title: Nasrid dynasty

text: In 1469, Ferdinand II of Aragon married Isabella I of Castile, uniting the Christian Kingdoms of Castile and Aragon in a common cause dedicated to purging Islam from the Iberian Peninsula. The last Nasrid ruler Muhammad XII of the Emirate of Granada was exiled to Fez (Morocco) in 1492 and the remaining Muslim population was given the status of "mudéjar".


title: Nasrid dynasty

text: The Nasrid dynasty claimed to be descended from the Arab Banu Khazraj tribe, and of direct male-line descent from Sa'd ibn Ubadah, the chief of the tribe and one of the companions of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. The "nasab" of Yusuf (nicknamed "al-Ahmar", meaning "the Red").


title: Nasrid dynasty

text: During the time the Christians were launching a campaign against the Emirate of Granada that would effectively end the Nasrid dynasty, the Nasrids were engaged in a civil war over the throne of Granada. When Abu l-Hasan Ali, Sultan of Granada, was ousted by his son Muhammad XII, Abu l-Hasan Ali retreated to Málaga and civil war broke out between the competing factions. Christians took full advantage of this and continued capturing Muslim strongholds. Muhammed XII was caught by Christian forces in 1483 at Lucena, Córdoba. He was freed after he swore an oath of allegiance to Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile. Abu l-Hasan Ali finally abdicated in favor of his brother Muhammad XIII, Sultan of Granada, known as Al-Zaghal (the valiant), and a power struggle with Muhammad XII continued. Al-Zaghal prevailed in the inner struggle but was forced to surrender to the Christians. Muhammad XII was given a lordship in the Alpujarras mountains but instead took financial compensation from the Spanish crown to leave the Iberian Peninsula.


title: Nasrid dynasty

text: The Nasrid dynasty was one of the longest ruling Muslim dynasties in the Iberian Peninsula, reigning for more than 250 years from the establishment of the Emirate of Granada in 1230 to its annexation in 1492. The Nasrids constructed the Alhambra palace-fortress complex in Granada.


title: Nasrid dynasty

text: The family tree below shows the genealogical relationship between each sultan of the Nasrid dynasty. It starts with their common ancestor, Yusuf al-Ahmar. Daughters are omitted, as are sons whose descendants never reigned. During times of rival claims to the throne, the family tree generally recognizes the sultan who controlled the city of Granada itself and the Alhambra palace.


title: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cartoon studio

text: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Cartoon Studios, Inc. was the in-house division of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) during the Golden Age of American animation. Active from 1937 until 1957, the studio was responsible for producing animated shorts to accompany MGM feature films in Loew's Theaters, which included popular cartoon characters "Tom and Jerry", "Droopy" and "Barney Bear".


title: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cartoon studio

text: Prior to forming its own cartoon studio, MGM released the work of independent animation producer Ub Iwerks, and later the "Happy Harmonies" series from Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising. The MGM cartoon studio was founded to replace Harman and Ising, although both men eventually became employees of the studio. After a slow start, the studio began to take off in 1940 after its short "The Milky Way" became the first non-Disney cartoon to win the Academy Award for Best Short Subjects: Cartoons. The studio's roster of talent benefited from an exodus of animators from the Warner Bros. Cartoons and Disney studios, who were facing issues with union workers.


title: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cartoon studio

text: Originally established and run by executive Fred Quimby, William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, the creators of the "Tom and Jerry" cartoons, became the heads of the studio in 1955 following Quimby's retirement. The cartoon studio was closed on May 15, 1957, at which time Hanna and Barbera took much of the staff to form their own company, Hanna-Barbera Productions, then named H-B Enterprises.


title: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cartoon studio

text: Turner Broadcasting System (via Turner Entertainment Co.) took over the library in 1986 after Ted Turner's short-lived ownership of MGM/UA. When Turner sold back the MGM/UA production unit, he kept the pre-1986 MGM library, including the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cartoons, for his own company. In 1996, Turner Broadcasting System merged with Time Warner, the parent company of Warner Bros., which currently owns the rights to the pre-1986 MGM library.


title: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cartoon studio

text: To promote their films and attract larger theater audiences, motion picture chains in the 1930s provided many features to supplement the main feature, including travelogues, serials, short comedy subjects, newsreels and cartoons. During the late 1920s, Walt Disney Productions had achieved huge popular and critical success with their "Mickey Mouse" cartoons for Pat Powers' Celebrity Pictures (distributing for Columbia Pictures). Several other studios, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer among them, took note of Disney's success and began to look for ways to get Disney or compete. MGM had tried to get distribution rights to Mickey Mouse and Silly Symphony shorts from Pat Powers who was distributing them to Columbia Pictures.


title: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cartoon studio

text: MGM's first foray into animation was the "Flip the Frog" cartoon series, starring an anthropomorphic talking and singing frog. The series was produced independently for Celebrity Pictures by Ub Iwerks, formerly the head animator at the Disney studio. Celebrity Pictures' Pat Powers had hired Iwerks away from Disney with the promise of giving Iwerks his own studio, and was able to secure a distribution deal with MGM for the "Flip the Frog" cartoons. The first "Flip the Frog" cartoon, "Fiddlesticks", was released in August 1930, and over two-dozen other "Flip" cartoons followed during the next three years. In 1933, the Flip character was dropped in favor of "Willie Whopper", a new series featuring a lie-telling little boy. "Willie Whopper" failed to catch on, and MGM terminated its distribution deal with Iwerks and Powers, who had already begun distributing their "Comi-Color" cartoons on their own.


