title: Bespoke

text: "Newsweek" described the word as "monstrously distorted, abused and otherwise mangled into near meaninglessness", saying that anything can now be labeled "bespoke". The same "Newsweek" writer used the word as a verb to describe ordering a custom-made pair of glasses ("bespeaking a pair of spectacles"). One French bespoke shirtmaker was said to offer 400 shades of white, to satisfy vendor-customer relationships and desire for custom-made items. "The New York Times" devoted an article to bespoke cocktails, which they described as "something devised on the spot to a customer's precise and sometimes peculiar specifications". In another article, "The New York Times" described bespoke perfumes' taking the "world of personalization to an entirely new level".


title: Bespoke

text: A 2016 "The New York Times" article describes a satirical video about bespoke water and observed:"The B word has become an increasingly common branding lure employed by interior design companies, publishers, surgeons and pornographers. There are bespoke wines, bespoke software, bespoke vacations, bespoke barber shops, bespoke insurance plans, bespoke yoga, bespoke tattoos, even bespoke medical implants."


title: Bespoke

text: The UK Savile Row Bespoke Association has requirements for a garment to use the term "bespoke", but those requirements are not followed by some manufacturers. In 2008, the British Advertising Standards Agency allowed a company, Sartoriani, to use "bespoke" to describe its suits, causing a controversy with the Savile Row tailors who use the word to describe custom handmade suits.


title: Elizabeth Barrett Browning

text: Elizabeth Barrett Browning (née Moulton-Barrett; 6 March 1806 – 29 June 1861) was an English poet of the Victorian era, popular in Britain and the United States during her lifetime.


title: Elizabeth Barrett Browning

text: Born in County Durham, the eldest of 12 children, Elizabeth Barrett wrote poetry from the age of eleven. Her mother's collection of her poems forms one of the largest extant collections of juvenilia by any English writer. At 15, she became ill, suffering intense head and spinal pain for the rest of her life. Later in life, she also developed lung problems, possibly tuberculosis. She took laudanum for the pain from an early age, which is likely to have contributed to her frail health.


title: Elizabeth Barrett Browning

text: In the 1840s, Elizabeth was introduced to literary society through her distant cousin and patron John Kenyon. Her first adult collection of poems was published in 1838, and she wrote prolifically between 1841 and 1844, producing poetry, translation, and prose. She campaigned for the abolition of slavery, and her work helped influence reform in the child labour legislation. Her prolific output made her a rival to Tennyson as a candidate for poet laureate on the death of Wordsworth.


title: Elizabeth Barrett Browning

text: Elizabeth's volume "Poems" (1844) brought her great success, attracting the admiration of the writer Robert Browning. Their correspondence, courtship, and marriage were carried out in secret, for fear of her father's disapproval. Following the wedding, she was indeed disinherited by her father. In 1846, the couple moved to Italy, where she would live for the rest of her life. They had a son, known as "Pen" (Robert Wiedeman Barrett Browning) (1849–1912). Pen devoted himself to painting until his eyesight began to fail later in life; he also built up a large collection of manuscripts and memorabilia of his parents; however, since he died intestate, it was sold by public auction to various bidders, and scattered upon his death. The Armstrong Browning Library has tried to recover some of his collection, and now houses the world's largest collection of Browning memorabilia. Elizabeth died in Florence in 1861. A collection of her last poems was published by her husband shortly after her death.


title: Elizabeth Barrett Browning

text: Elizabeth's work had a major influence on prominent writers of the day, including the American poets Edgar Allan Poe and Emily Dickinson. She is remembered for such poems as "How Do I Love Thee?" (Sonnet 43, 1845) and "Aurora Leigh "(1856).


title: Elizabeth Barrett Browning

text: Some of Elizabeth Barrett's family had lived in Jamaica since 1655. Their wealth derived mainly from exploiting and extracting labour from slaves on their plantations in the Caribbean. Edward Barrett (1734–1798) was owner of in the estates of Cinnamon Hill, Cornwall, Cambridge, and Oxford in northern Jamaica. Elizabeth's maternal grandfather owned sugar plantations farmed by slaves they bought from Africa, mills, glassworks, and ships that traded between Jamaica and Newcastle in the United Kingdom.


title: Elizabeth Barrett Browning

text: The family wished to hand down their name, stipulating that Barrett should always be held as a surname. In some cases inheritance was given on condition that the name was used by the beneficiary; the English gentry and "squirearchy" had long encouraged this sort of name changing. Given this strong tradition, Elizabeth used "Elizabeth Barrett Moulton Barrett" on legal documents, and before she was married often signed herself "Elizabeth Barrett Barrett" or "EBB" (initials which she was able to keep after her wedding). Elizabeth's father chose to raise his family in England, while his business enterprises remained in Jamaica. Elizabeth's mother, Mary Graham Clarke, also owned several plantations also farmed by slaves in the British West Indies. The families built their wealth off buying and selling African people as slaves and using their free labour to build their massive fortunes.


title: Elizabeth Barrett Browning

text: Elizabeth Barrett Moulton-Barrett was born on (it is supposed) 6 March 1806, in Coxhoe Hall, between the villages of Coxhoe and Kelloe in County Durham, England. Her parents were Edward Barrett Moulton-Barrett and Mary Graham Clarke. However, it has been suggested that, when she was christened on 9 March, she was already three or four months old, and that this was concealed because her parents had married only on 14 May 1805. Although she had already been baptised by a family friend in that first week of her life, she was baptised again, more publicly, on 10 February 1808 at Kelloe parish church, at the same time as her younger brother, Edward (known as "Bro"). He had been born in June 1807, only fifteen months after Elizabeth's stated date of birth. A private christening might seem unlikely for a family of standing and, while Bro's birth was celebrated with a holiday on the family's Caribbean plantations, Elizabeth's was not.


title: Elizabeth Barrett Browning

text: Elizabeth was the eldest of 12 children (eight boys and four girls). Eleven lived to adulthood; one daughter died at the age of three, when Elizabeth was eight. The children all had nicknames: Elizabeth was "Ba". She rode her pony, went for family walks and picnics, socialised with other county families, and participated in home theatrical productions. But unlike her siblings, she immersed herself in books as often as she could get away from the social rituals of her family.


title: Elizabeth Barrett Browning

text: In 1809, the family moved to Hope End, a estate near the Malvern Hills in Ledbury, Herefordshire. Her father converted the Georgian house into stables and built a new mansion of opulent Turkish design, which his wife described as something from the "Arabian Nights Entertainments".


title: Elizabeth Barrett Browning

text: The interior's brass balustrades, mahogany doors inlaid with mother-of-pearl, and finely carved fireplaces were eventually complemented by lavish landscaping: ponds, grottos, kiosks, an ice house, a hothouse, and a subterranean passage from house to gardens. Her time at Hope End would inspire her in later life to write her most ambitious work, "Aurora Leigh" (1856), which went through more than 20 editions by 1900, but none between 1905 and 1978.


title: Elizabeth Barrett Browning

text: She was educated at home and tutored by Daniel McSwiney with her oldest brother. She began writing verses at the age of four. During the Hope End period, she was an intensely studious, precocious child. She claimed that at the age of six, she was reading novels, at eight entranced by Pope's translations of Homer, studying Greek at ten, and at eleven, writing her own Homeric epic, "".


title: Elizabeth Barrett Browning

text: In 1820, Mr Barrett privately published "The Battle of Marathon", an epic-style poem, though all copies remained within the family. Her mother compiled the child's poetry into collections of "Poems by Elizabeth B. Barrett". Her father called her the "Poet Laureate of Hope End" and encouraged her work. The result is one of the largest collections of juvenilia of any English writer. Mary Russell Mitford described the young Elizabeth at this time, as having "a slight, delicate figure, with a shower of dark curls falling on each side of a most expressive face; large, tender eyes, richly fringed by dark eyelashes, and a smile like a sunbeam."


title: Elizabeth Barrett Browning

text: At about this time, Elizabeth began to battle with illness, which the medical science of the time was unable to diagnose. All three sisters came down with the syndrome although it lasted only with Elizabeth. She had intense head and spinal pain with loss of mobility. Various biographies link this to a riding accident at the time (she fell while trying to dismount a horse), but there is no evidence to support the link. Sent to recover at the Gloucester spa, she was treated – in the absence of symptoms supporting another diagnosis – for a spinal problem. Though this illness continued for the rest of her life, it is believed to be unrelated to the lung disease which she developed in 1837.


title: Elizabeth Barrett Browning

text: She began to take opiates for the pain, laudanum (an opium concoction) followed by morphine, then commonly prescribed. She would become dependent on them for much of her adulthood; the use from an early age may well have contributed to her frail health. Biographers such as Alethea Hayter have suggested this may also have contributed to the wild vividness of her imagination and the poetry that it produced.


title: Elizabeth Barrett Browning

text: By 1821, she had read Mary Wollstonecraft's "A Vindication of the Rights of Woman" (1792), and become a passionate supporter of Wollstonecraft's ideas. The child's intellectual fascination with the classics and metaphysics was reflected in a religious intensity which she later described as "not the deep persuasion of the mild Christian but the wild visions of an enthusiast." The Barretts attended services at the nearest Dissenting chapel, and Edward was active in Bible and missionary societies.


title: Elizabeth Barrett Browning

text: Elizabeth's mother died in 1828, and is buried at St Michael's Church, Ledbury, next to her daughter Mary. Sarah Graham-Clarke, Elizabeth's aunt, helped to care for the children, and she had clashes with Elizabeth's strong will. In 1831, Elizabeth's grandmother, Elizabeth Moulton, died. Following lawsuits and the abolition of slavery, Mr Barrett incurred great financial and investment losses that forced him to sell Hope End. Although the family was never poor, the place was seized, and put up for sale to satisfy creditors. Always secret in his financial dealings, he would not discuss his situation and the family was haunted by the idea that they might have to move to Jamaica.


title: Elizabeth Barrett Browning

text: Between 1833 and 1835, she was living with her family at Belle Vue in Sidmouth. The site has now been renamed Cedar Shade and redeveloped. A blue plaque at the entrance to the site attests to this. In 1838, some years after the sale of Hope End, the family settled at 50 Wimpole Street.


