title: Commodity fetishism

text: In "A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy" (1859), Marx referred to "A Discourse on the Rise, Progress, Peculiar Objects, and Importance of Political Economy" (1825), by John Ramsay McCulloch, who said that "In its natural state, matter ... is always destitute of value", with which Marx concurred, saying that "this shows how high even a McCulloch stands above the fetishism of German 'thinkers' who assert that 'material', and half a dozen similar irrelevancies are elements of value".


title: Commodity fetishism

text: Furthermore, in the manuscript of "Results of the Immediate Process of Production" (c. 1864), an appendix to "Capital: Critique of Political Economy, Volume 1" (1867), Marx said that:


title: Commodity fetishism

text: Hence did Karl Marx apply the concepts of "fetish" and "fetishism", derived from economic and ethnologic studies, to the development of the theory of commodity fetishism, wherein an economic abstraction (value) is psychologically transformed (reified) into an object, which people choose to believe has an intrinsic value, in and of itself.


title: Commodity fetishism

text: Marx proposed that in a society where independent, private producers trade their products with each other, of their own volition and initiative, and without much coordination of market exchange, the volumes of production and commercial activities are adjusted in accordance with the "fluctuating values" of the products (goods and services) as they are bought and sold, and in accordance with the fluctuations of supply and demand. Because their social coexistence, and its meaning, is expressed through market exchange (trade and transaction), people have no other relations with each other. Therefore, social relations are continually mediated and expressed with objects (commodities and money). How the traded commodities relate will depend upon the costs of production, which are reducible to quantities of human labour, although the worker has no control over what happens to the commodities that he or she produces. (See: "Entfremdung", Marx's theory of alienation)


title: Commodity fetishism

text: The concept of the "intrinsic value" of commodities (goods and services) determines and dominates the economic (business) relationships among people, to the extent that buyers and sellers continually adjust their beliefs (financial expectations) about the value of things—either consciously or unconsciously—to the proportionate price changes (market-value) of the commodities over which buyers and sellers believe they have no true control. That psychologic perception transforms the trading-value of a commodity into an independent entity (an object), to the degree that the social value of the goods and services appears to be a natural property of the commodity itself. Thence objectified, "the market" appears as if self-regulated (by fluctuating supply and demand) because, in pursuit of profit, the consumers of the products ceased to perceive the human co-operation among capitalists that is the true engine of the market where commodities are bought and sold; such is the domination of things in the market.


title: Commodity fetishism

text: The value of a commodity originates from the human being's intellectual and perceptual capacity to consciously (subjectively) ascribe a relative value (importance) to a commodity, the goods and services manufactured by the labour of a worker. Therefore, in the course of the economic transactions (buying and selling) that constitute market exchange, people ascribe "subjective" values to the commodities (goods and services), which the buyers and the sellers then perceive as "objective" values, the market-exchange prices that people will pay for the commodities.


title: Commodity fetishism

text: In a capitalist society, the human perception that "the market" is an independent, sentient entity, is how buyers, sellers, and producers naturalize market exchange (the human choices and decisions that constitute commerce) as a series of "natural phenomena ... that ... happen of their own accord". Such were the political-economy arguments of the economists whom Karl Marx criticized when they spoke of the "natural equilibria" of markets, as if the price (value) of a commodity were independent of the volition and initiative of the capitalist producers, buyers, and sellers of commodities.


title: Commodity fetishism

text: In the 18th century, the Scottish social philosopher and political economist Adam Smith, in "The Wealth of Nations" (1776) proposed that the "truck, barter, and exchange" activities of the market were corresponding economic representations of human nature, that is, the buying and selling of commodities were activities intrinsic to the market, and thus are the "natural behaviour" of the market. Hence, Smith proposed that a market economy was a self-regulating entity that "naturally" tended towards economic equilibrium, wherein the relative prices (the value) of a commodity ensured that the buyers and sellers obtained what they wanted for and from their goods and services.


title: Commodity fetishism

text: In the 19th century, Karl Marx contradicted the artifice of Adam Smith's "naturalisation of the market's behaviour" as a politico-ideologic apology—by and for the capitalists—which allowed human economic choices and decisions to be misrepresented as fixed "facts of life", rather than as the human actions that resulted from the will of the producers, the buyers, and the sellers of the commodities traded at market. Such "immutable economic laws" are what "Capital: Critique of Political Economy" (1867) revealed about the functioning of the capitalist mode of production, how goods and services (commodities) are circulated among a society; and thus explain the psychological phenomenon of commodity fetishism, which ascribes an independent, objective value and reality to a thing that has no inherent value—other than the value given to it by the producer, the seller, and the buyer of the commodity.


title: Commodity fetishism

text: In a capitalist economy, a character mask ("Charaktermaske") is the functional role with which a person relates and is related to in a society composed of stratified social classes, especially in relationships and market-exchange transactions; thus, in the course of buying and selling, the commodities (goods and services) usually appear other than they are, because they are masked (obscured) by the role-playing of the buyer and the seller. Moreover, because the capitalist economy of a class society is an intrinsically contradictory system, the masking of the true socio-economic character of the transaction is an integral feature of its function and operation as market exchange. In the course of business competition among themselves, buyers, sellers, and producers cannot do business (compete) without obscurity—confidentiality and secrecy—thus the necessity of the character masks that obscure true economic motive.


title: Commodity fetishism

text: Central to the Marxist critique of political economy is the obscurantism of the juridical labour contract, between the worker and the capitalist, that masks the true, exploitive nature of their economic relationship—that the worker does not sell his and her labour, but that the worker sells individual labour power, the human capacity to perform work and manufacture commodities (goods and services) that yield a profit to the producer. The work contract is the mask that obscures the economic exploitation of the difference between the wages paid for the labour of the worker, and the new value created by the labour of the worker.


title: Commodity fetishism

text: Marx thus established that in a capitalist society the creation of wealth is based upon "the paid and unpaid portions of labour [that] are inseparably mixed up with each other, and the nature of the whole transaction is completely masked by the intervention of a contract, and the pay received at the end of the week"; and that:


title: Commodity fetishism

text: The primary valuation of the trading-value of goods and services (commodities) is expressed as money-prices. The buyers and the sellers determine and establish the economic and financial relationships; and afterwards compare the prices in and the price trends of the market. Moreover, because of the masking of true economic motive, neither the buyer, nor the seller, nor the producer perceive and understand every human labour-activity required to deliver the commodities (goods and services), nor do they perceive the workers whose labour facilitated the purchase of commodities. The economic results of such collective human labour are expressed as the "values" and the "prices" of the commodities; the value-relations between the amount of human labour and the value of the supplied commodity.


title: Commodity fetishism

text: In the essay "Capitalism as Religion" (1921), Walter Benjamin said that whether or not people treat capitalism as a religion was a moot subject, because "One can behold in capitalism a religion, that is to say, capitalism essentially serves to satisfy the same worries, anguish, and disquiet formerly answered by so-called religion." That the religion of capitalism is manifest in four tenets:


title: Commodity fetishism

text: Since the 19th century, when Karl Marx presented the theory of commodity fetishism, in Section 4, "The Fetishism of Commodities and the Secret thereof", of the first chapter of "Capital: Critique of Political Economy" (1867), the constituent concepts of the theory, and their sociologic and economic explanations, have proved intellectually fertile propositions that permit the application of the theory (interpretation, development, adaptation) to the study, examination, and analysis of other cultural aspects of the political economy of capitalism, such as:


title: Commodity fetishism

text: The theory of sexual fetishism, which Alfred Binet presented in the essay "Le fétichisme dans l'amour: la vie psychique des micro-organismes, l'intensité des images mentales, etc." (Fetishism in Love: the Psychic Life of Micro-organisms, the Intensity of Mental Images, etc., 1887), was applied to interpret commodity fetishism as types of sexually-charged economic relationships, between a person and a commodity (goods and services), as in the case of advertising, which is a commercial enterprise that ascribes human qualities (values) to a commodity, to persuade the buyer to purchase the advertised goods and services. However, Marx focused on the exchange value of the commodity -- its price -- when considering commodity fetishism and its hiding of the complex social relationships involved in producing and exchanging a product under capitalism. He was not discussing the symbolic meanings of the commodity for the consumer, or what he called its "use value." Hence, sexual fetishism and commodity fetishism are largely unconnected concepts.


title: Commodity fetishism

text: In the 19th and in the 21st centuries, Thorstein Veblen ("The Theory of the Leisure Class: An Economic Study of Institutions", 1899) and Alain de Botton ("Status Anxiety", 2004) respectively developed the social status (prestige) relationship between the producer of consumer goods and the aspirations to prestige of the consumer. To avoid the status anxiety of not being of or belonging to "the right social class", the consumer establishes a personal identity (social, economic, cultural) that is defined and expressed by the commodities (goods and services) that he or she buys, owns, and uses; the domination of things that communicate the "correct signals" of social prestige, of belonging. (See: Conspicuous consumption.)


title: Commodity fetishism

text: In "History and Class Consciousness" (1923), György Lukács started from the theory of commodity fetishism for his development of reification (the psychological transformation of an abstraction into a concrete object) as the principal obstacle to class consciousness. About which Lukács said: "Just as the capitalist system continuously produces and reproduces itself economically on higher levels, the structure of reification progressively sinks more deeply, more fatefully, and more definitively into the consciousness of Man"—hence, commodification pervaded every conscious human activity, as the growth of capitalism commodified every sphere of human activity into a product that can be bought and sold in the market. (See: "Verdinglichung", Marx's theory of reification.)


title: Commodity fetishism

text: Commodity fetishism is theoretically central to the Frankfurt School philosophy, especially in the work of the sociologist Theodor W. Adorno, which describes "how" the forms of commerce invade the human psyche; how commerce casts a person into a role not of his or her making; and how commercial forces affect the development of the psyche. In the book "Dialectic of Enlightenment" (1944), Adorno and Max Horkheimer presented the Theory of the Culture Industry to describe how the human imagination (artistic, spiritual, intellectual activity) becomes commodified when subordinated to the "natural commercial laws" of the market.