title: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cartoon studio

text: In February 1934, MGM signed a new deal with the Harman-Ising studio, which had just broken ties with producer Leon Schlesinger and the Warner Bros. studio over budget concerns, to work on a new series of high-budget color cartoons. The director team brought with them much of their staff from their time with Schlesinger, including animators and storymen such as Carmen "Max" Maxwell, William Hanna, and brothers Robert and Tom McKimson. (The McKimsons would later return to Schlesinger.) Also following Harman and Ising from Schlesinger was Bosko, a successful character the duo had created for the Warner cartoons. After learning from Disney's experiences with Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, Harman and Ising retained the rights to Bosko.


title: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cartoon studio

text: The first entry in MGM's new "Happy Harmonies" cartoon series, "The Discontented Canary", was completed in June 1934 and released in September. The series continued for three years, moving from two-strip to three-strip Technicolor in 1935. The "Happy Harmonies" canon included a handful of entries starring Bosko, who by 1935 had been redesigned from an ambiguous "inkspot" character into a discernible little African-American boy. The directors worked separately on their own films, although both strived to create intricate films that would compete with Disney's award-winning "Silly Symphonies".


title: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cartoon studio

text: However, budget problems threatened to plague Harman and Ising a second time: "Happy Harmonies" cartoons regularly ran over budget, and Hugh Harman paid no heed to MGM's demands that he reduce the costs of the shorts. MGM retaliated in February 1937 by deciding to open their own cartoon studio, and hired away most of the Harman-Ising staff to do so. The final "Happy Harmonies" short, "The Little Bantamweight", was released in March 1938, and Harman and Ising went on to establish a new studio to do freelance animation work for Walt Disney, only to come back.


title: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cartoon studio

text: For the 1934 MGM musical film "Hollywood Party", Walt Disney Productions created an animated sequence in Technicolor called "The Hot Choc-Late Soldiers", and is one of a few examples where Disney produced animation for other studios. The movie also contained a sequence with Jimmy Durante interacting with an animated Mickey Mouse.


title: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cartoon studio

text: In 1936, Disney's animators were overworked with "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" and the Harman-Ising studio provided artists to work on the feature and the "Silly Symphonies" short "Merbabies" in exchange to artist training.


title: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cartoon studio

text: In March 1937, MGM hired film sales executive Fred Quimby, a man with no experience in the animation industry, to set up and run the new MGM cartoon department. Among the holdovers from the Harman-Ising regime, William Hanna and Bob Allen were appointed as directors and Carmen Maxwell became production manager. Quimby raided every major American animation studio for talent, extracting artists, directors and writers from studios, such as Friz Freleng from Leon Schlesinger Productions, Emery Hawkins from and much of the top staff at Terrytoons (Joseph Barbera, Jack Zander, Ray Kelly, Dan Gordon, George Gordon and others). After spending some time headquartered in a nearby house, the new MGM cartoon studio at Overland Ave. and Montana Ave. opened its doors on August 23, 1937.


title: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cartoon studio

text: Although it boasted a brand-new facility and good directors, the MGM cartoon studio's first series was a failure. "The Captain and the Kids", adapted from Rudolph Dirks' "Katzenjammer Kids" characters, was licensed by MGM without input from its then-forming creative staff. Freleng, Hanna, and Allen, assigned to direct the "Captain and the Kids" cartoons, were unable to translate the "Katzenjammer" humor into animation, and the series folded after fifteen episodes. Only two of the "Captain and the Kids" shorts were produced in Technicolor; the other thirteen were produced in black-and-white and released in sepia-toned prints.


title: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cartoon studio

text: MGM brought in established newspaper cartoonists such as Milt Gross and Harry Hershfield in an attempt to both bolster the "Captain and the Kids" product and create original properties for MGM, but both cartoonists' tenures at the studio were short-lived. Gross managed to complete two cartoons, "Jitterbug Follies" and "Wanted: No Master", with his characters Count Screwloose of Tooloose and J.R. the Wonder Dog, while Hershfield completed no cartoons.


title: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cartoon studio

text: In October 1938, Quimby, coming full-circle, hired Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising as the new creative heads of the studio, acting as both directors and producers, and in charge of many of the employees who had defected from the Harman-Ising studio a year before.


title: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cartoon studio

text: Among Ising's first new cartoons for MGM was 1939's "The Bear Who Couldn't Sleep", the debut appearance of Barney Bear, a lumbering anthropomorphic bear based upon both Wallace Beery and Ising himself. Barney Bear would become MGM's first original cartoon star, regularly featured in cartoons until 1953, although his popularity never rose to the level of Mickey Mouse or Porky Pig. Ising focused on the "Barney Bear" cartoons, while Harman focused on making intricately animated one-shot cartoons, although Harman was able to establish a short-lived series of "Three Bears" cartoons.


title: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cartoon studio

text: At this time, Harman created his masterwork, "Peace on Earth". Released during the holiday season of 1939 (immediately after the outbreak of World War II in Europe), "Peace on Earth" was a serious work which dealt with the idea of what a post-apocalyptic world would be like. "Peace on Earth" was nominated for the 1939 Academy Award for Short Subjects (Cartoons), as well as for the Nobel Peace Prize.


