text: Under the current constitution, instated in 1982 with minor revisions in later years, the president has the power to promulgate laws, select and dismiss the premier (head of government) as well as the ministers of the State Council, grant presidential pardons, declares a state of emergency, issue mass mobilization orders, and issue state honours. In addition, the president names and dismisses ambassadors to foreign countries, signs and annuls treaties with foreign entities. According to the Constitution, all of these powers require the approval or confirmation of the National People's Congress. The president also conducts state visits on behalf of the People's Republic. Under the constitution the "state visit" clause is the only presidential power that does not stipulate any form of oversight from the National People's Congress. As the vast majority of presidential powers are dependent on the ratification of the NPC, the president is, in essence, a symbolic post without any direct say in the governance of state. It is therefore conceived to mainly function as a symbolic institution of the state rather than an office with true executive powers.


title: President of the People's Republic of China

text: In theory, the president has discretion over the selection of the premier, though in practice the premier has historically been selected through the top-level discussions of the Chinese Communist Party. Upon the nomination of the premier, the NPC convenes to confirm the nomination, but since only one name is on the ballot, it can only approve or reject. To date, it has never rejected a personnel nomination. Since the premier, the head of government in China, is the most important political appointment in the Chinese government, the nomination power, under some circumstances, may give the president real political influence.


text: Therefore, the title "President" in this case does not mean the same as in the United States or other presidential states, but rather as an approximation in terms of its power compared with parliamentary systems.


text: Lower officials would be transported in a CAAC Boeing 707. Chairman Mao Zedong had a personal Ilyushin Il-18 which he used on his visits. After he died, the aircraft was withdrawn from service and preserved at an aviation museum in China. In the 1970s, the position of Chinese president was abolished, but Mao Zedong and Hua Guofeng were chairman of the Chinese Communist Party successively. With the introduction of the Boeing 747, officials started using the CAAC Boeing 747SP for international trips. After the CAAC was split up into six in 1988, the 747s were handed over to Air China, and officials continued using 747SPs under the CA livery.


text: When Jiang Zemin came into power and succeeded as Party General Secretary in 1989, the 747SPs were permanently returned to passenger service, and 747-400s were utilized. They were used throughout the use of Jiang, Hu Jintao and Xi Jinping. The 747-400s originally belong to Air China, but one month before the president goes on an official trip, the chosen plane is specifically inspected and retrofitted for VIP use. After the president returns to Beijing, the 747-400 is inspected and converted back to passenger configurations.


text: In the 2010s a Boeing 747-8 painted in the CA livery was seen around the world, under the fake rego B-2479 and the real rego B-2485. Rumours spread, saying this would be China's new Air Force One. In 2016 it was seen landing in Hamburg for VIP configuration, and since then, it has been on loan to the Chinese Government from Air China for use by the president. Although no official photos have been released, the inside is thought to have a far more lavish interior, including conference tables, seating for the press, private bedrooms, and other features.


text: After the 747-8 was introduced, the 747-400s now carry ministers and serve as decoy aircraft. On some occasions, an Air China Boeing 737 has even been used for transport. In the late 2010s, the president started importing his own presidential car on foreign trips. For this reason, an Air China Boeing 747 cargo aircraft is used for transportation of freight.


text: In order not to confuse air traffic control between a normal CA flight and a flight carrying a Chinese government member, all aircraft carrying government people fly under the callsign CA1 to CA100, since normal CA flights fly under the callsign CA101 and above.


text: For 2nd President Liu Shaoqi, he was also the first-ranked vice chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, ranked second in the Chinese Communist Party, behind CCP Chairman Mao Zedong. For President Li Xiannian, he was also the 5th ranked member of the CCP Politburo Standing Committee, after CCP general secretary and Chinese premier. For President Yang Shangkun, he was not a member of CCP Politburo Standing Committee, but he ranked third after CCP General Secretary Zhao Ziyang and CMC Chairman Deng Xiaoping. Since Jiang Zemin, the president is also the General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, ranking first in party and state.


text: Article 84 of the Constitution of China. If the office of president falls vacant, then the vice-president succeeds to the office. If both offices fall vacant, then the chairman of the NPC Standing Committee temporarily acts as president until the NPC can elect a new president and vice-president.


text: The title of the office (国家主席, Guójiā Zhǔxí) was unchanged in the Chinese text, but a new English translation of "President of the People's Republic of China" has been adopted since 1982, instead of "Chairman of the People's Republic of China".


text: The director of the Office of the President of the PRC () is Ding Xuexiang, also director of the CCP General Office and director of the CCP General Secretary Office.


text: Since the first president, six presidents have had a spouse during term of office. The current spouse is Peng Liyuan, wife of President Xi Jinping.


title: Tyron Woodley

text: Tyron Woodley (born April 17, 1982) is an American professional mixed martial artist. He is a former UFC Welterweight Champion who defended his title four times. A professional since 2009, Woodley also competed at Strikeforce and was an NCAA Division I collegiate wrestler for the Missouri Tigers, becoming a two-time All-American and Big 12 Conference champion.


title: Tyron Woodley

text: Woodley was born and raised in Ferguson, Missouri. The eleventh of thirteen children, he was raised by his mother after his father left the family early in his life. In high school, he was a two-sport athlete, competing in American football and amateur wrestling. Woodley won the Missouri 4A Men’s State Championship in 2000 in the 160 lb weight class.


title: Tyron Woodley

text: After graduating from McCluer High School in 2000, Woodley attended University of Missouri and joined their wrestling program. There, he became a two-time All-American; once in 2003 and again in 2005. Woodley graduated from the university in 2005 with a major in Agricultural Economics.


title: Tyron Woodley

text: Woodley fought his first professional fight on February 7, 2009, against Steve Schnider. It was held by Headhunter Productions at the Holiday Inn Select Executive Center in Columbia, Missouri. Woodley won via submission in the first round.


title: Tyron Woodley

text: Woodley's second professional bout was against Jeff Carstens on April 30, 2009. He won the bout via submission in the first round.


title: Tyron Woodley

text: Woodley made his Strikeforce debut against Sal Woods in St. Louis, Missouri. The fight was at the event on June 6, 2009. Woodley won the fight by submission late in round one. After the win, Strikeforce signed Woodley to a six-fight deal.


title: Tyron Woodley

text: Woodley made his second appearance for Strikeforce on the Strikeforce Challengers: Kennedy vs. Cummings card. He defeated Zach Light via submission in the second round.


title: Tyron Woodley

text: On the card, Woodley had his third fight for Strikeforce, defeating Rudy Bears via arm-triangle submission.


title: Tyron Woodley

text: Woodley fought Tarec Saffiedine on January 7, 2011, in Nashville, Tennessee at . Woodley won the fight via unanimous decision. After the win, Woodley was signed to a contract extension with Strikeforce.


title: Tyron Woodley

text: At , Woodley replaced Evangelista Santos and fought Paul Daley. Woodley defeated Daley via unanimous decision.


title: Tyron Woodley

text: Woodley faced Nate Marquardt on July 14, 2012, at for the vacant Strikeforce Welterweight Championship. He lost the fight via KO in the fourth round.


title: Tyron Woodley

text: Woodley faced Jay Hieron on February 2, 2013, at UFC 156 in his promotional debut, replacing an injured Erick Silva. Woodley won the fight via KO at just 36 seconds of the opening round.


title: Tyron Woodley

text: Woodley next faced off against Josh Koscheck at UFC 167 on November 16, 2013. He won the fight via knockout in the first round. The win also earned him his first "Knockout of the Night" bonus award.


title: Tyron Woodley

text: Woodley next faced former Interim Welterweight Champion Carlos Condit at UFC 171. Woodley won via TKO after Condit suffered a knee injury in the second round.


title: Tyron Woodley

text: On April 8, 2014, Woodley's new eight-fight contract with the UFC was announced alongside his match against Rory MacDonald at UFC 174. He lost the fight via unanimous decision.


title: Tyron Woodley

text: Woodley next faced Dong Hyun Kim on August 23, 2014, at UFC Fight Night 48, replacing Héctor Lombard. He won the fight via TKO early in the first round. The win also earned Woodley his first "Performance of the Night" bonus award.


title: Tyron Woodley

text: Woodley faced Kelvin Gastelum on January 31, 2015, at UFC 183 in a catchweight bout after Gastelum failed to make the welterweight limit. He won the fight via split decision.


title: Tyron Woodley

text: Woodley was expected to face Johny Hendricks on October 3, 2015, at UFC 192. It was announced on October 2, 2015, that Hendricks was forced out of the fight due to complications with weight cutting.


title: Tyron Woodley

text: Woodley faced welterweight champion Robbie Lawler on July 30, 2016, in the main event at UFC 201. He won the fight via knockout halfway through the first round to claim the UFC Welterweight Championship. This win earned him the "Performance of the Night" award.


title: Tyron Woodley

text: Woodley made his first title defense against Stephen Thompson on November 12, 2016, at UFC 205. The fight ended in a majority draw with two judges scoring the fight 47–47 and the third 48–47 in favor of Woodley. Subsequently, both fighters were awarded "Fight of the Night" bonus awards.


title: Tyron Woodley

text: The rematch with Thompson took place on March 4, 2017, in the main event at UFC 209. It was another closely contested bout with Woodley winning via majority decision.


title: Tyron Woodley

text: For his third title defense, Woodley faced Demian Maia on July 29, 2017, in the co-main event at UFC 214. He won the fight by unanimous decision. Woodley stated after the contest that he had torn his labrum in his right shoulder in the opening round. Woodley would later have reconstructive surgery to repair the damage.


title: Tyron Woodley

text: Woodley next defended the UFC Welterweight Championship against Darren Till on September 8, 2018, at UFC 228. He won the fight via submission in the second round. This win earned him the "Performance of the Night" award. Woodley also received his Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt in the cage from Din Thomas following his victory. Woodley also gave Till his first loss in MMA.


title: Tyron Woodley

text: In the fifth defense of his welterweight title, Woodley faced Kamaru Usman on March 2, 2019, in the co-main event at UFC 235. Woodley was dominated for the entire fight and lost by unanimous decision, ending his nearly three-year reign as welterweight champion.


title: Tyron Woodley

text: A rematch with Robbie Lawler was expected to take place on June 29, 2019, at UFC on ESPN 3. On May 16, 2019, it was reported that Woodley suffered a hand injury and was pulled from the fight.


title: Tyron Woodley

text: Woodley was scheduled to face Leon Edwards on March 21, 2020, at . However, the restrictions related to COVID-19 forced Edwards to withdraw as the event was meant to be moved from London to the United States, and the event was subsequently postponed indefinitely.


