title: Spartan (film)

text: When he takes Laura to the airport to seal her in the cargo container, Scott discovers he is being tracked when he finds a transmitter hidden in his knife. He rushes her out of the container just as his old team arrives to apprehend them. Scott is shot and Laura is captured. Her captor reveals herself as Sgt. Black, who shows her the earring and photos from the Secret Service agent, convincing Laura to stop struggling. A Swedish news crew witnesses the struggle as they are about to board their own plane nearby, and recognize Laura. Black is shot, and a hysterical Laura is hustled to safety aboard the journalists' plane. Scott finds the injured Black, who asks if Laura is now safe, which Scott confirms.


title: Spartan (film)

text: Later, on a London city street, a stubbled Scott is shown watching an evening news broadcast regarding Laura's return on a television in a shop window. The government spins the story of Laura's kidnapping as an opportunity for the President to take action to end the trafficking of American girls as sex slaves. A British man watching alongside Scott says, "Time to go home," and walks away. Scott watches him leave and says, "Lucky man." Scott is then seen walking off into Piccadilly Circus.


title: Spartan (film)

text: The Dubai locales were actually filmed in Los Angeles. Eric L. Haney, a retired U.S. Army Command Sergeant Major who operated in Delta Force, was the technical advisor, and briefly appears. After "Spartan", he and Mamet created "The Unit" television series about an Army unit mirroring Delta Force.


title: Spartan (film)

text: Alexandra Kerry, daughter of then-U.S. Senator (later Secretary of State) John Kerry, is a bartender in the film. David Mamet's rabbi, Mordechai Finley, appears as one of the training cadre. Political operative Ed Skyler has praised the film for its realism regarding the inner workings of the Washington elite.


title: Spartan (film)

text: The Scott character says the line, "One riot, one Ranger." Mamet previously used that dialogue in "House of Games", and it has subsequently been used in "The Unit". The remark is said to be Texas Rangers lore.


title: Spartan (film)

text: The review-aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 65% based on reviews from 134 critics, and a weighted average of 6.5 out of 10. The website's critical consensus states, "A good cast and Mamet's mastery over the written language elevate an otherwise conventional thriller." At Metacritic, another review aggregator, the film received a weighted average score of 60% based on 34 reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews".


title: Spartan (film)

text: Roger Ebert in the "Chicago Sun-Times" gave the film a four-star rating saying that "The particular pleasure of 'Spartan' is to watch the characters gradually define themselves and the plot gradually emerge like your face in a steamy mirror."


title: Spartan (film)

text: Ross Douthat wrote "Here's my rule of thumb: Anytime a critic praises a director for pushing any movie—let alone a low-budget thriller—'into the abstract,' you know you've entered the realm of the lousy-but-pretentious, which is not a particularly fun place to spend a Saturday night. I promise you, folks, "Spartan" is bad—both in the way that only David Mamet can be bad and in a heap of others. The only thing that raises it to the level of 'interesting pop culture artifact' is the sheer strangeness of its central conceit, which is almost bizarre enough to merit the price of the Blockbuster rental. I won't spoil it—but suffice to say, David Mamet thinks Jenna and Barbara should be keeping a weather eye on their Dad."


title: Spartan (film)

text: Tim Robey in "The Daily Telegraph" felt the film was let down by a "botched" finale, "as though Mamet felt obliged to reproduce a standard-issue Tom Clancy climax while knowing that this wasn't the way to go."


title: Earthenware

text: Earthenware is glazed or unglazed nonvitreous pottery that has normally been fired below . Basic earthenware, often called terracotta, absorbs liquids such as water. However, earthenware can be made impervious to liquids by coating it with a ceramic glaze, which the great majority of modern domestic earthenware has. The main other important types of pottery are porcelain, bone china, and stoneware, all fired at high enough temperatures to vitrify.


title: Earthenware

text: Earthenware comprises "most building bricks, nearly all European pottery up to the seventeenth century, most of the wares of Egypt, Persia and the near East; Greek, Roman and Mediterranean, and some of the Chinese; and the fine earthenware which forms the greater part of our tableware today" ("today" being 1962). Pit fired earthenware dates back to as early as 29,000–25,000 BC, and for millennia, only earthenware pottery was made, with stoneware gradually developing some 5,000 years ago, but then apparently disappearing for a few thousand years. Outside East Asia, porcelain was manufactured only from the 18th century AD, and then initially as an expensive luxury.


title: Earthenware

text: After it is fired, earthenware is opaque and non-vitreous, soft and capable of being scratched with a knife. The Combined Nomenclature of the European Union describes it as being made of selected clays sometimes mixed with feldspars and varying amounts of other minerals, and white or light-colored (i.e., slightly greyish, cream, or ivory).


title: Earthenware

text: Generally, earthenware bodies exhibit higher plasticity than most whiteware bodies and hence are easier to shape by RAM press, roller-head or potter's wheel than bone china or porcelain.


title: Earthenware

text: Due to its porosity, earthenware, with a water absorption of 5-8%, must be glazed to be watertight. Earthenware has lower mechanical strength than bone china, porcelain or stoneware, and consequently articles are commonly made in thicker cross-section, although they are still more easily chipped.


title: Earthenware

text: Darker-colored terracotta earthenware, typically orange or red due to a comparatively high content of iron oxide, are widely used for flower pots, tiles and some decorative and oven ware.


title: Earthenware

text: A general body formulation for contemporary earthenware is 25% kaolin, 25% ball clay, 35% quartz and 15% feldspar.


title: Earthenware

text: Modern earthenware may be biscuit (or "bisque") fired to temperatures between and glost-fired (or "glaze-fired") to between , the usual practice in factories and some studio potteries. Some studio potters follow the reverse practice, with a low-temperature biscuit firing and a high-temperature glost firing. The firing schedule will be determined by the raw materials used and the desired characteristics of the finished ware.


title: Earthenware

text: Historically, such high temperatures were unattainable in most cultures and periods until modern times, though Chinese ceramics were far ahead of other cultures in this respect. Earthenware can be produced at firing temperatures as low as and many clays will not fire successfully above about . Much historical pottery was fired somewhere around , giving a wide margin of error where there was no precise way of measuring temperature, and very variable conditions within the kiln.


title: Earthenware

text: After firing, most earthenware bodies will be colored white, buff or red. For red earthenware, the firing temperature affects the color of the clay body. Lower temperatures produce a typical red terracotta color; higher temperatures will make the clay brown or even black. Higher firing temperatures may cause earthenware to bloat.


title: Earthenware

text: Despite the most highly valued types of pottery often switching to stoneware and porcelain as these were developed by a particular culture, there are many artistically important types of earthenware. All Ancient Greek and Ancient Roman pottery is earthenware, as is the Hispano-Moresque ware of the late Middle Ages, which developed into tin-glazed pottery or faience traditions in several parts of Europe, mostly notably the painted maiolica of the Italian Renaissance, and Dutch Delftware. With a white glaze, these were able to imitate porcelains both from East Asia and Europe.


title: Earthenware

text: Possibly the most complicated earthenware ever made was the extremely rare Saint-Porchaire ware of the mid-16th century, apparently made for the French court.


title: Earthenware

text: In the 18th century, especially in English Staffordshire pottery, technical improvements enabled very fine wares such as Wedgwood's creamware, that competed with porcelain with considerable success, as his huge creamware Frog Service for Catherine the Great showed. The invention of transfer printing processes made highly decorated wares cheap enough for far wider sections of the population in Europe.


title: Earthenware

text: In China, sancai glazed wares were lead-glazed earthenware, and as elsewhere, terracotta remained important for sculpture. The Etruscans had made large sculptures such as statues in it, where the Romans used it mainly for figurines and Campana reliefs. Chinese painted or Tang dynasty tomb figures were earthenware, as were later sculptures such as the near life-size Yixian glazed pottery luohans. After the ceramic figurine was revived in European porcelain, earthenware figures followed, such as the popular English Staffordshire figures.


title: Carom billiards

text: Carom billiards, sometimes called carambole billiards, is the overarching title of a family of cue sports generally played on cloth-covered, billiard tables. In its simplest form, the object of the game is to score or "counts" by "" one's own off both the opponent's cue ball and the on a single shot. The invention as well as the exact date of origin of carom billiards is somewhat obscure but is thought to be traceable to 18th-century France.


title: Carom billiards

text: There is a large array of carom billiards disciplines. Some of the more prevalent today and historically are (chronologically by apparent date of development): straight rail, one-cushion, balkline, three-cushion and artistic billiards.


title: Carom billiards

text: Carom billiards is popular in Europe, particularly France, where it originated. It is also popular in Asian countries, including Japan, the Philippines, South Korea, and Vietnam, but is now considered obscure in North America, having been supplanted by pool in popularity. The Union Mondiale de Billard (UMB) is the highest international governing body of competitive carom billiards.


title: Carom billiards

text: The word "carom", which simply means any strike and rebound, was in use in reference to billiards by at least 1779, sometimes spelled "carrom". Sources differ on the origin. It has been pegged variously as a shortening of the Spanish and Portuguese word "carambola", or the French word "carambole", which are used to describe the red object ball. Some etymologists have suggested that "carambola", in turn, was derived from a yellow-to-orange, tropical Asian fruit also known in Portuguese as a "carambola" (which was a corruption of the original name of the fruit, "karambal" in the Marathi language of India), also known as star fruit. But this may simply be folk etymology, as the fruit bears no resemblance to a billiard ball, and there is no direct evidence for such a derivation.


title: Carom billiards

text: In modern French, the word "" means 'successive collision', currently used mainly in reference to or shots in billiards, and to multiple-vehicle car crashes.


title: Carom billiards

text: Most cloth made for carom billiard tables is a type of baize that is typically dyed green, and is made from 100% worsted wool with no nap, which provides a very fast surface allowing the balls to travel with little resistance across the table .


title: Carom billiards

text: The slate bed of a carom billiard table is often heated to about 5 °C (9 °F) above room temperature, which helps to keep moisture out of the cloth to aid the balls rolling and rebounding in a consistent manner, and generally makes a table play faster. An electrically heated table is required under international tournament rules 'in order to ensure the best possible rolling', although temperatures are not specified. It is an especially important requirement for the games of three-cushion billiards and artistic billiards, and even local billiard halls often have this feature in countries where carom games are popular. Queen Victoria (1819–1901) had a billiard table that was heated using zinc tubes, although the aim at that time was chiefly to keep the then-used ivory balls from warping. The first use of electric heating was for an 18.2 balkline tournament held in December 1927 between Welker Cochran and Jacob Schaefer Jr. "The New York Times" announced it with fanfare: "For the first time in the history of world's championship balkline billiards a heated table will be used ..."