title: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cartoon studio

text: Friz Freleng, briefly assigned to work under Harman, returned to Schlesinger after his MGM contract expired in April 1939, and storyman Joseph Barbera was united with director William Hanna to co-direct cartoons for Rudolf Ising's unit. The partnership between Hanna and Barbera would last for more than six decades, until Hanna's death in 2001. The duo's first cartoon together was 1940's "Puss Gets the Boot", featuring an unnamed mouse's attempts to outwit a house cat named Jasper. Though released without fanfare, the short was financially and critically successful, earning an Academy Award nomination for Best Short Subject (Cartoons) of 1940. On the strength of the Oscar nomination and public demand, Hanna and Barbera were assigned to direct more cat-and-mouse cartoons, soon christening the characters "Tom and Jerry". "Puss Gets the Boot" did not win the 1940 Academy Award for Best Cartoon, but another MGM cartoon, Rudolf Ising's "The Milky Way" did, making MGM the first studio to wrestle the Cartoon Academy Award away from Walt Disney.


title: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cartoon studio

text: "Tom and Jerry" quickly became MGM's most valuable animated property. The shorts were successful at the box office, many licensed products (comic books, toys, etc.) were released to the market, and the series would earn twelve more Academy Award for Short Subjects (Cartoons) nominations, with seven of the "Tom & Jerry" shorts going on to win the Academy Award: "The Yankee Doodle Mouse" (1943), "Mouse Trouble" (1944), "Quiet Please!" (1945), "The Cat Concerto" (1947), "The Little Orphan" (1949), "The Two Mouseketeers" (1952) and "Johann Mouse" (1953). "Tom & Jerry" was eventually tied with Disney's "Silly Symphonies" as the most-awarded theatrical cartoon series. Originally barred by Quimby from making a second cat-and-mouse short until the overwhelming success of "Puss Gets the Boot" demanded it, Hanna and Barbera and their team of animators, who included George Gordon, Jack Zander, Kenneth Muse, Irven Spence, Ed Barge, Ray Patterson and Pete Burness, worked on nothing but "Tom & Jerry" cartoons from 1941 until 1955. Exceptions were half a dozen one-shot theatrical shorts, including "Gallopin' Gals" (1940), "Officer Pooch" (1941), "War Dogs" (1943), "Good Will to Men" (1955), and the last seven Tex Avery shorts featuring "Droopy".


title: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cartoon studio

text: Key to the successes of "Tom and Jerry" and other MGM cartoons was the work of Scott Bradley, who scored virtually all of the cartoons for the studio from 1934 to 1957. Bradley's scores made use of both classical and jazz sensibilities. In addition, he often used songs from the scores of MGM's feature films, the most frequent of them being "The Trolley Song" from "Meet Me in St. Louis" and "Sing Before Breakfast" from "Broadway Melody of 1936".


title: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cartoon studio

text: Hugh Harman left the MGM studio in April 1942, and Rudolph Ising departed eighteen months later. George Gordon took over Ising's department, continuing work on the "Barney Bear" cartoons, but only completed three cartoons before he left the studio in 1943. In Harman's place, Quimby hired Tex Avery, an animation director known for his wild comedic style at the Schlesinger studio. Avery's first short for MGM was the World War II parody "Blitz Wolf", which was nominated for the 1942 Academy Award for Short Subjects (Cartoons). While Avery had revolutionized cartoon humor at Schlesinger's, he went several steps further in his MGM works. Avery exaggerated his characters and situations wildly, and was noted for the precise and hard-edged timing of his gags.


title: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cartoon studio

text: Among Avery's most noted cartoons for MGM were slapstick comedies such as "Red Hot Riding Hood" (1943), "Jerky Turkey" (1945), "Northwest Hounded Police" (1946), "King-Size Canary" (1947), "Little Rural Riding Hood" (1949), and "Bad Luck Blackie" (1949). While Avery preferred to focus on gags instead of characterization, he established several popular MGM cartoon characters, including Screwball "Screwy" Squirrel, the "Of Mice and Men" derived pair of George and Junior, and his best-known character, Droopy. Droopy, voiced by Bill Thompson (a.k.a. "Wallace Wimple" on NBC Radio's "Fibber McGee and Molly" show) debuted in 1943 with "Dumb-Hounded". He appeared in several more Avery cartoons (including "Northwest Hounded Police") before being officially given his own series in 1948 with "Señor Droopy".


title: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cartoon studio

text: The influence of Avery's cartoons was felt across the animation industry; even Hanna and Barbera adapted their "Tom and Jerry" shorts to match the levels of madcap humor and violence in Avery's films. Avery's team included storymen Rich Hogan and Heck Allen, and animators such as Michael Lah, Ed Love, and Preston Blair, most famous for animating the sexy female singer in "Red Hot Riding Hood" and its follow-ups. In 1946, Quimby assigned Blair and Lah to direct a new series of "Barney Bear" cartoons, reversing the decision after three cartoons.


title: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cartoon studio

text: Tex Avery was a perfectionist: he worked extensively on his films' stories and gags, revised his animators' drawings and was even known to cut frames out of the final Technicolor answer print if he felt a gag had been animated too softly. The strain of overwork caused Avery to quit MGM in May 1950, after completing "Rock-a-Bye Bear" (not released until 1952 because of MGM's cartoon backlog). Former Walter Lantz and Disney director Dick Lundy was brought in to head Avery's unit. Lundy completed one "Droopy" cartoon and ten "Barney Bear" shorts before Avery returned in October 1951 and reassumed his role as director from Lundy, starting with "Little Johnny Jet" (released in 1953).