title: Tyron Woodley

text: Woodley faced Gilbert Burns on May 30, 2020, in the main event at . Woodley would again be dominated for most of the fight and lose via unanimous decision.


title: Tyron Woodley

text: Woodley fought at against longtime rival Colby Covington on September 19, 2020. Similar to his past two fights, Woodley was dominated for four rounds, and eventually the bout was called as a technical knockout after he tapped out during the fifth round due to a rib injury.


title: Tyron Woodley

text: Woodley faced Vicente Luque on March 27, 2021, at UFC 260. Uncharacteristically, Woodley came out swinging aggressively early into the bout, and after rocking Luque and being rocked himself multiple times on the feet, he was defeated by D'Arce choke in round one. This fight earned him the "Fight of the Night " award. Weeks later, it was announced that Woodley had fought out his contract after eight years competing in the promotion.


title: Tyron Woodley

text: Before the Jake Paul vs. Ben Askren main event took place, Woodley was involved in a backstage situation with Jake Paul and J'Leon Love, where he was mocked due to his inexperience in boxing and the result of Paul's bout against Woodley's long–time teammate Ben Askren was discussed. After Paul knocked out Askren, Woodley called out Paul. On May 31, 2021, news surfaced that Woodley had been scheduled to make his professional boxing debut against internet personality Jake Paul on August 29, 2021. Woodley became the first man to take Paul past the second round in his professional career, but ultimately lost by split decision. One judge scored the fight 77–75 for Woodley, while the other two judges scored it 77–75 and 78–74 in favor of Paul.


title: Tyron Woodley

text: On December 6, 2021, Woodley hopped in to replace Tommy Fury for a rematch with Jake Paul on December 18. After a back-and-forth bout, Woodley was knocked out in the sixth round. At the time of the stoppage, Woodley was behind on the scorecards 49–46 (twice) and 48–47.


title: Tyron Woodley

text: Woodley has pursued acting in his spare time and played roles in both "Straight Outta Compton", "" and "Sultan", the latter being an Indian movie directed by Ali Abbas Zafar. He also appears in several fight scenes of "". Additionally, he hosts a podcast called "Morning Wood with Deez Nutz" and a weekly internet web show on TMZ called "The Hollywood Beatdown". Tyron Woodley appeared on Season 5 of Netflix show Cobra Kai.


title: Tyron Woodley

text: Tyron has four children. He has said that his goal is to open a non-profit facility for troubled youths one day. When his hometown of Ferguson, Missouri engaged in civil unrest after the shooting of Michael Brown, Woodley publicly condemned the rioting and lootings that took place.


title: Nico

text: Christa Päffgen (16 October 1938 – 18 July 1988), known by her stage name Nico, was a German singer, songwriter, actress and model. She had roles in several films, including Federico Fellini's "La Dolce Vita" (1960) and Andy Warhol's "Chelsea Girls" (1966). Reviewer Richard Goldstein describes Nico as "half goddess, half icicle" and writes that her distinctive voice "sounds something like a cello getting up in the morning".


title: Nico

text: At the insistence of Warhol, she sang on three songs of the Velvet Underground's debut album "The Velvet Underground & Nico" (1967). At the same time, she started a solo career and released "Chelsea Girl". Nico's friend, Jim Morrison, suggested that she start writing her own material. She then composed songs on a harmonium, not traditionally a rock instrument. John Cale of The Velvet Underground became her musical arranger and produced "The Marble Index", "Desertshore", "The End..." and other subsequent albums.


title: Nico

text: In the 1980s, she toured extensively in Europe, United States, Australia and Japan. After a concert in Berlin in June 1988, she went on holiday in Ibiza to rest and died as the result of a cycling accident.


title: Nico

text: Nico was born Christa Päffgen in Cologne to Wilhelm and Margarete "Grete" Päffgen (née Schulze, 1910–1970). Wilhelm was born into the wealthy Päffgen Kölsch master brewer family dynasty in Cologne and was Catholic, while Grete came from a lower-class background and was Protestant. When Nico was two years old, she moved with her mother and grandfather to the Spreewald forest outside Berlin to escape the World War II bombardments of Cologne.


title: Nico

text: Her father was conscripted into the "Wehrmacht" at the onset of the war, but there are several conflicting accounts as to when and how he died. According to biographer Richard Witts in his 1995 book, "Nico: The Life and Lies of an Icon", Wilhelm Päffgen was gravely wounded in 1942 after having been shot in the head by a French sniper. With no certainty that he would survive, his commanding officer, following standing orders, ended his life by gunshot. Another story is that he sustained head injuries that caused severe brain damage, and spent the rest of his life in a psychiatric institution. According to unproven rumours, he was variously said to have died in a concentration camp, or to have faded away as a result of shell shock.


title: Nico

text: In 1946, Nico and her mother relocated to downtown Berlin, where Nico worked as a seamstress. She attended school until the age of 13, and began selling lingerie in the exclusive department store KaDeWe, eventually getting modelling jobs in Berlin. At , and with chiseled features and pale skin, Nico rose to prominence as a fashion model when still a teenager. At the age of 15 while working as a temp for the US Air Force, she was allegedly raped by an American sergeant and she gave evidence at the trial which led to the perpetrator being court-martialed. The incident was referenced in her song "Secret Side." However, biographers such as Richard Witts have debated the validity of the story as no public records of the case have been documented.


title: Nico

text: Nico was discovered at 16 by the photographer Herbert Tobias while both were working at a KaDeWe fashion show in Berlin. He gave her the name "Nico" after a man he had fallen in love with, filmmaker Nikos Papatakis, and she used it for the rest of her life. She moved to Paris and began working for "Vogue", "Tempo", "Vie Nuove", "Mascotte Spettacolo", "Camera", "Elle", and other fashion magazines. Around this time, she dyed her brown hair blonde, later claiming she was inspired to do so by Ernest Hemingway. At age 17, she was contracted by Coco Chanel to promote their products, but she fled to New York City and abandoned the job. Through her travels, she learned to speak English, Spanish, and French.


title: Nico

text: In 1959, she was invited to the set of Federico Fellini's "La Dolce Vita", where she attracted the attention of the acclaimed director, who gave her a minor role in the film as herself. By that time, she was living in New York and taking acting classes with Lee Strasberg.


title: Nico

text: After a role in the 1961 Jean Paul Belmondo film "A Man Named Rocca", she appeared as the cover model on jazz pianist Bill Evans' 1962 album, "Moon Beams". After splitting her time between New York and Paris, she got the lead role in Jacques Poitrenaud's "Strip-Tease" (1963). She recorded the title track, which was written by Serge Gainsbourg but not released until 2001, when it was included in the compilation "Le Cinéma de Serge Gainsbourg".


title: Nico

text: In 1965, Nico met the Rolling Stones guitarist Brian Jones and recorded her first single, "I'm Not Sayin'", with the B-side "The Last Mile", produced by Jimmy Page for Andrew Loog Oldham's Immediate label. Actor Ben Carruthers introduced her to Bob Dylan in Paris that summer. In 1967, Nico recorded his song "I'll Keep It with Mine" for her first album, "Chelsea Girl".


title: Nico

text: After being introduced by Brian Jones, she began working in New York with Andy Warhol and Paul Morrissey on their experimental films, including "Chelsea Girls", "The Closet", "Sunset" and "Imitation of Christ". Warhol began managing the Velvet Underground, a New York City rock band and he proposed that the group take on Nico as a "chanteuse", an idea to which they consented, reluctantly for both personal and musical reasons.


title: Nico

text: The group became the centerpiece of Warhol's "Exploding Plastic Inevitable", a multimedia performance featuring music, lighting, film and dance. Nico sang lead vocals on three songs ("Femme Fatale", "All Tomorrow's Parties", "I'll Be Your Mirror"), and backing vocal on "Sunday Morning", on the band's debut album, "The Velvet Underground & Nico" (1967). Reviewer Richard Goldstein describes Nico as "half goddess, half icicle" and writes that her Velvet Underground vocal "sounds something like a cello getting up in the morning".


title: Nico

text: Nico's tenure with the Velvet Underground was marked by personal and musical difficulties. Multi-instrumentalist John Cale wrote that Nico's long dressing room preparations, and pre-performance ritual of burning a candle, often held up performances, which especially irritated songwriter Lou Reed. Nico's partial deafness sometimes caused her to veer off key, for which she was ridiculed by other band members. The album became a classic, ranked 13th on "Rolling Stone"s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, though it was poorly received at the time of its release.


title: Nico

text: Immediately following her musical work with the Velvet Underground, Nico began work as a solo artist, performing regularly at The Dom in New York City. At these shows, she was accompanied by a revolving cast of guitarists, including members of the Velvet Underground, Tim Hardin, Tim Buckley, Ramblin' Jack Elliott and Jackson Browne.


title: Nico

text: For her debut album, 1967's "Chelsea Girl", she recorded songs by Bob Dylan, Tim Hardin, and Jackson Browne, among others. Velvet Underground members Lou Reed, John Cale and Sterling Morrison contributed to the album, with Nico, Reed and Cale co-writing one song, "It Was a Pleasure Then." "Chelsea Girl" is a traditional chamber-folk album, with strings and flute arrangements by producer Tom Wilson. Nico had little say in its production, and was disappointed with the result; she said in 1981: "I still cannot listen to it, because everything I wanted for that record, they took it away. I asked for drums, they said no. I asked for more guitars, they said no. And I asked for simplicity, and they covered it in flutes! ... They added strings, and— I didn't like them, but I could live with them. But the flute! The first time I heard the album, I cried and it was all because of the flute." In California, Nico spent time with Jim Morrison of the Doors, who encouraged her to write her own songs.


title: Nico

text: For "The Marble Index", released in 1968, Nico wrote the lyrics and music. Nico's harmonium anchored the accompaniment, while John Cale added an array of folk and classical instruments, and arranged the album. The harmonium became her signature instrument for the rest of her career. The album has a classical-cum-European folk sound. The album also marked a radical change in Nico's appearance and image. She once again dyed her hair, this time from blonde to red, and began dressing mostly in black, a look that would be considered a visual prototype for the gothic rock scene that would emerge in subsequent years.


title: Nico

text: A promotional film for the song "Evening of Light" was filmed by Francois de Menil. This video featured the now red-haired Nico and Iggy Pop of The Stooges.


title: Nico

text: Returning to live performance in the early 1970s, Nico (accompanying herself on harmonium) gave concerts in Amsterdam as well as London, where she and John Cale opened for Pink Floyd. 1972 saw a one-off live reunion of Nico, Cale and Lou Reed at the Bataclan in Paris.