title: Carom billiards

text: The three standard balls in most carom billiards games consist of one white cue ball, a second yellow cue ball and a third, red object ball. Historically, the second cue ball was white with red or black spots to differentiate it; both types of ball sets are permitted in tournament play. The balls are significantly larger and heavier than their pool or snooker counterparts, with a diameter of , and a weight ranging between with a typical weight of .


title: Carom billiards

text: Billiard balls have been made from many different materials throughout the history of the game, including clay, wood, ivory, plastics (including early formulations of celluloid, Bakelite, and crystalate, and more modern phenolic resin, polyester and acrylic), and even steel. The dominant material from 1627 until the early- to mid-20th century was ivory. The search for a substitute for ivory use was not for environmental or animal-welfare concerns but based on economic motivation and fear of danger for elephant hunters. It was in part spurred on by a New York billiard table manufacturer who announced a prize of $10,000 for a substitute material. The first viable substitute was celluloid, invented by John Wesley Hyatt in 1868, but the material is volatile and highly flammable, sometimes exploding during manufacture.


title: Carom billiards

text: Carom billiard cues have specialized refinements making them different from cues used in other cue sports. Carom cues tend to be shorter and lighter overall, with a shorter , a thicker and , a wooden joint (in high-end examples), and wood-to-wood joint. They have a sharply conical , and a smaller diameter as compared with pool cues. Typical carom cues are in length and in weight – lighter for straight rail, heavier for three-cushion – with a tip in diameter. These dimensions make the cue significantly stiffer, which aids in handling the larger and heavier balls used in carom billiards. It also acts to reduce (sometimes called "squirt"), which is displacement of the cue ball's path away from the parallel line formed by the cue stick's direction of travel. It is a factor that occurs every time is employed, and its effects are magnified by speed. In some carom games, deflection plays a large role because many shots require extremes of side-spin, coupled with great speed; this is a combination typically minimized as much as possible, by contrast, in pool.


title: Carom billiards

text: Straight rail is thought to date to the 18th century, although no exact time of origin is known. The object of straight rail is simple: one point, called a "count", is scored each time a player's cue ball makes contact with both object balls (the second cue ball and the third ball) on a single . A win is achieved by reaching an agreed upon number of counts.


title: Carom billiards

text: At straight rail's inception there was no restriction on the manner of scoring. However, the technique of "crotching", or freezing two balls into the corner where the rails meet—the "crotch"—vastly increasing counts, resulted in an 1862 rule which allowed only three counts before at least one ball had to be driven away. Techniques continued to develop which increased counts greatly despite the crotching prohibition, especially the development of a variety of "" techniques. The most important of these, the "", involves the progressive nudging of the object balls down a rail, ideally moving them only a small amount on each count, keeping them close together and positioned at the end of each stroke in the same or near the same configuration such that the nurse can be replicated again and again.


title: Carom billiards

text: Straight rail is still popular in Europe, where it is considered a fine practice game for both balkline and three-cushion billiards. Additionally, Europe hosts professional competitions known as "pentathlons" in which straight rail is featured as one of five billiards disciplines at which players compete, the other four being 47.1 balkline, cushion caroms, 71.2 balkline, and three-cushion billiards.


title: Carom billiards

text: Straight rail was played professionally in the United States from 1873 to 1879, but is uncommon there today.


title: Carom billiards

text: In 1879, a variant called the "champion's game" or "limited-rail" was introduced with the specific intent of frustrating the rail nurse. The game employed diagonal lines at the table's corners to regions where counts were restricted. Ultimately, however, despite its divergence from straight rail, the champion's game simply expanded the dimensions of the balk space defined under the existing crotch prohibition which was not sufficient to stop nursing.


title: Carom billiards

text: Balkline succeeded the champion's game, adding more rules to curb nursing techniques. In the balkline games, the entire table is divided into rectangular balk spaces, by drawing pairs of balklines lengthwise and widthwise across the table parallel from each rail. This divides the table into nine rectangular balkspaces. Such balk spaces define areas of the in which a player may only score up to a threshold number of points while the are within that region. Additionally, rectangles are drawn where each balkline meets a rail, called "anchor spaces", which developed to stop a number of nursing techniques that exploited the fact that if the object balls straddled a balkline, no count limit was in place.


title: Carom billiards

text: For the most part, the differences between one balkline game to another is defined by two measures: the spacing of the balklines and the number of points that are allowed in each balk space before at least one ball must leave the region. Generally, balkline games and their particular restrictions are given numerical names indicating both of these characteristics; the first number indicated either inches or centimeters depending on the game, and the second, after a dot or a slash, indicates the count restriction in balk spaces, which is always either one or two. For example, in "18.2 balkline", one of the more prominent balkline games and of US origin, the name indicates that balklines are drawn 18 inches distant from each rail, and only two counts are allowed in a balk space before a ball must leave. By contrast, in "71.2 balkline", of French invention, lines are drawn 71 centimeters distant from each rail, also with a two-count restriction for balk spaces.


title: Carom billiards

text: In its various incarnations, balkline was the predominant carom discipline from 1883 to the 1930s, when it was overtaken by three-cushion billiards and pool. Balkline is still popular in Europe and the Far East.


title: Carom billiards

text: One-cushion carom, or simply cushion carom, also arose in the late 1860s as another alternative to the repetitive play of straight rail, inspired by an early variant of English billiards. The object of the game is to score cushion caroms, meaning a carom off of both object balls with at least one rail cushion being struck before the hit on the second object ball. One-cushion carom is still popular in Europe.


title: Carom billiards

text: In three-cushion carom, the object is to carom off both object balls with at least three being contacted before the contact of the cue ball with the second object ball.


title: Carom billiards

text: Three-cushion is a very difficult game. Averaging one point per is professional-level play, and averaging 1.5 to 2 is world-class play.


title: Carom billiards

text: Wayman C. McCreery of St. Louis, Missouri, is credited with popularizing the game in the 1870s. At least one publication categorically states he invented the game as well. The first three-cushion billiards tournament took place 14–31 January 1878, in St. Louis, with McCreery a participant and Leon Magnus the winner. The high run for the tournament was just 6 points, and the high average a 0.75. The game was infrequently played, with many top carom players of the era voicing their dislike of it, until the 1907 introduction of the Lambert Trophy. By 1924, three-cushion had become so popular that two giants in other billiard disciplines agreed to take up the game especially for a challenge match. On 22 September 1924, Willie Hoppe, the world's balkline champion (who later took up three-cushion with a passion), and Ralph Greenleaf, the world's straight pool title holder, played a well advertised, multi-day, to 600 . Hoppe was the eventual winner with a final score in of 600–527.


title: Carom billiards

text: Three-cushion billiards retains great popularity in parts of Europe, Asia, and Latin America, and is the most popular carom billiards game played in the US today. UMB, as the governing body of the sport, had been staging world three-cushion championships since the late 1920s.


title: Carom billiards

text: In artistic billiards players compete at performing 76 preset shots of varying difficulty. Each set shot has a maximum point value assigned for perfect execution, ranging from a 4-point minimum for lowest level difficulty shots, and climbing to an 11-point maximum for shots deemed highest in difficulty level. There is a total of 500 points available to a player.


title: Carom billiards

text: Each shot in an artistic billiards match is played from a well-defined position (in some venues within an exacting two millimeter tolerance), and each shot must unfold in an established manner. Players are allowed three attempts at each shot. In general, the shots making up the game, even 4-point shots, require a high degree of skill, devoted practice and specialized knowledge to perform.


title: Carom billiards

text: World title competition first started in 1986 and required the use of ivory balls. However, this requirement was dropped in 1990. The highest score ever achieved in competition overall is 427 set by Walter Bax on 12 March 2006, at a competition held in Deurne, Belgium, beating his own previous record of 425. The game is played predominantly in western Europe, especially in France, Belgium and the Netherlands.


title: Carom billiards

text: The game appears in the films "Le Cercle Rouge" (1970), " The Hustler" (1961), "Deadfall" (1993) and many French films. It is also played in the television shows "The Rifleman", S4E10, by Mark Twain on a visit to North Fork (1961) and "Navillra", S1E3 by Park In-Hwan (2021).


title: Jeong Nam-gyu

text: Jeong Nam-gyu (April 17, 1969 – November 22, 2009) was a South Korean serial killer, who from 2004 to 2006 killed 14 people.


title: Jeong Nam-gyu

text: On January 14, 2004 in Bucheon, Gyeonggi Province, he kidnapped, raped and then murdered two people. He then continued to murder people in Gyeonggi and Seoul, including the murder of a woman returning home late at night. He murdered mainly in the southern part of Seoul, including Shin-gil, Guro and Gwanak. His reason for killing a male elementary school student after sexually assaulting him was that he himself was abused by a man as a child.


title: Jeong Nam-gyu

text: On April 26, 2006, he was arrested at the end of a fight in which he tried to kill a man and the man's father. Subsequent investigations revealed that he also murdered a woman at Imun-dong. Before Jeong confessed this murder, serial killer Yoo Young-Chul falsely confessed that he also had committed it. On April 12, 2007, he was sentenced to death by the Supreme Court and detained in Seoul Detention Center.


title: Jeong Nam-gyu

text: On the morning of November 21, 2009, a jail employee discovered Jeong had attempted to hang himself from a noose made from a plastic bag. He was rushed to the hospital, but died the following morning.


title: Sakshi Shivanand

text: Sakshi Shivanand is an Indian actress, who has appeared in Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam and Hindi films. Her most notable work is "Aapko Pehle Bhi Kahin Dekha Hai" which was directed by Anubhav Sinha and co-starred Priyanshu Chatterjee, Om Puri and Farida Jalal. She has also lent her voice to Cinderella in "The Story of Cinderella", a popular animation television series which was telecast in India on Just Kids! on Sahara TV.


title: Sakshi Shivanand

text: Shivanand made her debut in Bollywood in 1996. During her early career, she starred in the Aditya Pancholi-starrer "Zanjeer" (1998). She later shot to fame within a short span of time in Tollywood. Her debut in Telugu was with Chiranjeevi in the film "Master". Later, she acted opposite many top Telugu cinema heroes such as Nagarjuna in "Seetharamaraju", Balakrishna in "Vamsoddharakudu", Rajasekhar in "Simharasi", Mahesh Babu in Yuvaraju, Abbas in "Rajahamsa" and opposite Mohan Babu in "Yamajathakudu" and "Collector Garu". She performed an item song in the 2008 film "Homam" which was directed by J.D. Chakravarthy.