title: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cartoon studio

text: Avery directed eleven more cartoons for MGM, many of them showing the heavy influence of the style of the newly popular UPA studio in their designs. In March 1953, MGM temporarily closed down the cartoon unit, thinking that the growing trend for 3D films would bring an end to the animated cartoon. Avery himself did not leave the studio until June, working with co-director Michael Lah on two more cartoons, "Deputy Droopy" and "Cellbound", which Lah completed with the Hanna and Barbera staff (working during the most part of 1953 for commercials, as a predecessor of H-B Enterprises) during the closure. Avery went on to join the Walter Lantz staff the following February, while Lah went on to do commercial animation work. Because of the backlog of completed MGM cartoons, the cartoons Avery completed during his second tenure at the studio were not released until after he left again; "Cellbound" was not released until 1955.


title: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cartoon studio

text: Meanwhile, after the studio reopened in 1954, budget cuts required Hanna and Barbera to reduce the level of detail in their "Tom and Jerry" shorts (a precursor of what was to come), and to also begin doing one "cheater" short per year composed mostly of footage from previously released cartoons. That year, Hanna and Barbera directed "Pet Peeve", the first MGM cartoon in the new widescreen CinemaScope process, which had been was devised as a means to keep audiences attending movie theatres in the wake of the popularity of television. "Pet Peeve", released in late 1954, was followed by a sporadic number of CinemaScope "Tom and Jerrys", with several other "Tom and Jerrys" being dual-released in standard format and in CinemaScope. After "Pecos Pest" (released in 1955), all MGM cartoons were released in CinemaScope. Six previous MGM cartoons, among them Hugh Harman's "Peace on Earth", were remade in CinemaScope. Like the original "Peace on Earth" in 1939, its 1955 remake, "Good Will to Men", was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Short Subject (Cartoons).


title: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cartoon studio

text: Quimby retired in 1955, and Hanna and Barbera became the new heads of the studio. Michael Lah returned to the studio in 1955 to direct an animated sequence for the MGM feature "Invitation to the Dance", and stayed on to supervise a new series of CinemaScope "Droopy" cartoons to accompany the new CinemaScope "Tom and Jerry" cartoons.


title: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cartoon studio

text: Lah's "One Droopy Knight" was nominated for the 1957 Academy Award for Best Short Subject (Cartoons). However, for the most part, both the 1955–1957 CinemaScope "Droopy" and "Tom and Jerry" cartoons had lost their appeal in the eyes of critics due to weaker stories and simplistic animation, which were the result of the budget cuts. To keep the studio alive, MGM had begun reissuing previously released cartoons since the 1940s, but later decided in late 1956 that, due to the reissued shorts bringing in as much revenue as the new shorts, it could save $600,000 a year by shutting down production on new shorts. Most of the reissued cartoons were Tom and Jerry, Droopy and shorts featuring Tex Avery's showgirl, Red. None of Tex Avery's Screwy Squirrel and George and Junior cartoons were reissued.


title: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cartoon studio

text: The studio was closed on May 15, 1957 (though the last cartoon made by the studio was released in 1958), and Hanna and Barbera took most of their unit and began producing television cartoons with their company Hanna-Barbera Productions. Hanna-Barbera first approached MGM to distribute their cartoons for television, but were turned down. Columbia Pictures' Screen Gems picked up Hanna-Barbera's product, and the studio soon became the most successful producers of television animation in the world. MGM would later have Gene Deitch create a series of "Tom and Jerry" cartoons before contracting Chuck Jones and Les Goldman's Sib Tower 12 studio to create more "Tom and Jerry" shorts. Sib Tower 12 was absorbed by MGM in 1964, and was renamed MGM Animation/Visual Arts.


title: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cartoon studio

text: Many MGM cartoons have become fan favorites throughout the years due to their animation style, plot, humor, cartoon violence (specifically the Tom and Jerry shorts), music and (at times) sexual innuendos (with regards to shorts starring Red). Individual shorts such as "To Spring" (1936) and "The Dot and the Line" (1965) have been acclaimed for their artistic designs while others such as "Screwball Squirrel" (1944) and "King-Size Canary" (1947) are celebrated for their sheer lunacy. Though not as popular with the general public as the Disney or Warner Bros. cartoons, MGM cartoons are heavily studied and praised by film historians and members of the animation industry.


title: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cartoon studio

text: As of 2009, nearly all of the Hanna and Barbera-produced "Tom and Jerry" shorts are available on DVD under the "Tom and Jerry Spotlight Collection", a series of three DVD box sets that were released from October 2004 to September 2007 (however, two cartoons are missing due to politically incorrect scenes, and several of the released ones are edited). Warner Home Video would later release the "Tom & Jerry" shorts as part of the" Tom and Jerry Golden Collection" series of DVD and Blu-ray boxsets, which started with the first volume being released October 25, 2011, with the shorts being presented uncut, restored, remastered, in chronological order, and for the Blu-ray version, in 1080p high definition. Moreover, a two-disc collection of all of Droopy's cartoons was released in May 2007. Rumors have floated around for years of a box set consisting of Tex Avery's MGM work, but nothing has been released besides the "Spotlight" and "Golden" box sets for "Tom and Jerry" and the "Droopy" collection in the United States, although all of Tex Avery's cartoons were released on DVD in France through Warner Home Video. However, in 2020, Tex Avery cartoons finally started being released on Blu-ray, when Warner Archive Collection made "Tex Avery Screwball Classics Volume 1" this February with 19 of the cartoons. A second volume was announced in March, and was released on December 15, 2020.


