title: Andrew Strauss

text: He has a variety of nicknames ranging from "Straussy", "Levi" and "Johann", to the more obscure "Lord Brocket", "Mareman", "The General", "Jazzer", "Muppet" and "Mr Potato Head".


title: Andrew Strauss

text: Already Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE), Strauss was promoted to Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2011 Birthday Honours. His alma mater, Durham University, conferred the honorary doctorate of DCL upon him in 2011. In Theresa May's resignation honours on 10 September 2019 he was made a Knight Bachelor.


title: Andrew Strauss

text: Strauss has written several books on his professional career, "Coming Into Play: My Life in Test Cricket" (2006), "Testing Times: In Pursuit of the Ashes" (2010, with Scyld Berry), "Winning the Ashes Down Under: The Captains Story" (2011), and an autobiography, "Driving Ambition", in 2014.


title: Andrew Strauss

text: Politically, Strauss is a Conservative, raising money for them in a charity auction. David Cameron tried to persuade Strauss to become an MP in 2013, but Strauss turned down the offer.


title: Andrew Strauss

text: Having played for the Durham University cricket team and the Middlesex second XI since 1996, Strauss made his Middlesex first XI debut in 1998, scoring 83 in his maiden first-class innings. Despite this, he made a quiet start: he averaged 24 and 30.5 in his first two first-class seasons, and he did not make his maiden first-class century until an innings of 111 not out two years after his debut. Thereafter, Strauss's stock rose quickly: his returns in 2001, 2002 and 2003 were 1211 runs at an average of 45, 1202 at 48 and 1529 at 51. He was appointed captain of Middlesex in 2002, following the retirement of Angus Fraser, and retained the post until the end of the 2004 season. In late August 2011, Strauss hit his highest first-class score of 241 not out against Leicestershire, beating his previous best of 177.


title: Andrew Strauss

text: Strauss's first taste of international cricket came as part of England's tour of the sub-continent, but he would only fulfil the role of the twelfth man; despite considering himself better in the long form of the game, Strauss was surprised to be selected for the One Day squad. Although he was not selected for the main team, Strauss did make an appearance in a tour match, starring with 51 in an opening partnership of 146 in a slow, but fluent innings. As England moved straight from Bangladesh to Sri Lanka, Strauss continued to put pressure on England opener Vikram Solanki in a tour match top scoring with 83, juxtaposed with Solanki's five ball duck and was rewarded with his England debut in a disastrous ten-wicket defeat where he was caught and bowled by fellow debutant Dinusha Fernando and was subsequently omitted for the rest of the tour.


title: Andrew Strauss

text: Strauss was given another chance in the tour of the West Indies, even being called up to the Test squad owing to the injury of Mark Butcher. Still he was only given a chance in the ODI team, but he made an impact even at his un-native number three position top scoring with 29 in a tense England win. Despite this he was omitted, after the second abandoned match, until the fifth ODI where he contributed only 10 but made up for it joint top scoring with skipper Michael Vaughan and putting on a good start in an ultimately losing match, making a great first international catch. He also contributed 66 to help win the final match, drawing the series.


title: Andrew Strauss

text: Strauss returned home to start the 2004 English season but was chosen to make his Test debut for England after Vaughan sustained a knee injury in the nets. The initial plan was to promote Mark Butcher to the vacant opening batsman position and include Paul Collingwood in the middle order. Butcher declined to move up the order and batted third, meaning Strauss was asked to open the batting and Collingwood missed out on a place in the side. Vaughan's injury turned out to be fortunate for Strauss who, in his first Test innings, top scored with 112 and contributed 82 in the second innings before being run out, with Nasser Hussain taking responsibility for the dismissal. This put Strauss on a series of exclusive lists including being the second English player to score a century on his debut at Lord's, third opener to score a hundred on debut, the fifteenth English player to score a century on his debut, the first since Graham Thorpe in 1993 and only the fourth English player to score a century and half century on his debut. Strauss also made the first dismissal of the Test, catching Stephen Fleming off Simon Jones and was awarded Man of The Match for his efforts. The performance by Strauss excelled his role as a filler for Vaughan, leading to Hussain retiring from cricket allowing for Vaughan to move down the order and Strauss retaining the role of opener opposite Marcus Trescothick. Strauss' form declined over the series, with one half century in the second Test and his first Test duck along with a six in the third Test.


title: Andrew Strauss

text: In the ensuing NatWest tri-series that bridged the two tours, England won only one match, where Strauss guided them home with an unbeaten 44, even losing against the West Indies after a century-each partnership of 226 with Andrew Flintoff at Lord's with Strauss recording his first One Day century with an exact 100. Strauss continued to make Lord's a talisman as he returned for the opening Test of the series against West Indies with another century opposite Robert Key's 221 in a winning effort; the two also set the record for highest second wicket partnership against the West Indies. In the third Test at Old Trafford where Brian Lara scored his ten thousandth run, Strauss faltered after five hours at the crease falling just short of another century at 90. In the final part of a packed 2004 season, Strauss guided England to victory with 44 not out against India in the NatWest Challenge opening One Day match but only scored 2 a piece in the following two matches. Then, in the 2004 ICC Champions Trophy at home Strauss contributed towards a win against Zimbabwe and then starred in the semi-final against old enemies Australia with 52 not out from 42. However, along with the rest of the team aside from Trescothick he failed to muster a decent total in the final allowing West Indies to take the trophy.


title: Andrew Strauss

text: The runners-up in the Champions Trophy took October off before beginning a tour of Africa in November. Their first port of call was Zimbabwe, visiting for the first time since the 2003 World Cup political concerns and despite being minnows Strauss could not muster even a half century in the 4–0 series win. In the final match, Strauss was called on to bowl a single over, conceding three runs. England then moved to Strauss' native South Africa for a five Test series taking them into the new year. His homecoming was an explosive one as he caught captain Graeme Smith off the second ball and went on to score his first away century with 126 before scoring over half of the team's second innings score as he steered them towards victory, again falling short of twin hundreds with 94 not out; still he became only the seventh Test player to record a century on his home and away debut. Despite missing out on this accolade he did record back to back centuries, in the Boxing Day Test he top scored in the first innings with only 25 as it seemed England were set for defeat, Strauss and Trescothick bolstered the side with an opening partnership stand of 273, top scoring with 136 to help England push for victory though it would end in a draw. In the losing, third Test Strauss not only top scored in the first innings with 45, he also became the fourth fastest Englishman to reach 1,000 Test runs in 19 innings. After his third century of the tour in the fourth Test that helped secure the decisive victory Strauss ended with a pair of ducks in the fourth and fifth Test preventing England from extending the lead to 3–1. Despite the two zeroes, Strauss dominated the batsmen of the series making 656 runs over the five matches at an average of 72.88 and earned his first Man of The Series award. In the losing One Day series that followed Strauss failed to impress with the bat, never making more than 35. Nevertheless, his Test success drew the plaudits of, among others, future Australian rival Justin Langer.


title: Andrew Strauss

text: After the tour, England returned home to play Bangladesh with Strauss's home ground of Lord's only helping him towards a half century in the one innings they played. In the following NatWest Series against Bangladesh and Australia, England built on their momentum going into the Ashes series by making their way to the top of the group and into the final. Individually, Strauss posted 82* and 98 in the first and last matches against Bangladesh, with a One Day high score of 152 from 128 balls in the middle match but fared less well against Australia, never scoring more than 25 and only managing 2 in the tied final at Lord's. Strauss was significantly shuffled down the order in England's inaugural Twenty20 International against Australia and made 18 in their 100 run win and in the losing NatWest Challenge scored favourably, but not notable, with two scores near 50.


title: Andrew Strauss

text: Going into the 2005 Ashes series having not won since the 1980s but with an unbeaten series record going back six series it was a highly anticipated series with Australian captain Ricky Ponting predicting it to be the closest Ashes since England's last win. Seemingly the pressure affected Strauss even at Lord's, along with the rest of the team, as he contributed 2 to their 155 and a slightly more impressive 37 to their 180 in a losing first Test, though Strauss did catch Ponting in the first innings. The second Test proved to be a much more dramatic affair and Strauss improved somewhat on his showing at Lord's with an opening stand of 112 opposite Trescothick, falling two short of a half century to the spin of Shane Warne. While this healthy platform pushed England towards a 99 run lead in the first innings, it was Strauss' paltry second innings of six which garnered more attention: four deliveries before the end of play on day two a Warne legbreak spun prodigiously from the rough across Strauss' body to knock down leg stump. Those six runs are arguably crucial though, as England's winning margin was simply two runs. The number six would follow him into the next Test at Old Trafford, making way for Vaughan to bat the first century of the series. Strauss followed in his captain's footsteps in the second innings adding 106 of his own to help set a target of 371 for the Australians who managed to stave off losing their final wicket to secure a draw and maintain a 1–1 series score.


title: Andrew Strauss

text: In the fourth Test Strauss helped England to a fine start with a century first wicket partnership, contributing 35 himself and helping restrict Australia to 218 with two catches, specifically fast striker Adam Gilchrist in an exceedingly wide catch at slip which was called "the abiding image of the Summer". After enforcing the follow-on England were set 129 and the batsmen started falling under pressure, with Strauss lasting until the third wicket down and posting one of four scores within the twenties to help win the Test and take the series lead. With only a draw required in the final Test to take home the Ashes, Strauss showed a winning attitude batting for almost all of the first day, with seven partnerships, to put on 129 and secure another Ashes hundred and make himself the only batsmen on either team to record two centuries in the series. Once again Strauss made a notable catch in the field helping to dismiss captain Ponting again, Australia's second best batsman in the series, as well as sending fast bowler Glenn McGrath back to the pavilion for a duck. Unfortunately Strauss could not keep up his sterling performance as England were put back into bat with just over a day left in the series he fell to Warne again, caught by Simon Katich, for a single run. Regardless, the maiden Test century of fellow South African-born England player Kevin Pietersen stalled Australia from taking victory and England won the series 2–1 to take home the Ashes for the first time in 18 years.


title: Andrew Strauss

text: In a series arguably dominated more by bowling than batting, Strauss notched up an average of 39.30; and while, with 393 runs, he was only the fourth-highest-scoring batsmen for England, only one Australian, Justin Langer, scored more than him, and by only one run. Strauss was also the only player to score two centuries, and made six catches, the second-highest number for an England fielder, behind Ian Bell. While captain Michael Vaughan and coach Duncan Fletcher were awarded OBEs, the rest of the team, Strauss included, were given MBEs in the New Years Honours list. (Strauss subsequently was awarded the OBE in the 2011 Birthday Honours list.)


