Patrick is as a pink starfish who is silly, fat, lazy, immature, forgetful, rude, and generally ignorant. He has been shown to make many silly mistakes such as forgetting how to eat, and not realizing that the character Sandy Cheeks is a girl. But, he sometimes is shown to overly observe particular events happening around him. At those moments, he would focus on very specific objects or details that other characters would usually ignore. However, he always quickly turns back to his usual, silly self after. He does not have a job. But, he worked at the Krusty Krab for short periods of time in many positions (often was not paid), and mostly spends his days either goofing off with SpongeBob or resting beneath the rock. He lives under the rock. At home, Patrick is usually either sleeping (stuck to the bottom of his rock), watching TV (whether the TV is actually on or not), or doing the "art of doing nothing." He is very good at that. All of the furniture under his rock are made of sand, and Patrick can simply build new furniture as needed. But even so, his living space contains only the most basic things. His best friend SpongeBob is often impressed by Patrick's ability to come up with silly yet genius plans or solutions. But, Patrick often irritates those around him and is confused by the simplest questions or subjects. The characters of Mr. Krabs and Squidward Tentacles have no patience for Patrick's stupidity. They don't pay him much regard. Sandy Cheeks often gets annoyed by Patrick, but still sees him as a friend.
"SpongeBob SquarePants" maker Stephen Hillenburg began making cartoons and caricatures of tide pool-dwelling sea life, including starfish, while teaching marine biology at the Orange County Marine Institute in Dana Point, California, from 1984 to 1987. In 1987, Hillenburg left the institute. This is so he could become an animator. Patrick Star is voiced by Bill Fagerbakke.
In 2005, a video that involves SpongeBob promoting diversity and tolerance was criticized by a Christian evangelical group in the United States because they saw the character was being used for homosexual people, but the video had "no reference to sex, sexual lifestyle or sexual identity."
This made questions about whether or not SpongeBob, his best friend Patrick, and the rest of the series' characters are homosexual characters. In 2002, Hillenburg said that his characters were not gay. He clarified the issue and said "We never made them gay on purpose. I think they are almost asexual. We are just trying to be funny and this has got nothing to do with the show."
Jeffrey P. Dennis, writer of the journal article "The Same Thing We Do Every Night: Signifying Same-Sex Desire in Television Cartoons," argued that SpongeBob and Sandy are not in love, while adding that he believed that SpongeBob and Patrick "are paired with arguably big intensity." Dennis noted the two are "not thought of as romantic partners," since they live in separate places, and have different groups of friends, but claimed that in the series, "the possibility of same-sex desire is never excluded." Martin Goodman of "Animation World Magazine" described Dennis's comments regarding SpongeBob and Patrick as "interesting."
Nick Clegg
Sir Nicholas William Peter "Nick" Clegg (born 7 January 1967) is a British politician. He was the Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government and was also the leader of the Liberal Democrats. He was the Member of Parliament (MP) for the constituency of Sheffield Hallam.
Nick Clegg was a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from 1999 to 2004 and was first elected as a Liberal Democrat MP in the 2005 general election. He became the leader of the Liberal Democrats in December 2007. Following the 2010 General Election, he was made Deputy Prime Minister after a coalition deal with the Conservative Party. He resigned as party leader in 2015 after the May 2015 election because of the party's poor election results.
Clegg has been married to Miriam González Durántez since 2000; they have three sons. Durantez is a Spanish Roman Catholic. Their children are being raised as Catholics, even though Clegg is an atheist.
Clegg's family has many foreign members- his grandmother on his father's side was a Russian Baroness before the Russian Revolution, with German and Ukrainian ancestors, while Clegg's Dutch mother was imprisoned by the Japanese in World War II. Clegg is multilingual (he speaks Dutch, English, French, German and Spanish fluently). He says that his family's experience of persecution is one of the reasons he is liberal.
Clegg was born in Buckinghamshire. He went to Caldicott primary school and Westminster secondary school. He spent a gap year working as a skiing instructor in Austria before starting university at Robinson College, Cambridge, where he studied Anthropology.
After his degree, he was given a scholarship to study for a Master's degree at the University of Minnesota. He then worked as an intern for Christopher Hitchens in New York for a while before going to Brussels to work for the European Union as a trainee aid organiser. He then studied for a second Master's at the College of Europe in Bruges where he met Durantez.
From 1994 to 1998, he worked at the European Commission, where he developed aid programmes to the former Soviet Union and helped the World Trade Organisation to negotiate the entries of Russia and China.
In 1999, Clegg was elected as the Member of the European Parliament for the East Midlands. As an MEP, he helped to start a campaign for greater accountability in the European Parliament.
In 2004, he left the Parliament in order to campaign for the Sheffield Hallam constituency seat in the 2005 General Election. During the campaign, he worked as a part-time lecturer at the University of Sheffield.
Clegg won the 2005 election, and became the Member of Parliament for Sheffield Hallam in May 2005. As an MP, he campaigned to change the prison and immigration systems, and to make sure that the government did not take away too much freedom from people in their work against terrorism. He said that the Iraq War was wrong.
In 2007, he was voted as leader of the Liberal Democrats, and in 2008 he joined the Privy Council, a group of advisors to the British Monarch. .
As leader of the Liberal Democrats, Clegg's main policies have been to get rid of the Trident missile system, to give NHS patients the choice of private medical care, to make the length of time between elections 5 years (at the moment it only has a 5-year limit, meaning that the government can begin a new election at any time), giving more power to local government, tax cuts for the poor and for the government to do more about the environment.
In May 2009, the Liberal Democrats' approval ratings were higher than the Labour Party's for the first time since 1987.
Clegg lost his seat in the 2017 general election.
In May 2010, the UK had a General Election which did not produce a clear winner. David Cameron, leader of the Conservative Party, who had got the most votes, asked to form a coalition government with the Liberal Democrats. Clegg accepted, and became Deputy Prime Minister.
In July 2010, he revealed plans to have 50 fewer MPs in Parliament, to change the number of MPs needed to begin a new election without the agreement of the Prime Minister to 65% and to hold a referendum on whether or not to change the system of voting in General Elections.
After the government revealed plans to drastically cut government spending, Liberal Democrat approval ratings dropped to 14%, almost half the 34% rating that was recorded in April 2010.
Magnús Eiríksson