title: Toyota T100

text: Although sales were slow at the start, the T100 sales did reach into the mid 40,000 vehicles sold range (1996) in the United States. Sales of the Chevrolet C/K were roughly 700,000 per year, while sales of the Ford F-Series surged from 550,000 to nearly 850,000 and Dodge went from 100,000 to 400,000 with the introduction of the new Dodge Ram in 1993. Sales of the T100 fell approximately 30 percent when the new Ram went on the market in October 1993, 11 months after the T100's launch in November 1992.


title: Toyota T100

text: Upon introduction, the T100 was criticized for being too small to appeal to buyers of full-size work trucks, the lack of an extended cab, and the lack of a V8 engine; with the only available engine was a 3.0 liter V6, which was already found in Toyota's compact trucks and in the 4Runner. Although considered criticisms by many, Toyota stated these were all factors that were taken into consideration when designing and producing the T100. They claimed the smaller size was planned to offer a larger truck with a compact "feel", an Xtracab was on the horizon and the 3.0 liter V6 would provide far better fuel economy than the vehicles it aspired to rival. Both the V6 engine and the somewhat smaller dimensions were influenced by environmental concerns, issues that were irrelevant to American pickup buyers.


title: Toyota T100

text: Despite the criticisms of size and horsepower, the T100 was also praised by the media, acquiring J.D. Power and Associates Initial Quality Survey "Best Full-Size Pickup" award and the "Best of What's New" award by Popular Science magazine in its first year on the market. The T100 was the first vehicle – car or truck – ever to receive an "Initial Quality Survey Award" in its first year of production. For 1994 (the truck's second model year) and 1995 (the third), the T100 was again awarded "Best Full-Size Pickup in Initial Quality" by J.D. Power and Associates. In 1997 the T100 was awarded "Top Three Vehicles in Initial Quality – Full-Size Segment" once again by J.D. Power and Associates.


title: Toyota T100

text: When it was introduced, the T100 had one cab configuration, a regular cab, and one available engine, a 3.0 L V6 with and of torque. In 1993, a 2.7 L inline-four engine with - same as for the 3.0 V6 - and of torque was added in the hopes new buyers would be drawn in with promises of greater fuel economy and a lower price (than previous models). The T100 was the first imported pickup truck that could carry a 4 by 8 feet plywood sheet between the wheelwells. The regular cab could seat three abreast in the front bench seat; this was split on the SR5 model. Automatics received a column shift while manuals were floor mounted, where the transfer case shifter was also located on 4WD models.


title: Toyota T100

text: Toyota ultimately realized there was no alternative but to add more power to the truck and for the 1995 model year Toyota added the and of torque 3.4 L V6. An Xtracab model came along several months into the 1995 model year as well, sitting on the same wheelbase with a bed. This provided a boost in sales of 150 percent for 1995. The T100 received only minor changes throughout its run, aside from the engine changes and the Xtracab addition. A driver-side airbag was installed for MY 1994 (a passenger-side airbag never became available), and larger 16-inch wheels became the norm for most of the 4X4 models starting in 1996. It was evident by late 1996/ early 1997 that Toyota was already investing in its next truck (what ultimately became the Toyota Tundra). At the time (late 1990s) some believed a revamped T100 with a V8 engine was on the way, and there were some reports that altered V8 powered T100s were used as test-mules, but ultimately it never came to pass, and the T100 was superseded by the Toyota Tundra.


title: Toyota T100

text: Toyota Racing Development (TRD) introduced a supercharger for the 3.4-liter engine in 1996 and it became available for the T100, the Tacoma and the 4Runner with the 3.4-liter V6 (and later the Tundra). Horsepower jumped to the range (depending on the generation of the supercharger) and to of torque. This power add on was available for 1997–1998 T100s only. Earlier 3.4 V6 powered T100s have different computer and electrical layouts which do not support the TRD device.


title: Toyota T100

text: The T100 was manufactured and partially engineered by Toyota-subsidiary Hino. Three trim lines were offered: the base model, the "DX", and the top-of-the-line "SR5". The maximum towing capacity was 5,200 lb (2,360 kg) and the truck had a payload limit of 2,450 pounds. Although most trucks fell within the 1/2 ton category, a 1-ton model was offered (in two-wheel drive form) for several of its earlier years until finally being dropped because of a lack of interest.


title: Toyota T100

text: All T100s were assembled in Tokyo, Japan and as a result were subject to a 25% import tariff on all imported light trucks. The T100 was the last Japanese-built Toyota pickup made for North America when production ceased in July 1998, sales being phased out in August and ending with the 1998 model year. The T100 was replaced by the larger V8-powered Tundra which debuted in 1999. Toyota had originally planned to continue the T100 naming system by calling the new truck the "Toyota T-150"; Ford made a successful claim that this was a trademark infringement of their F-150 and the name had to be changed.


title: Audio bit depth

text: In digital audio using pulse-code modulation (PCM), bit depth is the number of bits of information in each sample, and it directly corresponds to the resolution of each sample. Examples of bit depth include Compact Disc Digital Audio, which uses 16 bits per sample, and DVD-Audio and Blu-ray Disc which can support up to 24 bits per sample.


title: Audio bit depth

text: In basic implementations, variations in bit depth primarily affect the noise level from quantization error—thus the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and dynamic range. However, techniques such as dithering, noise shaping, and oversampling can mitigate these effects without changing the bit depth. Bit depth also affects bit rate and file size.


title: Audio bit depth

text: Bit depth is only meaningful in reference to a PCM digital signal. Non-PCM formats, such as lossy compression formats, do not have associated bit depths.


title: Audio bit depth

text: A PCM signal is a sequence of digital audio samples containing the data providing the necessary information to reconstruct the original analog signal. Each sample represents the amplitude of the signal at a specific point in time, and the samples are uniformly spaced in time. The amplitude is the only information explicitly stored in the sample, and it is typically stored as either an integer or a floating point number, encoded as a binary number with a fixed number of digits: the sample's "bit depth", also referred to as word length or word size.


title: Audio bit depth

text: The resolution indicates the number of discrete values that can be represented over the range of analog values. The resolution of binary integers increases exponentially as the word length increases. Adding one bit doubles the resolution, adding two quadruples it and so on. The number of possible values that can be represented by an integer bit depth can be calculated by using 2, where "n" is the bit depth. Thus, a 16-bit system has a resolution of 65,536 (2) possible values.


title: Audio bit depth

text: Today, most audio file formats and digital audio workstations (DAWs) support PCM formats with samples represented by floating point numbers. Both the WAV file format and the AIFF file format support floating point representations. Unlike integers, whose bit pattern is a single series of bits, a floating point number is instead composed of separate fields whose mathematical relation forms a number. The most common standard is IEEE 754 which is composed of three fields: a sign bit which represents whether the number is positive or negative, an exponent and a mantissa which is raised by the exponent. The mantissa is expressed as a binary fraction in IEEE base-two floating point formats.


title: Audio bit depth

text: The bit depth limits the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of the reconstructed signal to a maximum level determined by quantization error. The bit depth has no impact on the frequency response, which is constrained by the sample rate.


title: Audio bit depth

text: Quantization error introduced during analog-to-digital conversion (ADC) can be modeled as quantization noise. It is a rounding error between the analog input voltage to the ADC and the output digitized value. The noise is nonlinear and signal-dependent.


title: Audio bit depth

text: In an ideal ADC, where the quantization error is uniformly distributed between formula_1 least significant bit (LSB) and where the signal has a uniform distribution covering all quantization levels, the signal-to-quantization-noise ratio (SQNR) can be calculated from


title: Audio bit depth

text: Therefore, 16-bit digital audio found on CDs has a theoretical maximum SNR of 98 dB and professional 24-bit digital audio tops out as 146 dB. , digital audio converter technology is limited to a SNR of about 123 dB (effectively 21-bits) because of real-world limitations in integrated circuit design. Still, this approximately matches the performance of the human auditory system. Multiple converters can be used to cover different ranges of the same signal, being combined to record a wider dynamic range in the long-term, while still being limited by the single converter's dynamic range in the short term, which is called "dynamic range extension".


title: Audio bit depth

text: The resolution of floating-point samples is less straightforward than integer samples because floating-point values are not evenly spaced. In floating-point representation, the space between any two adjacent values is in proportion to the value. This greatly increases the SNR compared to an integer system because the accuracy of a high-level signal will be the same as the accuracy of an identical signal at a lower level.


title: Audio bit depth

text: The trade-off between floating point and integers is that the space between large floating-point values is greater than the space between large integer values of the same bit depth. Rounding a large floating-point number results in a greater error than rounding a small floating-point number whereas rounding an integer number will always result in the same level of error. In other words, integers have round-off that is uniform, always rounding the LSB to 0 or 1, and floating point has SNR that is uniform, the quantization noise level is always of a certain proportion to the signal level. A floating-point noise floor will rise as the signal rises and fall as the signal falls, resulting in audible variance if the bit depth is low enough.


title: Audio bit depth

text: Most processing operations on digital audio involve the re-quantization of samples and thus introduce additional rounding error analogous to the original quantization error introduced during analog-to-digital conversion. To prevent rounding error larger than the implicit error during ADC, calculations during processing must be performed at higher precisions than the input samples.


title: Audio bit depth

text: Digital signal processing (DSP) operations can be performed in either fixed point or floating-point precision. In either case, the precision of each operation is determined by the precision of the hardware operations used to perform each step of the processing and not the resolution of the input data. For example, on x86 processors, floating-point operations are performed with single or double precision and fixed-point operations at 16-, 32- or 64-bit resolution. Consequently, all processing performed on Intel-based hardware will be performed with these constraints regardless of the source format.


title: Audio bit depth

text: Fixed point digital signal processors often support specific word lengths in order to support specific signal resolutions. For example, the Motorola 56000 DSP chip uses 24-bit multipliers and 56-bit accumulators to perform multiply-accumulate operations on two 24-bit samples without overflow or truncation. On devices that do not support large accumulators, fixed point results may be truncated, reducing precision. Errors compound through multiple stages of DSP at a rate that depends on the operations being performed. For uncorrelated processing steps on audio data without a DC offset, errors are assumed to be random with zero mean. Under this assumption, the standard deviation of the distribution represents the error signal, and quantization error scales with the square root of the number of operations. High levels of precision are necessary for algorithms that involve repeated processing, such as convolution. High levels of precision are also necessary in recursive algorithms, such as infinite impulse response (IIR) filters. In the particular case of IIR filters, rounding error can degrade frequency response and cause instability.


