the-french-artist/wikipedia_20220301.simple_sentence_split huggingface dataset:
Filamentation, a long chain of cells
Part of a stamen, the male part of a flower
Hypha, in fungi and Actinobacteria
Fiber or yarn
2002 movie by Jinsei Tsuji
In biology, a filament is a long chain of proteins, such as those found in hair, muscle, or in flagella.
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/glossary/gloss4cell.html
Hanami () means "flower viewing" in Japanese.
Enjoying beautiful flowers is an old Japanese custom.
Cherry blossoms are the most popular.
The custom of hanami is more than a thousand years old.
It is still very popular in Japan.
Hanami takes place in the spring.
Cherry blossoms are there for only a week or two.
The cherry trees flower in late March and early April.
The blossoms do not stay fresh very long.
After a little time, the blooming is over.
Then the blossoms fall from the trees.
An older form of hanami also exists in Japan.
It celebrates the plum blossoms, instead of the cherry blossoms.
The practice of hanami is many centuries old.
It started during the Nara Period (710–784) when the Chinese Tang Dynasty influenced Japan in many ways; one of which was the custom of enjoying flowers.
Though it was ume blossoms that people admired in the beginning, by the Heian Period (794–1185), sakura began to attract more attention.
The sakura were considered sacred by the Japanese, and they were so important that they still are a cultural symbol of Japan.
People believed in gods' existence inside the trees, and the hanami party was used in the beginning to divine that year's harvest and to announce the season of planting rice.
Those who went to the hanami made offerings at the root of sakura trees, and after the ceremony, they took part in the offering drinking sake.
Emperor Saga of the Heian Period adopted this custom, and celebrated parties to view the flowers with sake and feasts under the blossoming branches of sakura trees in the Imperial Court in Kyoto.
This was said to be the origin of hanami in Japan.
Poems were written praising the delicate flowers, which were seen as a metaphor for life itself; beautiful, but lasting for a very short time.
This 'temporary' view of life is very popular in Japanese culture and is usually considered as an admirable form of existence; for example, in the samurai's principle of life ending when it's still beautiful and strong, instead of slowly getting old and weak.
The Heian era poets used to write poems about how much easier things would be in Spring without the sakura blossoms, because their existence reminded us that life is very short:
Hanami was used as a term that meant "cherry blossom viewing" for the first time in the Heian era novel Tale of Genji (chapter 8, 花宴 Hana no En, "Under the Cherry Blossoms").
From then on, in tanka and in haiku poetry, "flowers" meant "sakura", and the terms "hanami" and "flower party" were only used to mean sakura blossom viewing.
At the beginning, the custom was followed only by the Imperial Court, but the samurai nobility also began celebrating it during the Azuchi-Momoyama Period (1568–1600).
In those years, Toyotomi Hideyoshi gave great hanami parties in Yoshino and Daigo, and the festivity became very popular through all the Japanese society.
Shortly after that, farmers began their own custom of climbing nearby mountains in the springtime and having lunch under the blooming cherry trees.
This practice, called then as the "spring mountain trip", combined itself with that of the nobles' to form the urban culture of hanami.
By the Edo Period (1600–1867), all the common people took part in the celebrations, in part because Tokugawa Yoshimune planted areas of cherry blossom trees to encourage this.
Under the sakura trees, people had lunch and drank sake in cheerful feasts.
Japanese people continue the tradition of hanami.
People fill parks to eat and drink under the flowering trees.
In more than half of Japan, the cherry blossoming days come at the same time of the beginning of school and work after vacation, and so welcoming parties are often opened with hanami.
Usually, people go to the parks to keep the best places to celebrate hanami with friends, family, and company co-workers many hours before.
In many places such as Ueno Park, temporary paper lanterns are hung for night viewing of the flowers.
The blossom forecast or cherry blossom front is announced each year by the Japan Meteorological Agency.
The first cherry blossoms happen in the subtropical southern islands of Okinawa, while on the northern island of Hokkaido, they bloom much later.
In most large cities like Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka, the cherry blossom season normally takes place around the end of March and the beginning of April.
The television and newspapers closely follow this "cherry blossom front", as it slowly moves from south to north.
Outside Japan
Hanami is also popular outside of Japan.
There are hanami celebrations in Korea, Philippines, China, and elsewhere (many other places).
In 1912, Japan gave 3,000 sakura trees to the United States to celebrate the nations' friendship.
These trees were planted in Washington, D.C.. 3,800 more trees were added 1956.
These sakura trees are a popular tourist attraction.
Each year, the National Cherry Blossom Festival happens when they bloom in early Spring.
In Macon, Georgia, another cherry blossom festival called the International Cherry Blossom Festival is celebrated every spring.
Macon is known as the "Cherry Blossom Capital of the World" because 300,000 sakura trees grow there.
In Brooklyn, New York, the Annual Sakura Matsuri Cherry Blossom Festival takes place in May at Brooklyn Botanic Garden.
This festival started in 1981 and is very popular.
Hanami Fun Facts —Japanzine: Field Guide to Japan by Zack Davisson
Hanami Manners 101 —Japanzine by Emily Millar
Cherry Blossom Viewing: Japan Mint
Hanami - Cherry Blossom Viewing in Japan
Seasons In Japan - Cherry Blossoms (sakura)—Japan Visitor
4 famous landmarks from World Famous paint the night parade
In modern use, it includes anything that can be recognized easily, such as a monument, building, or other structure.
In American English it is the main word used to call places that are tourist attractions because they are beautiful, or big, or they have historical importance.
