title: Sashastra Seema Bal

text: SSB celebrated the year 2013 as Golden Jubilee year marking 50 years of its raising. The celebrations have commenced with the Flag-off of a Mount Everest Expedition on 2 April 2013 from Delhi. The team led by Commandant Somit Joshi successfully reached at the peak at about 9:45 a.m. (IST) on 21 May 2013 to commemorate the 50th anniversary.


title: Sashastra Seema Bal

text: The previous role of the Special Service Bureau was to motivate and mobilise India's border population for national security during times of peace as well as war and to promote a sense of security and brotherhood among the population, in furtherance of national integration. Its present-day role consists of preventing cross-border crime and smuggling as well as other anti-national activities.


title: Sashastra Seema Bal

text: In pursuit of achieving this mandated task, the SSB has been conferred with certain powers under the Criminal Procedure Code of 1973, the Arms Act of 1959, the NDPS Act of 1985 and the Passport Act of 1967. The Government of India also contemplates conferring additional powers under the Customs Act of 1962.


title: Sashastra Seema Bal

text: These powers are to be exercised within a belt of 15 km in the states of Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal, Sikkim, Assam and Arunachal Pradesh, running along the Indo-Nepal and Indo-Bhutan borders, as well as in any other area of SSB operation.


title: Sashastra Seema Bal

text: Prior to 2001, the force was known as the Special Service Bureau (SSB). As per its revised role, the uniform wing worked under the operational command of civilian officers. It was in 1985 that a 15% quota of Area Organisers, for promotion to the rank of Deputy Inspector-General, was given to the Commandants of the uniform wing. The civil wing worked in the Area of Operations (AOPs) along the Indo-Tibet and Indo-Pakistan border. Recruitment in uniform wing would be from among Indian youth of the border area who have undergone advanced training in guerrilla warfare and also selected by the respective operational commander such as by the Divisional Organiser, Area Organiser, Sub-Area Organiser and Circle Organiser.


title: Sashastra Seema Bal

text: The Divisional Organiser was equivalent in rank to that of Inspector-General of Police, specifically earmarked for the respective AOPs to which they belonged and were activated by. The repercussions of the closure of the old role have been debated and deliberated in the defence establishments and now the relevance of the old role of SSB has been realised for the security of the border area, as such a role is likely to be revived.


title: Sashastra Seema Bal

text: The highest-level headquarters of the force is Force Headquarters (FHQ), also called the Directorate-General of SSB, located in the Indian capital of New Delhi. Force Headquarters (FHQ) is commanded by an officer of the rank of Director-General. The Director-General is assisted by the Additional Director-General. Various Directorates including Operations and Intelligence, Personnel and Training, Administration, Provisioning and Communication, Medical, as well as others, function under the DG. Each Directorate is headed by an IG and assisted by a DIG and other officers.


title: Sashastra Seema Bal

text: Frontier Headquarters (FTR HQ) is commanded by an officer of the rank of Inspector-General (IG), who is placed next in the chain of command after the FHQ. FTR HQR, in turn, exercises command and control over the sector HQs.


title: Sashastra Seema Bal

text: The SSB Battalion, is commanded by an officer of the rank of Commandant and who is assisted by officers of the rank of Second-in-Command, Deputy Commandant and Assistant Commandant. The battalion is further divided into Companies and Border Out-Post (BOP). There are seven companies in a battalion, each company consisting of three border outposts. The company is commanded by an Assistant Commandants and the BOP is commanded by Sub-Inspectors.Each BOP consisting several Border check points.


title: Sashastra Seema Bal

text: Sub Inspectors in GD/TEL/COMN are appointed (as SOs) through a competitive examination conducted by SSC and other special vacancies.


title: Sashastra Seema Bal

text: Both civil and uniformed cadres of SSB are equally trained in various warfare's and other specialised courses such as Guerrilla warfare, Counter-Insurgency, Intelligence, Demolition, Jungle and Snow survival etc. The various training centres within the Force and in the training centres of other organisations/agencies.


title: Sashastra Seema Bal

text: Before 2001, SSB was one of the four organisations under the Directorate General of Security and was headed by a Director. The Director reported to the Principal Director, DGS, who in his turn, reported to DG (Security). On shifting of SSB to the Ministry of Home Affairs, the post of Principal Director, DGS was shifted alongside as Director General, SSB. The post of Director, SSB got re-designated as Additional DG, SSB. Lists of Directors, Principal Directors and Directors General are given below.


title: Batman: Three Jokers

text: Batman: Three Jokers is an American comic book limited series published by DC Comics. It is a spiritual successor to "" and "". The three-issue storyline was written by Geoff Johns and illustrated by Jason Fabok and Brad Anderson, began in August and concluded in October 2020. In "Three Jokers", Batman, Batgirl and Red Hood follow a lead on the Joker, who appears to have been three different men all along.


title: Batman: Three Jokers

text: The "Three Jokers" storyline was published under DC Black Label, an imprint allowing writers to present unique takes on DC characters for a mature audience. The storyline received positive reviews with praise for the art, story and character development despite criticism on the underdevelopment on Red Hood and Batgirl's story.


title: Batman: Three Jokers

text: "Three Jokers" follows Batman investigating several ongoing crimes by the Joker occurring simultaneously, which may be related to the possibility that there may indeed be more than one.


title: Batman: Three Jokers

text: During the "Darkseid War" storyline, Batman sits on the Mobius Chair (a time-space/dimensional vehicle operated by the New God Metron) with Hal Jordan observing. First, to test the chair, Batman asked it who killed his parents - it answered correctly: "Joe Chill". Next, Batman asked the Mobius Chair what is the Joker's real name, and is shocked by the results. It is later revealed that the Mobius Chair told Batman there were three Jokers, which he later brought up to Hal when he asked about it. Batman states that he is going to have to look into that later.


title: Batman: Three Jokers

text: While having his crime-fighting injuries tended to by Alfred, Batman recalls the history of all his major physical scars left by his foes, including the Joker. He leaves to find the Clown Prince of Crime when he learns he has killed the last remaining members of the Moxon crime family. Barbara Gordon learns about comedian Kelani Apaka also being killed by the Joker and likewise suits up as Batgirl to go after him. Red Hood (Jason Todd) resumes his pursuit of the Joker as well. Batman concludes that the Joker used the murders as a diversion, his real plan was stealing a truck full of his Joker-turning chemicals.


title: Batman: Three Jokers

text: The Joker driving the stolen truck, The Clown, meets with The Comedian and The Criminal to discuss their plan to set up chemical vats and find candidates in order to create a fourth new Joker. Batman, Batgirl, and Red Hood's investigations lead them to an aquarium where they encounter The Clown, who Batman subdues and leaves for Batgirl and Red Hood to guard while he organizes a transport to Arkham Asylum. Jason kills The Clown after being provoked by him, enraging Barbara.


title: Batman: Three Jokers

text: Batgirl tells Batman about Jason's actions. She wants Bruce to stop him, but he tells her there is nothing they can do about it: if Jason confesses to the murder, Batgirl would be arrested as an accomplice and unmasked, as she was there during the murder. They go to Blackgate Penitentiary: at the crime scene of the murder of Judge Walls, another of the Joker's victims, Batman found the fingerprints of one particular criminal: his parents' killer Joe Chill. They learn the incarcerated Chill has terminal cancer.


title: Batman: Three Jokers

text: Red Hood searches for the Joker at an abandoned sports club. Inside, he finds dozens of bodies bathed in a Joker-turning chemicals-filled pool. Jason is captured by the Jokers, who tell him they are searching for someone to turn into a better version of themselves to antagonize Batman. All the victims they killed were tests for their final product, but they were not good enough. The Jokers torture Jason and leave him for Barbara and Bruce to find. Jason snaps at Batman, blaming him for all the pain in his life. Barbara takes Jason to her apartment, where they emotionally confide with one another about their similar tragedies. They kiss, but Barbara breaks the moment. The Comedian kidnaps Joe Chill and records his confession about why he murdered the Waynes.


title: Batman: Three Jokers

text: Bruce analyzes the Jokers and the fact that each one played a role in his career. The Criminal reminds him of their earliest encounters, while The Clown brings up memories of cartoonish, macabre showmanship ("a lethal campiness, like a children's show host"). The Comedian, with "a sadistic streak stronger than the others", links him to the Joker he has most recently faced. Batman believes that one of these is the original and created the other two. After learning of Joe Chill's kidnapping, Batman finds unsent apology letters to Bruce Wayne that the guilt-ridden Chill wrote long before he got sick.


title: Batman: Three Jokers

text: Batman, Batgirl, and Red Hood head to the condemned Monarch Theater as inside the letters Batman finds a ticket for "The Mark of Zorro", left by the Joker as an invitation. As they enter, a video about the confession of why Chill murdered the Waynes is projected on the screen. As both Barbara and Jason are occupied with several Jokerized goons, Batman faces The Criminal alone, who intends to turn Chill into the new Joker because of his role in the Dark Knight's creation. Batman saves Chill, who has learned his secret identity and thinks he would deserve it he chose to take his life, but Batman forgives him. The Criminal is then suddenly shot in the head by The Comedian.


title: Batman: Three Jokers

text: Batman escorts the arrested Comedian (the real Joker) to Arkham Asylum. Jason tells Barbara that he would like to be more than friends with her, but she rejects him as she cannot get past the blood on Jason's hands. The Joker reveals that he is aware of Batman, Batgirl, and Red Hood's secret identities, and claims he does not want what the other two desired. The Clown just wanted to see people suffer which the Joker finds mundane, and The Criminal was delusional since the idea of creating a Joker with an identity is pointless; in his own view, the Joker is the personification of mystery and chaos. The Joker reveals he convinced the other two that Joe Chill would be the perfect Joker, because he understood he would never be able to commit a crime more tragic than what Chill did to Bruce, and he alone wants to be Bruce's greatest pain until the day they die together, which he accomplished when he forgave Chill.