title: Elizabeth Barrett Browning

text: During 1837–38, the poet was struck with illness again, with symptoms today suggesting tuberculous ulceration of the lungs. That same year, at her physician's insistence, she moved from London to Torquay, on the Devonshire coast. Her former home now forms part of the Regina Hotel. Two tragedies then struck. In February 1840, her brother Samuel died of a fever in Jamaica. Then her favourite brother Edward ("Bro") was drowned in a sailing accident in Torquay in July. This had a serious effect on her already fragile health. She felt guilty as her father had disapproved of Edward's trip to Torquay. She wrote to Mitford, "That was a very near escape from madness, absolute hopeless madness". The family returned to Wimpole Street in 1841.


title: Elizabeth Barrett Browning

text: At Wimpole Street, Elizabeth spent most of her time in her upstairs room. Her health began to improve, though she saw few people other than her immediate family. One of those was John Kenyon, a wealthy friend and distant cousin of the family and patron of the arts. She received comfort from a spaniel named Flush, a gift from Mary Mitford. (Virginia Woolf later fictionalised the life of the dog, making him the protagonist of her 1933 novel "").


title: Elizabeth Barrett Browning

text: Between 1841 and 1844, Elizabeth was prolific in poetry, translation, and prose. The poem "The Cry of the Children", published in 1842 in "Blackwood's", condemned child labour and helped bring about child-labour reforms by raising support for Lord Shaftesbury's Ten Hours Bill (1844). At about the same time, she contributed critical prose pieces to Richard Henry Horne's "A New Spirit of the Age", including a laudatory essay on Thomas Carlyle.


title: Elizabeth Barrett Browning

text: In 1844, she published the two-volume "Poems", which included "A Drama of Exile", "A Vision of Poets", and "Lady Geraldine's Courtship", and two substantial critical essays for 1842 issues of "The Athenaeum". A self-proclaimed "adorer of Carlyle", she sent a copy to him as "a tribute of admiration & respect", which began a correspondence between them. "Since she was not burdened with any domestic duties expected of her sisters, Barrett Browning could now devote herself entirely to the life of the mind, cultivating an enormous correspondence, reading widely". Her prolific output made her a rival to Tennyson as a candidate for poet laureate in 1850 on the death of Wordsworth.


title: Elizabeth Barrett Browning

text: Her 1844 volume "Poems" made her one of the most popular writers in the country, and inspired Robert Browning to write to her. He wrote, "I love your verses with all my heart, dear Miss Barrett," praising their "fresh strange music, the affluent language, the exquisite pathos and true new brave thought."


title: Elizabeth Barrett Browning

text: Kenyon arranged for Browning to meet Elizabeth on 20 May 1845, in her rooms, and so began one of the most famous courtships in literature. Elizabeth had already produced a large amount of work, but Browning had a great influence on her subsequent writing, as did she on his: two of Barrett's most famous pieces were written after she met Browning, "Sonnets from the Portuguese" and "Aurora Leigh". Robert's "Men and Women" is also a product of that time.


title: Elizabeth Barrett Browning

text: Some critics state that her activity was, in some ways, in decay before she met Browning: "Until her relationship with Robert Browning began in 1845, Barrett's willingness to engage in public discourse about social issues and about aesthetic issues in poetry, which had been so strong in her youth, gradually diminished, as did her physical health. As an intellectual presence and a physical being, she was becoming a shadow of herself."


title: Elizabeth Barrett Browning

text: The courtship and marriage between Robert Browning and Elizabeth were carried out secretly, as she knew her father would disapprove. After a private marriage at St Marylebone Parish Church, they honeymooned in Paris before moving, in September 1846, to Italy, which became their home almost continuously until her death. Elizabeth's loyal lady's maid, Elizabeth Wilson, witnessed the marriage and accompanied the couple to Italy.


title: Elizabeth Barrett Browning

text: Mr Barrett disinherited Elizabeth, as he did each of his children who married. Elizabeth had foreseen her father's anger but had not anticipated her brothers' rejection. As Elizabeth had some money of her own, the couple were reasonably comfortable in Italy. The Brownings were well respected, and even famous. Elizabeth grew stronger and in 1849, at the age of 43, between four miscarriages, she gave birth to a son, Robert Wiedeman Barrett Browning, whom they called Pen. Their son later married, but had no legitimate children.


title: Elizabeth Barrett Browning

text: At her husband's insistence, Elizabeth's second edition of "Poems" included her love sonnets; as a result, her popularity increased (as did critical regard), and her artistic position was confirmed.


title: Elizabeth Barrett Browning

text: The couple came to know a wide circle of artists and writers including William Makepeace Thackeray, sculptor Harriet Hosmer (who, she wrote, seemed to be the "perfectly emancipated female") and Harriet Beecher Stowe. In 1849, she met Margaret Fuller; Carlyle, in 1851; in 1852, French novelist George Sand, whom she had long admired. Among her intimate friends in Florence was the writer Isa Blagden, whom she encouraged to write novels. They met Alfred Tennyson in Paris, and John Forster, Samuel Rogers and the Carlyles in London, later befriending Charles Kingsley and John Ruskin.


title: Elizabeth Barrett Browning

text: After the death of an old friend, G. B. Hunter, and then of her father, Barrett Browning's health started to deteriorate. The Brownings moved from Florence to Siena, residing at the "Villa Alberti". Engrossed in Italian politics, she issued a small volume of political poems titled "Poems before Congress" (1860) "most of which were written to express her sympathy with the Italian cause after the outbreak of fighting in 1859". They caused a furore in England, and the conservative magazines "Blackwood's" and the "Saturday Review" labelled her a fanatic. She dedicated this book to her husband. Her last work was "A Musical Instrument", published posthumously.


title: Elizabeth Barrett Browning

text: Barrett Browning's sister Henrietta died in November 1860. The couple spent the winter of 1860–61 in Rome where Barrett Browning's health further deteriorated and they returned to Florence in early June 1861. She became gradually weaker, using morphine to ease her pain. She died on 29 June 1861 in her husband's arms. Browning said that she died "smilingly, happily, and with a face like a girl's... Her last word was... 'Beautiful' ". She was buried in the Protestant English Cemetery of Florence. "On Monday July 1 the shops in the area around Casa Guidi were closed, while Elizabeth was mourned with unusual demonstrations." The nature of her illness is still unclear. Some modern scientists speculate her illness may have been hypokalemic periodic paralysis, a genetic disorder that causes weakness and many of the other symptoms she described.


title: Elizabeth Barrett Browning

text: Barrett Browning's first known poem was written at the age of six or eight, "On the Cruelty of Forcement to Man". The manuscript, which protests against impressment, is currently in the Berg Collection of the New York Public Library; the exact date is controversial because the "2" in the date 1812 is written over something else that is scratched out.


title: Elizabeth Barrett Browning

text: Her first independent publication was "Stanzas Excited by Reflections on the Present State of Greece" in "The New Monthly Magazine" of May 1821; followed two months later by "Thoughts Awakened by Contemplating a Piece of the Palm which Grows on the Summit of the Acropolis at Athens".


title: Elizabeth Barrett Browning

text: Her first collection of poems, "An Essay on Mind, with Other Poems," was published in 1826 and reflected her passion for Byron and Greek politics. Its publication drew the attention of a blind scholar of the Greek language, Hugh Stuart Boyd, and of another Greek scholar, Uvedale Price, with whom she maintained sustained correspondence. Among other neighbours was Mrs James Martin from Colwall, with whom she also corresponded throughout her life. Later, at Boyd's suggestion, she translated Aeschylus' "Prometheus Bound" (published in 1833; retranslated in 1850). During their friendship Barrett studied Greek literature, including Homer, Pindar and Aristophanes.


title: Elizabeth Barrett Browning

text: Elizabeth opposed slavery and published two poems highlighting the barbarity of the institution and her support for the abolitionist cause: "The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim's Point" and "A Curse for a Nation". The first depicts an enslaved woman whipped, raped, and made pregnant cursing her enslavers. Elizabeth declared herself glad that the slaves were "virtually free" when the Slavery Abolition Act passed in the British Parliament, despite the fact that her father believed that abolition would ruin his business.


title: Elizabeth Barrett Browning

text: The date of publication of these poems is in dispute, but her position on slavery in the poems is clear and may have led to a rift between Elizabeth and her father. She wrote to John Ruskin in 1855 "I belong to a family of West Indian slaveholders, and if I believed in curses, I should be afraid". Her father and uncle were unaffected by the Baptist War (1831–1832) and continued to own slaves until passage of the Slavery Abolition Act.


title: Elizabeth Barrett Browning

text: In London, John Kenyon introduced Elizabeth to literary figures including William Wordsworth, Mary Russell Mitford, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Alfred Tennyson and Thomas Carlyle. Elizabeth continued to write, contributing "The Romaunt of Margaret", "The Romaunt of the Page", "The Poet's Vow" and other pieces to various periodicals. She corresponded with other writers, including Mary Russell Mitford, who would become a close friend and who would support Elizabeth's literary ambitions.


title: Elizabeth Barrett Browning

text: In 1838 "The Seraphim and Other Poems" appeared, the first volume of Elizabeth's mature poetry to appear under her own name.


title: Elizabeth Barrett Browning

text: "Sonnets from the Portuguese" was published in 1850. There is debate about the origin of the title. Some say it refers to the series of sonnets of the 16th-century Portuguese poet Luís de Camões. However, "my little Portuguese" was a pet name that Browning had adopted for Elizabeth and this may have some connection.


title: Elizabeth Barrett Browning

text: The verse-novel "Aurora Leigh," her most ambitious and perhaps the most popular of her longer poems, appeared in 1856. It is the story of a female writer making her way in life, balancing work and love, and based on Elizabeth's own experiences. "Aurora Leigh" was an important influence on Susan B. Anthony's thinking about the traditional roles of women, with regard to marriage versus independent individuality. The "North American Review" praised Elizabeth's poem: "Mrs. Browning's poems are, in all respects, the utterance of a woman — of a woman of great learning, rich experience, and powerful genius, uniting to her woman's nature the strength which is sometimes thought peculiar to a man."


title: Elizabeth Barrett Browning

text: Much of Barrett Browning's work carries a religious theme. She had read and studied such works as Milton's "Paradise Lost" and Dante's "Inferno". She says in her writing, "We want the sense of the saturation of Christ's blood upon the souls of our poets, that it may cry through them in answer to the ceaseless wail of the Sphinx of our humanity, expounding agony into renovation. Something of this has been perceived in art when its glory was at the fullest. Something of a yearning after this may be seen among the Greek Christian poets, something which would have been much with a stronger faculty". She believed that "Christ's religion is essentially poetry – poetry glorified". She explored the religious aspect in many of her poems, especially in her early work, such as the sonnets.