Some, such as National Landmarks, are on official lists of landmarks.
Landmarks in the British English are normally used for casual navigation, such as giving directions to someone to get somewhere.
This is done in American English as well.
List of important landmarks
Landmarks also can be of two different categories: natural (e.g., physical features such as waterfalls and mountains), and structures constructed by humans.
Many of them are World Heritage Sites.
Natural phenomena
Amazon Rainforest, Brazil/Peru /
Angel Falls, Canaima National Park, Gran Sabana, Bolivar State, Venezuela
Cotton Tree, Freetown, Sierra Leone
The Cliffs of Moher, Co. Clare, Ireland
Galápagos Islands, Galápagos Province, Ecuador
Giants Causeway, Northern Ireland,  United Kingdom
Grand Canyon, Arizona, USA
Great Barrier Reef, Coral Sea, Queensland, Australia
The Great Blue Hole, Belize
Great Smoky Mountains, Tennessee/North Carolina, USA
Iguazu Falls, Paraná/Misiones, Brazil/Argentina /
Matterhorn, Alps, Switzerland/Italy /
Milford Sound, South Island, New Zealand
Mont Saint Michel, France
Monument Valley, Arizona, USA
Mount Cook, South Island, New Zealand
Mount Everest, Himalayas, Nepal/China /
Mount Fuji, Chūbu region, Honshū, Japan
Mount Kilimanjaro, Kilimanjaro, Tanzania
Niagara Falls, Ontario/New York, Canada/USA /
Old Faithful Geyser, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, USA
Pantanal, Mato Grosso do Sul State, Brazil
Stone Mountain, Atlanta, Georgia, USA
Southern Patagonian Ice Field, Southern Patagonic Andes, Argentina/Chile, /
Table Mountain, Cape Town, South Africa
The Twelve Apostles (Victoria), Victoria, Australia
The Three Sisters,, Australia
Torres del Paine, Magallanes, Chile
Uluru, Northern Territory, Australia
Victoria Falls, Zambia/Zimbabwe /
Constructed features
Great Pyramid of Giza, Sphinx, Egypt
Abu Simbel, Aswan, Egypt
Nubian Monuments Philae, Aswan, Egypt
Hassan II Mosque, Casablanca, Morocco
Great Mosque of Djenné, Djenné, Mali
Tomb of Askia, Gao, Mali
Baalbek, Baalbeck, Lebanon
Persepolis, Fars, Iran
Azadi Tower, Tehran, Iran
Gateway of India, Mumbai, India
Harmandir Sahib, Amritsar, India
Jatiyo Sangshad Bhaban, Dhaka, Bangladesh
The Great Wall of China, Beijing, China
Tiananmen Square/Forbidden City, Beijing, China
Beijing National Stadium, Beijing, China
Potala Palace, Lhasa, Tibet Autonomous Region, China
The Terracotta Army,  Xi'an, Shaanxi, China
Shanghai Tower, Shanghai, China
Shanghai World Financial Center, Shanghai, China
Oriental Pearl Tower, Shanghai, China
Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre, Hong Kong
Bank of China Tower, Hong Kong
Two International Finance Centre, Hong Kong
International Commerce Centre, Hong Kong
Langham Place ,  Hong Kong
63 Building/N Seoul Tower, Seoul, South Korea
Golden Pavilion, Kyoto, Japan
Tokyo Skytree, Tokyo, Japan
Grand Palace, Bangkok, Thailand
Petronas Twin Towers, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Taipei 101, Taipei, Taiwan
Sigiriya Fortress, Sigiriya, Sri Lanka
Angkor Wat, Angkor, Cambodia
Borobudur, Central Java, Indonesia
Burj Al Arab, Dubai, UAE
Emirates Office Tower, Dubai, UAE
Burj Khalifa, Dubai, UAE
The Palm, Dubai, UAE
The World (archipelago), Dubai, UAE
Petra, Arabah,  Aqaba Governorate, Jordan
Western Wall, Jerusalem, Israel
Azrieli Center, Tel Aviv, Israel
Masjid al-Haram, Mecca, Saudi Arabia
Irish Government Buildings, Dublin, Ireland
Newgrange, Co. Meath, Ireland
The Customs House, Dublin, Ireland
The Spire of Dublin, Dublin, Ireland
The Parthenon, Athens, Greece
The White Tower of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece
Palace of Versailles, Versailles, France
Sacré-Cœur Basilica, Paris, France
St Mark's Square, Venice, Italy
Pompeii, Campania, Italy
Big Ben, London, United Kingdom
Stonehenge, Wiltshire, United Kingdom
Spinnaker Tower, Portsmouth, United Kingdom
Eden Project, Cornwall, United Kingdom
Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol, United Kingdom
Angel Of The North, Bristol, United Kingdom
Roman Baths, Bath, United Kingdom
Millenium Dome, The 02, London, United Kingdom
Trafalgar Square, London, England, United Kingdom
The Shard, London, United Kingdom
Red Square/Saint Basil's Cathedral, Moscow, Russia
Mamayev Kurgan, Volgograd, Russia
Saint Isaac's Cathedral, Saint Petersburg, Russia
Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg, Russia
Peter and Paul Fortress, Saint Petersburg, Russia
Atomium, Brussels, Belgium
Kölner Dom, Cologne, Germany
Frauenkirche, Munich, Germany
Neuschwanstein Castle, Bavaria, Germany
Fernsehturm, Berlin, Germany
Torre de Belém, Lisboa, Portugal
Sagrada Família, Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain
Mezquita de Córdoba, Córdoba, Andalusia, Spain
Alhambra, Granada, Andalusia, Spain
City of Arts and Sciences, Valencia, Spain
St. Peter's Basilica, Vatican City
Pobednik, Belgrade, Serbia
Palace on Dam square, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Amsterdam Central Station, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Market Hall, Rotterdam, Netherlands
Delta Works, Zeeland, Netherlands
Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco, California, USA
Statue of Liberty, Liberty Island, New York City, New York, USA
Mount Rushmore, South Dakota, USA
Hollywood Sign, Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA
Gateway Arch, St. Louis, Missouri, USA
Hoover Dam, Colorado River, Arizona\Nevada, USA
One World Trade Center, New York City, New York, USA
432 Park Avenue, New York City, New York, USA
30 Hudson Yards, New York City, New York, USA
Empire State Building, New York City, New York, USA
Sears Tower, Chicago, Illinois, USA
Faneuil Hall, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
White House, Washington, D.C., USA
Capitol, Washington, D.C., USA
Independence Hall, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
Chichen Itza, Yucatán Peninsula, Mexico
Statue of Christ the Redeemer, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Macchu Picchu,  Urubamba Valley, Peru
Moais, Eastern Island, Chile
Historic Town of Ouro Preto, Minas Gerais State, Brazil
Panama Canal, Panama
Tikal, Department of El Petén, Guatemala
Sydney Opera House, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Sydney Harbour Bridge, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Sydney Tower, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Eureka Tower, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Flinders Street Station, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Melbourne Cricket Ground, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Federation Square, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Q1, Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia
Bell Tower, Perth, Western Australia, Australia
A neighbourhood or neighborhood is a geographic community in a larger city, town or suburb.