title: American Kickboxing Academy

text: The American Kickboxing Academy (AKA) is a martial arts gym based in San Jose, California. It is one of the pioneering schools of mixed martial arts (MMA). In 2014, AKA opened the "AKA Thailand" gym in Phuket, Thailand. Prominent trainers include Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu master Leandro Vieira, Bob Cook, Derek Yuen, Javier Mendez, and Andy Fong. Within the facility, Muay Thai, Kickboxing, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, Wrestling and Boxing classes are taught. Additional programs include conditioning and circuit training with TRX Suspension and Combat Circuit. American Kickboxing Academy is one of the top professional MMA training camps.


title: American Kickboxing Academy

text: In 2008, the AKA was involved in a brief dispute with Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) President Dana White over the exclusive license rights for a UFC video game. Members of the AKA who were signed with the UFC, including Jon Fitch, Christian Wellisch, Josh Koscheck, and former UFC heavyweight champion Cain Velasquez, refused to sign an exclusive lifetime contract for their video game licenses over to the UFC, causing them to be cut from the UFC's roster. Within 24 hours, the dispute was resolved and all fighters signed back into the organization.


title: American Kickboxing Academy

text: AKA has also been criticized by MMA fans and journalists, as well as by Dana White, for what is perceived as an excessively high rate of training injuries leading to fight cancellations among its stable of fighters.


title: Ondine (film)

text: Ondine is a 2009 Irish romantic drama film written and directed by Neil Jordan and starring Colin Farrell and Alicja Bachleda. The film was shot on location in Castletownbere, and it touches upon the possible existence of the mythological selkie bringing hope and love to humans they so much want to become.


title: Ondine (film)

text: The film had its North American premiere as part of the Toronto International Film Festival on 14 September 2009 in Toronto and European premiere as part of the Jameson Dublin International Film Festival on 18 February 2010 in Dublin.


title: Ondine (film)

text: Syracuse, uncomfortably called "Circus" by some, is trawling on his boat and finds a scantily clad young woman caught in his net. He sees she is alive and resuscitates her. She calls herself Ondine and refuses to be taken to the hospital, not wanting to be seen by anyone else. He shelters her in a caravan house that belonged to his late mother in a quiet harbor, which makes him late for picking up his daughter Annie who uses a wheelchair and lives with his ex-wife Maura. During Annie's dialysis, he tells her a story about a fisherman that catches a woman out of the sea. Annie explains the woman could be a magical selkie.


title: Ondine (film)

text: Annie receives a new powerchair from the CRC, and upon returning home is greeted by Maura's boyfriend Alex. Maura flips off Syracuse for missing the doctor who had news on a kidney match for Annie.


title: Ondine (film)

text: Next morning, Syracuse finds Ondine washing clothes in a stream, singing in an unknown language. She follows him on his boat to work that day. He pulls up only empty lobster pots until Ondine starts singing, after which every pot contains a catch. Still not wanting to be seen, Ondine refuses to follow Syracuse to the fish market where the lobsters are sold. He buys a dress and lies to the store clerk that it's for Annie when she grows up.


title: Ondine (film)

text: When Suracuse picks up Annie from her school, he continues the fisherman story by explaining how the woman sings to the fish for him to catch, a song in a language he has never heard before. Annie states that Selk is the language of the selkie. Syracuse stammers that his lobsters hear her sing, which makes Annie curious as to whose story this is, and she secretly follows him to the caravan. When Syracuse asks how long she will stay, Ondine says it is up to him. He happily replies forever and happily ever after, like the fairytale he has been building with Annie, who watches them without being noticed.


title: Ondine (film)

text: Annie is seen back home studying all her new library books on seals and selkies. Alex says selkies are Scottish creatures, but the one Annie saw is not.


title: Ondine (film)

text: Syracuse regularly torments the local priest in confession because there aren't any AA meetings in town. He recalls a recurring nightmare where he is at Alex's funeral and reunited with Maura, still with her drinking problem. As the priest pushes the subject away, Syracuse reveals he pulled a woman out of the water with his net and kept her, reminding the priest he can't tell anyone.


title: Ondine (film)

text: Ondine is shown alone, tidying up the caravan, then tries her new clothing as if the experience was a first, especially when she stretches leggings over one splayed hand so it looks webbed.


title: Ondine (film)

text: The next day, Annie sees Ondine swimming and approaches her on the dock. They bond as Annie tells her about selkies and ostensibly Ondine herself, which Ondine goes along with, kissing Annie goodbye before the child goes back to her mother. Syracuse goes in the library asking for books about selkies, but discovers that Annie took them all. Annie runs into some neighbourhood kids showing off their bicycles and lets one of the kids play with her powerchair before it shorts out driving into water. The kids call Annie a "spaz" and abandon her to push it back home, where she finds Alex drinking beer. As Alex dries out the batteries, Annie asks again about selkies and he tells her they come from his homeland, Outer Hebrides. However, Ondine doesn't speak like him.


title: Ondine (film)

text: Syracuse brings Ondine fishing again to steer the tiller, until a Fisheries board patrol boat zooms by, causing Ondine to hide. She begins singing again as he is pulling up his net, and finds it filled with a bountiful catch of salmon, that doesn't come from trawling. Ondine hides as the patrol boat returns to inspect for prohibited gillnetting; the guards find dry gillnets and Ondine hidden in them. Glad that Ondine isn't invisible and that the guards accepted her story about how the fish were caught, he goes into harbor to sell their catch, where everyone stares at Ondine, including a dark-haired man who is looking for her. Syracuse takes her shopping for clothes and run into Annie, who helps her with outfits, as townfolk gawk through the store window eyeing a very pretty Ondine.


title: Ondine (film)

text: Later Syracuse wants to pick up Annie for local regatta festivities but Maura says she already left. Ondine gets another surprise visit from Annie, and sees the caravan has been cleaned. Learning that Annie can't swim, they both play in the shallow water, where Ondine finds something that Annie thinks is her seal coat, and they bury it in the greenhouse. Annie wants Ondine to stay for seven years, unless the selkie husband claims her back, and shares this with her dad as they all boat into town. Ondine warns Annie that she isn't selk and can't grant wishes. Upset, Annie pretends to have brake failure to throw herself off the pier, to test Ondine's ability to breathe underwater, and Ondine jumps in to her rescue. They bring Annie back to Maura and Alex, who share with Annie that a man was asking for Ondine. This gives Annie a nightmare about the selkie husband coming. Back in the caravan, Syracuse explains he's called Circus the Clown because he was an alcoholic like Maura. He stopped drinking for Annie, yet custody went to her mother.


title: Ondine (film)

text: Back in the confessional, Syracuse tells the priest he sinned with Ondine the night before, and fears the good luck she brings, since he lost hope long ago. As he leaves, the unknown man approaches him about Ondine and Syracuse ignores him. He brings Annie home from dialysis but she is locked out since Maura and Alex are drinking in a pub. Annie asks to be left with them. Syracuse returns to find the caravan has been ransacked, and Ondine hiding nearby. He wants Ondine to stay and asks her to wish the man away, but her only wish is for Annie not to be sick. Ondine's man is searching town, driving with rage, causing an accident with Maura who was drunk driving. Alex is killed, thrown through the windshield. Ondine and Syracuse follow Annie to the hospital, and learn she is getting an immediate kidney transplant from Alex, who opted to be a donor. The man is also brought to the hospital, and asks Ondine why she speaks their language as they both don't belong here.


title: Ondine (film)

text: Syracuse and Maura both get drunk after Alex's wake. Maura wants him to get rid of Ondine, now hiding in his boat, because of bad luck. Intoxicated, Syracuse maroons Ondine at Roancarrig Lighthouse island because he thinks she will haunt him forever, as humans and selkies don't belong together. Dusk comes and some driftwood gives Ondine's basking silhouette the appearance of a seal's tail; she jumps into the sea towards the seals on Seal Rock. The priest wakes up a depressed Syracuse, and he brings Annie from hospital to his home. She comforts him saying Ondine will be back because she left something behind. As Annie watches TV with Sigur Rós performing, Syracuse recognizes they are the songs of Ondine, and goes back to find her on Seal Rock to demand the truth. Ondine first says she is a sea creature that found her seal coat and buried it so she can stay with a family she loves. She then explains that she is a drug mule from Romania, and her "pushta" Vladic was evading the Coast Guards, when she swam away with a backpack of heroin since Vladic can't swim. She floated in the sea until Syracuse saved her.


title: Ondine (film)

text: Syracuse brings Ondine back to Annie where they are ambushed by Vladic and another gunman, that Annie thinks want the seal coat. Everyone goes to the greenhouse to dig it up, but find nothing because Annie moved it. Ondine promises to stay with Annie, who reveals the bundle was moved to a lobster pot. As they pull up the pot, Annie reminds Ondine that she is a selkie yet Vladic isn't, and Ondine trips Vladic overboard by pulling on the rope he is standing on. He drowns going after the falling lobster pot pushed back in by Annie. Syracuse throws the other Romanian into the water, disarming him and the Romanian is arrested ashore, along with Ondine, who faces deportation. Annie is seen making a confession to the priest who is to wed Syracuse and Ondine, completing the fairytale how selkie women often find unexpected happiness with a landsman.


title: Ondine (film)

text: Filming began on 18 July 2008 on location in Castletownbere, Ireland, and was scheduled to finish on 6 August 2008. Locations seen in the film include Pulleen Harbour, Roancarrigmore Lighthouse, Bantry Bay, Ardnakinna Lighthouse, Bere Island, and Rerrin Village, Bere Island.


title: Ondine (film)

text: The wheelchair seen in the film is the Days Healthcare Escape PWR SE Folding Powerchair. The production went as far as having the chair on a wire safety to save it from falling off the pier into the water.


title: Ondine (film)

text: After meeting on this film, Colin Farrell fathered a child, Henry Tadeusz Farrell (born October 2009), with co-star Alicja Bachleda.


title: Ondine (film)

text: "Ondine" had its North American premiere as part of the Toronto International Film Festival on 14 September 2009 in Toronto and European premiere as part of the Jameson Dublin International Film Festival on 18 February 2010 in Dublin.


title: Ondine (film)

text: The film was released in Ireland on 5 March 2010, and the United States on 4 June 2010 by Magnolia Pictures.