title: Elizabeth Barrett Browning

text: She was interested in theological debate, had learned Hebrew and read the Hebrew Bible. Her seminal "Aurora Leigh", for example, features religious imagery and allusion to the apocalypse. The critic Cynthia Scheinberg notes that female characters in "Aurora Leigh" and her earlier work "The Virgin Mary to the Child Jesus" allude to Miriam, sister and caregiver to Moses. These allusions to Miriam in both poems mirror the way in which Barrett Browning herself drew from Jewish history, while distancing herself from it, in order to maintain the cultural norms of a Christian woman poet of the Victorian Age.


title: Elizabeth Barrett Browning

text: In the correspondence Barrett Browning kept with the Reverend William Merry from 1843 to 1844 on predestination and salvation by works, she identifies herself as a Congregationalist: "I am not a Baptist — but a Congregational Christian, — in the holding of my private opinions."


title: Elizabeth Barrett Browning

text: In 1892, Ledbury, Herefordshire, held a design competition to build an Institute in honour of Barrett Browning. Brightwen Binyon beat 44 other designs. It was based on the timber-framed Market House, which was opposite the site, and was completed in 1896. However, Nikolaus Pevsner was not impressed by its style. It was used as a public library from 1938, until new library facilities were provided for the town, and is now the headquarters of the Ledbury Poetry Festival. It has been Grade II-listed since 2007.


title: Elizabeth Barrett Browning

text: Barrett Browning was widely popular in the United Kingdom and the United States during her lifetime. Edgar Allan Poe was inspired by her poem "Lady Geraldine's Courtship" and specifically borrowed the poem's metre for his poem "The Raven". Poe had reviewed Barrett Browning's work in the January 1845 issue of the "Broadway Journal", saying that "her poetic inspiration is the highest – we can conceive of nothing more august. Her sense of Art is pure in itself." In return, she praised "The Raven", and Poe dedicated his 1845 collection "The Raven and Other Poems" to her, referring to her as "the noblest of her sex".


title: Elizabeth Barrett Browning

text: Barrett Browning's poetry greatly influenced Emily Dickinson, who admired her as a woman of achievement. Her popularity in the United States and Britain was further advanced by her stands against social injustice, including slavery in the United States, injustice toward Italians from their foreign rulers, and child labour.


title: Elizabeth Barrett Browning

text: Lilian Whiting published a biography of Barrett Browning (1899) which describes her as "the most philosophical poet" and depicts her life as "a Gospel of applied Christianity". To Whiting, the term "art for art's sake" did not apply to Barrett Browning's work, as each poem, distinctively purposeful, was borne of a more "honest vision". In this critical analysis, Whiting portrays Barrett Browning as a poet who uses knowledge of Classical literature with an "intuitive gift of spiritual divination". In "Elizabeth Barrett Browning", Angela Leighton suggests that the portrayal of Barrett Browning as the "pious iconography of womanhood" has distracted us from her poetic achievements. Leighton cites the 1931 play by Rudolf Besier "The Barretts of Wimpole Street" as evidence that 20th-century literary criticism of Barrett Browning's work has suffered more as a result of her popularity than poetic ineptitude. The play was popularized by actress Katharine Cornell, for whom it became a signature role. It was an enormous success, both artistically and commercially, and was revived several times and adapted twice into movies. Sampson, however, considers the play to have been the most damaging cause of false myths about Elizabeth, and particularly the relationship with her, allegedly 'tyrannical', father.


title: Elizabeth Barrett Browning

text: Throughout the 20th century, literary criticism of Barrett Browning's poetry remained sparse until her poems were discovered by the women's movement. She once described herself as being inclined to reject several women's rights principles, suggesting in letters to Mary Russell Mitford and her husband that she believed that there was an inferiority of intellect in women. In "Aurora Leigh", however, she created a strong and independent woman who embraces both work and love. Leighton writes that because Elizabeth participates in the literary world, where voice and diction are dominated by perceived masculine superiority, she "is defined only in mysterious opposition to everything that distinguishes the male subject who writes..." A five-volume scholarly edition of her works was published in 2010, the first in over a century.


title: Mismatched

text: Mismatched is a 2020 Indian Hindi-language coming-of-age romantic drama web series on Netflix, based on Sandhya Menon's 2017 novel "When Dimple Met Rishi". It was adapted by Gazal Dhaliwal and directed by Akarsh Khurana and Nipun Dharmadhikari. It is produced by Ronnie Screwvala's RSVP Movies. Starring Prajakta Koli, Rohit Saraf, Rannvijay Singha and Vidya Malvade in prominent roles, the series is about Rishi, a die-hard romantic who believes in traditional ways of dating, who falls for Dimple, a gamer, and eventually wants to marry her.


title: Mismatched

text: Dhaliwal adapted the novel in early 2018, with the script being tweaked for the series. While the novel is set in the United States, the story was adapted to take place in Jaipur. The series features cinematography handled by Avinash Arun and Milind Jog, with editing done by Sanyukta Kaza and Namrata Rao. "Mismatched" features a soundtrack album composed by Jasleen Royal, Samar Grewal, Anurag Saikia, Prateek Kuhad, Shashwat Singh, Taaruk Raina, Deepa Unnikrishnan, Abhijay Negi and Hiphop Bhaiya, with Saikia also composing background score for the series.


title: Mismatched

text: The series premiered on 20 November 2020, through the streaming platform Netflix. It received a positive response from audiences, with critics praising the chemistry of Saraf and Koli, the performances of the cast, music and background score. However, the writing and the direction was criticized.


title: Mismatched

text: The series was renewed for a second season on 3 March 2021. Season 2 premiered on Netflix on 14th October 2022.


title: Mismatched

text: Mismatched is a rom-com based on Sandhya Menon's best selling book ‘When Dimple Met Rishi’. Dimple Ahuja (Prajakta Koli) wants to be a tech wizard and Rishi Singh Shekhawat (Rohit Saraf) is a young guy who believes in traditional way of dating: meeting in person, being drunk on love, and has come to Aravalli Institute to find his ‘Future Wife’. Dimple is driven and Rishi's bewitched, and wants to tie the knot with her.


title: Mismatched

text: In late 2018, Netflix India and Ronnie Screwvala of RSVP Movies approached screenwriter Gazal Dhaliwal to adapt Sandhya Menon's 2017 novel "When Dimple Met Rishi" for Indian audiences. The original novel is about two Indo-American teenagers, Dimple and Rishi (the titular characters), whose parents are trying to arrange their marriage. Published by Hachette Book Group, it opened to good response from readers, and became a best selling novel, according to a report from "New York Times". Netflix picked Akarsh Khurana (of "Karwaan" fame) and Nipun Avinash Dharmadhikari to direct the series.


title: Mismatched

text: Dhaliwal had already finished writing the script before Khurana was roped in to helm the series. Khurana approved of the new script as - 'it was a love-story between two real people with real issues'. He added, "Even though this was essentially a young adult romance, there was maturity in the way it was depicted. Dhaliwal, who counts "Kuch Kuch Hota Hai" as one of her guilty pleasures, was similarly drawn in by the simplicity of the high-school romance at the heart of the book, a contrast to the large-scale candyfloss high school universe depicted in Hindi films."


title: Mismatched

text: In a "Firstpost" interview, Dhaliawal stated about the casting and characters, syncing to the adaptation and the liberties while recalibrating the story to the Indian context. She added, "The story is about a setup which has gone horribly wrong. To make that happen, it was important to change the family dynamics. Akarsh and I felt very strongly about the fact that it wouldn't have been believable for Indian viewers if Rishi's parents were behind him to start looking out for girls when he's all of 18 so that he can get married in two years. So I introduced a grandmother in the mix (her character is not featured in the book), effectively using the older generation's adherence to tradition as justification for the arranged marriage setup. I also played around with Rishi's dynamics with his parents as well: In the book, Rishi's parents, who belong to a typical Gujarati family, are still together and Rishi is built to be more obedient than hopeless romantic."


title: Mismatched

text: Prajakta Koli and Rohit Saraf were cast in the series, marking the debut for the former. In an interview, Saraf stated, "The biggest selling point for him about the show was the 'romance' it has. The love, ambition, navigating through the college years of one's life and a kind of acceptance toward all that I going on in the life was something I found very relatable." Koli described her character Dimple, "She's very driven to achieve her goal; if she doesn't, her parents will get her married! Isn't that relatable to so many girls —and boys — across the country? I have so many cousins in my family who are dealing with this dilemma. That's why Dimple is so tough to crack; she doesn't let her guard down at all." Rannvijay Singha stated his character as being "cool and snarky on the outside but a softie inside, Professor Sid (himself) believes in tough love when it comes to his students". Speaking about his role, he further added that his character wants to push students out of their comfort zones so that they can each reach their highest potential.


title: Mismatched

text: While the book is set in the United States, the story was adapted to take place in Jaipur. About the setting, Khurana stated in an interview to Poulomi Das of "Firstpost", that "When I initially read Gazal's take on the book, what I loved was that she altered the context for the love story at the centre of the proceedings and introduced a host of new characters who had very distinct characteristics which made the world building so much more interesting."


title: Mismatched

text: Shooting of the series took place in November 2019, with some portions being filmed Old Royal School of Jodhpur, and majority of the scenes were filmed in Jaipur. The shooting took place for 38–39 days, with the cast members shooting for 12 hours daily. The post-production was completed in May 2020 amid the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown in India.


title: Mismatched

text: The soundtrack album for "Mismatched" was composed by an assortment of nine artists, which includes Jasleen Royal, Samar Grewal, Anurag Saikia, Prateek Kuhad, Shashwat Singh, Taaruk Raina, Deepa Unnikrishnan, Abhijay Negi and Hiphop Bhaiya. Five of them also wrote lyrics for the songs, along with Nikhita Gandhi, Raj Shekhar, Shwetang Shankar, Ritviz. Anurag Saikia also scored the background music for the series. The soundtrack album, which released on 11 November 2020, features seven tracks upon the initial release, with an eighth song "Sun Toh" unveiled on 20 November as a bonus track.