title: Andrew Strauss

text: England toured Pakistan in the winter months that followed, looking to extend their unbeaten streak of six Test series (with only two lost Tests) since 2004. Strauss started the tour nervously, with warm-up scores of two fives and a six, mustering 56 in the final warm-up innings. Despite acknowledging his batting problems, Strauss' performance never recovered as he scored only 44 runs in the first two Test matches, losing the first and drawing the second, at an average of 11 before he departed Pakistan to attend the birth of his first child, missing England's final loss. Strauss returned for the One Day series but showed little improvement with only five runs in the tour match, but found more success shuffled down to third man, top scoring 94 to help England win the first match. He also scored 26 runs in the low scoring, final match which England also won but in between picked up a pair of ducks.


title: Andrew Strauss

text: The other side of Christmas, England went to India in March and after Trescothick absented himself owing to stress-related illness, Strauss found himself opening England's batting with 21-year-old debutante Alastair Cook. Cook repeated Strauss' debut theatrics, scoring a half and full century, overshadowing Strauss's 28 and 46 in the drawn match. Without Cook opposite him in the third Test, Strauss shone once again with 128 in a winning effort to level the series. In the following One Day matches England would have been lucky to manage a draw, suffering four straight losses under replacement captain Andrew Flintoff since Vaughan's knee-injury had prevented him from touring. Strauss's only double digit score was 61 in the second match but with Flintoff requiring a break from deputising, Strauss was handed the captaincy for the fifth match which ultimately was abandoned, leading to crowd violence in Guwahati. With Flintoff remaining the twelfth man for the following ODI, Strauss guided England to victory after putting India to bat, with a hundred partnership with Ian Bell totalling 74 before cramp forced him to retire. The emphatic, eight over victory was to be England's only One Day success on the tour as the final match saw India chase the runs victoriously with only five balls remaining with Strauss offering only 25.


title: Andrew Strauss

text: As England returned home weary from an entire Winter without a series victory after the euphoria of the previous two years, they completed a subcontinental triumvirate when Sri Lanka arrived to prove that Asian dominance was not particular to the Indian subcontinent. With the captaincy crown returned to Flintoff, Strauss could focus solely on his batting prowess at the ground that made him famous. Opening once again with Trescothick, Strauss fell two short of a half century to the bowling of Muttiah Muralitharan at the stroke of lunch, allowing Cook to walk out to the wicket afterwards with company. Strauss went on to take the final wicket of Sri Lanka's first innings, Nuwan Kulasekara, catching him off Flintoff to allow England to enforce the follow-on which they could not capitalise on, forcing a draw. In the second Test, England took the lead with a victory after Strauss scored the second highest runs in both English innings, being controversially caught for 16 in the second off his pads. He recorded another half century in the third Test, though it was not enough to stave off a 134 run defeat. Once again he was offered the captaincy for the short form game, leading England in a tense, two run loss to Sri Lanka where he put on an opening partnership with Trescothick for 59. Under Strauss' captaincy England endured a five match whitewash where Strauss failed to muster even fifty though it was acknowledged that the team, particularly the bowling side, were under strength.


title: Andrew Strauss

text: Despite the One Day 'whitewash', Strauss was given faith and made the official captain, rather than a stand in, for Pakistan's Summer tour as England embarked on their busy international schedule leading up to the Ashes and the World Cup. Given the Test captaincy, his first match was at his favourite ground Lord's where he recorded another century, 128 this time, in the second innings but came under criticism for allowing his bowlers only 80 overs for victory, which they did not achieve. He turned things round drastically in the second Test with tight fielding that restricted Pakistan to under 250 in both innings while contributing 42 to England's high strike rate 461, allowing an emphatic innings victory in just three days. Though the third Test was not quite as emphatic, England still won the Test after restricting the second innings, not allowing any centuries like in the other three innings and scoring one himself, 116, to take an unassailable lead in his first Test series as captain. Strauss' first Test series as skipper ended in an amount of controversy at The Oval in what some commentators have referred to as Ovalgate when, during their second innings, umpires Darrell Hair and Billy Doctrove inspected the ball and decided that it had been tampered with. Insulted by the allegation, the Pakistan team protested by not taking to the field after the tea break leading the umpires to declare the match forfeited. Pakistan later tried to take to the field but the umpires upheld their decision. Two years later the decision was changed to a draw after a petition from Pakistan, but in February 2009 the original decision was reinstated amidst criticism of the precedent such historicism would set. The series thus ended 3–0 to England, with Strauss being awarded Player of The Series due to being the top of England's run scorers, behind only to Mohammed Yousuf on either side.


title: Andrew Strauss

text: Strauss continues his captaincy with the limited overs team. He performed less well in the one-off Twenty20 International, falling for a duck while Pakistan soared to victory with two overs to spare and his luck remained the same as the One Day series began. After two low scores he scored 50 in the third match though the team would still lose, however his 78 in the fourth match propped up an eight wicket win and a top score of 35 earned England a 2–2 draw in the series. The following month England returned to the sub-continent for the Champions Trophy in India. Strauss scored two half centuries in three matches but the team as a whole played disastrously with only one victory over the West Indies.


title: Andrew Strauss

text: After the Champions Trophy the captaincy reverted to Andrew Flintoff as soon as he was cleared as being match fit. Strauss started the tour badly, scoring only 71 runs from the first four innings along with a generally terrible display from England. After losing the first two Tests, questions were asked about a divided dressing room owing to the captaincy changing hands so frequently between Strauss and Flintoff but Strauss played down these accusations. He followed this with 88 in a warm-up match but in the following Test he was given out to dubious decisions in both innings, caught for 42 and LBW for a duck, with replays suggesting both decisions were harsh. In the Boxing Day Test Strauss secured his only landmark of the series with an even 50 though he will most likely remembered as Shane Warne's 700th Test victim as the Australian spin bowler reached the milestone in his penultimate Test match, by which point the Ashes had been lost. As if the five match whitewash was not enough, the final innings of the series for Strauss was marked with a bouncer to the head from Brett Lee causing him to go to hospital after he was dismissed. After the Test series, coach Duncan Fletcher lamented the lack of confidence in both Strauss and Paul Collingwood whom he had wished to promote as role models for the rest of the team. Despite the decline in his form towards the end of the year, poor umpiring decisions were taken into account and Strauss was picked as part of the 2006 Wisden Forty.


title: Andrew Strauss

text: England went from the Test series to a one-off Twenty20 International in warm-up for the Commonwealth Bank Tri-Series. Strauss was omitted from the Twenty20 game but did play for the One Day series. Though England tended to be superior in the long format over the short format, they gained momentum after opening losses and defeated New Zealand in what had become a winner takes all match at the end of the group stages, with Strauss's 55 being the only notable score for him in the series. By this point Strauss's poor One Day form had been highlighted, with Fletcher admitting he was mostly in the team due to shallow batting options. The half century did nothing for Strauss's confidence though as he fell for a duck in the first final and only six in the second, though he did take the prized wickets of Ponting and Mike Hussey, restricting them both to single digit scores helping to manipulate the Duckworth-Lewis effected score so that England could win the match without needing the third game. His poor form saw him omitted from the group stage of the World Cup and despite commentators expecting him to make a return for the Super Eights stage against Sri Lanka he had to wait to meet old enemies Australia to be recalled, where he only made 7 and had a run-out on Ponting turned down after TV replays. He batted with England for the rest of the stage until England were knocked out; he would not play One Day cricket for England again until two years later.


title: Andrew Strauss

text: Eventually his poor year in both forms of the international form of the game, even after being allowed only to focus on Tests, saw him dropped from the team after 43 Test matches.


title: Andrew Strauss

text: Strauss' poor run of form continued through 2007, averaging a low 27 and failing to score a century with a top score of 96. While he continued to play in Test matches against India and the West Indies, he was dropped from the ODI side. In late 2007, Strauss was not included in the Test squad for the tour of Sri Lanka, and Michael Vaughan was selected to take his position as opening batsman. Strauss then announced that he was going to take a break from cricket after what he described as a "long, tiring and immensely frustrating 12 months." He was, however, able to travel to India as part of the backup squad if he so wished.


title: Andrew Strauss

text: Strauss was thus omitted from England cricket fixtures over the winter. He returned to the Test squad for the tour of New Zealand, however made only four in the first warm-up match before hitting his own wicket. Despite what was now over 25 Test innings without a century, Strauss was chosen ahead of Owais Shah (who scored 96 in the same warm-up match) to play in the second warm-up match, sparking speculation that he would have a place in the Test squad for the first match against New Zealand. Strauss was, however, placed in the number three spot on the batting order, leaving Vaughan and Cook to open as they did in Sri Lanka. His batting in the first innings was poor, and he was dismissed for 5. In the second innings, however, he was returned to the position of opener and scored 104* along with Ian Bell.


title: Andrew Strauss

text: Strauss continued to play poorly through the first two matches, and was dismissed for a duck in the first innings of the third. In the second innings, however, he reached a century from 226 deliveries, his slowest but his first since August 2006, going on to make his highest score in Test cricket, 177. This innings seemed to help Strauss re-find his spark as in the first part of the English domestic season that followed he scored runs prolifically for Middlesex, smashing a 163 off 130 balls against Surrey in a domestic one day match.


title: Andrew Strauss

text: After his 177, Strauss's place in the side was guaranteed for the following series against the same opposition. While still ignored for the One Day International team he was given back his position of Test opener alongside Alastair Cook, Michael Vaughan going back down to number 3. In the first rain affected match at Lords he carried on his form with a slow but steady 63 in the only England innings of the match. In the second Test Strauss made another 60 before getting out giving England a decent start following a big first innings total. He then went on to make 106, chasing 294, in the second innings on a now difficult batting wicket which set England up to win by 6 wickets to take a 1–0 lead in the three match series. This was Strauss's second Test match century at Old Trafford (the first coming against Australia in 2005, when he also scored 106). In the third and final Test at Trent Bridge he made 37 in England's first and only innings as England went on to win the series 2–0. He was named England's man of the series for his 266 runs at an average of 66.50.