title: Ondine (film)

text: Michael O'Sullivan of "The Washington Post" described the film, "...like a gorgeous contemporary fairy tale..." Noting the film's "spare, dreamlike quality", Betsy Sharkey of the "Los Angeles Times", had praise for director of photography Christopher Doyle. "Jordan uses the push and pull between real life and legend to explore ideas of social ills, retribution, justice, family bonds and miracles in an age in which it seems there are none."


title: Ondine (film)

text: Philip Concannon also noted Doyle's "atmospheric cinematography" and Kjartan Sveinsson's "haunting score". He said of Farrell's performance, "It's a lovely piece of acting," but took issue with the shift to realism at the end.


title: Ondine (film)

text: V.A. Musetto of the "New York Post" found the best performance that of Alison Barry as Annie, but also took exception to the shift from fantasy to reality at the end. Critics have also praised the performances of Colin Farrell, and Alison Barry as Annie, with Mary Pols stating: "Barry is such a relaxed and strong performer that she manages to shrug off the burden of Annie's precociousness."


title: Ondine (film)

text: Rotten Tomatoes gives it a score of 69% based on 102 reviews, with an average score of 6.30/10. The site's consensus reads, "Flawed but charming, Ondine reaffirms writer-director Neil Jordan's gift for myth, magic, and wonder."


title: Ondine (film)

text: Music from Icelandic group Sigur Rós and Irish singer/songwriter Lisa Hannigan is featured in the film.


title: Cockchafer

text: The cockchafer, colloquially called Maybug, Maybeetle, or doodlebug, is the name given to any of the European beetles of the genus "Melolontha", in the family Scarabaeidae.


title: Cockchafer

text: Once abundant throughout Europe and a major pest in the periodical years of "mass flight", it had been nearly eradicated in the middle of the 20th century through the agricultural intensification and has even been locally exterminated in many regions. However, since pest control was increasingly regulated in the 1980s, its numbers have started to grow again.


title: Cockchafer

text: Adults of the common cockchafer reach sizes of 25–30 mm; the forest cockchafer is a little smaller (20–25 mm). The two species can best be distinguished by the form of their tail end: it is long and slender in the common cockchafer, but shorter and knob-shaped at the end in the forest. Both have a brown colour. Male cockchafers have seven "leaves" on their antennae, whereas the females have only six.


title: Cockchafer

text: Using soil bioacoustics, larvae of the common cockchafer ("Melolontha melolontha") and the forest cockchafer ("M. hippocastani") can be distinguished by a buzzing sound that they make by rubbing their mandibles together. Stridulation appears to be species-specific. Isolated larva rarely make noise, but those in the same area make lots of noise. It has been suggested that the behavior may warn grubs of competition for the available food supply.


title: Cockchafer

text: The species "M. pectoralis" looks similar, but its pygidium is rounded. The cockchafer should not be confused with the similar European chafer ("Rhizotrogus majalis"), which has a completely different life cycle, nor with the June beetles ("Phyllophaga" spp.), which are native to North America, nor with the summer chafer (or "European June bug", "Amphimallon solstitiale"), which emerges in June and has a two-year life cycle. (All of these are Scarabaeidae, have white grubs, and are turf pests.)


title: Cockchafer

text: Adults appear at the end of April or in May and live for about five to seven weeks. After about two weeks, the female begins laying eggs, which she buries about 10 to 20 cm deep in the earth. She may do this several times until she has laid between 60 and 80 eggs. The common cockchafer lays its eggs in fields, whereas the Forest Cockchafer stays in the vicinity of the trees. The preferred food for adults is oak leaves, but they will also feed on conifer needles.


title: Cockchafer

text: The larvae, known as "white grubs" or "chafer grubs", hatch after four to six weeks. They feed on plant roots, for instance potato roots. The grubs develop in the earth for three to four years, in colder climates even five years, and grow continually to a size of about 4–5 cm, before they pupate in early autumn and develop into an adult cockchafer in six weeks.


title: Cockchafer

text: The cockchafer overwinters in the earth at depths between 20 and 100 cm. They work their way to the surface only in spring.


title: Cockchafer

text: Because of their long development time as larvae, cockchafers appear in a cycle of every three or four years; the years vary from region to region. There is a larger cycle of around 30 years superimposed, in which they occur (or rather, used to occur) in unusually high numbers (10,000s).


title: Cockchafer

text: In the Middle Ages, pest control was rare, and people had no effective means to protect their harvest. This gave rise to events that seem bizarre from a modern perspective. In 1320, for instance, cockchafers were brought to court in Avignon and sentenced to withdraw within three days onto a specially designated area, otherwise they would be outlawed. Subsequently, since they failed to comply, they were collected and killed. (Similar animal trials also occurred for many other animals in the Middle Ages.)


title: Cockchafer

text: Both the grubs and adults have a voracious appetite and thus have been and sometimes continue to be a major problem in agriculture and forestry. In the pre-industrialized era, the main mechanism to control their numbers was to collect and kill the adult beetles, thereby interrupting the cycle. They were once very abundant: in 1911, more than 20 million individuals were collected in 18 km of forest. Collecting adults was an only moderately successful method.


title: Cockchafer

text: In some areas and times, cockchafers were served as food. A 19th-century recipe from France for cockchafer soup reads: "roast one pound of cockchafers without wings and legs in sizzling butter, then cook them in a chicken soup, add some veal liver and serve with chives on a toast". A German newspaper from Fulda from the 1920s tells of students eating sugar-coated cockchafers. Cockchafer larvae can also be fried or cooked over open flames, although they require some preparation by soaking in vinegar in order to purge them of soil in their digestive tracts. A cockchafer stew is referred to in W. G. Sebald's novel "The Emigrants".


title: Cockchafer

text: In Sweden the peasants looked upon the grub of the Cock-chafer, Melolontha vulgaris, as furnishing an unfailing prognostic whether the ensuing winter will be mild or severe; if the animal has a bluish hue (a circumstance which arises from its being replete with food), they affirm it will be mild, but on the contrary if it is white, the weather will be severe: and they carry this so far as to foretell, that if the anterior be white and the posterior blue, the cold will be most severe at the beginning of the winter. Hence they call this grub Bemärkelse-mask—prognostic worm.


title: Cockchafer

text: Only with the modernization of agriculture in the 20th century and the invention of chemical pesticides did it become possible to effectively combat the cockchafer. Combined with the transformation of many pastures into agricultural land, this has resulted in a decrease of the cockchafer to near-extinction in some areas in Europe in the 1970s.


title: Cockchafer

text: Since the 1970s, agriculture has generally reduced its use of pesticides. Because of environmental and public health concerns (pesticides may enter the food chain and thus also the human body) many chemical pesticides have been phased out in the European Union and worldwide. In recent years, the cockchafer's numbers have been increasing again, causing damage to agricultural use of over of land all over Europe (0.001% of land).


title: Cockchafer

text: At present, no chemical pesticides are approved for use against cockchafers, and only biological measures are utilised for control: for instance, pathogenic fungi (such as "Beauveria bassiana" Spp. or "Metarhizium") or nematodes that kill the grubs are applied to the soil.


title: Cockchafer

text: The name "cockchafer" derives from late 17th century usage of "cock" (in the sense of expressing size or vigour) + "chafer" which simply means an insect of this type, referring to its propensity for gnawing and damaging plants.


title: Cockchafer

text: The term "chafer" has its root in Old English "ceafor" or "cefer", of Germanic origin and is related to the Dutch "kever", all of which mean "gnawer" as it relates to the jaw. As such, the name "cockchafer" can be understood to mean "large plant-gnawing beetle" and is applicable to its history as a pest animal.


title: Cockchafer

text: Children since antiquity have played with cockchafers. In ancient Greece, boys caught the insect, tied a linen thread to its feet and set it free, amusing themselves to watch it fly in spirals. English boys in Victorian times played a very similar game by sticking a pin through one of its wings. Nikola Tesla recalls that as a child he made one of his first "inventions"—an "engine" made by harnessing four cockchafers in this fashion.


title: Cockchafer

text: Cockchafers appear in the fairy tales "Thumbelina" by Hans Christian Andersen and "Princess Rosette" by Madame d'Aulnoy.


title: Cockchafer

text: The verse dates back to the Thirty Years' War in the first half of the 17th Century, in which Pomerania was pillaged and suffered heavily. Since World War II, it is associated in Germany also with the closing months of that war, when Soviet troops advanced into eastern Germany.


title: Cockchafer

text: The cockchafer was the basis for the "fifth trick" in the well-known illustrated German book "Max and Moritz", dating from 1865.


title: Cockchafer

text: Jim Dixon, in Kingsley Amis's comic novel "Lucky Jim" (1954), repeatedly calls his department head, Professor Welch, an "old cockchafer".


title: Cockchafer

text: The Italian – specifically Neapolitan – collection of stories "Il Pentamerone" of Giambattista Basile (in its English translation by Norman M. Penzer from Benedetto Croce's Italian) contains a tale on Day 3, Night 5: "The Cockchafer, Mouse and Grasshopper".


title: Cockchafer

text: In J.G. Farrell's 1970 novel, "The Siege of Krishnapur", there is a memorable invasion of cockchafers. As the colonists sequester together in a large room having tea, a black cloud enters through an open window and the hostess Lucy is covered from head to toe in insects. To remedy the situation, she is stripped naked and then scraped with the torn-off covers of a Bible.


title: Demographics of Trinidad and Tobago

text: This article is about the demography of the population of Trinidad and Tobago including population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects of the population.


title: Demographics of Trinidad and Tobago

text: The total population of Trinidad and Tobago was 1,328,018 according to the 2011 census, an increase of 5.2% since the 2000 census.


title: Demographics of Trinidad and Tobago

text: According to the total population was estimated at in , compared to only 646,000 in 1950. The proportion of children below the age of 15 in 2010 was 20.7%, 71% was between 15 and 65 years of age, while 8.3% was 65 years or older.


title: Demographics of Trinidad and Tobago

text: Due to decreasing fertility, the proportion of children below the age of 15 is decreasing, while the proportion of elderly is increasing. The median age has increased from 21.6 in 1980, 24.1 in 1990, 28.1 in 2000 to 32.6 in 2011.


title: Demographics of Trinidad and Tobago

text: The estimated mid-year population of 2014 is 1,344,000 (medium fertility scenario of The 2012 Revision of the World Population Prospects). As of January 2019, the estimated population is 1,383,368.