title: Nico

text: Nico released two more solo albums in the 1970s, "Desertshore" (1970) and "The End..." (1974). She wrote the music, sang, and played the harmonium. Cale produced and played most of the other instruments on both albums. "The End..." featured Brian Eno on synthesizer and Phil Manzanera on guitar, both from Roxy Music. She appeared at the Rainbow Theatre, in London, with Cale, Eno, and Kevin Ayers. The album "June 1, 1974" was the result of this concert. Nico performed a version of the Doors' "The End", which was the catalyst for "The End..." later that year.


title: Nico

text: Between 1970 and 1979, Nico made about seven films with French director Philippe Garrel. She met Garrel in 1969 and contributed the song "The Falconer" to his film "Le Lit de la Vierge". Soon after, she was living with Garrel and became a central figure in his cinematic and personal circles. Nico's first acting appearance with Garrel occurred in his 1972 film, "La Cicatrice Intérieure". Nico also supplied the music for this film and collaborated closely with the director. She also appeared in the Garrel films "Anathor" (1972); the silent Jean Seberg feature "Les Hautes Solitudes", released in 1974; "Un ange passe" (1975); "Le Berceau de cristal" (1976), starring Pierre Clémenti, Nico and Anita Pallenberg; and "Voyage au jardin des morts" (1978). His 1991 film "J'entends Plus la Guitare" is dedicated to Nico.


title: Nico

text: On 13 December 1974, Nico opened for Tangerine Dream's infamous concert at Reims Cathedral in Reims, France.


title: Nico

text: Around this time, Nico became involved with Berliner musician Lutz Ulbrich, guitarist for Ash Ra Tempel. Ulbrich would accompany Nico on guitar at many of her subsequent concerts through the rest of the decade. Also in this time period, Nico let her hair return to its natural brown color but continued wearing mostly black. This would be her public image from then on.


title: Nico

text: Nico and Island Records allegedly had many disputes during this time, and in 1975 the label dropped her from their roster.


title: Nico

text: In September 1978, Nico performed at the Canet Roc '78 festival in Spain. Also performing at this event were Blondie, Kevin Ayers, and Ultravox. She made a vocal contribution to Neuronium's second album, "Vuelo Químico", as she was at the studio, by chance, while it was being recorded in Barcelona in 1978 by Michel Huygen, Carlos Guirao and Albert Gimenez. She read excerpts from "Ulalume" by Edgar Allan Poe. She said that she was deeply moved by the music, so she could not help but make a contribution. During the same year, Nico briefly toured as supporting act for Siouxsie and the Banshees, one of many post-punk bands who namechecked her. In Paris, Patti Smith bought a new harmonium for Nico after her original was stolen.


title: Nico

text: Nico returned to New York in 1979 where her comeback concert at CBGB (accompanied by John Cale and Lutz Ulbrich) was reviewed positively in "The New York Times". She began playing regularly at the Squat Theatre and other venues with Jim Tisdall accompanying her on harp and Gittler guitar. They played together on a sold-out tour of twelve cities in the East and Midwest. At some shows, she was accompanied on guitar by Cheetah Chrome (the Dead Boys).


title: Nico

text: In France, Nico was introduced to photographer Antoine Giacomoni. Giacomoni's photos of Nico would be used for her next album, and would eventually be featured in a book ("Nico: Photographies", Horizon Illimite, Paris, 2002). Through Antoine Giacomoni, she met Corsican bassist Philippe Quilichini. Nico recorded her next studio album, "Drama of Exile", in 1981. produced by Philippe Quilichini. Mahamad Hadi aka Mad Sheer Khan played oriental rock guitar and wrote all the oriental production. It was a departure from her earlier work with John Cale, featuring a mixture of rock and Middle Eastern arrangements. For this album, in addition to originals like "Genghis Khan" and "Sixty Forty", Nico recorded covers of the Velvet Underground's "I'm Waiting for the Man" and David Bowie's "Heroes". "Drama of Exile" was released twice, in two different versions, the second appearing in 1983.


title: Nico

text: After relocating to Manchester, England, in the early 1980s, Nico acquired a manager, the influential Factory Records executive and promoter Alan Wise, and began working with a variety of backing bands for her many live performances. These bands included, chronologically, Blue Orchids, the Bedlamites and the Faction.


title: Nico

text: In 1981, Nico released the Philippe Quilichini-produced single "Saeta"/"Vegas" on Flicknife Records. The following year saw another single, "Procession" produced by Martin Hannett and featuring The Invisible Girls. Included on the "Procession" single was a new version of The Velvet Underground's "All Tomorrow's Parties".


title: Nico

text: Nico toured in 1982 with post-punk band Blue Orchids as her backing band. At the time, her work impacted the emerging gothic rock scene. At Salford University in 1982, she joined Bauhaus for a performance of "I'm Waiting for the Man". That same year, Nico's supporting acts included The Sisters of Mercy and Gene Loves Jezebel. In September 1982, Nico performed at the Deeside Leisure Centre for the Futurama Festival. The line-up for this show also included The Damned, Dead or Alive, Southern Death Cult, Danse Society and The Membranes. After the end of her work with the Blue Orchids, she hired musical arranger James Young and his band the Faction for her concerts.


title: Nico

text: The live compilations "1982 Tour Diary" and "En Personne En Europe" were released in November 1982 on the 1/2 Records cassette label in France; the ROIR cassette label reissued the former under the revised title "Do Or Die!" in 1983. These releases were followed by more live performances throughout Europe over the next few years.


title: Nico

text: She recorded her final solo album, "Camera Obscura", in 1985, with the Faction (James Young and Graham Dids). Produced by John Cale, it featured Nico's version of the Richard Rodgers/Lorenz Hart song "My Funny Valentine". The album's closing song was an updated version of "König", which she had previously recorded for "La cicatrice interieure". This was the only song on the album sung in German or to feature only Nico's voice and harmonium. A music video for "My Heart Is Empty" was filmed at The Fridge in Brixton.


title: Nico

text: The next few years saw frequent live performances by Nico, with tours of Europe, Japan and Australia (usually with the Faction or the Bedlamites). A number of Nico's performances towards the end of her life were recorded and released, including 1982's "Heroine", "Nico in Tokyo", and "Behind the Iron Curtain".


title: Nico

text: In March 1988, she and Young hired new guitarist Henry Olsen: together, they composed new songs to be premiered at a festival organized by Lutz Ulbrich at the Berlin Planetarium in June. Nico was then inspired by Egyptian music and Egyptian singer and diva Oum Kalthoum. Young stated that the new material was "good enough to be a springboard to a new record" with an Egyptian orchestra. The Berlin concert ended with a song from "The End...", "You Forget to Answer".


title: Nico

text: A duet called "Your Kisses Burn" with singer Marc Almond was her last studio recording (about a month before her death). It was released a few months after her death on Almond's album "The Stars We Are". The recording of the 1988 Berlin concert, was later released with the title "".


title: Nico

text: Nico had an affair with French actor Alain Delon and, on 11 August 1962, gave birth to their son, Christian Aaron Boulogne, whom she called Ari. Delon denied paternity and Nico had difficulty raising Ari, so the boy was raised by Delon's parents. Ari became a photographer and actor, and had a son, born in 1999, and a daughter, born in 2006.


title: Nico

text: Nico saw herself as part of a tradition of bohemian artists, which she traced back to the Romanticism of the early 19th century. She led a nomadic life, living in different countries. Apart from Germany, where she grew up, and Spain, where she died, Nico lived in Italy and France in the 1950s, spent most of the 1960s in the US, and lived in London in the early 1960s and again in the 1980s, when she moved between London and Manchester.


title: Nico

text: The final years of her life were mainly spent in the Prestwich and Salford area of Greater Manchester. Although she was still struggling with addiction, she became interested in music again. For a few months in the 1980s, she shared an apartment in Brixton, London, with punk poet John Cooper Clarke but not as a couple.


title: Nico

text: Nico was a heroin addict for over 15 years. In the book "Songs They Never Play on the Radio", James Young, a member of her band in the 1980s, recalls many examples of her troubling behaviour due to her "overwhelming" addiction – and that Nico claimed never to have taken the drug while in the Velvets/Factory scene but only began using during her relationship with Philippe Garrel in the 1970s.


title: Nico

text: In his autobiography, Cheetah Chrome depicted his friendship with a strung-out Nico in the 1980s and their mutual dependency.


title: Nico

text: Shortly before her death, Nico stopped using heroin and began methadone replacement therapy as well as a regimen of bicycle exercise and healthy eating.


title: Nico

text: Nico's friend Danny Fields, the American journalist who helped her sign to Elektra Records, described her as "Nazi-esque", saying: "Every once in a while there'd be something about Jews and I'd be, 'But Nico, I'm Jewish,' and she was like 'Yes, yes, I don't mean you.' According to Fields, in the early 1970s, Nico attacked a mixed-race woman at the Chelsea Hotel with a smashed wine glass, sticking it in her eye while saying, "I hate black people". Island Records dropped Nico after she told an interviewer that she did not like "Negroes" and that they had "features like animals". Nico said she had been raped at the age of thirteen by a black American soldier who had been court-martialed and executed; the biographer Richard Witts could find no record of this, even "when similar incidents were assiduously documented".


title: Nico

text: In 2019, Nigel Bagley, Nico's co-manager and promoter in Manchester, claimed he never saw Nico express racist views, stating: "She was in a multicultural city and was good friends with Yankee Bill, our American-Jamaican doorman." Her drummer Graham Dowdall said: "She played an Indian instrument, worked with north Africans, and brought that to her music. She was certainly capable of very casual racism about Alan [Wise], who was Jewish, but that was a way of having a go at Al."


title: Nico

text: On 17 July 1988, during a holiday with Ari on the Spanish island of Ibiza, Nico hit her head when she fell off her bicycle. A passing taxi driver found her unconscious, but had difficulty getting her admitted to local hospitals. She was misdiagnosed as suffering from heat exposure and was declared dead at 8:00 pm. X-rays later revealed a severe cerebral hemorrhage as the cause of death. Her son later said of the incident:


title: Nico

text: Nico's cremated remains are buried in her mother's plot in Grunewald, a forest cemetery in Berlin. Friends played a tape of "Mütterlein", a song from "Desertshore", at her funeral.