title: Commodity fetishism

text: To the consumer, the cultural goods and services sold in the market appear to offer the promise of a richly developed and creative individuality, yet the inherent commodification severely restricts and stunts the human psyche, so that the man and the woman consumer has little "time for myself", because of the continual personification of cultural roles over which he and she exercise little control. In personifying such cultural identities, the person is a passive consumer, not the active creator, of his or her life; the promised life of individualistic creativity is incompatible with the collectivist, commercial norms of bourgeois culture.


title: Commodity fetishism

text: In the study "From Commodity Fetishism to Commodity Narcissism" (2012) the investigators applied the Marxist theory of commodity fetishism to psychologically analyse the economic behaviour (buying and selling) of the contemporary consumer. With the concept of commodity narcissism, the psychologists Stephen Dunne and Robert Cluley proposed that consumers who claim to be ethically concerned about the manufacturing origin of commodities, nonetheless behaved as if ignorant of the exploitative labour conditions under which the workers produced the goods and services, bought by the "concerned consumer"; that, within the culture of consumerism, narcissistic men and women have established shopping (economic consumption) as a socially acceptable way to express aggression. Researchers find no evidence that a greater manufacturing base can spur economic growth, while improving government effectiveness and regulation quality are more promising for facilitating economic growth.


title: Commodity fetishism

text: Environmentally “conscious” consumers want their purchased products to be environmentally ethical. According to James G. Carrier, on a personal level their purchases can make them feel more positively moral and second they can help put pressure on firms in a competitive market to change the way they do things. Marx’s 1867 notion of commodity fetishism which concerns the idea that ethical consumption is going beyond the two reasons first noted by Carrier. Certain commodities are perceived in a particular way that the consumer ignores or denies the labour time entailed in the process of production or for that matter any detailed background people and process that is viable in creating an ethical product. Capitalists have the intention of selling to an audience with commercial gain - the use of nature as a strategy is vital in urging people to buy their product. Ethical consumption is mostly concerned with the social, political and environmental context of objects - and consumers want a product that meets their moral criteria, something non-exploitative. These baseline concepts need to be visible and eye-catching with recognisable verifications. This is very common in ecotourism who produce eco-friendliness as a reason to buy and visit. Advertising protection and conservation attracts visitors and media attention. These capitalists make no point to vary in their images and photographs or captions - the repetition of nature is always colourful and vibrant, gentle and reserved. They are "fetishizing" nature as a marketing technique. Portraying themselves as a business that protects nature satisfies their clientele so that the consumer cannot see the objects and mechanisms used to actually produce it. Carrier describes how the environment itself is fetishised as a consumable product through parks and other areas of land being used as bodies or images attached to promises of natural experiences or protection efforts in return for money. Carrier also offers the example of fair-trade coffee as a way that commodity fetishism is seen in ethical consumption. If fair-trade coffee promises that it is direct, cooperative supply chain between growers and consumers through images of coffee growers and messaging on the bag of coffee, this becomes more relevant to consumer decision making than the reality that many other “middle-men” were needing in the roasting, packaging, marketing, and transportation of that commodity.


title: Commodity fetishism

text: In "The Society of the Spectacle" (1967), Guy Debord presented the theory of ""le spectacle""—the systematic conflation of advanced capitalism, the mass communications media, and a government amenable to exploiting those factors. The spectacle transforms human relations into objectified relations among images, and vice versa; the exemplar spectacle is television, the communications medium wherein people passively allow (cultural) representations of themselves to become the active agents of their beliefs. The spectacle is the form that society assumes when the Arts, the instruments of cultural production, have been commodified as commercial activities that render an aesthetic value into a commercial value (a commodity). Whereby artistic expression then is shaped by the person's ability to sell it as a commodity, that is, as artistic goods and services.


title: Commodity fetishism

text: Capitalism reorganizes personal consumption to conform to the commercial principles of market exchange; commodity fetishism transforms a cultural commodity into a product with an economic "life of its own" that is independent of the volition and initiative of the artist, the producer of the commodity. What Karl Marx critically anticipated in the 19th century, with "The Fetishism of Commodities and the Secret thereof", Guy Debord interpreted and developed for the 20th century—that in modern society, the psychologic intimacies of intersubjectivity and personal self-relation are commodified into discrete "experiences" that can be bought and sold. The Society of the Spectacle is the ultimate form of social alienation that occurs when a person views his or her being (self) as a commodity that can be bought and sold, because he or she regards every human relation as a (potential) business transaction. (See: "Entfremdung", Marx's theory of alienation)


title: Commodity fetishism

text: Jean Baudrillard applied commodity fetishism to explain the subjective feelings of men and women towards consumer goods in the "realm of circulation"; that is, the cultural mystique (mystification) that advertising ascribed to the commodities (goods and services) in order to encourage the buyer to purchase the goods and services as aids to the construction of his and her cultural identity. In the book "For a Critique of the Political Economy of the Sign" (1972), Baudrillard developed the semiotic theory of "the Sign" (sign value) as a development of Marx's theory of commodity fetishism and of the exchange value "vs." use value dichotomy of capitalism.


title: Commodity fetishism

text: In the 21st century, the political economy of capitalism reified the abstract objects that are information and knowledge into the tangible commodities of intellectual property, which are produced by and derived from the labours of the intellectual and the white collar workers.


title: Commodity fetishism

text: The economist Michael Perelman critically examined the belief systems from which arose intellectual property rights, the field of law that commodified knowledge and information. Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis critically reviewed the belief systems of the theory of human capital. Knowledge, as the philosophic means to a better life, is contrasted with capitalist knowledge (as commodity and capital), produced to generate income and profit. Such commodification detaches knowledge and information from the (user) person, because, as intellectual property, they are independent, economic entities.


title: Commodity fetishism

text: In "Postmodernism, or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism" (1991), the Marxist theorist Fredric Jameson linked the reification of information and knowledge to the post-modern distinction between "authentic knowledge" (experience) and "counterfeit knowledge" (vicarious experience), which usually is acquired through the mass communications media. In "Critique of Commodity Aesthetics: Appearance, Sexuality and Advertising in Capitalist Society" (1986), the philosopher Wolfgang Fritz Haug presents a "critique of commodity aesthetics" that examines how human needs and desires are manipulated and reshaped for commercial gain.


title: Commodity fetishism

text: The sociologists Frank Furedi and Ulrich Beck studied the development of commodified types of knowledge in the business culture of "risk prevention" in the management of money. The Post–World War II economic expansion (c. 1945–1973) created very much money (capital and savings), while the dominant bourgeois ideology of money favoured the risk-management philosophy of the managers of investment funds and financial assets. From such administration of investment money, manipulated to create new capital, arose the preoccupation with risk calculations, which subsequently was followed by the "economic science" of risk prevention management. In light of which, the commodification of money as "financial investment funds" allows an ordinary person to pose as a rich person, as an economic risk-taker able to risk losing money invested to the market. Hence, the fetishization of financial risk as "a sum of money" is a reification that distorts the social perception of the true nature of financial risk, as experienced by ordinary people. Moreover, the valuation of financial risk is susceptible to ideological bias; that contemporary fortunes are achieved from the insight of experts in financial management, who study the relationship between "known" and "unknown" economic factors, by which human fears about money can be manipulated and exploited.


title: Commodity fetishism

text: The cultural critics Georg Simmel and Walter Benjamin examined and described the fetishes and fetishism of Art, by means of which "artistic" commodities are produced for sale in the market, and how commodification determines and establishes the value of the artistic commodities (goods and services) derived from legitimate Art; for example, the selling of an artist's personal effects as "artistic fetishes".


title: Commodity fetishism

text: In the field of law, the scholar Evgeny Pashukanis ("The General Theory of Law and Marxism", 1924), the Austrian politician Karl Renner, the German political scientist Franz Leopold Neumann, the British socialist writer China Miéville, the labour-law attorney Marc Linder, and the American legal philosopher Duncan Kennedy ("The Role of Law in Economic Theory: Essays on the Fetishism of Commodities", 1985) have respectively explored the applications of commodity fetishism in their contemporary legal systems, and reported that the reification of legal forms misrepresents social relations.


title: Commodity fetishism

text: In "Portrait of a Marxist as a Young Nun" (1988), Professor Helena Sheehan said that the analogy between religious faith and commodity fetishism is a mistaken interpretation, because people do not worship commodities (money and merchandise) by attributing supernatural powers to inanimate objects, to a fetish. That the belief that value-relationships inherent to a commodity described is not religious belief, because value-relations do not possess the psychological characteristics of spiritual beliefs. That interpretation is proved by the possibility of a person's possessing religious faith, whilst being aware of the psychology of commodity fetishism, and thus being critical of the fetishization of money and merchandise, thus, a person's disbelief in the Golden Calf is integral to the person's iconoclasm against the idolatry of money.


title: M119 howitzer

text: The M119 howitzer is the American version of the British L119 light gun, a lightweight British 105 mm howitzer also used by the United States Army. The M119 is typically towed by the M1097 or M1152 High Mobility Multi-Purpose Wheeled Vehicle (HMMWV), and can be easily airlifted by helicopter, or airdropped by parachute.


title: M119 howitzer

text: The howitzer was designed and produced by the British Royal Ordnance Factories as the L118 light gun. In the L118 configuration, the 105 mm ammunition is cased separate loading ammunition (not semi-fixed projectile and propelling charge as sometimes stated). The L118 entered service with the British Army in 1976 and is used by parachute and commando field artillery regiments. It saw combat during the Falklands War, where the 30 guns in action fired up to 400 rounds per gun per day, mostly at "charge super"—i.e., the most powerful propellant charge available. The L119 is the L118 reconfigured to fire NATO-standard 105 mm semi-fixed ammunition.


title: M119 howitzer

text: In 1987 an agreement was reached to produce the L119 under license by the US as the M119, to replace the M102 howitzer. It entered service with the 7th Infantry Division, Fort Ord, California, in December 1989. Some improvements were made to produce the M119A1, expanding upon its extreme low temperate envelope from , therefore improving both maintainability and reliability. The Army renewed contracts for the M119 to be produced by the Rock Island Arsenal-Joint Manufacturing & Technology Center (RIA-JMTC) at Rock Island, Illinois, into the year 2013. The M20A1 cannon assembly for the M119 was manufactured by US Army Watervliet Arsenal.