title: Andrew Strauss

text: His form now impressing the selectors, Strauss was allowed to keep his place for the tour against South Africa. He started on an average note being dismissed for 44 in England's only innings of the first match. He suffered in the second Test at Headlingly, however, making just 27 runs in the first innings and a duck in the second. A pair of 20s resulted as Strauss continued to struggle against the pace bowling of South Africa in the third Test. With England 2–0 down going into the last Test, a win was needed to restore pride. Strauss failed in the first innings, being dismissed for six. With the bowlers having got England into a match winning position, Strauss then came good, sharing a century opening stand with Cook and eventually being dismissed for 58. Nevertheless, his place remained under pressure again.


title: Andrew Strauss

text: Strauss managed to keep his place for the India tour and immediately rewarded the selectors by making 123 in the first innings of the first Test match with the rest of the batting lagging behind. He followed it up by holding the batting order together after a collapse that saw England 43–3 and shared a 200 run partnership with Paul Collingwood in which Strauss and Collingwood both made 108. He became just the 10th Englishman to make two hundreds in the same Test match, with Marcus Trescothick being the last in 2004.


title: Andrew Strauss

text: Strauss was appointed captain on 7 January 2009 after a rift between previous captain Kevin Pietersen and Peter Moores became public. Subsequently, Pietersen resigned the captaincy after just 3 Test matches, and Moores was sacked. This came after a rise of form in the 2008 Test Series in India, in which England lost and drew their two games.


title: Andrew Strauss

text: In his first match as regular captain, against the West Indies at Sabina Park, Strauss and his team failed, Strauss scoring 7 and 9 as England were bowled out for 51 in the second innings to lose by an innings. After the fiasco of the abandoned Test match, Strauss subsequently had an excellent series with the bat, with scores of 169, 142 and 142 in the remaining three Tests giving him a series aggregate of 541 runs at an average of 67.62, but England were unable to force a victory in any of these three matches and consequently lost the series 1–0. As captain in the subsequent one-day series, which was drawn 2–2, Strauss scored 105 in Guyana and 79 not out from 61 balls at the Kensington Oval. He also captained the Twenty20 side to a six-wicket defeat. Strauss said to the BBC that he hoped that the whole captaincy debacle would be solved in time for the 2009 Ashes Series.


title: Andrew Strauss

text: Strauss atoned for the defeat by the West Indies with a 2–0 home victories over the West Indies at home in both the Test and the ODI series. After that series, Strauss had a break from the international circuit while the World Twenty20 was underway. He played two county championship matches to little effect beyond a score of 97 against Essex.


title: Andrew Strauss

text: In the first Test at Sophia Gardens, Strauss failed to capitalise on two starts, scoring 30 and 17; his second-innings dismissal, caught off a top-edged cut off Nathan Hauritz, was particularly poor. On a good batting wicket Australia racked up 674 for 6 declared, with Simon Katich (122), Ricky Ponting (150), Marcus North (125 not out) and Brad Haddin (121) all scoring centuries. In the second innings, only a dogged 5¾-hour 74 from Paul Collingwood and tail-end contributions salvaged a draw for England, with final pair James Anderson and Monty Panesar left to block out the final 11½ overs of the match.


title: Andrew Strauss

text: England entered the second Test at Lord's having not won an Ashes Test there since Hedley Verity's match in the 1934 Ashes. On his domestic home ground, Strauss batted through the entire first day of the match for 161 runs, sharing an opening partnership of 196 with Alastair Cook (95). Though Strauss was bowled by Ben Hilfenhaus's second ball the following day without adding to his overnight score, his innings was the highest individual score made by either side during the series, and set up a 210-run first-innings lead. Strauss contributed 32 to England's second innings, as Australia were set a target of 522 to win, a record if achieved. Though Michael Clarke (136), Brad Haddin (80) and Mitchell Johnson (63) briefly made the target seem attainable, Andrew Flintoff (5–92) and Graeme Swann (4–87) bowled England to a comfortable 115-run victory.


title: Andrew Strauss

text: In the third Test at Edgbaston, Strauss responded to Australia's first innings of 263 by ending the second day 64 not out; he was removed by Ben Hilfenhaus the following morning for 69, before England's powerful lower-middle order propelled the side to a 113-run first-innings lead. Australia, however, experienced little difficulty in drawing the match, losing only five wickets in one-and-a-half days thanks to Michael Clarke (103 not out) and Marcus North (96).


title: Andrew Strauss

text: In the fourth Test at Headingley, Strauss was distracted before the start of play by team selection issues, with Kevin Pietersen and Andrew Flintoff both injured, and a back spasm to Matt Prior delaying play by ten minutes as his fitness to play was ascertained. Strauss' concentration may have been affected by the fire alarm which sounded in the team's hotel at 5 am, or by the media interviews he gave immediately before he opened the batting; he was lucky not to be given out lbw to the first ball of the match. and was removed shortly afterwards for three as England collapsed to 102 all out against Peter Siddle and Stuart Clark. More runs for Michael Clarke and Marcus North led Australia to a total of 445. Strauss and Alastair Cook responded with an opening partnership of 58 before Ben Hilfenhaus removed Strauss for 32; England capitulated, this time to Hilfenhaus and Mitchell Johnson en route to an innings defeat.


title: Andrew Strauss

text: England therefore entered the fifth Test at the Oval with the series level at 1–1, knowing that only a victory would suffice to bring the Ashes home, as by longstanding convention the Ashes are retained by the current holders in the event of a drawn series. Strauss contributed 55 to England's first innings of 332, before Stuart Broad (5–37) and Graeme Swann (4–38) unexpectedly combined to bowl Australia out for 160. In the second innings Strauss scored 75, sharing a 128-run partnership with debutant Jonathan Trott (119) to set Australia a target of 546. On the final day of the series, Strauss produced a sharp piece of fielding from leg slip to run out Michael Clarke for a duck, and also contributed a catch, as Australia were bowled out for 348 to hand England a 197-run victory in the match, a 2–1 victory in the series, and the Ashes.


title: Andrew Strauss

text: Strauss was named England's man of the series by Australian coach Tim Nielsen; he finished the series with an aggregate of 474 runs (the highest aggregate on either side; no other England player managed more than 261), at an average of 52.66 (no other England player barring Jonathan Trott, who only played in one match, averaged more than 40). Such was Strauss' dominance with the bat that Australia lost the series despite counting six of the seven leading run-scorers among their number.


title: Andrew Strauss

text: During the following seven-match ODI series, Strauss's contributions led England's batting to the extent that, following the series, Andrew Miller commented on "England's guileless middle-order who, for the umpteenth time this summer, treated the loss of Andrew Strauss's wicket with the same grief and disorientation that a clutch of baby chicks might greet the devouring of their mother by a fox." He spearheaded England's batting efforts with scores of 12, 47, 63, 63, 35, zero and 47 in the series which spanned 4 September until 20 September. He stated on a number of occasions that, despite his own contributions, he was disenchanted by England's poor performances during their 6:1 defeat.


title: Andrew Strauss

text: Following the Ashes, England played in the 2009 ICC Champions Trophy. They beat Sri Lanka and South Africa to unexpectedly reach the semi-finals; however, Strauss only managed a top score of 25. He did not fare much better in the ODI series against South Africa, which England won 2–1. England drew the Test series 1–1, but Strauss passed 50 just once.


title: Andrew Strauss

text: After the tour to South Africa, Strauss was controversially rested for the subsequent tour of Bangladesh. In his stead, Alastair Cook was named captain and Michael Carberry selected as a replacement opener (though Jonathan Trott was promoted to opener for the second Test, replacing Carberry). England then won the 2010 ICC World Twenty20 in the West Indies under the leadership of Paul Collingwood.


title: Andrew Strauss

text: Strauss returned to the Test team in the home series against Bangladesh. He made two half-centuries as England won the two-match series. Between the Tests and the ODI series, England played Australia in a five-match ODI series (this was due to Bangladesh's participation in the 2010 Asia Cup during June). England won the series, with Strauss making half-centuries in the second and third games. When Bangladesh returned for the ODI series, Strauss scored a half-century in the first game and a career-best 154 in the third, in which he shared a stand of 250 with Jonathan Trott who also made a century. England won the three-match series 2–1, and Strauss was named Player of the Series. In the accompanying ODI series, Strauss made 126 in the second match of a five-match series.


title: Andrew Strauss

text: A controversial series against Pakistan followed. Strauss struggled for form in the Test series, with just one half-century, as England won 3–1, bowling Pakistan out for three sub-100 scores. He found form in the five-match ODI series though, with a century and two fifties as England won 3–2 in their final series before the 2010-11 Ashes series.


title: Andrew Strauss

text: Strauss headed to the 2010–11 Ashes series hoping to join Mike Brearley and Len Hutton as the only England captains to win the Ashes both home and away, and the first to win an Ashes series in Australia since Mike Gatting in 1986-7.


title: Andrew Strauss

text: Strauss won the toss on the opening morning at the Gabba (Brisbane) and elected to bat, however was caught at gully for a third-ball duck. England's first innings total of 260 was not enough, and Australia built a 221-run first innings lead. Despite the large deficit, England fought back; Strauss and Cook scored 188 for the first wicket. Strauss made his 19th Test hundred, eventually out for 110; stumped for the first time in his Test career. Fellow-opener Cook scored an unbeaten 235 and Jonathan Trott 135, also unbeaten, as England declared at 517–1. Australia scored 107–1 in their second innings before a draw was declared.


title: Andrew Strauss

text: In the second test match at the Adelaide Oval, Ricky Ponting won the toss and chose to bat but Strauss' bowlers skittled the Aussies for 245, thanks to James Anderson's 4–51 . England then made 620–5 before declaring but Strauss was out for 1 in that innings. England then bowled Australia out again for 304, with Graeme Swann taking 5–91 and England winning by an innings and 71 runs.


title: Andrew Strauss

text: In the third test match at Perth, Strauss won the toss and chose to bowl first. England bowled Australia out for 268 on day one and Strauss scored 12* to guide England to 29–0 at stumps. Strauss started well and guided England to 78–0 within the first hour of the day's play but a batting collapse saw England bowled out for 187, thanks to Mitchell Johnson's 6–38. England struck back and took three Aussie wickets but Australia got to stumps on day two on 119–3. Strauss' team then bowled the Aussies out for 309, meaning England required 391 to win but batted poorly to be bowled out for just 123, with Ryan Harris taking 6–49 and England losing by 267 runs.