title: Nico

text: Nico inspired many musicians including Siouxsie and the Banshees, The Cure, Morrissey, Elliott Smith and Björk. Siouxsie and the Banshees invited her as special guest on their first major UK tour in 1978; they also later covered "All Tomorrow's Parties". The Cure's leader Robert Smith has cited "Desertshore" as one of his favourite records, as has Björk. Joy Division's Peter Hook cited "Chelsea Girl" as one of his favourite albums. Bauhaus' singer, Peter Murphy, considered that "Nico recorded the first truly Gothic album, "Marble lndex" or "The End". Nico was Gothic, but she was Mary Shelley to everyone else's Hammer Horror. They both did Frankenstein, but Nico's was real." Morrissey cited Nico when asked to name artists who had a lasting influence on him: "The royal three remain the same: the New York Dolls, Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, with Nico standing firm as first reserve." Morrissey also said of the song "Innocent and Vain": "this is my youth in one piece of music". Elliott Smith covered "Chelsea Girls" and "These Days" in Portland, Oregon in October 1999; he also cited "The Marble Index" as one of his perfect 2.45am albums. Marc Almond recorded a cover version of "The Falconer": she was one of the "things I was obsessed about at school" due to her "wonderful intriguing voice, icy and remote yet warm at the same time". Patti Smith did a concert tribute to Nico in 2014 in which she covered "I Will Be Seven". Low wrote a song titled "Those Girls (Song For Nico)" and Neko Case covered "Afraid" in 2013.


title: Nico

text: Two of Nico's songs from "Chelsea Girl", "The Fairest of the Seasons" and "These Days", both written by Jackson Browne, were featured in Wes Anderson's film "The Royal Tenenbaums".


title: Nico

text: Several biographical works on Nico have appeared, both in print and film. The first, in 1992, was "Songs They Never Play on the Radio", a book by James Young that draws on his association with Nico in her last years. In 1993, "Nico: The Life and Lies of an Icon" by musicologist Richard Witts covered Nico's entire life and career. The 1995 documentary "Nico Icon" by Susanne Ofteringer examined the many facets of Nico's life with contributions from those who knew her, including her colleagues Reed and Cale. In 2015, Lutz Graf-Ulbrich, Nico's former partner and accompanist in the late 1970s, published "Nico: In the Shadow of the Moon Goddess", an account of his time with Nico. In the 2018 biopic "Nico, 1988" directed by Susanna Nicchiarelli, Trine Dyrholm portrays Nico on a journey across Europe during her last tour.


title: Nico

text: In 2019, Manchester International Festival put on a production called "The Nico Project". It was a theatrical re-telling of Nico’s 1968 album "The Marble Index" starring Maxine Peake.


title: Nico

text: Several concerts to honour Nico's career were organized over the years with multiple singers to revisit her repertoire. In 1981 Texas punk band Really Red released an original song in tribute to Nico. In 2005, alternative rock band Anberlin released their second studio album, Never Take Friendship Personal, which includes the song "Dance, Dance Christa Päffgen," inspired by Nico, whose given name was Christa Päffgen. The song references her struggle with drugs and unrelated death. Two Nico tribute concerts took place in Europe in the autumn of 2008 to commemorate the 70th anniversary of Nico's birth and the 20th anniversary of her death. On 11 October 2008, John Cale, James Dean Bradfield (of Manic Street Preachers), Fyfe Dangerfield of the Guillemots, Mark Linkous (of Sparklehorse), Peter Murphy (of Bauhaus), Lisa Gerrard of Dead Can Dance and Mark Lanegan appeared on stage at the Royal Festival Hall in London. On 17 October 2008 at the Volksbuehne in Berlin, Nico's ex-boyfriend Lutz Ulbrich, who was her musical collaborator in the late 1970s, presented another tribute concert, which featured Marianne Rosenberg, Soap&Skin, Marianne Enzensberger and James Young, the keyboardist from The Faction, Nico's last band.


title: Nico

text: Performance artist Tammy Faye Starlite (Tammy Lang) enjoyed success in 2011 with her one-woman show Nico: 'Chelsea Mädchen', in which she impersonates the singer and delivers spoken material based on an actual interview Nico gave in the mid-Eighties, during an Australian tour.


title: Nico

text: In 2012, X-TG (featuring members of industrial band Throbbing Gristle) released a re-interpretation of the "Desertshore" album.


title: Nico

text: In January 2013, John Cale organized a tribute "A Life Along the Borderline" at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York City. Performers included Cale, Kim Gordon with Bill Nace, Sharon Van Etten, Meshell Ndegeocello, Stephin Merritt, Peaches, Alison Mosshart, Joan As Police Woman, Greg Dulli, Yeasayer, and Mercury Rev.


title: Nico

text: The song 'Last Ride' on Beach House's 2018 album "7" "was inspired by" Nico, according to lead singer Victoria Legrand.


title: Nico

text: In 2002, Faust Records released two collections of obscure Nico tracks, "Reich der Träume" (Realm of Dreams) and "Walpurgis-Nacht" (Walpurgis Night).


title: Lancashire

text: Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated Lancs) is the name of a historic county, ceremonial county, and non-metropolitan county in North West England. The boundaries of these three areas differ significantly.


title: Lancashire

text: The non-metropolitan county of Lancashire was created by the Local Government Act 1972. It is administered by Lancashire County Council, based in Preston, and twelve district councils. Although Lancaster is still considered the county town, Preston is the administrative centre of the non-metropolitan county. The ceremonial county has the same boundaries except that it also includes Blackpool and Blackburn with Darwen, which are unitary authorities.


title: Lancashire

text: The historic county of Lancashire is larger and includes the cities of Manchester and Liverpool as well as the Furness and Cartmel peninsulas, but excludes Bowland area of the West Riding of Yorkshire transferred to the non-metropolitan county in 1974


title: Lancashire

text: During Roman times the area was part of the Brigantes tribal area in the military zone of Roman Britain. The towns of Manchester, Lancaster, Ribchester, Burrow, Elslack and Castleshaw grew around Roman forts. In the centuries after the Roman withdrawal in 410AD the northern parts of the county probably formed part of the Brythonic kingdom of Rheged, a successor entity to the Brigantes tribe. During the mid-8th century, the area was incorporated into the Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of Northumbria from the north of the River Ribble and the Kingdom of Mercia from the south, which both became parts of England in the 10th century.


title: Lancashire

text: In the "Domesday Book", land between the Ribble and Mersey were known as "Inter Ripam et Mersam" and included in the returns for Cheshire. Although some historians consider this to mean south Lancashire was then part of Cheshire, it is by no means certain. It is also claimed that the territory to the north formed part of the West Riding of Yorkshire.


title: Lancashire

text: The county was established in 1182, and came to be bordered by Cumberland, Westmorland, Yorkshire, and Cheshire. It was divided into the hundreds of Amounderness, Blackburn, Leyland, Lonsdale, Salford and West Derby. Lonsdale was further partitioned into Lonsdale North, the detached part north of the sands of Morecambe Bay including Furness and Cartmel, and Lonsdale South.


title: Lancashire

text: Since the Victorian era, Lancashire has had multiple reforms of local government. In 1889, the administrative county of Lancashire was created, covering the majority of the county. Multiple county boroughs were outside the county council control; Barrow-in-Furness, Blackburn, Bolton, Bootle, Burnley, Bury, Liverpool, Manchester, Oldham, Preston, Rochdale, Salford, St. Helens, and Wigan. The area served by the Lord-Lieutenant (termed now a ceremonial county) covered the entirety of the administrative county and the county boroughs. It expanded whenever boroughs annexed areas in neighbouring counties such as Wythenshawe in Manchester south of the River Mersey and from Cheshire, and southern Warrington. It did not cover the western part of Todmorden, where the ancient border between Lancashire and Yorkshire passes through the middle of the town.


title: Lancashire

text: During the 20th century, the county became increasingly urban with Warrington (1900), Blackpool (1904) and Southport (1905) becoming county boroughs, with many boundary extensions. The borders around the Manchester area were particularly complicated, with narrow protrusions of the administrative county between the county boroughs – Lees urban district formed a detached part of the administrative county, between Oldham county borough and the West Riding of Yorkshire.


title: Lancashire

text: The administrative county was also the most populous of its type outside London, with a population of 2,280,359 in 1961. By the census of 1971, the population of Lancashire and its county boroughs had reached 5,129,416, making it the most populous geographic county in the UK.


title: Lancashire

text: On 1 April 1974, under the Local Government Act 1972, the southern part of the geographic county was transferred to the two newly established metropolitan counties of Merseyside and Greater Manchester.


title: Lancashire

text: The new county of Cumbria incorporated into the Furness exclave and otherwise newly exclaves were incorporated into Cheshire.


title: Lancashire

text: The new metropolitan boroughs of Liverpool, Knowsley, St. Helens and Sefton were formed in Merseyside. In Greater Manchester the new metropolitan boroughs were Bury, Bolton, Manchester, Oldham (part), Rochdale, Salford, Tameside (part), Trafford (part) and Wigan. Newly created Warrington borough and parts of Halton borough, south of the new Merseyside and Greater Manchester, were transferred to the administrative county of Cheshire.


title: Lancashire

text: The former urban districts of Barnoldswick and Earby, Bowland Rural District and the parishes of Bracewell and Brogden and Salterforth from Skipton Rural District in the West Riding of Yorkshire became part of the administrative county of Lancashire. One parish, Simonswood, was transferred from the borough of Knowsley in Merseyside to the district of West Lancashire in 1994. In 1998 Blackpool and Blackburn with Darwen became unitary authorities (reform equivalent of a county borough), removing them from the non-metropolitan county but not from the ceremonial county. In the same year Warrington and Widnes (which joined with neighbouring town, Runcorn to form Halton) became unitary authorities and were no longer part of the non-metropolitan county of Cheshire.


title: Lancashire

text: Lancashire, the shire county controlled by the county council is divided into local government districts, Burnley, Chorley, Fylde, Hyndburn, Lancaster, Pendle, Preston, Ribble Valley, Rossendale, South Ribble, West Lancashire, and Wyre.


title: Lancashire

text: Blackpool and Blackburn with Darwen are unitary authorities that do not come under county council control. The Lancashire Constabulary covers the shire county and the unitary authorities. The ceremonial county, including the unitary authorities, borders Cumbria, North Yorkshire, West Yorkshire, Greater Manchester and Merseyside in the North West England region.


title: Lancashire

text: The highest point of the modern county council area is Gragareth, near Whernside, which reaches a height of 627 m (2,057 ft). Green Hill near Gragareth has also been cited as the "county" top. of the modern council area. However, the highest point in the historic County Palatine is Coniston Old Man in the Lake District at 803 m (2,634 ft), which is regarded as the County Top by those who feel the Local Government Act 1972 (enacted 1974) did not abolish the historic county borders of Lancashire.


title: Lancashire

text: Lancashire rivers drain westwards from the Pennines into the Irish Sea. Rivers in Lancashire include the Ribble, Wyre and Lune. Their tributaries are the Calder, Darwen, Douglas, Hodder, and Yarrow. The Irwell has its source in Lancashire.


