If You Can (book)

text: Eventually, Abagnale uses his profits to advance a year's worth of rent in the city of River Bend and lay low.


title: Catch Me If You Can (book)

text: He whimsically claims to be a doctor on his rental application. At his first opportunity, he forges physician's credentials to supplement his cover.


title: Catch Me If You Can (book)

text: Members of the local medical community respect his preference not to work, at first. When a position opens for head of a hospital, though, they insist Frank is the best temporary fit. Frank hesitantly accepts the job and comes up with tricks to improve his façade as he goes. He forms a relationship with one Brenda Strong, but the romance is overshadowed by his fear that the FBI could be close to tracking him down.


title: Catch Me If You Can (book)

text: On one mortifying occasion, he is relieved that a tragedy is averted (no thanks to him) after he did not know what "blue baby" meant.


title: Catch Me If You Can (book)

text: After relocating again, Frank poses as a graduate of Harvard Law School. He is again implored to fill a job opening and has the hiring conditions finagled for him.


title: Catch Me If You Can (book)

text: One requirement is that he pass the state bar exam. He attempts it with a mix of quick studying and common sense. As if it is standard practice, it is returned after his first two attempts with his wrong answers marked. Thus he manages to pass without cheating on the third try.


title: Catch Me If You Can (book)

text: He's mired all the while by his lack of knowledge about campus life at Harvard. He must constantly bluff his way through conversations (or evade them) with the real Harvard grads he meets.


title: Catch Me If You Can (book)

text: When Frank resumes his pilot persona, he recruits his own fake airplane crew at a flight attendant school on pretense of a commission for advertising stills. As his confidence increases, so do the amounts on his forged checks.


title: Catch Me If You Can (book)

text: Investigators have one unwitting, face-to-face encounter with Frank. Keeping his cool, he flashes his wallet open and shut as if showing credentials. He then acts like just another law enforcement official until he can make an inconspicuous exit.


title: Catch Me If You Can (book)

text: On another occasion, police have a chance to arrest Frank but lack grounds to do so for his known crimes. They invent vagrancy charges and book him on those instead.


title: Catch Me If You Can (book)

text: Frank is soon bailed out by a bondsman who goes by the name "Bail-Out" Bailey. FBI Agent O'Riley arrives to find Frank gone. He assesses how that happened and barks that, having been paid by check, Bailey has just become a fraud victim.


title: Catch Me If You Can (book)

text: Frank's wanderlust extends to international horizons. He forges a passport, then globetrots through different parts of Europe including France, trying to evade arrest.


title: Catch Me If You Can (book)

text: One day while grocery shopping, Frank finds himself surrounded by gens d'armes who hold him at gunpoint. He has a moment of genuine mortal terror because the surrender commands they shout are contradictory. (Should he lie down, kneel, or stand with hands on head?) He pleads with them not to shoot and submits to arrest.


title: Catch Me If You Can (book)

text: He serves a long sentence at Perpignan's prison, barely surviving the subhuman living conditions. His only sympathetic visitor is a U.S. liaison who regrets to inform him this is typical for inmates.


title: Catch Me If You Can (book)

text: Frank is later transferred to Sweden. He stonewalls a few legal inquiries until he's made aware how fair their system is. With his cooperation, a defense attorney argues technicalities about the fraud charges and gets him a reduced sentence. He finds the prison system is much more hospitable.


title: Catch Me If You Can (book)

text: The prospect of Frank being handed over to other countries with harsh prison systems, like Italy, earns him some sympathy. One of the higher-ups pulls some strings to have him extradited to the United States so he can be in his home country, at least.


title: Catch Me If You Can (book)

text: Frank is flown home where officials wait to take him into custody as he disembarks the plane. Instead, he escapes by unbolting the aircraft's toilet, dropping through to below-deck, dropping again to the runway, and legging it.


title: Catch Me If You Can (book)

text: After his subsequent arrest, prison officials become suspicious of his dispassionate demeanor. It's atypical of new inmates. They insinuate that he's the undercover inspector and might as well admit it.


title: Catch Me If You Can (book)

text: Frank fans the flame of that false belief. He uses his outside contact privileges to call an old girlfriend and recruit her as an accomplice. According to plan, she calls back from one of two nearby payphones that stand side-by-side. The ruse is that a highly irregular matter needs Frank's immediate attention. The guards can verify this by calling a number provided for the proper authorization (actually the other payphone). Frank is let out and the girlfriend speeds him away.


title: Catch Me If You Can (book)

text: He then flees across the border into Canada, where he's ultimately arrested again by Canadian Mounties.


title: Catch Me If You Can (book)

text: Frank finally resolves to become a law-abiding citizen. Jobs aren't hard for him to get and managers tend to want to promote him. Consequently, though, the employers run background checks and see little choice but to fire him in light of his criminal record.


title: Catch Me If You Can (book)

text: He finally changes his life by offering his services (for free, at first) as a security consultant on a specialized lecture tour. He speaks to bank personnel, fully disclosing his forgery methods and ways to detect them. He goes on to found a firm that has been famous ever since.


title: Catch Me If You Can (book)

text: The book is prefaced with the statement: "This book is based on the true-life exploits of Frank Abagnale. To protect the right of those whose paths have crossed the author's, all of the characters and some of the events have been altered, and all names, dates and places have been changed." The character of FBI Agent O'Riley is known to be based on Joseph Shea, with whom Abagnale went on to form a lifetime friendship.


title: Catch Me If You Can (book)

text: After Abagnale spoke at a seminar in 1978, two years before the book's publication, a "San Francisco Chronicle" reporter phoned a number of institutions that Abagnale mentioned to confirm his claims and found no evidence for them. Abagnale responded that he doubted anyone would confirm them due to embarrassment. He later said he had changed the names.


title: Catch Me If You Can (book)

text: In 2002, Abagnale addressed the issue of the book's truthfulness with a statement posted on his company's website which said (in part): "I was interviewed by the co-writer only about four times. I believe he did a great job of telling the story, but he also over-dramatized and exaggerated some of [it]. That was his style and what the editor wanted. He always reminded me that he was just telling a story and not writing my biography." Specifically he addressed details such as the amount of money he wrote in bad checks, and the years in which his crimes took place.