title: Andrew Strauss

text: Strauss won the toss at the MCG and elected to bowl on the Boxing Day Test. The decision was an inspired one as England bowled Australia out for 98. In reply, Strauss and Cook had made a 159-run opening stand with Strauss passing 6,000 Test runs before being caught for 69. After England made 513, they bowled Australia out for 258 to win by an innings and 157 runs, therefore retaining the Ashes.


title: Andrew Strauss

text: In the fifth and final Test at the SCG in Sydney, Strauss lost the toss and Michael Clarke, Australian captain in the absence of the injured Ponting, elected to bat. England bowled Australia out for 280. In reply, Strauss made 60 from just 58 balls before being bowled by Ben Hilfenhaus. England continued to make a score of 644 their highest score on Australian soil, thanks to centuries from Alastair Cook, Ian Bell and Matt Prior. Australia fell for 281 in their second innings, handing England a third win by an innings in the series, and an overall 3–1 Ashes victory.


title: Andrew Strauss

text: In England's opening match of the ICC World cup 2011 against Netherlands, Andrew Strauss hit a better than run-a-ball 88 to get England off to a good start and help them clinch a 6 wicket victory. He maintained this good form the next game, scoring an impressive 158 off 145 chasing an imposing 339 which hosts India had set them. The match ended in a thrilling tie.


title: Andrew Strauss

text: The third game saw Strauss score 34 off 37 balls as scored 327 against Ireland, but England nonetheless suffered a shock defeat, thanks to a 50-ball 100 by Kevin O'Brien and a 162-run partnership for the 6th wicket.


title: Andrew Strauss

text: England then won a thrilling match against South Africa on 6 March, bowling their opponents out for 165 in Chennai to defend a low score of 171, with Stuart Broad claiming 4 vital wickets. The English bowlers derailed the strong Proteas batting lineup, which collapsed from 63 for no loss and lost all their wickets for 102 runs. However, the group stage ended in another shock defeat, this time to Bangladesh, and although England qualified for the quarter-finals, they were comprehensively beaten by Sri Lanka. Strauss duly stepped down from the ODI captaincy and retired from One Day International Cricket.


title: Andrew Strauss

text: Strauss announced his retirement from cricket on 29 August 2012 after 100 test appearances. As a token of appreciation, his teammates bought him 100 bottles of wine, of which he said "I think that will furnish me nicely into retirement!" Alastair Cook, his vice-captain and opening partner, was named as his successor. Cook had previously captained England in test matches, as well as being the current ODI captain.


title: Andrew Strauss

text: In April 2015, a reorganisation at the ECB saw Paul Downton's role of managing director made redundant. Strauss was appointed to the newly created role of director of England cricket in May 2015 and his first act was to sack the incumbent coach Peter Moores. Another early move was to rule out an imminent return to the England team for Kevin Pietersen, who had fallen out with the previous management team. He oversaw the appointment of Trevor Bayliss as coach, and encouraged a greater emphasis to be given to limited overs cricket. Strauss resigned his position on 3 October 2018, citing a wish to spend more time with his wife, Ruth, while she was undergoing treatment for lung cancer. She died on 29 December that year, aged 46.


title: Metal Box

text: Metal Box is the second studio album by Public Image Ltd, released by Virgin Records on 23 November 1979. The album takes its name from the round metal canister which contained the initial pressings of the record. It was later reissued in standard vinyl packaging as Second Edition in February 1980 by Virgin Records in the United Kingdom, and by Warner Bros. Records and Island Records in the United States.


title: Metal Box

text: The album was a departure from PiL's 1978 debut "", with the band moving into a more avant-garde sound characterised by John Lydon's cryptic lyrics, propulsive dub-inspired rhythms led by bassist Jah Wobble, and an abrasive, "metallic" guitar sound developed by guitarist Keith Levene.


title: Metal Box

text: "Metal Box" is widely regarded as a landmark of post-punk. In 2012, the album was ranked number 461 on "Rolling Stone" magazine's list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.


title: Metal Box

text: "Metal Box" was recorded in several sessions with several drummers, none of whom were credited on the original release. "Albatross" and "Swan Lake"/"Death Disco" were recorded with new drummer David Humphrey at The Manor Studio in Shipton-on-Cherwell. "Poptones" was recorded with Levene on drums. During this time, additional tracks were recorded at Townhouse Studios in London, namely "Beat the Drum for Me" (which later turned up on Wobble's first solo album), and a new version of "Fodderstompf" (which became the B-side of PiL's "Death Disco" 12" single). Humphrey left the band around mid-May 1979. "Memories", "No Birds", "Socialist" and "Chant" were recorded with new drummer Richard Dudanski at Townhouse Studios in London. The instrumental "Graveyard" was recorded at Rollerball rehearsal studios in Bermondsey, with Dudanski on drums. Dudanski left the band around mid-September 1979. "The Suit" was recorded as a solo track by Jah Wobble at Gooseberry Sound Studios in London. Vocals and some overdubs were added at The Manor. "Careering" was recorded at Townhouse Studios with Wobble on drums. "Bad Baby" was recorded with new drummer Martin Atkins at Townhouse Studios. Except for a brief period during 1980, Atkins remained with the band until 1985. "Radio 4" was recorded as a solo piece by Keith Levene at Advision Studios and an unknown second studio. According to Levene, this was the last recorded track. Levene utilized aluminium Veleno guitars throughout the recording sessions to achieve a distinctively sharp and metallic guitar sound.


title: Metal Box

text: According to John Lydon, opener "Albatross'" was recorded live at The Manor Studio in Oxfordshire, with the singer free-forming his lyrics. Guitarist Keith Levene, bassist Jah Wobble, and drummer David Humphrey made the song up as they went along, and recorded the song in one take. PiL also recorded at Townhouse Studios in West London with session drummer Richard Dudanski and produced the songs "Memories", "No Birds", "Socialist", and "Chant"; Levene recalls that "Memories" features him playing "this normal Spanish guitar thing that goes dun-da-da-dun da-da-dun... it's one of the first things I learned to play on guitar, very simple. I was very fond of that [...] I just had the guitar going through an Electric Mistress."


title: Metal Box

text: "Death Disco" – released as a single in late June 1979 – was remixed and retitled "Swan Lake" for "Metal Box". "I realised," said Levene, "that this tune that I was bastardising by mistake was 'Swan Lake', so I started playing it on purpose but I was doing it from memory. You can hear that I'm not playing it exactly right. It just worked. [...] There's a few versions of that. The one on "Metal Box" is version two, which is very different from the simpler, original 12-inch version." The lyrics are based on Lydon's mother dying of cancer: "When I had to deal with my mother's death, which upset the fuck out of me, I did it partly through music. I had to watch her die slowly of cancer for a whole year. I wrote 'Death Disco' about that. I played it to her just before she died and she was very happy. That's the Irish in her, nothing drearily sympathetic or weak." PiL recorded the song at an empty hall in Brixton to test a three-bass sound system and worked with drummer Jim Walker but didn't record with him.


title: Metal Box

text: "Poptones" was one of the first songs recorded for the album, according to Levene, who stated that he inadvertently played "Starship Trooper" during the song. According to Lydon, "Poptones" was based on a story "straight out of the "Daily Mirror"" about a girl who was kidnapped and "bundled, blindfolded, into the back of a car by a couple of bad men and driven off into a forest, where they eventually dumped her. The men had a cassette machine with an unusual tune on the cassette, which they kept playing over and over. The girl remembered the song, and that, along with her recollection of the car and the men's voices, is how the police identified them. The police eventually stopped the car and found the cassette was still in the machine, with the same distinctive song on the tape." In his 2009 autobiography "Memoirs of a Geezer", Jah Wobble says that Poptones refers to "a journey we took in Joe the roadie's Japanese car [..] and Joe had one of his dodgy cassettes playing.". He highlighted the song as "the jewel in the PiL crown. [...] That [bass] line is as symmetrical as a snowflake. To give him his due Levene went mental for it. We were at The Manor. We had a drummer with us who was pretty good [...] but the bloke just couldn't get the right feel for 'Poptones'. [...] In the end Levene put the drums down on that track, his drums are a bit loose, but that is actually a good thing."


title: Metal Box

text: Wobble cited "Careering" as his "second-favourite track from "Metal Box", and probably my favourite John Lydon vocal performance." Lyrically, the song is "basically about a gunman [in Northern Ireland] who is careering as a professional businessman in London." The song was recorded at the Townhouse during a quick nighttime session helmed by Wobble; he told journalist Simon Reynolds in an interview: "If you listen to the drum rhythm it is very similar to the sort of rhythm a drum and fife band would create. [...] By now Keith had got hold of a Prophet synth, he used that on 'Careering'." Wobble created the drum track and bassline, while Levene played synth. Levene explained his synth playing in the song was an attempt to replicate the sound of ambient machine noise heard from a downstairs toilet, achieved by dropping an item on one of the synth keys to keep it going.


title: Metal Box

text: "No Birds Do Sing" (also listed as just "No Birds") features a line from "La Belle Dame sans Merci", a poem by John Keats, which Lydon "just borrowed a bit of because it suited this particular rant about suburbia." The song was recorded at the Townhouse with drummer Richard Dudanski, whom Keith Levene knew during his tenure with The 101ers. Wobble said that Dudanski made extensive and imaginative use of the tom-tom drums, and Levene told Simon Reynolds that "No Birds" is one of his favourite songs on the album. "All that it is is me playing the guitar part and duplicating it, but feeding the second one through this effect I'd set up on the harmoniser. Meanwhile John is lying under the piano and singing that weird feedback voice, while twinkling the keys at the same time, just to be annoying. You can hear the piano on the record," said Levene.


title: Metal Box

text: "Graveyard" features a guitar part that was "made up on the spot," according to Levene. "I was in a very Clint Eastwood mood. I didn't know what I was going to play. Wobble's playing the bassline and drums are playing so I had to do something." The album version is an instrumental, a version with lyrics and vocals was retitled "Another" and released as the B-side to "Memories" in October 1979.