Neighbourhoods are often social communities because the people that live in them commonly talk with each other.
Researchers have not agreed on an exact definition.
Preindustrial cities
According to urban scholar Lewis Mumford, Neighbourhoods have always exist where humans live.
Many of the functions of the city are usually distributed into neighbourhoods.
Archaeologists have found evidence of neighbourhoods in the ruins of most of the earliest cities around the world.
Historical documents give information about neighbourhood life in many historical preindustrial or nonwestern cities.
Neighbourhoods are usually created by social interaction between people living near each another.
They are local social groups larger than households that are not under the control of city or state officials.
In some early urban traditions, basic municipal functions such as protection, marriages, cleaning and repairs are done by neighbourhoods.
This is shown to have happened in historical Islamic cities.
Most ancient and historical cities also had administrative districts.
These were used by the government for taxation and social control.
Administrative districts are usually larger than neighbourhoods.
They often cover areas that are larger than just one neighbourhood.
Sometimes, administrative districts are just one neighbourhood.
This leads to a lot of control of social life by officials.
For example, in the T’ang period Chinese capital city Chang’an, neighbourhoods were districts.
There were state officials who controlled life and activity at the neighbourhood level.
Neighbourhoods in very old cities often grouped certain people together.
Ethnic neighbourhoods were important in many old cities.
They are still common in cities today.
Economic specialists, including craft makers, merchants, and others, could be grouped together in neighbourhoods.
There were also neighbourhoods based around certain religions.
One important part to neighbourhood being different from each other and their people getting along well was how people moved from rural areas to the cities.
This was always happening in old cities.
The people moving to the cities often moved in with relatives and people they knew from before moving to the city.
In the mainland of the People's Republic of China, the term is usually used for the urban administrative division.
These divisions are found below the district level.
A subdistrict level may exists in some cities.
They are also called streets.
The naming may be different from one city to another.
Neighbourhoods usually have 2,000 to 10,000 families.
Within neighbourhoods, families are grouped into smaller groups of 100 to 600 families.
These smaller groups are supervised by a residents' committee.
These groups are often broken down into even smaller groups of fifteen to forty families.
In most urban areas of China, neighbourhood, community, residential community, residential unit, residential quarter have the same meaning.
Neighbourhood () in Turkey is an administrative unit within municipalities.
It has an official status but no governmental powers.
Neighbourhoods are administered by the Mukhtar and the "Neighbourhood Seniors Council".
This is a group of 4 people.
The mukhtar is elected by the people living in the neighbourhood.
He is an administrator of the district governor.
Mukhtar also has a seat at the City Assembly.
This is an organization for the coordination of the public institutions in the city.
Neighbourhood administrators get a salary from the Central Government.
They also get money from the fees paid for dealing with certain documents.
The term has no official use in the United Kingdom.
It is often used by local boroughs for sub-divisions of their area for the delivery of certain services and functions.
It is also used as a term to refer to a small area within a town or city.
The term is commonly used to refer to organisations which deal with such a very local issues, such as neighbourhood policing or Neighbourhood watches.
Government statistics for local areas are often called neighbourhood statistics even though the data is usually broken down into districts and wards.
In Canada and the United States, neighborhoods often have official or semi-official status.
This is commonly done using neighbourhood associations, neighbourhood watches, or block watches.
These may deal with such things as lawn care and fence height.
They may provide such things as block parties, neighbourhood parks, and community security.
In some other places the organisation is the parish.
A parish may have several neighbourhoods in it depending on the area.
Barrio (Spanish)
Burough
Frazione (Italian)
Unincorporated community
A lantern is a device that can be moved from one place to another, used to create light and to light up open areas.
Lanterns may be used for giving signals, or as general light sources for camping.
They can have candles inside, or use other things as fuel, like alcohol or kerosene.
Lanterns that give dim light are generally used as decoration.
Lanterns are also used in festivals like the Obon festival in Japan.