title: Catch Me If You Can (book)

text: In 2020, journalist Alan C. Logan made an in-depth investigation as part of publishing a book on Abagnale's life story, finding earlier newspaper articles that cast doubt on Abagnale's story and locating numerous administrative documents that contradicted many of Abagnale's claims. Logan's investigation found that Abagnale's claims were, for the most part, fabrications. Documents show that Abagnale was in Great Meadow Prison in Comstock, New York, between the ages of 17 and 20 (July 26, 1965, and December 24, 1968) as inmate #25367, the time frame during which Abagnale would claim to have committed his most significant scams. Logan's investigation uncovered numerous petty crimes that Abagnale has never acknowledged, and with Logan giving evidence to argue that many of Abagnale's most famous scams in fact never occurred.


title: Catch Me If You Can (book)

text: The 2002 film "Catch Me If You Can", directed by award-winning director Steven Spielberg, stars Leonardo DiCaprio as Abagnale and Tom Hanks as his FBI pursuer, renamed Hanratty in the adaptation. The film is based upon his life and the autobiography and is mainly true to the source as Abagnale was a consultant to the writers, but some of the details were changed to create a more dramatic narrative for film.


title: Catch Me If You Can (book)

text: Abagnale's life was adapted into a musical of the same name, which previewed on March 11, 2011, and opened on April 10 at the Neil Simon Theatre on Broadway. The show starred Aaron Tveit as Abagnale, Norbert Leo Butz, Tom Wopat and Kerry Butler. Butz won the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical at the 65th Tony Awards. The show closed September 4, 2011.


title: Visa requirements for Armenian citizens

text: Visa requirements for Armenian citizens are administrative entry restrictions by the authorities of other states placed on citizens of Armenia. As of 16 January 2022, Armenian citizens had visa-free or visa on arrival access to 65 countries and territories, ranking the Armenian passport 78th in terms of travel freedom according to the Henley Passport Index.


title: Nukuʻalofa

text: Nukualofa (; ) is the capital and largest city of Tonga. It is located on the north coast of the island of Tongatapu, in the country's southernmost island group.


title: Nukuʻalofa

text: On 10 June 1777, British captain James Cook wrote of his arrival at their anchorage place. His description of the place confirmed, with his map, that this was the bay of Nukualofa.


title: Nukuʻalofa

text: Cook never used the name Nukualofa or any other spelling for the reports of this voyage, but he mentioned the island of Pangaimodoo (Pangaimotu) which was to the east of his anchorage position. Captain Cook also wrote that he travelled by canoes to visit Mooa (Mua) where Paulaho and other great men lived. The house that Paulaho provided was on the beach from the ship. Reference to his map shows that he must have landed and stayed in the Siesia area, the eastern part of modern Nukualofa. Cook also drafted the first map of the bay of Nukuʻalofa.


title: Nukuʻalofa

text: The first written record for Nukuʻalofa is stated in the first dedicated book for Tonga by George Vason which was published in 1810. George Vason was an English missionary from the London Missionary Society, who arrived in Tonga in 1797. George Vason wrote of their arrival that:


title: Nukuʻalofa

text: That was the first mention of Nukuʻalofa, spelled as Noogoollefa. Vason's unusual spelling of Nukuʻalofa and Pangaimotu (as "Bonghy-Moddoo") was because the standard Tongan alphabet would not be developed until 1826–27.


title: Nukuʻalofa

text: The second oldest book dedicated to Tonga was by William Mariner, adopted son of Fīnau ʻUlukālala, which was published in 1817. Mariner described his experiences during the years he was the adopted son of ʻUlukālala (1806–1810). He described the civil war and the siege of the Fort of Nukuʻalofa, which fell to ʻUlukālala and his warriors.


title: Nukuʻalofa

text: The third attempt of Christian missionaries was recorded in April 1826, when two Tahitian London Missionaries were detained by Tupou the chief of Nukuʻalofa.


title: Nukuʻalofa

text: The arrival of the Methodist missionaries in Nukuʻalofa in 1827 reinforced the Christian faith. The persecution suffered by Christians in Hihifo and Hahake forced a lot of people to seek refuge in Nukuʻalofa. As a result of the encouragement of Tupou, the King of Nukuʻalofa, this was the beginning of the expanding of Nukuʻalofa to become the major center of Christianity in Tonga.


title: Nukuʻalofa

text: The final phase of the arrival of Christianity in Tonga was the arrival of Father Chevron, or Patele Sevelo, in 1842. He wrote that he arrived in Nukuʻalofa in 1842 and met the Tuʻi Kanokupolu Aleamotuʻa who was baptised by the Wesleyan as Sosaia.


title: Nukuʻalofa

text: In conclusion, these landings turned Nukuʻalofa from a small village and fort into the center of Tonga during the introduction of Christianity. From the earliest records for Nukuʻalofa, early writers always referred to the settlement as Noogollefa (1797), Nioocalofa (1806), Nukualofa (1826 by Methodist) and Noukou-Alofa (1842 by French Catholic priests). There was no other mention of any other name of the settlement other than the settlement or fort of Nukuʻalofa.


title: Nukuʻalofa

text: The Declaration of the Constitution of Tonga in 1875 formalised Nukuʻalofa as the Capital of Tonga. King George Taufaʻahau Tupou I issued the Constitution of Tonga on 4 November 1875, in Nukuʻalofa. The Constitution also stated (Article 38) that the Parliament will meet in Nukuʻalofa except in time of war.


title: Nukuʻalofa

text: Since Nukuʻalofa has been expanding from when it became the center of Christianity in Tonga in the 19th century, it became essential that it was reorganised for effective administration of the capital. The reorganisation of Nukuʻalofa divided up Nukuʻalofa into three major district areas:


title: Nukuʻalofa

text: In 2006, lack of progress towards democracy resulted in riots in Nuku'Alofa. During the riots, much of the central business district was burned down.


title: Nukuʻalofa

text: The capital city was struck by the tsunami caused by the 2022 Hunga Tonga–Hunga Ha'apai eruption. There is reportedly significant damage to the capital. The damage might take years to repair.


title: Nukuʻalofa

text: The national government is based in Nukualofa. The parliament of Tonga meets there, and the Royal Palace is located near the city.


title: Nukuʻalofa

text: The name is said to have originated when Moungatonga, the 6th Tui Haatakalaua (King who governs the daily business of Tonga on behalf of the Tui Tonga or Sacred King of Tonga) sent his youngest son, Ngata (later to be 1st Tui Kanokupolu) as governor to Hihifo (Western side of Tongatapu). It was a difficult decision for Ngata as the Tuʻi Tonga and Tuʻi Haʻatakalaua have been unable to control Hihifo. Ngata had many reasons to fear for his life as his predecessors had been killed by the chiefs and people of Hihifo.