title: Brachioradialis

text: The brachioradialis is a muscle of the forearm that flexes the forearm at the elbow. It is also capable of both pronation and supination, depending on the position of the forearm. It is attached to the distal styloid process of the radius by way of the brachioradialis tendon, and to the lateral supracondylar ridge of the humerus.


title: Brachioradialis

text: The brachioradialis is a superficial, fusiform muscle on the lateral side of the forearm. It originates proximally on the lateral supracondylar ridge of the humerus. It inserts distally on the radius, at the base of its styloid process. Near the elbow, it forms the lateral limit of the cubital fossa, or elbow pit.


title: Brachioradialis

text: Despite the bulk of the muscle body being visible from the anterior aspect of the forearm, the brachioradialis is a posterior compartment muscle and consequently is innervated by the radial nerve. Of the muscles that receive innervation from the radial nerve, it is one of only four that receive input directly from the radial nerve. The other three are the triceps, anconeus, and extensor carpi radialis longus. (All other posterior compartment muscles that receive radial innervation are supplied by the deep branch of the radial nerve.)


title: Brachioradialis

text: The brachioradialis flexes the forearm at the elbow. When the forearm is pronated, the brachioradialis tends to supinate as it flexes. In a supinated position, it tends to pronate as it flexes. This also assists the biceps brachii.


title: Brachioradialis

text: The brachioradialis is a stronger elbow flexor when the forearm is in a midposition between supination and pronation at the radioulnar joint. When pronated, the brachioradialis is more active during elbow flexion since the biceps brachii is in a mechanical disadvantage.


title: Brachioradialis

text: With the insertion of the muscle so far from the fulcrum of the elbow, the brachioradialis does not generate as much joint torque as the brachialis or the biceps. It is effective mainly when those muscles have already partially flexed at the elbow. The brachioradialis flexes the forearm at the elbow, especially when quick movement is required and when a weight is lifted during slow flexion of the forearm.


title: Brachioradialis

text: The muscle is used to stabilize the elbow during rapid flexion and extension while in a midposition, such as in hammering. The brachioradialis is synergistic with the brachialis and biceps brachii; the triceps brachii and anconeus are antagonistic.


title: Lalamove

text: Lalamove is an Asia-based technology company that provides delivery services by connecting users with delivery drivers on its mobile and web apps. The company operates in cities across Asia and Latin America connecting over 7 million users with more than 700,000 delivery drivers. Lalamove services are currently available in Hong Kong, Taipei, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Manila, Cebu, Bangkok, Pattaya, Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi, Jakarta, Dhaka, São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Mexico City. Lalamove expanded their services in India in 2018 but later got banned by Indian government in 2020 during the series of Chinese app bans in India.


title: Lalamove

text: The company was founded in Hong Kong in December 2013 by Shing Chow Shing-yuk. Originally called Easyvan, the company was renamed Lalamove in 2014. The company quickly expanded to new markets reaching Singapore in 2014 and Bangkok and Taipei in 2015. By 2018 Lalamove was present in 11 cities across Southeast Asia and also commenced operations in India.


title: Lalamove

text: Lalamove expanded for the first time outside of Asia in 2019 by commencing operations in Latin America. They are currently present in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Mexico City.


title: Lalamove

text: In March 2020, Lalamove made its first strategic investment by participating in a pre-series B funding round for logistics company Inteluck.


title: Lalamove

text: During the COVID-19 epidemic in 2020, Lalamove launched its Deliver Care CSR initiative to provide free delivery to NGOs. The CSR initiative helped deliver over 200,000 essential items including face masks, hand sanitiser, personal protection equipment and hot meals to frontline medical works and underprivileged families. In total more than 86,000 beneficiaries were reached. Lalamove also partnered with Quezon City local government to launch the LalaJeep, a new delivery type on the Lalamove app, to help jeepney drivers who were displaced from work due to the community quarantine.


title: Lalamove

text: On 24 November 2020, the Government of India banned 45 Chinese apps, including Lalamove, from operating in India after citing security concerns.


title: Lalamove

text: In January 2022, reports emerged that Lalamove, along with cargo delivery subsidiaries of DiDi and 58.com had been summoned by local transportation regulators in Shanghai, after a rising number of cases where drivers provide illegal freight services were noted to originate from the platforms. Lalamove was ordered to rectify these practices that the authorities described as “damage that stems from disorderly expansion". In the same month, Lalamove had already been one of eight companies to be summoned by China's Ministry of Transportation and warned about unclear pricing schemes, rising membership fees, unfair competition, and illegal transportation.


title: Truly, Madly, Deeply

text: Truly, Madly, Deeply is a 1990 British fantasy drama film made for the BBC's "Screen Two" series, by BBC Films, Lionheart and Winston Pictures. The film, written and directed by Anthony Minghella, stars Juliet Stevenson and Alan Rickman.


title: Truly, Madly, Deeply

text: Nina, an interpreter, is beside herself with grief at the recent death of her boyfriend, Jamie, a cellist. When she is on the verge of despair, Jamie reappears as a "ghost" and the couple are reunited. Nina is ecstatic.


title: Truly, Madly, Deeply

text: But Jamie tells her about his days while she is at work, and one dialogue suggests she should embrace the life around her; one of these is about a memorial plaque in a park about a dead child and how parents who read it feel an immediate, compelling need to hug their children.


title: Truly, Madly, Deeply

text: The returned Jamie also reminds her that he also irritated her, and as a ghost he manifests behaviours she'd have little patience for – turning up the central heating to stifling levels, moving furniture around and inviting back "ghost friends" to watch videos. This infuriates her, and their relationship deteriorates.