title: Metal Box

text: "The Suit"—described by Lydon as being about "people of low origins trying to be posh"—is one of Levene's least favourite tracks. Levene said, "It was never one of my favourite pieces because of what it was really about. [...] There was this guy that was an old mate of John's who lived in this apartment. At some point John decided he hated his guts. He just wrote this really nasty, finger-pointing, over-exaggerated, ripping parody of what the guy was – 'Society boy.' [...] This guy, [fashion designer] Kenny MacDonald, made his suit and all of ours and it made him look good to have the guys from PiL wearing his stuff. We'd wear it wrong and it looked even better, we didn't want the black leather jacket look like these punk bands. So John just decided to hate this guy, that's what happens and there's nothing you can do. He wouldn't be his lapdog and John thought he was a star and wanted that." Wobble played and recorded the backing track of drums and piano for "The Suit" at Gooseberry Studios with Mark Lusardi, which started out as a cover of "Blueberry Hill". He brought the backing track to the band at The Manor, to which Lydon "freaked out when he heard that... He was galvanised into action and within a few hours 'The Suit' existed."


title: Metal Box

text: "Bad Baby"—its title a nickname of Levene's—was recorded at the Townhouse. Wobble (whose playing in the song was inspired by bassist Cecil McBee) and drummer Martin Atkins recorded the song together.


title: Metal Box

text: Levene recalled that "Socialist" featured cheap synthesizers he had purchased: "Me and Wobble were really having fun fucking around with these things, whilst submerged in the mix was this huge soaring sound, rising upwards from the drum and the bass, like a whale's cry. Later on I dubbed up the cymbals, so you have that spiralling metallic sound. Dubwise!" Wobble told Simon Reynolds, "At the time I was a bit of a socialist. [...] I hated Thatcher, I hated everything Reagan stood for to be quite honest, you know, and at that time I just wanted that old-style, left-wing socialism."


title: Metal Box

text: Lydon called "Chant" an "old English ditty with a string synthesizer". Drummer Richard Dudanski cited it as one of his favourites.


title: Metal Box

text: Album closer "Radio 4" was named after the BBC radio station. "I called it 'Radio 4' because in England, you got Radio 1, 2, 3...," said Levene. "Radio 1 played pop tunes. Before that, the BBC was so boring! It took until about 1985 before we had FM radio." "Radio 4" was recorded and performed by Levene, initially with Ken Lockie from Cowboys International on drums, at Advision Studios. Levene played the bassline "as if it was Wobble playing," and played a Yamaha String Ensemble to create the layered synth sounds. "I was using this thing and I start building it up, all I'm doing is taking different sounds from this thing and layering it. When I heard it, I pulled the drums out. I got on the idea of trying to make it sound orchestrated with the long chords played shorter. To get round the other stuff, I just used what was at hand. I played bass like I imagined Wobble would play bass to it, I wanted a Wobble feel to it. But basically, it's all me – that's when I realised I can completely do everything. You just hear the drums at the end. [...] With 'Radio 4', I was just alone in the studio one night, and I was overwhelmed with the sense of space. I just took everything out of the studio, moved the drum kit out and played everything myself, reproducing this sense of cold spaciousness I felt around me."


title: Metal Box

text: "Many people don't understand that [the album] was improvisation," Lydon recalled. "It had to be, because we'd spent most of the money on the container "[see below]" – and so what we had to do was quite literally sneak into studios when bands had gone home for the night. And these were pretty rough monitor mixes – no actual production."


title: Metal Box

text: The title of the album refers to its original packaging, which consisted of a metal case in the style of a 16mm film canister embossed with the band's logo and containing three 12" 45rpm records. It was designed by Dennis Morris and was innovative and inexpensive, costing little more to the label than the cost of standard printed sleeves for equivalent 12" releases (although Virgin did ask for a refund of a third of the band's advance due to the cost). Before the metal tin was finalised, there was discussion of the album being released in a sandpaper package that would effectively ruin the sleeve art of any records shelved next to it. That idea would later be realised by the Durutti Column for their 1980 Factory Records debut, "The Return of the Durutti Column".


title: Metal Box

text: The album's lack of accessibility extended to the discs themselves. Packed tightly inside the canister and separated by paper sheets, they were difficult to remove, and were prone to being nicked and scratched in the process. Since each side only contained about ten minutes of music, the listener was required to frequently change sides to hear the complete album.


title: Metal Box

text: Deleted from the catalogue on 23 November 1979 after an initial release of 60,000 units, the album was re-issued on 22 February 1980 as "Second Edition", a double LP packaged in a more conventional gatefold. The sleeve art of "Second Edition" consists of distorted photographs of the band members, achieving a funhouse mirror effect. (The front cover is a photo of Keith Levene.) The lyrics are printed on the rear cover. These were originally printed in a magazine advertisement and not included with "Metal Box". The band initially wanted the album released with a lyric sheet but no track titles. The United Kingdom version of "Second Edition" appears as the band intended, with lyrics on the back cover, but no titles, and "PiL" logo labels on all four sides of the vinyl. The US edition of "Second Edition" has track titles both on the back cover and the labels.


title: Metal Box

text: The original metal canister idea was used a few years later during the compact disc era. By the late 1980s, a number of CDs were packaged in metal canisters. In 1990 the concept came full circle, with the compact disc release of "Metal Box" employing a smaller version of the original metal canister, containing a single disc and a small paper insert.


title: Metal Box

text: "Metal Box" is now considered a post-punk classic, and is highly acclaimed. Andy Kellman of AllMusic said that "PIL managed to avoid boundaries for the first four years of their existence, and "Metal Box" is undoubtedly the apex", noting that the album "hardly [sounds] like anything of the past, present, or future". He also compared it to the works of Captain Beefheart and Can. "Drowned in Sound" reviewer Mark Ward wrote that the album "tears away from Lydon's sweaty punk roots and into the cold chambers of dub evoked by Can, the more outré electronics of Bowie's Berlin years and the coruscating post-punk sound that guitarist Levene was in the process of pioneering" and that "if you don't yet have a copy, you really should". "Village Voice" critic Robert Christgau described the album's sound as "a full-bodied superaware white dub with disorienting European echoes."


title: Metal Box

text: The album was ranked at No. 2 among the top "Albums of the Year" for 1979 by "NME", with "Death Disco" ranked at No. 11 among the year's top tracks. Robert Palmer placed the album at third place in his best of 1980 list for the "New York Times", proclaiming the album to be the "definitive album of postpunk rock and the year's most compelling slice of metal machine music."


title: Metal Box

text: In 2003, the album was included in "Rolling Stone"s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time list at No. 469, the magazine calling it "eerie, futuristic art punk with dub bass and slashing guitar". "Rolling Stone" also included it in their 100 Best Albums of the Eighties, ranking it at No. 76. In 2002, "Pitchfork" ranked "Metal Box" at No. 19 on its "Top 100 Albums of the 1980s". It was also, along with their debut album, included in the book "1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die", with the reviewer Stevie Chick saying "the abrasive textures and powerful sounds they discovered...would influence all manner of experimental music for decades to come", while describing it as "cold dank, unforgiving, subterranean." The songs "Albatross", "Poptones", "Careering", "Chant" and "Radio 4" were selected as "key tracks". In 2020, "Rolling Stone" included it in their "80 Greatest albums of 1980" list, praising the band for pushing "beyond post-punk into a fractured space between demented abstraction and cranky freedom".


title: Metal Box

text: "Second Edition" fits the album onto four 33rpm sides and features a slightly different song order ("Socialist/Chant/Radio 4" is split into its component parts, with "Socialist" and "No Birds" swapping places).


title: Sharpening stone

text: Sharpening stones, or whetstones, are used to sharpen the edges of steel tools such as knives through grinding and honing.


title: Sharpening stone

text: Such stones come in a wide range of shapes, sizes, and material compositions. They may be flat, for working flat edges, or shaped for more complex edges, such as those associated with some wood carving or woodturning tools. They may be composed of natural quarried material or from man-made material. They come in various grades, which refer to the grit size of the abrasive particles in the stone. (Grit size is given as a number, which indicates the spatial density of the particles; a higher number denotes a higher density and therefore smaller particles, which give a finer finish to the surface of the sharpened object.) Stones intended for use on a workbench are called bench stones, while small, portable ones, whose size makes it hard to draw large blades uniformly over them, especially “in the field,” are called pocket stones.


title: Sharpening stone

text: Often whetstones are used with a cutting fluid to enhance sharpening and carry away swarf. Those used with water for this purpose are often called water stones or waterstones, those used with oil sometimes oil stones or oilstones.


title: Sharpening stone

text: Whetstones will wear away with use, typically in the middle. Tools sharpened in this groove will develop undesirable curves on the blade. In order to prevent this, a whetstone may be levelled out with sandpaper or a levelling or flattening stone.


title: Sharpening stone

text: Though "whetstone" is often mistaken as a reference to the water sometimes used to lubricate such stones, the term is based on the word "whet", which means to sharpen a blade, not on the word "wet." The verb nowadays to describe the process of using a sharpening stone for a knife is simply "to sharpen", but the older term "to whet" is still sometimes used, though so rare in this sense that it is no longer mentioned in, for example, the Oxford Living Dictionaries.


title: Sharpening stone

text: Natural whetstones are typically formed of quartz, such as novaculite. The Ouachita Mountains in Arkansas are noted as a source for these. Novaculite is also found in Syria and Lebanon, previously a part of the Ottoman (Turkish) empire, hence the use of the older name in America of "Turkey stone".


title: Sharpening stone

text: Similar stones have been in use since antiquity. The Roman historian Pliny described use of several naturally occurring stones for sharpening in his "Natural History". He describes the use of both oil and water stones and gives the locations of several ancient sources for these stones.


title: Sharpening stone

text: One of the most well-regarded natural whetstones is the yellow-gray "Belgian Coticule", which has been legendary for the edge it can give to blades since Roman times, and has been quarried for centuries from the Ardennes. The slightly coarser and more plentiful "Belgian Blue" whetstone is found naturally with the yellow coticule in adjacent strata; hence two-sided whetstones are available, with a naturally occurring seam between the yellow and blue layers. These are highly prized for their natural elegance and beauty, and for providing both a fast-cutting surface for establishing a bevel and a finer surface for refining it. This stone is considered one of the finest for sharpening straight razors.


title: Sharpening stone

text: The hard stone of Charnwood Forest in northwest Leicestershire, England, has been quarried for centuries, and was a source of whetstones and quern-stones.