title: Nukuʻalofa

text: Between 12 and 13 February 2018, the Tongan Parliament House was destroyed by Cyclone Gita, a category 4 cyclone that hit the nation. As a result, the Parliament was moved to the Tongan National Centre, south of the city centre, and that parcel of land gazetted as a part of Nukuʻalofa.


title: Nukuʻalofa

text: Nukuʻalofa features a tropical rainforest climate (Af) under the Köppen climate classification. The area does experience noticeably wetter and drier periods during the year, but it does not have a true dry season month where monthly precipitation falls below . Temperatures are slightly warmer during January and February where average temperatures hover around than June and July where the average temperatures is roughly . Nukuʻalofa sees a little more than of precipitation annually. As the trade winds are almost permanent and cyclones are not rare in Nukuʻalofa, the climate is not equatorial but maritime trade-wind tropical climate.


title: Nukuʻalofa

text: Peau Vavaʻu, an airline, had its head office in the Pacific Royale Hotel in Nukuʻalofa. The former Royal Tongan Airlines had its head office in the Royco Building in Nukualofa.


title: Nukuʻalofa

text: The city has markets and a central business district. Much of the central business district was destroyed during the 2006 Nukuʻalofa riots. Reconstruction started in 2008, funded by a US$55 million loan from China.


title: Nukuʻalofa

text: Buses arrive and depart from the central bus station along Vuna Road close to the centre of town. Bus services are privately operated, and their drivers are free to set their own schedules. Fares are fixed by the government, with reduced rates for school children. The buses are usually filled to capacity. In addition, some schools and large hotels provide their own buses.


title: Nukuʻalofa

text: There are numerous taxis, also privately owned. Many people who own a car earn extra money by providing taxi services in their spare time. Taxi fares are also set by the government. Most families have their own car; few residents ride bicycles. There are no operational railways or trams in Tonga, although there was once a narrow-gauge railway from the lagoon to the wharf, which gave its name to Railway Road.


title: Nukuʻalofa

text: Nukualofa harbour is the only deep-water harbour of the island, which determined its selection as the site for the capital. For many years Vuna Wharf was the international harbour until it was destroyed by an earthquake in 1977. A new, much larger wharf was built towards Maufanga, named after Queen Sālote. Between these two wharves is the wharf numbered '42', used by fishermen and inter-island ferries. It is the central hub for boats to the outer islands. There are usually two boats to ʻEua each day and two to Haʻapai and Vavaʻu each week. In addition to these regular services by shipping companies, private boat owners provide less regular services to smaller islands such as Nomuka and ʻEueiki.


title: Nukuʻalofa

text: Air transport is provided by Fuaamotu International Airport on the south side of Tongatapu, from Nukualofa.


title: Nukuʻalofa

text: In January 2015, a new island of about diameter was reported to have been created by a volcanic eruption of Hunga Tonga–Hunga Ha'apai. The newly formed island is situated about 65 kilometers (40 miles) northwest of the capital city.


title: Netlify

text: Netlify is a remote-first cloud computing company that offers a development platform that includes build, deploy, and serverless backend services for web applications and dynamic websites. The platform is built on open web standards, making it possible to integrate build tools, web frameworks, APIs, and various web technologies into a unified developer workflow.


title: Netlify

text: The company enables building, deploying, and scaling websites whose source files are stored in the version control system Git and then generated into static web content files served via a Content Delivery Network. The platform also provides services and features of serverless computing and edge computing, offering serverless functions that are version-controlled, built, and deployed alongside frontend code. Netlify Functions are used in building dynamic websites with interactive features. The Netlify platform integrates with the most popular plugins and application programming interfaces (APIs) to unlock new capabilities and use cases for web projects on Netlify.


title: Netlify

text: The company was founded in 2014 when Danish entrepreneur Mathias Biilmann noticed the emergence of Git-centered workflows with modern build tools and static sites generators, a shift he described as "a massive change happening in the web development space", while running Webpop, a content management startup based in San Francisco. In 2015, Biilmann invited Christian Bach, his childhood friend who was working as an executive at a creative services agency in Denmark, to join him as co-founder in his new venture. In 2017, MakerLoop was rebranded as Netlify.


title: Netlify

text: Beyond the initial focus on hosting for static websites, and attracting many developers with a free basic offer, the company expanded to a broader offering including serverless functions and test and deployment services.


title: Netlify

text: On May 19, 2021, Netlify announced the acquisition of FeaturePeek, a Y Combinator and Matrix Partners backed startup that enables developer teams to preview frontend content.


title: Netlify

text: On November 17, 2021, Netlify acquired Y Combinator and SignalFire-backed OneGraph to allow for the composition of apps with APIs and services using GraphQL.


title: Netlify

text: On February 1, 2022, Netlify announced the acquisition of Quirrel, an open source solution and service for managing and scheduling the execution of serverless functions and jobs.


title: Netlify

text: On August 16, 2016, Netlify raised $2.1 million from the founders of GitHub, Heroku, Rackspace Cloud, Bloomberg Beta and Tank Hill.


title: Netlify

text: On August 9, 2017, the company announced that it had raised $12 million in series A funding from Andreessen Horowitz.


title: Netlify

text: On October 9, 2018, the company issued a press release announcing that it had completed a series B round led by Kleiner Perkins—with participation from Andreessen Horowitz, Slack and Flickr co-founder Stewart Butterfield, Yelp CEO and co-founder Jeremy Stoppelman, among others—securing $30 million.


title: Netlify

text: On March 4, 2020, Netlify secured $53 million in a series C round led by EQT Ventures, the venture capital branch of Swedish investment company EQT, with contributions by existing investors Andreessen Horowitz, Kleiner Perkins, and newcomer Preston-Werner Ventures.


title: Netlify

text: On November 17, 2021, Netlify secured $105 million in a series D round led by Bessemer Venture Partners at a $2 billion valuation, with contributions by existing investors Andreessen Horowitz, BOND, EQT Ventures, Kleiner Perkins, Mango Capital, and Menlo Ventures. This brought Netlify's total funding to $212 million.


