Dieter Laser (born 17 February 1942) is a German actor. He is known to English speaking audiences for his roles as Mantrid in "Lexx", Prof. Otto Blaettchen in "The Ogre", Dr. Josef Heiter in "The Human Centipede (First Sequence)" and Bill Boss in "The Human Centipede 3 (Final Sequence)".
Tom Six
Tom Six (born 29 August 1973) is a Dutch filmmaker. He is best known for his body horror movies, "The Human Centipede (First Sequence)", "The Human Centipede 2 (Full Sequence)" and "The Human Centipede 3 (Final Sequence)".
The Human Centipede 2 (Full Sequence)
The Human Centipede 2 (Full Sequence) is a 2011 British-Dutch black and white exploitation movie written, directed, and co-produced by Dutch filmmaker Tom Six. It is a sequel to Six's 2009 movie "The Human Centipede (First Sequence)". The movie stars Laurence R. Harvey and Ashlynn Yennie. It was followed by "The Human Centipede 3 (Final Sequence)".
The movie is about a mentally challenged English man, Martin, who watches and becomes obsessed with the first "Human Centipede" movie, and decides to make his own "centipede" made up of twelve people.
It was originally banned in the United Kingdom by the BBFC because of its "revolting" content but was eventually granted an 18 certificate after over 30 cuts were made. The film was also banned in Australia for a short period of time. It is banned in New Zealand. The film received negative reviews for its plot, excessive gore and violence.
The Human Centipede 3 (Final Sequence)
The Human Centipede 3 (Final Sequence) is a 2015 English-language Dutch body horror movie written and directed by Tom Six. It is the third and final installment in Six's "Human Centipede" trilogy. It was confirmed to be in production in May 2013.
Starring Dieter Laser and Laurence R. Harvey, the leading actors from the first two movies, in new roles. It also stars Eric Roberts as The Governor. "The Human Centipede 3" was released both theatrically and on video on demand on 22 May 2015.
Don Howe
Donald "Don" Howe (12 October 1935 – 23 December 2015) was an English football player, coach, manager and pundit. He was born in the Springfield area of Wolverhampton.
Howe spent most of his playing career at West Bromwich Albion.
Howe joined the West Bromwich Albion ground staff after leaving school, joining the club as a youth player in December 1950. He turned professional in November 1952, but did not make his debut until 1955, against Everton.
A full back, he played nearly 350 games for the Baggies in twelve years, as well as becoming a regular in the England team; he played in the 1958 FIFA World Cup, and won 23 caps in total.
Howe was signed by Billy Wright's Arsenal in 1964, and was made club captain. However, in March 1966 he broke his leg playing against Blackpool and never recovered well enough to play in the first team again.
Howe retired from coaching in the summer of 2003 after more than 30 years. He occasionally wrote as a pundit for the BBC Sport website. He also had a regular column in the official Arsenal magazine. Right up until his death he ran youth coaching schemes across the United Kingdom.
Howe died, aged 80, in December 2015.
Pazyryk rug
The Pazyryk rug is one of the oldest carpets in the world, dating around the 4th–3rd centuries BC. It is now in the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia. The Pazyryk rug was found in 1949 in the grave of a Scythian nobleman in the Bolshoy Ulagan dry valley of the Altai Mountains in Kazakhstan. The Pazyrk rug had been frozen in the ice and it was very well preserved. The rug has a ribbon pattern in the middle, and a border which has deer, and warriors riding on horses. All parts of the rug are made of wool, including the pile and the base.
Being produced either in Ancient Armenia, Persia, or Central Asia, this carpet has 3600 symmetrical double knots per dm² (232 per inch²), in modern terminology also called "Ghiordes knot (or "Turkish knot"). The design and the systematic motifs of the Pazyrk rug would later be found in similar Turkmen carpets, carpets of the early Seljuq period, and subsequently modern Turkish carpets and kilims.
The origin of the rug is unknown. There are different theories regarding the origin of the carpet. While a number of scholars presume a Oghuz-Turkic origin, Volkmar Gantzhorn assumes a Urartian and Phrygian-Armenian origin of the rug. A Persian theory also exists, but has not been further elaborated; The rug may have originated between the Iranian-Altaian corridor through ancient contacts. Some authors assume that the wool, the artistic conception, as well as the workmanship, may have been provided by Armenians of the Near East; The rug itself is considered as a Sakic funeral accessory. Although a previous study in 1983/1985 did not support an involvement of Armenian cochineal, a Soviet-based conference held in Riga (1987) still maintained the claim that the red threads of the rug resemble those of the Armenian cochineal type. Later it was found by an American research center (Bard Graduate Center, 1991) that the bluish-red color used for the rug and other felts was actually made from Polish cochineal ("Porphyrophora polonica"), a scale insect native to Eastern Europe, Central Asia and Western Siberia, or from one of the Porphyrophora species recently discovered in Kazakhstan: "P. Altaiensis", "P. Turaigiriensis" (Jashenko, 1988), "P. Akirtobiensis" (Jashenko, 1988), "P. eremospartonae" (Jashenko, 1989), and "P. matesovae" (Jashenko, 1989). Armenian authors, however, still insist in the Soviet-based perception of 1987. Further confirmation on the nature of "Ararat Kermes" of the Armenian cochineal gained by the analysis of "Porphyrophora hameli" insects in 1990 by Harald Böhmer, has shown that the Pazyryk rug cannot have been dyed with this insect.
The numerical values of the carpet show striking genealogical parallels to the Oghuz-Turkic legend, perhaps based on an older version of the Massageteans. This genealogy is shown in the way the pattern is divided into 24 tribes. On the left and right their are groups of 12 tribes in each. According to Rashid-al-Din Hamadani, the founder of the Oghuz tribes had six sons, with each having four sons. As mentioned in the “Shiji” (“Historical Records”) of Sima Qian this scheme was a result of the military administrative reform of the Xiongnu leader Modu Chanyu in 209/206-174 BC which in turn originated from the Turkic primordial ancestor Oghuz Khagan. Many Turkic cultures today use his legend to describe their ethnic origins. Historian Sergei Tolstov writes that this scheme “...was preserved by the Aral foreland Huns, the Kidarites-Hephthalites, and was inherited by their descendants, the tribes of the Oghuz alliance in the 10th – 11th centuries AD and, finally, by the Turkmens of the 19th century AD – beginning of the 20th century AD.”
Gantzhorn supports the view that the Pazyryk rug is of Phrygian-Armenian origin. He put forward the hypothesis that the rug is actually not depicting Scythians, but Armenians. He found similarities at the ruins of Persepolis in Iran where various nations are depicted as bearing tribute, the horse design from the Pazyryk carpet is the same as the relief depicting part of the Armenian delegation.
George Clayton Johnson
George Clayton Johnson (July 10, 1929 – December 25, 2015) was an American science fiction writer. He was most famous for co-writing the novel "Logan's Run" with William F. Nolan, the basis for the 1976 movie.
He was also known for his television screenplays for "The Twilight Zone" (such as "Nothing in the Dark", "Kick the Can", "A Game of Pool", and "A Penny for Your Thoughts"), and the first episode of "", "The Man Trap". He also wrote the story on which the 1960 and 2001 movie "Ocean's Eleven" were based.
Johnson died of bladder and prostate cancer on December 25, 2015 at a hospital in North Hills, Los Angeles, California at the age of 86. His death was falsely reported on December 22.
Jason Myers