title: Audio bit depth

text: The noise introduced by quantization error, including rounding errors and loss of precision introduced during audio processing, can be mitigated by adding a small amount of random noise, called dither, to the signal prior to quantizing. Dithering eliminates non-linear quantization error behavior, giving very low distortion, but at the expense of a slightly raised noise floor. Recommended dither for 16-bit digital audio measured using ITU-R 468 noise weighting is about 66 dB below alignment level, or 84 dB below digital full scale, which is comparable to microphone and room noise level, and hence of little consequence in 16-bit audio.


title: Audio bit depth

text: 24-bit and 32-bit audio do not require dithering, as the noise level of the digital converter is always louder than the required level of any dither that might be applied. 24-bit audio could theoretically encode 144 dB of dynamic range, and 32-bit audio can achieve 192 dB, but this is almost impossible to achieve in the real world, as even the best sensors and microphones rarely exceed 130 dB.


title: Audio bit depth

text: Dither can also be used to increase the effective dynamic range. The "perceived" dynamic range of 16-bit audio can be 120 dB or more with noise-shaped dither, taking advantage of the frequency response of the human ear.


title: Audio bit depth

text: Dynamic range is the difference between the largest and smallest signal a system can record or reproduce. Without dither, the dynamic range correlates to the quantization noise floor. For example, 16-bit integer resolution allows for a dynamic range of about 96 dB. With the proper application of dither, digital systems can reproduce signals with levels lower than their resolution would normally allow, extending the effective dynamic range beyond the limit imposed by the resolution. The use of techniques such as oversampling and noise shaping can further extend the dynamic range of sampled audio by moving quantization error out of the frequency band of interest.


title: Audio bit depth

text: If the signal's maximum level is lower than that allowed by the bit depth, the recording has headroom. Using higher bit depths during studio recording can make headroom available while maintaining the same dynamic range. This reduces the risk of clipping without increasing quantization errors at low volumes.


title: Audio bit depth

text: Oversampling is an alternative method to increase the dynamic range of PCM audio without changing the number of bits per sample. In oversampling, audio samples are acquired at a multiple of the desired sample rate. Because quantization error is assumed to be uniformly distributed with frequency, much of the quantization error is shifted to ultrasonic frequencies and can be removed by the digital to analog converter during playback.


title: Audio bit depth

text: For example, a 14-bit ADC can produce 16-bit 48 kHz audio if operated at 16× oversampling, or 768 kHz. Oversampled PCM, therefore, exchanges fewer bits per sample for more samples in order to obtain the same resolution.


title: Audio bit depth

text: Dynamic range can also be enhanced with oversampling at signal reconstruction, absent oversampling at the source. Consider 16× oversampling at reconstruction. Each sample at reconstruction would be unique in that for each of the original sample points sixteen are inserted, all having been calculated by a digital reconstruction filter. The mechanism of increased effective bit depth is as previously discussed, that is, quantization noise power has not been reduced, but the noise spectrum has been spread over 16× the audio bandwidth.


title: Audio bit depth

text: Historical note—The compact disc standard was developed by a collaboration between Sony and Philips. The first Sony consumer unit featured a 16-bit DAC; the first Philips units dual 14-bit DACs. This caused confusion in the marketplace and even in professional circles, because 14-bit PCM allows for 84 dB SNR, 12 dB less than 16-bit PCM. Philips had implemented 4× oversampling with first order noise shaping which theoretically realized the full 96 dB dynamic range of the CD format. In practice the Philips CD100 was rated at 90 dB SNR in the audio band of 20 Hz–20 kHz, the same as Sony's CDP-101.


title: Audio bit depth

text: Oversampling a signal results in equal quantization noise per unit of bandwidth at all frequencies and a dynamic range that improves with only the square root of the oversampling ratio. Noise shaping is a technique that adds additional noise at higher frequencies which cancels out some error at lower frequencies, resulting in a larger increase in dynamic range when oversampling. For "n"th-order noise shaping, the dynamic range of an oversampled signal is improved by an additional 6"n" dB relative to oversampling without noise shaping. For example, for a 20 kHz analog audio sampled at 4× oversampling with second-order noise shaping, the dynamic range is increased by 30 dB. Therefore, a 16-bit signal sampled at 176 kHz would have a bit depth equal to a 21-bit signal sampled at 44.1 kHz without noise shaping.


title: Audio bit depth

text: Noise shaping is commonly implemented with delta-sigma modulation. Using delta-sigma modulation, Direct Stream Digital achieves a theoretical 120 dB SNR at audio frequencies using 1-bit audio with 64× oversampling.


title: Audio bit depth

text: Bit depth is a fundamental property of digital audio implementations. Depending on application requirements and equipment capabilities, different bit depths are used for different applications.


title: Audio bit depth

text: Bit depth affects bit rate and file size. Bits are the basic unit of data used in computing and digital communications. Bit rate refers to the amount of data, specifically bits, transmitted or received per second. In MP3 and other lossy compressed audio formats, bit rate describes the amount of information used to encode an audio signal. It is usually measured in kb/s.


title: Imran Tahir

text: Mohammad Imran Tahir (; born 27 March 1979) is a South African former international cricketer. A spin bowler who predominantly bowls googlies and a right-handed batsman, Tahir played for South Africa in all three forms of cricket, but preferred the Twenty20 International matches.


title: Imran Tahir

text: On 15 June 2016, Tahir became the first South African bowler to take seven wickets in an ODI, and also the fastest South African to reach 100 ODI wickets (58 matches). He is currently South Africa's leading wicket-taker among spin bowlers in ODIs and T20Is respectively.


title: Imran Tahir

text: On 17 February 2017, Tahir became the fastest South African to reach 50 T20I wickets. On 4 March 2017, against New Zealand he recorded the most economical figures by a South African spinner in an ODI, with 2 wickets for 14 runs from 10 overs.


title: Imran Tahir

text: On 3 October 2018, he became the fourth bowler for South Africa to take a hat-trick in ODIs. In March 2019, he announced that he would quit ODI cricket following the 2019 Cricket World Cup.


title: Imran Tahir

text: He represented his eighth English county club, when he joined Surrey in 2019, thus setting a new record.


title: Imran Tahir

text: Imran Tahir was born in Lahore, Pakistan, and learnt the game while growing up there. Being the eldest sibling, he started working at the age of 16 as a retail salesman at Lahore's Pace Shopping Mall on a meagre salary, to support his family. His fortunes changed when he was selected during trials to represent the Pakistan U-19 cricket team, eventually progressing onto the Pakistan A side on some tours. However, he failed to make the transition to the next stage.


title: Imran Tahir

text: He began playing county cricket in England but did not stay there for long. He then moved to South Africa, which faced a perennial dearth of quality spinners. In South Africa, he played domestic cricket for five years and lived "hand-to-mouth for the first two years."


title: Imran Tahir

text: As well as his first-class career in Pakistan, Tahir has had short spells with Yorkshire and Middlesex in county cricket as well as playing for Staffordshire in the Minor Counties Cricket Championship.


title: Imran Tahir

text: While Tahir has represented Pakistan Under-19 cricket team's and Pakistan A, he failed to win full international honours for Pakistan. In 2005, aged 26, Tahir became a resident of South Africa. He is married to Sumayya Dildar, a South African woman, and has represented South Africa after becoming eligible to play for them when he met his four-year residence requirement in April 2009.


title: Imran Tahir

text: Tahir was a member of Hampshire's 2009 Friends Provident Trophy winning squad, taking 2/50 from 10 overs in the final against Sussex. Tahir made his career high score of 77 not out in a County Championship match against Somerset on 28 August 2009.


title: Imran Tahir

text: For the 2010 season Hampshire signed Sri Lankan spinner Ajantha Mendis, replacing Tahir for the season. Tahir represented Warwickshire for the 2010 season, and then represented Hampshire again until 2014.


title: Imran Tahir

text: Tahir made his 100th first-class appearance in the 2009/2010 SuperSport Series when the Titans played the Lions. On 8 January Tahir was called up to the South Africa squad in their Test series against England although he was then withdrawn one day later after Cricket South Africa revealed that he was not eligible to play.


title: Imran Tahir

text: At the end of the 2009/10 season, Tahir moved from the Titans to the Dolphins. This was due to a lack of first-class cricket with the club, who preferred to play 23-year-old leg-spinner Shaun von Berg. When Tahir was called into South Africa's squad for the final Test against England, national coach Mickey Arthur said "I'm not entirely sure what the issues are between him and the Titans, but the Titans obviously aren't going to pick him because they'd rather pick the young leggie they have". He holds the record for representing highest number of teams (27) in the world. He moved to the Highveld Lions in 2012.


title: Imran Tahir

text: In January 2018, he was bought by the Chennai Super Kings in the 2018 IPL auction. He took 26 wickets for the team in IPL 2019, winning the Purple Cap.


title: Imran Tahir

text: In October 2018, he was named in Nelson Mandela Bay Giants' squad for the first edition of the Mzansi Super League T20 tournament.


title: Imran Tahir

text: In July 2019, he was selected to play for the Amsterdam Knights in the inaugural edition of the Euro T20 Slam cricket tournament. However, the following month the tournament was cancelled. In September 2019, he was named in the squad for the Nelson Mandela Bay Giants team for the 2019 Mzansi Super League tournament.


title: Imran Tahir

text: In July 2020, he was named in the Guyana Amazon Warriors squad for the 2020 Caribbean Premier League.


title: Imran Tahir

text: On 9 August 2021, whilst playing for Birmingham Phoenix against Welsh Fire, Tahir became the first bowler to take a hat-trick in the inaugural season of The Hundred. In November 2021, he was selected to play for the Dambulla Giants following the players' draft for the 2021 Lanka Premier League.


title: Imran Tahir

text: On 30 October Pakistan Cricket Board announced that Imran Tahir will be the mentor of team Bahawalpur in upcoming Pakistan Junior Cricket League.


title: Imran Tahir

text: Tahir was first called up to the South African Test team in 2010 when England were touring, but it was an error by the selection committee as he would not eligible to play for South Africa until January 2011. He was quickly withdrawn from the team then, but found his way back almost immediately after becoming eligible to play.