title: M119 howitzer

text: The M119 is currently fielded with all Regular Army and National Guard infantry brigade combat teams, including those in the 10th Mountain, 82nd Airborne, and 101st Airborne divisions, and the 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team. Other divisions may be of mixed composition between armor, Stryker, and infantry brigade combat teams, with armor having M109A6s Paladins and Stryker having M777s for their fires battalions. For example, two of four are IBCTs with M119s in the 25th Infantry Division. National Guard light field artillery battalions assigned to IBCTs also have M119s, for example the 86th IBCT (Mountain) headquartered in Vermont. It is routinely airdropped in airborne operations and sling-loaded under CH-47 Chinook or UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters in air assault operations.


title: M119 howitzer

text: In April 2009, the M119A2 howitzer was being fielded by the 4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team of the 3rd Infantry Division to provide better support in operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. It was the only brigade in the division equipped with it, as the other three brigades were Armored Brigade Combat Teams, and therefore equipped with the M109A6 Paladin.


title: M119 howitzer

text: Alpha Battery of the 1st Battalion, 320th Field Artillery Regiment, 101st Airborne Division received their first upgraded M119A3 howitzers in July 2013, and became the first unit to operate it in theater when they were deployed to northeast Afghanistan in early February 2014. The digitally upgraded M119A3 includes software and hardware component upgrades, GPS for navigation, a digital gunner's display, and digital communication between each gun and the fire direction center to speed up the process of receiving firing data and firing shells. Firing platoons were also equipped with larger, also digital M777A2 howitzers, and the M119A3 was more admired for being faster, lighter, and easier to change azimuth of fire. The A3-model retains manual capabilities of the A2-model, so occasions where digital capabilities were lost allowed crews to easily transition back to the analogue mode of operation and continue their missions.


title: M119 howitzer

text: Project Manager for Towed Artillery Systems (PM TAS) has developed several upgrades for the M119A3 including digital fire control, increased low temperature capability from , and the M20 breech. The recoil system is also being upgraded, as the legacy system had reliability issues with the recuperator, buffer, and variable recoil linkage (which sets recoil length based on elevation); it had a lot of moving parts needing constant maintenance and adjustment during operations with high replacement rates of spares that are complex to manufacture and require specialized tooling to assemble, increasing costs and causing availability problems. The redesigned system operates the same, but modifies and simplifies some components, including a new buffer and recuperator with a majority of the components removed, and adds the Suspension Lockout System (SLOS) that fixes recoil length at , which removes variable-recoil hardware, reduces stress on the carriage, and lowers buffer rod forces; the new system reduces cost, the system consists of 124 parts and the redesign will reduce that number by 40 percent to 75 parts and reusing 47 parts will consist of 65 percent for the current system, therefore only needing to manufacturing 28 new parts with overall weight savings of .


title: M119 howitzer

text: The M119 also fires the M395 blank cartridge, which is used for burials, retreat ceremonies, and VIP Salutes as well as to simulate battlefield noise used for training exercises.


title: The Love Witch

text: The Love Witch is a 2016 American comedy horror film written, edited, directed, produced, and scored by Anna Biller. The film stars Samantha Robinson as Elaine Parks, a modern-day witch who uses spells and magic to get men to fall in love with her with disastrous results. Shot in Los Angeles and Arcata, California, it premiered at the International Film Festival Rotterdam. In May 2016, it was acquired for distribution at the Cannes Marché du Film by Oscilloscope Laboratories.


title: The Love Witch

text: The film received a limited release in the United States on November 11, 2016. "The Love Witch" was shot on 35mm film, and printed from an original cut negative. The film was acclaimed by critics for its playful tribute to 1960s horror and Technicolor films, combined with its serious inquiry into contemporary gender roles.


title: The Love Witch

text: Elaine, a beautiful young witch, is driving to Arcata, California, a town which tolerates witchcraft, to start a new life after the death of her husband Jerry. It is heavily implied that Elaine may have murdered him. Once there, she rents an apartment in a Victorian home owned by Elaine's mentor Barbara and kept up by its interior decorator, Trish Manning. In an attempt to befriend the young woman, Trish takes Elaine to a teahouse, where she is met by her husband Richard, who is instantly besotted with Elaine after meeting her gaze. Hoping to find a new lover, Elaine performs a ritual to find one and soon meets Wayne, a literature professor at the local college.


title: The Love Witch

text: The two travel to Wayne's cabin, where she gets him to drink a concoction containing hallucinogens. Once the two have sex Wayne becomes emotional and clingy which proves to be a turnoff for Elaine. He dies the next day and Elaine buries his body along with a witch bottle containing her urine and used tampon. She decides that the next man she will try to seduce will be Richard since he is married and cannot obsess over her. While Trish is away, Elaine invites him over to her apartment, where she also serves him a concoction before seducing him with a dance. The night ends with them having sex. Afterwards, Richard becomes obsessed with Elaine, causing her to abandon their affair.


title: The Love Witch

text: Unbeknownst to Elaine, one of Wayne's colleagues has reported him missing, leading to police officer Griff to investigate and discover Wayne's body and Elaine's witch bottle. He traces it to Elaine, but falls in love with her and initially refuses to believe that she would be capable of murder, much to the ire of his partner Steve. Elaine shares his love and believes him to be the man of her dreams, even going so far as to hold a mock wedding with her coven at a Renaissance faire.


title: The Love Witch

text: Griff's superior educates him on the tenuous peace between the town and the witches, then tells him to abandon the pursuit of Elaine as a suspect. When his partner Steve pushes him, he reveals that Wayne died of a heart attack and that the devil's weed found in his system grew around his cabin. For the first time it is revealed that Jerry died from a drug overdose shortly before remarrying, even though he did not take drugs.


title: The Love Witch

text: Meanwhile, a morose Richard kills himself in his bathtub and is discovered by Trish. Despondent, she invites Elaine to tea again and tries on a ring that Griff gave Elaine during their mock wedding, only to forget to return the ring to Elaine. Trish decides to leave the ring inside Elaine's apartment, but in doing so discovers a shrine to Elaine's dead lovers, and that Richard was one of them. She is caught by Elaine, and the two fight before Trish leaves the apartment with evidence tying Elaine to Richard.


title: The Love Witch

text: Elaine then goes to the cabaret to meet Griff, who confronts her over the deaths of Wayne and Richard. He tells her that she is tied to both of them by DNA evidence left in Wayne's witch bottle and that items Trish gave him implicate her in Richard's suicide. Despite his earlier love, Griff is unwilling to let Elaine go unpunished. Their conversation is overheard by the cabaret patrons who are prejudiced towards witches and attempt to sexually assault Elaine. Griff helps her escape and the two return to her apartment.


title: The Love Witch

text: Once safe inside, Elaine concocts a drink for him like she did for the others, but he drops it on the floor instead of drinking it. Realizing that he was correct when telling her that no man can ever love her enough, she shrinks back in disbelief, grabs her athame and stabs him in the heart. With Griff dead, life has imitated art and matches the painting on the wall of them dressed like at their mock wedding and her kneeling over his body with a bloody dagger. In delirium, she smiles and imagines them at their wedding and that Griff actually proposed.


title: The Love Witch

text: "The Love Witch" uses the figure of the witch as a metaphor for women in general, as both an embodiment of men's fears of women, and of women's own innate powers of intuition and as mothers and sorceresses. The lead character of the film is a young woman who uses magic to make men love her. Her character is an examination of the femme fatale archetype. The film embraces the camp of 1960s horror, examining issues of love, desire, and narcissism through a feminist perspective. Anna Biller is a feminist filmmaker whose take on cinema is influenced by feminist film theory.


title: The Love Witch

text: While writing the script for "The Love Witch", Biller had been reading relationship self-help books, and one particular piece of advice that stuck out to her was that if a woman wants to keep a man around, she should love him less than he loves her. She noticed a parallel between this advice and the female characters in classic cinema who love someone to death, such as Ellen in "Leave Her to Heaven", so she decided to create the character Elaine in that same vein. Biller also studied witchcraft as research for the film, including trying her own witchcraft practice, and ended up decorating Elaine's apartment with colors from the Thoth tarot deck.


title: The Love Witch

text: Casting for the film involved a typical audition process, and Biller has said that the most difficult role to fill was that of Trish. Even though she didn't intend for an English actor to play that role, she couldn't find any Americans who were right for it. Biller chose Samantha Robinson for the lead role because she thought Robinson was "very poised and very self-possessed and she [had] a particular quality to her that’s very different from most people nowadays". After Robinson accepted the role, she and Biller watched a series of classic movies featuring women with "great sociopathic performance". The two collaborated closely to develop the character of Elaine so that Robinson's own personality could shape the character, and after this workshop period Biller rewrote parts of the script to adjust for their discoveries.


title: The Love Witch

text: Filming took place on a sound stage for two weeks, and then on specific locations for the rest of the shoot, including Eureka, California. The tea room scenes were shot in the Herald Examiner Building in Los Angeles.


title: The Love Witch

text: The film is highly stylized with elaborate set and costume design and a color palette to match the aesthetic of a 1960s Technicolor film. Although the film emulates a 1960s look, the story is set in the present day and features modern cars and mobile phones. One of Biller's stated goals is to bring "female glamor" back to films, and she believes that including stylish, detailed sets and props will fulfill women's fantasies rather than men's, and give viewers more to look at on screen, rather than focusing their attention on the female characters as sexual objects. Anna Biller designed the sets and costumes to emulate the style of classic Hollywood films, a years-long process that involved searching for the necessary vintage furniture at salvage stores or creating it herself if she couldn't find one. For example, it took Biller 6 months to make Elaine's pentagram rug from scratch. Costume design was treated the same way: Biller found vintage pieces that worked well for the film, such as Gunne Sax dresses from the '60s and '70s, but many important pieces she had to make herself. In some cases, she found vintage clothing with fabric in colors that isn't sold anymore to rebuild as needed, in other cases she made pieces from scratch. She spent over a year working full-time designing and building the Renaissance costumes for the mock wedding scene.