Japanese Cherry blossom or sakura (Japanese kanji and Chinese character: 桜 or 櫻; katakana: サクラ) are cherry trees, Prunus serrulata, and their blossoms.
The fruit comes from a different species.
Cherry trees are a symbol of spring for Japanese people.
The word Sakura can also be used as a name for women.
The traditional custom of Hanami or Flower viewing involves visiting places where sakura are blooming.
Japanese people love cherry blossoms, but they are not the national flower in Japan.
Someiyoshino is the most famous type of sakura.
There are approximately 400 different types of cherry trees.
They mutate easily.
Hanahubuki means a scene when the cherry petals are scattered like snow.
Cosmos flowers are called Akizakura (autumn cherry blossoms) because the flower's shape is similar to a cherry blossom.
Vancouver Sakura Diary, photos of different Sakura varieties.
Yeuoido Spring Flower Festival in Seoul
Sakura in Kyoto
Subaru Cherry Blossom Festival of Greater Philadelphia  Information about cherry trees and Philadelphia's Cherry Blossom Festival.
Sakura Gallery From Tokyo & Kyoto.
Photo Gallery of Cherry Blossoms  Sakura from Kyoto, Tokyo, Miyajima and other places around Japan.
Photo Gallery of Cherry Blossoms in Washington DC
Cherry Blossom Spots in Japan
Cherry Blossom in Toronto, Canada, High Park
For other uses see "Filament".
Filamentation is the anomalous (not normal) growth of certain bacteria, such as E. coli, in which cells continue to elongate but do not divide (no septa formation).
Bacterial filamentation is a defect in completing replication and is observed in bacteria responding to a various stresses.
This may happen, for example, when there is extensive DNA damage through the SOS response system.
Nutritional change may also cause bacterial filamentation.
A septum (Latin: something that encloses; plural Septa) is a partition separating two cavities or spaces.
Nasal Septum: the cartilage wall separating the nostrils of the human nose.
Often deviated or perforated through physical injury or cocaine abuse.
Cephalopod Septa: walls between each chamber, or siphuncle, in shells of nautiloids, ammonites, and belemnites; i.e. cephalopods that retain an external shell.
The wall dividing the right side of the heart from the left side.
The National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain (NYO) is an orchestra for young musicians in the United Kingdom.
The members of the orchestra are all aged between 13 and 19 years.
It is a very large orchestra with about 150 players.
Children who want to play in the National Youth Orchestra have to be able to play their instrument very well.
They need to be at least Grade 8 Distinction standard and they need to be very good at sightreading so that they can learn very quickly.
They have to pass an audition to get a place in the orchestra.
These auditions take place in the autumn in several towns in Britain.
The National Youth Orchestra was started in 1947 by Ruth Railton (later Dame Ruth King).
The current director is Sarah Alexander.
The orchestra meet three times a year during the school holidays at New Year, Easter and Summer for about two weeks.
They rehearse very hard together and then give one or two concerts in famous concert halls in Britain such as Barbican Hall in London, Symphony Hall in Birmingham, Bridgewater Hall in Manchester, St David's Hall in Cardiff and Glasgow Royal Concert Hall in Glasgow.
Every year they play in a Promenade Concert in the Royal Albert Hall.
In 2007 they played the Leningrad Symphony by Shostakovich at the Proms.
In June that year they played at the Glastonbury Festival.
The trumpeters and drummers  woke people up with Aaron Copland’s Fanfare for the Common Man  In April 2008 the NYO played Stravinsky's Rite of Spring in Birmingham Symphony Hall, and in August they will play at the Snape Maltings and at the BBC Proms conducted by Antonio Pappano with the pianist Boris Berezovsky as soloist.
The concerts are always conducted by famous conductors.
Usually the famous conductor will come to rehearse the orchestra for the last few days of the course.
During their courses they also have time to play chamber music together.
They are taught by teachers who are famous musicians.
Some of them are young composers who are learning to compose music.
They are taught by the composer Paul Patterson.
The musicians also have time to explore music from other cultures.
National Youth Orchestra Official website
Youth orchestras
Before this, Canada used the British Red Ensign with Canada's coat of arms on it.
Flag experts say that the Red Ensign was defaced by the coat of arms.
Flag and heraldry experts also call the design of the flag a Canadian Pale.
This is because the white stripe in the middle (called a pale in heraldry) was not the usual narrow stripe but was half the width of the flag.
This was the first time a design like this was used.
On some days the Canadian government flies the Royal Union Flag next to the Maple Leaf Flag.
The Royal Union Flag is the British Union Jack, and is a symbol that Canada is a member of the Commonwealth, and that Canada and Britain share a history and a monarch.
The Queen of Great Britain, had some say in what the flag was to be.
She thought that the maple leaf greatly represents the country of Canada.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTMdH9-kmDk The real story behind the Canadian flag CBC
Order of the British Empire (an award)
Out of body experience (a strange feeling)
The Wee Free Men is the 30th in the Discworld book series by Terry Pratchett.
It was published in 2003.
It is the second Discworld book written for children, but it's still liked by many adults.
Tiffany Aching, a 9-year-old girl discovers that her grandmother used to be a witch.
Tiffany also discovered that she has a talent for magic, too.
When Tiffany's baby brother is stolen by the evil queen, Tiffany enters the elves' world to save him with the help of "The Wee Free Men" and Miss Tick. "
The Wee Free Men" are small blue fairies and they speak with a Scottish accent.
The Vandals were an East Germanic tribe.
They entered the late Roman Empire during the 5th century.