title: Imran Tahir

text: Tahir qualified for South Africa on 1 January 2011, and was selected by them for the 2011 Cricket World Cup. Although he was part of South Africa's squad to play a five-match ODI series against India before the World Cup, Tahir did not make his debut. Captain Graeme Smith explained that this was because "[Tahir] is someone we want to keep fresh and we didn't want to give people the opportunity to see too much of him."


title: Imran Tahir

text: Imran Tahir debuted for South Africa in a match against the West Indies on 24 February 2011 at the Feroz Shah Kotla stadium in Delhi. He took 4 wickets for 41 runs in 10 overs during his debut match. He impressed immediately, picking 14 wickets in the five games he played.


title: Imran Tahir

text: He made his Test debut against Australia at Cape Town in November 2011 and was a regular part of the squad for four years. In the Test series against Pakistan in UAE in 2013, he was not picked for the first Test, but he came back strongly in the second by bagging a five-wicket haul on the first day of the Test match. Tahir was left out once again after one bad Test with the ball against India and was replaced by Robin Peterson, but he continued to do well in the shorter forms of the game. He continued to be a regular member of the South African side in all formats and played Test matches in spin-friendly conditions.


title: Imran Tahir

text: In November 2012 Tahir bowled 37 overs in a Test match against Australia, with no wickets for 260 runs – the worst bowling figures in Test match history. After the Test, he was dropped and replaced by Robin Peterson.


title: Imran Tahir

text: In October 2013, Tahir made a comeback to Test cricket when he took 5 wickets in an innings for the first time in a Test match and guided South Africa to clinch victory against Pakistan by an innings and 92 runs in the Dubai Test, levelling the series 1–1. He took 8 wickets in the match.


title: Imran Tahir

text: At the 2014 ICC World Twenty20, Tahir returned his best figures, of 4–21, in South Africa's match against the Netherlands on 27 March 2014, and was awarded Man of the match. Tahir was joint highest wicket-taker in the tournament along with Ahsan Malik from the Netherlands; both took 12 wickets in the tournament.


title: Imran Tahir

text: In the 2015 ICC Cricket World Cup quarter-final match between South Africa and Sri Lanka, Tahir helped South Africa to their first ever World Cup knockout win with a Man of the Match performance of 4-26. At the end of 2015 he was named in the ICC ODI team of the year.


title: Imran Tahir

text: In February 2017 he reached the top position in both the ODI and T20I rankings for bowlers, and three months later was named T20I Cricketer of the Year at Cricket South Africa's annual awards. In August 2017, he was named in a World XI side to play three Twenty20 International matches against Pakistan in the 2017 Independence Cup in Lahore.


title: Imran Tahir

text: In April 2019, he was named in South Africa's squad for the 2019 Cricket World Cup. He played in the opening match of the tournament, against hosts England. At the age of 40 years and 64 days, Tahir became the oldest cricketer for South Africa to play in a World Cup match. He bowled the opening over of the tournament, therefore becoming the first spinner to bowl the first over in a World Cup match. Tahir also took the first wicket of the World Cup, dismissing England's Jonny Bairstow for a duck. In South Africa's next match in the World Cup, against Bangladesh, Tahir played in his 100th ODI. Tahir retired from the game after playing his team's last group stage match against Australia, along with teammate JP Duminy.


title: Liberian Girl

text: "Liberian Girl" is the ninth single released from American singer Michael Jackson's 1987 album "Bad". The song was written as early as 1983 and was among those considered for the Jacksons' "Victory" album. It was reworked and rewritten for "Bad". The song was released as a single in Europe, Japan, New Zealand, and Australia. Although a commercial success (ranking the Top 15 in several countries), the song was never performed live by Michael Jackson during his Bad World Tour or later concerts.


title: Liberian Girl

text: "The New York Times" editor Jon Pareles wrote that a melody line from "Billie Jean" reappears in this song. "Rolling Stone"s Davitt Sigerson praised the song: "'Liberian Girl' "is Michael's filler, which makes it richer, sexier, better than "Thriller's" forgettables" and he also described that it "glistens with gratitude for the existence of a loved one." In 2003, "Q" magazine ranked the song at number 1,001 in their list of the "1001 Best Songs Ever".


title: Liberian Girl

text: The song received a positive reception in Liberia, with women from the country viewing the song as empowering. Liberian woman Margaret Carson said in an interview with "The Washington Times" "When that music came out … the Liberian girls were so astonished to hear a great musician like Michael Jackson thinking about a little country in Africa. It gave us hope, especially when things went bad … . It made us to feel that we are still part of the world."


title: Liberian Girl

text: Directed by Jim Yukich and produced by Paul Flattery for FYI (Flattery Yukich Inc.), the video for the song was filmed in two days in April 1989 at A&M Chaplin Stage in Los Angeles, California. The music video featured many of Jackson's celebrity friends who gather on a soundstage to film the music video for "Liberian Girl", only to discover that Jackson was filming them all along. The following people are listed in order of appearance (ordered by columns):


title: Liberian Girl

text: There was also someone dressed as a mummy in the video. In the ending credits the mummy was credited with a question mark.


title: Liberian Girl

text: The music video of the song was included on the video albums: "HIStory on Film, Volume II", "Vision" and the Target version DVD of "Bad 25".


title: China Mobile

text: China Mobile is the trade name of both China Mobile Limited () and its ultimate controlling shareholder, China Mobile Communications Group Co., Ltd. (, formerly known as China Mobile Communications Corporation, "CMCC"), a Chinese state-owned company. China Mobile Limited provides mobile voice and multimedia services through its nationwide mobile telecommunications network across mainland China and Hong Kong. China Mobile is the largest wireless carrier in China, with 945.50 million subscribers as of June 2021.


title: China Mobile

text: China Mobile Limited is listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. It is the world's largest mobile network operator by total number of subscribers.


title: China Mobile

text: , China Mobile Limited's total market value stood at HK$965 billion, which is the largest red chip company.


title: China Mobile

text: Incorporated in 1997 as China Telecom (Hong Kong) Limited, China Mobile was born from the 1999 break-up of China Telecommunications Corporation. This company continues to provide mobile services, however.


title: China Mobile

text: In May 2008, the company took over China Tietong, a fixed-line telecom and the then third-largest broadband ISP in China adding Internet services to its core business of mobile services.


title: China Mobile

text: In October 2014, Nokia and China Mobile signed a $970 million framework deal for delivery between 2014 and 2015.


title: China Mobile

text: In December 2021, China Mobile announced that its international arm would cease operations in Canada due to national security concerns by the Canadian government.


title: China Mobile

text: In November 2020, President Donald Trump issued an executive order prohibiting any American company or individual from owning shares in companies that the United States Department of Defense has listed as having links to the People's Liberation Army, which included China Mobile. On 31 December 2020, the New York Stock Exchange announced that it would suspend trading in China Mobile, China Telecom, and China Unicom from 7 to 11 January 2021 and start the delisting process, causing stock values to drop. On 4 January the decision to delist was suddenly reversed; two days later, the NYSE said that the delistings would proceed. In the aftermath of the delisting, the company announced its decision to raise up to US$8.8 billion ahead of the Shanghai stock exchange listing, according to an official Weibo post by the company.


title: China Mobile

text: In March 2022, the Federal Communications Commission designated China Mobile's U.S. subsidiary, China Mobile International USA, a national security threat.


title: China Mobile

text: A state-owned enterprise directly controlled by the government of the People's Republic of China and also a public company which is listed on the NYSE and the Hong Kong stock exchanges, China Mobile has dominated Chinese mobile services since its inception for civilian and military purposes. According to the United States Department of Defense, the company has links to the People's Liberation Army. , China Mobile controls the vast majority of its domestic mobile services market with a 70% market share. China Unicom and China Telecom have 20% and 10% shares, respectively.


title: China Mobile

text: The company likely enjoys substantial protectionist benefits from China's government but also experiences frequent government intervention in its business affairs. Government control is maintained through a presumably government-owned holding company, China Mobile Communications Group Co., Ltd. (formerly: China Mobile Communications Corporation; CMCC), that owns 100 percent ownership of China Mobile (HK) Group Limited, which in turn holds over seventy percent ownership of China Mobile–the remainder being controlled by public investors. Established in 2000, CMCC is China Mobile Ltd's current parent company .


title: China Mobile

text: China Mobile has historically held a greater share of the rural market than competitors. By 2006, its network had expanded to provide reception to 97% of the Chinese population, and the company has since seen a sustained stream of new, rural mobile customers.


title: China Mobile

text: It also offers services targeted at the rural market including an agricultural information service, which facilitates a variety of activities such as the sale and purchase of agricultural products, access to market prices for produce and crops, wire transfers, bank withdrawals, and payments, etc.


title: China Mobile

text: The company branched out in 2007 with the purchase of Paktel in Pakistan launching the Zong brand there a year later.


title: China Mobile

text: In 2013, China Mobile eyed expansion into Myanmar expressing interest in bidding for one of two licences on offer in a partnership with Vodafone although this plan ultimately fell through.


title: China Mobile

text: Mobile services are available in Mainland China under several brands as of 2007. , the below brands are scheduled to be slowly phased out and replaced by an all-encompassing new brand name—And—whose logo combines an exclamation point, the Chinese character for "peace" (), as well as the English word "and".


title: China Mobile

text: ( Rough translation: "Travel across China" (lit. "travel the holy states")): a basic prepaid mobile phone service more heavily marketed in rural areas


title: China Mobile

text: CMHK is a wholly owned subsidiary of China Mobile. It offers GSM, GPRS, EDGE, HSPA+ (MVNO), FD-LTE and TD-LTE technologies to customers in this the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.


title: China Mobile

text: Zong is China Mobile's brand in Pakistan and is operated by China Mobile Pakistan (CMPak), a subsidiary.


title: China Mobile

text: In December 2017, China Mobile launched a MVNO service in the UK called CMLink. CMLink is aimed at the Chinese population living in the UK and Chinese visitors and students. Plans include free calls to China Mobile phones in China.


title: China Mobile

text: In June 2020, China Mobile launched a MVNO service called CMLink. It uses Singtel networks, which is one of Singapore's largest mobile network operator.