title: Truly, Madly, Deeply

text: She meets Mark, a psychologist, to whom she is attracted, but she is unwilling to become involved with him because of Jamie's continued presence. Nina continues to love Jamie but is conflicted by his self-centered behaviour and ultimately wonders out loud, "Was it always like this?" Over Nina's objections, Jamie decides to leave to allow her to move on.


title: Truly, Madly, Deeply

text: Towards the end of the film, Jamie watches Nina leave and one of his fellow ghosts asks, "Well?" and Jamie responds, "I think so... Yes." At this point the central conceit of the movie has become clear: Jamie came back specifically to help Nina get over him by tarnishing her idealized memory of him.


title: Truly, Madly, Deeply

text: Minghella said he wrote the script specifically as "a vehicle for [Stevenson] to express all her talents. She plays piano, likes dancing and has a quirky side to her which she usually can't express in the classical parts she is asked for." The title comes from a word game played by the main characters, in which they challenge each other to by turns repeat and add to a series of adverbs describing the depths of their mutual affection. The working title for the film was 'Cello', a reference not only to the cello within the film, but also to the Italian word 'cielo' for heaven. The film was made-for-TV, and produced in a 28-day shooting schedule for just $650,000.


title: Truly, Madly, Deeply

text: It was shot on location in London and Bristol, with external shots in Highgate and on the South Bank. Stevenson said in 2012 that it was the favourite role of her career, commenting that the shoot was like a party.


title: Truly, Madly, Deeply

text: The film was critically successful, winning several awards including a BAFTA for best original screenplay. (Alan Rickman and Juliet Stevenson received Best Actor and Best Actress, and Anthony Minghella Most Promising Newcomer, from the 1991 Evening Standard British Film Awards.) It became a hit in the American arthouse circuit and Minghella subsequently was offered work by every major studio in Hollywood. The film's combination of serious themes with comic scenes, music and strong performances from the actors was noted by critics. Roger Ebert called it "a "Ghost" for grownups" (a common comparison because of the shared theme of lovers returning as ghosts and the concurrent releases of the films) and considered the film to reveal "some truths that are, the more you think about them, really pretty profound". Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports a 75% approval rating based on 36 reviews, with an average rating of 6.8/10. The website's critics consensus reads: "Largely thanks to charming performances from Alan Rickman and Juliet Stevenson, "Truly Madly Deeply" is an afterlife romance with infectious spirit." At Metacritic, the film has a weighted mean score of 72 out of 100 based on 16 reviews.


title: One for the Money (film)

text: One for the Money is a 2012 American crime comedy film based on Janet Evanovich's 1994 novel of the same name. Directed by Julie Anne Robinson, the screenplay was written by Liz Brixius, Karen McCullah Lutz, and Kirsten Smith. It stars Katherine Heigl, Jason O'Mara, Debbie Reynolds, Daniel Sunjata and Sherri Shepherd. The story revolves around Stephanie Plum, a broke and unemployed woman becoming a bail enforcement agent, going after a former high school crush who both skipped out on his payments and is a murder suspect.


title: One for the Money (film)

text: The film was in development hell after Columbia and TriStar Pictures had purchased the novel's adaptation rights in 1997. In April 2010, Lionsgate acquired the distribution rights. Produced by Lakeshore and Sidney Kimmel Entertainment, principal photography took place in the Ambridge borough in Beaver County, Pennsylvania. This film was the last theatrical appearance of Debbie Reynolds before her death on December 28, 2016.


title: One for the Money (film)

text: "One for the Money" was theatrically released in the United States on January 27, 2012 and was both a critical and commercial failure. The film received extremely negative reviews from critics, with many criticizing the script and Heigl's performance, and grossed just $38 million worldwide against a $40 million budget.


title: One for the Money (film)

text: In the Chambersburg neighborhood of Trenton, New Jersey, Stephanie Plum is divorced and out of work. Seeking a job at her cousin Vinnie's bail bonds business, she blackmails him into letting her become a bail enforcement agent and tracks down fugitive Joe Morelli, her high school ex-boyfriend who has skipped his $500,000 bail. Morelli escapes the inexperienced Stephanie, who turns to veteran bounty hunter Ricardo "Ranger" Manoso for help. Explaining that Morelli, a vice detective, is wanted for the murder of heroin dealer Ziggy Kulesza, Ranger buys Stephanie a gun.


title: One for the Money (film)

text: Police officer Eddie Gazarra, Stephanie's friend, informs her that Morelli shot Ziggy at the apartment of prostitute Carmen Sanchez. Morelli claimed to act in self-defense, but no evidence could be found that Ziggy had a gun, and Carmen and another man at the apartment have disappeared. Stephanie befriends a prostitute named Lula, who points her to a boxing gym where she questions cage fighter Benito Ramirez, Carmen's boyfriend, and his manager Jimmy Alpha. Before Ramirez can assault her, she is rescued by Morelli, who reveals that Carmen was his informant and suspects Ramirez is responsible for her disappearance.


title: One for the Money (film)

text: Stephanie receives a threatening call from Ramirez, and commandeers Morelli's car after searching his apartment. Desperate for money, she recovers her first fugitive, delivering her nudist neighbor to the police for failure to appear. In the shower, she is confronted by Morelli and left handcuffed and naked, forcing her to call Ranger for help. She visits Carmen's apartment and meets John Cho, a neighbor who witnessed the shooting. He explains that he knocked Morelli unconscious, after which a "flat-nosed guy" fled the apartment. After capturing another fugitive, who first steals her gun and shoots at Ranger, Stephanie learns that Cho has been killed.