title: Batman: Three Jokers

text: Jason writes a letter for Barbara and tapes it to her apartment's front door. Inside the letter, he confesses his love for her and is ready to abandon the Red Hood identity for good, if it means having a chance to be with her. Barbara never reads the letter, as it falls from the door and is collected by a janitor. Since Jason notes in the letter that he also gives Barbara a chance to pretend this never happened, he is left unaware of this. In the aftermath, Bruce comforts Chill at his deathbed. Bruce reveals to Alfred that he's known the Joker's true name all along, discovering it one week after their first encounter. It is also revealed that the Joker's pregnant wife Jeannie was not actually killed, but taken to Alaska, where she now lives with her son as part of a witness protection program. Bruce explains that the Joker's name must never be known, because if the world ever found out that he had a family, it would be national news and they would be targeted, either by the Joker himself or by someone seeking vengeance against the criminal.


title: Batman: Three Jokers

text: Geoff Johns, the writer of the book, stated at DC FanDome in September 2020 that he felt the story was "in continuity". He also debunked a theory that claimed the three Jokers were from different realities.


title: Batman: Three Jokers

text: In the same month, Jason Fabok, the artist of the series, said that the canonicity of the series was subject to interpretation: "I'm not a continuity hound personally. I just want a good story. All my favorite stories are out of continuity so that appeals to me more. If this was in continuity we would have had our hands tied and forced to do certain things".


title: Batman: Three Jokers

text: The series overall received positive reviews from critics. Many critics praised the art, pacing, and characters, as well as the resolution between Batman and Joe Chill. However, many critics found the revelation of the Three Jokers' identities underwhelming. The romance of Jason Todd and Barbara Gordon was seen as underdeveloped. Critics praised the execution of Joker's "true" name.


title: Batman: Three Jokers

text: According to the Review aggregator, Comic Book roundup gave the entire series 8.5 out of 10 based on 61 reviews.


title: Batman: Three Jokers

text: In November 2020, CBR.com reported that Geoff Johns confirmed that he and Jason Fabok were working on a sequel to "Batman: Three Jokers".


title: Patrilineality

text: Patrilineality, also known as the male line, the spear side or agnatic kinship, is a common kinship system in which an individual's family membership derives from and is recorded through their father's lineage. It generally involves the inheritance of property, rights, names, or titles by persons related through male kin. This is sometimes distinguished from cognate kinship, through the mother's lineage, also called the spindle side or the distaff side.


title: Patrilineality

text: A patriline ("father line") is a person's father, and additional ancestors, as traced only through males.


title: Patrilineality

text: Traditionally and historically people would identify the person's ethnicity with the father's heritage and ignore the maternal ancestry in the ethnic factor.


title: Patrilineality

text: In the Bible, family and tribal membership appears to be transmitted through the father. For example, a person is considered to be a priest or Levite, if his father is a priest or Levite, and the members of all the Twelve Tribes are called Israelites because their father is Israel (Jacob). Because of this they are called the "chosen people" by virtue of being "sons of Israel"; that is, the biological male descendants of Israel, who is referred to as their "father" in the sense that he is their lineal male ancestor.


title: Patrilineality

text: Patrilineal or agnatic succession gives priority to or restricts inheritance of a throne or fief to heirs, male or female, descended from the original title holder through males only. Traditionally, agnatic succession is applied in determining the names and membership of European dynasties. The prevalent forms of dynastic succession in Europe, Asia and parts of Africa were male-preference primogeniture, agnatic primogeniture, or agnatic seniority until after World War II. There are, however, matrilineal examples like the Lobedu Rain Queen.


title: Patrilineality

text: By the 21st century, most ongoing European monarchies had replaced their traditional agnatic succession with absolute primogeniture, meaning that the first child born to a monarch inherits the throne, regardless of the child's sex.


title: Patrilineality

text: Variations of Salic law, generally understood in modern times to mean exclusion of women as hereditary monarchs, restricted succession to thrones and inheritance of fiefs or land to men in parts of medieval and later Europe. Once common, strict Salic inheritance has been officially revoked in all extant European monarchies except the Principality of Liechtenstein.


title: Patrilineality

text: In the United States, the offspring of enslaved women inherited their mother's status. A significant consequence of this is that children resulting from rape or unions between enslaved women and their owners did not have any of the rights of the father as they would have had under the patrilineal succession that applied to everyone but the enslaved.


title: Patrilineality

text: The fact that human Y-chromosome DNA (Y-DNA) is paternally inherited enables patrilines and agnatic kinships of men to be traced through genetic analysis.


title: Patrilineality

text: Y-chromosomal Adam (Y-MRCA) is the patrilineal most recent common ancestor from whom all Y-DNA in living men is descended. An identification of a very rare and previously unknown Y-chromosome variant in 2012 led researchers to estimate that Y-chromosomal Adam lived 338,000 years ago (237,000 to 581,000 years ago with 95% confidence), judging from molecular clock and genetic marker studies. Before this discovery, estimates of the date when Y-chromosomal Adam lived were much more recent, estimated to be tens of thousands of years.


title: Auction

text: An auction is usually a process of buying and selling goods or services by offering them up for bids, taking bids, and then selling the item to the highest bidder or buying the item from the lowest bidder. Some exceptions to this definition exist and are described in the section about different types. The branch of economic theory dealing with auction types and participants' behavior in auctions is called auction theory.


title: Auction

text: The open ascending price auction is arguably the most common form of auction and has been used throughout history. Participants bid openly against one another, with each subsequent bid being higher than the previous bid. An auctioneer may announce prices, while bidders submit bids vocally or electronically.


title: Auction

text: Auctions are applied for trade in diverse contexts. These contexts include antiques, paintings, rare collectibles, expensive wines, commodities, livestock, radio spectrum, used cars, real estate, online advertising, vacation packages, emission trading, and many more.


title: Auction

text: The word "auction" is derived from the participle of the Latin "word" "augeō", "auctus" ("I increase").


title: Auction

text: Auctions have been recorded as early as 500 BC. According to Herodotus, in Babylon, auctions of women for marriage were held annually. The auctions began with the woman the auctioneer considered to be the most beautiful and progressed to the least beautiful. It was considered illegal to allow a daughter to be sold outside of the auction method. Attractive maidens were offered in a forward auction to determine the price to be paid by a swain, while unattractive maidens required a reverse auction to determine the price to be paid to a swain.


title: Auction

text: Auctions took place in Ancient Greece, other Hellenistic societies, and also in Rome. During the Roman Empire, after a military victory, Roman soldiers would often drive a spear into the ground around which the spoils of war were left, to be auctioned off. Slaves, often captured as the "spoils of war", were auctioned in the Forum under the sign of the spear, with the proceeds of sale going toward the war effort.


title: Auction

text: The Romans also used auctions to liquidate the assets of debtors whose property had been confiscated. For example, Marcus Aurelius sold household furniture to pay off debts, the sales lasting for months. One of the most significant historical auctions occurred in 193 AD when the entire Roman Empire was put on the auction block by the Praetorian Guard. On 28 March 193, the Praetorian Guard first killed emperor Pertinax, then offered the empire to the highest bidder. Didius Julianus won the auction for the price of 6,250 drachmas per guard, an act that initiated a brief civil war. Didius was then beheaded two months later when Septimius Severus conquered Rome.


title: Auction

text: From the end of the Roman Empire to the 18th century, auctions lost favor in Europe, while they had never been widespread in Asia. In China, the personal belongings of deceased Buddhist monks were sold at auction as early as seventh century AD.


title: Auction

text: The first mention of "auction", according to the Oxford English Dictionary, appeared in 1595. In some parts of England during the 17th and 18th centuries, auctions by candle began to be used for the sale of goods and leaseholds. In a candle auction, the end of the auction was signaled by the expiration of a candle flame, which was intended to ensure that no one could know exactly when the auction would end and make a last-second bid. Sometimes, other unpredictable events, such as a footrace, were used instead of the expiration of a candle. This type of auction was first mentioned in 1641 in the records of the House of Lords. The practice rapidly became popular, and in 1660 Samuel Pepys' diary recorded two occasions when the Admiralty sold surplus ships "by an inch of candle". Pepys also relates a hint from a highly successful bidder who had observed that, just before expiring, a candle-wick always flares up slightly: on seeing this, he would shout his final – and winning – bid.


title: Auction

text: The "London Gazette" began reporting on the auctioning of artwork in the coffeehouses and taverns of London in the late 17th century.


title: Auction

text: The first known auction house in the world was the Stockholm Auction House, Sweden ("Stockholms Auktionsverk"), founded by Baron Claes Rålamb in 1674. Sotheby's, currently the world's second-largest auction house, was founded in London on 11 March 1744, when Samuel Baker presided over the disposal of "several hundred scarce and valuable" books from the library of an acquaintance. Christie's, now the world's largest auction house, was founded by James Christie in 1766 in London and published its first auction catalog that year, although newspaper advertisements of Christie's sales dating from 1759 have been found.


title: Auction

text: Other early auction houses that are still in operation include Göteborgs Auktionsverk (1681), Dorotheum (1707), Uppsala auktionskammare (1731), Mallams (1788), Bonhams (1793), Phillips de Pury & Company (1796), Freeman's (1805) and Lyon & Turnbull (1826).


title: Auction

text: By the end of the 18th century, auctions of art works were commonly held in taverns and coffeehouses. These auctions were held daily, and auction catalogs were printed to announce available items. In some cases, these catalogs were elaborate works of art themselves, containing considerable detail about the items being auctioned. At the time, Christie's established a reputation as a leading auction house, taking advantage of London's status as the major centre of the international art trade after the French Revolution. The Great Slave Auction took place in 1859 and is recorded as the largest single sale of enslaved people in U.S. history — with 436 men, women and children being sold. During the American Civil War, goods seized by armies were sold at auction by the Colonel of the division. Thus, some of today's auctioneers in the U.S. carry the unofficial title of "colonel". Tobacco auctioneers in the southern United States in the late 19th century had a style that mixed traditions of 17th century England with chants of slaves from Africa.


title: Auction

text: The development of the internet has led to a significant rise in the use of auctions, as auctioneers can solicit bids via the internet from a wide range of buyers in a much larger variety of commodities than was previously practical.


title: Auction

text: In the 1990s, the multi-attribute auction was invented to negotiate extensive conditions of construction and electricity contracts via auction. Also during this time, OnSale.com developed the Yankee auction as its trademark. In the early 2000s, the Brazilian auction was invented as a new type of auction to trade gas through electronic auctions for Linde plc in Brazil.