title: Netlify

text: Netlify combines a platform for apps that streamlines the workflow for a development team. Netlify Build is a CI/CD infrastructure for frontend teams that is automated and pre-configured. It does not require a full-time administrator to manage the pipeline.


title: Netlify

text: Netlify Graph is a GraphQL-based approach to integrating distinct APIs to build a web app that strives to reduce the inherent complexities in mixing different data models, response formats, and authentication schemes; it is integrated with a number of APIs such as GitHub, Stripe, and Salesforce.


title: Netlify

text: Developers write, test, and review code before production with Netlify CLI. Within the CLI is Netlify Dev, which is a collection of development CLIs that brings the Netlify production environment down to a developer's local machine.


title: Netlify

text: Deploy previews is used to view and leave feedback about a web project with every annotation and comment synced to an organization's productivity tools. Netlify automatically builds a new Deploy Preview as a unique permanent URL for each Pull/Merge Request.


title: Netlify

text: Netlify Edge is network used to power web experiences. It is fast due to its global distribution with automated prerendering. With Edge, apps are deployed to multiple cloud providers. Worldwide caches are invalidated instantly as every global deploy is an atomic and instant update.


title: Netlify

text: Netlify's serverless capabilities include Netlify Functions, Background Functions, Scheduled Functions, and Edge Functions.


title: Netlify

text: Netlify Edge Functions allows for developers to build fast web experiences by running dynamic content or an entire application from the network edge. Edge Functions are built on open source runtime Deno to work with server-side features from existing web frameworks and edge-first frameworks.


title: Netlify

text: Working as API endpoints deploy server-side code automatically runs in response to events, or completes jobs in the background through the coding of functions with JavaScript, TypeScript, or Go. Netlify executes functions written as full API endpoints, or functions can be executed directly from the frontend through JavaScript, or they can be called from other services through webhooks.


title: Netlify

text: Netlify works with open source contributors, web framework authors, digital agencies, and technology vendors in the modern web ecosystem; developers pick and plug in the tools for their projects. Netlify is an Enabler member of the MACH Alliance, group of independent technology companies that aim to advocate for open, best-of-breed technology ecosystems.


title: Netlify

text: Jamstack is a cloud-native web development architecture based on client-side JavaScript code, reusable APIs, and markup content. It was pioneered and created by Netlify. In its purest form, the idea of Jamstack is that a web application is pre-built into static pages, using content and code to generate the output. In basic terms, Jamstack is a significant shift in focus from the now abstractable back end to the now-powerful front end.


title: Netlify

text: In March 2017, Netlify CMS was named "GitHub project of the week" by the "Software Development Times".


title: Netlify

text: On July 10, 2018, GitHub founder and former CEO Tom Preston-Werner predicted that "within 5 years, you'll build your next large scale, fully featured web app with JAMstack and deploy on Netlify."


title: Netlify

text: Netlify customers include Google, Facebook, Verizon, NBC, Samsung, Nike, Cisco, Atlassian, LiveChat, TriNet, Loblaw, Wieden+Kennedy, Vue.js, Citrix, Peloton, Kubernetes, Lodash, Smashing Magazine, Sequoia Capital, VMware, UW Health, Pan Macmillan, Victoria Beckham Beauty, Twilio, and Unilever.


title: Cubic centimetre

text: A cubic centimetre (or cubic centimeter in US English) (SI unit symbol: cm; non-SI abbreviations: cc and ccm) is a commonly used unit of volume that corresponds to the volume of a cube that measures 1 cm × 1 cm × 1 cm. One cubic centimetre corresponds to a volume of one millilitre. The mass of one cubic centimetre of water at 3.98 °C (the temperature at which it attains its maximum density) is almost equal to one gram.


title: Cubic centimetre

text: In internal combustion engines, "cc" refers to the total volume of its engine displacement in cubic centimetres. The displacement can be calculated using the formula


title: Cubic centimetre

text: where is engine displacement, is the bore of the cylinders, is length of the stroke and is the number of cylinders.


title: The Orb

text: The Orb are an English electronic music group founded in 1988 by Alex Paterson and Jimmy Cauty. Known for their psychedelic sound, the Orb developed a cult following among clubbers "coming down" from drug-induced highs. Their influential 1991 debut album "The Orb's Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld" pioneered the UK's nascent ambient house movement, while its UK chart-topping follow-up "U.F.Orb" represented the genre's commercial peak.


title: The Orb

text: Beginning as ambient and dub DJs in London, The Orb's early performances were inspired by electronic artists of the 1970s, most notably Brian Eno, Cluster, and Kraftwerk. The Orb have maintained their signature science fiction aesthetic despite numerous personnel changes, including the departure of Cauty and members Kris Weston, Andy Falconer, Simon Phillips, Nick Burton, and Andy Hughes. Paterson has been the only permanent member, continuing to work as the Orb with Swiss-German producer Thomas Fehlmann, and later, with Martin "Youth" Glover, bassist of Killing Joke. Paterson's unauthorised use of other artists' works has led to multiple disputes, most notably with Rickie Lee Jones.


title: The Orb

text: During their live shows in the 1990s, The Orb performed using digital audio tape machines optimised for live mixing and sampling before switching to laptops and other digital media. Featuring colourful light shows and psychedelic imagery, their performances often incited comparisons to Pink Floyd, whose guitarist, David Gilmour, later collaborated with them on the album "Metallic Spheres" in 2010.


title: The Orb

text: Their sixteenth studio album, "Abolition of the Royal Familia", was released on 27 March 2020 by Cooking Vinyl.