title: China Mobile

text: CMLink is aimed at the Chinese population living in the Singapore and Chinese visitors and students. Plans include free calls to China Mobile phones in China.


title: China Mobile

text: China Mobile operates a GSM network, which encompasses all 31 provinces, autonomous regions, and directly administered municipalities in Mainland China and includes Hong Kong, too. GPRS is utilized for data transmission.


title: China Mobile

text: Marketed as ""G3"", the company controls 70% of the Chinese mobile market but a far smaller percentage of the 3G market. , its nearly 60 million 3G subscribers account for roughly 9% of its total subscriber base, which is an increase from 3% in 2010.


title: China Mobile

text: Its 3G network, still under construction in 2010, utilizes the TD-SCDMA standard, which China Mobile helped develop. 3G service is available in all of the 4 direct-controlled municipalities and most of the 283 prefecture-level cities in China .


title: China Mobile

text: Marketed as ""and和"", as of 2010, China Mobile has debuted small-scale 4G demonstration networks using a variant of 3GPP's Long Term Evolution, TD-LTE, and has plans for larger, citywide demonstration networks in the future. , such networks are in operation.


title: China Mobile

text: While prior iPhone models couldn't use the China Mobile network due to the chipset relying on WCDMA-based networks, talks to carry the then unreleased 4G iPhone (iPhone 5) began in mid-2012. The iPhone 5c and iPhone 5s were sold through China Mobile starting in January 2014.


title: Kinks (album)

text: Kinks is the debut album by the English rock band the Kinks, released in 1964. It was released with three tracks omitted as You Really Got Me in the United States.


title: Kinks (album)

text: The album was re-released in 1998 in the UK on Castle Records with twelve bonus tracks. This reissue was itself reissued in 2004 on the Sanctuary label. A deluxe edition was released on 28 March 2011.


title: Kinks (album)

text: "Consequence of Sound" listed the album as a key example of proto-punk, observing “lean aggression” and a “jolting”, “in-your-face” approach, and described their rendition of Chuck Berry’s “Beautiful Delilah” as the first punk rock cover.


title: Kinks (album)

text: The "AllMusic" review by Richie Unterberger assessed the album as lacking in consistency, commenting: "As R&B cover artists, the Kinks weren't nearly as adept as the Stones and Yardbirds; Ray Davies' original tunes were, "You Really Got Me" aside, perfunctory Mersey Beat-ish pastiches... [the] tunes that producer Shel Talmy penned for the group... were simply abominable."


title: Kinks (album)

text: Rock critic Mike Saunders of "Rolling Stone" had a more positive opinion of the Kinks' debut LP, described the album as one of their "successful rock and roll albums".


title: Stingray (1964 TV series)

text: Stingray is a British children's science fiction television series created by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson and produced by AP Films (APF) for ITC Entertainment. Filmed in 1963 using a combination of electronic marionette puppetry and scale model special effects, it was APF's sixth puppet series and the third to be produced under the banner of "Supermarionation". It premiered in October 1964 and ran for 39 half-hour episodes.


title: Stingray (1964 TV series)

text: Set in the 2060s, the series follows the exploits of the World Aquanaut Security Patrol (WASP), an organisation responsible for policing the Earth's oceans. The WASP's flagship is "Stingray", a combat submarine crewed by Captain Troy Tempest, navigator Lieutenant "Phones" and Marina, a mute young woman from under the sea. "Stingray"s adventures bring it into contact with various underwater civilisations, some friendly and others hostile, as well as strange natural phenomena.


title: Stingray (1964 TV series)

text: In preparation for the series, APF acquired new, larger studios that it would continue to occupy for the remainder of the 1960s. Filmed at a cost of approximately £1 million, "Stingray" was the first British TV series (and Anderson's first) to be made entirely in colour, a move intended to increase its appeal to the lucrative American market. The underwater sequences were filmed "dry" by shooting the sets through thin aquaria, while surface shots were filmed on water tanks incorporating lowered back walls to create artificial horizons. "Stingray" was the first Supermarionation series whose puppet characters had interchangeable heads showing a range of facial expressions.


title: Stingray (1964 TV series)

text: "Stingray" was originally broadcast on the ITV network in the United Kingdom and in syndication in North America. The series has drawn a largely positive response from commentators, some of whom have compared its premise to the Cold War.


title: Stingray (1964 TV series)

text: "Stingray", a nuclear-powered combat submarine, is the flagship of the World Aquanaut Security Patrol (WASP), a branch of the World Security Patrol (WSP) responsible for policing the Earth's oceans in the mid-2060s. Armed with "sting missile" torpedoes, it can travel at up to underwater and reach depths of over .


title: Stingray (1964 TV series)

text: The WASP is based in the self-contained city of Marineville, located several miles inland somewhere on the West Coast of North America. It is connected to the Pacific Ocean via a tunnel leading to an "ocean door", through which "Stingray" is launched. General quarters alerts are sounded by rapid drumbeats played over the base's public address system. In emergency situations, the entire base can be lowered into underground bunkers via giant hydraulic jacks while fighter aircraft and interceptor missiles are launched to counter threats. WASP personnel acknowledge commands with the phrase "P.W.O.R." – short for "Proceeding With Orders Received".


title: Stingray (1964 TV series)

text: "Stingray" is piloted by the square-jawed Captain Troy Tempest. He is paired with Southern navigator Lieutenant George Lee Sheridan, nicknamed "Phones" for his secondary role as "Stingray"s hydrophone operator. Troy and Phones board "Stingray" from the Marineville stand-by lounge by sitting on twin seats that are then lowered into the submarine via injector tubes. They answer to the "hoverchair"-bound Commander Sam Shore, whose daughter, Lieutenant Atlanta Shore, works in the Marineville control tower and is enamoured of Troy.


title: Stingray (1964 TV series)

text: The series begins with the WASP's discovery that the ocean floor is home to many advanced civilisations. Among these is the undersea city of Titanica, ruled by King Titan. A despot, Titan commands the Aquaphibians, a warrior race who possess a fleet of lethal submersibles called "Mechanical Fish". In the first episode, "Stingray" is attacked by Titan's forces and Troy and Phones are captured. They are rescued by Titan's slave, Marina, a mute young woman from the undersea city of Pacifica who can breathe underwater. Marina defects to the WASP and becomes a permanent member of the "Stingray" crew. Troy becomes infatuated with her, making Atlanta jealous.


title: Stingray (1964 TV series)

text: Furious at Marina's betrayal, Titan swears revenge on "terraneans" (land people) in general and Troy and the WASP in particular. However, his attempts to destroy "Stingray" and Marineville are always thwarted, often due to the incompetence of his henchman Surface Agent X-2-Zero. Titan's spy on land, X-2-Zero operates from the Pacific island of Lemoy, where he lives in an outwardly dilapidated house whose interior conceals vast banks of sophisticated surveillance and tracking equipment. Some episodes revolve around encounters with other races living under the sea or within the Earth (some friendly and others hostile), or investigation of natural phenomena. The final episode is a clip show in which Troy is named "Aquanaut of the Year" and past missions are recounted in flashback.


title: Stingray (1964 TV series)

text: In a first for a Supermarionation series, "Stingray" included a Christmas episode, "A Christmas to Remember", and a clip show series finale, "Aquanaut of the Year". Before they could make "Aquanaut of the Year", APF required the approval of American TV producer Ralph Edwards, as the premise of the clip show borrows creative elements from Edwards' "This Is Your Life". When correspondence with Edwards took longer than expected, work began on an alternative clip show in which the regular characters watch film recordings of some of "Stingray"s past missions. The filming of that episode was halted when APF was given permission to proceed with "Aquanaut of the Year".


title: Stingray (1964 TV series)

text: APF subsequently used the framing material from the abandoned clip show to create a TV film called the "Feature Presentation". Written and directed by Alan Pattillo, this comprises four complete episodes and was privately screened for Japanese TV executives visiting the APF studio. It has never been broadcast on TV.


title: Stingray (1964 TV series)

text: The framing material was rediscovered in late 2000 or early 2001 and later included on "Stingray" DVD releases. Several years later, BBC Wales and Granada International produced a condensed version of the Feature Presentation titled "The Reunion Party", which includes material from three episodes and was broadcast on BBC Four as part of a "Gerry Anderson Night" in 2008.


title: Stingray (1964 TV series)

text: In the early 1980s, two "Stingray" compilation films were produced by ITC New York. These were made for American TV and later released on home video. They were televised as part of an ITC package branded "Super Space Theater", which also included compilations from other Supermarionation series. Each of the "Stingray" films consists of re-edited versions of four of the original episodes. The second film, "Invaders from the Deep", was broadcast as the first episode of movie-mocking TV comedy series "Mystery Science Theater 3000" in 1988.


title: Stingray (1964 TV series)

text: In late 1962, as production on "Fireball XL5" drew to a close, Gerry Anderson decided that an underwater series was the next logical step for production company AP Films (APF): "We had been on land and in space, so where could we go next? One possibility was underwater." He was inspired by childhood memories of U-boats in the Second World War, as well as by the mysteries of the ocean: "I was ... fascinated by trenches in the ocean that are as deep as mountains are high. There are features that man has never seen and pressures that are almost impossible to withstand. I began to wonder if there were areas of the Earth which had been little explored and felt justified in writing some wacky stuff."


title: Stingray (1964 TV series)

text: APF's financial backer Lew Grade, who had bought the company after the success of "Fireball XL5", approved the concept and commissioned 26 episodes. Anderson named the new series "Stingray" partly from a belief that stingrays are dangerous animals (in reality, they are docile), but also because it "seemed an exciting title." In preparation for the new series, APF, then based on the Slough Trading Estate's Ipswich Road, moved to a larger site on the nearby Stirling Road at a cost of £75,000. The new studios, built inside a converted factory unit, contained three shooting stages: two for puppet filming and one for creating special effects. This arrangement allowed two episodes to be filmed simultaneously by separate crews.