The Vandals may have given their name to the region of Andalusia, which according to one of several theories of its etymology was originally called Vandalusia or land of the Vandals.
This would be the source of Al-Andalus — the Arabic name of Iberian Peninsula, in the south of present-day Spain, where they settled before pushing on to create a Vandal Kingdom in North Africa.
The Most Ancient and Most Noble Order of the Thistle is an order of chivalry, associated with Scotland.
Its original date of founding is unknown.
James VII (also King of England as James II) created the modern Order in 1687.
The Order is the Sovereign and sixteen Knights and Ladies, as well as certain "extra" knights (members of the British and foreign royal families).
The Sovereign decides who is to be a member.
He or she is not advised by the Government, as occurs with most other Orders.
The sixteen members are required to be Scottish-born, but  the "extra" knights and ladies are not.
The Order's main emblems are the thistle, the national flower of Scotland, and Saint Andrew holding a saltire (X shaped cross).
The motto is Nemo me impune lacessit (Latin for "No one provokes me with impunity"); the same motto is also on the Royal Coat of Arms of the United Kingdom for use in Scotland and on some pound coins.
St Andrew is also the patron saint of the Order.
Most British orders of chivalry cover all of the United Kingdom, but the three most most senior ones each cover only one constituent country .
The Order of the Thistle, which covers to Scotland, is the second-most senior in precedence.
Its equivalent in England, The Most Noble Order of the Garter, is the oldest order of chivalry in the United Kingdom, dating to the middle fourteenth century.
In 1783 an Irish order, The Most Illustrious Order of St Patrick, was founded; but since the independence of the Republic of Ireland the Order has fallen dormant.
The last new knight was made in 1927, and the last surviving Knight of St Patrick died in 1974.
The first date of the Order's creation is not known.
One story says that Achaius, King of Scots,  was fighting King Aethelstan of East Anglia and he saw cross of St Andrew in the sky.
After he won the battle, Achaius established the Order of the Thistle.
Even though Achaius and Aethelstan never fought, this story of the foundation, is given in the Royal Warrant 'reviving' the Order in 1687.
Another story says that the Order was instituted, or re-instituted by Robert I at the Battle of Bannockburn.
King James II and VII issued letters patent "reviving and restoring the Order of the Thistle to its full glory, lustre and magnificency" in 1687.
Only 12 knights were allowed, and he appointed eight before the King was deposed in 1688.
His successors, the  William and Mary, did not make any more appointments to the Order.
In 1703 however, Anne once again revived the Order of the Thistle.
In 1827, George IV increased the Order to sixteen members.
Women were excluded from the Order.
George VI created his wife Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon a Lady of the Thistle in 1937, and in 1987 Elizabeth II allowed the regular admission of women to both the Order of the Thistle and the Order of the Garter.
From time to time, individuals joined the Order by special permission.
These members are known as "Extra Knights" and do not count towards the sixteen-member limit.
Members of the British Royal Family are normally admitted by special permission; the first was Prince Albert.
King Olav V of Norway, was the first foreigner to be admitted to the Order, was also admitted by special permission in 1962.
The Sovereign has historically had the power to choose Knights of the Order.
From the eighteenth century onwards, the Sovereign made his or her choices upon the advice of the Government.
George VI felt that the Orders of the Garter and the Thistle had been used only for political patronage, rather than to reward actual merit.
Therefore in 1946, with the agreement of the Prime Minister (Clement Attlee) and the Leader of the Opposition (Winston Churchill), both Orders returned to the personal gift of the Sovereign.
Knights and Ladies of the Thistle may also have their knighthoods taken away.
But this has happened only once, to John Erskine, 6th Earl of Mar who was deprived of  both the knighthood and the earldom after taking part in the Jacobite rising of 1715.
the Dean - a minister of the Church of Scotland
the Chancellor - who keeps the seal of the order
the Usher of the Green Rod
the Secretary
the King of Arms
The mantle is a green robe worn over their suits or military uniforms.
The mantle is lined with white taffeta; it is tied with green and gold tassels.
On the left shoulder of the mantle is the star of the Order
The hat is made of black velvet and has white feathers with black egret or heron's feathers in the middle.
The collar is made of gold and depicts thistles and sprigs of rue.
It is worn over the mantle.
The St Andrew, also called the badge-appendant, is worn hanging from the collar.
It comprises a gold enamelled picture of St Andrew, wearing a green gown and purple coat, holding a white saltire.
The star of the Order is a silver St Andrew's saltire, with clusters of rays between the arms.
In the centre is depicted a green circle bearing the motto of the Order in gold letters; in the circle is a thistle on a gold field.
The broad ribbon is a dark green sash worn across the body, from the left shoulder to the right hip.
At the right hip of the sash, the badge of the Order is attached.
The badge depicts St Andrew in the same form as the star surrounded by the Order's motto.
James VII was deposed by 1688 and the Order did not have a Chapel until 1911, when one was added onto St Giles High Kirk in Edinburgh.
Each year, the Sovereign stays at the Palace of Holyroodhouse in June or July; during the visit, a service for the Order is held.
Any new Knights or Ladies are installed at annual services.
Each member of the Order, including the Sovereign, is allotted a seat in the Chapel.
Their coat of arms is above their seat.