title: Mismatched

text: Reviewing the soundtrack, Devarsi Ghosh of "Scroll.in" stated, "The "Mismatched" soundtrack is a couple of soft ballads along with some wacky cross-genre stuff, that doesn't make you disappoint." Umesh Punwani of "Koimoi" stated, "The album consists of fresh, peppy songs that accompany each unique character in this series through their individual journeys. From high energy to heartwarming and even melancholic, this album is perfect for a young, experimental, music-loving audience."


title: Mismatched

text: On 16 July 2020, Netflix announced the release of seventeen Indian originals, with "Mismatched" being one of them, scheduled for a release in late 2020. On 3 November 2020, the makers unveiled the first look posters through social media platforms and the official trailer was released on 6 November 2020. Ahead of its release, the makers conducted a virtual college fest event, through YouTube, in order to promote the series. The series premiered on Netflix on 20 November 2020.


title: Mismatched

text: Poulomi Das of "Firstpost" stated, "There is a certain convenience to the storytelling... that makes teenage adolescence look like a statement, and not a stage of life." Antara Kashyap of "News18" gave two-and-a-half out of five to the series and stated, ""Mismatched" is a show which should be watched for what it is, a light teenage drama to be binged on a weekend. There isn't a lot of depth in it, but it really isn't fair to expect it from the show in the first place." Raja Sen of "Mint" reviewed "There is a fair bit that doesn't — the final episode, evidently existing only to create emotionally high-strung cliff-hangers for the next season, is a massive letdown — but, on the whole, "Mismatched" has heart." Avinash Ramachandran of "The New Indian Express" stated, "Despite the missed opportunities and pulled-back punches, Mismatched does have its moments under the Jaipur sun."


title: Mismatched

text: Pallabi Dey Purkayastha of "The Times of India", gave three out of five and stated, "The fresh pairing of Rohit Saraf and Prajakta Koli is a delight to watch on screen – the duo shares a crackling chemistry and sort of heightens the drama surrounding teenage bickering in an adorable way." Shubham Kulkarni of "Koimoi" gave the series, a rating of 3 out of 5 and stated, "If you decide to watch this, wear your nostalgia glasses. Also be ready to be impressed by the majority of the cast including Prajakta Koli, Rohit Saraf and the hidden gems Muskkaan Jaferi and Vidya Malvade. If you have nothing to relax with this weekend, go for Mismatched, but with no expectations." Sanjana Jadhav of "Pinkvilla" stated, "Mismatched on Netflix creates a young, fun and drama-filled world of college students but with prospects of marriage looming that seems to be the biggest dampener."


title: Hypermarket

text: A hypermarket (sometimes called a hyperstore, supercentre or superstore) is a big-box store combining a supermarket and a department store. The result is an expansive retail facility carrying a wide range of products under one roof, including full grocery lines and general merchandise. In theory, hypermarkets allow customers to satisfy all their routine shopping needs in one trip. The term "hypermarket" () was coined in 1968 by French trade expert Jacques Pictet.


title: Hypermarket

text: Hypermarkets, like other big-box stores, typically have business models focusing on high-volume, low-margin sales. Typically covering an area of , they generally have more than 200,000 different brands of merchandise available at any one time. Because of their large footprints, many hypermarkets choose suburban or out-of-town locations that are easily accessible by automobile.


title: Hypermarket

text: Loblaws established its Real Canadian Superstore chain in 1979. It sells mainly groceries, while also retailing clothing, electronics and housewares. Its largest competitor in Canada is Walmart. These are the two major Canadian hypermarkets.


title: Hypermarket

text: The first European hypermarket is commonly mistaken to be the Carrefour store that opened in 1963, at Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois, France, The co-founders were influenced by the teachings of Colombian-born American marketing executive Bernardo Trujillo, who taught executive education as part of the NCR Corporation's marketing campaign. However, the Belgian retailer Grand Bazar preceded Carrefour by two years when it opened three hypermarkets in a short span in 1961 under the name "SuperBazar" after Belgian law restricting the size of department stores was abolished in January 1961. The first "SuperBazar", opened in Bruges on 9 September 1961, initially designed to become a non-food department store, however only covered a surface area of , and was later converted into a regular supermarket. The substantially larger store that opened a week later in Auderghem, Brussels, covering , is regarded as a more proper hypermarket that brought the concept to fruition. It was Belgian market development engineer , who adopted the concept from his frequent trips to the United States, particularly inspired from the Grand Union's "Grand Way" center in Paramus, New Jersey.


title: Hypermarket

text: In France, hypermarkets are generally situated in shopping centers () outside cities, though some are present in the city center. They are surrounded by extensive car parking facilities, and generally by other specialized superstores that sell clothing, sports gear, automotive items, etc.


title: Hypermarket

text: After the successes of super- and hyper-markets and amid fears that smaller stores would be forced out of business, France enacted laws that made it more difficult to build hypermarkets and also restricted the amount of economic leverage that hypermarket chains can impose upon their suppliers (the "Loi Galland").


title: Hypermarket

text: The predecessor to Ito Yokado was founded in 1920 selling western goods, went public in 1957, and switched to that name in 1965. Seibu Department Stores was founded in 1956, and opened up its grocery chain Seiyu Group in 1963. Isao Nakauchi founded the first Daiei in Kobe in 1957, selling clothing, electronics, furniture and groceries all in one store. Jusco was created in 1970, and eventually became known as ÆON.


title: Hypermarket

text: In Japanese, hypermarkets are known as 総合スーパー (Sougou Suupaa, General Merchandise Stores). There is a distinction in Japanese between スーパー (Supers) and デパート (Departs) with the former being discounters, but the latter selling luxury brand clothing and quite often high-end groceries as well.


title: Hypermarket

text: Hypermarkets may be found in urban areas as well as less populated areas. The Japanese government encourages hypermarket installations, as mutual investment by financial stocks are a common way to run hypermarkets. Japanese hypermarkets may contain restaurants, manga (Japanese comic) stands, Internet cafes, typical department store merchandise, a full range of groceries, beauty salons and other services all in the same store. A recent trend has been to combine the dollar store concept with the hypermarket blueprint, giving rise to the "hyakkin plaza"—"hyakkin" (百均) or "hyaku en" (百円) means 100 yen (roughly 1 US dollar).


title: Hypermarket

text: Until the 1980s, large stores combining food and non-food items were unusual in the United States, although early predecessors existed since the first half of the 20th century.


title: Hypermarket

text: The Pacific Northwest chain Fred Meyer, now a division of the Kroger supermarket company, opened the first suburban one-stop shopping center in 1931 in the Hollywood District of Portland, Oregon. The store's innovations included a grocery store alongside a drugstore plus off-street parking and an automobile lubrication and oil service. In 1933, men's and women's wear was added, and automotive department, housewares, and other nonfood products followed in succeeding years. In the mid 1930s, Fred Meyer opened a central bakery, a candy kitchen, an ice cream plant, and a photo-finishing plant, which supplied the company's stores in Portland and neighbouring cities with house brands such as Vita Bee bread, Hocus Pocus desserts, and Fifth Avenue candies. By the 1950s, Fred Meyer began opening stores that were , and the 1960s saw the first modern-sized Fred Meyer hypermarkets.


title: Hypermarket

text: The Midwest (then grocery) chain Meijer, which today operates about 235 stores in six US states, coined the term "super center", and opened the first of its hypermarket format store in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in June 1962, under the brand name "Thrifty Acres".


title: Hypermarket

text: In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the three major US discount store chains – Walmart, Kmart and Target – started developing similar format chains. Wal-Mart (as it was known before its late-2000s rebranding as Walmart) introduced Hypermart USA in 1987, followed by Wal-Mart Supercenter and Auchan in 1988; Kmart opened its first Super Kmart (originally called Kmart Super Center) in 1991; and Target came with the first Target Greatland stores in 1990, followed by the larger SuperTarget stores in 1995. Most Greatland stores have since been converted to SuperTarget stores, while some have been converted into regular Target stores with the exception of 2 entrances (one example of this is the Antioch, California location).


title: Hypermarket

text: In the early 1990s, US hypermarkets also began selling fuel. The idea was first introduced in the 1960s, when a number of supermarket chains and retailers like Sears tried to sell fuel, but it didn't generate sufficient consumer interest at the time. Today there are approximately 4,500 hypermarket stores in the US selling fuel, representing an estimated sold each year.


title: Hypermarket

text: In Australia, Hypermarkets were at their peak during the 1980's. This was especially prevalent during the era of South African owned Pick n Pay Stores and a now discontinued format of Kmart Australia Stores known as Super Kmart. This trend in the Australian market soon lost its appeal into the 1990's. Super Kmart stores were discontinued and Coles Supermarkets and Kmart Stores opened in the former location. Pick n Pay continued to operate in Australia until the 2000's when their locations at Aspley and Sunnybank Hills were converted into Coles Supermarkets and Kmart Department Stores.


title: Hypermarket

text: As of 2022, the only Hypermarket or Big-Box Store operational in Australia are Costco Wholesale Warehouses with currently thirteen stores in Australia - four stores in Melbourne, three stores in Sydney, two stores in Brisbane and one store each in Newcastle, Canberra, Adelaide and Perth, with construction underway on the fourteenth store in Queensland's Gold Coast. There were plans for German Hypermarket company Kaufland to open stores in Australia announced in 2019; these plans were cancelled in 2020.


title: Hypermarket

text: The average Walmart Supercenter covers around , with the largest ones covering . A typical Carrefour hypermarket still covers , while the European trend in the 2000s has rather turned towards smaller hypermarkets of . In France, INSEE defines hypermarkets () as non-specialized markets with a minimum size of .


title: Hypermarket

text: Despite its success, the hypermarket business model may be under threat from online shopping and the shift towards customization according to analysts like Sanjeev Sanyal, Deutsche Bank's Global Strategist, until 2015. Sanyal has argued that some developing countries such as India may omit the hypermarket stage and directly go online.


title: Hypermarket

text: Another category of stores sometimes included in the hypermarket category are the membership-based wholesale warehouse clubs that are popular in North America, pioneered by Fedco and today including Sam's Club, a division of Walmart; Costco, in which Carrefour owned some shares from 1985 to 1996; BJ's Wholesale Club on the East Coast; and Clubes City Club in Mexico. In Europe, Makro (owned by METRO AG) leads the market.


title: Hypermarket

text: However, warehouse clubs differ from hypermarkets in that they have sparse interior decor and require paid membership. In addition, warehouse clubs usually sell bigger packages and have fewer choices in each category of items.