title: Demographics of Trinidad and Tobago

text: Emigration from Trinidad and Tobago, as with other Caribbean nations, has historically been high; most emigrants go to the United States, Canada, and Britain. Emigration has continued, albeit at a lower rate, even as the birth-rate sharply dropped to levels typical of industrialised countries. Largely because of this phenomenon, as of 2011, Trinidad and Tobago has been experiencing a low population growth rate (0.48%). More recently, there has been some return migration, chiefly from the United States after the recession of 2008, which caused a population jump in the last census in 2011.


title: Demographics of Trinidad and Tobago

text: Indo-Trinidadians make up the country's largest ethnic group (approximately 35.43%). Indo-Trinidadians are primarily the descendants of indentured workers from India, or the then British India, brought to replace emancipated Africans who refused to continue working under the violent, exploitative conditions on the sugar estates. Through cultural preservation groups, Trinidadians and Tobagonians of Indian descent maintain many of their religions, customs, cuisine, traditions, and language.


title: Demographics of Trinidad and Tobago

text: Afro-Trinidadian and Tobagonian make up the country's second largest ethnic group (approximately 34.22%). Although enslaved Africans were first imported in 1517, they constituted only 11 percent of the population (310) in 1783.


title: Demographics of Trinidad and Tobago

text: The majority of the enslaved Africans were brought in the last few years of Trinidad's Spanish Colonial era, and the beginning of the British colonial period. The Cedula of Population transformed a small colony of 1,000 in 1773 to 18,627 by 1797. In the census of 1777 there were only 2,763 people recorded as living on the island, including some 2,000 Arawaks. In 1807, the UK Parliament passed the Slave Trade Act 1807 that abolished the trading of enslaved persons, and the Slavery Abolition Act 1833 abolished the practice of slavery itself.


title: Demographics of Trinidad and Tobago

text: The European Trinidadian (or White Trinidadian) population is primarily descended from early settlers and immigrants. The recent census counted 7,832 people of European descent. These numbers do not include people who have at least some European ancestry or self-identify as African or Indian.


title: Demographics of Trinidad and Tobago

text: The French arrived mostly during the Spanish period to take advantage of free agricultural lands. Some Portuguese arrived in the mid-nineteenth century and more came at the turn of the century. The Europeans who remained in Trinidad live in areas in and around Port of Spain. Furthermore, British rule led to an influx of settlers from the United Kingdom and the British colonies of the Eastern Caribbean and descendants of English indentured workers brought in as overseers following the end of the Second World War.


title: Demographics of Trinidad and Tobago

text: The Portuguese came to Tobago and Trinidad as early as the 17th century, including groups of Jews, Catholics and Protestants. For over 140 years, from 1834 up to 1975, the ancestors of the modern Portuguese community in Trinidad and Tobago hailed mostly from the archipelago of Madeira, starting from 1846, with the earliest registers being from the Azores in 1834.


title: Demographics of Trinidad and Tobago

text: Important communities settled in Port of Spain, Arima, Arouca, Chaguanas, San Fernando and Scarborough.


title: Demographics of Trinidad and Tobago

text: In 2011, the Madeiran Portuguese Community of Trinidad and Tobago celebrated their 165th Anniversary of arrival of the first Madeirans in Trinidad back in 1846.


title: Demographics of Trinidad and Tobago

text: Recalling the presence of the Portuguese in the nation today are over 100 Portuguese surname, some of which have become street nomenclature. As an independent nation, the country has recognised several members of the Portuguese community, through official awards.


title: Demographics of Trinidad and Tobago

text: Given the large number of ethnic identities in Trinidad and Tobago, many citizens have a mixed ethnic heritage due to influences from French, West African, Indian or Han Chinese ancestry. Common ethnic mixtures include people of African and European descent (mulatto-creoles) and African and Indian descent (often colloquially known as dougla). This mixed population is estimated at around 22.8%. A Dougla person might self identify as simply African based on physical appearance, for instance, but they might be genetically more similar to a person of Indian descent.


title: Demographics of Trinidad and Tobago

text: There are groups of Chinese who, like the Indians, are descended from indentured labourers. They account for about 4,003 people and live mostly in Port-of-Spain and San Fernando.


title: Demographics of Trinidad and Tobago

text: In Trinidad there were, about twenty years ago [i.e. about 1886], 4,000 or 5,000 Chinese, but they have decreased to probably about 2,000 or 3,000, [2,200 in 1900]. They used to work in sugar plantations, but are now principally shopkeepers,as well as general merchants, miners and railway builders,etc.


title: Demographics of Trinidad and Tobago

text: There are also about 1,062 Arabs, originating from Syria and Lebanon who live mostly in Port-of-Spain. The Syrian and Lebanese communities of Trinidad are predominantly Christian, migrating from the Middle East in the 19th century from the Ottoman Empire later landing in the Caribbean and Latin America. Other Lebanese and Syrians came in the early to middle 20th century to escape the war and turmoil in the region.


title: Demographics of Trinidad and Tobago

text: Finally there are the mixed raced Caribs who are descended from the native, precolonial people of the islands. They are organized around the Santa Rosa Carib Community and live mostly in and around Arima.


title: Demographics of Trinidad and Tobago

text: In 2011, according to census, Roman Catholicism was again the largest religious denomination with 285,671 followers (21.6% of the total population), having declined from a membership of 289,711 in 2000 (26% of the population). Other religious denominations that experienced decreases in their membership in 2011 were Hinduism (from 22.5% in 2000 to 18.2% in 2011), Anglican (from 7.8% to 5.7%), Presbyterian/Congregational (from 3.3% to 2.5%) and Methodist (from 0.9% to 0.7%). The number of persons claiming affiliation to Pentecostal/Evangelical/Full Gospel more than doubled from 76,327 in 2000 (6.8%) to 159,033 in 2011 (12.0%). The number of Muslims slightly increased but as proportion of the total population there was a decrease from 5.8% in 2000 to 5.0% in 2011. The category ‘None’ witnessed a small increase from 1.9% to 2.2%, while those who did not state a religion increased significantly, from 1.4% to 11.1%. 1.2% of the population are adherents of the Baháʼí Faith. The African religions and specifically Orisha have become institutions in Trinidad and Tobago's society. They serve not only the obvious religious needs but also as a source of inspiration for personal identity. Many people, motivated by the need to re-claim their African heritage can now openly support these religions because they see in them a source of understanding and a coming to terms with their enslavement and the colonial past.


title: Demographics of Trinidad and Tobago

text: English is the country's official language (the local variety of standard English is Trinidadian and Tobagonian English or more properly, Trinidad and Tobago Standard English, abbreviated as "TTSE"), but the main spoken language is either of two English-based creole languages (Trinidadian Creole or Tobagonian Creole), which reflects the Amerindian, European, African, and Asian heritage of the nation. Both creoles contain elements from a variety of African languages; Trinidadian English Creole, however, is also influenced by French and French Creole (Patois). Spanish is estimated to be spoken by around 5% of the population and has been promoted by recent governments as a "first foreign language" since March 2005 due to the country's proximity to Venezuela.


title: Demographics of Trinidad and Tobago

text: The variant that is spoken in Trinidad and Tobago is known as "Trinidadian Hindustani", "Trinidadian Bhojpuri", "Trinidadian Hindi", "Indian", "Plantation Hindustani", or "Gaon ke Bolee (Village Speech)". A majority of the early Indian indentured immigrants spoke the Bhojpuri and Awadhi dialects, which later formed into Trinidadian Hindustani. In 1935, Indian movies began showing to audiences in Trinidad. Most of the Indian movies were in the Standard Hindustani (Hindi-Urdu) dialect and this modified Trinidadian Hindustani slightly by adding Standard Hindi and Urdu phrases and vocabulary to Trinidadian Hindustani. Indian movies also revitalized Hindustani among Indo-Trinidadian and Tobagonians. The British colonial government and estate owners had disdain and contempt for Hindustani and Indian languages in Trinidad. Due to this, many Indians saw it as a broken language keeping them in poverty and bound to the cane fields, and did not pass it on as a first language, but rather as a heritage language, as they favored English as a way out. Around the mid to late 1960s the "lingua franca" of Indo-Trinidadian and Tobagonians switched from Trinidadian Hindustani to a sort of "Hindinized" version of English. Today Hindustani survives on through Indo-Trinidadian and Tobagonian musical forms such as, Bhajan, Indian classical music, Indian folk music, Filmi, Pichakaree, Chutney, Chutney soca, and Chutney parang. As of 2003, there are about 15,633 Indo-Trinidadian and Tobagonians who speak Trinidadian Hindustani and as of 2011, there are about 10,000 who speak Standard Hindi. Many Indo-Trinidadians and Tobagonians today speak a type of Hinglish that consists of Trinidadian and Tobagonian English that is heavily laced with Trinidadian Hindustani vocabulary and phrases and many Indo-Trinidadians and Tobagonians can recite phrases or prayers in Hindustani today. There are many places in Trinidad and Tobago that have names of Hindustani origin. Some phrases and vocabulary have even made their way into the mainstream English and English Creole dialect of the country. World Hindi Day is celebrated each year on 10 January with events organized by the National Council of Indian Culture, Hindi Nidhi Foundation, Indian High Commission, Mahatma Gandhi Institute for Cultural Co-operation, and the Sanatan Dharma Maha Sabha.


title: Demographics of Trinidad and Tobago

text: In 2014, Spanish was the native language of 4,000 (0.3% of the total population) people in Trinidad and Tobago, being mostly made up of Venezuelan immigrants. Due to Trinidad and Tobago's proximity to Venezuela, current government regulations require that Spanish be taught in secondary education.


title: Demographics of Trinidad and Tobago

text: The Tamil language is spoken by some of the older Tamil (Madrasi) Indo-Trinidadian and Tobagonian population. It is mostly spoken by the few remaining children of indentured Indian laborers from the present-day state of Tamil Nadu in India. Other speakers of the language are recent immigrants from Tamil Nadu.


title: Demographics of Trinidad and Tobago

text: The Chinese language first came to Trinidad and Tobago in 1806, when the British had brought Chinese laborers in order to determine if they were fit to use as laborers after the abolition of slavery. About 2,645 Chinese immigrants arrived in Trinidad as indentured labour between 1853 to 1866. A majority of the people who immigrated in the 19th century were from southern China and spoke the Hakka and Yue dialects of Chinese. In the 20th century after the years of indetureship up to the present-day more Chinese people have immigrated to Trinidad and Tobago for business and they speak the dialects of the indenturees along with other Chinese dialects, such as Mandarin and Min.