title: The Love Witch

text: She also collaborated closely with her cinematographer M. David Mullen, who is an expert on period cinematography and who has been nominated for two Independent Spirit Awards, to create the hard lighting style characteristic of Classic Hollywood films. Diffusion filters were used on the lens for certain close up shots, and a special kaleidoscope lens was used for drug trip sequence. For the driving scenes, rear projection photography was used to give glamour to the lead actress, and in tribute to the opening of the Hitchcock film "The Birds".


title: The Love Witch

text: The actors also played their parts in a classic presentational acting style, with lead actress Samantha Robinson receiving accolades for her stylized performance.


title: The Love Witch

text: "The Love Witch" is one of the last films to cut an original camera negative on 35mm film. It was the only new (non-repertory) feature film presented at the 2016 International Film Festival Rotterdam on 35mm film.


title: The Love Witch

text: "The Love Witch" received universal acclaim. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 95% based on 109 reviews, with an average rating of 7.72/10. The website's critical consensus reads: ""The Love Witch" offers an absorbing visual homage to a bygone era, arranged subtly in service of a thought-provoking meditation on the battle of the sexes." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average rating of 82 out of 100, based on 27 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". The film is listed as a "Metacritic must-see".


title: The Love Witch

text: In a review for "The New York Times", A. O. Scott wrote, "Ms. Biller's movie, like its heroine, presents a fascinating, perfectly composed, brightly colored surface. What's underneath is marvelously dark, like love itself."


title: The Love Witch

text: "The Love Witch" is listed at number 41 on Rotten Tomatoes' list of the Top 100 Horror Movies. It also made Rolling Stone's list of the top 10 Horror Movies of 2016, "The New Yorker"<nowiki>'</nowiki>s list of the Best Movies of 2016, and IndieWire's list of The Best Movies of 2016.


title: The Love Witch

text: "The Love Witch" won in a tie for the Trailblazer Award and Best Costume Design at the Chicago Indie Critics Awards, and also won the Michael Cimino Best Film Award at the American Independent Film Awards. The Dublin Film Critics' Circle awarded M. David Mullen Best Cinematography for "The Love Witch." Samantha Robinson was nominated for Best Actress for the 2017 Fangoria Chainsaw Awards for her performance as Elaine, and Emma Willis was nominated for the Technical Achievement Award for her hair and makeup on the film by the London Film Critics' Circle. In a "New York Times" editorial, A. O. Scott mentioned Anna Biller as worthy of receiving an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for "The Love Witch".


title: Chime (company)

text: Chime Financial, Inc. is an American financial technology company which provides fee-free mobile banking services that are provided by The Bancorp Bank or Stride Bank, N.A. Account-holders are issued Visa debit cards or credit cards and have access to an online banking system accessible through the company's website or via its mobile apps. Chime earns the majority of its revenue from the collection of interchange fees.


title: Chime (company)

text: Chime is not a bank and Chime customers do not have a customer relationship with its banks. Chime can and does cancel user accounts with no notice, it is not required to provide a reason for the cancellation to the customer or even have a reason. Customers cannot appeal to banking regulators to retrieve their deposits, which may not be returned in a timely fashion.


title: Chime (company)

text: Chime has no physical branches and does not charge monthly or overdraft fees, nor does it require an opening deposit or minimum balance to open a free checking account. As of February 2020, Chime had 8 million account holders. Bank accounts that are provided via Chime's partners are FDIC insured up to the standard maximum deposit insurance amount of $250,000. So far the accounts are only available for individuals of personal accounts; all money received must be in the name of the individual account owner.


title: Chime (company)

text: Chime was founded by Chris Britt (CEO) and Ryan King (CTO) in 2012 in San Francisco, California as an alternative to traditional banking with a mission of creating financial peace of mind. The company launched publicly on April 15, 2014 on the "Dr. Phil Show". As of 2020, Chime has raised $1.5 billion in private funding.


title: Chime (company)

text: In 2018, Chime acquired Pinch, a startup focused on helping millennials and young adults build their credit scores by reporting on-time rent payments to credit bureaus. Pinch's co-founders joined Chime's team as a part of the acquisition.


title: Chime (company)

text: On October 16, 2019, Chime experienced a service outage leaving users without access to their deposits. The issue was resolved the next day.


title: Chime (company)

text: In January 2020, Chime announced a partnership with the Dallas Mavericks as their jersey sponsor as a part of a multi-year deal.


title: Chime (company)

text: In April 2020, in response to the financial strain of the COVID-19 pandemic, Chime announced a pilot program to provide users who e-filed tax returns with the IRS a $1,200 advance on the Economic Stimulus Payment via SpotMe, Chime's fee-free overdraft product. Chime later announced the successful processing of over $375,000,000 in stimulus payments 1 week ahead of the scheduled government disbursement date.


title: Chime (company)

text: In February 2022, Chime along with Meta Platforms sued 2 Nigerians accused of impersonating Chime on social media platforms.


title: Chime (company)

text: In August 2021, Chime Financial raised $750 million in a series G funding round, led by investor Sequoia Capital Global Equities. This values the company at about $25 billion.


title: Chime (company)

text: Chime, which is not a bank, in 2021 came to agreements with two state financial regulators, the California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation and the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation, to stop representing itself as a bank. The company agreed to stop using the URL "chimebank.com", change its use of the word "bank" in marketing, and add disclaimers to its marketing and product text. It paid $200,000 in the settlement with Illinois.


title: Chime (company)

text: In July 2021, ProPublica published an article detailing Chime's record of closing customer accounts without notice or explanation, sometimes refusing to return customer deposits. Chime has attributed the closures to the accidental byproduct of fraud prevention.


title: Chime (company)

text: In 2022 Chime's practice of closing customer accounts without notice or explanation was again reported. The company has no obligation to provide a reason, or even have a reason, to close an account. As of the November, 2022 report the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau had received 3,500 complaints about Chime since the beginning of 2020. Customers with closed accounts sometimes had difficulty retrieving their deposits in a timely fashion. Since Chime customers are not customers of any bank, their recourse is often limited.


title: Chime (company)

text: Chime offers various fee-free banking products, including checking accounts with no minimum balance, an automated savings feature, and early wage access.


title: Chime (company)

text: In September 2019, Chime launched SpotMe, a fee-free overdraft service where customers can overdraw their accounts up to $100 without incurring an overdraft fee; once the overdraft limit is reached, purchases will be declined but no traditional negative balance fees charged.


title: Chime (company)

text: Chime launched Credit Builder in June 2020, a credit card designed to help consumers build their credit history.


title: LaWanda Page

text: LaWanda Page (born Alberta Peal; October 19, 1920September 14, 2002) was an American actress, comedian, and dancer whose career spanned six decades. Crowned "The Queen of Comedy" or "The Black Queen of Comedy", Page melded blue humor, signifyin', and observational comedy to joke about sexuality, race relations, African-American culture, and religion. She released five solo albums, including the 1977 gold-selling "Watch It, Sucker!". She also collaborated on two albums with comedy group Skillet, Leroy & Co. As an actress, Page is best known for portraying the Bible-toting and sharp-tongued "Aunt" Esther Anderson in the popular television sitcom "Sanford and Son", which originally aired from 1972 until 1977. Page later reprised this role in the short-lived television shows "Sanford Arms" (1976–1977) and "Sanford" (1980–1981). She also co-starred in the 1979 short-lived series "Detective School". Throughout her career, Page advocated for fair pay and equal opportunities for Black performers.


title: LaWanda Page

text: Page was born Alberta Peal on October 19, 1920, in Cleveland, Ohio. She was the older sister of Lynn Hamilton; however, this is not the Lynn Hamilton who co-starred with Page on "Sanford and Son", despite a rumor that the two actresses were sisters. Series co-lead Demond Wilson, who played Lamont Sanford, said the rumor was false in 2016.


title: LaWanda Page

text: Page knew from a young age that she wanted to work in show business: as she told "Call and Post" journalist Mary Lynn in 1975, Page was "born talented" and "never took a singing or dancing lesson". Growing up, Page danced at the Friendly Inn Settlement in Cleveland, a community center run by the Women's Christian Temperance Union. When she was young, her family moved to St. Louis, Missouri. Page attended Banneker Elementary School, where she met Redd Foxx (who portrayed Fred Sanford on "Sanford and Son"), who was two years her junior. Eventually, both entered the field of comedy separately and performed their own stage acts, working alongside each other on the Chitlin' Circuit and Foxx's TV sitcom "Sanford and Son".


title: LaWanda Page

text: Page began her show business career at age 15 in St. Louis, where she learned how to fire dance. Swallowing fire, lighting matches and cigarettes with her fingertips, and walking over flames were part of Page's entertaining bag of tricks. She burned herself frequently in her early days, though never badly. But, as she told journalist Vashti McKenzie at the "Baltimore Afro-American", "if I had to burn to make a living, I was willing to burn". Billed as "The Bronze Goddess of Fire" or "LaWanda, the Flame Goddess", Page entertained small St. Louis nightclubs. She later described one East St. Louis club where she worked as "the kind of place where if you ain’t home by nine o’clock at night you can be declared "legally" dead. [Everybody] walked around with knives in there. You better had one, too—knife or gun or something!" At some point, Page moved to Los Angeles, California. The exact year she moved is unknown, though she likely moved sometime in the 1950s. Once there, Page took a gig dancing and waiting tables at the Brass Rail Club for 15 years. She also toured her fire dancing act and made appearances at nightclubs across the country and world, including Canada, Brazil, and Japan.