title: Auction

text: With the emergence of the internet, online auctions have developed, with eBay being the most typical example. For example, if someone owns a rare item, they can display the item through an online auction platform. Interested parties may place bids, with the highest bidder winning the opportunity to purchase the item. Online auctions allow more people to participate and also make traditional auction theory more complex.


title: Auction

text: By increasing visibility of an item and therefore demand, auctions can make an extremely rare item more likely to sell for a higher price.


title: Auction

text: In 2008, the US National Auctioneers Association reported that the gross revenue of the auction industry for that year was approximately $268.4 billion, with the fastest growing sectors being agricultural, machinery, equipment, and residential real estate auctions.


title: Auction

text: The auctions with the largest revenue for the government are often spectrum auctions (typical revenue is estimated in billions of euros) and quota auctions. In 2019, Russia's crab quota was auctioned for €2 billion. Between 1999 and 2002, the British government auctioned off their gold reserves, raising approximately $3.5 billion.


title: Auction

text: The most expensive item to ever be sold in an auction is Leonardo da Vinci's "Salvator Mundi" in 2017 ($450.3 million).


title: Auction

text: In 2018, the yearly revenues of the two biggest auction houses were $5 billion (Christie's) and $4 billion (Sotheby's).


title: Auction

text: Auctions come in a variety of types and categories, which are sometimes not mutually exclusive. Typification of auctions is considered to be a part of Auction theory. The economists Paul Milgrom and Robert B. Wilson were awarded the 2020 Nobel Prize for the introduction of new auction types (or formats). Auction types share features, which can be summarized into the following list.


title: Auction

text: Auctions can differ in the number and type of participants. There are two types of participants: a buyer and a seller. A buyer pays to acquire a certain good or service, while a seller offers goods or services for money or barter exchange. There can be single or multiple buyers and single or multiple sellers in an auction. If just one seller and one buyer are participating, the process is not considered to be an auction.


title: Auction

text: The forward auction is the most common type of auction — a seller offers item(s) for sale and expects the highest price. A reverse auction is a type of auction in which the roles of the buyer and the seller are reversed, with the primary objective to drive purchase prices downward. While ordinary auctions provide suppliers the opportunity to find the best price among interested buyers, reverse auctions and buyer-determined auctions give buyers a chance to find the lowest-price supplier. During a reverse auction, suppliers may submit multiple offers, usually as a response to competing suppliers' offers, bidding down the price of a good or service to the lowest price they are willing to receive. A reverse price auction is not necessarily 'descending-price' — the reverse Dutch auction is an ascending-price auction because forward Dutch auctions are descending. By revealing the competing bids in real-time to every participating supplier, reverse auctions promote "information transparency". This, coupled with the dynamic bidding process, improves the chances of reaching the fair market value of the item.


title: Auction

text: A double auction is a combination of both forward and reverse auctions. A Walrasian auction or "Walrasian tâtonnement" is a double auction in which the auctioneer takes bids from both buyers and sellers in a market of multiple goods. The auctioneer progressively either raises or drops the current proposed price depending on the bids of both buyers and sellers, the auction concluding when supply and demand exactly balance. As a high price tends to dampen demand while a low price tends to increase demand, in theory there is a particular price somewhere in the middle where supply and demand will match. A Barter double auction is an auction where every participant has a demand and an offer consisting of multiple attributes and no money is involved. For the mathematical modelling of satisfaction level, Euclidean distance is used, where the offer and demand are treated as vectors.


title: Auction

text: Auctions can be categorized into three types of procedures for auctions depending on the occurrence of a price development during an auction run and its causes.


title: Auction

text: Multiunit auctions sell more than one identical item at a time, rather than having separate auctions for each. This type can be further classified as either a uniform price auction or a discriminatory price auction. An example for them is spectrum auctions.


title: Auction

text: A combinatorial auction is any auction for the simultaneous sale of more than one item where bidders can place bids on an "all-or-nothing" basis on "packages" rather than just individual items. That is, a bidder can specify that they will pay for items A and B, but only if they get "both". In combinatorial auctions, determining the winning bidder(s) can be a complex process where even the bidder with the highest individual bid is not guaranteed to win. For example, in an auction with four items (W, X, Y and Z), if Bidder A offers $50 for items W & Y, Bidder B offers $30 for items W & X, Bidder C offers $5 for items X & Z and Bidder D offers $30 for items Y & Z, the winners will be Bidders B & D while Bidder A misses out because the "combined" bids of Bidders B & D is higher ($60) than for Bidders A and C ($55). Deferred-acceptance auction is a special case of a combinatorial auction.


title: Auction

text: Another special case of a combinatorial auction is the combinatorial clock auction (CCA), which combines a clock auction, during which bidders may provide their confirmations in response to the rising prices, with a subsequantial sealed bid auction, in which bidders submit sealed package bids. The auctioneer uses the final bids to compute the best value allocation and the Vickrey payments.


title: Auction

text: Generalized first-price auctions and Generalized second-price auctions offer slots for multiple bidders instead of making a single deal. The bidders get the slots according to the ranking of their bids. The second-price ruling is derived from the Vickrey auction and means the final deal sealing for the number one bidder is based on the second bidder's price.


title: Auction

text: A No-reserve auction (NR), also known as an "absolute auction", is an auction in which the item for sale will be sold regardless of price. From the seller's perspective, advertising an auction as having no reserve price can be desirable because it potentially attracts a greater number of bidders due to the possibility of a bargain. If more bidders attend the auction, a higher price might ultimately be achieved because of heightened competition from bidders. This contrasts with a "reserve auction", where the item for sale may not be sold if the final bid is not high enough to satisfy the seller. In practice, an auction advertised as "absolute" or "no-reserve" may nonetheless still not sell to the highest bidder on the day, for example, if the seller withdraws the item from the auction or extends the auction period indefinitely, although these practices may be restricted by law in some jurisdictions or under the terms of sale available from the auctioneer.


title: Auction

text: A reserve auction is an auction where the item for sale may not be sold if the final bid is not high enough to satisfy the seller; that is, the seller "reserves" the right to accept or reject the highest bid. In these cases, a set 'reserve' price known to the auctioneer, but not necessarily to the bidders, may have been set, below which the item may not be sold. If the seller announces to the bidders the reserve price, it is a public reserve price auction. In contrast, if the seller does not announce the reserve price before the sale, it is a secret reserve price auction. However, potential bidders may be able to deduce an approximate reserve price, if one exists at all, from any estimate given in advance by the auction house. The reserve price may be "fixed" or "discretionary". In the latter case, the decision to accept a bid is deferred to the auctioneer, who may accept a bid that is marginally below it. A reserve auction is safer for the seller than a no-reserve auction as they are not required to accept a low bid, but this could result in a lower final price if less interest is generated in the sale.


title: Auction

text: An all-pay auction is an auction in which all bidders must pay their bids regardless of whether they win. The highest bidder wins the item. All-pay auctions are primarily of academic interest, and may be used to model lobbying or bribery (bids are political contributions) or competitions such as a running race. Bidding fee auction, a variation of all-pay auction, also known as a penny auction, often requires that each participant must pay a fixed price to place each bid, typically one penny (hence the name) higher than the current bid. When an auction's time period expires, the highest bidder wins the item and must pay a final bid price. Unlike in a conventional auction, the final price is typically much lower than the value of the item, but all bidders (not just the winner) will have paid for each bid placed; the winner will buy the item at a very low price (plus price of rights-to-bid used), all the losers will have paid, and the seller will typically receive significantly more than the value of the item. A senior auction is a variation on the all-pay auction, and has a defined loser in addition to the winner. The top two bidders must pay their full final bid amounts, and only the highest wins the auction. The intent is to make the high bidders bid above their upper limits. In the final rounds of bidding, when the current losing party has hit their maximum bid, they are encouraged to bid over their maximum (seen as a small loss) to avoid losing their maximum bid with no return (a very large loss). Another variation of all-pay auction, the top-up auction is primarily used for charity events. Losing bidders must pay the difference between their bid and the next lowest bid. The winning bidder pays the amount bid for the item, without top-up. In a Chinese auction, bidders pay sealed bids in advance and their probability of winning grows with the relative size of their bids.


title: Auction

text: In usual auctions like the English one, bids are prices. In Dutch and Japanese auctions, the bids are confirmations. In a version of the Brazilian auction, bids are numbers of units being traded. Structure elements of a bid are called attributes. If a bid is one number like price, it is a single-attribute auction. If bids consists of multiple-attributes, it is a multi-attribute auction.


title: Auction

text: A Yankee auction is a single-attribute multiunit auction running like a Dutch auction, where the bids are the portions of a total amount of identical units. The amount of auctioned items is firm in a Yankee auction unlike a Brazilian auction. The portions of the total amount, bidders can bid, are limited to lower numbers than the total amount. Therefore, only a portion of the total amount will be traded for the best price and the rest to the suboptimal prices.


title: Auction

text: In an English auction, all current bids are visible to all bidders and in a sealed-bid auction, bidders only get to know if their bid was the best. Best/not best auctions are sealed-bid auctions with multiple bids, where the bidders submit their prices like in English auction and get responses about the leadership of their bid. Rank auction is an extension of best/not best auction, where the bidders also see the rank of their bids. Traffic-light auction shows traffic lights to bidders as a response to their bids. These traffic lights depend on the position of the last bid in the distribution of all bids.


title: Auction

text: A buyout auction is an auction with an additional set price (the 'buyout' price) that any bidder can accept at any time during the auction, thereby immediately ending the auction and winning the item. This means that if an item offers its buyout price at the beginning, one participant can stop all other potential participants from bidding at all, or stop the bidding process before the bid price has reached the buyout price. If no bidder chooses to utilize the buyout option before the end of bidding, the highest bidder wins and pays their bid. Buyout options can be either "temporary" or "permanent". In a temporary-buyout auction the option to buy out the auction is not available after the first bid is placed. In a permanent-buyout auction the buyout option remains available throughout the entire auction until the close of bidding. The buyout price can either remain the same throughout the entire auction, or vary throughout according to rules or simply as decided by the seller.


