Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood
The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (also known as the Pre-Raphaelites) was a group of English painters, poets, and critics, founded in 1848 by William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais and Dante Gabriel Rossetti. The three founders were soon joined by William Michael Rossetti, James Collinson, Frederic George Stephens and Thomas Woolner to form a seven-member "brotherhood". After they had broken up, John William Waterhouse painted in their style. Their influence shrank as the impressionists and post-impressionists became more important.
The group's intention was to reform art by rejecting what they considered to be the 'mechanistic approach'. This was first adopted by the Mannerist artists who succeeded Raphael and Michelangelo. The Brotherhood believed that the Classical poses and elegant compositions of Raphael in particular had been a corrupting influence on the academic teaching of art. So, they are called Pre-Raphaelites.
In particular, they objected to the influence of Sir Joshua Reynolds, the founder of the English Royal Academy of Arts, whom they called "Sir Sloshua". To the Pre-Raphaelites, according to William Michael Rossetti, "sloshy" meant "anything lax or scamped in the process of painting ... and hence ... any thing or person of a commonplace or conventional kind". In contrast, they wanted to return to the abundant detail, intense colours, and complex compositions of Quattrocento Italian and Flemish art.
The Pre-Raphaelites continued to accept the idea of history painting, and the imitation of nature, as central to the purpose of art. Despite this, they were a reform movement: they created a distinct name for their form of art, and published a periodical, "The Germ", to promote their ideas. Their debates were recorded in the "Pre-Raphaelite Journal".
The Brotherhood were highly praised by the art critic John Ruskin, and in turn they were influenced by his ideas. Rossetti's wife Elizabeth Siddal was their favourite model, and she developed into an excellent artist herself.
Pretty Vacant
"Pretty Vacant" is a song by the English punk rock band The Sex Pistols. It was released in 1977, as the third single from their album "Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols".
The song is infamous for vocalist John Lydon's phrasing of the word "vacant", emphasizing the last syllable making it sound like the vulgar word "cunt".
The B-side is a cover of The Stooges' "No Fun" which they played on the spot without a proper rehearsal.
Piccadilly
Piccadilly is a major street in central London, running from Hyde Park Corner in the west to Piccadilly Circus in the east. It is completely within the City of Westminster. St. James's lies to the south of the eastern section of the street, while the western section overlooks Green Park. The area to the north is Mayfair.
It is the location of Fortnum & Mason, the Royal Academy, The Ritz Hotel, the RAF Club and Hatchards book shop. Simpsons, once amongst the United Kingdom's leading clothing stores, opened on Piccadilly in the 1930s. The store closed in 1999 and the site is now the flagship shop of the booksellers Waterstone's.
The name Piccadilly may come from a tailor named Robert Baker, in the late 16th century and early 17th century. He amassed a large fortune by making and selling "piccadills" – stiff collars with scalloped edges and a lace border, which were then in fashion. With his great fortune he bought a large tract of what was then open country to the west of London.
After the Restoration of the English monarchy in 1660, Piccadilly and the area to the north (Mayfair) began to be systematically developed as a fashionable residential locality. Some of the grandest mansions in London were built on the northern side of Piccadilly: Clarendon House, Berkeley House (later Devonshire House), and Sir John Denham's house (later Burlington House) were built in the 17th century. Later mansions included Melbourne House (now The Albany), Apsley House, Bath House and Cambridge House. Several members of the Rothschild family had mansions at the western end of the street, and that part was colloquially referred to as Rothschild Row.
By the 1920s most of these buildings had been demolished or were in institutional use. The enlargement of Park Lane and the formation of Hyde Park Corner as a major traffic gyratory system has cut off the western stretch of Piccadilly, with the result that Apsley House has become detached from it.
21st century Piccadilly is not one of London's principal shopping streets, despite the presence of several famous shops. The Ritz Hotel is in the street, along with some other luxury hotels. There are also some offices and some very expensive flats. Piccadilly is one of the widest and straightest streets in central London.
List of European countries
This is a list of all European countries:
Last Christmas
"Last Christmas" is a holiday song by the pop duo Wham!. The single focuses about betrayal of the protagonist by a person he thought was there to stay. The song was released in 1984. Other singers have covered it since then, including Ashley Tisdale.
Lock picking
Lock picking is the art of opening a lock without the key and without damaging or destroying the lock or its door. It is usually used by locksmiths to let people back in who have lost their keys or locked them inside a car or house. Lock picking is very rarely used by criminals, because picking a lock is difficult and other ways of entering such as breaking a window are much easier. Some people pick their own locks as a hobby. In most places picking locks that you own is legal, but it is illegal to pick locks that you do not own or do not have permission to pick.
History of keys and locks goes back for about 4,000 years. Ancient people also wanted to protect their possessions and keep them in places where other people cannot get access to them. The first locks and keys were made of wood and other easily accessible materials and they provided the small safeguard against theft or break-in. However, such locks at least let the owners know if someone tried to tamper with the lock.
The earliest known key and lock was discovered in the Nineveh ruins, which was the capital of ancient Assyria. They were dated to 704 BC. The first models of wooden locks and keys originate from Ancient Babylon and Egypt. These simple devices had small pins, controlling the movement of the security bolt. In order to unlock the bolt, it was necessary to lift the pins, by using bulky wooden keys.
Roman age introduced many improvements of the Egyptian wooden locks. Ancient Romans created stronger and smaller locks than Egyptians, by using bronze and iron. The keys of locks from Roman era were small and light enough to be carried everywhere. Such small keys were often viewed as one of the effective ways of showing your wealth to other people. Rich Romans often kept their valuable things in secure boxes and wore the keys as finger rings.
The warded lock also comes from antiquity and is still the most recognizable lock and key type. Nowadays, there is a wide range of different locks, keys and other security systems available on the market. Among them are also keyless entry systems, that allow people to operate their locks without using the keys.
Warded locks are the simplest locks to pick and are picked by inserting a warded lock pick (also called a skeleton key) into the keyhole and turning it as if it were the key. A pick for warded locks can be made by filing down all of the teeth on a regular key except the last one, or for some locks, the last two.