title: The Orb

text: Alex Paterson began his music career in the early 1980s as a roadie for the post-punk rock band Killing Joke, for whom his childhood friend Martin "Youth" Glover played bass. Having left Killing Joke's employ, in 1986 Paterson became an A&R man. Paterson and Youth shared a flat in Battersea and Jimmy Cauty, Youth's former bandmate from Brilliant, was a regular visitor. Paterson and Cauty began DJing and producing music together under the name "The Orb". Their first release was a 1988 acid house anthem track, "Tripping on Sunshine", released on Youth's compilation album "Eternity Project One". The following year, the Orb released the "Kiss EP", a four-track EP based on samples from New York City's KISS FM. It was released on Paterson and Glover's new record label WAU! Mr. Modo Records, which they created out of a desire to maintain financial independence from larger record labels. After spending a weekend of making what Paterson described as "really shit drum sounds", the duo decided to abandon beat-heavy music and instead work on music for after-hours listening by removing the percussion tracks. Paterson and Cauty began DJing in London and landed a deal for the Orb to play the chill out room at London nightclub Heaven. Resident DJ Paul Oakenfold brought in the duo as ambient DJs for his "The Land of Oz" event at Heaven. Though the Orb's Monday night performances had only several hardcore followers initially, their chill-out room act grew popular over the course of their six-month stay to the point that the room was often packed with around 100 people. The Orb's performances became most popular among weary DJs and clubbers seeking solace from the loud, rhythmic music of the dancefloor. The Orb built up melodies using multitrack recordings linked to multiple record decks and a mixer. The group incorporated many CDs, cassettes, and BBC sound effects into the act, often accompanied with pieces of popular dance tracks such as "Sueño Latino". Though the group used a variety of samples, they avoided heavy rhythm and drums so that the intended ambient atmosphere was not disrupted. Most often, the group played dub and other chill-out music, which it described as ambient house for the E generation.


title: The Orb

text: Throughout 1989 the Orb, along with Youth, developed a music production style that incorporated ambient music with a diverse array of samples and recordings. The British music press later labelled the music ambient house. The culmination of the group's musical work came toward the end of the same year when they recorded a session for John Peel on BBC Radio 1. The track, then known as "Loving You," was largely improvisational and featured a wealth of sound effects and samples from science fiction radio plays, nature sounds, and Minnie Riperton's "Lovin' You". For its release as a single on the record label Big Life, the Orb changed the title to "A Huge Ever Growing Pulsating Brain That Rules from the Centre of the Ultraworld". Upon the single's release, Riperton's management forced Big Life to remove the unlicensed Riperton sample, ensuring that only the initial first-week release of the single contained the original vocals of Minnie Riperton; subsequent pressings used vocals from a sound-alike. Despite its running time of 22 minutes, the sample-laden single reached #78 on the British singles charts. Soon thereafter, the Orb were commissioned by Dave Stewart to remix his top-20 single "Lily Was Here". The group obliged and were soon offered several more remix jobs from artists including Erasure and System 7.


title: The Orb

text: In 1990, Paterson and Cauty held several recording sessions at Cauty's studio, Trancentral. When offered an album deal by Big Life, the Orb found themselves at a crossroads: Cauty preferred that the Orb release their music through his KLF Communications label, whereas Paterson wanted to ensure that the group did not become a side-project of Cauty and Bill Drummond's KLF. Because of these issues, Cauty and Paterson split in April 1990, with Paterson keeping the name the Orb. As a result of the break-up, Cauty removed Paterson's contributions from the in-progress recordings and released the album as "Space" on KLF Communications. Also out of these sessions came the KLF album "Chill Out", on which Reynolds (1999) and Prendergast (2003) report Paterson appeared in an uncredited role. In a 2011 interview with Magnetic Magazine, Alex Paterson corroborated his involvement and contribution to the Chill Out album and said he had in fact been "ripped off" by The KLF and notably Jimmy Cauty, stating:


title: The Orb

text: Following the split, Paterson began working with Youth on the track "Little Fluffy Clouds". The group incorporated samples from Steve Reich's "Electric Counterpoint". The signature of the piece centres around the repeated phrases sampled from the voice of singer/songwriter Rickie Lee Jones, her spaced-out childlike ramble taken from a promotional CD released by Geffen Records for her 1989 album, "Flying Cowboys". In it she muses on the picturesque images of clouds from her Arizona childhood.


title: The Orb

text: In 1991, Paterson invited freelance studio engineer Andy Falconer to join the Orb. He was closely followed by studio engineer Kris "Thrash" Weston. Steve Hillage, who Paterson had met while DJing in London, also joined as a guitarist. Along with producer Thomas Fehlmann, the Orb completed several additional tracks for their first album, "The Orb's Adventures Beyond The Ultraworld". At least six studios and twenty outside musicians were used during the three weeks of recording. Falconer's and Weston's technical abilities and Hillage's guitar work allowed the group to craft panoramic sounds portraying aspects of space travel, including the launch of "Apollo 11". "Adventures" sold well in the United Kingdom and received praise for its balance of ambient music, house music, and sampling. Retrospectively, "Adventures" is considered ground-breaking for changing the way musicians view sampling and as a vital work for the genres of ambient and dance music. The completion of "Adventures" saw the departure of Andy Falconer, whose last contribution was to one of the Orb's Peel Sessions. To promote the release of an edited single-disc version for an American release on Mercury Records, the Orb embarked on their first tour of the United States beginning in Phoenix, Arizona, in October 1991.


title: The Orb

text: In late 1991 and early 1992, Paterson and Weston wrote their next single, "Blue Room". Assisting with the recording was bassist Jah Wobble, keyboardist Miquette Giraudy, and guitarist Hillage. Despite its playing time of almost 40 minutes, "Blue Room" entered the British charts at No.12 and peaked at No.8, making it the longest track to reach the charts. The Orb promoted this single with a "legendary avant-garde" performance on "Top of the Pops" where Patterson and Weston played a game of chess in space suits while footage of dolphins and an edited version of "Blue Room" ran in the background. In July 1992, "U.F.Orb" was released featuring "Blue Room" and, in the US release, the Orb's next single, "Assassin". Weston integrated his technical and creative expertise with Paterson's Eno-influenced ambience on "U.F.Orb", combining "drum and bass rhythms" with "velvet keyboards" and "rippling synth lines". "U.F.Orb" reached No.1 on the British album charts to the shock of critics, who were surprised that fans had embraced what journalists considered to be progressive rock. Despite the Orb's success, Paterson and Weston preferred to avoid personal publicity and instead allow their music to be the focus of attention. Because of this partial anonymity and the Orb's rotating membership, they are often recognised as more of a musical collective than a "band".