title: LaWanda Page

text: It is unknown when and where Page began stand-up comedy. She may have been introduced to stand-up while dancing at the Brass Rail Club in Los Angeles. According to an interview in the "Philadelphia Tribune", Page did not like comedy at first, but a fellow Brass Rail Club employee and member of the comedy duo Skillet & Leroy saw Page's potential, telling her: "you can do comedy. As a matter of fact, if you don’t do comedy you can’t work here". Page may have also been introduced to stand-up while touring the Chitlin' Circuit, where she shared stages with noted comedians such as Redd Foxx and Richard Pryor. No matter how or when she transitioned to comedy from dance, it was in Los Angeles that Page started honing the feisty approach to comedy that would make her famous. In the mid-1960s Page became a member of the comedy group Skillet, Leroy & Co. (before Page joined, the group was a duo known as Skillet & Leroy). Skillet was Ernest "Skillet" Mayhand (1916–2007) and Leroy was Wilbert LeRoy Daniel (1928–1993). During her tenure as a stand-up comic, a career she continued into the 1990s, Page often was billed as "The Queen of Comedy" or "The Black Queen of Comedy".


title: LaWanda Page

text: Page recorded five live solo comedy albums for the Laff Records label and several other collaborative live comedy albums with comedy group Skillet, Leroy & Co. in the late 1960s and early 1970s under her LaWanda Page stage name (she often went just by her first name, sometimes styled as La Wanda). Other than the relatively clean "Sane Advice" album, released two years after the run of "Sanford and Son", Page's albums and stand-up material were raunchy blue comedy in nature. One release, a gold-selling album called "Watch It, Sucker!", was titled after one of her Aunt Esther character's catchphrases in order to capitalize on her newfound television fame. Page used the catchphrase again for the title of her 1982 stand-up tour, "The Watch It Sucker Review". When the "New Pittsburgh Courier" wondered why "'Aunt Esther' might do a show like this", Page explained that she was not on tour because she needed the money; rather, she toured because she wanted to meet Aunt Esther's fans and perform her own stand up. In that, Page succeeded: the "New Pittsburg Courier" reviewed the show as "full of laughter and enjoyed by the large group who attended". Page also performed as herself after her "Sanford and Son" fame. On numerous occasions from 1976 to 1978, Page appeared as a stand-up comedian on "Dean Martin Celebrity Roast", where she roasted celebrities like Frank Sinatra, Betty White, and Jimmy Stewart. In 1985, Page performed a raunchy set in the all-women stand-up special "Women Tell the Dirtiest Jokes." Also included in the film were sets from Lois Bromfield, Marsha Warfield, Patty Rosborough, Jo Ann Dearing, Carole Montgomery, Judy Tenuta, and Barbara Scott.


title: LaWanda Page

text: Page had been performing her comedy routine in nightclubs in St. Louis and Los Angeles for several years, but had planned to leave show business to move back to St. Louis to take care of her ailing mother. But a phone call from Redd Foxx in 1972 changed Page's mind. Earlier that year, the sitcom "Sanford and Son", starring Foxx as Fred Sanford, had premiered on NBC. A man known for his generosity, Foxx brought his childhood friend Page to the attention of one of the show's producers, who was already familiar with Page and her act. Then, Foxx called Page to ask her to read for the role of Esther Anderson ("Aunt Esther"), the sister of Fred Sanford's late wife Elizabeth. At first, Page thought Foxx was playing a joke, and hung up—twice. But once Foxx convinced her that he was being serious, she auditioned and was offered the role. However, prior to taping, producers became concerned when Page, whose experience was limited primarily to nightclub stages, seemed to have difficulty working in a sitcom format. Eventually, one of the show's producers told Foxx that Page would need to be fired and that another actor would need to be cast before the show could begin taping. Foxx responded by insisting that Page keep the part, even threatening to walk away from the show if Page were fired. Besides Foxx's generosity, he knew Page would be a fantastic fit for the Aunt Esther role, saying that: "you never heard of the lady, but the night that first show of LaWanda's goes on the air, there'll be dancing in the streets in every ghetto in the United States". The producers relented and, after joining the series for the second season, Page's Aunt Esther went on to become one of the most popular TV sitcom characters of the 1970s. "Atlanta Daily World" celebrated Page's success as a "Cinderella story come true", and the "Pittsburgh Post-Gazette" described Page’s Aunt Esther as “a key ingredient” on "Sanford and Son" who “isn’t afraid of heathen Fred. She browbeats him at every turn in the tradition of God-fearing sisters who have seen the light and seek to quench the devil in a fun-loving man". Ron Miller at the "Boston Globe" listed Page as his eighth pick for his “Top Ten of TV’s lovable jerks” round-up.


title: LaWanda Page

text: Page's Aunt Esther was a combination of devout churchgoer and tough-as-nails realist, unafraid to state whatever was on her mind. While her relationship with Foxx's character, Fred Sanford, was usually confrontational, she portrayed a tender side when it came to her nephew Lamont Sanford (played by Demond Wilson). Common issues between brother-in-law and sister-in-law were Sanford's lack of business success and lukewarm religious faith. Sometimes, primarily because of their shared love for Lamont and the late Elizabeth, the two adversaries managed to find common ground. Although "Sanford and Son" was clearly Foxx's vehicle, Page's Aunt Esther could hold her own against the show's star. The church-going act of Esther was a highly praised contrast to the raunchy, expletive-filled material of Page's live act and records.


title: LaWanda Page

text: "Sanford and Son" ran for six seasons. After the sixth season, Foxx and his co-star Wilson left the show over unfair treatment and pay disputes with the network, leading to "Sanford and Son"’s cancellation in 1977.


title: LaWanda Page

text: Page continued her role as Aunt Esther on "Sanford and Son" spin-off "Sanford Arms", which followed a new lead character, Phil Wheeler (Theodore Wilson). But without Foxx nor Demond Wilson, "Sanford Arms" received low ratings and was cancelled after four episodes. A review in "Variety" noted that Page “is a genuinely funny lady, but she looked considerably better when she had Foxx to work with and against. Restraint is not her stock in trade, and [Theodore] Wilson is an inadequate counterbalance”. In 1980 NBC ran another spin-off of "Sanford and Son" called "Sanford", which ignored entirely the events of "Sanford Arms". Foxx returned to play Fred Sanford, but Demond Wilson did not return to portray Lamont Sanford. Page joined the series in 1981 for its second season to reprise her role as Aunt Esther. However, "Sanford" was plagued with low viewership and ratings, and NBC ultimately cancelled the series mid-season in 1981.


title: LaWanda Page

text: In 1977, Page appeared in an episode of "The Love Boat" titled "A Tasteful Affair; Oh, Dale!; The Main Event" alongside Sherman Hemsley. Page also appeared on several episodes of "The Dean Martin Celebrity Roasts", and over the next two decades occasionally guest-starred in episodes of other popular television shows, including "Amen", "Martin", "227", "Family Matters" and "Diff'rent Strokes". Page co-starred as Charlene Jenkins in the short-lived 1979 series "Detective School." She appeared on "Circus of the Stars" as a fire eater. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, she appeared in a series of comical Church's Chicken television commercials featuring the catchphrase "Gotta love it!". She appeared on several tracks of the debut album by RuPaul titled "Supermodel of the World" released in 1993, most notably the hit song "Supermodel (You Better Work)". She also appeared in several music videos from the album. Among her movie credits are appearances in "Zapped!" (1982), "Good-bye, Cruel World" (1983), "Mausoleum" (1983), where in one scene the producers inserted the opening song to Sanford & Son to honor her legacy, the Steve Martin film "My Blue Heaven" (1990), as an extremely foul-mouthed clown in Bobcat Goldthwait's 1991 comedy "Shakes the Clown", "CB4" (1993), a cameo appearance in the 1995 movie "Friday", stealing the opening scene with a one-liner, "Don't Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood" (1996), and a recurring role as Ms. Porter during the first season of the 1990s television sitcom, "Martin".


title: LaWanda Page

text: Page used blue comedy, observational humor, character comedy, and physical comedy to share vignettes about sexuality and religion that drew howling laughter from her audiences. She was one of the few women who performed extended spoken word pieces in the black signifying or toasting tradition. Scholar L. H. Stallings argues that through blue comedy, a genre often associated with men, Page and other Black female comics in the genre “continue a Black female trickster tradition dedicated to creating oral cultures, divergent language practices, and initiatives to change definitions and boundaries of gender and sexuality in society”. In addition, Stallings writes that by speaking openly about her own sexual desires and pleasure, Page broke taboos and challenged dominant ideologies of Black women’s performances of gender and sexuality. Page’s delivery and cadence was based in Black folklore traditions, working-class vocabulary and speech patterns, and Black church sermons. The Black church, argues scholar J. Finley, at times uplifted women’s voices less than men’s, so Page “dealt with women's silence in the church by transforming the sermon into a radical secular form via BWCL [Black women’s comic literacy] and blues idioms". Page infused jokes like “Whores in Church” from "Watch It, Sucker!" with lilting and rhythmic gospel vocals that, when coupled with her salacious humor, played with divisions between the sacred, secular, and lewd. Page employed slight impressions to distinguish the characters in her stories, but primarily relayed her tales as an omniscient narrator. She riffed off her audience, riling them up as she escalated her jokes. She also used physical comedy. At one rowdy 1989 performance in Richmond, Virginia, Page removed her underwear while on stage and auctioned it off to the highest bidder in the increasingly rambunctious crowd.


title: LaWanda Page

text: Page was married and widowed three times. She married her first husband at the age of 14, and before he died when she was 19 they had a daughter, Clara. After her third husband died when Page was in her thirties, she decided to never remarry. Page was religious and affiliated with the Landmark Community Church during her first years in Los Angeles. In 1981, she became an evangelist in the Holiness Church. Her daughter, Clara, was an evangelist preacher.


title: LaWanda Page

text: Page died of a heart attack following complications from diabetes on September 14, 2002, at age 81. She is interred in an outdoor crypt at Inglewood Park Cemetery in Inglewood, California. Page's daughter, the evangelist Clara Estella Roberta Johnson, died on June 4, 2006, in Los Angeles, California, at the age of 69.