title: Lancashire

text: To the west of the county are the West Lancashire Coastal Plain and the Fylde coastal plain north of the Ribble Estuary. Further north is Morecambe Bay. Apart from the coastal resorts, these areas are largely rural with the land devoted to vegetable crops. In the northwest corner of the county, straddling the border with Cumbria, is the Arnside and Silverdale Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB), characterised by its limestone pavements and home to the Leighton Moss nature reserve.


title: Lancashire

text: To the east of the county are upland areas leading to the Pennines. North of the Ribble is Beacon Fell Country Park and the Forest of Bowland, another AONB. Much of the lowland in this area is devoted to dairy farming and cheesemaking, whereas the higher ground is more suitable for sheep, and the highest ground is uncultivated moorland. The valleys of the River Ribble and its tributary the Calder form a large gap to the west of the Pennines, overlooked by Pendle Hill. Most of the larger Lancashire towns are in these valleys South of the Ribble are the West Pennine Moors and the Forest of Rossendale where former cotton mill towns are in deep valleys. The Lancashire Coalfield, largely in modern-day Greater Manchester, extended into Merseyside and to Ormskirk, Chorley, Burnley and Colne in Lancashire.


title: Lancashire

text: Much of the southern half of Lancashire and its coast is heavily urbanised especially around the settlements adjoining Greater Manchester and the county's largest settlements of Preston, Blackburn, Lancaster, Blackpool and Burnley.


title: Lancashire

text: The towns of Nelson, Brierfield, Colne and Burnley form a large urban area which covers both the Burnley and Pendle Boroughs. Rawtenstall, Bacup, Accrington and Haslingden form an urban area which is almost contiguous with the nearby borough of Blackburn with Darwen and the Greater Manchester boroughs of Bolton, Bury and Rochdale. Parts of West Lancashire form part of the Wigan urban area (Wigan being also in Greater Manchester) which includes Skelmersdale. Central Lancashire forms an urban area around the city of Preston and the towns of Penwortham, Leyland and Chorley. Lancaster forms an urban area with Heysham and Morecambe.


title: Lancashire

text: Lancashire contains green belt interspersed throughout the county, covering much of the southern districts and towns throughout the Ribble Valley, West Lancashire, and The Fylde coastal plains to prevent convergence with the nearby Merseyside and Greater Manchester conurbations. Further pockets control the expansion of Lancaster, and surround the Blackpool urban area, as part of the western edge of the North West Green Belt. It was first drawn up in the 1950s. All the county's districts contain some portion of the belt, the portion by Burnley also abutting the Forest of Pendle Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.


title: Lancashire

text: The table below divides settlements by their district. Each district has an administrative centre; taking the largest town's name or the geographical area.


title: Lancashire

text: Some settlements which were historically part of the county now fall under the counties of West Yorkshire, Cheshire, Merseyside, Greater Manchester and Cumbria:


title: Lancashire

text: The ceremonial county is defined in the Lieutenancies Act 1997 as consisting of the non-metropolitan county of Lancashire, Blackburn and Blackpool. The Lord Lieutenant of Lancashire is the King's personal representative in the ceremonial county and has been Charles Kay-Shuttleworth since 1997. The High Sheriff of Lancashire is the King's judicial representative, a position which is a largely ceremonial and changes holder each year.


title: Lancashire

text: Lancashire - the non-metropolitan county - is administered on a two-tier system. It is governed by the Lancashire County Council and twelve district councils. Two districts - Blackpool and Blackburn with Darwen - are goverened by unitary authority councils - Blackpool Council and Blackburn with Darwen Council respectively - and are as such outside the control of the non-metropolitan county.


title: Lancashire

text: Areas of the county palatine are outside the ceremonial county and are instead within the modern counties of Cumbria, Merseyside and Greater Manchester.


title: Lancashire

text: Lancashire County Council is based in County Hall in Preston. Built as a home for the county administration, the Quarter Sessions and Lancashire Constabulary, it opened on 14 September 1882.


title: Lancashire

text: Local elections for 84 councillors from 84 divisions are held every four years. The Conservative Party currently form a majority on Lancashire County Council.


title: Lancashire

text: Following similar moves by other counties, in 2020 Lancashire County Council, alongside all the district council leaders, proposed to restructure the entire modern county into three unitary authorities with roughly equal representation. A Mayoral Combined Authority would also be established to provide strategic priorities for the county. The County Council state the restructuring will enable Lancashire to develop better community services.


title: Lancashire

text: The Duchy of Lancaster is one of two royal duchies in England. It has landholdings throughout the region and elsewhere, operating as a property company, but also exercising the right of the Crown in the County Palatine of Lancaster. While the administrative boundaries changed in the 1970s, the county palatine boundaries remain the same as the historic boundaries. As a result, the High Sheriffs for Lancashire, Greater Manchester and Merseyside are appointed "within the Duchy and County Palatine of Lancaster".


title: Lancashire

text: The High Sheriff is an ancient county officer, but is now a largely ceremonial post. High Shrievalties are the oldest secular titles under the Crown, in England and Wales. The High Sheriff is the representative of the monarch and is the "Keeper of The King's Peace" in the county, executing judgements of the High Court.


title: Lancashire

text: The Duchy administers "bona vacantia" within the County Palatine, receiving the property of persons who die intestate and where the legal ownership cannot be ascertained. There is no separate Duke of Lancaster; the title merged into the Crown with the ascension of Henry V. Rather, the Duchy is administered by the King in Right of the Duchy of Lancaster. A separate court system for the county palatine was abolished by Courts Act 1971. A particular form of The Loyal Toast, 'The King, Duke of Lancaster' is in regular use in the county palatine. Lancaster serves as the county town of the county palatine.


title: Lancashire

text: The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster is a government minister. Formally, the Chancellor is responsible for administration of the estates and rents of the Duchy, but in practice the post is treated as a high-ranking minister without portfolio.


title: Lancashire

text: Lancashire in the 19th century was a major centre of economic activity, and hence one of wealth. Activities included coal mining, textile production, particularly that which used cotton, and fishing. Preston Docks, an industrial port is now disused. Lancashire was historically the location of the port of Liverpool while Barrow-in-Furness is famous for shipbuilding.


title: Lancashire

text: As of 2013, the largest private sector industry is the defence industry with BAE Systems Military Air Solutions division based in Warton on the Fylde coast. The division operates a manufacturing site in Samlesbury. Other defence firms include BAE Systems Global Combat Systems in Chorley, Ultra Electronics in Fulwood and Rolls-Royce plc in Barnoldswick.


title: Lancashire

text: The nuclear power industry has a plant at Springfields, Salwick operated by Westinghouse and Heysham nuclear power station is operated by British Energy. Other major manufacturing firms include Leyland Trucks, a subsidiary of Paccar building the DAF truck range.


title: Lancashire

text: The Foulnaze cockle fishery is in Lytham. It has only opened the coastal cockle beds three times in twenty years; August 2013 was the last of these openings.


title: Lancashire

text: The creation of Lancashire Enterprise Zone was announced in 2011. It was launched in April 2012, based at the airfields owned by BAE Systems in Warton and Samlesbury. Warton Aerodrome covers and Samlesbury Aerodrome is 74 hectares. Development is coordinated by Lancashire Enterprise Partnership, Lancashire County Council and BAE Systems. The first businesses to move into the zone did so in March 2015, at Warton.


title: Lancashire

text: In March 2015 the government announced a new enterprise zone would be created at Blackpool Airport, using some airport and adjoining land. Operations at the airport will not be affected.


title: Lancashire

text: This is a chart of trend of regional gross value added of the non-metropolitan county of Lancashire at basic prices published by the Office for National Statistics with figures in millions of British pounds sterling.


title: Lancashire

text: Lancashire has a mostly comprehensive system with four state grammar schools. Not including sixth form colleges, there are 77 state schools (not including Burnley's new schools) and 24 independent schools. The Clitheroe area has secondary modern schools. Sixth form provision is limited at most schools in most districts, with only Fylde and Lancaster districts having mostly sixth forms at schools. The rest depend on FE colleges and sixth form colleges, where they exist. South Ribble has the largest school population and Fylde the smallest (only three schools). Burnley's schools have had a new broom and have essentially been knocked down and started again in 2006. There are many Church of England and Catholic faith schools in Lancashire.


title: Lancashire

text: Lancashire is home to four universities: Lancaster University, the University of Central Lancashire, Edge Hill University and the Lancaster campus of the University of Cumbria. Seven colleges offer higher education courses.


title: Lancashire

text: The Lancashire economy relies strongly on the M6 motorway which runs from north to south, past Lancaster and Preston. The M55 connects Preston to Blackpool and is 11.5 miles (18.3 km) long. The M65 motorway from Colne, connects Burnley, Accrington, Blackburn to Preston. The M61 from Preston via Chorley and the M66 starting inside the county boundary near Edenfield, provide links between Lancashire and Manchester, and the trans-Pennine M62. The M58 crosses the southernmost part of the county from the M6 near Wigan to Liverpool via Skelmersdale.


title: Lancashire

text: Other major roads include the east–west A59 between Liverpool in Merseyside and Skipton in North Yorkshire via Ormskirk, Preston and Clitheroe, and the connecting A565 to Southport; the A56 from Ramsbottom to Padiham via Haslingden and from Colne to Skipton; the A585 from Kirkham to Fleetwood; the A666 from the A59 north of Blackburn to Bolton via Darwen; and the A683 from Heysham to Kirkby Lonsdale via Lancaster.


title: Lancashire

text: The West Coast Main Line provides direct rail links with London, Glasgow and other major cities, with stations at and . East-west connections are carried via the East Lancashire Line between Blackpool and via , Preston, , and Burnley. The Ribble Valley Line runs from to via and Blackburn. There are connecting lines from Preston to and Bolton, and from Lancaster to , Heysham and .


title: Lancashire

text: Blackpool Airport are no longer operating domestic or international flights, but it is still the home of flying schools, private operators and North West Air Ambulance. Manchester Airport is the main airport in the region. Liverpool John Lennon Airport is nearby, while the closest airport to the Pendle Borough is Leeds Bradford.


title: Lancashire

text: There is an operational airfield at Warton near Preston where there is a major assembly and test facility for BAE Systems.


title: Lancashire

text: Heysham offers ferry services to Ireland and the Isle of Man. As part of its industrial past, Lancashire gave rise to an extensive network of canals, which extend into neighbouring counties. These include the Leeds and Liverpool Canal, Lancaster Canal, Sankey Canal, Bridgewater Canal, Rochdale Canal, Ashton Canal and Manchester Ship Canal.