title: The Orb

text: Over the next year and a half, Paterson and Weston continued to produce "new" material, and the Orb left Big Life to sign a deal with Island Records. Their first release on Island Records was the live album "Live 93", which gathered highlights from their recent performances in Europe and Asia. It featured the live crew of Paterson, Weston, producers Nick Burton and Simon Phillips, as well as audio engineer Andy Hughes, who had stepped in previously when Weston had decided to stop touring. The Orb's first studio production on Island Records was "Pomme Fritz", a chaotic EP noted for its heavy use of strange samples and its lack of conventional harmonies. Though "Pomme Fritz" reached No.6 on the British charts, critics panned it as "doodling". Island Records "hated it" and "didn't understand it at all", according to Paterson. Soon after production finished on "Pomme Fritz", Paterson, Weston, and Orb contributor Thomas Fehlmann joined with Robert Fripp to form the group FFWD as a side project. FFWD released a single self-titled album on Paterson's Inter-Modo label, which Fehlmann later described as "an Orb track which became so long that it became a whole album!". Due to this aimlessness, FFWD lacked an artistic goal and disbanded after a single release. Also in the summer of 1994 The Orb provided music for The Jupiter Collision, the BBC's brief info series about the Shoemaker-Levy comet. Soon after the release of "FFWD" in August 1994, Weston suddenly left the Orb. Paterson claimed that Weston's departure was due to his desire to have more control in the Orb. In an interview with "i-D", Weston attributed the split to Paterson, saying that Paterson "didn't do his 50 per cent of the work". Paterson reaffirmed the status of the Orb saying, "The Orb is the Orb, and nothing can change that", and continued work with Hughes and Fehlmann.


title: The Orb

text: Following Weston's departure from the Orb, Thomas Fehlmann joined as a full-time studio member, but did not always participate in live performances. Paterson, Hughes, and Fehlmann then finished producing the album "Orbus Terrarum", on which Paterson and Weston had been working. "Orbus Terrarum", released in 1995, featured more "earthbound" and "organic" sounds than their previous trippy science-fiction-themed music. "Orbus Terrarum" suffered, as Paterson described it, "a good kicking" at the hands of the British press, who described it as "generic" and a low point for Paterson's creativity. "Orbus Terrarum" alienated many of the group's fans, and reached only No.20 on the British charts. American critics gave it great acclaim, including "Rolling Stone" who made it their album of the month, citing its symphonic flow coupled with the Orb's "uniquely British wit". After a long world tour, the Orb, with Andy Hughes and Steve Hillage, settled down to produce their next album, "Orblivion"—the process of which saw a return to their spacey sounds. Though "Orblivion" was recorded in May 1996, it was not released until almost a year later, due to Island Records' desire to promote it as a follow up to U2's techno-rock album "Pop". "Orblivion" sold well in Europe as well as the United States, where it reached the Billboard Top 200. The first "Orblivion" single, "Toxygene", was the highest-charting single by the Orb, reaching No.4 in the United Kingdom on 8February 1997. Despite high sales, "Orblivion" received a lukewarm reception from the British press. As with "Orbus Terrarum", "Orblivion" was better received by American critics, including "Rolling Stone", who praised its "contrast of chaos and euphony". Meanwhile, the stresses of touring sat heavily on Paterson; he considered retiring the Orb, but continued touring and producing. In 1997 the band sold their studio "Joe's Garage" to the Godfrey brothers of Morcheeba. That same year, they contributed a cover of "Jo the Waiter" to the Gary Numan tribute album "Random".


title: The Orb

text: Paterson and Fehlmann, along with usual collaborators Hughes, Nick Burton, and Phillips, wrote and produced "Cydonia" for a planned 1999 release. Featured on the album were appearances from Robert Fripp, John Roome (Witchman), and Fil Le Gonidec, one of the Orb's live performers. Singers Nina Walsh and Aki Omori appeared on two tracks each, providing vocals and co-writing lyrics with Paterson. Paterson felt that this new direction of songwriting for the Orb was more similar to the experimental work of "Orbus Terrarum" than to the techno-pop of "Orblivion". Island Records was in a period of restructuring due to its recent purchase by Universal Music Group, and "Cydonia" was not released until 2001. Upon release, critics noted that "Cydonia" merged pop, trance, and ambient-dub music, which they felt to be a conglomeration of bland vocals and uninventive ambience that lacked the appeal of the Orb's earlier work. "NME" harshly described it as "a stillborn relic, flawed throughout by chronically stunted ambitions" and describing its only appropriate audience to be "old ravers" seeking nostalgia. The Orb were generally regarded by the British press as past their prime and an "ambient dinosaur" out of place in the current dance music environment. After the release of "Cydonia", Hughes left the group for undisclosed reasons, becoming "another acrimonious departure from the Orb" according to "The Guardian".


title: The Orb

text: In 2001, Alex Paterson formed the record label Badorb.com as an outlet for Orb members' side projects. To promote both Badorb.com and "Cydonia", the Orb toured internationally, including their first visit to the United States in four years. "NME" described the Orb's tour as "charming" and that they were "freed from the Floydian pretensions that dogged the band throughout the mid-'90s".


title: The Orb

text: The Orb, now composed of Paterson, Phillips, and Fehlmann, with guest John Roome, accepted an invitation to join the concert tour with Moby, Paul Oakenfold, New Order and other alternative and electronic artists. Though the Orb were paired with more mainstream artists during the tour such as Incubus, Paterson and Fehlmann made their next releases a series of several low-key EPs for German label Kompakt in 2002. The Orb found critical success on Kompakt; but Badorb.com collapsed soon after releasing the compilation "Bless You". Badorb.com had released fourteen records over the course of fourteen months from artists including Guy Pratt (Conduit), Ayumi Hamasaki, and Takayuki Shiraishi, as well as the Orb's three-track "Daleth of Elphame EP". Though Badorb.com was an internet-based record label, they sold only vinyl releases (with one exception, the Orb EP), which Paterson later remarked was a poor idea because "not many people... have record players".


title: The Orb

text: Though their musical style had changed somewhat since the 1990s, the Orb continued to use their odd synthetic sounds on 2004's "Bicycles & Tricycles", to mixed reviews. "The Daily Telegraph" praised "Bicycles & Tricycles" as being "inclusive, exploratory, and an enjoyable journey"; other publications dismissed it as "stoner dub" and irrelevant to current electronic music. Like "Cydonia", "Bicycles & Tricycles" featured vocals, including rapper MC Soom-T who added a hip hop contribution to the album. The Orb left Island Records and released the album on Cooking Vinyl and Sanctuary Records. To promote the album, the band began a UK tour with dub artist Mad Professor. Though the Orb still pulled in large crowds, "The Guardian" noted that they lacked the intensity found in their earlier performances.