title: Government of Japan

text: The Government of Japan consists of legislative, executive and judiciary branches and is based on popular sovereignty. The Government runs under the framework established by the Constitution of Japan, adopted in 1947. It is a unitary state, containing forty-seven administrative divisions, with the Emperor as its Head of State. His role is ceremonial and he has no powers related to Government. Instead, it is the Cabinet, comprising the Ministers of State and the Prime Minister, that directs and controls the Government and the civil service. The Cabinet has the executive power and is formed by the Prime Minister, who is the Head of Government. The Prime Minister is nominated by the National Diet and appointed to office by the Emperor.


title: Government of Japan

text: The National Diet is the legislature, the organ of the Legislative branch. It is bicameral, consisting of two houses with the House of Councilors being the upper house, and the House of Representatives being the lower house. Its members are directly elected by the people, who are the source of sovereignty. It is defined as the supreme organ of sovereignty in the Constitution. The Supreme Court and other inferior courts make up the Judicial branch and have all the judicial powers in the state. It has ultimate judicial authority to interpret the Japanese constitution and the power of judicial review. They are independent from the executive and the legislative branches. Judges are nominated or appointed by the Cabinet and never removed by the executive or the legislature except during impeachment.


title: Government of Japan

text: Prior to the Meiji Restoration, Japan was ruled by the government of a successive military "shōgun". During this period, effective power of the government resided in the Shōgun, who officially ruled the country in the name of the Emperor. The Shōgun were the hereditary military governors, with their modern rank equivalent to a generalissimo. Although the Emperor was the sovereign who appointed the Shōgun, his roles were ceremonial and he took no part in governing the country. This is often compared to the present role of the Emperor, whose official role is to appoint the Prime Minister.


title: Government of Japan

text: The Meiji Restoration in 1872 led to the resignation of Shōgun Tokugawa Yoshinobu, agreeing to "be the instrument for carrying out" the Emperor's orders. This event restored the country to Imperial rule and the proclamation of the Empire of Japan. In 1889, the Meiji Constitution was adopted in a move to strengthen Japan to the level of western nations, resulting in the first parliamentary system in Asia. It provided a form of mixed constitutional-absolute monarchy, with an independent judiciary, based on the Prussian model of the time.


title: Government of Japan

text: A new aristocracy known as the "kazoku" was established. It merged the ancient court nobility of the Heian period, the "kuge", and the former "daimyō", feudal lords subordinate to the "shōgun". It also established the Imperial Diet, consisting of the House of Representatives and the House of Peers. Members of the House of Peers were made up of the Imperial Family, the Kazoku, and those nominated by the Emperor, while members of the House of Representatives were elected by direct male suffrage. Despite clear distinctions between powers of the executive branch and the Emperor in the Meiji Constitution, ambiguity and contradictions in the Constitution eventually led to a political crisis. It also devalued the notion of civilian control over the military, which meant that the military could develop and exercise a great influence on politics.


title: Government of Japan

text: Following the end of World War II, the present Constitution of Japan was adopted. It replaced the previous Imperial rule with a form of Western-style liberal democracy.


title: Government of Japan

text: As of 2020, the Japan Research Institute found the national government is mostly analog, because only 7.5% (4,000 of the 55,000) administrative procedures can be completed entirely online. The rate is 7.8% at the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, 8% at the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, and only 1.3% at the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries.


title: Government of Japan

text: On 12 February, 2021, Tetsushi Sakamoto was appointed as the Minister of Loneliness to alleviate social isolation and loneliness across different age groups and genders.


title: Government of Japan

text: The is the head of the Imperial Family and the ceremonial head of state. He is defined by the Constitution to be "the symbol of the State and of the unity of the people". However, his role is entirely ceremonial and representative in nature. As explicitly stated in of the Constitution, he has no powers related to government.


title: Government of Japan

text: While the Cabinet is the source of executive power and most of its power is exercised directly by the Prime Minister, several of its powers are exercised through the Emperor. The powers exercised via the Emperor, as stipulated by of the Constitution, are:


title: Government of Japan

text: The Emperor is known to hold the nominal ceremonial authority. For example, he is the only person that has the authority to appoint the Prime Minister, even though the Diet has the power to designate the person fitted for the position. One such example can be prominently seen in the 2009 Dissolution of the House of Representatives. The House was expected to be dissolved on the advice of the Prime Minister, but was temporarily unable to do so for the next general election, as both the Emperor and Empress were visiting Canada.


title: Government of Japan

text: In this manner, the Emperor's modern role is often compared to those of the Shogunate period and much of Japan's history, whereby the Emperor held great symbolic authority but had little political power; which is often held by others nominally appointed by the Emperor himself. Today, a legacy has somewhat continued for a retired Prime Minister who still wields considerable power, to be called a .


title: Government of Japan

text: Unlike his European counterparts, the Emperor is not the source of sovereign power and the government does not act under his name. Instead, the Emperor represents the State and appoints other high officials in the name of the State, in which the Japanese people hold sovereignty. of the Constitution, in accordance with the Imperial Household Law, allows a regency to be established in the Emperor's name, should the Emperor be unable to perform his duties.


title: Government of Japan

text: The Imperial House of Japan is said to be the oldest continuing hereditary monarchy in the world. According to the Kojiki and Nihon Shoki, Japan was founded by the Imperial House in 660 BC by . Emperor Jimmu was the first Emperor of Japan and the ancestor of all of the Emperors that followed. He is, according to Japanese mythology, the direct descendant of , the sun goddess of the native Shinto religion, through Ninigi, his great-grandfather.


title: Government of Japan

text: The is Naruhito. He was officially enthroned on May 1, 2019, following the abdication of his father. He is styled as , and his reign bears the era name of . Fumihito is the heir presumptive to the Chrysanthemum Throne.


title: Government of Japan

text: The Executive branch of Japan is headed by the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister is the head of the Cabinet, and is designated by the legislative organ, the National Diet. The Cabinet consists of the Ministers of State and may be appointed or dismissed by the Prime Minister at any time. Explicitly defined to be the source of executive power, it is in practice, however, mainly exercised by the Prime Minister. The practice of its powers is responsible to the Diet, and as a whole, should the Cabinet lose confidence and support to be in office by the Diet, the Diet may dismiss the Cabinet "en masse" with a motion of no confidence.


title: Government of Japan

text: The is designated by the National Diet and serves a term of four years or less; with no limits imposed on the number of terms the Prime Minister may hold. The Prime Minister heads the Cabinet and exercises "control and supervision" of the executive branch, and is the head of government and commander-in-chief of the Japan Self-Defense Forces. The prime minister is vested with the power to present bills to the Diet, to sign laws, to declare a state of emergency, and may also dissolve the Diet's House of Representatives at will. The prime minister presides over the Cabinet and appoints, or dismisses, the other Cabinet ministers.


title: Government of Japan

text: Both houses of the National Diet designates the Prime Minister with a ballot cast under the run-off system. Under the Constitution, should both houses not agree on a common candidate, then a joint committee is allowed to be established to agree on the matter; specifically within a period of ten days, exclusive of the period of recess. However, if both houses still do not agree to each other, the decision made by the House of Representatives is deemed to be that of the National Diet. Upon designation, the Prime Minister is presented with their commission, and then formally appointed to office by the Emperor.


title: Government of Japan

text: As a candidate designated by the Diet, the prime minister is required to report to the Diet whenever demanded. The prime minister must also be both a civilian and a member of either house of the Diet.


title: Government of Japan

text: The consists of the Ministers of State and the Prime Minister. The members of the Cabinet are appointed by the Prime Minister, and under the Cabinet Law, the number of members of the Cabinet appointed, excluding the Prime Minister, must be fourteen or less, but may only be increased to nineteen should a special need arise. of the Constitution states that all members of the Cabinet must be civilians and the majority of them must be chosen from among the members of either house of the National Diet. The precise wording leaves an opportunity for the Prime Minister to appoint some non-elected Diet officials. The Cabinet is required to resign "en masse" while still continuing its functions, till the appointment of a new Prime Minister, when the following situation arises:


title: Government of Japan

text: Conceptually deriving legitimacy from the Diet, whom it is responsible to, the Cabinet exercises its power in two different ways. In practice, much of its power is exercised by the Prime Minister, while others are exercised nominally by the Emperor.


title: Government of Japan

text: Under the Constitution, all laws and cabinet orders must be signed by the competent Minister and countersigned by the Prime Minister, before being formally promulgated by the Emperor. Also, all members of the Cabinet cannot be subject to legal action without the consent of the Prime Minister; however, without impairing the right to take legal action.


title: Government of Japan

text: The consist of eleven executive ministries and the Cabinet Office. Each ministry is headed by a Minister of State, which are mainly senior legislators, and are appointed from among the members of the Cabinet by the Prime Minister. The Cabinet Office, formally headed by the Prime Minister, is an agency that handles the day-to-day affairs of the Cabinet. The ministries are the most influential part of the daily-exercised executive power, and since few ministers serve for more than a year or so necessary to grab hold of the organisation, most of its power lies within the senior bureaucrats.


title: Government of Japan

text: Below is a series of ministry-affiliated government agencies and bureaus responsible for government procedures and activities as of 23 August 2022.


title: Government of Japan

text: The Legislative branch organ of Japan is the . It is a bicameral legislature, composing of a lower house, the House of Representatives, and an upper house, the House of Councillors. Empowered by the Constitution to be "the highest organ of State power" and the only "sole law-making organ of the State", its houses are both directly elected under a parallel voting system and is ensured by the Constitution to have no discrimination on the qualifications of each members; whether be it based on "race, creed, sex, social status, family origin, education, property or income". The National Diet, therefore, reflects the sovereignty of the people; a principle of popular sovereignty whereby the supreme power lies within, in this case, the Japanese people.


title: Government of Japan

text: The Diet responsibilities includes the making of laws, the approval of the annual national budget, the approval of the conclusion of treaties and the selection of the Prime Minister. In addition, it has the power to initiate draft constitutional amendments, which, if approved, are to be presented to the people for ratification in a referendum before being promulgated by the Emperor, in the name of the people. The Constitution also enables both houses to conduct investigations in relation to government, demand the presence and testimony of witnesses, and the production of records, as well as allowing either house of the Diet to demand the presence of the Prime Minister or the other Minister of State, in order to give answers or explanations whenever so required. The Diet is also able to impeach Court judges convicted of criminal or irregular conduct. The Constitution, however, does not specify the voting methods, the number of members of each house, and all other matters pertaining to the method of election of the each members, and are thus, allowed to be determined for by law.