title: Auction

text: The winner selection in most auctions selects the best bid. Unique bid auctions offer a special winner selection. The winner is the bidder with the lowest unique bid. The Chinese auction, as already mentioned, selects a winner partially based on random.


title: Auction

text: The final price for the selected winner is not always conducted according to their final bid. In the case of the second-price ruling as in a Vickrey auction, the final price for the winner is based on the second bidder's price. A Proxy bid is a special case of second-price ruling used by eBay, where a predefined increment is added to the second highest bid in response to a yet higher bid.


title: Auction

text: Auctions with more than one winner are called multi-winner auctions. Multiunit auction, Combinatorial auction, Generalized first-price auction and Generalized second-price auction are multi-winner auctions.


title: Auction

text: Auctions can be cascaded, one after the other. For instance, an Amsterdam auction is a type of premium auction which begins as an English auction. Once only two bidders remain, each submits a sealed bid. The higher bidder wins, paying either the first or second price. Both finalists receive a premium: a proportion of the excess of the second price over the third price (at which English auction ended). An Anglo-Dutch auction starts as an English or Japanese auction and then continues as a Dutch auction with a reduced number of bidders. A French auction is a preliminary sealed-bid auction before the actual auction, whose reserve price it determines. A sequential auction is an auction where the bidders can participate in a sequence of auctions. A Calcutta auction is a subtype of sequential auction, where the ordering in the sequence is determined by random. A simultaneous ascending auction is an opposite of a sequential auction, where the auctions are run in parallel.


title: Auction

text: The is a variant of the English auction in which bids are written on a sheet of paper. At the predetermined end of the auction, the highest listed bidder wins the item. This auction is often used in charity events, with many items auctioned simultaneously and "closed" at a common finish time. The auction is "silent" in that there is no auctioneer selling individual items, the bidders writing their bids on a bidding sheet often left on a table near the item. At charity auctions, bid sheets usually have a fixed starting amount, predetermined bid increments, and a "guaranteed bid" amount which works the same as a "buy now" amount. Other variations of this type of auction may include sealed bids. The highest bidder pays the price they submitted.


title: Auction

text: In private value auctions, every bidder has their own valuation of the auctioned good. A common value auction is opposite, where the valuation of the auctioned good is identical among the bidders.


title: Auction

text: The range of auctions' contexts is extremely wide and one can buy almost anything, from a house to an endowment policy and everything in between. Some of the recent developments have been the use of the Internet both as a means of disseminating information about various auctions and as a vehicle for hosting auctions themselves.


title: Auction

text: As already mentioned in the history section, auctions have been used to trade commodified people from the very first. Auctions have been used in slave markets throughout history until modern times in the post-Gaddafi era Libya. The word for slave auction in the Atlantic slave trade was scramble. A child auction is a Swedish and Finnish historical practice of selling children into slavery-like conditions by authorities using a descending English auction. Fattigauktion is a similar Swedish practice involving poor people being auctioned to church organizations. Trade of wives by auctions was also a common practice throughout history. For instance, in the old English custom of wife selling, a wife was divorced by selling her in a public auction for the highest bid. ISIS conducted slave auctions to sell up to 7,000 Yazidi women as reported in 2020.


title: Auction

text: A virginity auction is the voluntary practice of individuals seeking to sell their own virginity to the highest bid. Cricket players are routinely put up for auction, whereby cricket teams can bid for their services. Indian Premier League (IPL) started annual public auctioning of cricket players in 2008 as an entertainment for mass consumption. Also, Bangladesh Premier League conducts cricket player auctions, starting in 2012.


title: Auction

text: In some countries, such as Australia, auctioning is a common method for the sale of real estate. Auctions were traditionally used as an alternative to the private sale/treaty method to sell property that, due to their unique characteristics, were difficult to determine a price for. The law does not require a vendor to disclose their reserve price prior to the auction. During the 1990s and 2000s, auctions became the primary method for the sale of real estate in the two largest cities, Melbourne and Sydney. This was largely due to the fact that in a private sale the vendor has disclosed the price that they want, and potential purchasers would attempt to low-ball the price, whereas in an auction purchasers do not know what the vendor wants, and thus need to keep lifting the price until the reserve price is reached.


title: Auction

text: The method has been the subject of increased controversy during the twenty-first century as house prices sky-rocketed. The rapidly rising housing market saw many homes, especially in Victoria and New South Wales, selling for significantly more than both the vendors' reserve price and the advertised price range. Subsequently, the auction systems' lack of transparency about the value of the property was brought into question, with estate agents and their vendor clients being accused of "under-quoting". Significant attention was given to the matter by the Australian media, with the government in Victoria eventually bowing to pressure and implementing changes to legislation in an effort to increase transparency.


title: Auction

text: In the UK, historically, auction houses were perceived to sell properties which may have been repossessed - where a home owner fails to make regular mortgage payments - or were probate sales i.e. a family home being sold by the heirs. However, more recently, selling at auction has become an alternative to a normal property sale, due to the speedy nature of the entire process.


title: Auction

text: In China, land auctions are under the sole control of local government officials. Because some developers may use bribes to please government officials to obtain the right to purchase the land, the central government requires that future land auctions be conducted using a spectrum auction in order to prevent the spread of corruption. Although this method cannot completely solve the problem of corruption, it is still a significant contribution to the auction.


title: Auction

text: A government auction is simply an auction held on behalf of a government body generally at a general sale. Items for sale are often surplus needed to be liquidated. Auctions ordered by estate executors enter the assets of individuals who have perhaps died intestate (those who have died without leaving a will), or in debt. In legal contexts where forced auctions occur, as when one's farm or house is sold at auction on the courthouse steps. Property seized for non-payment of property taxes, or under foreclosure, is sold in this manner. Police auctions are generally held at general auctions, although some forces use online sites including eBay, to dispose of lost and found and seized goods. Debt auctions, in which governments issue and sell debt obligations, such as bonds, to investors. The auction is usually sealed and the uniform price paid by the investors is typically the best non-winning bid. In most cases, investors can also place so-called "non-competitive bids", which indicates interest to purchase the debt obligation at the resulting price, whatever it may be. Some states use courts to run such auctions. In spectrum auctions conducted by the government, companies purchase licenses to use portions of the electromagnetic spectrum for communications (e.g., mobile phone networks). In certain jurisdictions, if a storage facility's tenant fails to pay rent, the contents of their locker(s) may be sold at a public auction. Several television shows focus on such auctions, including "Storage Wars" and "Auction Hunters".


title: Auction

text: Auctions are used to trade commodities; for example, fish wholesale auctions. In wool auctions, wool is traded in the international market. The wine auction business offers serious collectors an opportunity to gain access to rare bottles and mature vintages, which are not typically available through retail channels. In livestock auctions, sheep, cattle, pigs and other livestock are sold. Sometimes very large numbers of stock are auctioned, such as the regular sales of 50,000 or more sheep during a day in New South Wales. In timber auctions, companies purchase licenses to log on government land. In timber allocation auctions, companies purchase timber directly from the government. In electricity auctions, large-scale generators and distributors of electricity bid on generating contracts. Produce auctions link growers to localized wholesale buyers (buyers who are interested in acquiring large quantities of locally grown produce).


title: Auction

text: Online auctions are a form of E-commerce, bringing greater convenience to people and allowing more people to participate as bidders, as well as being able to view a greater selection of auctions. Websites like eBay provide a potential market of millions of bidders to sellers. Established auction houses, as well as specialist internet auctions, sell many things online, from antiques and collectibles to holidays, air travel, brand new computers, and household equipment. Private electronic markets use combinatorial auction techniques to continuously sell commodities (coal, iron ore, grain, water, etc.) online to a pre-qualified group of buyers (based on price and non-price factors).


title: Auction

text: for the problem of optimal bidding for a firm that in each period procures items to meet a random demand by participating in a finite sequence of auctions. In this model an item valuation derives from the sale of the acquired items via their demand distribution, sale price, acquisition cost, salvage value and lost sales. They established monotonicity properties for the value function and the optimal dynamic bid policy. They also provided a model


title: Auction

text: for the case in which the buyer must acquire a fixed number of items either at a fixed buy-it-now price in the open market or by participating in a sequence of auctions. The objective of the buyer is to minimize their expected total cost for acquiring the fixed number of items.


title: Auction

text: Bid shading is placing a bid which is below the bidder's actual value for the item. Such a strategy risks losing the auction but has the possibility of winning at a low price. Bid shading can also be a strategy to avoid the winner's curse. Auction cancellation hunters bid minimal amounts on multiple auctions and expect them to be cancelled. If an auction is cancelled by the seller, they will claim for damages in the amount of the difference between the maximum bid at the time of the auction cancellation and the price of a replacement purchase of the offered item in the auction, when the market is in equilibrium, even if the seller has not sold any of the items, the shadow of bidding still exists. This is the self-protection instinct of the auction market. In order to make this transaction fairer. Auction sniping is the practice of placing a bid at the last moment of the auction. According to the analysis of auction data from eBay, in general, experienced bidders are more likely to snipe in auctions, and those who snipe in auctions are more likely to win. Jump bidding is an aggressive tactic of increasing every bid by high amounts. Calor licitantis is also known as "auction fever" and describes the irrational behavior of bidders at auctions. Suicide bidding is practice in reverse auctions, whereby a bidder submits a bid, which ends up in a loss for this bidder.


title: Auction

text: Whenever bidders at an auction are aware of the identity of the other bidders there is a risk that they will form a "ring" or "pool" and thus manipulate the auction result, a practice known as collusion or more specially bid-rigging. By agreeing to bid only against outsiders, never against members of the "ring", competition becomes weaker, which may dramatically affect the final price level. After the end of the official auction, an unofficial auction may take place among the "ring" members. The difference in price between the two auctions could then be split among the members. This form of a ring was used as a central plot device in the opening episode of the 1979 British television series "The House of Caradus", 'For Love or Money', uncovered by Helena Caradus on her return from Paris.


title: Auction

text: In the UK, this auction practice is illegal. It jeopardizes competition on the auction and can demotivate other bidders from participating. It robs the seller of the true value of their good and reduces the auctioneer's commission.