title: LaWanda Page

text: Page followed in the footsteps of comic Moms Mabley along with carving her own path, making room for generations of future comics. Comedian and actress Thea Vidale called Page “a trailblazer who was never given the respect she deserved". Not only was Page a trailblazer, but she also continued to offer advice and support to those she met along the way. Actress Myra J. recalls that Page was “the nicest woman; gave me great advice”, and Tony Spires noted that Page “was underrated. A warm woman, nice and endearing with a lot of history from back in the day. Very cool and down to earth". Director Donald Welch summed Page’s life as: “LaWanda lived the life she loved, and loved the life she lived".


title: Whist

text: Whist is a classic English trick-taking card game which was widely played in the 18th and 19th centuries. Although the rules are simple, there is scope for strategic play.


title: Whist

text: Whist is a descendant of the 16th-century game of "trump" or "ruff". Whist replaced the popular variant of "trump" known as ruff and honours. The game takes its name from the 17th-century "whist" (or "wist") meaning "quiet", "silent", "attentive", which is the root of the modern "wistful".


title: Whist

text: According to Daines Barrington, whist was first played on scientific principles by a party of gentlemen who frequented the Crown Coffee House in Bedford Row, London, around 1728. Edmond Hoyle, suspected to be a member of this group, began to tutor wealthy young gentlemen in the game and published "A Short Treatise on the Game of Whist" in 1742. It became the standard text and rules for the game for the next hundred years.


title: Whist

text: In 1862, Henry Jones, writing under the pseudonym "Cavendish", published "The Principles of Whist Stated and Explained, and Its Practice Illustrated on an Original System, by Means of Hands Played Completely Through", which became the standard text. In his book, Jones outlined a comprehensive history of Whist, and suggested that its ancestors could include a game called Trionf, mentioned by a sixteenth century Italian poet named Berni, and a game called Trump (or Triumph), mentioned in Shakespeare's "Antony and Cleopatra". Many subsequent editions and enlargements of Jones's book were published using the simpler title "Cavendish On Whist". By this time, whist was governed by elaborate and rigid rules covering the laws of the game, etiquette and play which took time to study and master.


title: Whist

text: In the 1890s, a variant known as bridge whist became popular which eventually evolved into contract bridge. The traditional game of whist survives at social events called "whist drives". There are many modern variants of whist played for fun.


title: Whist

text: A standard 52-card pack is used. The cards in each suit rank from highest to lowest: A K Q J 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2. Whist is played by four players, who play in two partnerships with the partners sitting opposite each other. Players draw cards to determine dealer and partners, with the two highest playing against the lowest two, who have seating rights. To comment on the cards in any way is strictly against the rules. One may not comment upon the hand one was dealt nor about one's good fortune or bad fortune. One may not signal to one's partner.


title: Whist

text: The cards can be shuffled by any player, though usually the player to dealer's left. The dealer has the right to shuffle last if they wish. To speed up dealing, a second pack can be shuffled by the dealer's partner during the deal and then placed to the right ready for the next hand. The cards are cut by the player on dealer's right before dealing. The dealer deals out the cards, one at a time, face down, so that each player has thirteen cards. The final card, which belongs to the dealer, is turned face up to indicate which suit is trumps. The turned-up trump card remains face up on the table until it is the dealer's turn to play to the first trick, at which point the dealer may pick up the card and place it in his/her hand. The deal advances clockwise.


title: Whist

text: The player to the dealer's left leads to the first trick with any card in the hand. The other players, in clockwise order, each play a card to the trick and must follow suit by playing a card of the suit led if held. A player with no card of the suit led may play any card, either discarding or trumping. The trick is won by the highest card of the suit led, unless a trump is played, in which case the highest trump wins. The winner of the trick leads the next trick.


title: Whist

text: Play continues until all thirteen tricks are played, at which point the score is recorded. If no team has enough points to win the game, another hand is played.


title: Whist

text: Part of the skill involved in the game is one's ability to remember what cards have been played and reason out what cards remain. Therefore, once each trick is played, its cards are turned face down and kept in a stack of four near the player who won the trick. Before the next trick starts, a player may ask to review the cards from the last trick only. Once the lead card is played, however, no previously played cards can be reviewed by anyone.


title: Whist

text: After all tricks have been played, the side that won more tricks scores one point for each trick won in excess of six. When all four players are experienced, it is unusual for the score for a single hand to be higher than two. A game is over when one team reaches a score of five. There are so-called "Hotel Rules" variations in which the teams agree to play to a higher score, such as "American" and "Long" (seven and nine, respectively).


title: Whist

text: Longer variations of the game, in which the winning score is set higher than five, can be played with "honours" rules in effect. Honours have no effect on the play of a hand, but serve as bonus points that speed up the games as an element of luck. If the partners on a single team are dealt the top four cards (ace, king, queen, jack) in the trump suit, they collect four additional points at the end of the hand; if they are dealt three of these cards, they score two points. Tricks are scored before honours, and the latter cannot be used to score the winning point.


title: Whist

text: For example, a game is being played to nine points and the score is tied 6-6. A hand is played, and the winning team takes seven tricks and claims honours for three of the four highest trump cards. They score one point for their tricks, but only one point for their honours since the second point would take them up to nine and win the game. The score after the hand is thus 8-6.


title: Whist

text: Methods of keeping score include whist marker devices, or a set of four metal counters which can be arranged in different formations for the score values 1 through 9.


title: Whist

text: The name "whist" has become attached to a wide variety of games, most based on Classic Whist. McLeod classifies Whist games into a number of sub-groups: the Auction Whist, Boston, Classic Whist and Exact Bidding groups, and games played by numbers of players other than four. The following is a selection within each sub-group.


title: Whist

text: A whist drive is a social event at which progressive games of whist are played across a number of tables which are numbered or ordered into a sequence.


title: Whist

text: In it, the winning (or sometimes losing, dependent on the local custom) pair of a hand "progress" around the room, i.e. one person moves up the table sequence and one person moves down. On arriving at the new table, the next hand is played.


title: Whist

text: Whist has long been noted for its influence upon what is termed the calculating power; and men of the highest order of intellect have been known to take an apparently unaccountable delight in it, [...]"


title: Whist

text: His only pastime was reading the papers and playing whist. He frequently won at this quiet game, so very appropriate to his nature;[...]"


title: Whist

text: The rubber was conducted with all that gravity of deportment and sedateness of demeanour which befit the pursuit entitled “whist”—a solemn observance, to which, as it appears to us, the title of “game” has been very irreverently and ignominiously applied


title: Phase 10

text: Phase 10 is a card game created in 1982 by Kenneth Johnson and sold by Mattel, which purchased the rights from Fundex Games in 2010. Phase 10 is based on a variant of rummy known as contract rummy. It consists of a special deck equivalent to two regular decks of cards, and can be played by two to six people. The game is named after the ten phases (or melds) that a player must advance through in order to win. Many people shorten the game by aligning it to baseball rules and consider 5.5 phases to be a complete game when running out of time to complete the full ten phases. Whoever is in the lead when play stops if someone has completed 5.5 phases or more is the winner.


title: Phase 10

text: Phase 10 was Fundex's best selling product, selling over 62,600,000 units as of 2016, making it the 2nd best-selling commercial card game behind Mattel's Uno. In December 2010, Fundex sold its license rights to Phase 10 to Mattel.


title: Phase 10

text: The object of the game is to be the first person to complete all ten phases. In the case of two players completing the last phase in the same hand, the player who completed the last phase with the lowest overall score is the winner. If those scores also happen to be tied, a tiebreaker round is played where the tying players attempt to complete phase ten (or in variants, the last phase each player had tried to complete in the previous round).


title: Phase 10

text: For each hand, each player's object is to complete and lay down the current phase, and then rid their hand of remaining cards by discarding them on laid-down Phases, called "hitting". The player who does this first wins the hand and scores no penalty; all other players are assessed penalty points according to the value of cards remaining in their hand.


title: Phase 10

text: With two regular decks of cards, the suits can represent the four different colors, kings can represent the wild cards, and jokers can represent the skip cards.


title: Phase 10

text: A phase is a combination of cards. Phases are usually composed of sets (multiple cards of the same value), runs (multiple cards in consecutive ascending order), cards of one color, or a combination of these. As the name suggests, there are ten phases:


title: Phase 10

text: One player is chosen to be the dealer (alternately, the deal can rotate to the left after each hand). The dealer shuffles the deck and deals 10 cards, face down, one at a time, to each player. Players hold their 10 cards in hand so that the other players cannot see them. The remaining deck is placed face-down in the center of the play area to become the draw pile. A wild card turned up goes to the next player. The dealer then turns the top card of the draw pile over and places it next to the draw pile, to become the discard pile. During the first hand, all players try to complete Phase 1. Play consists of;


title: Phase 10

text: Hitting is the way to get rid of leftover cards after making a Phase. A hit is made by putting a card directly on a Phase already laid down. The cards must properly fit with the cards already down. Before a player can make a hit, their own Phase must already be laid down. A player may only hit during their turn. A player may hit any combination of their own Phase and other player's Phases, and may hit with as many cards as can be played from the player's hand on a single turn. Players are not allowed to replace a wild card in a Phase with the card from their hand matching the card the Wild stands for. Replacing Wild Cards is a possible Variant Rule.


title: Phase 10

text: After laying down a Phase, players try to "go out" as soon as possible. To go out, a player must get rid of all of their cards by hitting and discarding. Any players who completed their Phase, will advance to the next Phase for the next hand, while any player not able to complete their Phase remain on that same Phase for the next hand. Players count up the total value of cards left in their hands (the fewer cards left in their hand, the better) and score them as follows;


title: Phase 10

text: Each player's score for the hand is added to that player's running total (players who did not complete their Phase cannot have a score of less than 50 for the hand and often have far more with the inclusion of extra points for large values and wilds; this is known as being "set" similar to Hearts or Spades), the deal rotates to the left, all the cards are shuffled and a new hand begins. Again, if a player did not complete their Phase before another player went out, they must work on the same Phase in the next hand.


title: Phase 10

text: If only one player is attempting Phase number 10 on the hand and they complete the Phase, they become the winner and the game ends immediately. If two or more players complete Phase 10 in the same hand, then the player who has completed phase ten and has the lowest total points is the winner. In the event of a tie, the players that tied replay Phase number 10 and the first player to complete their phase and discard all their cards wins.