title: The Orb

text: After two more EPs on Kompakt, the Orb (now composed of only Paterson and Fehlmann) released "Okie Dokie It's The Orb on Kompakt", which featured new material in addition to tweaked versions of their previous Kompakt output. By this stage, "AllMusic" observed, Thomas Fehlmann had become the primary creative figure in the Orb, "inhibiting Alex Paterson's whimsical impulses". Because of this, "Okie Dokie" was considerably more focused and less "goofy" than "Cydonia" and "Bicycles & Tricycles". Fehlmann's trademark hypnotic loops and delays made him the centre of "Okie Dokie" production and, according to "Pitchfork Media", made it "difficult to say where [Paterson] is in the picture". The Orb's releases with Kompakt gained them back much of their musical credibility with the press and showed that they could "age gracefully".


title: The Orb

text: In August 2006, the founders of the Orb - Paterson and Cauty - released "Living in a Giant Candle Winking at God", their debut album as the Transit Kings with Guy Pratt and Pratt's associate, Dom Beken. The album featured appearances from Smiths' guitarist Johnny Marr and comedian Simon Day. Beken described "Living in a Giant Candle Winking at God" as "self-consciously musically written and less sample-based" compared to the members' previous work. "Living" had been in production since 2001, but due to members' other obligations, it was delayed for several years. The album received mixed critical reactions; "The Times" called it "Orb-lite" and proclaimed it to be "Deep Forest-style sludge". After the album's release, Cauty left the Transit Kings on "extended leave", leaving the project in indefinite limbo, and Beken joined the Orb for a period. Paterson and Beken reunited in 2008 as High Frequency Bandwidth, an ambient hip hop group on the Malicious Damage label.


title: The Orb

text: The Orb's next studio album, "The Dream", was released in Japan in 2007 and the following year in the United States and United Kingdom. Fehlmann is absent on "The Dream" and Paterson was instead reunited with Youth and joined by Tim Bran of Dreadzone. The album saw a return to the Orb's sounds of the early 1990s, with peculiar vocals and playful samples. The Orb also brought in jazz and house music singer Juliet Roberts and guitarist Steve Hillage.


title: The Orb

text: After the July 2006 re-release of "The Orb's Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld" 3-CD Deluxe Edition, 2007 and 2008 saw releases of expanded 2-CD editions of the band's subsequent regular studio records: "U.F.Orb", "Pomme Fritz" EP, "Orbus Terrarum", "Orblivion" and "Cydonia". In late 2008 a double-cd compilation of BBC Radio 1 sessions called "The Orb: Complete BBC Sessions 1989-2001" was released.


title: The Orb

text: In May 2009, the British Malicious Damage Records (run by the members of Killing Joke) announced the release of the Orb's ninth regular studio album "Baghdad Batteries (Orbsessions Volume III)" on 11 September 2009. A reunification of Paterson and long-term collaborator Thomas Fehlmann who last worked together on "Okie Dokie It's the Orb on Kompakt", the album was promoted with a launch party with Paterson and Fehlmann performing the whole album live at The-Situation Modern in Clapham, England on 10 September. A track "Chocolate Fingers" was uploaded onto the label's MySpace profile. Unlike the first 2 albums in the "Orbsessions" series, which consisted of archive recordings, "Baghdad Batteries" comprised brand new material recorded at Fehlmann's Berlin studio.


title: The Orb

text: In March 2010, Internet station Dandelion Radio broadcast a seventeen and a half-minute long Orb session track by Paterson and Fehlmann on the Andrew Morrison show. This new track was titled "Battersea Bunches" and was a remixed version of the soundtrack to a short movie of the same title by Mike Coles and Alex Paterson - a film installation to be seen at London's Battersea Power Station on 1June 2010 as part of an evening of art and music. The film and its soundtrack (together with remixes) were later released as the CD/DVD album "C Batter C" on 11 November 2011.


title: The Orb

text: In mid-2010, Alex Paterson teamed up with Youth to compile a retrospective compilation album of tracks from the WAU! Mr Modo label. The album titled "Impossible Oddities" was released on CD and double Vinyl on 25 October 2010 via Year Zero records.


title: The Orb

text: The Orb released the "Metallic Spheres" album in October 2010, featuring David Gilmour of Pink Floyd. It was released by Columbia Records.


title: The Orb

text: In 2011, Alex Paterson teamed up with producer Gaudi and vocalist Chester Taylor for the creation of their experimental and ongoing collaborative project SCREEN, releasing the album "We are Screen" by Malicious Damage Records.


title: The Orb

text: In 2012, the Orb worked with dub musician Lee "Scratch" Perry to produce a reggae-infused album titled "The Orbserver in the Star House", which was recorded in Berlin over a period of several months and features the single "Golden Clouds". The title song was based on an earlier version of Little Fluffy Clouds, with the lyrics rewritten by Perry reflecting his childhood in Jamaica and the property Golden Clouds near his home.


title: The Orb

text: In 2013, the Orb performed with the Kakatsisi drummers of Ghana on the West Holts stage at Glastonbury Festival.


title: The Orb

text: During 2019, The Orb have been touring with a 30 Year anniversary tour, performed by Alex Paterson and Michael Rendall (London based producer / sound engineer)


title: The Orb

text: The Orb released their sixteenth studio album, "Abolition of the Royal Familia", on 27 March 2020. It includes contributions from Youth, Roger Eno, Gaudi, David Harrow and Steve Hillage and Miquette Giraudy (System 7).


title: The Orb

text: The Orb's members have drawn from an assortment of influences in their music. The Orb's central figure, Alex Paterson, had early musical tastes and influences that included King Tubby, Alice Cooper, Prince, Kraftwerk, and T.Rex. Among these, Paterson cites Kraftwerk as one of the most important, claiming they created the foundation from which all modern dance music has been built. While in Brixton with Martin Glover as a teenager, Paterson was also exposed to a large amount of reggae music, such as The Mighty Diamonds, The Abyssinians, and Bob Marley. The reggae influence on Paterson and the Orb can readily be heard in tracks such as the single "Perpetual Dawn" and "U.F.Orb"'s "Towers of Dub". The earliest ambient influences of the Orb came in 1979 during Paterson's roadie days with Killing Joke. While with the band in Neuss, Paterson listened to Brian Eno's "Music for Films" while on LSD and watched "the Ruhr steel works explode in the distance", noting that "[t]he scene seemed to be taking place in the music as well". The same night, Paterson was also inspired while listening to Cluster's "Grosses Wasser" and found that the steel works' "huge metal arms were crushing molten rocks in time to the music", which was something he'd "never seen, or heard, anything like it before". Along with Cluster and Kraftwerk, Paterson was also influenced by other German experimental music from Can and composer Karlheinz Stockhausen. "Modulations" calls Paterson's music a "maximal" version of Brian Eno's "minimal" ambience, though according to Paterson, Eno resents Paterson's use of his music as an influence.