Current members and officers
Sovereign: Elizabeth II
The Earl of Elgin and Kincardine  (1981)
The Earl of Airlie  (1985)
The Earl of Crawford and Balcarres  (1996)
The Lord Macfarlane of Bearsden  (1996)
The Lord Mackay of Clashfern  (1997)
The Lord Wilson of Tillyorn  (2000)
Sir Eric Anderson  (2002)
The Lord Steel of Aikwood  (2004)
The Lord Robertson of Port Ellen  (2004)
The Lord Cullen of Whitekirk  (2007)
The Lord Hope of Craighead  (2009)
The Lord Patel  (2009)
The Earl of Home  (2014)
The Lord Smith of Kelvin  (2014)
The Duke of Buccleuch and Queensberry  (2017)
Sir Ian Wood  (2018)
Extra Knights and Ladies Companion:
Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh  (1952)
Prince Charles, Duke of Rothesay  (1977)
Anne, Princess Royal  (2000)
Prince William, Earl of Strathearn  (2012)
Officers:
Chancellor: The Earl of Airlie
Dean: The Reverend Professor David Fergusson,
Secretary:  Elizabeth Roads
Lyon King of Arms: Joseph Morrow,  (Lord Lyon King of Arms)
Gentleman Usher of the Green Rod: Rear Admiral Christopher Hope Layman
1687 establishments
17th-century establishments in Scotland
The fleshy external end of the nasal septum is sometimes also called columella.
quadrangular cartilage
Clinical significance
The nasal septum can depart from the centreline of the nose; this condition is known as a deviated septum.
Injury, excessive nose-picking and cocaine usage can cause septum perforations, or holes developing in the septum.
Diagram at evmsent.org
A nostril (or naris, pl.
nares) is one of the two channels of the nose, from the point where they  to the external opening.
In birds and mammals, they contain branched bones or cartilages called turbinates, whose function is to warm air on inhalation and remove moisture on exhalation.
Fish do not breathe through their noses, but they do have two small holes used for smelling which may be called nostrils.
The ethmoid bone (from Greek ethmos, "sieve") is a bone in the skull that separates the nasal cavity from the brain.
As such, it is located at the roof of the nose, between the two orbits.
The cubical bone is lightweight due to a spongy construction.
the horizontal Cribriform plate (lamina cribrosa), part of the cranial base
the vertical Perpendicular plate (lamina perpendicularis), which is part of the nasal septum
the two lateral masses or labyrinths.
Blows to the head can shear off the olfactory nerves that pass though the ethmoid bone and cause anosmia, an irreversible loss of the sense of smell and a great reduction in the sense of taste (most of which depends on smell).
This not only deprives life of some of its pleasures, but can also be dangerous, as when a person fails to smell smoke, gas, or spoiled food.
Bone terminology
http://www.theregister.com/2006/11/17/the_odd_body_nose_compass/
The Bundesverdienstkreuz (Federal Cross of Merit) is Germany's only general decoration (award).
It is officially called the Verdienstorden der Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany).
This Federal Order of Merit was created on 7 September 1951.
Germany gives between 3,000 and 5,200 awards every year, in all classes.
Most of the Länder have their own orders of merit.
There are up to three ranks (member, officer, commander).
The Cities of Bremen and Hamburg do not have an order, and by old tradition its citizens will refuse any decoration in form of an order.
Verdienstmedaille (Medal of Merit)
Verdienstkreuz am Bande (Cross of Merit on ribbon)
international: Ritterkreuz (Knight's Cross)
Verdienstkreuz 1.
Klasse (Cross of Merit, First class)
international: Offizierkreuz (Officer's Cross)
Großes Verdienstkreuz (Halskreuz) (Great Cross of Merit, neck cross)
international: Komturkreuz (Commander's Cross)
Großes Verdienstkreuz mit Stern (Great Cross of Merit with star)
international: Großoffizierkreuz (Great Officer's Cross)
Großes Verdienstkreuz mit Stern und Schulterband (Great Cross of Merit with Star and shoulder ribbon)
international: Großkreuz 2.
Klasse (Grand Cross of Merit, Second class) oder Großkomturkreuz (Grand Commander's Cross)
Großkreuz (Grand Cross)
Sonderstufe des Großkreuzes (Special class of the Grand Cross)
The President of the Federal Republic holds the Sonderstufe des Großkreuzes ex officio.
It is awarded to him in a ceremony by the President of the Bundestag.
The Chancellor, the President of the Bundesrat and the President of the Bundesverfassungsgericht attend this ceremony.
Other than the President of the Federal Republic, only a foreign head of state can receive the highest class award.
People can also receive the Großkreuze in a special rare design.
Only two people have had this award, Konrad Adenauer and Helmut Kohl.
Except for the lowest class, the badge is the same for all classes.
However, the badge and ribbon for women is a little smaller.
The badge is a golden Maltese Cross enamelled in red.
It has a central disc with a black eagle.
The star is golden.
It has straight rays and its size and points vary according to class.
The badge is on top of it.
The ribbon is red with gold-black-gold stripes.
1951 establishments in Europe
The Austin Lightning is an amateur soccer team in Austin, Texas.
It is in the Mid South division of the South Conference of the Premier Development League of the United Soccer Leagues.
The club was founded in 2003, when it was moved from Lafayette, Louisiana.
The team finished last in the division in the 2007 season, due in part to scheduling difficulties caused by record amounts of rain in Austin, which cause fields to be closed on match days.
The Austin Lightning are coached by Jaime Mimbela.
Austin Lightning Official Site
Austin Lightning fan blog
Sports in Texas
The BBC Symphony Orchestra is the main orchestra of the British Broadcasting Corporation.
It is one of the best orchestras in Britain.
The orchestra started in 1930.
Sir Adrian Boult was the main conductor until 1950, when Sir Malcolm Sargent took over until 1957.
Since then there have been several conductors.
Now the orchestra is conducted by Jiří Bělohlávek.