title: Sharpening stone

text: Natural stones are often prized for their natural beauty as stones and their rarity, adding value as collectors' items. Furthermore, each natural stone is different, and there are rare natural stones that contain abrasive particles in grit sizes finer than are currently available in artificial stones. See List of decorative stones.One such is Water of Ayr stone, sometimes known as Tam’o Shanter is a soft pumice that was first mined in Scotland during the 19th century. It wears very quickly. It is used to smooth molds and prepare soft materials such as gold and copper before final for polishing


title: Sharpening stone

text: Artificial stones usually come in the form of a bonded abrasive composed of a ceramic such as silicon carbide (carborundum) or aluminium oxide (corundum). Bonded abrasives provide a faster cutting action than natural stones. They are commonly available as a double-sided block with a coarse grit on one side and a fine grit on the other enabling one stone to satisfy the basic requirements of sharpening. Some shapes are designed for specific purposes such as sharpening scythes, drills or serrations.


title: Sharpening stone

text: Modern synthetic stones are generally of equal quality to natural stones, and are often considered superior in sharpening performance because of consistency of particle size and control over the properties of the stones. For example, the proportional content of abrasive particles as opposed to base or "binder" materials can be controlled to make the stone cut faster or more slowly, as desired.


title: Sharpening stone

text: The use of natural stone for sharpening has diminished with the widespread availability of high-quality artificial stones with consistent particle size. As a result, the legendary Honyama mines in Kyoto, Japan, have been closed since 1967. Belgium currently has only a single mine that is still quarrying Coticules and their Belgian Blue Whetstone (BBW) counterparts.


title: Sharpening stone

text: The Japanese traditionally used natural sharpening stones wetted with water, as using oil on such a stone reduces its effectiveness. The geology of Japan provided a type of stone which consists of fine silicate particles in a clay matrix, somewhat softer than novaculite. Besides this clay mineral, some sedimentary rock was used by the Japanese for whetstones, the most famous being typically mined in the Narutaki District just north of Kyoto.


title: Sharpening stone

text: Historically, there are three broad grades of Japanese sharpening stones: the "ara-to", or "rough stone", the "naka-to" or "middle/medium stone" and the "shiage-to" or "finishing stone". There is a fourth type of stone, the "nagura", which is not used directly. Rather, it is used to form a cutting slurry on the "shiage-to", which is often too hard to create the necessary slurry. Converting these names to absolute grit size is difficult as the classes are broad and natural stones have no inherent "grit number". As an indication, "ara-to" is probably (using a non-Japanese system of grading grit size) 500–1000 grit. The "naka-to" is probably 3000–5000 grit and the "shiage-to" is likely 7000–10000 grit. Current synthetic grit values range from extremely coarse, such as 120 grit, through extremely fine, such as 30,000 grit (less than half a micrometer abrasive particle size).


title: Sharpening stone

text: A diamond plate is a steel plate, sometimes mounted on a plastic or resin base, coated with diamond grit, an abrasive that will grind metal. When they are mounted they are sometimes known as diamond stones. The plate may have a series of holes cut in it that capture the swarf cast off as grinding takes place, and cuts costs by reducing the amount of abrasive surface area on each plate. Diamond plates can serve many purposes including sharpening steel tools, and for maintaining the flatness of man-made waterstones, which can become grooved or hollowed in use. Truing (flattening a stone whose shape has been changed as it wears away) is widely considered essential to the sharpening process but some hand sharpening techniques utilise the high points of a non-true stone. As the only part of a diamond plate to wear away is a very thin coating of grit and adhesive, and in a good diamond plate this wear is minimal due to diamond's hardness, a diamond plate retains its flatness. Rubbing the diamond plate on a whetstone to true (flatten) the whetstone is a modern alternative to more traditional truing methods.


title: Sharpening stone

text: Diamond plates are available in various plate sizes (from credit card to bench plate size) and grades of grit. A coarser grit is used to remove larger amounts of metal more rapidly, such as when forming an edge or restoring a damaged edge. A finer grit is used to remove the scratches of larger grits and to refine an edge. There are two-sided plates with each side coated with a different grit.


title: Sharpening stone

text: The highest quality diamond sharpeners use monocrystalline diamonds, single structures which will not break, giving them an excellent lifespan. These diamonds are bonded onto a precision ground surface, set in nickel, and electroplated. This process locks the diamonds in place.


title: Sharpening stone

text: There is no dominant standard for the relationship between "grit size" and particle diameter. Part of the difficulty is that "grit size" is used to refer to the smoothness of the finish produced by a sharpening stone, and not just the actual size of the grit particles. Other factors apart from particle diameter that affect the finish (and thus the "grit size" rating) are:


title: Sharpening stone

text: In synthetic stones, the grit size is related to the mesh size used to select the particles to be included in the abrasive. Sandpaper also uses a similar system.


title: Sharpening stone

text: Standards for grit size measurements include JIS, CAMI, ANSI, FEPA-P (for sandpaper), FEPA-F (for metal abrasives), and various trademarked standards for individual company product ranges.


title: Spork

text: A spork is a hybrid form of cutlery taking the form of a spoon-like shallow scoop with two to four fork-like tines. Its name is a portmanteau of spoon and fork. Spork-like utensils, such as the terrapin fork or ice cream fork, have been manufactured since the late 19th century; patents for spork-like designs date back to at least 1874. Sporks are commonly used by fast food restaurants, schools, prisons, militaries, backpackers, and airlines.


title: Spork

text: The word "spork" is a portmanteau of "spoon" and "fork". It appeared in the 1909 supplement to the "Century Dictionary," where it was described as a trade name and "a 'portmanteau-word' applied to a long, slender spoon having, at the end of the bowl, projections resembling the tines of a fork". The word "spork" was later registered as a trademark in the US and the UK.


title: Spork

text: In the US, patents for sporks and proto-sporks have been issued. A combined spoon, fork, and knife closely resembling the modern spork was invented by Samuel W. Francis and issued on February 3, 1874. Other early patents predating the modern spork include , for a "cutting spoon", granted on November 24, 1908, to Harry L. McCoy and , for a spoon with a tined edge, granted to Frank Emmenegger in November 1912. Many of these inventions predated the use of the term "spork". Given this significant prior art, the basic concept of combining aspects of a spoon and fork is well established; more modern patents have limited themselves to the specific implementation and appearance of the spork. These design patents do not prevent anyone from designing and manufacturing a different version of a spork. Examples of modern US design patents for sporks include patent number D247,153 issued in February 1978 and patent D388,664 issued in January 1998.


title: Spork

text: The "word" "spork" originated in the early 20th century to describe such devices. In 1951, Hyde W. Ballard of Westtown, Pennsylvania filed an application with the United States Patent Office (USPO; now the United States Patent and Trademark Office) to register "Spork" as a trademark for a combination spoon and fork made of stainless steel. The Van Brode Milling Company subsequently registered SPORK for a combination plastic spoon, fork and knife at the USPO on October 27, 1970, but the registration expired 20 years later. The word Spork accompanied by a stylised design is registered in the US in relation to hand tools, in the name of a UK-based individual.


title: Spork

text: In the UK, Plastico Limited registered Spork as a trademark in relation to cutlery with effect from September 18, 1975 (reg. no. 1052291, now expired). The trademark is also registered in the UK in relation to gardening tools in the name of the same UK based individual who owns US trademark registration no. 2514381. Another British company, Lifeventure, sells titanium and plastic versions using the name "Forkspoon".


title: Spork

text: In an unsuccessful lawsuit in 1999 where the company Regalzone sought to invalidate Plastico Limited's UK registration for Spork, Justice Neuberger wrote:


title: Spork

text: Materials such as stainless steel, silver, aluminum, titanium, and polycarbonate plastic have been used in spork manufacturing. Plastic sporks are common in prisons in the United States because they are difficult to form into shiv-type weapons to attack other inmates. Prepackaged meals may come with a disposable plastic spork. Sporks are also frequently used by backpackers, Boy Scouts and other outdoorspeople as they are a lightweight and space-saving alternative to carrying both a fork and spoon.


title: Spork

text: The Disney/Pixar animated movie "Toy Story 4" introduces a character named Forky, an animated spork voiced by Tony Hale.


title: Sajid Khan

text: Sajjad Khan (born 28 December 1951) is an Indian actor and singer. Born into poverty in the Bombay slums, he became the adopted son of Bollywood filmmaker Mehboob Khan, founder of Mehboob Studios. He worked in a handful of Indian films, debuting in his father's Academy Award-nominated "Mother India" (1957) and its sequel "Son of India" (1962). He later found more success overseas, working in international productions, including films and television shows in North America, such as "Maya" (1966) and its television adaptation, as well as the Philippines and United Kingdom. He was a teen idol in North America and the Philippines from the late 1960s to early 1970s.


title: Sajid Khan

text: Sajid was a poor child from the slums of Bombay (now Mumbai), in India's then Bombay State (now Maharashtra), before he was discovered by Bollywood filmmaker Mehboob Khan. Sajid started acting as a child appearing as the younger version of Sunil Dutt's character Birju in Mehboob Khan's Academy Award-nominated Hindi film "Mother India" (1957). Sajid was unknown at the time. His salary in the film was . He was later adopted by Mehboob Khan and his wife Sardar Akhtar, who named him Sajid Khan.


title: Sajid Khan

text: After his debut in "Mother India" in 1957, he played the title role in his adopted father's next and last film "Son of India" in 1962. According to Rauf Ahmed, though the film was not a success at the box-office, Sajid's performance was praised by the critics. After his father's death in 1964, Sajid was sent to the United States by his mother Sardar.


title: Sajid Khan

text: He went on to achieve fame in the United States with a co-starring role alongside Jay North in the 1966 film "Maya". The film's success led to a television series of the same name airing on NBC from September 1967 to February 1968 and lasting 18 episodes. The show led to Sajid becoming a "teen idol" for a short time appearing on the cover of popular magazines worldwide. He also had a short-lived singing career but was not successful. In 1968, he guest starred in an episode of the television series "The Big Valley", and appeared in the music variety show "It's Happening" as a guest judge.


title: Sajid Khan

text: He also found success in the Philippines in the early 1970s, starring as the male lead in a number of romantic comedy films opposite leading Philippine actresses Nora Aunor and Vilma Santos. He tried to get back into Hindi films, but none of his Hindi films from 1972 to 1983 worked financially. His career's peak period was in 1966–1974 and he was more successful in English films. He made his last film appearance in the Merchant Ivory film "Heat and Dust" in 1983 which was successful.


title: Sajid Khan

text: It is reported that Sajid had a factory in India which made costume jewellery. 'Artistic' was the name of the retail store. Actress Rekha fell in love with him in the period 1970–72 but Sajid met his future wife and broke off with Rekha. He later divorced his wife in 1990 and has a son, Sameer. He acted in films from 1957 to 2001.