title: One for the Money (film)

text: She is tailed by Ramirez, who leaves Lula badly beaten outside Stephanie's apartment. Morelli asks for Stephanie's help in clearing his name, in exchange for sole credit and payment for his capture, and she agrees, allowing him to lay low at her apartment. Vinnie's regular recovery agent Morty Beyers arrives to take over Morelli's bounty, and steals the keys to Morelli's car, but is killed by a car bomb intended for Stephanie, and Carmen’s apartment building is fire-bombed. Wearing a wire so Morelli can track her movements from nearby, Stephanie spots the flat-nosed man at a butcher shop frequented by Ziggy. The man loads two barrels onto a truck, and Stephanie follows him and the butcher to a marina, where she and Morelli discover the butcher’s boat is being used to transport heroin.


title: One for the Money (film)

text: Hearing gunshots, they find the flat-nosed man and the butcher shot dead in the truck, and Carmen's body in one of the barrels. They are attacked by Ramirez and subdue him, but are held at gunpoint by Jimmy Alpha. He admits that he, Ramirez, and Ziggy were selling heroin, and killed Carmen for informing on them to Morelli; at Carmen’s apartment, Ziggy did try to kill Morelli, but the flat-nosed man fled with Ziggy's gun. Stephanie manages to shoot Jimmy dead, but locks Morelli in the truck and delivers him to the police, along with her covert recording of Jimmy's confession, which exonerates Morelli. She collects the $50,000 bounty for Morelli, who arrives at her door, and they rekindle their relationship.


title: One for the Money (film)

text: In an October 2010 interview, author Janet Evanovich stated that TriStar Pictures had purchased the rights to her novel thirteen years previously, and the film had been in development hell since that time. When asked about the status of the film, Evanovich commented, "Hard to believe they've been sitting on this multi-million dollar franchise for all these years but go figure." In February 2010, "Variety" announced that Katherine Heigl had been cast to play Stephanie Plum. In April 2010, Lionsgate announced that they had acquired distribution rights, would co-produce with Sidney Kimmel Entertainment and Lakeshore Entertainment (which had acquired the rights from Columbia), and Julie Anne Robinson ("The Last Song") would direct.


title: One for the Money (film)

text: The film adaptation was produced by Tom Rosenberg for Lakeshore Entertainment, with Katherine Heigl playing the role of Stephanie Plum. The production was shot in metropolitan Pittsburgh from July to early September 2010. Principal photography began the week of July 12, 2010, in the borough of Ambridge in suburban Beaver County, and continued in six different locations in the town. Pittsburgh's Central Northside neighborhood as well as the recently shuttered UPMC facility in the inner suburb of Braddock, doubled for the book's setting of Trenton, New Jersey, neighborhoods and government buildings. Establishing shot of bridge overlooking Trenton, New Jersey was filmed in Kittanning.


title: One for the Money (film)

text: The film was not initially screened for critics and was widely panned. On Rotten Tomatoes, it holds a approval rating based on reviews, with an average rating of . The site's consensus reads: "Dull and unfunny, "One for the Money" wastes Katherine Heigl's talents on a stunningly generic comic thriller." Metacritic reported an average score of 22 out of 100, based on 17 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B−" on an A+ to F scale.


title: One for the Money (film)

text: R. Kurt Osenlund of "Slant Magazine" criticized the cartoonish portrayal of New Jersey and its various caricatures, and the dumbed-down gender depiction of its main cast by an all-female production team, saying that, "This isn't girl-power filmmaking, this is cutesy contentment, a production team of gals enforcing their own stereotypes by willfully succumbing to demographic views of sexist Hollywood honchos." Sheri Linden of the "Los Angeles Times" noted the film's poor scripting of Heigl's character, story progression, and balancing both screwball and black comedy, calling it "an ungainly mix of flat-footed gumshoeing and strained attempts at hilarity, all delivered with an unconvincing Joizy vibe." Kimberley Jones of "The Austin Chronicle" said that the film's "glancing relationship with reality" involving its main heroine, story and setting doesn't translate well on the silver screen and is more suited as a made-for-TV movie, concluding with, "If the filmmakers can't be bothered to believe in the real-world implications of its premise, then why ever should we?" Mark Feeney of "The Boston Globe" gave credit to the supporting performances of Leonardo Nam and Debbie Reynolds for having "an out-of-left-field quality the rest of the movie lacks."


title: One for the Money (film)

text: Frank Scheck of "The Hollywood Reporter" believed Heigl and the film's supporting cast were up to the task, but felt they were undone by a script unsure of its genre, saying that it "mostly resembles a failed television pilot, a feeling which is only reinforced by its late-January release and failure to be screened for critics." Jeff Otto from "IndieWire" repeated what Scheck wrote about the genre confusion, saying that it carries elements of a romantic comedy but "Otherwise [the film] dabbles in thriller territory, sort of an attempt at Elmore Leonard gone "Jersey Shore". But it’s not smart enough for that." Feeney felt the film was having a genre battle with itself over "gritty-ethnic inner city vs. girly-girly comic", calling it "chick-lit [Elmore] Leonard." "Entertainment Weekly"s Owen Gleiberman added that if said "[Elmore] Leonard movie was scripted by a bad Nora Ephron imitator."