title: Demographics of Trinidad and Tobago

text: The indigenous languages were Yao on Trinidad and Karina on Tobago, both Cariban, and Shebaya on Trinidad, which was Arawakan. These languages have been extinct for over a century, but there are attempts to revive the Carib language by the Santa Rosa First Peoples Community.


title: John McFee

text: John McFee (born September 9, 1950, Santa Cruz, California) is an American singer, songwriter, guitarist, record producer, and multi-instrumentalist, and long-time member of The Doobie Brothers.


title: John McFee

text: Some of McFee's early and non-Doobie Brothers work includes playing pedal steel guitar on Van Morrison's "Tupelo Honey" and "Saint Dominic's Preview" albums, and recording with many other artists, including Steve Miller on his "Fly Like An Eagle" album, the Grateful Dead on their "From the Mars Hotel" album, and Boz Scaggs, Emmylou Harris, Link Wray, Rick James, Janis Ian, Ricky Skaggs, The Brothers Four, Nick Lowe, Wanda Jackson, Bill Wyman of the Rolling Stones, Crystal Gayle, Mike Bloomfield, John Michael Montgomery, the Beach Boys, Norton Buffalo, Twiggy, Eikichi Yazawa, Chicago, and The Kendalls.


title: John McFee

text: McFee played for a number of years with Huey Lewis in the group Clover and also played on Huey Lewis and the News' "Sports" and "Hard at Play" albums. McFee also played with Glen Campbell, for his "Meet Glen Campbell" live video performance.


title: John McFee

text: McFee has played on a number of Elvis Costello's albums, beginning with all the lead and pedal steel guitar work on "My Aim is True"; he played lead guitar on "Alison". He has also continued to perform live with Costello periodically through the years.


title: John McFee

text: In early 1979, McFee joined the Doobie Brothers, replacing departing guitarist Jeff Baxter. McFee was first featured on the Doobies' ninth studio album "One Step Closer", which achieved RIAA platinum album status. Although he did not sing lead vocals on the song, he co-wrote the title track with Doobies drummer Keith Knudsen and Carlene Carter, as well as writing the Grammy-nominated instrumental "South Bay Strut" with co-drummer Chet McCracken. The album also reunited McFee with Doobies producer Ted Templeman, McFee having played on Templeman's first hit record as a producer (Van Morrison's "Wild Night" from the "Tupelo Honey" album).


title: John McFee

text: After the Doobie Brothers disbanded in late 1982, McFee and Knudsen formed the country-rock group Southern Pacific, which also included ex-Creedence Clearwater Revival bassist Stu Cook, former Pablo Cruise vocalist David Jenkins, and keyboardist Kurt Howell. The group achieved a high level of success in the national country charts, starting with their first single reaching the top ten – a duet with Emmylou Harris on the Tom Petty composition "Thing About You", and going on to numerous other top ten records, including the number one songs "New Shade of Blue" and "Honey I Dare You", both of which McFee wrote. Southern Pacific was named New Country Group of the Year when they debuted and have been honored by having their name added to the Country Music Association's Walkway of Stars in Nashville, Tennessee.


title: John McFee

text: In 1983, McFee played pedal steel guitar on the song "Honky Tonk Blues" from Huey Lewis and the News's "Sports" album, a song which was made famous by country legend Hank Williams Sr. In 1989, Southern Pacific had two songs – "Reno Bound" and "Any Way The Wind Blows" – appear in the Clint Eastwood film "Pink Cadillac". McFee co-wrote both of the songs. The songs reached the top five on the country charts, and McFee can be heard on lead vocals on both tracks in the movie. Though McFee and Knudsen were committed to Southern Pacific, they co-wrote the song "Time Is Here And Gone" on the Doobies' 1989 reunion album "Cycles" with late Doobies percussionist Bobby LaKind. McFee has received numerous BMI awards as a songwriter. In 1990 Southern Pacific played a concert on "On Stage", McFee can be heard singing lead vocals on "Any Way The Wind Blows" and "I Go To Pieces".


title: John McFee

text: By 1993, Southern Pacific had disbanded and both men had rejoined the Doobie Brothers. McFee and Knudsen contributed to 2000's "Sibling Rivalry", on which McFee sings the lead vocal on the song "Angels of Madness", of which he was a co-writer, and McFee also co-wrote "Five Corners" with Patrick Simmons. In 2007, McFee assumed a role onstage as a relief lead vocalist for Tom Johnston because of Johnston's throat ailment.


title: John McFee

text: In 1995, McFee produced an album by Moby Grape founding member Peter Lewis. Moby Grape was a major influence on the Doobie Brothers, as well as on many other bands including Led Zeppelin and McFee's former group Clover. The collaboration of McFee (who, besides producing and engineering, contributed background vocals, guitars, violin, harmonica, mandolin, and pedal steel) and Lewis resulted in the album "Peter Lewis", released by the German record label Taxim. Also making appearances on the album were former Eagle Randy Meisner, Creedence Clearwater Revival's Stu Cook, Doobie Brothers drummer Keith Knudsen, and Cornelius Bumpus (formerly with the Doobie Brothers and Steely Dan). The album received a rarely seen five star review from Rolling Stone magazine. McFee's long-term partnership with Knudsen ended with Knudsen's death from pneumonia in 2005.


title: John McFee

text: In 2007, McFee produced and engineered Carlene Carter's album "Stronger", playing almost all the instruments himself.


title: John McFee

text: In 2010, he produced and engineered "Hawaiianized" by singer Pamela Polland. McFee also contributed on 8 string tenor ukulele, slack key guitar, acoustic and electric Hawaiian steel guitars, nylon string guitar, acoustic bass, keyboards, percussion, vocal arrangements, and background vocals for this project.


title: John McFee

text: Also in 2010, the Doobie Brothers released "World Gone Crazy", on which McFee contributed as recording engineer, as well as playing acoustic guitars, banjo, slide guitar, mandolin, percussion, violin, drums, electric guitars, vocals, and resonator guitars. The "New York Post" suggested that this album should be "Album of the Year", saying "Now they're back on track, with a smokin' mix of roadhouse boogies, classic rock and country."[3]


title: John McFee

text: In 2011, McFee played acoustic and electric guitars, pedal steel, banjo, Dobro, mandolin, and slide guitar on French singer/songwriter Hugues Aufray's project, "Troubador Since 1948". Aufray is widely known as a compatriot of Bob Dylan since the folk era, having translated many of Dylan's songs into French. He also wrote and popularized the classic ballad "Céline", which inspired Celine Dion's parents to choose this name for their daughter.


title: John McFee

text: Also in 2014, the John Cowan album "Sixty" was released, produced by McFee. John Cowan was the lead vocalist and bass guitarist for the legendary progressive bluegrass group New Grass Revival, and in recent years has been touring and recording with the Doobie Brothers. The album "Sixty" features guest appearances by Alison Krauss, Leon Russell, Ray Benson, Chris Hillman, Rodney Crowell, Bonnie Bramlett, Jim Messina, Alison Brown, Sam Bush, John Jorgenson, Viktor Krauss, Bernie Leadon, Huey Lewis, Jay Dee Maness (Buck Owens and the Buckaroos), Josh Williams (Rhonda Vincent and the Rage), and others. On this project McFee also plays acoustic and electric guitars, pedal steel, Dobro, mandolin, violin, and other instruments as well as singing background vocals. "Sixty" was listed as one of the top Americana albums of 2014, and has been hailed as John Cowan's "masterpiece" album.


title: John McFee

text: 2014 also saw the release of the Doobie Brothers album "Southbound", a Nashville-based project which features high-profile country artists collaborating with the Doobie Brothers on historic Doobie Brothers songs. Examples would be Blake Shelton performing "Listen To The Music" (with Hunter Hayes on guitar), Zac Brown Band doing "Black Water”, Toby Keith singing "Long Train Running" (with Huey Lewis on harmonica), Chris Young performing "China Grove", Brad Paisley doing "Rocking Down The Highway". On this project McFee can be heard on banjo, slide resonator guitar, pedal steel, violin, autoharp, and electric and acoustic guitars, as well as background vocals. This project also saw Michael McDonald reunited with his fellow Doobie Brothers.


title: John McFee

text: In 2015 McFee teamed up with John Jorgenson (Desert Rose Band, Hellecasters, Elton John) to co-produce singer-songwriter Lewis Storey for the project "Storey Road". Lewis Storey was nominated for the Horizon Award (Best New Artist) by the Academy of Country Music Awards in 1988 and has won several Songwriters Guild of America awards.


title: John McFee

text: The year 2016 involved extensive touring with the Doobie Brothers, co-headlining with the group Journey, and with Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee Dave Mason on the bill as well. McFee, a long time admirer of Mason, was often seen sitting in with Mason and his band, particularly on "Dear Mr. Fantasy", "Feelin' Alright", and "All Along The Watchtower".


title: John McFee

text: McFee was also involved with the artist Jeremiah Richey, on the recording project "Northridge", on which McFee played electric guitar, pedal steel guitar, violin, Dobro, among other instruments, and was a co-writer of the song "Pretty Girl" produced by Rob Arthur, with whom a connection was formed when the Doobie Brothers toured with Peter Frampton – Rob Arthur playing keyboards with Frampton.


title: John McFee

text: Also in 2016, McFee played on Timothy B. Schmit's solo project "Leap Of Faith", playing violin on the first single from the recording, "Red Dirt Road". Although McFee had performed in concert with Schmit on numerous occasions, this project was the first time the two had worked together on a studio recording project. McFee also toured with Schmit in January 2017, as well as performing again on tour dates in November and December 2017.


title: Geography of the United Kingdom

text: The United Kingdom is a sovereign state located off the north-western coast of continental Europe. With a total area of approximately , the UK occupies the major part of the British Isles archipelago and includes the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern one-sixth of the island of Ireland and many smaller surrounding islands. It is the world's 7th largest island country. The mainland areas lie between latitudes 49°N and 59°N (the Shetland Islands reach to nearly 61°N), and longitudes 8°W to 2°E. The Royal Observatory, Greenwich, in south-east London, is the defining point of the Prime Meridian.


title: Geography of the United Kingdom

text: The UK lies between the North Atlantic and the North Sea, and comes within of the north-west coast of France, from which it is separated by the English Channel. It shares a international land boundary with the Republic of Ireland. The Channel Tunnel bored beneath the English Channel now links the UK with France.


title: Geography of the United Kingdom

text: The British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies are covered in their own respective articles, see below.