title: Government of Japan

text: Under the provisions of the Constitution and by law, all adults aged over 18 are eligible to vote, with a secret ballot and a universal suffrage, and those elected have certain protections from apprehension while the Diet is in session. Speeches, debates, and votes cast in the Diet also enjoy parliamentary privileges. Each house is responsible for disciplining its own members, and all deliberations are public unless two-thirds or more of those members present passes a resolution agreeing it otherwise. The Diet also requires the presence of at least one-third of the membership of either house in order to constitute a quorum. All decisions are decided by a majority of those present, unless otherwise stated by the Constitution, and in the case of a tie, the presiding officer has the right to decide the issue. A member cannot be expelled, however, unless a majority of two-thirds or more of those members present passes a resolution therefor.


title: Government of Japan

text: Under the Constitution, at least one session of the Diet must be convened each year. The Cabinet can also, at will, convoke extraordinary sessions of the Diet and is required to, when a quarter or more of the total members of either house demands it. During an election, only the House of Representatives is dissolved. The House of Councillors is however, not dissolved but only closed, and may, in times of national emergency, be convoked for an emergency session. The Emperor both convokes the Diet and dissolves the House of Representatives, but only does so on the advice of the Cabinet.


title: Government of Japan

text: For bills to become Law, they are to be first passed by both houses of the National Diet, signed by the Ministers of State, countersigned by the Prime Minister, and then finally promulgated by the Emperor; however, without specifically giving the Emperor the power to oppose legislation.


title: Government of Japan

text: The is the Lower house, with the members of the house being elected once every four years, or when dissolved, for a four-year term. As of November 18, 2017, it has 465 members. Of these, 176 members are elected from 11 multi-member constituencies by a party-list system of proportional representation, and 289 are elected from single-member constituencies. 233 seats are required for majority. The House of Representatives is the more powerful house out of the two, it is able to override vetoes on bills imposed by the House of Councillors with a two-thirds majority. It can, however, be dissolved by the Prime Minister at will. Members of the house must be of Japanese nationality; those aged 18 years and older may vote, while those aged 25 years and older may run for office in the lower house.


title: Government of Japan

text: The legislative powers of the House of Representatives is considered to be more powerful than that of the House of Councillors. While the House of Councillors has the ability to veto most decisions made by the House of Representatives, some however, can only be delayed. This includes the legislation of treaties, the budget, and the selection of the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister, and collectively his Cabinet, can in turn, however, dissolve the House of Representatives whenever intended. While the House of Representatives is considered to be officially dissolved upon the preparation of the document, the House is only formally dissolved by the dissolution ceremony. The dissolution ceremony of the House is as follows:


title: Government of Japan

text: It is customary that, upon the dissolution of the House, members will shout the Three Cheers of Banzai (萬歲).


title: Government of Japan

text: The is the Upper house, with half the members of the house being elected once every three years, for a six-year term. As of November 18, 2017, it has 242 members. Of these, 73 are elected from the 47 prefectural districts, by single non-transferable votes, and 48 are elected from a nationwide list by proportional representation with open lists. The House of Councillors cannot be dissolved by the Prime Minister. Members of the house must be of Japanese nationality; those aged 18 years and older may vote, while those aged 30 years and older may run for office in the upper house.


title: Government of Japan

text: As the House of Councillors can veto a decision made by the House of Representatives, the House of Councillors can cause the House of Representatives to reconsider its decision. The House of Representatives however, can still insist on its decision by overriding the veto by the House of Councillors with a two-thirds majority of its members present. Each year, and when required, the National Diet is convoked at the House of Councillors, on the advice of the Cabinet, for an extra or an ordinary session, by the Emperor. A short speech is, however, usually first made by the Speaker of the House of Representatives before the Emperor proceeds to convoke the Diet with his Speech from the throne.


title: Government of Japan

text: The Judicial branch of Japan consists of the Supreme Court, and four other lower courts; the High Courts, District Courts, Family Courts and Summary Courts. Divided into four basic tiers, the Court's independence from the executive and legislative branches are guaranteed by the Constitution, and is stated as: "no extraordinary tribunal shall be established, nor shall any organ or agency of the Executive be given final judicial power"; a feature known as the Separation of Powers. of the Constitution states that all the Court judges are independent in the exercise of their own conscience and that they are only bounded by the Constitution and the laws. Court judges are removable only by public impeachment, and can only be removed, without impeachment, when they are judicially declared mentally or physically incompetent to perform their duties. The Constitution also explicitly denies any power for executive organs or agencies to administer disciplinary actions against judges. However, a Supreme Court judge may be dismissed by a majority in a referendum; of which, must occur during the first general election of the National Diet's House of Representatives following the judge's appointment, and also the first general election for every ten years lapse thereafter. Trials must be conducted, with judgment declared, publicly, unless the Court "unanimously determines publicity to be dangerous to public order or morals"; with the exception for trials of political offenses, offenses involving the press, and cases wherein the rights of people as guaranteed by the Constitution, which cannot be deemed and conducted privately. Court judges are appointed by the Cabinet, in attestation of the Emperor, while the Chief Justice is appointed by the Emperor, after being nominated by the Cabinet; which in practice, known to be under the recommendation of the former Chief Justice.


title: Government of Japan

text: The Legal system in Japan has been historically influenced by Chinese law; developing independently during the Edo period through texts such as "Kujikata Osadamegaki". It has, however, changed during the Meiji Restoration, and is now largely based on the European civil law; notably, the civil code based on the German model still remains in effect. A quasi-jury system has recently came into use, and the legal system also includes a bill of rights since May 3, 1947. The collection of Six Codes makes up the main body of the Japanese statutory law.


title: Government of Japan

text: All Statutory Laws in Japan are required to be rubber stamped by the Emperor with the , and no Law can take effect without the Cabinet's signature, the Prime Minister's countersignature and the Emperor's promulgation.


title: Government of Japan

text: The is the court of last resort and has the power of Judicial review; as defined by the Constitution to be "the court of last resort with power to determine the constitutionality of any law, order, regulation or official act". The Supreme Court is also responsible for nominating judges to lower courts and determining judicial procedures. It also oversees the judicial system, overseeing activities of public prosecutors, and disciplining judges and other judicial personnel.


title: Government of Japan

text: The has the jurisdiction to hear appeals to judgments rendered by District Courts and Family Courts, excluding cases under the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court. Criminal appeals are directly handled by the High Courts, but Civil cases are first handled by District Courts. There are eight High Courts in Japan: the Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya, Hiroshima, Fukuoka, Sendai, Sapporo, and Takamatsu High Courts.


title: Government of Japan

text: The is operated by the Ministry of Justice. It is part of the criminal justice system, and is intended to resocialize, reform, and rehabilitate offenders. The ministry's Correctional Bureau administers the adult prison system, the juvenile correctional system, and three of the women's guidance homes, while the Rehabilitation Bureau operates the probation and the parole systems.


title: Government of Japan

text: The Cabinet Public Affairs Office's Government Directory also listed a number of government agencies that are more independent from executive ministries. The list for these types of agencies can be seen below.


title: Government of Japan

text: According to Article 92 of the Constitution, the are local public entities whose body and functions are defined by law in accordance with the principle of local autonomy. The main law that defines them is the Local Autonomy Law.　They are given limited executive and legislative powers by the Constitution. Governors, mayors and members of assemblies are constitutionally elected by the residents.


title: Government of Japan

text: The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications intervenes significantly in local government, as do other ministries. This is done chiefly financially because many local government jobs need funding initiated by national ministries. This is dubbed as the "thirty-percent autonomy".


title: Government of Japan

text: The result of this power is a high level of organizational and policy standardization among the different local jurisdictions allowing them to preserve the uniqueness of their prefecture, city, or town. Some of the more collectivist jurisdictions, such as Tokyo and Kyoto, have experimented with policies in such areas as social welfare that later were adopted by the national government.


title: Government of Japan

text: Japan is divided into forty-seven administrative divisions, the prefectures are: one metropolitan district (Tokyo), two urban prefectures (Kyoto and Osaka), forty-three rural prefectures, and one "district", Hokkaidō. Large cities are subdivided into wards, and further split into towns, or precincts, or subprefectures and counties.


title: Government of Japan

text: Cities are self-governing units administered independently of the larger jurisdictions within which they are located. In order to attain city status, a jurisdiction must have at least 500,000 inhabitants, 60 percent of whom are engaged in urban occupations. There are self-governing towns outside the cities as well as precincts of urban wards. Like the cities, each has its own elected mayor and assembly. Villages are the smallest self-governing entities in rural areas. They often consist of a number of rural hamlets containing several thousand people connected to one another through the formally imposed framework of village administration. Villages have mayors and councils elected to four-year terms.


title: Government of Japan

text: Each jurisdiction has a chief executive, called a in prefectures and a in municipalities. Most jurisdictions also have a unicameral , although towns and villages may opt for direct governance by citizens in a . Both the executive and assembly are elected by popular vote every four years.


title: Government of Japan

text: Local governments follow a modified version of the separation of powers used in the national government. An assembly may pass a vote of no confidence in the executive, in which case the executive must either dissolve the assembly within ten days or automatically lose their office. Following the next election, however, the executive remains in office unless the new assembly again passes a no confidence resolution.


title: Government of Japan

text: The primary methods of local lawmaking are and . Ordinances, similar to statutes in the national system, are passed by the assembly and may impose limited criminal penalties for violations (up to 2 years in prison and/or 1 million yen in fines). Regulations, similar to cabinet orders in the national system, are passed by the executive unilaterally, are superseded by any conflicting ordinances, and may only impose a fine of up to 50,000 yen.


title: Government of Japan

text: Local governments also generally have multiple committees such as school boards, public safety committees (responsible for overseeing the police), personnel committees, election committees and auditing committees. These may be directly elected or chosen by the assembly, executive or both.


title: Government of Japan

text: All prefectures are required to maintain departments of general affairs, finance, welfare, health, and labor. Departments of agriculture, fisheries, forestry, commerce, and industry are optional, depending on local needs. The Governor is responsible for all activities supported through local taxation or the national government.


title: Single Drunk Female

text: Single Drunk Female is an American comedy television series created by Simone Finch that premiered on January 20, 2022, on Freeform. In April 2022, the series was renewed for a second season.