The BBC often ask composers of today to write music for the BBC Symphony Orchestra.
Composers whose new works they have performed include Sally Beamish, Harrison Birtwistle Elliott Carter, James MacMillan, John Tavener and Mark-Anthony Turnage.
The orchestra plays a big part in the BBC Proms, the season of concerts played every summer at the Royal Albert Hall.
It plays on both the first and last nights of the prom season.
It also plays several concerts in the Barbican during the year.
They often make recordings in the BBC studios.
They can often be seen on BBC Television.
Sometimes they go on tour to other countries.
They also play concerts for young people as part of an education programme.
There are other professional BBC orchestras and groups: the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Concert Orchestra, the BBC Big Band and the BBC Singers.
There are also two amateur choruses: the BBC Symphony Chorus and the BBC National Chorus of Wales.
Chief conductors of the BBC Symphony Orchestra
Adrian Boult (1930-1950)
Malcolm Sargent (1950-1957)
Rudolf Schwarz (1957-1963)
Antal Doráti (1962-1966)
Colin Davis (1967-1971)
Pierre Boulez (1971-1975)
Rudolf Kempe (1976)
Gennady Rozhdestvensky (1978-1981)
John Pritchard (1982-1989)
Andrew Davis (1989-2000)
Leonard Slatkin (2000-2004)
Jiří Bělohlávek (2006-2013)
Sakari Oramo (2013-present)
British orchestras
Jiří Bělohlávek (24 February 1946 – 31 May 2017) was a Czech conductor.
He was the principal (main) conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra.
His name "Bělohlávek" means "Whitehead".
It is pronounced "Bye-lo-hla-vek".
Bělohlávek studied conducting with Sergiu Celibidache.
He went to the Prague Conservatory and Academy of Performing Arts in Prague.
He won the 1970 Czech National Conducting Competition and soon became famous in his country and abroad.
Bělohlávek was chief conductor of the Prague Symphony Orchestra from 1977-1989.
He became principal conductor of the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra in 1990 for a short time.
Then he founded the Prague Philharmonia (Pražskou komorní filharmonii) in 1994, They gave concerts all over the world together and made many recordings.
He is still their conductor laureate (honorary conductor).
From 1995-2000, Bělohlávek was principal guest conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra.
In 2006 he became their principal conductor.
He conducted them at the Proms that year.
In 2007 he conducted at the Last Night of the Proms.
Bělohlávek also conducts in the United States.
He first conducted at the Metropolitan Opera (Met) in  December 2004, conducting Leoš Janáček's "Káťa Kabanová" with Karita Mattila in the title role.
He returned to the Met in January and February of 2007 for the same composer's "Jenůfa", once again with Mattila, and with Anja Silja as the Kostelnička.
Other guest conducting appearances in the US have been with the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra.
Arturo Toscanini (25 March 1867 – 16 January 1957) was an Italian conductor.
Most musicians think he was the greatest conductor of his time.
His fame was legendary: he was probably the first conductor to become a world superstar.
He had an incredibly good memory and could remember every single note of the large number of works he conducted.
He had a photographic memory so that he could remember what the pages looked like.
Sometimes he found little mistakes in the scores which no one else had ever noticed.
He had a very keen sense of hearing and knew exactly what each instrument was doing.
He also had a fiery temperament and there are movies of him shouting angrily at his orchestra in rehearsals.
In the early days of gramophone recordings he made some of the first recordings of famous orchestral works.
Toscanini was born in Parma in Italy.
He won a scholarship to the local music conservatory, where he learned to play the cello.
He joined the orchestra of an opera company and he toured South America with them in 1886.
While performing Verdi’s opera  Aida in Rio de Janeiro the audience did not like the conductor and they booed him so that he had to leave the stage.
No one knew what to do at first, but then they persuaded Toscanini, who was only 19 years old, to put down his cello and conduct the orchestra.
He did this brilliantly from memory (without looking at the music) and that night he became famous.
When he got back to Italy Toscanini returned to his chair in the cello section, and took part as cellist in the first performance of Verdi's Otello (La Scala, 1887).
Verdi was there and was very impressed when Toscanini asked him about a mistake he noticed in the score.
Soon the young musician's reputation as a brilliant conductor of opera grew.
He conducted the first performances of Puccini's La Bohème and Leoncavallo's Pagliacci.
In 1896 he conducted his first symphonic concert (works by Schubert, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, and Wagner), in Turin.
By 1898 he was conductor at La Scala, Milan and he stayed there until 1908, but returned during the 1920s.
He took the Scala Orchestra to the United States on a concert tour in 1920-21; it was during that tour that Toscanini made his first recordings (for the Victor Talking Machine Company).
Toscanini started conducting outside Europe: at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City (1908–1915) as well as the New York Philharmonic Orchestra (1926–1936).
He toured Europe with the New York Philharmonic in 1930 and always had great success.
Toscanini was the first non-German conductor to conduct at Bayreuth (1930–1931).
In the 1930s he conducted at the Salzburg Festival (1934–1937) and the first concert in 1936 of the newly formed Palestine Symphony Orchestra (now the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra) in Tel Aviv, and later performed with them in Jerusalem, Haifa, Cairo and Alexandria.
The NBC symphony orchestra
At first Toscanini agreed with Fascism but later, when the dictator Mussolini came to power, he became against it.
He refused to perform an opera at La Scala and was beaten up, so he left Italy and went to the United States.
There was no orchestra for him in the USA so they made a new orchestra for him to conduct.
This was the NBC Symphony Orchestra, created for him in 1937.