title: Stingray (1964 TV series)

text: Production began in spring or June 1963 and the series was completed in ten months. Each episode required an average of 11 days of puppet filming and five-and-a-half days of effects filming. The total cost of the production was approximately £1 million (£ million in ). The budget per episode was £20,000, which enabled APF, whose earlier productions had been in black and white, to film in Eastmancolor. Though "Stingray" would debut in black and white in its country of origin, the switch to colour filming was intended to increase the series' chances of being bought by a network in the US, where colour TV broadcasts were already common. Sets were re-painted after NBC supplied APF with a list of colours believed to cause problems such as flaring or bleeding; according to Anderson, this was unnecessary because when filmed in Eastmancolor, a set "would appear on screen exactly as you had painted it." Some colours were avoided as they did not come out well in black and white, and models and sets were painted differently to ensure that they did not blend into each other. During the production of "Stingray", APF became the UK's largest colour film consumer.


title: Stingray (1964 TV series)

text: As filming progressed, Grade extended his commission to 39 episodes. Around the time shooting on the final 13 episodes began, voice actors Don Mason and Robert Easton, who had understood that all members of the cast were on the same pay, learnt that they were in fact earning less than their co-star David Graham. They did not commit to the remaining episodes until their fees had been re-negotiated.


title: Stingray (1964 TV series)

text: In her 2007 autobiography, Sylvia Anderson, who had voiced the regular characters of Jimmy Gibson in "Supercar" and Dr Venus in "Fireball XL5", wrote that she devised Marina as a mute so that she could take a break from voice acting and "concentrate on the scripts and characters". Her voice parts in "Stingray" were limited to uncredited guest roles in the episodes "Raptures of the Deep" (as Marina) and "A Christmas to Remember". Gerry Anderson said that Phones was inspired by memories of a sound engineer with whom he had once worked: "He spent so long with his headphones plugged in to various bits of equipment that he used to leave them on all the time, earning himself the nickname 'Phones'." Voice actor Robert Easton based the character's Southern American tones on his performance in the 1961 film "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea", in which he played a Southern radio operator. His voice for Surface Agent X-2-Zero was his impression of Peter Lorre, who had appeared in the same film. The Aquaphibians were voiced by Easton and Graham, their dialogue overlaid with a looped tape recording of bubbling water to create a gurgling effect.


title: Stingray (1964 TV series)

text: The process of designing and making the puppets took four months and each of the main characters was sculpted in duplicate to allow episodes to be filmed in pairs. Some of the main characters were modelled on real-life actors; for example, Troy Tempest drew heavily on the looks of James Garner. Gerry Anderson said that he did not explicitly instruct the sculptors to base Troy on this actor; instead, he named Garner simply to help them visualise the character, as he could see that they were struggling with his original brief (which merely called for Troy to be square-jawed and heroic-looking). Titan was based on a young Laurence Olivier, and Surface Agent X-2-Zero on either Claude Rains or Peter Lorre. Atlanta Shore has been likened to Lois Maxwell (who voiced the character), while Marina has drawn comparisons to both Ursula Andress and Brigitte Bardot. The Aquaphibians were modelled on an alien creature from the "Fireball XL5" episode "XL5 to HO".


title: Stingray (1964 TV series)

text: "Stingray" was the first Supermarionation series to feature puppets with glass eyes and poseable hands for increased realism. To make the puppets' eyes sparkle in a lifelike way, they were polished with silicon and illuminated by a small lamp. Another innovation was the creation of alternative heads to allow characters to display emotions: besides their "normal" heads, which had neutral expressions, the main characters could also be fitted with "smiling" and "frowning" heads. The female puppets' wigs were made of human hair; for the male puppets, mohair was used as it was softer and easier to style.


title: Stingray (1964 TV series)

text: The "Stingray" submarine was designed by Reg Hill and built by Feltham-based company Mastermodels. The Marineville model was built in-house from wood and cardboard supplemented with pieces of model kits bought from a toy shop. It was lowered and raised by hydraulics. Most of the series' special effects were filmed on high-speed cameras with the footage slowed down in post-production to convey a sense of greater weight and scale.


title: Stingray (1964 TV series)

text: For the underwater sequences, Anderson had originally envisaged filming inside a water tank, but the cost of the specialist cameras and equipment required would have made this impractical. These scenes were ultimately filmed using a variation of a technique first used on "Supercar": mounting a model ocean floor against a cyclorama and "flying" the puppets and miniature models across the set on wires from an overhead gantry, while shooting the action through a thin aquarium to distort the lighting. Vegetable dye was added to the aquarium to make the water more noticeable. Several aquaria were used; constructed by a company that supplied fish tanks to London Zoo, they were re-built with thicker glass after one of them burst from the water pressure. The move away from black and white sometimes caused problems as build-ups of algae in the aquaria caused the water to change colour.


title: Stingray (1964 TV series)

text: The illusion of scenes being set underwater was further enhanced by populating the aquaria with tropical fish of various sizes to create forced perspective. Food was dropped at various points around the tanks to keep the animals in shot. A disc with various portions cut out was placed in front of an overhead lamp and rotated to give the impression of light being refracted through the ocean, while the water in the aquaria was disturbed to create "rippling" effects. Wires were painted over to make them non-reflective and fans were used to simulate currents passing over puppets' hair and clothing. For the climax of the "Stingray" launch sequence, in which the vessel shoots out of an underwater tunnel, part of the set was painted onto the aquarium to conceal the air line that produced the accompanying rush of bubbles.


title: Stingray (1964 TV series)

text: Ocean surface shots in "Supercar" and "Fireball XL5" had been filmed in an outdoor tank, but for "Stingray" several tanks were built inside the studio. Among the challenges presented by these shots was the need to make the scale models appear realistic while filming on water, which cannot be miniaturised. In a 1980 interview, Derek Meddings, the series' special effects director, described the process as "designing the shot carefully [...] then shoot[ing] it at very high speed (to make movement slower and therefore seemingly vaster) and hope you didn't get huge globules of water that would give the game away." Models were controlled using wires, poles and underwater tracks and rigs. To make the water look blue, the crew first tried experimenting with various lighting effects; these proved inadequate, so the water was dyed blue instead. Various powders were used to create foam and whitewater.


title: Stingray (1964 TV series)

text: Each tank incorporated an artificial horizon system whereby the back wall was built low and the tank was deliberately overfilled to create a waterfall, blurring the divide between the rim of the tank and the painted-sky backdrop. The effect was sustained by collecting the escaping water in troughs and pumping it back into the tank. To conserve studio space, some scenes were filmed in a wedge-shaped tank that was tailor-built to align with the camera's field of view. One of the effects shots in the series' opening titles shows "Stingray" and a pursuing Mechanical Fish leaping out of the ocean and then plunging back under water; although this required complex manoeuvring of the wired scale models that made the shot extremely difficult to film, in the end the effects crew succeeded on the first take.


title: Stingray (1964 TV series)

text: Shots of aircraft in flight were filmed using a technique known as the "rolling sky", whereby the miniature models were positioned in front of a painted-sky canvas and remained static while an illusion of movement was created by running the background in a continuous loop around a pair of electrically-driven rollers. This system, devised by Meddings, made aerial shots easier to film as it took up very little studio space.


title: Stingray (1964 TV series)

text: The title sequence consists of a series of action shots featuring undersea explosions, Marineville going to red alert and "Stingray" doing battle with a Mechanical Fish. This is accompanied by dramatic narration from Commander Shore, who warns the audience to "Stand by for action!" before declaring that "Anything can happen in the next half-hour!" In the first 26 episodes, the title sequence opens in black and white before switching to colour; for the final 13 episodes, these first few seconds were replaced with all-colour footage.


title: Stingray (1964 TV series)

text: Jim Sangster and Paul Condon, authors of "Collins Telly Guide", praise the introduction, writing that "Of all the programmes we've looked at for this book, there is none with a title sequence as thrilling as "Stingray"." Anthony Clark of the British Film Institute calls the sequence "a mini-adventure in itself ... Children's TV had never before been this exciting." According to John Peel, the "Stingray" titles contrasted greatly with those of "Fireball XL5" and "Supercar", which were more "straight narrative openings". Peel also argues that "Stingray" influenced the "rapid cutting, pounding rhythms and extreme stylising" of later TV title sequences.


title: Stingray (1964 TV series)

text: The series' closing titles focus on the love triangle between Troy, Marina and Atlanta. They feature Troy singing "Aqua Marina" – a song about his feelings for Marina, performed by Gary Miller with soprano backing vocals – while Atlanta gazes wistfully at his photograph.


title: Stingray (1964 TV series)

text: In the UK, "Stingray" was first broadcast on 4 October 1964 in the Anglia, Border, Grampian, London and Southern regions. It premiered on Channel Television, ATV Midlands and Westward Television on 6 October and Granada Television on 30 December. First shown in black and white, it was broadcast in colour for the first time in December 1969. The series received little publicity but replicated the success of earlier Supermarionation productions. It was repeated on ITV in 1981 and on BBC2 in the early 1990s, with further repeats in the early 00s.


title: Stingray (1964 TV series)

text: In the US, the series was first shown in 1965. Premiering in colour, it was syndicated across more than 100 markets with sales exceeding £3 million. It ran on the Sci-Fi Channel in 1994 as part of the Cartoon Quest block.


title: Stingray (1964 TV series)

text: In New Zealand, TVNZ screened the show during the mid-1980s in its weekend early morning kids block, along with a number of other Gerry Anderson shows from the 60s and 70s.


title: Stingray (1964 TV series)

text: Writing in 2006, Robert Sellers described "Stingray" as the "first truly classic Anderson show", whose special effects "have stood the test of time remarkably well." Daniel O'Brien, author of "SF:UK: How British Science Fiction Changed the World", considers it to be "perhaps the archetypal Gerry Anderson series". Ranking the Anderson productions, Morgan Jeffery of Digital Spy places "Stingray" fourth, calling it "a kids' adventure serial of the highest order". Andrew Blair of Den of Geek believes that when grouped with "Thunderbirds" and "Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons", "Stingray" is "the lesser of the Holy Triumvirate of Supermarionation [...] It's shorter than the former, and lighter than the latter, giving it a comparatively breezy feel." He also describes it as "inherently a matinee adventure, an inspiring rush of mild peril and jaunty escapades".