title: Single Drunk Female

text: After a terribly embarrassing public meltdown, alcoholic Samantha Fink has only one chance to avoid jail time. She needs to stay sober and move back in with her bossy mother, Carol. Back in the Boston area, Samantha tries to make the best of the situation. However, that's easier said than done. Samantha is confronted with the ghosts of her past, which drove her to alcohol addiction. And then there's her mother, who was conspicuous by her absence when Samantha was young, and now meddles in everything and showers her with sage advice. At first Samantha is reluctant to take a new path, but when her childhood best friend Brit reveals surprising news, Samantha has to admit that her partying life can't go on like this.


title: Single Drunk Female

text: On September 25, 2019, Freeform gave "Single Drunk Female" a pilot order. On February 26, 2021, Freeform gave production a series order consisting of ten episodes. The series is created by Simone Finch, who also executive produces alongside Leslye Headland, Jenni Konner, and Phil Traill. Headland also directed the pilot while Finch wrote the pilot. 20th Television is involved with producing the series. The series premiered on January 20, 2022. On April 26, 2022, Freeform renewed the series for a second season.


title: Single Drunk Female

text: Upon the pilot order announcement, Sofia Black-D'Elia and Ally Sheedy were cast to star. Upon the series order announcement, Rebecca Henderson, Sasha Compère, Lily Mae Harrington and Garrick Bernard joined the main cast. On January 7, 2022, Jojo Brown, Charlie Hall, Madison Shepard, Ian Gomez, Madeline Wise, and Jon Glaser were cast in recurring roles.


title: Single Drunk Female

text: The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported a 100% approval rating with an average rating of 7.5/10, based on 18 critic reviews. The website's critics consensus reads, ""Single Drunk Female"s clear-eyed chronicle of the challenges of sobriety is a joy, thanks in part to some spiky satire and Sofia Black-D'Elia's spirited star turn." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned a score of 76 out of 100 based on 11 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews."


title: Niharika Konidela

text: Niharika Konidela (born 18 December 1993) is an Indian actress and producer who predominantly works in Telugu films. She made her debut with the film "Oka Manasu" (2016). She produces films and web series under her banner "Pink Elephant Pictures".


title: Niharika Konidela

text: Niharika Konidela is the daughter of actor and producer Nagendra Babu. She is the niece of actors Chiranjeevi and Pawan Kalyan. Her brother Varun Tej and cousins Ram Charan, Sai Dharam Tej, Allu Arjun, Allu Sirish, and Vaisshnav Tej are also actors in Telugu cinema.


title: Niharika Konidela

text: Konidela worked as a presenter on Telugu language television before pursuing a career as an actress. She has hosted "Dhee Ultimate Dance Show" for Segments Dhee Junior 1 and Dhee Junior 2 aired on ETV Network.


title: Niharika Konidela

text: She acted and also produced the Telugu web-series "Muddapappu Avakai" under her banner Pink Elephant Pictures. This series was released on YouTube and was well received by the audience.


title: Niharika Konidela

text: In September 2015, she signed for a film titled "Oka Manasu" which marked her debut as an actress. Her 2019 film, "Suryakantham", performed poorly at the box office, grossing 30 million. Later that year, she played a minor role in the historical action film "Sye Raa Narasimha Reddy".


title: The Long Kiss Goodnight

text: The Long Kiss Goodnight is a 1996 American action thriller film co-produced and directed by Renny Harlin, and produced by Shane Black and Stephanie Austin with screenplay written by Black. It stars Geena Davis, Samuel L. Jackson, Tom Amandes, Yvonne Zima, Brian Cox, Patrick Malahide, Craig Bierko and David Morse. The story follows an amnesiatic schoolteacher (Davis) who sets out to recover her identity with the help of a private detective (Jackson) when they discover a dark conspiracy.


title: The Long Kiss Goodnight

text: Released by New Line Cinema on October 11, 1996, it grossed almost $96 million against a budget of $65 million, and gained a strong cult following.


title: The Long Kiss Goodnight

text: Samantha Caine is a schoolteacher in small-town Honesdale, Pennsylvania, living with her boyfriend, Hal, and her daughter, Caitlin. Eight years earlier, she was found washed ashore on a New Jersey beach, pregnant with Caitlin and totally amnesiac. Having never remembered her real name, "Samantha" has hired a number of ineffective private investigators to discover her past, the latest being the down-on-his-luck Mitch Henessey. During the Christmas holidays, Samantha is involved in a car accident and suffers a brief concussion; when she recovers, she finds she possesses skills with a knife that she cannot explain. Shortly thereafter, the family home is broken into by "One-Eyed Jack", a convict who escaped from jail after seeing Samantha's face on television. Samantha demonstrates her fighting prowess by killing Jack bare-handed. Worried that she poses a danger to Hal and Caitlin, Samantha leaves with Mitch, who has found a suitcase belonging to her, to seek out answers.


title: The Long Kiss Goodnight

text: The suitcase contains a note directing them to Dr. Nathan Waldman. They arrange to meet at a train station unaware that government agents are tapping the doctor's calls. En route, Samantha discovers the bottom of the suitcase contains a disassembled sniper rifle which she can expertly reassemble, along with other weapons. When Samantha and Mitch go to meet Waldman at the station, they are attacked by a team of agents who shoot numerous bystanders, but the two escape with Waldman's help. The doctor informs Samantha that she is really an expert CIA assassin, Charlene Elizabeth "Charly" Baltimore, who had disappeared eight years earlier.


title: The Long Kiss Goodnight

text: Unsure if they can trust Waldman, Samantha and Mitch leave him behind and seek another contact named on a note in the suitcase, Luke, believing he may be Charly's fiancé.


title: The Long Kiss Goodnight

text: Waldman catches up with them and tries to warn them that Luke is actually Charly's last assassination target, "Daedalus". However, Luke kills Dr. Waldman, then straps Samantha to a waterwheel and tortures her by repeatedly submerging her in cold water. After being tortured, she is finally jolted into remembering her past life. Samantha frees herself, kills Luke, and escapes with Mitch. Samantha completes her physical transformation back to Charly, cutting her hair and dying it platinum blonde. Charly realizes that her "Samantha Caine" personality was a cover to get near to Daedalus eight years earlier.


title: The Long Kiss Goodnight

text: A psychological-operations specialist named Timothy, with whom Charly once had a romantic relationship, kidnaps Caitlin.


title: The Long Kiss Goodnight

text: Charly and Mitch learn about Daedalus' involvement in "Project Honeymoon", which she disrupted on her mission, resulting in One-Eyed Jack's incarceration; "Project Honeymoon" was intended to be a false flag chemical bomb detonation in Niagara Falls, planned by the CIA in an attempt to blame Islamic terrorists and secure more funding. Charly realizes that Timothy and a new group is plotting to restage the attack, led by CIA Director Leland Perkins. In Niagara Falls, where Timothy has taken Caitlin, he captures Mitch and Charly. She tells Timothy that he is Caitlin's biological father and implores him not to hurt their daughter, but Timothy is ultimately unmoved, locking Charly and Caitlin in a freezer to kill them.


title: The Long Kiss Goodnight

text: Charly and Caitlin break out of the freezer by detonating barrels of kerosene and then freeing Mitch, who helps Charly attack the staging area. This forces Timothy to launch the attack early; meanwhile, Caitlin locks herself in a cage on the truck carrying the bomb. Charly chases the truck, overpowers its driver, diverts it from a Christmas parade, and overturns it on the Niagara Falls International Bridge leading to Canada.


title: The Long Kiss Goodnight

text: Charly frees Caitlin but they cannot get away from the bomb, which is about to explode, as Timothy and his agents attack them from a helicopter. Mitch suddenly arrives in a car, picking up Charly and Caitlin and entering Canada just before the bomb explodes, which kills Timothy and his forces and destroys the bridge.


title: The Long Kiss Goodnight

text: In an epilogue, Charly has returned to her assumed identity of Samantha Caine, moving with Caitlin and Hal to a remote farmhouse and declining an offer from the president to join the State Department (which could imply rejoining the CIA). Mitch enjoys the publicity attracted by his role in the crisis and is interviewed by Larry King on television about Perkins, who was indicted for treason.


title: The Long Kiss Goodnight

text: In 1994, New Line Cinema paid a then-record million (equivalent to $ million in ) for Shane Black's script.


title: The Long Kiss Goodnight

text: In an early cut of the film, Mitch Henessey died, but during a test screening an audience member shouted, "You can't kill Sam Jackson!" Harlin changed the final cut so that Jackson's character survived.


title: The Long Kiss Goodnight

text: On February 27, 1996, during filming at the 127-year-old Windermere House in Ontario, Canada, a fire broke out, leaving only the stone verandah intact. There was speculation that it was caused by film lighting; however, it may have been a short circuit. When the fire started, filming was taking place on the frozen lake, with the house lighted from within to be seen in the background. It is unknown whether the fire was directly associated with filming, but the building was otherwise closed for the winter. Ironically, some of the remaining scenes there involved fire, but the real fire prevented them from being shot. The film crew helped evacuate nearby homes, but the fire did not spread beyond the building.


title: The Long Kiss Goodnight

text: Over its opening weekend, the film grossed $9,065,363 from 2,245 theaters, coming in third among films opening that weekend. It grossed $33,447,612 in the US and Canada and $62,009,149 internationally, for a worldwide gross of $95,456,761.


title: The Long Kiss Goodnight

text: Renny Harlin blamed the film's poor performance on confusing advertising, but Shane Black wondered if it might have been more successful if it were about a man: 'It might have made more money, they told me, but it "had" to be a woman. The lead had to be female.' It has also been suggested that the film's poor advertising campaign and lukewarm critical reception may have been a carry-over effect from Renny Harlin and Geena Davis's previous collaboration, "Cutthroat Island", which was released 10 months earlier and was one of the biggest box office bombs of all time.


title: The Long Kiss Goodnight

text: "The Long Kiss Goodnight" received mainly positive reviews. It holds a 68% approval rating at Rotten Tomatoes based on 59 reviews, with an average rating of 6.1/10. The site's consensus states: "Smart, sharp-witted, and fueled by enjoyably over-the-top action, "The Long Kiss Goodnight" makes up in impact what it lacks in consistent aim." On Metacritic, the film has a score of 44 out of 100 based on reviews from 20 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film a median grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale.