title: Geography of the United Kingdom

text: The total area of the United Kingdom according to the Office for National Statistics is , comprising the island of Great Britain, the northeastern one-sixth of the island of Ireland (Northern Ireland) and many smaller islands. This makes it the 7th largest island country in the world. England is the largest country of the United Kingdom, at accounting for just over half the total area of the UK. Scotland at , is second largest, accounting for about a third of the area of the UK. Wales and Northern Ireland are much smaller, covering respectively.


title: Geography of the United Kingdom

text: The area of the countries of the United Kingdom is set out in the table below. Information about the area of England, the largest country, is also broken down by region.


title: Geography of the United Kingdom

text: The British Antarctic Territory, which covers an area of 1,709,400 km is geographically the largest of the British Overseas Territories followed by the Falkland Islands which covers an area of 12,173 km. The remaining twelve overseas territories cover an area 5,997 km.


title: Geography of the United Kingdom

text: Other countries with very similar land areas to the United Kingdom include Guinea (slightly larger), Uganda, Ghana and Romania (all slightly smaller). The UK is the world's 80th largest country by land area and the 10th largest in Europe (if European Russia is included).


title: Geography of the United Kingdom

text: The physical geography of the UK varies greatly. England consists of mostly lowland terrain, with upland or mountainous terrain only found north-west of the Tees–Exe line. The upland areas include the Lake District, the Pennines, North York Moors, Exmoor and Dartmoor. The lowland areas are typically traversed by ranges of low hills, frequently composed of chalk, and flat plains. Scotland is the most mountainous country in the UK and its physical geography is distinguished by the Highland Boundary Fault which traverses the Scottish mainland from Helensburgh to Stonehaven. The faultline separates the two distinctively different regions of the Highlands to the north and west, and the Lowlands to the south and east. The Highlands are predominantly mountainous, containing the majority of Scotland's mountainous landscape, while the Lowlands contain flatter land, especially across the Central Lowlands, with upland and mountainous terrain located at the Southern Uplands. Wales is mostly mountainous, though south Wales is less mountainous than north and mid Wales. Northern Ireland consists of mostly hilly landscape and its geography includes the Mourne Mountains as well as Lough Neagh, at , the largest body of water in the UK.


title: Geography of the United Kingdom

text: The overall geomorphology of the UK was shaped by a combination of forces including tectonics and climate change, in particular glaciation in northern and western areas.


title: Geography of the United Kingdom

text: The tallest mountain in the UK (and British Isles) is Ben Nevis, in the Grampian Mountains, Scotland. The longest river is the River Severn which flows from Wales into England. The largest lake by surface area is Lough Neagh in Northern Ireland, though Scotland's Loch Ness has the largest volume.


title: Geography of the United Kingdom

text: The geology of the UK is complex and diverse, a result of it being subject to a variety of plate tectonic processes over a very extended period of time. Changing latitude and sea levels have been important factors in the nature of sedimentary sequences, whilst successive continental collisions have affected its geological structure with major faulting and folding being a legacy of each orogeny (mountain-building period), often associated with volcanic activity and the metamorphism of existing rock sequences. As a result of this eventful geological history, the UK shows a rich variety of landscapes.


title: Geography of the United Kingdom

text: The oldest rocks in the British Isles are the Lewisian gneisses, metamorphic rocks found in the far north-west of Scotland and in the Hebrides (with a few small outcrops elsewhere), which date from at least 2,700 Ma (Ma = million years ago). South and east of the gneisses are a complex mixture of rocks forming the North West Highlands and Grampian Highlands in Scotland. These are essentially the remains of folded sedimentary rocks that were deposited between 1,000 Ma and 670 Ma over the gneiss on what was then the floor of the Iapetus Ocean.


title: Geography of the United Kingdom

text: At 520 Ma, what is now Great Britain was split between two continents; the north of Scotland was located on the continent of Laurentia at about 20° south of the equator, while the rest of the country was on the continent of Gondwana near the Antarctic Circle. In Gondwana, England and Wales were largely submerged under a shallow sea studded with volcanic islands. The remains of these islands underlie much of central England with small outcrops visible in many places.


title: Geography of the United Kingdom

text: About 500 Ma southern Britain, the east coast of North America and south-east Newfoundland broke away from Gondwana to form the continent of Avalonia, which by 440 Ma had drifted to about 30° south. During this period north Wales was subject to volcanic activity. The remains of these volcanoes are still visible, one example of which is Rhobell Fawr dating from 510 Ma. Large quantities of volcanic lava and ash known as the Borrowdale Volcanics covered the Lake District and this can still be seen in the form of mountains such as Helvellyn and Scafell Pike.


title: Geography of the United Kingdom

text: Between 425 and 400 Ma Avalonia had joined with the continent of Baltica, and the combined landmass collided with Laurentia at about 20° south, joining the southern and northern halves of Great Britain together. The resulting Caledonian Orogeny produced an Alpine-style mountain range in much of north and west Britain.


title: Geography of the United Kingdom

text: The collision between continents continued during the Devonian period, producing uplift and subsequent erosion, resulting in the deposition of numerous sedimentary rock layers in lowlands and seas. The Old Red Sandstone and the contemporary volcanics and marine sediments found in Devon originated from these processes.


title: Geography of the United Kingdom

text: Around 360 Ma Great Britain was lying at the equator, covered by the warm shallow waters of the Rheic Ocean, during which time the Carboniferous Limestone was deposited, as found in the Mendip Hills and the Peak District of Derbyshire. Later, river deltas formed and the sediments deposited were colonised by swamps and rain forest. It was in this environment that the Coal Measures were formed, the source of the majority of Britain's extensive coal reserves.


title: Geography of the United Kingdom

text: Around 280 Ma the Variscan orogeny mountain-building period occurred, again due to collision of continental plates, causing major deformation in south-west England. The general region of Variscan folding was south of an east–west line roughly from south Pembrokeshire to Kent. Towards the end of this period granite was formed beneath the overlying rocks of Devon and Cornwall, now exposed at Dartmoor and Bodmin Moor.


title: Geography of the United Kingdom

text: By the end of the Carboniferous period the various continents of the Earth had fused to form the super-continent of Pangaea. Britain was located in the interior of Pangea where it was subject to a hot arid desert climate with frequent flash floods leaving deposits that formed beds of red sedimentary rock.


title: Geography of the United Kingdom

text: As Pangaea drifted during the Triassic, Great Britain moved away from the equator until it was between 20° and 30° north. The remnants of the Variscan uplands in France to the south were eroded down, resulting in layers of the New Red Sandstone being deposited across central England.


title: Geography of the United Kingdom

text: Pangaea began to break up at the start of the Jurassic period. Sea levels rose and Britain drifted on the Eurasian Plate to between 31° and 40° north. Much of Britain was under water again, and sedimentary rocks were deposited and can now be found underlying much of England from the Cleveland Hills of Yorkshire to the Jurassic Coast in Dorset. These include sandstones, greensands, oolitic limestone of the Cotswold Hills, corallian limestone of the Vale of White Horse and the Isle of Portland. The burial of algae and bacteria below the mud of the seafloor during this time resulted in the formation of North Sea oil and natural gas


title: Geography of the United Kingdom

text: The modern continents having formed, the Cretaceous saw the formation of the Atlantic Ocean, gradually separating northern Scotland from North America. The land underwent a series of uplifts to form a fertile plain. After 20 million years or so, the seas started to flood the land again until much of Britain was again below the sea, though sea levels frequently changed. Chalk and flints were deposited over much of Great Britain, now notably exposed at the White Cliffs of Dover and the Seven Sisters, and also forming Salisbury Plain.


title: Geography of the United Kingdom

text: Between 63 and 52 Ma, the last volcanic rocks in Great Britain were formed. The major eruptions at this time produced the Antrim Plateau, the basaltic columns of the Giant's Causeway and Lundy Island in the Bristol Channel.


title: Geography of the United Kingdom

text: The Alpine Orogeny that took place in Europe about 50 Ma, was responsible for the folding of strata in southern England, producing the London Basin syncline, the Weald-Artois Anticline to the south, the North Downs, South Downs and Chiltern Hills.


title: Geography of the United Kingdom

text: During the period the North Sea formed, Britain was uplifted. Some of this uplift was along old lines of weakness left from the Caledonian and Variscan Orogenies long before. The uplifted areas were then eroded, and further sediments, such as the London Clay, were deposited over southern England.


title: Geography of the United Kingdom

text: The major changes during the last 2 million years were brought about by several recent ice ages. The most severe was the Anglian Glaciation, with ice up to thick that reached as far south as London and Bristol. This took place between about 478,000 to 424,000 years ago, and was responsible for the diversion of the River Thames onto its present course. During the most recent Devensian glaciation, which ended a mere 10,000 years ago, the icesheet reached south to Wolverhampton and Cardiff. Among the features left behind by the ice are the fjords of the west coast of Scotland, the U-shaped valleys of the Lake District and erratics (blocks of rock) that have been transported from the Oslo region of Norway and deposited on the coast of Yorkshire.


title: Geography of the United Kingdom

text: Amongst the most significant geological features created during the last twelve thousand years are the peat deposits of Scotland, and of coastal and upland areas of England and Wales.


title: Geography of the United Kingdom

text: At the present time Scotland is continuing to rise as a result of the weight of Devensian ice being lifted. Southern and eastern England is sinking, generally estimated at 1 mm (1/25 inch) per year, with the London area sinking at double the speed partly due to the continuing compaction of the recent clay deposits.


title: Geography of the United Kingdom

text: The ten tallest mountains in the UK are all found in Scotland. The highest peaks in each part of the UK are:


title: Geography of the United Kingdom

text: The lowest point of the UK is in the Fens of East Anglia, in England, parts of which lie up to 4 metres below sea level.


title: Geography of the United Kingdom

text: The deepest lake in the UK is Loch Morar with a maximum depth of 309 metres (Loch Ness is second at 228 metres deep). The deepest lake in England is Wastwater which achieves a depth of .


title: Geography of the United Kingdom

text: "Main articles:" Waterways in the United Kingdom, Canals of Great Britain, Dams and reservoirs in United Kingdom


title: Geography of the United Kingdom

text: As a result of its industrial history, the United Kingdom has an extensive system of canals, mostly built in the early years of the Industrial Revolution, before the rise of competition from the railways. The United Kingdom also has numerous dams and reservoirs to store water for drinking and industry. The generation of hydroelectric power is rather limited, supplying less than 2% of British electricity, mainly from the Scottish Highlands.


title: Geography of the United Kingdom

text: The UK has a coastline which measures about 12,429 km. The heavy indentation of the coastline helps to ensure that no location is more than 125 km from tidal waters.