He conducted the first broadcast concert on December 25, 1937, in NBC Studio 8-H in New York City's Rockefeller Center.
Toscanini was often criticized for not performing much American music and contemporary music (music by living composers).
However, in 1938, he conducted the world premieres of two orchestral works by Samuel Barber, Adagio for Strings and Essay for Orchestra (Barber)|Essay for Orchestra.
In 1945, he led the orchestra in Carnegie Hall recording sessions of American music including An American in Paris by George Gershwin.
He also conducted broadcast performances of Copland's El Salon Mexico and Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue with soloists Earl Wild and Benny Goodman and Concerto in F with pianist Oscar Levant, as well as music by other American composers, including two marches of John Philip Sousa.
In 1940, Toscanini had a disagreement with the NBC and he threatened to move to CBS.
Although they agreed in the end it was this time that Leopold Stokowski began conducting some of the concerts and continued to appear sometimes as a guest conductor of the orchestra.
In July 1942 Toscanini conducted the American premiere of Dmitri Shostakovich's Symphony no 7.
Due to World War II, the score was microfilmed in the Soviet Union and brought by courier to the United States.
At first Stokowski wanted to conduct it but then he agreed that Toscanini would.
Unfortunately for New York listeners, a big thunderstorm made it difficult to hear the music on the radio.
Later the performance was reissued.
The orchestra went all over the world with Toscanini.
In 1950 the NBC concerts moved to Carnegie Hall.
In a programme of music by Richard Wagner in 1954 Toscanini was not well and forgot how the music went.
He never conducted in public again after that.
Toscanini married Carla De Martini on June 21, 1897, when she was not yet 20 years old.
They had four children although one died.
He worked with many great singers and musicians, including the pianist Vladimir Horowitz who was a great friend.
Horowitz married one of Toscanini’s daughters.
Musicians from Emilia-Romagna
Philip Kindred Dick (December 16, 1928 – March 2, 1982) was an American writer.
He is mostly known for his works of science fiction.
In addition to his published novels, Dick wrote "approximately 121 short stories.
He wrote most of them for science fiction magazines."
At least eight of his stories have been adapted into movies.
Philip K. Dick developed what would later be called cyberpunk.
Many of his works are about themes from sociology.
Often, politics also play an important role.
Very often there are Authoritarian Governments, and very powerful companies in his books.
In his later books, Dick writes about drug use.
He writes about characters that have paranoia or schizophrenia.
In novels such as A Scanner Darkly or VALIS he uses his own experiences.
He was awarded the Hugo Award for his novel, The Man in the High Castle, in 1963. "
I want to write about people I love, and put them into a fictional world spun out of my own mind, not the world we actually have, because the world we actually have does not meet my standards," Dick wrote of these stories. "
In my writing I even question the universe; I wonder out loud if it is real, and I wonder out loud if all of us are real."
Dick spent most of his career as a writer.
He did not have much money.
Dick died of a stroke.
In 2007, he became the first science fiction writer to be included in The Library of America series (#173).
The Man in the High Castle (1962) takes place in an different universe.
There the United States is ruled by the Axis powers, who have won the Second World War.
Many people consider it to be one of the important novels about a different view on history.
It is the only Dick novel to win a Hugo Award.
Philipkdickfans.com recommends this novel, along with Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
and Ubik as an introductory novel to readers new to the writing of Philip K. Dick.
The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch (1965) uses  many concepts from  science fiction.
It has several layers of reality and unreality.
It is also one of Dick’s first works to explore religious themes.
The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch takes place in the twenty-first century.
Under the supervision of the United Nations authority, mankind has colonized the solar system's every habitable planet and moon.
Life is physically daunting and psychologically monotonous for most colonists, so the UN must draft people to go to the colonies.
Most entertain themselves using Perky Pat dolls and accessories manufactured by Earth-based P.P. Layouts.
The company also secretly creates Can-D, an illegal but widely available hallucinogenic drug allowing the user to "translate" into Perky Pat (if the drug user is a woman) or Pat's boyfriend, Walt (if the drug user is a man).
This recreational use of Can-D allows colonists to experience a few minutes of an idealized life on Earth by participating in a collective hallucination.
is the story of a bounty hunter policing the local android population.
It occurs on a dying, poisoned Earth.
All  "successful" humans have left, the only remaining inhabitants of the planet are people with no prospects off-world.
Androids, also known as andys, all have a preset "death" date.
However, a few andys seek to escape this fate and supplant the humans on Earth.
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (
1968) is well known as the literary source of the influential 1982 movie Blade Runner.
It is about the question "What is real, what is fake?
Are the human-looking and human-acting androids fake or real humans?
Should we treat them as machines or as people?
What important factor defines humanity as distinctly alive, versus those merely alive only in their outward appearance?
Ubik (1969) uses big networks of psychics and a suspended state after death in creating a state of eroding reality.
In 2005, Time Magazine listed it among the All-TIME 100 Greatest Novels.
Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said
Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said (1974) is about Jason Taverner, a television star living in a dystopic near-future police state.
After being attacked by an angry ex-girlfriend, Taverner awakens in a dingy hotel room.
He still has his money in his wallet, but his identification cards are missing.
This is no minor inconvenience, as security checkpoints manned by pols and Nats - the police and National Guard - are set up throughout the city to stop and arrest anyone without valid ID.
Jason at first thinks that he was robbed, but soon discovers that his entire identity has been erased.
There is no record of him in any official database, and even his closest associates do not recognize or remember him.
For the first time in many years, Jason has no fame or reputation to rely on.