title: Auction

text: Beyond explicit collusion, a tacit coordination of bidders to keep bids low is at least theoretically possible. In case of spectrum auctions, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) experimented with precautions restricting visibility of bids, limiting the number of bids, click-box bidding, and anonymous bidding in order to prevent bidders from signalling bidding information by embedding it into digits of the bids. Actions within the auction mechanism serve as a communication channel for collusive behavior, once no other channels are legal.


title: Auction

text: This is the practice, especially by high-end art auctioneers, of raising false bids at crucial times in the bidding in order to create the appearance of greater demand or to extend bidding momentum for a work on offer. To call out these nonexistent bids auctioneers might fix their gaze at a point in the auction room that is difficult for the audience to pin down. The practice is frowned upon in the industry. In the United States, chandelier bidding is not illegal. In fact, an auctioneer may bid up the price of an item to the reserve price, which is a threshold below which the consignor may refuse to sell the item. However, the auction house is required to disclose this information.


title: Auction

text: In the United Kingdom this practice is legal on property auctions up to but not including the reserve price, and is also known as off-the-wall bidding.


title: Auction

text: A ring can also be used to increase the price of an auction lot, in which the owner of the object being auctioned may increase competition by taking part in the bidding themself, but drop out of the bidding just before the final bid. This form of a ring was used as a central plot device in an episode of the British television series "Lovejoy" (series 4, episode 3), in which the price of a watercolour by the (fictional) Jessie Webb is inflated so that others by the same artist could be sold for more than their purchase price. In an English auction, a dummy bid is a bid made by a dummy bidder acting in collusion with the auctioneer or vendor, designed to deceive genuine bidders into paying more. In a first-price auction, a dummy bid is an unfavourable bid designed so as not to become the winning bid. (The bidder does not want to win this auction, but they want to make sure to be invited to the next auction).


title: Auction

text: In Britain and many other countries, rings and other forms of bidding on one's own object are illegal. In Australia, a dummy bid or also a shill is a criminal offence, but a vendor bid or a co-owner bid below the reserve price is permitted if clearly declared as such by the auctioneer. These are all official legal terms in Australia but may have other meanings elsewhere. A co-owner is one of two or several owners (who disagree among themselves). In Sweden and many other countries, there are no legal restrictions, but it will severely hurt the reputation of an auction house that knowingly permits any other bids except genuine bids. If the reserve is not reached this should be clearly declared. In South Africa auctioneers can use their staff or any bidder to raise the price as long as it's disclosed before the auction sale. Rael Levitt's companies "The Auction Alliance" controversy focused on vendor bidding and led to its downfall in 2012.


title: Auction

text: There will usually be an estimate of what price the lot will fetch. In an ascending open auction it is considered important to get at least a 50-percent increase in the bids from start to finish. To accomplish this, the auctioneer must start the auction by announcing a suggested opening bid (SOB) that is low enough to be immediately accepted by one of the bidders. Once there is an opening bid, there will quickly be several other, higher bids submitted. Experienced auctioneers will often select an SOB that is about 45 percent of the (lowest) estimate. Thus there is a certain margin of safety to ensure that there will indeed be a lively auction with many bids submitted. Several observations indicate that the lower the SOB, the higher the final winning bid. This is due to the increase in the number of bidders attracted by the low SOB.


title: Auction

text: A chi-squared distribution shows many low bids but few high bids. Bids "show up together"; without several low bids there will not be any high bids.


title: Auction

text: Another approach to choosing a SOB: The auctioneer may achieve good success by asking the expected final sales price for the item, as this method suggests to the potential buyers the item's particular value. For instance, an auctioneer is about to sell a $1,000 car at a sale. Instead of asking $100, hoping to entice wide interest, the auctioneer may suggest an opening bid of $1,000; although the first bidder may begin bidding at a mere $100, the final bid may more likely approach $1,000.


title: The Razors Edge (AC/DC album)

text: The Razors Edge is the twelfth studio album by Australian hard rock band AC/DC released on 21 September 1990. It was a major comeback for the band, featuring the hits "Thunderstruck" and "Are You Ready", which reached #5 and #16 respectively on "Billboard"'s Mainstream Rock Tracks Chart, and "Moneytalks", which peaked at #23 on the "Billboard" Hot 100. The album reached #2 on the US "Billboard" 200 and #4 in the UK, a smash commercial success that returned the band to the popularity of its glory years of the late 1970s and early 1980s. The album has been certified 5× platinum (5 million copies sold) in the US, and was re-released in 2003 as part of the "AC/DC Remasters" series. This is the only studio album to feature Chris Slade, who was the drummer for AC/DC from 1989 to his dismissal in 1994.


title: The Razors Edge (AC/DC album)

text: The band had recorded "Blow Up Your Video" (1988) with their original producers, Harry Vanda and George Young. It was a commercial success and sold more copies than the previous two studio releases combined. The Blow Up Your Video World Tour began in February 1988 in Perth, Australia. That April, on the eve of the North American leg of the tour, Malcolm Young announced that he was taking time off from touring, principally to begin recovery from his alcoholism. Another member of the Young family, their nephew, Stevie Young, temporarily took Malcolm's place on rhythm guitar. Following the tour, drummer Simon Wright left the group to work on the upcoming Dio album "Lock Up the Wolves", and was replaced by ex-Firm and Manfred Mann's Earth Band drum veteran Chris Slade, whom Malcolm remembered playing with Manfred Mann during an appearance in Sydney years earlier with Deep Purple and Free.


title: The Razors Edge (AC/DC album)

text: "The Razors Edge" was recorded at Windmill Lane Studios in Dublin, Ireland and Little Mountain Sound Studios in Vancouver, BC, Canada, and was mixed and engineered by Mike Fraser and produced by Bruce Fairbairn, who had previously worked with Aerosmith and Bon Jovi. According to the book "AC/DC: Maximum Rock & Roll", George Young was involved early on but had to bow out because of personal issues. Lead singer Brian Johnson was unavailable for several months while finalising his divorce, so the Young brothers wrote all the songs for the next album, a practice they continued for all subsequent releases (In a 1995 interview, Johnson told "Guitar World" that he was relieved at not having to deal with the pressure of writing the lyrics anymore). The instantly recognizable opening riff to "Thunderstruck" features Young alternating between fretted notes and playing the open string. In a 1993 interview with "Guitar World"'s Alan Di Perna, the guitarist recalls, "I was just fiddling with my left hand when I came up with that riff; I played it more by accident than anything. I thought, 'not bad,' and put it on a tape. That's how me and Malcolm generally work. We put our ideas down on tape and play them for one another." He expanded in greater detail in the liner notes of the 2003 re-release of "The Razors Edge":


title: The Razors Edge (AC/DC album)

text: "It started off from a little trick I had on guitar. I played it to Mal and he said 'Oh, I've got a good rhythm idea that will sit well in the back.' We built the song up from that. We fiddled about with it for a few months before everything fell into place. Lyrically, it was really just a case of finding a good title...We came up with this thunder thing and it seemed to have a good ring to it. AC/DC = Power. That's the basic idea."


title: The Razors Edge (AC/DC album)

text: "Moneytalks" is also one of AC/DC's biggest hits, breaking the top 40 on the "Billboard" Hot 100, the UK Singles Charts, and the Australian ARIA Singles Chart. It is still the band's highest-charting single in the United States, at number 23 (no other AC/DC single has ever cracked the top 30). During their subsequent world tour, thousands of "Angus Bucks" were dropped on the audience during the song. A music video of the song, directed by David Mallet, was also released, featuring a live performance during the tour. Author Murray Engleheart states in his band memoir "AC/DC: Maximum Rock & Roll": "On songs like 'Mistress for Christmas' and "Moneytalks,' Malcolm and Angus showed their working-class roots, despite multi-millionaire selling albums, by taking aim at the high flyers in the business world." In a February 1991 interview with "Guitar World" Angus Young stated, "I think the funniest song on this album is 'Mistress For Christmas.' That song's about Donald Trump. He was big news at the time, so we thought we'd have a bit of fun and humor with it." In the same interview, he declared that his best guitar solo on the LP was on the song "The Razors Edge," which also features a rare foray into finger picking. Although AC/DC had always remained apolitical when it came to their music, the title track was a commentary of sorts, with Young explaining to Muchmusic in 1992:


title: The Razors Edge (AC/DC album)

text: With the release of "The Razors Edge", AC/DC undertook a world tour, possibly the most publicized tour they had ever done. The success of the tour was fueled by the crowd-pleasing songs, such as "Thunderstruck", "Moneytalks", "Fire Your Guns", "The Razor's Edge", and "Are You Ready", which were also included on the "AC/DC Live Collector's Edition" album as live versions. Several shows on the Razors Edge Tour were recorded for the 1992 live album titled "Live". "Live" was produced by Fairbairn, and is considered one of the best live albums of the 1990s.


title: The Razors Edge (AC/DC album)

text: "The Razors Edge" peaked at No. 2 on the "Billboard" 200 charts and stayed on the chart for 77 consecutive weeks. It also reached No. 4 on the UK charts. The album helped return AC/DC to its former glory. Currently, the album has sold 5 million copies in the US, certifying it at 5× platinum. The album has sold approximately ten to twelve million copies worldwide, making it the fourth highest selling AC/DC album (after "Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap", "Highway to Hell" and "Back in Black" and ahead of "Who Made Who").


title: The Razors Edge (AC/DC album)

text: The album received generally mixed to positive reviews. AllMusic complimented both the vocal performance by Brian Johnson and the guitar playing of Angus Young, and said that the album was "arguably [the band's] strongest album in over half a decade." "Entertainment Weekly" gave the album a very favourable review, saying that "this is one album that really delivers." Canadian journalist Martin Popoff defined the album "tight, highly strung and menacing... entirely worthy of its status as the grand comeback of legendary rock 'n' roll runts". "Rolling Stone", on the other hand, gave the album two out of five stars, criticizing its similarity to past AC/DC works, and said that "with "The Razors Edge", AC/DC sets a new record for the longest career without a single new idea." In a 2008 "Rolling Stone" cover story David Fricke wrote: "After a few albums that sounded like old ideas warmed over once too often, this is a near-comeback, busting out with Angus' wasp-army trills in the first song."