title: Lancashire

text: Several bus companies run bus services in the Lancashire area serving the main towns and villages in the county with some services running to neighbouring areas, Cumbria, Greater Manchester, Merseyside and West Yorkshire. Some of these include:


title: Lancashire

text: The major settlements in the ceremonial county are concentrated on the Fylde coast (the Blackpool Urban Area), and a number of notable settlements along west to east of the M65: including the city of Preston and towns of Blackburn, Darwen, Accrington, Burnley, Padiham, Brierfield, Nelson and Colne. South of Preston are the towns of Leyland and Chorley (which, with Preston, formed Central Lancashire New Town designated in 1970), as well as Penwortham, Skelmersdale and Ormskirk. The north of the county is predominantly rural and sparsely populated, except for the city of Lancaster and the towns of Morecambe and Heysham which form a large conurbation of almost 100,000 people. Lancashire is home to a significant Asian population, numbering over 70,000 and 6% of the county's population, and concentrated largely in the former cotton mill towns in the south east.


title: Lancashire

text: The Red Rose of Lancaster is the county flower found on the county's heraldic badge and flag. The rose was a symbol of the House of Lancaster, immortalised in the verse "In the battle for England's head/York was white, Lancaster red" (referring to the 15th-century Wars of the Roses). The traditional Lancashire flag, a red rose on a white field, was not officially registered. When an attempt was made to register it with the Flag Institute it was found that it was officially registered by Montrose in Scotland, several hundred years earlier with the Lyon Office. Lancashire's official flag is registered as a red rose on a gold field.


title: Lancashire

text: Lancashire County Cricket Club has been one of the most successful county cricket teams, particularly in the one-day game. It is home to England cricket team members James Anderson and Jos Buttler. The County Ground, Old Trafford, Trafford, has been the home cricket ground of LCCC since 1864.


title: Lancashire

text: Local cricket leagues include the Lancashire League, the Central Lancashire League and the North Lancashire and Cumbria League.


title: Lancashire

text: Since 2000, the designated ECB Premier League for Lancashire has been the Liverpool and District Cricket Competition.


title: Lancashire

text: Football in Lancashire is governed by the Lancashire County Football Association which, like most county football associations, has boundaries that are aligned roughly with the historic counties. The Manchester Football Association and Liverpool County Football Association respectively operate in Greater Manchester and Merseyside.


title: Lancashire

text: Lancashire clubs were prominent in the formation of the Football League in 1888, with the league being officially named at a meeting in Manchester. Of the twelve founder members of the league, six were from Lancashire: Accrington, Blackburn Rovers, Bolton Wanderers, Burnley, Everton, and Preston North End.


title: Lancashire

text: The Football League now operates out of Preston. The National Football Museum was founded at Deepdale, Preston in 2001, but moved to Manchester in 2012.


title: Lancashire

text: The county's most prominent football rivalries are the East Lancashire derby between Blackburn Rovers and Burnley, and the West Lancashire derby between Blackpool and Preston North End.


title: Lancashire

text: A further nine professional full-time teams lie within the historical borders of Lancashire but outside of the current ceremonial county. These include the Premier League clubs Everton, Liverpool, Manchester City and Manchester United.


title: Lancashire

text: Along with Yorkshire and Cumberland, Lancashire is recognised as the heartland of Rugby League. The county has produced many successful top flight clubs such as St. Helens, Wigan, Warrington, Oldham, Salford and Widnes. The county was once the focal point for many of the sport's professional competitions including the Lancashire League competition which ran from 1895 to 1970, and the Lancashire County Cup which ran until 1993. Rugby League has also seen a representative fixture between Lancashire and Yorkshire contested 89 times since its inception in 1895. In recent times there were several rugby league teams that are based within the ceremonial county which include Blackpool Panthers, East Lancashire Lions, and Blackpool Sea Eagles.


title: Lancashire

text: There are many archery clubs located within Lancashire. In 2004 Lancashire took the winning title at the Inter-counties championships from Yorkshire who had held it for 7 years.


title: Lancashire

text: Lancashire has a long history of wrestling, developing its own style called Lancashire wrestling, with many clubs that over the years have produced many renowned wrestlers. Some of these have crossed over into the mainstream world of professional wrestling, including Shak Khan, Billy Riley, Davey Boy Smith, William Regal, Wade Barrett and the Dynamite Kid.


title: Lancashire

text: Lancashire has a long and highly productive tradition of music making. In the early modern era the county shared in the national tradition of balladry, including perhaps the finest border ballad, "The Ballad of Chevy Chase", thought to have been composed by the Lancashire-born minstrel Richard Sheale. The county was also a common location for folk songs, including "The Lancashire Miller", "Warrington Ale" and "The soldier's farewell to Manchester", while Liverpool, as a major seaport, was the subject of many sea shanties, including "The Leaving of Liverpool" and "Maggie May", beside several local Wassailing songs. In the Industrial Revolution changing social and economic patterns helped create new traditions and styles of folk song, often linked to migration and patterns of work. These included processional dances, often associated with rushbearing or the Wakes Week festivities, and types of step dance, most famously clog dancing.


title: Lancashire

text: A local pioneer of folk song collection in the first half of the 19th century was Shakespearean scholar James Orchard Halliwell, but it was not until the second folk revival in the 20th century that the full range of song from the county, including industrial folk song, began to gain attention. The county produced one of the major figures of the revival in Ewan MacColl, but also a local champion in Harry Boardman, who from 1965 onwards probably did more than anyone to popularise and record the folk song of the county. Perhaps the most influential folk artists to emerge from the region in the late 20th century were Liverpool folk group The Spinners, and from Manchester folk troubadour Roy Harper and musician, comedian and broadcaster Mike Harding. The region is home to numerous folk clubs, many of them catering to Irish and Scottish folk music. Regular folk festivals include the Fylde Folk Festival at Fleetwood.


title: Lancashire

text: Lancashire had a lively culture of choral and classical music, with very large numbers of local church choirs from the 17th century, leading to the foundation of local choral societies from the mid-18th century, often particularly focused on performances of the music of Handel and his contemporaries. It also played a major part in the development of brass bands which emerged in the county, particularly in the textile and coalfield areas, in the 19th century. The first open competition for brass bands was held at Manchester in 1853, and continued annually until the 1980s. The vibrant brass band culture of the area made an important contribution to the foundation and staffing of the Hallé Orchestra from 1857, the oldest extant professional orchestra in the United Kingdom. The same local musical tradition produced eminent figures such as Sir William Walton (1902–88), son of an Oldham choirmaster and music teacher, Sir Thomas Beecham (1879–1961), born in St. Helens, who began his career by conducting local orchestras and Alan Rawsthorne (1905–71) born in Haslingden. The conductor David Atherton, co-founder of the London Sinfonietta, was born in Blackpool in 1944. Lancashire also produced more populist figures, such as early musical theatre composer Leslie Stuart (1863–1928), born in Southport, who began his musical career as organist of Salford Cathedral.


title: Lancashire

text: More recent Lancashire-born composers include Hugh Wood (1932– Parbold), Sir Peter Maxwell Davies (1934–2016, Salford), Sir Harrison Birtwistle (1934–, Accrington), Gordon Crosse (1937–, Bury), John McCabe (1939–2015, Huyton), Roger Smalley (1943–2015, Swinton), Nigel Osborne (1948–, Manchester), Steve Martland (1954–2013, Liverpool), Simon Holt (1958–, Bolton) and Philip Cashian (1963–, Manchester).


title: Lancashire

text: The Royal Manchester College of Music was founded in 1893 to provide a northern counterpart to the London musical colleges. It merged with the Northern College of Music (formed in 1920) to form the Royal Northern College of Music in 1972.


title: Lancashire

text: Liverpool, both during its time in Lancashire and after being moved to the new county of Merseyside, has produced a number of successful musicians. This includes pop stars such as Frankie Vaughan and Lita Roza, as well as rock stars such as Billy Fury, who is considered to be one of the most successful British rock and roll stars of all time. Many Lancashire towns had vibrant skiffle scenes in the late 1950s, out of which a culture of beat groups emerged by the early 1960s, particularly around Liverpool and Manchester. It has been estimated that there were at least 350 bands—including the Beatles—active in and around Liverpool during this era, playing ballrooms, concert halls, and clubs. A number of Liverpool performers followed the Beatles into the charts, including Gerry & the Pacemakers, the Searchers, and Cilla Black.


title: Lancashire

text: The first musicians to break through in the UK who were not from Liverpool or managed by Beatles manager Brian Epstein were Manchester's Freddie and the Dreamers, with Herman's Hermits and the Hollies also hailing from Manchester. The Beatles led a movement by various beat groups from the region which culminated in the British Invasion of the US, which in turn made a major contribution to the development of modern rock music. After the decline of beat groups in the late 1960s, the centre of rock culture shifted to London, and there were relatively few Lancashire bands who achieved national prominence until the growth of a disco scene and the punk rock revolution in the mid-and-late 1970s.


title: Lancashire

text: The towns of Accrington, Burnley, Chorley, Clitheroe, Colne, Lytham St Annes, Morecambe, Nelson, Ormskirk and Skelmersdale as well as the cities of Lancaster and Preston are referenced in the 1991 song, It's Grim Up North by the band the KLF.


title: Lancashire

text: Lancashire is the origin of the Lancashire hotpot, a casserole dish traditionally made with lamb. Other traditional foods from the area include:


title: Lancashire

text: "Whistle Down the Wind" (1961) was directed by Bryan Forbes, set at the foot of Worsaw Hill and in Burnley, and starred local Lancashire schoolchildren.


title: Lancashire

text: The tunnel scene was shot on the old Bacup-Rochdale railway line, location 53°41'29.65"N, 2°11'25.18"W, off the A6066 (New Line) where the line passes beneath Stack Lane. The tunnel is still there, in use as an industrial unit but the railway has long since been removed.


title: Book of Genesis

text: The Book of Genesis (from Greek ; Hebrew: בְּרֵאשִׁית "Bəreʾšīt", "In [the] beginning") is the first book of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament. Its Hebrew name is the same as its first word, ("In the beginning"). Genesis is an account of the creation of the world, the early history of humanity, and of Israel's ancestors and the origins of the Jewish people.


title: Book of Genesis

text: Tradition credits Moses as the author of Genesis, as well as the books of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and most of Deuteronomy; however, modern scholars, especially from the 19th century onward, place the books' authorship in the 6th and 5th centuries BC, hundreds of years after Moses is supposed to have lived. Based on scientific interpretation of archaeological, genetic, and linguistic evidence, most scholars consider Genesis to be primarily mythological rather than historical.