title: Stingray (1964 TV series)

text: Comparing "Stingray" to the Andersons' earlier productions, media historian Marcus Hearn writes that the series essentially "[transfers] the format of "Fireball XL5" to an underwater setting." Peel suggests that the decision to locate the action under the sea was influenced by the 1960s vogue for ocean exploration inspired by adventurers such as Jacques Cousteau and Thor Heyerdahl. Kim Newman describes "Stingray" as a "patrol show" in the same vein as "Fireball XL5" and "Supercar". Clark notes that "Stingray", like its space-bound precursor, uses "some very simple elements – a four-square hero, a fantastic craft which lends its name to the show and a mix of fast-paced action and innocent humour." Despite praising "Stingray", Peel considers "Fireball XL5" and "Thunderbirds" to be more appealing. Peel also argues that of all Gerry Anderson's series, it is "Stingray" in which his preferred "tongue-in-cheek" style of humour is most prominent.


title: Stingray (1964 TV series)

text: Mike Fillis of "TV Zone" magazine regards "Stingray" as less "ambitious" than "Thunderbirds" but compares its "self-awareness" favourably to the "po-faced rigidity" of "Captain Scarlet". He also praises its "well-drawn" characters and describes the water-based special effects as "surprisingly elegant". Paul Cornell, Martin Day and Keith Topping, authors of "The Guinness Book of Classic British TV", view the effects as more "realistic" than those of earlier Anderson series. Though judging many of the episodes to be "predictable and corny", they add that the series' "knowingness" and "love of character [...] made the whole thing charming." Sangster and Condon describe the episodes as "mercifully shorter" than those of "Thunderbirds", creating "tighter plotting and an engaging simplicity". The music has also been praised: Glenn Erickson describes it as "corny retro" appropriate to the series' tone, while Clark calls it the "best underwater adventure music ever written".


title: Stingray (1964 TV series)

text: Some commentators have been critical of the puppetry and effects. Paul Mavis of DVD Talk writes that the use of aquaria makes the underwater scenes look "a tad creaky" but believes that they compare well to contemporary feature film effects. Erickson writes that as in other Supermarionation series, the puppets' lack of mobility makes scenes feel "rather static". He notes that this limitation forces a large amount of movement to be kept off-screen: "Almost every capture by Aquaphibians ellipses difficult-to-film interaction, skipping straight to static talking scenes instead."


title: Stingray (1964 TV series)

text: Sangster and Condon argue that, while "Stingray" is mainly for children, it was also the first Anderson series to have adult appeal. According to Jon E. Lewis and Penny Stempel, authors of "Cult TV: The Essential Critical Guide", the series combines "kiddie-time exciting narrative action" with imaginative spoofs for the "more sophisticated". "Stingray" has also attracted a variety of comment on its presentation of race and sex. Newman argues that through its use of "silver- and green-skinned" undersea villains and the "odd caricatured Arab baddie", "Stingray", like "Thunderbirds", conveys "square, almost 1950s" attitudes towards race. Mavis rejects claims of racism, noting that not all of the series' underwater beings are malevolent and that this is acknowledged in character dialogue. Nicholas J. Cull views the mute Marina as an example of a female Anderson character who is "subordinate" to men, while Erickson argues that Atlanta's role as an assistant makes her a gender stereotype. Erickson also writes that the love triangle between Atlanta, Troy and Marina (which Blair describes as an "unusual development" for a children's series) creates a "mild sexist tension". Mavis disagrees that the series is sexist, noting that while Atlanta "doesn't do much here except answer the phone", Marina saves Troy's life on several occasions.


title: Stingray (1964 TV series)

text: Cull observes that in its depiction of the WASP, "Stingray" is one of several Gerry Anderson series that "assume the development of world government and world security institutions" and "reflect the 1960s vogue for stories set in secret organisations with extravagant acronyms." He compares the premise of the series to the Cold War, noting the conflict between the WASP and the undersea races and the latter's use of spies to infiltrate human society. He believes that the episode "Marineville Traitor", which focuses on a hunt for an "enemy within", has an "especially strong Cold War flavour". Cull also notes that while the Anderson productions often present nuclear technology as a threat, "Stingray" also shows it in a positive light: for example, the series' eponymous submarine is nuclear-powered.


title: Stingray (1964 TV series)

text: Sarah Kurchak of The A.V. Club suggests that compared to villains of earlier Anderson series, Titan and the Aquaphibians serve as a "more classically Cold War-style villainous Other". She adds that in the world of "Stingray", "the battle lines between land and sea are clearly defined, the enemy is always watching, and the target of their aggression is always close to home." Kurchak also suggests that through his "multiple nightmares" about threats to Marineville, Troy embodies Cold War anxieties. O'Brien writes that "Stingray" contains "more than a touch of the Cold War ethos", arguing that Titan "could have easily belonged to an underwater branch of the Soviet Bloc."


title: Stingray (1964 TV series)

text: "Stingray" was featured in the Supermarionation tie-in comic "TV Century 21" (later known as "TV21") from its first issue, published by City Magazines/AP Films (Merchandising) in January 1965. The "Stingray" strip ran from "TV Century 21" #1 (23 Jan. 1965) to "TV21" #189 (30 Aug. 1968); it was originally by Alan Fennell & Ron Embleton; later contributors included Dennis Hooper, Gerry Embleton, and Michael Strand. The "Stingray" comics were reprinted in Polystyle Publications' "Countdown" in the years 1971–1972.


title: Stingray (1964 TV series)

text: The 1960s also saw the publication of two original novels by Armada Books: "Stingray" and "Stingray and the Monster", written by John William Jennison under the pseudonym "John Theydon".


title: Stingray (1964 TV series)

text: To supplement the TV episodes, in 1965 APF's sister company Century 21 Records released three audio plays in the form of 7-inch vinyl EP records. Originally marketed as "mini-albums", these feature the voice cast from the TV series and are each about 21 minutes long. They are included as special features on the UK "Stingray" DVD box set.


title: Stingray (1964 TV series)

text: Anderson Entertainment, in association with audio drama production company Big Finish, produced adaptations of the original novels, "Stingray" as "Operation Icecap" and "Stingray and the Monster" as "Monster from the Deep".


title: Spread betting

text: Spread betting is any of various types of wagering on the outcome of an event where the pay-off is based on the accuracy of the wager, rather than a simple "win or lose" outcome, such as fixed-odds (or money-line) betting or parimutuel betting.


title: Spread betting

text: A point spread is a range of outcomes and the bet is whether the outcome will be above or below the spread. Spread betting has been a major growth market in the UK in recent years, with the number of gamblers heading towards one million. Financial spread betting (see below) can carry a high level of risk if there is no "stop". In the UK, financial spread betting is regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority rather than the Gambling Commission who regulate spread betting on sports.


title: Spread betting

text: The general purpose of spread betting is to create an active market for both sides of a binary wager, even if the outcome of an event may appear "prima facie" to be biased towards one side or the other. In a sporting event a strong team may be matched up against a historically weaker team; almost every match-up has a "favorite" and an "underdog". If the wager is simply "Will the favorite win?", more bets are likely to be made for the favorite, possibly to such an extent that there would be very few betters willing to take the underdog.


title: Spread betting

text: The point spread is essentially a handicap towards the underdog. The wager becomes "Will the favorite win by more than the point spread?" The point spread can be moved to any level to create an equal number of participants on each side of the wager. This allows a bookmaker to act as a market maker by accepting wagers on both sides of the spread. The bookmaker charges a commission, or "vigorish", and acts as the counterparty for each participant. As long as the total amount wagered on each side is roughly equal, the bookmaker is unconcerned with the actual outcome; profits instead come from the commissions.


title: Spread betting

text: Because the spread is intended to create an equal number of wagers on either side, the implied probability is 50% for both sides of the wager. To profit, the bookmaker must pay one side (or both sides) less than this notional amount. In practice, spreads may be perceived as slightly favoring one side, and bookmakers often revise their odds to manage their event risk.


title: Spread betting

text: One important assumption is that to be credited with a win, either team only needs to win by the minimum of the rules of the game ("i.e.", 1 point), without regard to the margin of victory. This presumes that winning teams never unnecessarily extend a winning margin—and losing teams never uselessly narrow an inevitable loss. In other words, each team is only playing to win rather than to beat the point spread.


title: Spread betting

text: This assumption does not necessarily hold in all situations. For example, at the end of a season, the total points scored by a team can affect future events such as playoff seeding and positioning for the amateur draft, and teams may "run up" the score in such situations. In virtually all sports, players and other on-field contributors are forbidden from being involved in sports betting and thus have no incentive to consider the point spread during play; any attempt to manipulate the outcome of a game for gambling purposes would be considered match fixing, and the penalty is typically a lifetime banishment from the sport; such is the lack of tolerance for manipulating the result of a sporting event for such purposes.


title: Spread betting

text: Spread betting was invented by Charles K. McNeil, a mathematics teacher from Connecticut who became a bookmaker in Chicago in the 1940s. In North America, the gambler usually wagers that the difference between the scores of two teams will be less than or greater than the value specified by the bookmaker, with even money for either option. An example:


title: Spread betting

text: Spreads are frequently, though not always, specified in half-point fractions to eliminate the possibility of a tie, known as a "push". In the event of a push, the game is considered "no action", and no money is won or lost. However, this is not a desirable outcome for the sports book, as they are forced to refund every bet, and although both the book and its bettors will be even, if the cost of overhead is taken into account, the book has actually lost money by taking bets on the event. Sports books are generally permitted to state "ties win" or "ties lose" to avoid the necessity of refunding every bet.


title: Spread betting

text: Betting on sporting events has long been the most popular form of spread betting. Whilst most bets the casino offers to players have a built in house edge, betting on the spread offers an opportunity for the astute gambler. When a casino accepts a spread bet, it gives the player the odds of 10 to 11, or -110. That means that for every 11 dollars the player wagers, the player will win 10, slightly lower than an even money bet. If team A is playing team B, the casino is not concerned with who wins the game; they are only concerned with taking an equal amount of money of both sides. For example, if one player takes team A and the other takes team B and each wager $110 to win $100, it doesn't matter what team wins; the casino makes money. They take $100 of the $110 from the losing bet and pay the winner, keeping the extra $10 for themselves. This is the house edge. The goal of the casino is to set a line that encourages an equal amount of action on both sides, thereby guaranteeing a profit. This also explains how money can be made by the astute gambler. If casinos set lines to encourage an equal amount of money on both sides, it sets them based on the public perception of the team, not necessarily the real strength of the teams. Many things can affect public perception, which moves the line away from what the real line should be. This gap between the Vegas line, the real line, and differences between other sports books betting lines and spreads is where value can be found.