title: Mandalay

text: Mandalay ( or ; ) is the second-largest city in Myanmar, after Yangon. Located on the east bank of the Irrawaddy River, 631km (392 miles) (Road Distance) north of Yangon, the city has a population of 1,225,553 (2014 census).


title: Mandalay

text: Mandalay was founded in 1857 by King Mindon, replacing Amarapura as the new royal capital of the Konbaung dynasty. It was Burma's final royal capital before the kingdom's annexation by the British Empire in 1885. Under British rule, Mandalay remained commercially and culturally important despite the rise of Yangon, the new capital of British Burma. The city suffered extensive destruction during the Japanese conquest of Burma in the Second World War. In 1948, Mandalay became part of the newly independent Union of Burma.


title: Mandalay

text: Today, Mandalay is the economic centre of Upper Myanmar and considered the centre of Burmese culture. A continuing influx of illegal Chinese immigrants, mostly from Yunnan, since the late 20th century, has reshaped the city's ethnic makeup and increased commerce with China. Despite Naypyidaw's recent rise, Mandalay remains Upper Myanmar's main commercial, educational and health center.


title: Mandalay

text: The city gets its name from the nearby Mandalay Hill. The name is probably a derivative of a Pali word, although the exact word of origin remains unclear. The root word has been speculated to be "" (မဏ္ဍလ), referring to circular plains or "Mandara", a mountain from Hindu mythology.


title: Mandalay

text: When it was founded in 1857, the royal city was officially named Yadanabon (, ), a loan of the Pali name Ratanapūra () "City of Gems." It was also called "Lay Kyun Aung Myei" (, , "Victorious Land over the Four Islands") and Mandalay Palace (, , "Famed Royal Emerald Palace").


title: Mandalay

text: Like most former (and present) capitals of Burma, Mandalay was founded on the wishes of the ruler of the day. On 13 February 1857, King Mindon founded a new royal capital at the foot of Mandalay Hill, ostensibly to fulfill a prophecy on the founding of a metropolis of Buddhism in that exact place on the occasion of the 2,400th jubilee of Buddhism.


title: Mandalay

text: The new capital city site was in area, surrounded by four rivers. The plan called for a 144-square block grid patterned citadel, anchored by a 16 square block royal palace compound at the center by Mandalay Hill. The 1020-acre (413-hectare) citadel was surrounded by four long walls and a moat wide, deep. At intervals of along the wall, were turrets with gold-tipped spires for watchmen. The walls had three gates on each side, and five bridges to cross the moat. In addition, the king also commissioned the Kuthodaw Pagoda, the "Pahtan-haw Shwe Thein" Ordination Hall, the "Thudamma" zayats or public houses for preaching Buddhism and a library for the Pāli Canon.


title: Mandalay

text: In June 1857, the former royal palace of Amarapura was dismantled and moved by elephants to the new location at the foot of Mandalay Hill, although construction of the palace compound was officially completed only two years later, on Monday, 23 May 1859.


title: Mandalay

text: For the next 26 years, Mandalay was to be the last royal capital of the Konbaung Dynasty, the last independent Burmese kingdom before its final annexation by the British Empire. Mandalay ceased to be the capital on 28 November 1885 when the British conquered the city, looted the Pitakataik (Royal Library) and sent Thibaw Min and his queen Supayalat into exile, ending the Third Anglo-Burmese War.


title: Mandalay

text: While Mandalay would continue to be the chief city of Upper Burma during the British colonial rule, the commercial and political importance had irreversibly shifted to Yangon. The British view on the development of Mandalay (and Burma) was mainly with commercial intentions. While rail transport reached Mandalay in 1889, less than four years after the annexation, the first college in Mandalay, Mandalay College, was not established until 40 years later, in 1925. The British looted the palace, with some of the treasures going on display in the Victoria and Albert Museum; in 1964 they were returned to Burma as a gesture of goodwill. The British also renamed the palace compound Fort Dufferin and used it to billet troops.


title: Mandalay

text: Throughout the colonial years, Mandalay was the centre of Burmese culture and Buddhist learning, and as the last royal capital, was regarded by the Burmese as a primary symbol of sovereignty and identity. Between the two World Wars, the city was Upper Burma's focal point in a series of nationwide protests against the British rule. The British rule brought in many immigrants from India to the city. In 1904–05, a plague caused about one-third of the population to flee the city.


title: Mandalay

text: During World War II, Mandalay suffered the most devastating air raids of the war. On 3 April 1942, during the Japanese conquest of Burma, the Imperial Japanese Army Air Service carried out an extensive assault. The city was in effect defenseless as its firefighting resources were weak, having been lost in earlier bombing, it had no anti-aircraft capacity, and the British RAF had by now withdrawn all its aircraft to India. Three-fifths of Mandalay's houses were destroyed and 2,000 civilians were killed. Many residents also fled when the city was under Japanese occupation from May 1942 to March 1945. The palace citadel, which had been turned into a supply depot by the Japanese, was in turn burnt to the ground by Allied bombing; only the royal mint and the watch tower survived. (A faithful replica of the palace was rebuilt in the 1990s.)


title: Mandalay

text: After the country gained independence from Britain in 1948, Mandalay continued to be the main cultural, educational and economic hub of Upper Burma. Until the early 1990s, most students from Upper Burma went to Mandalay for university education. Until 1991, Mandalay University, the University of Medicine, Mandalay and the Defence Services Academy were the only three universities in Upper Burma. Only a few other cities had "Degree Colleges" affiliated with Mandalay University that offered a limited number of subjects. Today, the city attracts a fraction of students as the military government requires students to attend their local universities in order to reduce concentration of students in one place.


title: Mandalay

text: In November 1959, Mandalay celebrated its centennial with a festival at the foot of Mandalay Hill. Special commemorative stamps were issued.


title: Mandalay

text: During Ne Win's isolationist rule (1962–1988), the city's infrastructure deteriorated. By the early 1980s, the second largest city of Burma resembled a town with low-rise buildings and dusty streets filled mostly with bicycles. In the 1980s, the city was hit by two major fires. In May 1981, a fire razed more than 6,000 houses and public buildings, leaving more than 36,000 homeless. On 24 March 1984, another fire destroyed 2,700 buildings and made 23,000 people homeless.


title: Mandalay

text: Fires continue to plague the city. A major fire destroyed Mandalay's second largest market, Yadanabon Market, in February 2008, and another major fire in February 2009 destroyed 320 homes and left over 1600 people homeless.


title: Mandalay

text: The 1980s fires augured a significant change in the city's physical character and ethnic makeup. Huge swaths of land left vacant by the fires were later purchased, mostly by the ethnic Han Chinese, many of whom were recent immigrants from Yunnan. The Chinese influx accelerated after the current State Peace and Development Council came to power in 1988. Many Chinese immigrants from Yunnan (and also from Sichuan) poured into Upper Burma in the 1990s and many openly ended up in Mandalay, living illegally there. In the 1990s alone, about 250,000 to 300,000 Yunnanese are estimated to have migrated to Mandalay. Today, ethnic Chinese people are believed to make up about 40%–50% of the city's population that is nearly the same as the natives, and are a major factor in the city's doubling of population from about 500,000 in 1980 to one million in 2008. Chinese festivals are now firmly embedded in the city's cultural calendar. The Chinese dominance in the city center has pushed out the rest to the suburbs. The urban sprawl now encompasses Amarapura, the very city King Mindon left some 150 years ago. Mandalay celebrated its 150th birthday on 15 May 2009, at precisely 4:31:36 am.


title: Mandalay

text: Despite the rise of Naypyidaw, the country's capital since 2006, Mandalay remains Upper Burma's main commercial, educational and health center. In October 2018, Mandalay was ranked by CIO Asia as number fifth among the top 10 cities in Southeast Asia in the process of becoming a smart city for ASEAN Smart Cities Network.


title: Mandalay

text: Mandalay is located in the central dry zone of Burma by the Irrawaddy river at 21.98° North, 96.08° East, 80 meters (260 feet) above sea level. Its standard time zone is UTC/GMT +6:30 hours.


title: Mandalay

text: Mandalay lies along the Sagaing Fault, a tectonic plate boundary between the India and Sunda plates. The biggest earthquake in its history, occurred on March 23 1839, an estimated magnitude 8.2 destroyed the formal capital Ava and caused extreme destruction in nearby cities. The most recent quake was a magnitude of 7, occurred in 1956. The devastation was greatest in nearby Sagaing, and it came to be known as the Great Sagaing Quake.


title: Mandalay

text: Bodies of water near Mandalay are Mandalay Kantawgyi, a small lake and Irrawaddy River to the west of the city.


title: Mandalay

text: The rain shadow of the Arakan Mountains is so powerful that the city qualifies as having a hot semi-arid climate (Köppen climate classification: "BSh"), although it does border on a tropical wet and dry climate (Köppen climate classification: "Aw"). Mandalay features noticeably warmer and cooler periods of the year. Average temperatures in January, the mildest month, hovers around while the hottest month, April, averages . Mandalay is very hot in the months of April and May, with average high temperatures easily exceeding . It is not uncommon to see high temperatures surpass during these two months in the city. Mandalay also features wet and dry seasons of nearly equal length, with the wet season running from May through October and the dry season covering the remaining six months. The highest reliably recorded temperature in Mandalay is on 24 April 1975 while the lowest is on 26 December 1999. There is considerably more diurnal temperature variation in the dry season than the wet season.


title: Mandalay

text: The Mandalay Region Government is the government for Mandalay Region including Mandalay City. The Mandalay City Development Committee (MCDC) is municipal organization for Mandalay City. The Mandalay District consists of seven townships.


title: Mandalay

text: Mandalay's strategic location in Central Burma makes it an important hub for transport of people and goods. The city is connected to other parts of the country and to China and India by multiple modes of transportation.


title: Mandalay

text: Mandalay International Airport (MDL) was one of the largest and most modern airports in Myanmar until the modernization of Yangon International Airport in 2008. Built at a cost of US$150 million in 2000, it is highly underused; it serves mostly domestic flights with the exception of those to Kunming and to/from Bangkok and Chiang Mai, with daily flights on Air Asia and Bangkok Airways. The airport has come to represent the military regime's propensity for bad planning and penchant for white elephant projects. Myanmar's recent opening stance on tourism means the airport is now receiving a growing number of visitors from Bangkok and Chiang Mai.