title: Infrared thermometer

text: An infrared thermometer is a thermometer which infers temperature from a portion of the thermal radiation sometimes called black-body radiation emitted by the object being measured. They are sometimes called laser thermometers as a laser is used to help aim the thermometer, or non-contact thermometers or temperature guns, to describe the device's ability to measure temperature from a distance. By knowing the amount of infrared energy emitted by the object and its emissivity, the object's temperature can often be determined within a certain range of its actual temperature. Infrared thermometers are a subset of devices known as "thermal radiation thermometers".


title: Infrared thermometer

text: Sometimes, especially near ambient temperatures, readings may be subject to error due to the reflection of radiation from a hotter body—even the person holding the instrument — rather than radiated by the object being measured, and to an incorrectly assumed emissivity.


title: Infrared thermometer

text: The design essentially consists of a lens to focus the infrared thermal radiation on to a detector, which converts the radiant power to an electrical signal that can be displayed in units of temperature after being compensated for ambient temperature. This permits temperature measurement from a distance without contact with the object to be measured. A non-contact infrared thermometer is useful for measuring temperature under circumstances where thermocouples or other probe-type sensors cannot be used or do not produce accurate data for a variety of reasons.


title: Infrared thermometer

text: Some typical circumstances are where the object to be measured is moving; where the object is surrounded by an electromagnetic field, as in induction heating; where the object is contained in a vacuum or another controlled atmosphere; or in applications where a fast response is required, the accurate surface temperature is desired or the object temperature is above the recommended use point for contact sensors, or contact with a sensor would mar the object or the sensor, or introduce a significant temperature gradient on the object's surface.


title: Infrared thermometer

text: Infrared thermometers can be used to serve a wide variety of temperature monitoring functions. A few examples provided include detecting clouds for remote telescope operation, checking mechanical or electrical equipment for temperature and hot spots, measuring the temperature of patients in a hospital without touching them, checking heater or oven temperature, for calibration and control, checking for hot spots in fire-fighting, monitoring materials in processes involving heating or cooling, and measuring the temperature of volcanoes. At times of epidemics of diseases causing fever, such as SARS coronavirus and Ebola virus disease, infrared thermometers have been used to check arriving travelers for fever without causing harmful transmissions among the tested.


title: Infrared thermometer

text: In 2020 when COVID-19 pandemic hit the world, infrared thermometers were used to measure people's temperature and deny them entry to potential transmission sites if they showed signs of fever. Public health authorities such as the FDA in United States published rules to assure accuracy and consistency among the infrared thermometers.


title: Infrared thermometer

text: There are many varieties of infrared temperature-sensing devices, both for portable and handheld use and as fixed installations.


title: Infrared thermometer

text: Infrared thermometers are characterized by specifications including accuracy and angular coverage. Simpler instruments may have a measurement error of about ±2 °C or ±4 °F.


title: Infrared thermometer

text: The distance-to-spot ratio (D:S) is the ratio of the distance to the measurement surface and the diameter of the temperature measurement area. For instance, if the D:S ratio is 12:1, the diameter of the measurement area is one-twelfth of the distance to the object. A thermometer with a higher ratio of D to S is able to sense a more-specific, narrower surface at a greater distance than one with a lower ratio. A 12:1 rated device can sense a 1-inch circle at a distance of one foot, whereas a 10:1 ratio device achieves the same 1-inch circle at 10 inches, and a wider, less-specific circle of 1.2 inches at a distance of 12 inches.


title: Infrared thermometer

text: The ideal target area should be at least twice the size of the spot at that distance, with smaller areas relative to distance resulting in less accurate measurement. An infrared thermometer should not be placed too close to its target, as this proximity could cause heat to build up in the thermometer's housing and damage the sensor. Measurement error generally only decreases with too much distance because of the effects of reflectivity and the inclusion of other heat sources within the sensor's field of view.


title: Infrared thermometer

text: According to the Stefan–Boltzmann law, radiant power is proportional to the fourth power of temperature, so when the measurement surface has both hot and cold areas, the indicated temperature may be higher than the actual average temperature, and closer to fourth-power mean average.


title: Infrared thermometer

text: Most surfaces have high emissivity (over 0.9 for most biological surfaces), and most IR thermometers rely on this simplifying assumption; however, reflective surfaces have lower emissivity than non-reflective surfaces. Some sensors have an adjustable emissivity setting, which can be set to measure the temperature of reflective and non-reflective surfaces. A non-adjustable thermometer may be used to measure the temperature of a reflective surface by applying a non-reflective paint or tape, with some loss of accuracy.


title: Infrared thermometer

text: A sensor with an adjustable emissivity setting can also be used to calibrate the sensor for a given surface or to measure the emissivity of a surface. When the temperature of a surface is accurately known (e.g. by measuring with a contact thermometer), then the sensor's emissivity setting can be adjusted until the temperature measurement by the IR method matches the measured temperature by the contact method; the emissivity setting will indicate the emissivity of the surface, which can be taken into account for later measurements of similar surfaces (only).


title: Infrared thermometer

text: The most common infrared thermometer is the spot infrared pyrometer or infrared pyrometer, which measures the temperature at a spot on a surface (actually a relatively small area determined by the D:S ratio). These usually project a visible red dot onto the center of the area being measured that identifies the spot being measured, but plays no part in the measurement. The actual angular area being measured varies among instruments and is not restricted to the visible spot.


title: Infrared thermometer

text: Related equipment, although not strictly thermometers, include infrared scanning systems and infrared thermal imaging cameras. Infrared scanning systems scan a larger area, typically by using what is essentially a spot thermometer pointed at a rotating mirror. These devices are widely used in manufacturing involving conveyors or "web" processes, such as large sheets of glass or metal exiting an oven, fabric, and paper, or continuous piles of material along a conveyor belt. Infrared thermal imaging cameras or infrared cameras are essentially infrared radiation thermometers that measure the temperature at many points over a relatively large area to generate a two-dimensional image, called a thermogram, with each pixel representing a temperature. This technology is more processor- and software-intensive than spot or scanning thermometers, and is used for monitoring large areas. Typical applications include perimeter monitoring used by military or security personnel, inspection/process quality monitoring of manufacturing processes, and equipment or enclosed space hot or cold spot monitoring for safety and efficiency maintenance purposes.


title: Infrared thermometer

text: A photographic camera using infrared film and suitable lens, etc., is also called an "infrared camera". This only captures the near-infrared and is not sensitive to the thermal radiation from room-temperature objects.


title: Father Stretch My Hands

text: "Father Stretch My Hands" are songs by American rapper Kanye West from his seventh studio album, "The Life of Pablo" (2016). They are split into two parts on the album: "Father Stretch My Hands, Pt. 1" and "Pt. 2". "Pt. 1" contains vocals by American musician Kid Cudi and American R&B singer Kelly Price, while "Pt. 2" includes vocals from American rapper Desiigner, and American musician Caroline Shaw. Prior to release, the latter was played by West for Desiigner when the two met.


title: Father Stretch My Hands

text: On June 7, 2016, both parts of "Father Stretch My Hands" were sent to US rhythmic contemporary radio stations through GOOD Music and Def Jam as a two-part single, standing as the second single from "The Life of Pablo". Both parts of the song sample gospel musician and preacher T. L. Barrett's track "Father I Stretch My Hands"; "Pt. 2" samples Desiigner's song "Panda" and a sound clip from the 1991 video game "". West raps about models in his "Pt. 1" verse and delivers confessions in his "Pt. 2" verse.


title: Father Stretch My Hands

text: "Father Stretch My Hands" received general acclaim from music critics, with praise mostly being directed towards the T. L. Barrett sample in "Pt. 1" and West's verse on "Pt. 2". The former was listed among the best songs of 2016 by multiple publications, including "Complex" and "HipHopDX". It was an Award-Winning R&B/Hip-Hop and Rap Song at the 2017 ASCAP Rhythm & Soul Music Awards, and was among the 35 Most Performed R&B/Hip-Hop Songs at the 2017 BMI R&B/Hip-Hop Awards. Both parts of the song charted in the United States, the United Kingdom, Sweden, the Netherlands, Ireland, and Canada in 2016. "Pt. 1" and "Pt. 2" have since been certified triple platinum and platinum, respectively, by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in the United States, while both parts have respectively been certified silver by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) in the United Kingdom.


title: Father Stretch My Hands

text: A reinterpretation of "Pt. 1", produced by West, was released under the title of "Father Stretch" on Sunday Service Choir's debut studio album, "Jesus Is Born" (2019). It lacks sexually explicit lyrics and includes more elements of gospel than the original. The song received generally positive reviews from music critics. The majority of them commented on the song's development of the original, while some critics noted its appeal to certain audiences. The song peaked at number ten on the US "Billboard" Gospel Songs chart in 2020.


title: Father Stretch My Hands

text: West and Kid Cudi had collaborated on several tracks before "Pt. 1"; their first collaboration was the former's 2008 track "Welcome to Heartbreak". Desiigner met West in front of Los Angeles International Airport after West called him to arrange a meeting, and West played "Pt. 2" for Desiigner in his car. In an interview with "The Fader", Desiigner said about his single "Panda" being sampled by West in the track: "He just took my song and was like, 'I love it. Caroline Shaw was approached backstage by West, who asked for her phone number, at a 2014 Roomful of Teeth performance of "Partita for 8 Voices". Originally uninterested in a collaboration, Shaw changed her mind two weeks later after listening to West's 2008 album "808s & Heartbreak" and released a remix of the album's song "Say You Will" in October 2015. In addition to "Pt. 2", Shaw recorded vocals for "The Life of Pablo" "Wolves".


title: Father Stretch My Hands

text: A one-hour remix of "Father Stretch My Hands" was shared by West at the June 26, 2016 premiere of the music video for his single, "Famous". West tweeted a picture of the song's lyrics shortly before the album was released, and said that he cried when he wrote it. Two days after the album's release, West tweeted thanks to musician Drake for helping him write "Pt. 1" and the album track "30 Hours", and simultaneously promised more music with Drake and rapper Future.