title: Geography of the United Kingdom

text: The UK claims jurisdiction over the continental shelf, as defined in continental shelf orders or in accordance with agreed upon boundaries, an exclusive fishing zone of , and territorial sea of .


title: Geography of the United Kingdom

text: The UK has an Exclusive Economic Zone of in Europe. However, if all crown dependencies and overseas territories are included then the total EEZ is which is the 6th largest in the world.


title: Geography of the United Kingdom

text: The geology of the United Kingdom is such that there are many headlands along its coast. A list of headlands of the United Kingdom details many of them.


title: Geography of the United Kingdom

text: A recent global remote sensing analysis suggested that there were 2,697km² of tidal flats in the United Kingdom, making it the 12th ranking country in terms of how much tidal flat occurs there.


title: Geography of the United Kingdom

text: In total, it is estimated that the UK is made up of over one thousand small islands, the majority located off the north and west coasts of Scotland. About 130 of these are inhabited according to the 2001 Census.


title: Geography of the United Kingdom

text: The largest island in the UK is Great Britain. The largest islands by constituent country are Lewis and Harris in Scotland (841 square mi), Wales' Anglesey (276 square mi), the Isle of Wight in England (147.09 square mi), and Rathlin Island in Northern Ireland (roughly 6 square mi);


title: Geography of the United Kingdom

text: The climate of the UK is generally temperate, although significant local variation occurs, particularly as a result of altitude and distance from the coast. In general the south of the country is warmer than the north, and the west wetter than the east. Due to the warming influence of the Gulf Stream, the UK is significantly warmer than some other locations at a similar latitude, such as Newfoundland.


title: Geography of the United Kingdom

text: The prevailing winds are southwesterly, from the North Atlantic Current. More than 50% of the days are overcast. There are few natural hazards, although there can be strong winds and floods, especially in winter.


title: Geography of the United Kingdom

text: Average annual rainfall varies from over in the Scottish Highlands down to in Cambridge. The county of Essex is one of the driest in the UK, with an average annual rainfall of around , although it typically rains on over 100 days per year. In some years rainfall in Essex can be below , less than the average annual rainfall in Jerusalem and Beirut.


title: Geography of the United Kingdom

text: The highest temperature recorded in the UK was at Coningsby in Lincolnshire, on 20 July 2022. The lowest was recorded at Braemar in the Grampian Mountains, Scotland, on 11 February 1895 and 10 January 1982 and Altnaharra, also in Scotland, on 30 December 1995.


title: Geography of the United Kingdom

text: The UK is governed as a whole by the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Of the four countries that make the UK, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have devolved administrations and legislatures:


title: Geography of the United Kingdom

text: The devolved administrations and legislatures can make laws in a number of areas, such as culture, education, local government, and environment.


title: Geography of the United Kingdom

text: By contrast, England has no devolved system of government, that is, the Parliament of the United Kingdom makes laws for England, as well as for reserved matters in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. England is governed by UK government ministers and legislated for by the UK parliament. The London region has a devolved assembly but proposals for elected Regional Assemblies in England were rejected in the first referendum covering North East England. ("See Government of England.")


title: Geography of the United Kingdom

text: The UK (specifically, Northern Ireland) has an international land boundary with the Republic of Ireland of 499 km. There is also a boundary between the jurisdiction of France and the UK on the Channel Tunnel.


title: Geography of the United Kingdom

text: Historically the UK was divided into counties or shires: administrative areas through which all civil responsibilities of the government were passed. Each county or shire had a county town as its administrative centre and was divided into individual parishes that were defined along ecclesiastic boundaries.


title: Geography of the United Kingdom

text: Between 1889 (1890 in Scotland) and 1974, the political boundaries were based on the traditional counties, but due to changes in population centres, the traditional counties became impractical as local government areas in certain highly urbanised areas. The Local Government Act 1972 created a new system of administrative counties, designed to take account of the widely differing populations across different parts of the country.


title: Geography of the United Kingdom

text: In the 1990s further population growth led to more political changes on a local level. Unitary authorities were formed across the entirety of Scotland and Wales, and in larger cities in England. Many unpopular administrative counties were also abolished at this time, leading to a mixture of two-tier and single-purpose authorities. Further reorganisations are planned if and when regional assemblies in England are revisited in the future.


title: Geography of the United Kingdom

text: The economic geography of the UK reflects not only its current position in the global economy, but its long history both as a trading nation and an imperial power.


title: Geography of the United Kingdom

text: The UK led the industrial revolution and its highly urban character is a legacy of this, with all its major cities being current or former centres of various forms of manufacturing. However, this in turn was built on its exploitation of natural resources, especially coal and iron ore.


title: Geography of the United Kingdom

text: The UK's primary industry was once dominated by the coal industry, heavily concentrated in the north, the Midlands and south Wales. This is all but gone and the major primary industry is North Sea oil. Its activity is concentrated on the UK Continental Shelf to the north-east of Scotland.


title: Geography of the United Kingdom

text: The UK's heavy manufacturing drove the industrial revolution. A map of the major UK cities gives a good picture of where this activity occurred, in particular Belfast, Birmingham, Glasgow, Liverpool, London, Manchester, Newcastle and Sheffield. Today there is no heavy manufacturing industry in which UK-based firms can be considered world leaders. However, areas of the UK still have a notable manufacturing base, including the Midlands which remains a strong manufacturing centre, and the North West which accounts for 60% of the United Kingdom's manufacturing output. More recently, high technology firms have concentrated largely along the M4 motorway, partly because of access to Heathrow Airport, but also because of agglomeration economies.


title: Geography of the United Kingdom

text: Once, every large city had a stock exchange. Now, the UK financial industry is concentrated overwhelmingly in the City of London and Canary Wharf, with back office and administrative operations often dispersed around the south of England. London is one of the world's great financial centres and is usually referred to as a world city. There is also a significant legal and ebusiness industry in Leeds.


title: Geography of the United Kingdom

text: The effect of changing economic fortune has contributed to the creation of the so-called North-South divide, in which decaying industrial and ex-industrial areas of Northern England, Scotland and Wales contrast with the wealthy, finance and technology-led southern economy. This has led successive governments to develop regional policy to try to rectify the imbalance. However, this is not to say that the north–south divide is uniform; some of the worst pockets of deprivation can be found in London, whilst parts of Cheshire and North Yorkshire are very wealthy. Nor is the North-South divide limited to the economic sphere; cultural and political divisions weigh heavily too.


title: Geography of the United Kingdom

text: Historically, much of the United Kingdom was forested. Since prehistoric times, man has deforested much of the United Kingdom.


title: Geography of the United Kingdom

text: Agriculture is intensive, highly mechanised, and efficient by European standards, producing about 60% of food needs with only 1% of the labour force. It contributes around 2% of GDP. Around two thirds of production is devoted to livestock, one third to arable crops.


title: Geography of the United Kingdom

text: The UK has large coal, natural gas, and oil reserves; primary energy production accounts for 10% of GDP, one of the highest shares of any industrial nation. Due to the island location of the UK, the country has great potential for generating electricity from wave power and tidal power, although these have not yet been exploited on a commercial basis.


title: Geography of the United Kingdom

text: England is one of the most densely populated countries/regions in the world, and the most densely populated major nation in Europe. The high population density (especially in the southeast of England) coupled with a changing climate, is likely to put extreme pressure on the United Kingdom's water resources in the future.


title: Geography of the United Kingdom

text: The United Kingdom is reducing greenhouse gas emissions. It has met Kyoto Protocol target of a 12.5% reduction from 1990 levels and intends to meet the legally binding target of a 20% cut in emissions by 2010. By 2015, to recycle or compost at least 33% of household waste. Between 1998-99 and 1999–2000, household recycling increased from 8.8% to 10.3% respectively.


title: Geography of the United Kingdom

text: According to a 2018 survey for the World Wide Fund for Nature, the United Kingdom is one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world, coming in 189th place out of 218 countries.


title: Geography of the United Kingdom

text: Air Pollution, Air Pollution-Nitrogen Oxides, Air Pollution-Sulphur 94, Air Pollution-Volatile Organic Compounds, Antarctic-Environmental Protocol, Antarctic-Marine Living Resources, Antarctic Seals, Antarctic Treaty, Biodiversity, Climate Change, Climate Change-Kyoto Protocol, Desertification, Endangered Species, Environmental Modification, Hazardous Wastes, Law of the Sea, Marine Dumping, Marine Life Conservation, Nuclear Test Ban, Ozone Layer Protection, Ship Pollution, Tropical Timber 83, Tropical Timber 94, Wetlands and Whaling.


title: Geography of the United Kingdom

text: The UK has signed, but not ratified, the international agreement on Air Pollution-Persistent Organic Pollutants.


title: David Dimbleby

text: David Dimbleby (born 28 October 1938) is an English journalist and former presenter of current affairs and political programmes, best known for having presented the BBC topical debate programme "Question Time". He is the son of broadcaster Richard Dimbleby and elder brother of Jonathan Dimbleby, of the Dimbleby family. Long involved in the coverage of national events, Dimbleby hosted the BBC Election Night coverage from 1979 to 2017, as well as United States presidential elections on the BBC until 2016. He has also presented and narrated documentary series on architecture and history.


title: David Dimbleby

text: Dimbleby was born in Surrey, the son of the journalist and Second World War war correspondent Richard Dimbleby, by his marriage to Dilys Thomas, from Wales. His younger brother is Jonathan Dimbleby, also a television current affairs presenter. David Dimbleby was educated at two independent schools, the Glengorse School in Battle, East Sussex, and Charterhouse in Godalming, Surrey, where he was a contemporary of the journalist Adam Raphael. The two younger Dimblebys both made their television débuts in the 1950s in the BBC's first holiday programme "Passport", at a time when the whole family would visit resorts in Switzerland or Brittany. A holiday programme for the home counties, called "No Passport", was also broadcast.


title: David Dimbleby

text: After learning French in Paris and Italian in Perugia, Dimbleby read Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Christ Church, Oxford and graduated with a third-class degree. While at Oxford he was President of the Christ Church JCR, a member of the Bullingdon Club – a socially exclusive student dining and drinking society – and also editor of the student magazine "Isis".


title: David Dimbleby

text: Dimbleby joined the BBC as a news reporter in Bristol in the 1960s and has appeared in news programmes since 1962, early on co-presenting the televised version of the school quiz "Top of the Form", and was a reporter on the BBC's coverage of the 1964 general election with his father as linkman. Richard Dimbleby died the following year.