title: Mandalay

text: The airport is far from the city, on a modern highway. Before the construction of this airport, Mandalay Chanmyathazi Airport was the main airport of the city. The airport serves some flights to Myanmar towns.


title: Mandalay

text: The Ayeyarwady River remains an important arterial route for transporting goods such as farm produce including rice, beans and pulses, cooking oil, pottery, bamboo and teak.


title: Mandalay

text: Mandalay Central Railway Station is the terminus of Myanmar Railways's main rail line from Yangon and the starting point of branch lines to Pyin U Lwin (Maymyo), Lashio, Monywa, Pakokku, Kalay, Gangaw, and to the north, Shwebo, Kawlin, Naba, Kanbalu, Mohnyin, Hopin, Mogaung and Myitkyina.


title: Mandalay

text: Mandalay does not have an intra-city metro rail system. The former Trams in Mandalay has been decommissioned.


title: Mandalay

text: Mandalay literally is at the center of Burma's road network. The highway network includes roads towards:


title: Mandalay

text: As the government allows only a few thousands of vehicles to be imported each year, motor transportation in Burma is highly expensive for most of its citizens. Most people rely on bicycles, motorcycles and/or private and public buses to get around. Back in the 2000s, the most popular car in Mandalay was the 1982/83 Nissan Sunny pickup truck. Because of its utility as a private bus or taxi, the two-and-a-half-decade old model still had strong demand and heady prices to match—from K10 million to K14 million (US$8,000 to US$11,000) in mid-2008. To get around severe import limits, people of Mandalay had turned to illegally imported and hence unregistered (called "without" in Burmese English) motorcycles and cars despite the government's periodic confiscation sprees then.


title: Mandalay

text: In March 2008, Mandalay had nearly 81,000 registered motor vehicles plus an unknown number of unregistered vehicles. Although the number of cars in a city of one million is low, traffic in Mandalay is highly chaotic as thousands of bicycles and (unregistered) motorbikes freely roam around all the lanes of the streets. Unlike in Yangon where motorbikes, cycle rickshaws and bicycles are prohibited from entering downtown and busy areas, in Mandalay it is anything goes. In 2018, as part of Mandalay Smart City initiatives, new traffic lights with internet-connected sensors have been installed by Mandalay City Development Committee to manage traffic at junctions.


title: Mandalay

text: A 2007 estimate by the UN puts Mandalay's population at nearly 1 million. The city's population is projected to reach nearly 1.5 million by 2025. While Mandalay has traditionally been the bastion of Bamar (Burman) culture and populace, the massive influx of illegal ethnic Han Chinese in the last 20 years has effectively influenced the ethnic Bamar majority there. Although many native ethnic Han Chinese could not get Burmese citizenship, the foreign-born Yunnanese can easily obtain Burmese citizenship cards on the black market. Ludu Daw Amar of Mandalay, the native journalist had said it felt like "an undeclared colony of Yunnan". Today, the percentage of ethnic Han Chinese, estimated at 50% of the city (with the Yunnanese forming an estimated 30% of Mandalay's population), is believed to be nearly the same as that of the ethnic Bamar. A sizable community of Indian immigrants (mostly Tamils) also resides in Mandalay.


title: Mandalay

text: Burmese is the principal language of the city, while Chinese is increasingly heard in the city's commerce centers as the second language. English is the third language, only known by some urban people.


title: Mandalay

text: Mandalay is Burma's cultural and religious center of Buddhism, having numerous monasteries and more than 700 pagodas. At the foot of Mandalay Hill sits the world's official "Buddhist Bible", also known as the world's largest book, in Kuthodaw Pagoda. The styles of Mandalay Buddha Images and Buddha Statues were many since King Mandon, who was a devout Buddhist, and had filled Mandalay with them and through the years Mandalay Buddhist art became established as the pure art of Myanmar. There are 729 slabs of stone that together are inscribed with the entire Pāli Canon, each housed in its own white stupa.


title: Mandalay

text: The buildings inside the old Mandalay city walls, surrounded by a moat, which was repaired in recent times using prison labor, comprise the Mandalay Palace, mostly destroyed during World War II. İt is now replaced by a replica, military Prison and a military garrison, the headquarters of the Central Military Command.


title: Mandalay

text: Much of the media in Mandalay – like elsewhere in Burma – comes from Yangon. The city's non-satellite TV programming comes from Yangon-based state-run TV Myanmar and military-run Myawaddy, both of which provide Burmese language news and entertainment. Since December 2006, MRTV-4, formerly a paid channel, has also been available in Mandalay. Mandalay has two radio stations. Naypyidaw-based Myanmar Radio National Service is the national radio service and broadcasts mostly in Burmese (and in English during specific times.) Semi-state-run Mandalay City FM (87.9FM) is the Mandalay metropolitan area's pop culture oriented station.


title: Mandalay

text: The military government, which controls all daily newspapers in Burma, uses Mandalay to publish and distribute its three national newspapers, the Burmese language "Myanmar Alin" and "Kyemon" and the English language "New Light of Myanmar". The state-run "Yadanabon" is published in Mandalay and serves the Upper Burma market.


title: Mandalay

text: The "Mandalay Daily" newspaper is published by Mandalay City Development Committee since 30 November 1997.


title: Mandalay

text: Mandalay's sporting facilities are quite poor by international standards but are still the best in Upper Burma. The 17,000 seat Bahtoo Stadium was the largest in Upper Myanmar before the construction of Mandalarthiri Stadium and hosts mainly local and regional association football and track-and-field tournaments. Since May 2009, professional football has arrived in Mandalay, with Yadanabon FC representing the city in the newly formed Myanmar National League, the country's first professional football league.


title: Mandalay

text: In 2013, a new stadium, Mandalarthiri Stadium was built to host the Women Football matches of 27th SEA Games and became the largest stadium in Mandalay and Upper Myanmar.


title: Mandalay

text: At Waterfall Hill, the first bolted rock climbing site in Myanmar have been developed with the help of Mandalay climbers led by Steve, Tylor and Technical Climbing Club of Myanmar since 2010.


title: Mandalay

text: Mandalay is the major trading and communications center for northern and central Burma. Much of Burmese external trade to China and India goes through Mandalay.


title: Mandalay

text: Among the leading traditional industries are silk weaving, tapestry, jade cutting and polishing, stone and wood carving, making marble and bronze Buddha images, temple ornaments and paraphernalia, the working of gold leaves and of silver, the manufacture of matches, brewing and distilling.


title: Mandalay

text: Chinese immigrants have increasingly dominated Mandalay's economy since the imposition of sanctions by the United States and the European Union in the 1990s.


title: Mandalay

text: Mandalay has the best educational facilities and institutions, after Yangon, in Burma where state spending on education is among the lowest in the world. Students in poor districts routinely drop out in middle school as schools have to rely on forced "donations" and various fees from parents for nearly everything – school maintenance to teachers' salaries. Many wealthy Mandalay parents enroll their children in the city's English language private schools for primary and secondary education and Chinese and Singaporean universities for university education. Some wealthy Chinese families also send their children to "cram schools" where students study for entrance exams into Chinese universities from 6am to 8am, then to government high schools from 9am to 3pm, and finally preparation classes for Singapore GCE O levels from 4pm to 9pm.


title: Mandalay

text: For the rest of the students who cannot afford to go abroad for studies, Mandalay offers Upper Burma's best institutions of higher education. There are over 15 universities including Sasana University. The city's University of Mandalay, University of Medicine, Mandalay, University of Dental Medicine, Mandalay, Mandalay Technological University and University of Computer Studies, Mandalay are among the nation's most selective universities.


title: Mandalay

text: The general state of health care in Burma is poor. The military government spends anywhere from 0.5% to 3% of the country's GDP on health care, consistently ranking among the lowest in the world. In 2005, the public health care system of Mandalay Region with over 7.6 million people consisted of slightly over 1000 doctors and about 2000 nurses working in 44 hospitals and 44 health clinics. Over 30 of the so-called hospitals had less than 100 beds. Although health care is nominally free, in reality, patients have to pay for medicine and treatment, even in public clinics and hospitals. Public hospitals lack many of the basic facilities and equipment.


title: Mandalay

text: Nonetheless Mandalay remains the main health care center for Upper Burma as almost all of large public hospitals and private hospitals are in Mandalay. The city has ten public hospitals and one hospital specializing in traditional Burmese medicine. For a semblance of adequate health care, the well-to-do from Upper Burma go to private hospitals and clinics in Mandalay. For more advanced treatments, they have to go to Yangon or abroad. The wealthy Burmese routinely go abroad (usually Bangkok or Singapore) for treatment.


title: Mandalay

text: Rudyard Kipling wrote a poem called "Mandalay" (1890), which is the origin of the phrase "on the road to Mandalay". In 1907, the poem was set to music by Oley Speaks as "On the Road to Mandalay". Speaks' version was widely recorded. Among the best known renditions is the one by Frank Sinatra on "Come Fly With Me".


title: Mandalay

text: Bithia Mary Croker wrote a novel in 1917, "The Road to Mandalay", which was the uncredited basis for a 1926 American silent film. Of this, only excerpts survive. A further film of the same name was directed by Midi Z in 2016.


title: Mandalay

text: The large hotel/casino/convention center Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas is named for the city, despite the fact that the city is 500 kilometers from the nearest bay, perhaps in reference to the line in Kipling's poem, "An' the dawn comes up like thunder outer China 'crost the Bay! "


title: Mandalay

text: George Orwell was stationed at Mandalay for a time while working for the Indian Imperial Police in Burma, and his first novel, "Burmese Days" (1934), was based on his experiences in Burma. He also wrote a number of short non-fiction essays and short stories about Burma, such as "A Hanging" (1931) and "Shooting an Elephant" (1936).


title: Mandalay

text: John Masters wrote a book about his wartime experiences in Burma called "The Road Past Mandalay" (1961).


title: Mandalay

text: In the animated series, "Nellie the Elephant", the main protagonist of the series is on a journey to return to her home in Mandalay after leaving the circus.


title: Mandalay

text: The American film studio "Mandalay Pictures" is named after the city. The logo also features a tiger, which is often seen roaming around the city.