title: Spread betting

text: A "teaser" is a bet that alters the spread in the gambler's favor by a predetermined margin – in American football the teaser margin is often six points. For example, if the line is 3.5 points and bettors want to place a teaser bet on the underdog, they take 9.5 points instead; a teaser bet on the favorite would mean that the gambler takes 2.5 points instead of having to give the 3.5. In return for the additional points, the payout if the gambler wins is less than even money, or the gambler must wager on more than one event and both events must win. In this way it is very similar to a parlay. At some establishments, the "reverse teaser" also exists, which alters the spread against the gambler, who gets paid at more than evens if the bet wins.


title: Spread betting

text: In the United Kingdom, sports spread betting became popular in the late 1980s by offering an alternative form of sports wagering to traditional fixed odds, or fixed-risk, betting. With fixed odds betting, a gambler places a fixed-risk stake on stated fractional or decimal odds on the outcome of a sporting event that would give a known return for that outcome occurring or a known loss if that outcome doesn't occur (the initial stake). With sports spread betting, gamblers are instead betting on whether a specified outcome in a sports event will end up being above or below a ‘spread’ offered by a sports spread betting firm, with profits or losses determined by how much above or below the spread the final outcome finishes at.


title: Spread betting

text: The spread on offer will refer to the betting firm's prediction on the range of a final outcome for a particular occurrence in a sports event, e.g., the total number of goals to be scored in a football (US: soccer) match, the number of runs to be scored by a team in a cricket match or the number of lengths between the winner and second-placed finisher in a horse race.


title: Spread betting

text: The gambler can elect to ‘buy’ or ‘sell’ on the spread depending on whether they think the final outcome will be higher than the top end of the spread on offer, or lower than the bottom end of the spread. The more right the gambler is then the more they will win, but the more wrong they are then the more they can lose.


title: Spread betting

text: The level of the gambler's profit or loss will be determined by the stake size selected for the bet, multiplied by the number of unit points above or below the gambler's bet level. This reflects the fundamental difference between sports spread betting and fixed odds sports betting in that both the level of winnings and level of losses are not fixed and can end up being many multiples of the original stake size selected.


title: Spread betting

text: For example, in a cricket match a sports spread betting firm may list the spread of a team's predicted runs at 340 – 350. The gambler can elect to ‘buy’ at 350 if they think the team will score more than 350 runs in total, or sell at 340 if they think the team will score less than 340. If the gambler elects to buy at 350 and the team scores 400 runs in total, the gambler will have won 50 unit points multiplied by their initial stake. But if the team only scores 300 runs then the gambler will have lost 50 unit points multiplied by their initial stake.


title: Spread betting

text: It is important to note the difference between spreads in sports wagering in the U.S. and sports spread betting in the UK. In the U.S. betting on the spread is effectively still a fixed risk bet on a line offered by the bookmaker with a known return if the gambler correctly bets with either the underdog or the favourite on the line offered and a known loss if the gambler incorrectly bets on the line. In the UK betting above or below the spread does not have a known final profit or loss, with these figures determined by the number of unit points the level of the final outcome ends up being either above or below the spread, multiplied by the stake chosen by the gambler.


title: Spread betting

text: For UK spread betting firms, any final outcome that finishes in the middle of the spread will result in profits from both sides of the book as both buyers and sellers will have ended up making unit point losses. So in the example above, if the cricket team ended up scoring 345 runs both buyers at 350 and sellers at 340 would have ended up with losses of five unit points multiplied by their stake.


title: Spread betting

text: In addition to the spread bet, a very common "side bet" on an event is the "total" (commonly called the "over/under" or "O/U") bet. This is a bet on the total number of points scored by both teams. Suppose team A is playing team B and the total is set at 44.5 points. If the final score is team A 24, team B 17, the total is 41 and bettors who took the "under" will win. If the final score is team A 30, team B 31, the total is 61 and bettors who took the "over" will win. The total is popular because it allows gamblers to bet on their overall perception of the game (e.g., a high-scoring offensive show or a defensive battle) without needing to pick the actual winner.


title: Spread betting

text: In the UK, these bets are sometimes called spread bets, but rather than a simple win/loss, the bet pays more or less depending on how far from the spread the final result is.


title: Spread betting

text: Example: In a football match the bookmaker believes that 12 or 13 corners will occur, thus the spread is set at 12–13.


title: Spread betting

text: In North American sports betting many of these wagers would be classified as "over-under" (or, more commonly today, "total") bets rather than spread bets. However, these are for one side or another of a total only, and do not increase the amount won or lost as the actual moves away from the bookmaker's prediction. Instead, over-under or total bets are handled much like "point-spread" bets on a team, with the usual 10/11 (4.55%) commission applied. Many Nevada sports books allow these bets in parlays, just like team point spread bets. This makes it possible to bet, for instance, "team A and the over", and be paid if "both"


title: Spread betting

text: The mathematical analysis of spreads and spread betting is a large and growing subject. For example, sports that have simple 1-point scoring systems ("e.g.," baseball, hockey, and soccer) may be analysed using Poisson and Skellam statistics.


title: Spread betting

text: By far the largest part of the official market in the UK concerns financial instruments; the leading spread-betting companies make most of their revenues from financial markets, their sports operations being much less significant. Financial spread betting in the United Kingdom closely resembles the futures and options markets, the major differences being


title: Spread betting

text: Financial spread betting is a way to speculate on financial markets in the same way as trading a number of derivatives. In particular, the financial derivative contract for difference (CFD) mirrors the spread bet in many ways. In fact, a number of offer both financial spread bets and CFDs in parallel using the same trading platform.


title: Spread betting

text: Unlike fixed-odds betting, the amount won or lost can be unlimited as there is no single stake to limit any loss. However, it is usually possible to negotiate limits with the bookmaker:


title: Spread betting

text: Spread betting has moved outside the ambit of sport and financial markets (that is, those dealing solely with share, bonds and derivatives), to cover a wide range of markets, such as house prices. By paying attention to the external factors, such as weather and time of day, those who are betting using a point spread can be better prepared when it comes to obtaining a favorable outcome. Additionally, by avoiding the favourite-longshot bias, where the expected returns on bets placed at shorter odds exceed that of bets placed at the longer odds, and not betting with one's favorite team, but rather with the team that has been shown to be better when playing in a specific weather condition and time of day, the possibility of arriving at a positive outcome is increased.


title: Spread betting

text: In the UK and some other European countries the profit from spread betting is free from tax. The tax authorities of these countries designate financial spread betting as gambling and not investing, meaning it is free from capital gains tax and stamp duty, despite the fact that it is regulated as a financial product by the Financial Conduct Authority in the UK. Most traders are also not liable for income tax unless they rely solely on their profits from financial spread betting to support themselves. The popularity of financial spread betting in the UK and some other European countries, compared to trading other speculative financial instruments such as CFDs and futures is partly due to this tax advantage. However, this also means any losses cannot be offset against future earnings for tax calculations.


title: Spread betting

text: Conversely, in most other countries financial spread betting income is considered taxable. For example, the Australian Tax Office issued a decision in March 2010 saying "Yes, the gains from financial spread betting are assessable income under section 6-5 or section 15-15 of the ITAA 1997". Similarly, any losses on the spread betting contracts are deductible. This has resulted in a much lower interest in financial spread betting in those countries.


title: Spread betting

text: Suppose Lloyds Bank is trading on the market at 410p bid, and 411p offer. A spread-betting company is also offering 410-411p. We use cash bets with no definite expiry, or "rolling daily bets" as they are referred to by the spread betting companies.


title: Spread betting

text: If I think the share price is going to go up, I might bet £10 a point ("i.e.," £10 per penny the shares moves) at 411p. We use the offer price since I am "buying" the share (betting on its increase). Note that my total loss (if Lloyds Bank went to 0p) could be up to £4110, so this is as risky as buying 1000 of the shares normally.


title: Spread betting

text: If a bet goes overnight, the bettor is charged a financing cost (or receives it, if the bettor is shorting the stock). This might be set at LIBOR + a certain percentage, usually around 2-3%.


title: Spread betting

text: Thus, in the example, if Lloyds Bank are trading at 411p, then for every day I keep the bet open I am charged [taking finance cost to be 7%] ((411p x 10) * 7% / 365 ) = £0.78821 (or 78.8p)


title: Spread betting

text: On top of this, the bettor needs an amount as collateral in the spread-betting account to cover potential losses. Usually this is either 5 or 10% of the total exposure you are taking on but can go up to 100% on illiquid stocks. In this case £4110 * 0.1 or 0.05 = £411.00 or £205.50


title: Spread betting

text: If at the end of the bet Lloyds Bank traded at 400-401p, I need to cover that £4110 – £400*10 (£4000) = £110 difference by putting extra deposit (or collateral) into the account.


title: Spread betting

text: The punter usually receives all dividends and other corporate adjustments in the financing charge each night. For example, suppose Lloyds Bank goes ex-dividend with dividend of 23.5p. The bettor receives that amount. The exact amount received varies depending on the rules and policies of the spread betting company, and the taxes that are normally charged in the home tax country of the shares.


title: Spread betting

text: According to an article in "The Times" dated 10 April 2009, approximately 30,000 spread bet accounts were opened in the previous year, and that the largest study of gambling in the UK on behalf of the Gambling Commission found that serious problems developed in almost 15% of spread betters compared to 1% of other gambling. A report from Cass Business School found that only 1 in 5 gamblers ends up a winner. As noted in the report, this corresponds to the same ratio of successful gamblers in regular trading. Evidence from spread betting firms themselves actually put this closer to being 1 in 10 traders as being profitable.


title: Suvendu Adhikari

text: Suvendu Adhikari (born 15 December 1970) is an Indian politician from the Bharatiya Janata Party who is the current Leader of the Opposition in the West Bengal Legislative Assembly from 10 May 2021. He is a member of the West Bengal Legislative Assembly from Nandigram since May 2021 having defeated his opponent incumbent Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee by 1956 votes. He previously served as the Minister of Transport, Irrigation and Water resource in West Bengal. He was a member of the 15th Lok Sabha and the 16th Lok Sabha (2014-2016), as an All India Trinamool Congress candidate, from Tamluk.


title: Suvendu Adhikari

text: He is the son of Sisir Adhikari, former Union Minister of State for Rural Development in the Manmohan Singh government.