title: Book of Genesis

text: It is divisible into two parts, the primeval history (chapters 1–11) and the ancestral history (chapters 12–50). The primeval history sets out the author's concepts of the nature of the deity and of humankind's relationship with its maker: God creates a world which is good and fit for mankind, but when man corrupts it with sin God decides to destroy his creation, sparing only the righteous Noah and his family to re-establish the relationship between man and God. The ancestral history (chapters 12–50) tells of the prehistory of Israel, God's chosen people. At God's command, Noah's descendant Abraham journeys from his birthplace (described as Ur of the Chaldeans and whose identification with Sumerian Ur is tentative in modern scholarship) into the God-given land of Canaan, where he dwells as a sojourner, as does his son Isaac and his grandson Jacob. Jacob's name is changed to "Israel", and through the agency of his son Joseph, the children of Israel descend into Egypt, 70 people in all with their households, and God promises them a future of greatness. Genesis ends with Israel in Egypt, ready for the coming of Moses and the Exodus (departure). The narrative is punctuated by a series of covenants with God, successively narrowing in scope from all mankind (the covenant with Noah) to a special relationship with one people alone (Abraham and his descendants through Isaac and Jacob).


title: Book of Genesis

text: In Judaism, the theological importance of Genesis centres on the covenants linking God to his chosen people and the people to the Promised Land.


title: Book of Genesis

text: The name "Genesis" is from the Latin Vulgate, in turn borrowed or transliterated from Greek , meaning "origin"; , "In [the] beginning".


title: Book of Genesis

text: For much of the 20th century, most scholars agreed that the five books of the Pentateuch—Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy—came from four sources: the Yahwist, the Elohist, the Deuteronomist and the Priestly source. Known as the documentary hypothesis, each source was held to tell the same basic story, with the sources later joined together by various editors. Since the 1970s, however, there has been a revolution in this line of thought, leading scholars to view the Elohist source as no more than a variation on the Yahwist, and the Priestly source as a body of revisions and expansions to the Yahwist (or "non-Priestly") material. (The Deuteronomistic source does not appear in Genesis.)


title: Book of Genesis

text: Scholars use examples of repeated and duplicate stories to identify separate sources. In Genesis, these include three different accounts of a patriarch claiming that his wife was his sister, the two creation stories, and the two versions of Abraham sending Hagar and Ishmael into the desert.


title: Book of Genesis

text: This leaves the question of when these works were created. Scholars in the first half of the 20th century concluded that the Yahwist source was a product of the monarchic period, specifically at the court of Solomon, 10th century BC, and the Priestly work a product of the middle of the 5th century BC (with claims that the author was Ezra). However, more recent thinking is that the Yahwist source dates to from either just before or during the Babylonian captivity in the 6th century BC, and that the Priestly final edition was made late in the Exilic period or soon after. The almost complete absence of all the characters and incidents mentioned in Primeval history from the rest of the Hebrew Bible has led a sizeable minority of scholars to conclude that these chapters were composed much later than those that follow, possibly in the 3rd century BC.


title: Book of Genesis

text: As for why the book was created, a theory which has gained considerable interest, although still controversial, is that of Persian imperial authorisation. This proposes that the Persians of the Achaemenid Empire, after their conquest of Babylon in 539 BC, agreed to grant Jerusalem a large measure of local autonomy within the empire, but required the local authorities to produce a single law code accepted by the entire community. The two powerful groups making up the community—the priestly families who controlled the Second Temple and who traced their origin to Moses and the wilderness wanderings, and the major landowning families who made up the "elders" and who traced their own origins to Abraham, who had "given" them the land—were in conflict over many issues, and each had its own "history of origins". However, the Persian promise of greatly increased local autonomy for all provided a powerful incentive to cooperate in producing a single text.


title: Book of Genesis

text: Genesis is an example of a work in the "antiquities" genre, as the Romans knew it, a popular genre telling of the appearance of humans and the ancestors and heroes, with elaborate genealogies and chronologies fleshed out with stories and anecdotes. The most notable examples are found in the work of Greek historians of the 6th century BC: their intention was to connect notable families of their own day to a distant and heroic past, and in doing so they did not distinguish between myth, legend, and facts. Professor Jean-Louis Ska of the Pontifical Biblical Institute calls the basic rule of the antiquarian historian the "law of conservation": everything old is valuable, nothing is eliminated. This antiquity was needed to prove the worth of Israel's traditions to the nations (the neighbours of the Jews in the early Persian province of Judea), and to reconcile and unite the various factions within Israel itself.


title: Book of Genesis

text: Describing the work of the biblical authors, John Van Seters wrote that lacking many historical traditions and none from the distant past, "They had to use myths and legends for earlier periods. In order to make sense out of the variety of different and often conflicting versions of stories, and to relate the stories to each other, they fitted them into a genealogical chronology."


title: Book of Genesis

text: There are four major textual witnesses to the book: the Masoretic Text, the Samaritan Pentateuch, the Septuagint, and fragments of Genesis found at Qumran. The Qumran group provides the oldest manuscripts but covers only a small proportion of the book; in general, the Masoretic Text is well preserved and reliable, but there are many individual instances where the other versions preserve a superior reading.


title: Book of Genesis

text: Genesis appears to be structured around the recurring phrase , meaning "these are the generations," with the first use of the phrase referring to the "generations of heaven and earth" and the remainder marking individuals—Noah, the "sons of Noah", Shem, etc., down to Jacob. The formula, occurring eleven times in the book of Genesis, delineating its sections and shaping its structure, serves as a heading which marks a transition to a new subject:


title: Book of Genesis

text: It is not clear, however, what this meant to the original authors, and most modern commentators divide it into two parts based on the subject matter, a "primeval history" (chapters 1–11) and a "patriarchal history" (chapters 12–50). While the first is far shorter than the second, it sets out the basic themes and provides an interpretive key for understanding the entire book. The "primeval history" has a symmetrical structure hinging on chapters 6–9, the flood story, with the events before the flood mirrored by the events after; the "ancestral history" is structured around the three patriarchs Abraham, Jacob and Joseph. (The stories of Isaac do not make up a coherent cycle of stories and function as a bridge between the cycles of Abraham and Jacob.)


title: Book of Genesis

text: The Genesis creation narrative comprises two different stories; the first two chapters roughly correspond to these. In the first, Elohim, the generic Hebrew word for God, creates the heavens and the earth including humankind, in six days, and rests on the seventh. In the second, God, now referred to as "Yahweh Elohim" (the LORD God), creates two individuals, Adam and Eve, as the first man and woman, and places them in the Garden of Eden.


title: Book of Genesis

text: In the third chapter, God instructs them not to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. They promise not to, but a talking serpent, portrayed as a deceptive creature or trickster, convinces Eve to eat the fruit against God's wishes, and she convinces Adam, whereupon God throws them out and curses both of them—Adam was cursed with getting what he needs only by sweat and work, and Eve to giving birth in pain. This is interpreted by Christians as the "fall of man" into sin. Eve bears two sons, Cain and Abel. Cain works in the garden, and Abel works with meat; they both offer offerings to God one day, and Cain kills Abel after God liked Abel's offering more than Cain's. God then curses Cain. Eve bears another son, Seth, to take Abel's place.


title: Book of Genesis

text: After many generations of Adam have passed from the lines of Cain and Seth, the world becomes corrupted by human sin and Nephilim, and God wants to wipe out humanity for their wickedness. However, Noah is the only good human; so first, he instructs the righteous Noah and his family to build an ark and put examples of all the animals on it, seven pairs of every clean animal and one pair of every unclean. Then God sends a great flood to wipe out the rest of the world. When the waters recede, God promises he will never destroy the world with water again, making a rainbow as a symbol of his promise. God sees mankind cooperating to build a great tower city, the Tower of Babel, and divides humanity with many languages and sets them apart with confusion. Then, a generation line from Shem to Abram is described.


title: Book of Genesis

text: Abram, a man descended from Noah, is instructed by God to travel from his home in Mesopotamia to the land of Canaan. There, God makes a promise to Abram, promising that his descendants shall be as numerous as the stars, but that people will suffer oppression in a foreign land for four hundred years, after which they will inherit the land "from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates". Abram's name is changed to 'Abraham' and that of his wife Sarai to Sarah (meaning "princess"), and God says that all males should be circumcised as a sign of his promise to Abraham. Due to her old age, Sarah tells Abraham to take her Egyptian handmaiden, Hagar, as a second wife (to bear a child). Through Hagar, Abraham fathers Ishmael.


title: Book of Genesis

text: God then plans to destroy the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah for the sins of their people. Abraham protests but fails to get God to agree not to destroy the cities (his reasoning being that everybody there is evil, except for Abraham's nephew Lot). Angels save Abraham's nephew Lot (who was living there at the same time) and his family, but his wife looks back on the destruction, (even though God commanded not to) and turns into a pillar of salt for going against his word. Lot's daughters, concerned that they are fugitives who will never find husbands, get Lot drunk so they can become pregnant by him, and give birth to the ancestors of the Moabites and Ammonites.


title: Book of Genesis

text: Abraham and Sarah go to the Philistine town of Gerar, pretending to be brother and sister (they are half-siblings). The King of Gerar takes Sarah for his wife, but God warns him to return her (as she is really Abraham's wife) and he obeys. God sends Sarah a son and tells her she should name him Isaac; through him will be the establishment of the covenant (promise). Sarah then drives Ishmael and his mother Hagar out into the wilderness (because Ishmael is not her real son and Hagar is a slave), but God saves them and promises to make Ishmael a great nation.


title: Book of Genesis

text: Then, God tests Abraham by demanding that he sacrifice Isaac. As Abraham is about to lay the knife upon his son, God restrains him, promising him again innumerable descendants. On the death of Sarah, Abraham purchases Machpelah (believed to be modern Hebron) for a family tomb and sends his servant to Mesopotamia to find among his relations a wife for Isaac; after proving herself worthy, Rebekah becomes Isaac's betrothed. Keturah, Abraham's other wife, births more children, among whose descendants are the Midianites. Abraham dies at a prosperous old age and his family lays him to rest in Hebron (Machpelah).


title: Book of Genesis

text: Isaac's wife Rebekah gives birth to the twins Esau (meaning "velvet"), father of the Edomites, and Jacob (meaning "supplanter" or "follower"). Esau was a couple of seconds older as he had come out of the womb first, and was going to become the heir; however, through carelessness, he sold his birthright to Jacob for a bowl of stew. His mother, Rebekah, ensures Jacob rightly gains his father's blessing as the firstborn son and inheritor. At 77 years of age, Jacob leaves his parents and later seeks a wife and meets Rachel at a well. He goes to her father, his uncle, where he works for a total of 14 years to earn his wives, Rachel and Leah. Jacob's name is changed to 'Israel', and by his wives and their handmaidens he has twelve sons, the ancestors of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel, and a daughter, Dinah.


