The Pike Place Fish Market was purchased in 1965 by John Yokoyama. Yokoyama was a former employee of the fish market, who bought the store to make enough money to afford the car payments on his new Buick Riviera. At first, Pike Place Fish Market was unknown outside of the Seattle area. Yokoyama and his staff decided to change that in a meeting with a business coach in 1986. Prior to the meeting, the Pike Place Fish Market was near to bankruptcy. Consultant, Jim Bergquist, was helping them to conceive of ways to save the business. A fish market employee at the meeting suggested that they not only save the business, but make it "world famous". They had the idea of flying and throwing fish and having games with customers. They thought that staff were enjoying their work so that customers would as well. In an interview, Yokoyama stated, "We took a stand that we were going to become world famous. We just said it and it became so."
Four years later, in 1990, Ted Turner's Goodwill Games were held in Seattle. News crews at the Pike Place Market discovered the fish market and its performances with customers, and they filmed them. Soon afterwards, the fish market appeared on "Good Morning America". The business and its employees were being filmed by various movie crews, and being featured in many magazines. Now, during the summer tourist season, the fishmongers will perform now in front of as many as 10,000 visitors daily. The success of the business has been cited to its human resources and employee attitudes. The employees of the fish market will often speak to businesses, civic groups, and schools on ways to be successful. This has led to their being featured in motivational books.
A popular feature at the Pike Place Fish Market is a fish which sometimes is made to "snap" at customers. In 1991, CNN named the Pike Place Fish Market as one of the three most fun places to work in America.
The Pike Place Fish Market is best known for their habit of hurling customers' orders across the shopping area. A typical routine will involve a customer ordering a fish, with their fishmongers in orange rubber overalls and boots calling out the order, which is loudly shouted back by all the other staff, at which point the original fishmonger will throw the customer's fish behind the counter for wrapping. Initially, the shouted repeating of the ordered fish began as a prank on one employee, but was enjoyed by customers, so it became a tradition. While working, the staff continually yell to each other and chant in unison while they throw ordered fish. At times, the fish market staff will throw a foam fish into the crowd to scare bystanders, or select a customer from the crowds to participate in the fish toss. Above the areas in which they throw fish, the market hangs a sign that reads, "Caution: Low Flying Fish".
In 1998, the Pike Place Fish Market was the subject of a documentary movie and accompanying book, "FISH! Philosophy." The Pike Place Fish Market has also been the setting for several best-selling corporate training videos, the aforementioned "FISH!", and also "FISH!Sticks", which have been used by companies such as Enterprise Rent-A-Car, Sprint Nextel, Southwest Airlines, Sainsbury's, Saturn, and Scottish and Southern Energy, for employee training. The Pike Place Fish Market has been featured in a variety of television shows and commercials. These include a Spike Lee Levis jeans commercial; MTV's "The Real World"; NBC's "Frasier", and ABC's "Good Morning America". In movies, it has appeared in "Free Willy".
Gustav I of Sweden
Gustav I of Sweden, born 14 May 1496, dead 29 September 1560, was the King of Sweden from 1523 until his death in 1560. During his reign, Sweden broke relationship with the Kalmar Union and the Roman Catholic Church.
Marie Hermanson
Marie Hermanson, born 1956, is a Swedish writer and journalist.
August Prize - 1995 (for Värddjuret).
Pietra dura
Pietra dura is a term for using cut and fitted, highly polished colored stones to create images.
The stonework is glued stone-by-stone to a base after being "sliced and cut in different shape sections; and then assembled together so precisely that the contact between each section was practically invisible". Stability was achieved by grooving the undersides of the stones so that they interlocked, rather like a jigsaw puzzle, with everything held in place by an encircling 'frame'. Many different colored stones, particularly marbles, were used, along with semiprecious, and even precious stones.
The technique first appeared in Rome in the 16th century. It reached its peak in Florence. Pietra dura items are generally crafted on green, white or black marble base stones. Typically the resulting panel is completely flat, but some examples have the image is in low relief.
There are a number of similar techniques which should not be called pietra dura. The English term "Florentine mosaic" is sometimes used for the work of Giovanni Montelatici (1864-1930). He was an Italian Florentine artist whose brilliant work has been distributed across the world by tourists and collectors.
Pietra dura is also different from mosaics because stones are mostly much larger and cut to a shape suiting their place in the image, not all of roughly equal size and shape as in mosaic. In pietra dura, the stones are not cemented together with grout, and works in pietra dura are often portable. Nor should it be confused with micromosaics, a form of mosaic using very small tesserae of the same size to create images for Byzantine icons, and later for furniture panels.
Pink cat
Cats can be many different breeds and fur coat colours. A pink cat is not a colour found in nature. But several pink cats have been reported about in the news media. Sometimes the cat colour has changed to pink with chemicals or dyes. There are also several fictional pink cats in popular culture.
In September 2005, a cat named Brumas roamed away from his owners in Launceston, Cornwall. When he came back after a short time, his fur was coloured pink. No one ever figured out the cause of the colour change. Brumas was taken to the RSPCA to be tested. He did not have any toxins.
In September 2010, a cat with dyed pink fur was found in Swindon, South West England. The RSPCA said the dyeing was a "sick prank". Even though they tried to wash the colour out of the cat's fur, it stayed pink. The cat did not have any signs of side-effects or harm. The event made worldwide news. Soon the owner told the truth. She said that the cat had been dyed pink using food colouring because she was a fan of the colour. She said the act "seemed like a good idea. I always wanted a pink animal - a bit like my hair". She said she read the instructions carefully and the food colouring could not be harmful because it was safe for humans to eat. The RSPCA decided not to arrest her for harming her animal.
In May 2011, four kittens were found in a concrete factory in Redruth, Cornwall. One kitten had pink fur. A cat rescue group named "Cats Protection", tried to wash out the colour with shampoo, but could not.
Pollution from a steel factory in Port Talbot, Wales, has turned cats both pink and grey.
Cats having pink patches are found in Bulgaria. The color is probably a genetic mutation and is very close to orange. They are usually pink-white bicolor; or pink-blue-white or pink-black-white calico cats.
The Pink Panther is a cartoon cat that was created by Friz Freleng. He is seen in the opening titles of the Peter Sellers movies with his own theme music. He also had his own cartoon show. Animation historian Jerry Beck has said the cartoon cat is "anti-authority – he's cool yet he's pink".
The character of the children's television series" Bagpuss" was a pink cat. The Bagpuss puppet was really supposed to be an orange marmalade colour. When the puppet was made, it was dyed pink by mistake.