title: Suvendu Adhikari

text: Credited as the man who galvanised the people of Nandigram under the umbrella of the Bhumi Uchhed Pratirodh Committee, when rumours of land acquisition for a chemical hub had triggered a movement, Adhikari was a member of the Legislative Assembly from Contai. He defeated CPI(M)’s strongman Lakshman Seth by a margin of 172,958 votes. He resigned from the primary membership of All India Trinamool Congress and joined Bharatiya Janata Party in presence of Home Minister Amit Shah on 19 December 2020. He won the Nandigram assembly seat against TMC's supremo and Chief Minister of West Bengal Mamata Banerjee in 2021 by a margin of 1956 votes, though there is a dispute regarding this due to loadshedding in counter room while counting at last minute. The issue is still under trial in court.


title: Suvendu Adhikari

text: Adhikari was born on 15 December 1970 to Sisir Adhikari and Gayatri Adhikari at Karkuli in Purba Medinipur district in West Bengal. Sisir Adhikari is a politician, and former Minister of State in Second Manmohan Singh ministry and was elected to the Lok Sabha from Kanthi constituency in 2019. Adhikari is unmarried.


title: Suvendu Adhikari

text: One of Suvendu's brothers, Soumendu, is the chairman of the Kanthi municipal corporation. Dibyendu Adhikari, elected to Lok Sabha in 2019 from Tamluk constituency, is also his brother.


title: Suvendu Adhikari

text: Adhikari was first elected as a councillor from Indian National Congress in the Contai Municipality in 1995. In 2006, Adhikari was elected to the West Bengal Legislative Assembly from Kanthi Dakshin constituency. He also became the chairman of Kanthi Municipal Corporation in the same year.


title: Suvendu Adhikari

text: In 2007, Adhikari spearheaded the anti-land-acquisition movement in the Nandigram. He led the Bhumi Uchhed Pratirodh Committee. The ruling Left Front government in West Bengal planned to acquire 10,000 acres of land in the village to set up a special economic zone. This movement catapulted Mamata Banerjee to the centre-stage of Bengali politics. The state CID alleged that Adhikari had supplied arms to the Maoists to wage an armed movement against the state government.


title: Suvendu Adhikari

text: After Adhikari's success in Nandigram, Banerjee made him the party's observer (in-charge) of the Jangal Mahal i.e. Paschim Medinipur, Purulia and Bankura districts. He was successful in expanding the party's base in these districts. In 2009, he was elected to the Lok Sabha from the Tamluk constituency. He defeated his nearest rival Lakshman Seth of Communist Party of India (Marxist) by a margin of approximately 173,000 votes.


title: Suvendu Adhikari

text: In the 2016 West Bengal Legislative Assembly election, Adhikari was pitted against Abdul Kadir Sheikh of the Left Front - Indian National Congress alliance in Nandigram constituency. After getting elected, he resigned as an MP from Tamluk constituency. He was sworn in as the Minister of Transport in the Second Mamata Banerjee ministry on 27 May 2016. Adhikari resigned from the post of chairman of Hooghly River Bridge Commission (HRBC), a statutory body under the Government of West Bengal on 26 November 2020. He also resigned as West Bengal Transport Minister on 27 November 2020. He had tendered his resignation to the speaker of West Bengal Legislative Assembly as MLA on 16 December 2020 which was not accepted by the speaker initially on grounds of technicality. However, it was eventually accepted on 21 December 2020. On 17 December 2020 he resigned from the primary membership of All India Trinamool Congress.


title: Suvendu Adhikari

text: He defeated the sitting chief minister of West Bengal Mamata Banerjee in Nandigram assembly seat in 2021 West Bengal Legislative Assembly election. Mamata Banerjee has filed an election petition in Calcutta High Court challenging the verdict of Nandigram.


title: Suvendu Adhikari

text: On 10 May, Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad announced Suvendu Adhikari's name as leader of the BJP legislature party in the West Bengal assembly.


title: Suvendu Adhikari

text: Adhikari was interrogated by the Central Bureau of Investigation in September 2014 for his alleged role in the Saradha Group financial scandal. A former employee of the company alleged the company's head Sudipto Sen met Adhikari before fleeing to Kashmir. Adhikari rejected such allegations.


title: Earl of Carnarvon

text: Earl of Carnarvon is a title that has been created three times in British history. The current holder is George Herbert, 8th Earl of Carnarvon. The town and county in Wales to which the title refers are historically spelled "Caernarfon," having been Anglicised to Carnarvon or Caernarvon. The traditional Welsh spelling is itself a modified form of the original name of antiquity, Caer-yn-Arfon, meaning "fortification opposite the island of Mona" (now called Môn, Anglesey in English).


title: Earl of Carnarvon

text: The first creation came in the Peerage of England in 1628 in favour of Robert Dormer, 2nd Baron Dormer of Wyng. For more information on this creation, which became extinct in 1709, see the Baron Dormer.


title: Earl of Carnarvon

text: The second creation was in 1714 in the Peerage of Great Britain for James Brydges, 9th Baron Chandos. In 1719 he was further honoured when he was made "Marquess of Carnarvon" and "Duke of Chandos". For more information on this creation, which became extinct in 1789, see the Duke of Chandos.


title: Earl of Carnarvon

text: The third creation was in 1793 in the Peerage of Great Britain for Henry Herbert, 1st Baron Porchester. The precise form of this creation was "Earl of the Town and County of Carnarvon", in the Principality of Wales, although in practice only the style of "Earl of Carnarvon" is used. He had previously represented Wilton in the House of Commons and had already in 1780 been created "Baron Porchester", of High Clere in the County of Southampton (also in the Peerage of Great Britain). Herbert was the son of Major-General the Hon. William Herbert, fifth son of Thomas Herbert, 8th Earl of Pembroke. He was succeeded by his eldest son Henry George Herbert, the second Earl, who sat as Whig Member of Parliament for Cricklade.


title: Earl of Carnarvon

text: His eldest son Henry John George Herbert, the third Earl, briefly represented Wootton Bassett in Parliament as a Tory before he succeeded his father in the earldom. His eldest son Henry Howard Molyneux Herbert, the fourth Earl, was a prominent Conservative politician and served as Secretary of State for the Colonies and as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. He was succeeded by his only son from his first marriage, George Herbert, 5th Earl of Carnarvon, who is noted for discovering the tomb of Tutankhamun along with Howard Carter.


title: Earl of Carnarvon

text: , the titles are held by the fifth earl's great-grandson, the eighth Earl, who succeeded in 2001. As a male line descendant of Thomas Herbert, 8th Earl of Pembroke and 5th Earl of Montgomery, he is also in remainder to these peerages and their subsidiary titles.


title: Earl of Carnarvon

text: Several other members of this branch of the Herbert family may be mentioned. The Very Reverend the Hon. William Herbert, third son of the first Earl, was a clergyman and noted botanist. His son Henry William Herbert was a novelist and writer on sport. Sir Robert George Wyndham Herbert, Permanent Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies from 1871 to 1892, was the son of the Hon. Algernon Herbert, fifth son of the first Earl.


title: Earl of Carnarvon

text: The Hon. Auberon Herbert, second son of the third Earl, was a writer, theorist, and philosopher, and also represented Nottingham in the House of Commons. He married Lady Florence Amabel Cowper, daughter of George Cowper, 6th Earl Cowper and his wife Lady Anne Florence de Grey Cowper, 7th Baroness Lucas of Crudwell. In 1905, their only son Auberon Herbert succeeded his uncle as ninth Baron Lucas of Crudwell (see this title for further history of this branch of the family).


title: Earl of Carnarvon

text: The Hon. Aubrey Herbert, second son of the fourth Earl, was Member of Parliament for South Somerset and for Yeovil. His son Auberon Herbert was an expert on Eastern Europe. His daughter Laura Herbert was the second wife of the novelist Evelyn Waugh and mother of the journalist Auberon Waugh.


title: Earl of Carnarvon

text: The family seat of the Herbert Earls of Carnarvon is Highclere Castle in Hampshire, which was the filming location for the UK television series "Downton Abbey". The traditional burial place of the Herbert Earls of Carnarvon is the Carnarvon Mausoleum, located in the park at Highclere Castle; some other family members are buried in the Herbert Mausoleum at the Church of All Saints, Burghclere.


title: Earl of Carnarvon

text: , the heir apparent is the present holder's elder son, George Kenneth Oliver Molyneux Herbert, Lord Porchester (born 1992).


title: Earl of Carnarvon

text: Until the birth of Reginald Henry Michael, Lord Herbert, to William Herbert, 18th Earl of Pembroke, on 21 October 2012, the 8th Earl of Carnarvon was the heir presumptive to the earldom of Pembroke and the earldom of Montgomery. The 8th Earl is third-in-line to those titles.


title: Dæmon (His Dark Materials)

text: A dæmon () is a type of fictional being in the Philip Pullman fantasy trilogy "His Dark Materials". Dæmons are the external physical manifestation of a person's "inner-self" that takes the form of an animal. Dæmons have human intelligence, are capable of human speech—regardless of the form they take—and usually behave as though they are independent of their humans. Pre-pubescent children's dæmons can change form voluntarily, almost instantaneously, to become any creature, real or imaginary. During their adolescence a person's dæmon undergoes "settling", an event in which that person's dæmon permanently and involuntarily assumes the form of the animal which the person most resembles in character. Dæmons are usually of the opposite sex to their human, though same-sex dæmons do exist.


title: Dæmon (His Dark Materials)

text: Although dæmons mimic the appearance and behaviour of the animals they resemble perfectly, dæmons are not true animals, and humans, other dæmons, and true animals are able to distinguish them on sight. The faculty or quality that makes this possible is not explained in the books, but it is demonstrated extensively, and is reliable enough to allow humans to distinguish a bird-shaped dæmon within a flock of birds in flight.


title: Dæmon (His Dark Materials)

text: Dæmons frequently interact with each other in ways that mirror the behaviour of their humans, such as fighting one another when their humans are fighting, or nuzzling one another when their humans embrace, and such contact between dæmons is unremarkable. Physical contact with another person's dæmon is taboo.


title: Dæmon (His Dark Materials)

text: In Lyra's world, every human or witch has a dæmon which manifests itself as an animal. It is separate from and outside its human, despite being an integral part of that person (i.e. they are one entity in two bodies).