The Royal Hospital was laid out to a master plan created by Christopher Wren. The hospital complex was built over many decades. Other architects who added to this long-term project included Nicholas Hawksmoor.
The core of this group of buildings is the Queen's House which was designed by Inigo Jones. This was the first Palladian building in Britain.
The Royal Observatory is now the baseline for the world's time zone system and for the measurement of longitude around the globe.
The Royal Park is a symmetrical design in an irregular landscape around the buildings of the World Heritage Site. The park was created by André Le Nôtre.
The park and grounds behind the buildings on the river held the competitions for the horse-related events of the 2012 Summer Olympics.
National Rail and Docklands Light Railway services call at Greenwich station.
Catch Me If You Can (movie)
Catch Me If You Can is a 2002 American biographical crime drama movie. It stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hanks. The movie was directed by Steven Spielberg. It is based on the 1980 book by Frank Abagnale.
"Catch Me if You Can" is set in 1963. Frank Abagnale is played by Leonardo DiCaprio. Frank is sixteen years old. Carl Hanratty is played by Tom Hanks. Carl is an FBI investigator. When Frank's parents get divorced, Frank decides to leave his house change his name. He buys a pilot uniform and forges (makes a fake copy of) a pilot licence. He travels with PanAm airlines to many countries. He pays with forged cheques in the USA.
Then Frank decides to work as a doctor. He again forges the documents. In the hospital he meets a girl. He works as a lawyer, so that he can marry the girl from the hospital. Carl Hanratty is at the wedding. Carl reveals to the girls' father who Frank is. In the meantime, Frank tells his wife the truth about his life and what he has done. Carl searches the house, but Frank has already left. Frank escapes and moves to Mont-de Marson, France where he tries to escape. Carl Hanratty finds him and convinces Frank to come quietly to face his crime. Frank goes quietly with Carl. When Frank leaves jail, he works with Carl Hanratty, helping Carl to catch criminals who forge cheques and other documents.
Armorica
Armorica or Aremorica is the name given in ancient times to the part of Gaul that includes the Brittany peninsula and the territory between the Seine and Loire rivers
Gaul
Gaul () was the name given in ancient times to the area of Western Europe that included northern Italy, France, Belgium, western Switzerland and the parts of the Netherlands and Germany on the west bank of the Rhine river. Many Celtic tribes lived in the region and were known by the Romans simply as "Gauls".
In English, the word "Gaul" () may also mean a Celtic inhabitant of that region, although the expression may be used for all ancient speakers of the Gaulish language as well. In this way, "Gaul" and "Celt" are sometimes used in the same sense.
Gauls under Brennus attacked Rome with the Battle of the Allia (390 BC).
Danelaw
The Danelaw (from the Old English "Dena lagu", Danish: "Danelagen" ) is an 11th-century name for an area of northern and eastern England under the administrative control of the Danish Viking empire (or Danes, or Norsemen) from the late 9th century until the early 11th century.
Jorvik
Jórvík was the Viking name for the English city of York and the kingdom centred there.
York had been founded as the Roman legionary fortress of "Eboracum" and revived as the Anglo-Saxon trading port of "Eoforwic". It was first captured in November 866 by a large army of Danish Vikings.
Mutton
The terms lamb, mutton or hoggett are used to describe the meat of a domestic sheep. The meat of a sheep a year old or younger is generally known as "lamb", whereas the meat of an older sheep is either "hoggett" or "mutton" depending on its age and characteristics. In some countries all such meat is referred to as "lamb". All of these are known as sheepmeats.
The meat of a lamb is taken from the animal between one month and one year old, with a weight of between 5.5 and 30 kilograms. This meat generally is more tender than that from older sheep and is often eaten more often in some western countries, most often on Easter.
Hoggett and mutton can taste more flavorful than lamb because they contain a higher concentration of species-characteristic fatty acids; many therefore prefer the stronger flavour of older animals .
Prion
A prion is an infectious protein. The word is short for "proteinaceous infectious particles".
All known prion diseases in mammals affect the structure of the brain or other neural tissue. At present they cannot be treated and always end in death.
Prions cause many forms of encephalitis, or brain disease, such as scrapie, Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy) and kuru. Prions work by changing the shape of proteins in the infected animals. While normal proteins have lots of alpha helices, or twisted parts, changed proteins have lots of beta sheets, or flat parts. The word is pronounced "pree-on".
Because prions are proteins, and proteins cannot reproduce themselves, it is a mystery how prions work. A lot of molecular biology research is going on to find out how they reproduce themselves, with no clear result so far.
Hashish
Hashish is a sticky, thick, dark-colored resin (plant juice) which is made from the flower of the female cannabis plant, "Cannabis sativa". The cannabis plant's leaves and flowers contain chemicals known as cannabinoids. One cannabinoid is THC, which gives a person who smokes or eats parts of the cannabis plant a feeling of euphoria (makes the user feel good or happy). Another cannabinoid is CBD, which gives the user a relaxing feeling, and another is CBG which gives the user red or droopy eyes. The name "hashish" comes from an Arabic word meaning "dry weed".
The two main drugs made from the cannabis plant are marijuana and hashish. Hashish has much more of the chemical THC (which makes users feel good or happy) than marijuana. Hashish is an illegal drug in the United States, UK and many other countries. Some people think it should be legal, some think it should be legal only for medical reasons, and some think it should not be legal at all.
To make hashish, workers rub cannabis blossoms with their hands to get the resin to stick to their hands, and then the resin is collected. Another way to make hashish is to sift the ground-up, dried leaves through a screen and press the powder resin to make a "brick".
A more modern method of producing hashish is through alcohol extraction. In this method cannabis plants are ground up and covered in isopropyl alcohol or butane and left to sit. The mixture is then dried until the alcohol is gone, leaving the active terpenoid and terpene compounds which can be used immediately or cooked into bricks.
When a person wants to use hashish, they usually smoke it by putting a small piece of hashish in a joint with tobacco or marijuana. Then the person lights the paper roll with a flame and inhales the smoke that comes out, exhaling 1-3 seconds after holding in the smoke.
Another way that people use hashish is by putting a small piece of hashish in a pipe or bong (water pipe) then putting it on fire, and breathing the smoke. Some people also eat hashish, usually by mixing it into food or baked goods.
The legality of hashish use is different in different countries.
Cannabis and sometimes hashish is legal for strict medicinal use such as cancer patients, terminally ill, epileptics and insomniacs. In Canberra however, cannabis is now legal for adults 18+ since 2019. Before this, it was only decriminalised in Canberra.