title: Phase 10

text: If someone has gone down and used a wild in their phase, if you have gone down you may replace their wild with the card it is placeholding for and move the wild to the left or right


title: Phase 10

text: A variation of play is to allow Floating. Instead of going out by discarding their last card, a player draws a card and then play all cards in their hand without discarding. This is known as going out "floating". Because the player must be able to discard a card in order to actually end the hand, other players now have at least one extra turn in which to go out themselves or at least improve their score. In addition, a "floating" player must draw a card and play it if able, and must draw the top card from the discard pile if it can be played; thus the floating player can be forced to play on their next turn instead of drawing and discarding. The floating player can also be skipped as normal. If someone else goes out before the "floater", the floater receives a zero score, but does not technically win the hand.


title: Phase 10

text: The strategic value of floating is that the person immediately preceding the floating player is generally forced to try to "keep them afloat" for at least a few turns, either by discarding cards the floating player is required to pick up and play, or by skipping the floater. This generally puts the player preceding the floater at a disadvantage compared to the other players and makes it less likely that that player will be able to finish their Phase if they have not yet done so. Players can use this strategy to "gang up" on one player; the player after them will float, forcing the player to try to keep them afloat while all other players get a number of extra turns to try to lay down their Phase or go out. Of course, the player preceding the floater is not actually forced to keep them afloat and may be able to go out themselves, lay down their Phase (thus drastically reducing their score for the hand), or may simply concede the hand by allowing the floater to draw (the card drawn is likely to be an unplayable, thus discardable, card).


title: Phase 10

text: If a player is floating, and there is no possible card that could be discarded or drawn to prevent that player from being able to discard, they are known as "floating dead"; it is extremely likely the floating player will be forced to end the hand on their next turn. This is rare, and usually happens when the floating player completes a phase involving a long run of cards, no one else has completed their Phase, and the floater's run has expanded through all 12 values. If no one else can lay down a hittable Phase in that turn, only another player playing a Skip or the floater drawing a Skip will keep the hand going, and only four exist in the deck.


title: Phase 10

text: If the dealer turns over a wild card at the beginning of the hand to start the discard pile, the dealer gets to decide who gets the wild card, instead of it automatically going to the player to the left of the dealer. The recipient of the wild card will choose a card from their hand to discard (the card cannot be a Skip), and then play continues with the player to the left of the dealer (or if that player had received the wild card, with the next player to the left after them). This slightly reduces the luck component inherent in the game, increasing the strategic and/or social element.


title: Phase 10

text: A "Wild" card can be played as a "Skip" card. (Truly Wild) This method was made popular in 1984 by Allison Steck.


title: Phase 10

text: The Masters Edition comes with 10 Phase cards for each player to keep track of the Phases which they have completed during gameplay. The Masters Edition also includes only two Skip cards instead of the four that the original edition contains. This makes the playable number of cards 106, plus the forty phase cards, for a total of 146 cards in the box. (An alternate method of keeping track of phases played for each player to use ace though ten of a suit in regular playing cards.)


title: Phase 10

text: Same rules as Masters Edition except the player declares what phase they are completing as they lay down the phase.


title: Phase 10

text: In Anti-phase, you have to complete your phase in order to stay on your present phase, if you don't complete your phase you move down a phase.


title: Phase 10

text: In Anti-phase for others, a rule card is left in the deck and it is discarded as your last card. Then you get to name who moves down a phase...if it's stuck in your hand at the end of the hand you move down a phase. It also may be discarded face down but may be picked up by the next player who can draw from the deck.


title: Phase 10

text: Phase 10 Dice is dice game inspired by Phase 10 and also published by Fundex Games. The goal is the same, to try to complete the phases, 1-10, in order. Instead of cards, players each take turns rolling 10 six-sided dice, 6 marked with 5-10 and the other four with 1-4 and two wilds each. In each turn the player rolls all 10 dice, then may set aside any of them and re-roll the rest up to two times, for a total of three rolls. If they've completed a phase, the total sum of the dice used in the phase are added to their score and next turn they move on to a new phase. Like in the card game, failing to complete a set means having to try for it again next turn, and the game ends once a player finishes phase 10.


title: Phase 10

text: The object of Phase 10 Twist is to be the first player to complete phase 10 by moving around the game board. Every player starts with their pawn on phase 1 on the game board. They must complete phase 1 in order to move their pawn. There are three pawn movements; move 3 spaces if you complete the phase and discard all of your cards, move 2 spaces if you complete the phase but do not discard all of your cards, or move 1 space if you don't complete the phase. If you land on a twist phase you can decide to play a twist phase or one of the phases on either side of the twist phase space. If you play a twist phase the pawn movements change to 6 spaces if you complete the phase and discard all of your cards, 4 if you complete the phase but do not discard all of your cards, or move back one space if you do not complete the phase.


title: Phase 10

text: Postal Rules follow the standard Phase 10 rules with two additions: 1) No player can go out (play all 10 cards), thus ending the hand, until play has completed one circuit of the table and play has returned to the dealer, regardless if someone was skipped. The dealer is the first player who can end the hand by playing all 10 of their cards. 2) Players working to complete any of the first seven phases can use the number card that matches the phase they are working to complete as a wild card. For example, ones are wild for all players during the first hand. During the second hand twos are wild for those players who completed phase one in the previous hand, while ones remain wild for any player not completing phase one. This adds the challenge of remembering the wild card of the person on your left so as to not discard cards that, for them are wild, but for you are not. This variation is called Postal Rules in honor of the group of postal employees who have played Phase 10 everyday during lunch since 1996.


title: Phase 10

text: In 2007 Fundex and Magmic signed a deal that brought Phase 10 to BlackBerry devices. In 2009 Magmic released the title for iOS, with a Masters Edition in-app purchase available for download in February 2012. In March 2012 Magmic released both a free and paid version of Phase 10 for Android devices. The Google Play Store also has a scorekeeper app for Phase 10. In September 2013, Magmic released Phase 10 Dice in the iTunes App Store. In 2019, Mattel163 Limited released Phase 10: World Tour for Android and iOS, featuring the "Journey" mode which player travels to different worlds and completes levels by completing sets of unique different phases with opponents with different difficulties. The game also introduces Multiplayer, which players can play with others from around the world by spending "coins" and earn more coins if win, similar to the coin system in UNO!, which is another Mattel163's game.


title: Thameslink

text: Thameslink is a 24-hour main-line route in the British railway system, running from , , , and via central London to Sutton, , , Rainham, , , , and . The network opened as a through service in 1988, with severe overcrowding by 1998, carrying more than 28,000 passengers in the morning peak. All the services are currently operated by Govia Thameslink Railway.


title: Thameslink

text: The Thameslink Programme was a major £5.5billion scheme to increase capacity on the central London section by accommodating more frequent and longer trains, and providing additional routes and destinations. The new services began operating in 2018. In 2016, new Class 700 trains started operating on the route and replaced the Class 319, Class 377 and Class 387 trains which were withdrawn and transferred elsewhere.


title: Thameslink

text: Much of the original route is over the Brighton Main Line (via London Bridge) and the southern part of the Midland Main Line, plus a suburban true loop (circuit) serving Sutton. A branch via the Catford Loop Line to Sevenoaks was added in 2012. Sections to Peterborough on the East Coast Main Line, Cambridge via the Cambridge Line, Horsham on the Arun Valley line and Rainham via Greenwich were added in 2018. East Grinstead and Littlehampton are also served in peak hours.


title: Thameslink

text: The route through central London (today known as Thameslink core) is via St Pancras International for connections to Eurostar and the East Midlands; Farringdon, for London Underground Circle, Metropolitan and Hammersmith & City lines, and the Elizabeth line; City Thameslink, which replaced the demolished Holborn Viaduct station and has a southern entrance serving Ludgate Circus; Blackfriars, for main-line rail services and the Underground District and Circle lines; and London Bridge for main-line links into Kent and Sussex and the Underground Northern and Jubilee lines. King's Cross Thameslink on Pentonville Road closed on 8 December 2007.


title: Thameslink

text: Trains operating the "main line" service (Bedford and Cambridge to Brighton, Peterborough to Horsham) include first-class accommodation; those operating from Luton, St Albans and Kentish Town to Sutton, Sevenoaks and Orpington are usually standard class only. When Govia operated the original Thameslink franchise these services were designated "Thameslink CityFlier" and "Thameslink CityMetro" respectively, but First Capital Connect dropped this branding. Govia Thameslink Railway now refers to these services as Route TL1 (formerly Route 6) and Route TL2/TL3 (formerly Route 7/8) respectively.


title: Thameslink

text: The published Thameslink off-peak service pattern as of December 2022, with frequencies in "trains per hour" (tph), includes:


title: Thameslink

text: During peak hours, the 1tph Letchworth Garden City to London King's Cross service (from the table above) is extended to/from Cambridge, with extra calls at Baldock, Ashwell & Morden, Royston, Meldreth, Shepreth and Foxton, thereby creating a 2tph Cambridge to London King's Cross (and return) stopping service during these hours only.


title: Thameslink

text: Also during peak hours, the 2tph London Blackfriars to Sevenoaks service (from the table above) is extended through the 'core tunnel' to/from Welwyn Garden City (though a few services originate at Finsbury Park), with extra calls at City Thameslink, Farringdon, St Pancras International, Finsbury Park, New Southgate, Oakleigh Park, New Barnet, Potters Bar and Hatfield.


title: Thameslink

text: As well as these services, during peak hours, several trains in each direction (approximately 2tph) run to/from Orpington (originating/terminating at either London Blackfriars, Luton, West Hampstead Thameslink or Kentish Town), all calling at Petts Wood in lieu of stations from St Mary Cray to Bat & Ball.


title: Thameslink

text: In addition, some very limited services run: In each direction there are 6 trains per day that operate to/from (originating/terminating at either Bedford, West Hampstead Thameslink, St Pancras International or London Bridge) and beginning on the 16th of January, there is 1 service per day that operates to/from (originating/terminating at London Bridge).


