Problem: Background: Spitting Image is a British satirical puppet show, created by Peter Fluck, Roger Law and Martin Lambie-Nairn. The series was produced by 'Spitting Image Productions' for Central Independent Television over 18 series which aired on the ITV network. The series was nominated and won numerous awards during its run including 10 BAFTA Television Awards, including one for editing in 1989 and two Emmy Awards in 1985 and 1986 in the Popular Arts Category. The series featured puppet caricatures of celebrities prominent during the 1980s and 1990s, including British Prime Ministers Margaret Thatcher and John Major and other politicians, US president Ronald Reagan, and the British Royal Family; the series was the first to caricature Queen Elizabeth
Context: The programme was first released on video in 1986 in a series of three collections, each a compilation of material from the first two series: Spit - With Polish!, A Floppy Mass Of Blubber & Rubber Thingies. All carried a 15 certificate and were reissued in 1988, also as a box set. 1989 saw the release by Central Video of two complete specials, Bumbledown: The Life & Times Of Ronald Reagan and The Sound Of Maggie. Next was a video containing a collection of the music videos from the programme, titled "The Klassik Music Video Vol 1", released in 1991 by Central Video under The Video Collection Ltd (VCI or 2entertain); there was never a Volume 2. "Is Nothing Sacred?" was released in 1992 by Surprise Video, compiling material from 1990-1991. The free booklet was written by Stewart Lee and Richard Herring. Havin' It Off: The Bonker's Guide was released in 1993. In 1996 FA to Fairplay was released on VHS, later reissued on DVD in 2005. Made specially for video, it provided an alternative look at the 1996 European football championship held in England. The Ronald Reagan song "Da Do Run Ron" featured in a straight to video release called Rockin' Ronnie (1986), an otherwise unrelated compilation of movie clips released by ATI Video. The first twelve series including An 11-disc set (containing the first 7 series broadcast 1984-89) have been released by Network Distributing under licence by ITV Studios, so far. Series 1-7 individual releases are now deleted . DVD releases do not include any of the specials made.
Question: were these released successful?
Answer:

Problem: Background: Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 - 21 January 1950), better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English novelist, essayist, journalist, and critic. His work is marked by lucid prose, awareness of social injustice, opposition to totalitarianism, and outspoken support of democratic socialism. Orwell wrote literary criticism, poetry, fiction, and polemical journalism. He is best known for the allegorical novella Animal Farm (1945) and the dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949).
Context: This job was as a part-time assistant in Booklovers' Corner, a second-hand bookshop in Hampstead run by Francis and Myfanwy Westrope, who were friends of Nellie Limouzin in the Esperanto movement. The Westropes were friendly and provided him with comfortable accommodation at Warwick Mansions, Pond Street. He was sharing the job with Jon Kimche, who also lived with the Westropes. Blair worked at the shop in the afternoons and had his mornings free to write and his evenings free to socialise. These experiences provided background for the novel Keep the Aspidistra Flying (1936). As well as the various guests of the Westropes, he was able to enjoy the company of Richard Rees and the Adelphi writers and Mabel Fierz. The Westropes and Kimche were members of the Independent Labour Party, although at this time Blair was not seriously politically active. He was writing for the Adelphi and preparing A Clergyman's Daughter and Burmese Days for publication. At the beginning of 1935 he had to move out of Warwick Mansions, and Mabel Fierz found him a flat in Parliament Hill. A Clergyman's Daughter was published on 11 March 1935. In early 1935 Blair met his future wife Eileen O'Shaughnessy, when his landlady, Rosalind Obermeyer, who was studying for a master's degree in psychology at University College London, invited some of her fellow students to a party. One of these students, Elizaveta Fen, a biographer and future translator of Chekhov, recalled Orwell and his friend Richard Rees "draped" at the fireplace, looking, she thought, "moth-eaten and prematurely aged." Around this time, Blair had started to write reviews for the New English Weekly. In June, Burmese Days was published and Cyril Connolly's review in the New Statesman prompted Orwell (as he then became known) to re-establish contact with his old friend. In August, he moved into a flat in Kentish Town, which he shared with Michael Sayers and Rayner Heppenstall. The relationship was sometimes awkward and Orwell and Heppenstall even came to blows, though they remained friends and later worked together on BBC broadcasts. Orwell was now working on Keep the Aspidistra Flying, and also tried unsuccessfully to write a serial for the News Chronicle. By October 1935 his flatmates had moved out and he was struggling to pay the rent on his own. He remained until the end of January 1936, when he stopped working at Booklovers' Corner.
Question: did he do anything there besides the bookstore
Answer: He was writing for the Adelphi and preparing A Clergyman's Daughter and Burmese Days for publication.

Problem: Background: General Sir Miles Christopher Dempsey, (15 December 1896 - 5 June 1969) was a senior British Army officer who served in both world wars. As a junior officer, he fought in France during the First World War, where he was wounded, and served throughout the difficult interwar period, travelling to various corners of the globe. During the Second World War he had a close relationship with Bernard Montgomery and commanded the 13th Brigade in France in 1940, and spent the next two years training troops in England, before commanding XIII Corps for the invasions of Sicily and Italy in 1943. He later commanded the Second Army during the Battle of Normandy and made rapid advances in the subsequent campaign in Northern France and Belgium and was the first British Army commander to cross the Rhine.
Context: After the end of World War II in Europe, Dempsey was appointed to the command of the British Fourteenth Army and GOC in C Malaya Command and then Land Force Commander, South East Asia. By the time he had arrived however, the war in the East was also over. Within his command were 123,000 British and Dutch prisoners and nearly 750,000 captured Japanese. Miles Dempsey, although modest and unassuming, was considered to be a highly competent officer. He asserted a very effective control over the British Second Army without taking the limelight. This was despite the stalemate in Normandy and the failure to advance beyond Antwerp and thus ensure that German forces remained isolated. He was claimed by military historian Carlo D'Este to be: A career infantryman, Dempsey was an ardent student of military history and during the interwar period had frequently visited Europe to study its battlefields firsthand. Blessed with an active and incisive mind, a phenomenal memory and a unique skill in reading maps, Dempsey would soon leave his army staff in awe over his ability to remember everything he saw on a map, to bring a landscape literally to life in his mind even though he had never actually seen it. This talent proved particularly important during the crucial battles around Caen in June and July 1944. Dempsey was considered the Eighth Army's best expert in combined operations and, as he grew in experience, Montgomery soon recognized his potential for army command. The two men shared many qualities, including a disdain for paperwork and a determination, based on their First World War experiences, never to waste their soldiers lives.
Question: Did anything significant happen during this time?
Answer:
By the time he had arrived however, the war in the East was also over.