title: Mandalay

text: British pop singer Robbie Williams sang a song called Eternity/The Road to Mandalay which was released as a single in 2001.


title: Nursery Cryme

text: Nursery Cryme is the third studio album by the English rock band Genesis, released in November 1971 on Charisma Records. It was their first to feature drummer/vocalist Phil Collins and guitarist Steve Hackett. The album received a mixed response from critics and was not initially a commercial success; it did not enter the UK chart until 1974, when it reached its peak at No. 39. However, the album was successful in Continental Europe, particularly Italy. At approximately 39 minutes long, it is the shortest studio album by the band to date.


title: Nursery Cryme

text: Following extensive touring in support of their previous album "Trespass" (1970), which included the recruitment of Collins and Hackett, the band began writing and rehearsing for a follow-up in Luxford House, East Sussex, with recording following at Trident Studios. "Nursery Cryme" saw the band take a more aggressive direction of some songs, with substantially improved drumming. The opening piece, "The Musical Box" combined the band's trademark mix of twelve-string guitars with harsh electric guitars and keyboards. The song, a macabre fairy story set in Victorian Britain, became the inspiration for the album cover, and went on to be a live favourite. Collins brought a new dimension to the group, covering the majority of the backing vocals (including his first lead vocal with Genesis on "For Absent Friends") and bringing in a sense of humour on tracks like "Harold The Barrel". At Hackett's suggestion, Banks made more prominent use of the Mellotron on several tracks.


title: Nursery Cryme

text: The band toured the UK and Europe for one year to promote the album, which raised their profile in both territories. The tour included a successful Italian leg in April 1972, where the group played to enthusiastic crowds. "Nursery Cryme" was certified Silver by the British Phonographic Industry in 2013. Ever since 1971, there have been many re-releases of Nursery Cryme.


title: Nursery Cryme

text: Genesis recorded their first album as a professional outfit, "Trespass" in June 1970, but immediately afterwards, founding member and guitarist Anthony Phillips quit owing to increased stress and unhappiness in touring. The other founders, singer Peter Gabriel, keyboardist Tony Banks and bassist/guitarist Mike Rutherford almost split up the group, but decided to carry on and replace drummer John Mayhew with someone who was of equal stature to the others and who could write.


title: Nursery Cryme

text: Phil Collins joined as the new drummer in August, also becoming an important backing vocalist, but they were unable to find a suitable replacement for Phillips. This led to the group completing the first half of their 1970–1971 tour as a four-piece with Rutherford playing rhythm guitar and bass pedals and Banks playing lead guitar lines on a Pianet through a distorted fuzz box amplifier in addition to his own keyboard parts. Banks credited this to improving his technique as it required him to play two keyboards simultaneously. The group felt that Collins was the best drummer they had worked with at that point, and his playing style and musical tastes gave a new dimension to their sound. Some songs were not practical to play live as a four-piece, so they decided to look again for a lead guitarist. In November 1970, Mick Barnard joined the group on recommendation from Friars Aylesbury's David Stopps, and "The Musical Box" was added to the live set. However, the rest of the group quickly realised that Barnard was not up to the same standard as the others, and they kept a look out for a better player.


title: Nursery Cryme

text: Genesis recruited Steve Hackett after Gabriel spotted an advert he placed in "Melody Maker" in December 1970, which read "Imaginative guitarist/writer seeks involvement with receptive musicians, determined to drive beyond existing stagnant music forms". He saw Genesis play a concert at the Lyceum Theatre, London on 28 December, and was told by Gabriel that Barnard would have to be replaced. Hackett quickly developed a rapport with Rutherford, sharing their love of twelve-string guitars and new musical ideas, and joined the band in early 1971.


title: Nursery Cryme

text: With the addition of Hackett, Genesis continued touring which included the "Six Bob Tour" with their Charisma Records labelmates Lindisfarne and Van der Graaf Generator, their first overseas shows which occurred in Belgium and the first of three appearances at the annual Reading Festival. Early attempts to work on material for their next studio album in what Hackett described as "the odd day in a windy church hall" while on tour were unproductive, causing the group to dedicate time. In July, they began a three-month break from touring to write and record which was Hackett's first experience of rehearsing with a group to a professional standard.


title: Nursery Cryme

text: The five moved to Charisma owner Tony Stratton-Smith's residence, Luxford House, a 16th-century Grade II listed building in Crowborough, East Sussex. The group nicknamed the house "Toad Hall". Genesis were apprehensive about writing without Phillips, and both Collins and Hackett were unsure of what level of musical contributions they would be able to make. Hackett was keen to explore new sounds and musical ideas, and suggested the group buy a Mellotron, which Banks used as his main instrument, along with the Hammond organ, instead of the piano. Some material had been written when Phillips and Mayhew were still in the band, and were reworked by the new members. Collins was a particular workaholic and was happy to jam with anyone at any time.


title: Nursery Cryme

text: With the new material worked out, Genesis recorded "Nursery Cryme" at Trident Studios in London in August 1971 with John Anthony as their producer and David Hentschel their assistant engineer who, like Anthony, had worked the same role on "Trespass". The album features Hackett playing a Les Paul guitar which the band had bought him along with a Hiwatt stack amplifier. He recalled some difficulty in understanding what Banks and Rutherford were talking about as the two had devised their own sayings, for instance a passage that they had played was referred to as a "nice guy".


title: Nursery Cryme

text: "The Musical Box" was a lengthy piece that described a macabre story placed in Victorian Britain. A young boy, Henry, is accidentally decapitated by his friend Cynthia while playing croquet. Returning to the house, Cynthia plays Henry's old musical box, which unleashes the spirit of Henry as an old man. Henry has become sexually frustrated and attempts to seduce Cynthia. The nurse enters the room, hurls the musical box at the wall, destroying both it and Henry.


title: Nursery Cryme

text: The song originated when Phillips was in the group, who would often write with Rutherford on 12-string acoustic guitars. The latter had begun to experiment with unorthodox guitar tunings and had the top three strings tuned into F sharp which provided the jangly sound heard in the opening and the chord that signalled the start of the electric guitar solo. The tuning influenced the title of an acoustic piece, "F#" (pronounced "F sharp") that became the basis of "The Musical Box", which was developed further after Phillips's departure. The opening section of the song features both Rutherford and Banks on twelve-string. An earlier version of the song, entitled "Manipulation", was performed with Phillips in 1970 for the soundtrack of an unreleased BBC documentary on painter Michael Jackson.


title: Nursery Cryme

text: The guitar solos originated from Barnard's brief tenure in Genesis. Hackett modified sections that Phillips and Barnard had written while adding his own arrangements to the song. He realised that neither member had made a sound that resembled an actual musical box, so he took the opportunity to record a guitar lick that is heard before the lyric "Here it comes again". Gabriel, a big fan of The Who at the time, pushed for Rutherford to come up with a "ballsy, attacking" section in a similar style to their guitarist Pete Townshend. Gabriel incorporated themes of violence and sex into the lyrics. Collins was inspired to play a rolling drum part during the middle section from hearing "The Weaver's Answer" by Family, and put it to the rhythm. "All of a sudden", speaking about "The Musical Box" at this point, "It's 'wahey we're off!'".


title: Nursery Cryme

text: The song became a live favourite during Gabriel's tenure with the band. He first decided on the idea of wearing costumes at a gig in the National Stadium, Dublin in September 1972, leaving during the instrumental break and re-appearing at the conclusion wearing his wife's red dress and a fox's head. Later, he would wear an "old man" mask for the song's ending, acting out the part of the aged Henry.


title: Nursery Cryme

text: "For Absent Friends" is an acoustic song that marked Hackett's first significant writing contribution for the group, and the first Genesis song with Collins on lead vocals. After coming up with the music himself and the lyrics with Collins, Hackett recalled being shy when he presented it to Gabriel as they were the new members of the group. Hackett was inspired by "Eleanor Rigby" by the Beatles to write a straightforward song about a relationship, to which Collins suggested one about two old women who had lost their husbands.


title: Nursery Cryme

text: "The Return of the Giant Hogweed" warns of the spread of the toxic plant "Heracleum mantegazzianum" after it was "captured" in Russia and brought to England by a Victorian explorer. Though the real plant is extremely toxic and dangerous, the song's lyrics are a humorous exaggeration, suggesting the plant is attempting to take over the human race. Both "The Musical Box" and "The Return of the Giant Hogweed" feature Hackett's first use of guitar tapping, a technique whereby the index finger of the plucking hand is applied directly to the guitar fret board. The opening to the latter features Hackett and Banks playing triplets in harmony.


title: Nursery Cryme

text: "Seven Stones" was conceived by Banks who used what Rutherford described as "his big, schmaltzy, music hall chords [that] he loved." "Melody Maker" reporter Chris Welch described the song as "strangely mournful and inconclusive." He theorised that the old man addressed in the lyric is expressing his "profound belief that the secret of success and good fortune is based purely on random events and chance."


title: Nursery Cryme

text: "Harold the Barrel" showed a humorous side to Genesis, which was encouraged by Collins. The lyrics show black humour of a man contemplating suicide by jumping off a building, with wordplay influenced by John Lennon's "In His Own Write". The track was recorded with Gabriel and Collins singing the song as a duet. Their vocals were mixed onto the same audio track so they cannot be separated.


title: Nursery Cryme

text: "Harlequin" was written by Rutherford. He played two separate guitar parts on a single 12-string which he thought produced "pretty dodgy" results, and was also critical of his lyrics.


title: Nursery Cryme

text: "The Fountain of Salmacis" tells the Greek myth of Salmacis and Hermaphroditus. It originated from a short rundown passage that Banks had come up with while at university. An earlier version of the track, entitled "Provocation", was recorded in 1970 for the soundtrack of an unreleased BBC documentary on painter Michael Jackson. The track makes use of the Mellotron, with an influence from King Crimson's "In the Court of the Crimson King". Banks thought the instrument greatly complemented his piece when combined with the organ. It became the basis for "The Fountain of Salmacis" which was taken further to a complete song as the result of group jams. Hackett particularly enjoyed the time he came up with his ending guitar solo, which occurred around midnight at Luxford House during a rare moment when the group were up for recording.