title: Father Stretch My Hands

text: On "The Life of Pablo", "Father Stretch My Hands" is split into two parts: "Pt. 1" with vocals by Kid Cudi and Kelly Price, and "Pt. 2" with vocals by Desiigner and Caroline Shaw. It is a hip hop song; "Pt. 1" has elements of gospel music, and "Pt. 2" contains elements of trap music. "Pt. 1" heavily samples "Father I Stretch My Hands" by T. L. Barrett, and its lyrics are centered around models. "Pt. 1" segues into "Pt. 2", a soul-baring confessional dance track which begins with a sampled sound clip of the announcer of the 1991 video game "" yelling 'Perfect!'. "Pt. 2" has a verse by West before it transitions to two verses sampled from Desiigner's song, "Panda", which is about drug-dealing and cars. After resolving into a meditative piece spoken on a vocoder by Shaw, the song ends with a snippet of T. L. Barrett's track.


title: Father Stretch My Hands

text: West raps in "Pt. 1", "Now, if I fuck this model/ And she just bleached her asshole/ And I get bleach on my T-shirt/ I'ma feel like an asshole"; although co-writer Chance the Rapper denied responsibility for the lyrics, he expressed respect for them and viewed West as a comedian in the studio. On an episode of BET's video series "Rate The Bars", hip hop artist Rhymefest remembered leaving the studio after hearing West come up with the bleached-asshole lyrics. Rapper Kendrick Lamar was originally slated to appear on "Pt. 1", although his vocals were removed from the final version and a demo of the song surfaced on SoundCloud in March 2018 that included him rapping. At the time, West sent out a tweet instating "Me and Kendrick got 40 songs, and me and Young Thug got 40 songs."


title: Father Stretch My Hands

text: After the release of "The Life of Pablo", West announced plans to change the album during 2016 with new mixes, tweaks, and additions; Def Jam, his label, called it "a living, evolving art project." Some songs experienced greater changes than others, and both parts of "Father Stretch My Hands" received minor updates. They included new background vocals near the end of West's verse in "Pt. 1"; the production (and West's vocals) on "Pt. 2" were smoothed out and emphasized more.


title: Father Stretch My Hands

text: "Father Stretch My Hands" was released on February 14, 2016, as the second and third track on West's seventh studio album, "The Life of Pablo", as "Father Stretch My Hands, Pt. 1" and "Pt. 2" respectively. On June 7 of that year, both parts of the song were serviced to US rhythmic contemporary radio stations through GOOD Music and Def Jam as a two-part single.


title: Father Stretch My Hands

text: "Father Stretch My Hands" was met with general acclaim from music critics. Jordan Hoffman of "Vanity Fair" stated that the T. L. Barrett sample is "the sort of perfect sample that makes dealing with West's enormous ego worth it: a unique, distant, strangely familiar sound re-contextualized in a modern groove." "Spin"s Sheldon Pearce wrote about the sample, "Kanye West tweeted that "The Life of Pablo" was a gospel album during one of his longer stream-of-consciousness fits and that certainly can be taken literally – the samples of the Pastor T. L. Barrett's 'Father I Stretch My Hands', sermons from Kirk Franklin." Kyle McGovern, also from "Spin", pointed towards West's verse on "Pt. 2" as one of the album's "flashes of vintage 'Ye" because of its "references to his childhood and life-changing car wreck."


title: Father Stretch My Hands

text: Alicia Adejobi from the "International Business Times" also praised West's rapping in the verse for him being "unapologetic about mistakes he may have made and the most notable moments in his personal life," noting the track's "incredible production from Metro Boomin." A "RESPECT." staff member wrote that Kid Cudi's hook on "Pt. 1" "is one of the most amazing things I've heard in a while," and called West "the most reckless rapper alive" for the bleached-asshole lyric. The lyric was included in a January 2017 "Complex" list of the worst sex lyrics in rap history.


title: Father Stretch My Hands

text: "Complex" listed "Pt. 1" and "Pt. 2" as the third and 13th best songs of 2016, respectively. On "The Fader"s list of the 115 Best Songs Of 2016, "Pt. 1" ranked at number 19. The song was placed at number 13 on "HotNewHipHop"s list of the year's 50 hottest songs. It was listed at number three on "HipHopDX"s 50 Best Songs Of 2016, with the staff writing that "Kanye proved that saying the most nonsensical things could equate to arguably the most memorable verse of the year." The song also achieved the same ranking on the 25 best tracks of 2016 list by "Dummy Mag", with Alex Morris of the magazine directing praise towards the T. L. Barrett sample and Kid Cudi's chorus. "Pt. 1" appeared on the "Award-Winning R&B/Hip-Hop Songs" and "Award-Winning Rap Songs" lists at the 2017 ASCAP Rhythm & Soul Music Awards, and was one of the 35 Most Performed R&B/Hip-Hop Songs at the 2017 BMI R&B/Hip-Hop Awards. "Complex" listed "Pt. 1" as the third-best collaboration between West and Kid Cudi in 2017. In 2018, "Billboard" named it Cudi's second best ever feature.


title: Father Stretch My Hands

text: When West was on set to shoot the music video for Desiigner's single, "Panda" in May 2016, a May 11 vine posted by Luka Sabbat indicated that West was also filming a video for "Pt. 2"; a month earlier, he had shot one for "The Life of Pablo" track "Waves". The vine contained West, on a monitor, rapping portions of "Pt. 2" over the caption "2 times". The video had nearly 33,000 plays in 11 hours, and was deleted within 24 hours of its upload. No music video had been released or spoken of by February 2018, leading to the belief that it was a rumor.


title: Father Stretch My Hands

text: West first performed "Pt. 2" live at the Paradise International Music Festival in 2016. He sang a medley which included Kid Cudi's vocals from "Pt. 1" (a tribute to Kid Cudi, who was in rehab) over the instrumental of "Waves" on October 25, 2016, in Inglewood, California during the Saint Pablo Tour; "HipHopDX" shared a recording of the performance on Instagram. Chance the Rapper covered "Pt. 1" at the 2017 Governors Ball Music Festival, where he also covered the album tracks "Waves" and "Ultralight Beam". West and Kid Cudi unexpectedly performed "Pt. 1" in Los Angeles on August 17, 2018, in addition to "Ghost Town" from West's album "Ye" (2018). When West and Kid Cudi performed live at the 2018 Camp Flog Gnaw Carnival as Kids See Ghosts, they opened their set with "Pt. 1".


title: Father Stretch My Hands

text: "Pt. 1" charted in six countries. When "The Life of Pablo" was released, the song charted at number 37 on the US "Billboard" Hot 100 and number 14 on the US Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart before it was released as a single. "Pt. 1" debuted during the same week at number 54 on the UK Singles Chart, though was predicted by the Official Charts Company to enter at number 56 on the chart. Simultaneously with the debut, it reached number 17 on the UK Official Trending Chart. As of October 24, 2019, the song ranks as West's 27th most successful track of all time on the UK Singles Chart. The song performed similarly in Canada to the United Kingdom, charting at number 51 on the Canadian Hot 100 and spending four weeks on the chart. On the Irish Singles Chart, the track reached number 74 the week the album was released. It entered the Swedish national record chart (Sverigetopplistan) at number 79 when "The Life of Pablo" was released, and debuted that week at number 97 on the Dutch Top 40. "Pt. 1" was West's eighth number-one on the US "Billboard" R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay chart, on October 20, 2016. The song was certified silver by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) for sales of 200,000 copies in the UK on October 20, 2017, and was certified triple platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for selling 3,000,000 certified units in the US on September 29, 2020.


title: Father Stretch My Hands

text: "Pt. 2" performed similarly to "Pt. 1", also charting in six countries. It entered the US "Billboard" Hot 100 and the US Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart with "The Life of Pablo" release, debuting at numbers 54 and 18 respectively. The song reached number 70 on the UK Singles Chart that week. As of October 26, 2019, the song stands as West's 40th most successful track of all time on the chart. The track debuted at number 60 on the Canadian Hot 100 when the album was released, spending three weeks on the chart. During the same week, it reached number 87 on the Irish Singles Chart. The track debuted at number 95 on the Sverigetopplistan chart when "The Life of Pablo" was released, and charted at number 100 on the Dutch Top 40 that week. "Pt. 2" was certified platinum by the RIAA for sales of 1,000,000 certified units in the US on February 1, 2018. This was nearly two years after the single's release and the song became the first track from "The Life of Pablo" to achieve the certification in the US. On November 8, 2019, the song was certified silver by the BPI for selling 200,000 copies in the UK.


title: Father Stretch My Hands

text: "Pt. 1" spawned a number of internet memes, including Future's tagline for producer Metro Boomin's entrance on the song: "If young Metro don't trust you I'm gon' shoot you." "Pt. 2" was listed by West's ex-wife, Kim Kardashian, in August 2016 as one of her 28 favorite songs by him. When Drake rapped "Duppy Freestyle" in May 2018, he referred to "The Life of Pablo" tracks "Pt. 1" and "30 Hours" and his Kanye West and Jay-Z-featured single "Pop Style" in a poke at West.


title: Father Stretch My Hands

text: American gospel group Sunday Service Choir recorded a reinterpretation of "Pt. 1" under the title of "Father Stretch", with the reinterpretation being produced by West. "Father Stretch" was released on December 25, 2019, as the sixth track on Sunday Service Choir's debut studio album "Jesus Is Born". The song brings back the beat of the original version, though it excludes the sexually explicit lyrics and includes more gospel elements. Particularly, the song has been noted for its exclusion of the original's "bleached asshole" lyrics. The refrain of the song demonstrates how far-reaching the love of God is, with the refrain comparing one's blessings to being "As countless as the stars." The comparison references the Abrahamic covenant that saw God make a promise to Abraham for as many descendants as there are stars.


title: Father Stretch My Hands

text: "Father Stretch" was met with generally positive reviews from music critics, who mostly noted its development of "Pt. 1". The song was described by Bianca Gracie from "Billboard" as making the original version of it "even more captivating." Rhian Daly of "NME" cited the song as being among what draws fans of West into the album and called the song "perhaps obviously, radically different from what it once was," while noting the song as building on the T. L. Barrett sample. Similarly, Dean Van Nguyen from "The Guardian" listed the song as one of the most interesting parts of "Jesus Is Born" for West's fans and noted that it "develops the rap song's gospel overtures." ClashMusic's Laviea Thomas branded the song as a "distinctive" rendition of "Pt. 1". Neil Z. Yeung from AllMusic noted it for being a fresh take on the latter. In a mixed review, Daniel Bromfield from "Spectrum Culture" wrote that "the space on 'Father Stretch' where we expect to hear his famous bleached asshole line is gaping" and claimed that the song will only be preferred to the original by parents.