title: The Orb

text: The Orb have often been described as "The Pink Floyd of the Nineties", but Paterson has stated that their music is more influenced by experimental electronic music than progressive rock of the 1970s. He has noted though that the Pink Floyd album "Meddle" was influential to him as a child in the 1970s. The psychedelic prog-rock similarities have led critics to describe the Orb as hippie revivalists; Paterson has strongly rejected the tag, claiming that even as a youth, he was "one of those punks who hated hippies".


title: The Orb

text: During production of "Cydonia" and "Bicycles & Tricycles", Paterson's biggest influences were drum and bass and trip hop music, as seen on the tracks "Ghostdancing", "Thursday's Keeper", and "Aftermath". The Orb's more recent influences consist largely of German techno producers, such as Triola, who were inspired by the Orb's earlier work. Paterson cites the music of Kompakt as one of his primary modern influences and claims it to be among the best modern ambient music.


title: The Orb

text: Imagery has always been an important part of the Orb's persona. This is most prominent during live performances, where they often project surreal images against onstage screens. Common images include morphing faces, futuristic cityscapes, and aliens. They have long associated their act with absurd symbology with images such as floating pigs. This has carried over to their music videos, most of which are spacy, brightly coloured montages of surreal images including astronauts, clouds, and neon dolphins. Because of their use of psychedelic images at shows, the Orb's shows are frequently compared to those of Pink Floyd, who also used in-show imagery and films. Paterson cites Godfrey Reggio's and Philip Glass's film Koyaanisqatsi as a primary influence to their concert imagery.


title: The Orb

text: The Orb's album art features much of the same imagery as their live act. Graphic design group The Designers Republic created the cover art for the earlier work, including "Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld", "U.F.Orb", and the singles from those two albums. For their next album, the Orb poked fun at their Pink Floyd comparisons with the cover of "Live 93" featuring a floating stuffed sheep over the Battersea Power Station, which had appeared on the cover of Pink Floyd's "Animals". The artwork found in Badorb.com releases was similar to the Orb's odd artwork of the mid-1990s, as it was stylistically similar and contained little writing.


title: The Orb

text: Some of the more prominent motifs in the Orb's work are outer space and science fiction, including alien visitations, space flight, and mind control. These have included the use of samples from serious sources such as NASA transmissions to comedic clips from films like Woody Allen's "Sleeper". "U.F.Orb" especially expressed a fascination with alien life with its bizarre sound samples and in the album's title itself. The title of its most popular single, "Blue Room", is a reference to the supposed Blue Room of Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, which was investigated as a possible UFO evidence holding room. Their 2001 album is named after the Cydonia Mensae region of Mars. Due to Paterson's focus on science fiction and astronomical phenomena, "The Guardian" described Paterson as "pop [music]'s primary spokesperson on aliens".


title: The Orb

text: In the Orb's early DJ events in the 1980s, Paterson and Cauty performed with three record decks, a cassette player, and a CD player all of which were mixed through an Akai 12-track mixer. They used their equipment to harmonise recorded music and sound effect samples into an "endless sound continuum" for audiences of worn-out dancers. Even after the Orb began producing original material, they kept the same sample-heavy model for live acts by spontaneously integrating obscure samples into their pre-recorded tracks. During promotional tours for "Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld" and "U.F.Orb", they performed using a digital audio tape machine and experimented with other media sources such as dubplates. The tape machines held individual chords, rhythms, and basslines for each composition, allowing the Orb to reprocess them and mimic the act of DJing. Members could then easily improvise with these samples and manipulate them using sound effect racks. Often, the Orb had a live musician accompanying them, such as Steve Hillage on guitar. Their shows in the early 1990s would often be three hours of semi-improvised, continuous music featuring a wealth of triggered samples, voices, and pre-recorded tracks which were barely identifiable as the original piece.


title: The Orb

text: The Orb began performing regularly at the Brixton Academy in the early 1990s, where they used the high ceilings and large space for their "well-suited amorphous sound", frequently performing their newest and more experimental pieces there. Andy Hughes took Weston's place at live performances after the 1993 tour, though Weston did reappear for the Orb's concert at the rainy Woodstock '94. The Orb played for late night raves on the first two nights of Woodstock '94 in addition to artists including Aphex Twin, Orbital, and Deee-Lite. The next year, the Orb's touring group consisted of Paterson, Hughes, Nick Burton on drums, and Simon Phillips on bass. This live setup created a "cacophony" of "gigantic, swarming sounds". Though the Orb's performances use much onstage equipment and many props, Paterson prefers to present them as "a non-centralised figure of amusement on stage".


title: The Orb

text: The Orb used ADAT recorders for performances from 1993 to 2001 and utilised large 48-track decks, which Paterson described as being a "studio onstage". They hooked synthesisers, such as the ARP 2600, to MIDI interfaces to recreate specific sounds that appeared on their albums. The Orb's methods of studio music creation changed as well. For more recent albums such as "Cydonia", they used inexpensive equipment such as Korg's Electribe products, which Paterson described as employing more of a "bedroom techno" approach. Despite their use of laptops during performances and in-studio computers, Paterson says that he still cherishes vinyl and does not find purchasing CDs or downloading music to be nearly as satisfying.


title: The Orb

text: One of the Orb's most notable contributions to electronic music is their idea of blurring the distinction between sampling and remixing. Albums such as "Pomme Fritz", though released as a piece of original work, consist largely of manipulated samples. Conversely, the Orb's remixes typically use only small sections of the original track, most notably in the case of their single "Toxygene". "Toxygene" was originally commissioned as a remix of Jean Michel Jarre's "Oxygene 8" from "Oxygene 7-13". The Orb "obliterated it" and reassembled only a few fragments for their remix, much to the chagrin of Jarre, who reportedly refused to release it; The Orb released the track themselves under the name "Toxygene", which further irritated Jarre, to whom Paterson retorted "The French are always five years behind us, anyway." In statements made after the release of "Toxygene", Jarre denied that he rejected the original remix because of disliking it.