title: Thameslink

text: Passenger services operated across London through the Snow Hill Tunnel from mid-Victorian times until World War I, when services terminated at Moorgate from the Midland line to the north, and at Holborn Viaduct from the south, at a time when most inner cross-London traffic had been lost to buses and trams. There were low-level platforms under the main part of Holborn Viaduct station known as the Snow Hill platforms: these can still be seen when leaving City Thameslink station travelling northwards.


title: Thameslink

text: On 14 June 1941, railway manager George Dow proposed in an article in the London evening newspaper "The Star" that new routes be built in tunnels from Marylebone south to Victoria, and from King's Cross south to Charing Cross. Both were to connect with a Paddington–Liverpool Street tunnel that he proposed, anticipating Crossrail by 40years. He also proposed a north-east to south-west such link (Liverpool Street to Charing Cross), all giving seamless, key, main-line connections.


title: Thameslink

text: The Snow Hill Tunnel route remained open for cross-London freight trains until 1970, when the short section between Farringdon and Holborn Viaduct was closed.


title: Thameslink

text: Overhead electrification, completed in 1982, allowed the northern section to run as the "Midland City Line" from Bedford via the Midland Main Line to St Pancras, and via the City Widened Lines to Moorgate.


title: Thameslink

text: The Snow Hill tunnel was re-opened by British Rail to passenger trains after 72years, with Thameslink beginning in May 1988. On 29 January 1990, the section between Blackfriars and Farringdon was temporarily closed to permit the construction of a new alignment. The route through the site of the long-closed Ludgate Hill station, over Ludgate Hill to Holborn Viaduct was abandoned and demolished. The replacement route under Ludgate Hill was opened on 29 May 1990 by the Network SouthEast (sector of British Rail) concurrently with station, which was initially called St Paul's Thameslink but was renamed in 1991 to avoid confusion with St. Paul's station on the Underground (Central line), about away.


title: Thameslink

text: King's Cross Thameslink on Pentonville Road closed on 8 December 2007, when the Thameslink platforms at nearby St Pancras opened.


title: Thameslink

text: In the south the services divide: many main-line trains run almost due south through London Bridge to East Croydon and many continue to Brighton, but the other route/branch has evolved, as follows:


title: Thameslink

text: As of the early 1990s privatisation of British Rail, Thameslink was franchised to Thameslink, a subsidiary of Govia.


title: Thameslink

text: From 1 April 2006, the franchise was taken over by First Capital Connect along with some services that had been WAGN's. The branding of most trains, stations, and signs was changed to match the name of the new company, but City Thameslink and West Hampstead Thameslink were not renamed as "Thameslink" referred to the route. After criticism of the loss of the apt name for this group of routes, First Capital Connect's publicity began calling this set of services its "Thameslink route" to distinguish it from the former WAGN services.


title: Thameslink

text: Given the network's success, realised plans arose to upgrade the network to cope with persistent peak-time overcrowding. Network Rail obtained planning permission and legal powers in 2006, funding was secured in July 2007 and construction began in October 2007. Plans included rebuilding the station buildings at Farringdon (in conjunction with the Crossrail project) and West Hampstead Thameslink, total rebuild of London Bridge and Blackfriars stations, two new underground platforms at St Pancras International, a new tunnel north of St Pancras International to the East Coast Main Line to allow through services to Peterborough and Cambridge, and platform lengthening. A new 8- and 12-carriage fleet of Class 700 trains began in 2016. The new services on to the Great Northern route began initially on 8 March 2018, with the full timetable being introduced in May 2018.


title: Thameslink

text: The London and South East Route Utilisation Strategy published in July 2011 laid out a provisional 24 timetable. South of London it would provide four trains to Brighton (one semi-fast, one stopping) and two each to Three Bridges, Horsham, East Grinstead, Caterham, Tattenham Corner, Tunbridge Wells, Ashford International, Maidstone East, Sevenoaks and Bellingham. North of London there would be eight semi-fast trains to Bedford, four stopping trains to St Albans, two stopping and two semi-fast trains to Luton, two semi-fast trains to Peterborough, two semi-fast trains to Cambridge and four stopping trains to Welwyn Garden City.


title: Thameslink

text: Below is a provisional timetable solely for services running through the 'Thameslink core' tunnel. This 'provisional timetable' was proposed before the upgrade and has not yet been achieved. See Services section above for the current service pattern.


title: Thameslink

text: New Class 700 trains provide an additional 14,500 seats and were delivered between 2015 and 2018. Siemens Mobility was named preferred bidder on 16 June 2011, with the Desiro City train family. The contract was signed in June 2013 for 1140 carriages, with 55 twelve-car and 60 eight-car trains. The depots are at Hornsey and Three Bridges. The Three Bridges depot opened in October 2015 and the first trains entered service in spring 2016. All units are now in service, having replaced the Class 319 and Class 387 fleets.


title: Thameslink

text: Rolling stock used on Thameslink included the 86 Class 319 trains built between 1987–1988 and 1990. These are electrically powered dual-voltage four-car units rated to carry 289, 308 or 319 passengers. Four Class 319 trains had been transferred from Southern in December 2008 and the last four followed in March 2009, from which point they were all on Thameslink. The last was withdrawn in August 2017.


title: Thameslink

text: First Capital Connect acquired 23 four-coach Class 377 sets during 2009 on sublease from Southern, for the Thameslink route for additional capacity and to allow some of the Class 319 trains to be released for the Catford Loop service to Sevenoaks, now jointly operated with Southeastern under Key Output 0 of the Thameslink Programme.


title: Thameslink

text: Class 317 units built in the early 1980s were still in use when services into Moorgate ceased in March 2009: the last timetabled service ran from Farringdon to Bedford on 9 October 2009.


title: Thameslink

text: Due to delays in the new Class 700 fleet, the DfT and Southern ordered 116 electric dual-voltage carriages (29 trains) with the option for another 140 carriages (35 trains). The tender for the new trains was won by Bombardier and the first set entered service in December 2014, with all in service by May 2015. By 2018, all units were replaced by the new Class 700 fleet with the Class 387 fleet moving over to the Great Northern brand.


title: Thameslink

text: All rolling stock used on Thameslink is electrically powered dual-voltage units using overhead power north of Farringdon and 750VDC third rail to the south.


title: Thameslink

text: The invitation to tender for the Thameslink, Southern and Great Northern franchise was expected to be issued in October 2012, with the contract commencing in September 2013. On 29 March 2012, the Department for Transport announced Abellio, FirstGroup, Govia, MTR Corporation and Stagecoach Group had pre-qualified to bid for the franchise.


title: Thameslink

text: Due to problems with the InterCity West Coast tendering process, the process was delayed, with the new franchise delayed until September 2014. The new franchise includes the South Central franchise currently operated by Southern and certain routes from the Integrated Kent Franchise currently operated by Southeastern.


title: Thameslink

text: On 23 May 2014, it was announced that the franchise has been awarded to Govia Thameslink Railway. The new Thameslink Southern & Great Northern franchise will include both the Thameslink Great Northern and South Central franchises.


title: Thameslink

text: Govia Thameslink Railway began operations on 14 September 2014, with the former First Capital Connect routes Thameslink and Great Northern.


title: Thameslink

text: Railfuture, an organisation campaigning for better rail services for passengers and freight, has proposed an additional north–south route, connecting the Brighton Main Line to routes north of London, via East Croydon, Lewisham, Canary Wharf, and Stratford.


title: Arancini

text: Arancini (, , , ) are Italian rice balls that are stuffed, coated with breadcrumbs and deep fried, and are a staple of Sicilian cuisine. The most common arancini fillings are: "al ragù" or "al sugo", filled with ragù (meat or mince, slow-cooked at low temperature with tomato sauce and spices), mozzarella or caciocavallo cheese, and often peas, and "al burro" or "ô burru", filled with ham and mozzarella or besciamella.


title: Arancini

text: A number of regional variants exist which differ in their fillings and shape. "Arancini al ragù" produced in eastern Sicily have a conical shape inspired by the volcano Etna.


title: Arancini

text: "Arancini" derives from the Sicilian plural diminutive of ('orange'), from their shape and colour which, after cooking, is reminiscent of an orange.


title: Arancini

text: In Sicilian, "arancini" is grammatically plural. The corresponding singular is either the masculine "arancinu" or the feminine "arancina". The eastern side of Sicily tends to use the masculine form, while the western side tends to use the feminine form.


title: Arancini

text: In Italian, the masculine (pl. "arancini") form has become prevalent, even though the feminine form (pl. "arancine") can also be used.


title: Arancini

text: Arancini are said to have originated in 10th-century Sicily, at a time when the island was under Arab rule. Its origins may therefore be possibly the same as kibbeh of the Levantine cuisine.


title: Arancini

text: In the cities of Palermo, Siracusa, and Trapani in Sicily, arancini are a traditional food for the feast of Santa Lucia on 13 December, when bread and pasta are not eaten. This commemorates the arrival of a grain supply ship on Santa Lucia's day in 1646, relieving a severe famine.


title: Arancini

text: Today, with the increasing popularity of this finger food in modern Italian food culture, arancini are found all year round at most Sicilian food outlets, particularly in Palermo, Messina and Catania. The dish was traditionally created to provide a full meal to Federico II di Svevia during his hunting activities.


title: Arancini

text: The most common type of "arancini" sold in Sicilian cafés are "arancini cû sucu" (it. "arancini al ragù"), which typically consist of meat in a tomato sauce, rice, and mozzarella or other cheese. Many cafés also offer "arancini cû burru" (it. "arancini al burro", with butter or béchamel sauce) or specialty arancini, such as "arancini chî funci" (it. "arancini ai funghi", with mushrooms), "arancini câ fastuca" (it. "arancini al pistacchio", with pistachios), or "arancini â norma" (it. "arancini alla norma, with aubergine).


title: Arancini

text: In Roman cuisine, "supplì" are similar but are commonly filled with cheese (different preparation methods and filling distribution). In Naples, rice balls are called . In a variant recipe originating among the Italian diaspora in Southeast Texas, the arancini are stuffed with a chili-seasoned filling.