title: The Long Kiss Goodnight

text: Christine James from "Boxoffice" gave it 3 and a half out of 5 stars, calling it "a lot of fun", but believing that there were some weaknesses in the script. Roger Ebert gave it 2 and a half out of 4 stars, stating, "I admired it as an example of craftsmanship, but what a lot of time and money to spend on something of no real substance." In 2014, "Time Out" polled several film critics, directors, actors and stunt actors to list their top action films and "The Long Kiss Goodnight "placed 82nd on the list.


title: The Long Kiss Goodnight

text: Samuel L. Jackson stated that "The Long Kiss Goodnight" was his favorite movie to watch that he was in. Of all the films he’s made, Renny Harlin said "The Long Kiss Goodnight" was his favorite:


title: The Long Kiss Goodnight

text: "It is definitely. For me its just very simple. It's a movie that had a really good screenplay, which meant that I was able to get really good actors … It's always challenging to make a movie, but it sure makes it easier when you have a good screenplay like in that one. When you have characters that are complex, and you have good drama, and have some humour and some good action, you kind of have all the ingredients. When you have that you don't even need some crazy special effects—you just need to let the characters do their thing. It was a great experience."


title: The Long Kiss Goodnight

text: The last page of Black's original 1994 script stated that there would be a sequel called "The Kiss After Lightning" that never happened.


title: My Sweet Lord

text: "My Sweet Lord" is a song by English musician George Harrison, released in November 1970 on his triple album "All Things Must Pass". It was also released as a single, Harrison's first as a solo artist, and topped charts worldwide; it was the biggest-selling single of 1971 in the UK. In America and Britain, the song was the first number-one single by an ex-Beatle. Harrison originally gave the song to his fellow Apple Records artist Billy Preston to record; this version, which Harrison co-produced, appeared on Preston's "Encouraging Words" album in September 1970.


title: My Sweet Lord

text: Harrison wrote "My Sweet Lord" in praise of the Hindu god Krishna, while intending the lyrics as a call to abandon religious sectarianism through his blending of the Hebrew word "hallelujah" with chants of "Hare Krishna" and Vedic prayer. The recording features producer Phil Spector's Wall of Sound treatment and heralded the arrival of Harrison's slide guitar technique, which one biographer described as "musically as distinctive a signature as the mark of Zorro". Ringo Starr, Eric Clapton, Gary Brooker, Bobby Whitlock and members of the group Badfinger are among the other musicians on the recording.


title: My Sweet Lord

text: Later in the 1970s, "My Sweet Lord" was at the centre of a heavily publicised copyright infringement suit due to its alleged similarity to the Ronnie Mack song "He's So Fine", a 1963 hit for the New York girl group the Chiffons. In 1976, Harrison was found to have subconsciously plagiarised the song, a verdict that had repercussions throughout the music industry. Rather than the Chiffons song, he said he used the out-of-copyright Christian hymn "Oh Happy Day" as his inspiration for the melody.


title: My Sweet Lord

text: Harrison performed "My Sweet Lord" at the Concert for Bangladesh in August 1971, and it remains the most popular composition from his post-Beatles career. He reworked it as "My Sweet Lord (2000)" for inclusion as a bonus track on the 30th anniversary reissue of "All Things Must Pass". Many artists have covered the song, including Andy Williams, Peggy Lee, Edwin Starr, Johnny Mathis, Nina Simone, Julio Iglesias, Richie Havens, Megadeth, Boy George, Elton John, Jim James, Bonnie Bramlett and Elliott Smith. "My Sweet Lord" was ranked 454th on "Rolling Stone"s list of "the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time" in 2004 and 460th in the 2010 update and number 270 on a similar list published by the "NME" in 2014. That same year, "My Sweet Lord" was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. It reached number one in Britain again when re-released in January 2002, two months after Harrison's death.


title: My Sweet Lord

text: George Harrison began writing "My Sweet Lord" in December 1969, when he, Billy Preston and Eric Clapton were in Copenhagen, Denmark, as guest artists on Delaney & Bonnie's European tour. By this time, Harrison had already written the gospel-influenced "Hear Me Lord" and, with Preston, the African-American spiritual "Sing One for the Lord".<ref name="Apple/EncouragingWords">Andy Davis, Billy Preston "Encouraging Words" CD, liner notes (Apple Records, 2010; produced by George Harrison & Billy Preston).</ref> He had also produced two religious-themed hit singles on the Beatles' Apple record label: Preston's "That's the Way God Planned It" and Radha Krishna Temple (London)'s "Hare Krishna Mantra". The latter was a musical adaptation of the 5000-year-old Vaishnava Hindu mantra, performed by members of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), colloquially known as "the Hare Krishna movement".<ref name="Apple/RKT">Andy Davis, "The Radha Krsna Temple" CD, liner notes (Apple Records, 2010; produced by George Harrison; reissue produced by Andy Davis & Mike Heatley).</ref> Harrison now wanted to fuse the messages of the Christian and Gaudiya Vaishnava faiths into what musical biographer Simon Leng terms "gospel incantation with a Vedic chant".


title: My Sweet Lord

text: The Copenhagen stopover marked the end of the Delaney & Bonnie tour, with a three-night residency at the Falkoner Theatre on 10–12 December. According to Harrison's 1976 court testimony, "My Sweet Lord" was conceived while the band members were attending a backstage press conference and he had ducked out to an upstairs room at the theatre. Harrison recalled vamping chords on guitar and alternating between sung phrases of "hallelujah" and "Hare Krishna". He later took the idea to the others, and the chorus vocals were developed further.


title: My Sweet Lord

text: Band leader Delaney Bramlett's later version of events is that the idea originated from Harrison asking him how to go about writing a genuine gospel song, and that Bramlett demonstrated by scat singing the words "Oh my Lord" while wife Bonnie and singer Rita Coolidge added gospel "hallelujah"s in reply. Music journalist John Harris has questioned the accuracy of Bramlett's account, however, comparing it to a fisherman's "It was this big"-type bragging story. Preston recalled that "My Sweet Lord" came about through Harrison asking him about writing gospel songs during the tour. Preston said he played some chords on a backstage piano and the Bramletts began singing "Oh my Lord" and "Hallelujah". According to Preston: "George took it from there and wrote the verses. It was very impromptu. We never thought it would be a hit."<ref name="Wilson/MojoSpecial">Lois Wilson, "The Fifth Element", "Mojo Special Limited Edition: 1000 Days of Revolution (The Beatles' Final Years – Jan 1, 1968 to Sept 27, 1970)", Emap (London, 2003), p. 80.</ref>


title: My Sweet Lord

text: Using as his inspiration the Edwin Hawkins Singers' rendition of an eighteenth-century Christian hymn, "Oh Happy Day", Harrison continued working on the theme. He completed the song, with help from Preston, once they had returned to London.


title: My Sweet Lord

text: The lyrics of "My Sweet Lord" reflect Harrison's often-stated desire for a direct relationship with God, expressed in simple words that all believers could affirm, regardless of their religion. He later attributed the song's message to Swami Vivekananda, particularly the latter's teaching: "If there's a God, we must see him. And if there is a soul, we must perceive it." Author Ian Inglis observes a degree of "understandable" impatience in the first verse's line "Really want to see you, Lord, but it takes so long, my Lord". By the end of the song's second verse, Harrison declares a wish to "know" God also and attempts to reconcile the impatience.


title: My Sweet Lord

text: Following this verse, in response to the main vocal's repetition of the song title, Harrison devised a choral line singing the Hebrew word of praise, "hallelujah", common in the Christian and Jewish religions. Later in the song, after an instrumental break, these voices return, now chanting the first twelve words of the Hare Krishna mantra, known more reverentially as the Maha mantra:


title: My Sweet Lord

text: These Sanskrit words are the main mantra of the Hare Krishna faith, with which Harrison identified, although he did not belong to any spiritual organisation. In his 1980 autobiography, "I, Me, Mine", Harrison says that he intended repeating and alternating "hallelujah" and "Hare Krishna" to show that the two terms meant "quite the same thing", as well as to have listeners chanting the mantra "before they knew what was going on!"


title: My Sweet Lord

text: Following the Sanskrit lines, "hallelujah" is sung twice more before the mantra repeats, along with an ancient Vedic prayer. According to Hindu tradition, this prayer is dedicated to a devotee's spiritual teacher, or guru, and equates the teacher to the divine Trimurti – Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva (or Maheshvara) – and to the Godhead, Brahman.


title: My Sweet Lord

text: Religious academic Joshua Greene, one of the Radha Krishna Temple devotees in 1970, translates the lines as follows: "I offer homage to my guru, who is as great as the creator Brahma, the maintainer Vishnu, the destroyer Shiva, and who is the very energy of God." The prayer is the third verse of the Guru Stotram, a fourteen-verse hymn in praise of Hindu spiritual teachers.


title: My Sweet Lord

text: Several commentators cite the mantra and the simplicity of Harrison's lyrics as central to the song's universality. In Inglis's view, "[The] lyrics are not directed at a specific manifestation of a single faith's deity, but rather to the concept of one god whose essential nature is unaffected by particular interpretations and who pervades everything, is present everywhere, is all-knowing and all-powerful, and transcends time and space ... All of us – Christian, Hindu, Muslim, Jew, Buddhist – can address our gods in the same way, using the same phrase ['my sweet Lord']."


title: My Sweet Lord

text: With the Beatles still together officially in December 1969, Harrison had no plans to make a solo album of his own and reportedly intended to offer "My Sweet Lord" to Edwin Hawkins. Instead, following the Delaney & Bonnie tour, he decided to record it with Billy Preston, for whom Harrison was co-producing a second Apple album, "Encouraging Words". Recording took place at Olympic Studios in London, in January 1970, with Preston as principal musician, supported by the guitarist, bass player and drummer from the Temptations' backing band. The Edwin Hawkins Singers happened to be on tour in the UK as well, so Harrison invited them to participate.


title: My Sweet Lord

text: Preston's version of "My Sweet Lord" differs from Harrison's later reading in that the "hallelujah" refrain appears from the start of the song and, rather than the full mantra section, the words "Hare Krishna" are sung only twice throughout the whole track. With the Vedic prayer also absent, Leng views this original recording as a possible "definitive 'roots' take of the song, citing its "pure gospel groove" and Hawkins' participation. In his review of "Encouraging Words", Bruce Eder of AllMusic describes "My Sweet Lord" and "All Things Must Pass" (another Harrison composition originally given to Preston to record) as "stunning gospel numbers ... that make the Harrison versions seem pallid".