title: Book of Genesis

text: Joseph, Jacob's favourite son of the twelve, makes his brothers jealous (especially because of special gifts Jacob gave him) and because of that jealousy they sell Joseph into slavery in Egypt. Joseph endures many trials including being innocently sentenced to jail but he stays faithful to God. After several years, he prospers there after the pharaoh of Egypt asks him to interpret a dream he had about an upcoming famine, which Joseph does through God. He is then made second in command of Egypt by the grateful pharaoh, and later on, he is reunited with his father and brothers, who fail to recognize him and plead for food. After much manipulation to see if they still hate him, Joseph reveals himself, forgives them for their actions, and lets them and their households into Egypt, where Pharaoh assigns to them the land of Goshen. Jacob calls his sons to his bedside and reveals their future before he dies. Joseph lives to old age and tells his brothers that if God leads them out of the country, then they should take his bones with them.


title: Book of Genesis

text: In 1978, David Clines published "The Theme of the Pentateuch". Considered influential as one of the first authors to take up the question of the overarching theme of the Pentateuch, Clines' conclusion was that the overall theme is "the partial fulfilment—which implies also the partial nonfulfillment—of the promise to or blessing of the Patriarchs". (By calling the fulfilment "partial", Clines was drawing attention to the fact that at the end of Deuteronomy the people of Israel are still outside Canaan.)


title: Book of Genesis

text: The patriarchs, or ancestors, are Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, with their wives (Joseph is normally excluded). Since the name YHWH had not been revealed to them, they worshipped El in his various manifestations. (It is, however, worth noting that in the Jahwist source, the patriarchs refer to deity by the name YHWH, for example in Genesis 15.) Through the patriarchs, God announces the election of Israel, that is, he chooses Israel to be his special people and commits himself to their future. God tells the patriarchs that he will be faithful to their descendants (i.e. to Israel), and Israel is expected to have faith in God and his promise. ("Faith" in the context of Genesis and the Hebrew Bible means an agreement to the promissory relationship, not a body of a belief.)


title: Book of Genesis

text: The promise itself has three parts: offspring, blessings, and land. The fulfilment of the promise to each patriarch depends on having a male heir, and the story is constantly complicated by the fact that each prospective mother—Sarah, Rebekah and Rachel—is barren. The ancestors, however, retain their faith in God and God in each case gives a son—in Jacob's case, twelve sons, the foundation of the chosen Israelites. Each succeeding generation of the three promises attains a more rich fulfilment, until through Joseph "all the world" attains salvation from famine, and by bringing the children of Israel down to Egypt he becomes the means through which the promise can be fulfilled.


title: Book of Genesis

text: Scholars generally agree that the theme of divine promise unites the patriarchal cycles, but many would dispute the efficacy of trying to examine Genesis' theology by pursuing a single overarching theme, instead citing as more productive the analysis of the Abraham cycle, the Jacob cycle, and the Joseph cycle, and the Yahwist and Priestly sources. The problem lies in finding a way to unite the patriarchal theme of the divine promise to the stories of Genesis 1–11 (the primeval history) with their theme of God's forgiveness in the face of man's evil nature. One solution is to see the patriarchal stories as resulting from God's decision not to remain alienated from mankind: God creates the world and mankind, mankind rebels, and God "elects" (chooses) Abraham.


title: Book of Genesis

text: To this basic plot (which comes from the Yahwist), the Priestly source has added a series of covenants dividing history into stages, each with its own distinctive "sign". The first covenant is between God and all living creatures, and is marked by the sign of the rainbow; the second is with the descendants of Abraham (Ishmaelites and others as well as Israelites), and its sign is circumcision; and the last, which does not appear until the Book of Exodus, is with Israel alone, and its sign is Sabbath. A great leader mediates each covenant (Noah, Abraham, Moses), and at each stage God progressively reveals himself by his name (Elohim with Noah, El Shaddai with Abraham, Yahweh with Moses).


title: Book of Genesis

text: It is a custom among religious Jewish communities for a weekly Torah portion, popularly referred to as a , to be read during Jewish prayer services on Saturdays, Mondays and Thursdays. The full name, , is popularly abbreviated to (also or ), and is also known as a (or ).


title: Book of Genesis

text: The is a section of the Torah (Five Books of Moses) used in Jewish liturgy during a particular week. There are 54 weekly parshas, or in Hebrew, and the full cycle is read over the course of one Jewish year.


title: Corpse Bride

text: Corpse Bride (also known as Tim Burton's Corpse Bride) is a 2005 stop-motion animated musical dark fantasy film directed by Mike Johnson and Tim Burton with a screenplay by John August, Caroline Thompson and Pamela Pettler based on characters created by Burton and Carlos Grangel. The plot is set in a fictional Victorian era village in England. Johnny Depp leads the cast as the voice of Victor, while Helena Bonham Carter voices Emily, the titular bride. An international co-production between the United States and United Kingdom and produced by Tim Burton Productions, Laika and Patalex II Productions, "Corpse Bride" is the third stop-motion feature film produced by Burton and the first directed by him (the previous two films, "The Nightmare Before Christmas" (1993) and "James and the Giant Peach" (1996), were directed by Henry Selick). This is also the first stop-motion feature from Burton that was distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures. It was dedicated to executive producer Joe Ranft, who died in a car crash during production.


title: Corpse Bride

text: "Corpse Bride" is based on a 17th-century Jewish folktale, which Ranft introduced to Burton while they were finishing "The Nightmare Before Christmas". Work on the film started in November 2003 when Burton was completing "Big Fish" (2003). He continued with production on his next live-action feature, "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory", which was produced simultaneously with the film. Production of the stop-motion animation feature took place at 3 Mills Studios in East London. It was shot with Canon EOS-1D Mark II digital SLRs, rather than the 35 mm film cameras used for Burton's previous stop-motion film "The Nightmare Before Christmas". Burton continued immediately brought regular collaborators Depp and Danny Elfman aboard.


title: Corpse Bride

text: "Corpse Bride" premiered at the Venice International Film Festival on September 7, 2005, and was released on September 23, 2005, in the United States and on October 13, 2005, in the United Kingdom. It became a critical and commercial success, grossing $118.1 million worldwide against its $40 million budget and received praise for its animation, characters, songs, and humor. The film won the National Board of Review for Best Animated Feature, and was nominated for the 78th Academy Awards for Best Animated Feature, but lost to "", which also starred Bonham Carter. The film won the Annie Awards Ub Iwerks Award for Technical Achievement in 2006, where it was also nominated for Best Animated Feature, Best Character Design, and Best Direction.


title: Corpse Bride

text: In an unnamed Victorian era town, Victor Van Dort, the son of nouveau riche fish merchants, and Victoria Everglot, the neglected daughter of impoverished aristocrats, prepare for their arranged marriage, which will simultaneously raise the social class of Victor's parents and restore the wealth of Victoria's family ("According to Plan"). Although they fall in love instantly, the nervous Victor ruins their wedding rehearsal by forgetting his vows and accidentally setting Lady Everglot's dress on fire. Fleeing to a nearby forest, he successfully rehearses his vows with a tree and places his wedding ring on an upturned root. However, the root is revealed to be the finger of a dead girl named Emily, who rises from the grave, proclaims herself as Victor's new wife, and spirits him away to the Land of the Dead.


title: Corpse Bride

text: During his time with Emily, Victor learns that she was murdered years ago on the night of her elopement by her fiancé, who stole the family jewels and gold she had brought ("Remains of the Day"). Emily reunites Victor with his long-dead dog, Scraps, and they bond. Desperate to return to Victoria, however, Victor tricks Emily into returning them to the Land of the Living by claiming he wants her to meet his parents. Emily brings Victor to see Elder Gutknecht, the kindly ruler of the underworld, who grants them temporary passage. Victor reunites with Victoria and confesses his wish to marry her as soon as possible. Before the pair can share a kiss, Emily discovers them and, feeling betrayed and hurt, drags Victor back to the Land of the Dead ("Tears to Shed"). Victoria tries to tell her parents of Victor's situation, but nobody believes her and they assume he has left her and she is going mad. Against her will, Victoria's parents decide to marry her to Lord Barkis Bittern, a presumed-wealthy visitor who appeared at the wedding rehearsal.


title: Corpse Bride

text: After reconciling with Emily, Victor learns of Victoria's impending marriage to Barkis from his family's newly deceased coachman. Upset over this news, Victor decides to marry Emily properly, learning that this will require him to repeat his wedding vows with her in the Land of the Living and drink the Wine of Ages, a poison, in order to join Emily in death. The dead swiftly prepare for the ceremony and head "upstairs" ("The Wedding Song"), where the town erupts into a temporary panic upon their arrival until the living recognize their departed loved ones and joyously reunite with them. The chaos causes a panicked Barkis to expose his own poor financial standing and his intentions to marry Victoria only for her supposed wealth, leading her to reject him.


title: Corpse Bride

text: Victoria witnesses Victor and Emily's wedding as Victor completes his vows and prepares to drink the poison, only for Emily to stop him when she realizes she is denying Victoria her chance to live happily with him. Just as Emily reunites Victor and Victoria, Barkis arrives to kidnap Victoria; Emily recognizes Barkis as both her previous fiancé and murderer. Victor duels with Barkis to protect Victoria, and Emily intervenes to save Victor's life. Accepting defeat, Barkis mockingly toasts Emily for dying unwed and unwittingly drinks the poison, causing him to die and allowing the dead – who cannot interfere in the affairs of the living – to take retribution against him for his crimes. Emily, now freed from her torment, releases Victor of his vow to marry her and returns his ring, allowing him to marry Victoria. As she steps into the moonlight, she transforms into a swarm of butterflies that fly into the sky as Victor and Victoria watch and embrace.


title: Corpse Bride

text: The film is based on a 17th-century Jewish folktale, which Joe Ranft introduced to Burton while they were finishing "The Nightmare Before Christmas". The film began production in November 2003, while Burton was completing "Big Fish". He continued with production on his next live-action feature, "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory", which was produced simultaneously with the film. Co-director Mike Johnson spoke about how they took a more organic approach to directing the film, saying: "In a co-directing situation, one director usually handles one sequence while the other handles another. Our approach was more organic. Tim knew where he wanted the film to go as far as the emotional tone and story points to hit. My job was to work with the crew on a daily basis and get the footage as close as possible to how I thought he wanted it."