title: One for the Money (film)

text: Many critics derided Heigl for her portrayal of Stephanie Plum. Sam Adams of "The A.V. Club" found her miscast as Stephanie because she lacked any spunk or tenacity to make the character tolerable and charming, despite some decent comedic timing, saying "there's a hollowness at the movie’s center, right where Heigl's heart should be." Andrew Barker from "Variety" wrote about Heigl having "an almost standoffish lack of conviction" in her performance, and Elizabeth Weitzman of the "New York Daily News" described her as being "too movie-star glam, [too] stiffly prissy, and [too] lacking in any affection for Stephanie herself." Gleiberman saw Heigl as being unsuitable to emulate the mannerisms of a guidette, saying that she portrays "working-class sexy slovenliness in an overly thought-out way." "Rolling Stone"s Peter Travers also noted Heigl's miscasting as part of a "cringingly false" film that's devoid of the "Evanovich talent and energy" throughout the direction and screenwriting, concluding that "One for the Money" is "so godawful there'll never be another Plum movie to rectify this mess. Evanovich deserved better."


title: One for the Money (film)

text: Author Janet Evanovich was delighted with how the film turned out and did some joint interviews with Heigl to promote the film. Evanovich stated that she would now envision Heigl as Stephanie when writing the character. "Complex" placed the film at number five on its list of the 25 worst movies of 2012. "Complex" staff writer Matt Barone said, "[I]f the movie's only offense was how it soils the Garden State's reputation worse than JWoww, it'd be reprehensible, but not worthy of severe public humiliation. But considering that "One for the Money" is also about as funny as a colonic, there's nothing left to do but rip it apart before banishing the flick from our memory banks."


title: One for the Money (film)

text: "One for the Money" was released on January 27, 2012 and debuted at number 3 behind "The Grey" and "" with $11.5 million on its opening weekend. The film grossed $26,414,527 domestically and $10,479,194 globally to a total of $36,893,721 worldwide, below its $40 million budget.


title: One for the Money (film)

text: The film was promoted using discount ticket offers from Groupon. Exit polling indicated high audience awareness of the promotion, an estimated 11% bought tickets using Groupon, and 93% of that segment indicated they would not have attended the film otherwise. Box Office Mojo estimated that the "Groupon bump" amounted to around $1 million.


title: One for the Money (film)

text: Heigl was nominated for a Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Actress for her performance in the film, but lost the award to Kristen Stewart for both "Snow White and the Huntsman" and "".


title: Barbara Castle

text: Barbara Anne Castle, Baroness Castle of Blackburn, ("née" Betts; 6 October 1910 – 3 May 2002), was a British Labour Party politician who was a Member of Parliament from 1945 to 1979, making her one of the longest-serving female MPs in British history. Regarded as one of the most significant Labour Party politicians, Castle developed a close political partnership with Prime Minister Harold Wilson and held several roles in the Cabinet. She remains to date the only woman to have held the office of First Secretary of State.


title: Barbara Castle

text: A graduate of the University of Oxford, Castle worked as a journalist for both "Tribune" and the "Daily Mirror", before being elected to Parliament as MP for Blackburn at the 1945 election. During the Attlee Government, she was Parliamentary Private Secretary to Stafford Cripps, and later to Harold Wilson, marking the beginning of their partnership. She was a strong supporter of Wilson during his campaign to become Leader of the Labour Party, and following his victory at the 1964 election, Wilson appointed Castle to the Cabinet as Minister for Overseas Development, and later as Minister of Transport. In the latter role, she proved an effective reformer, overseeing the introduction of permanent speed limits for the first time on British roads, as well as legislating for breathalyser tests and compulsory seat belts.


title: Barbara Castle

text: In 1968, Wilson promoted Castle to become First Secretary of State, the second-most senior member of the Cabinet, as well as Secretary of State for Employment. In the latter role, Castle fiercely advocated for the passage of the "In Place of Strife" legislation which would have greatly overhauled the operating framework for British trade unions. The proposal split the Cabinet, and was eventually withdrawn. Castle was also notable for her successful intervention over the strike by Ford sewing machinists against gender pay discrimination, speaking out in support of the strikers, and overseeing the passage of the Equal Pay Act. After Labour unexpectedly lost the 1970 election, some blamed Castle's role in the debate over trade unions for the defeat, a charge she resisted.


title: Barbara Castle

text: Upon Labour's return to power after the 1974 election, Wilson appointed Castle Secretary of State for Health and Social Services, during which time she was responsible for the creation of Carer's Allowance and the passage of the Child Benefit Act. She was also a prominent opponent of Britain's continued membership of the European Economic Community during the 1975 referendum. When Castle's bitter political rival, James Callaghan, replaced Wilson as Prime Minister in 1976, he sacked her immediately from the Cabinet; the two would remain bitter towards each other for the rest of their lives. Opting to retire from Parliament at the 1979 election, Castle quickly sought election to the European Parliament, representing Greater Manchester from 1979 to 1989; during this time, she was the Leader of the European Parliamentary Labour Party from 1979 to 1985, and publicly reversed her previous stance of Euroscepticism. She became a member of the House of Lords, having been granted a life peerage, in 1990, and remained active in politics until her death in 2002 at the age of 91.


title: Barbara Castle

text: Barbara Anne Betts was born on 6 October 1910 at 64 Derby Road, Chesterfield, the youngest of three children to Frank Betts and his wife Annie Rebecca ("née" Ferrand). Raised in Pontefract and Bradford, Castle grew up in a politically active home and was introduced to socialism from a young age. Her older sister, Marjorie, later became a pioneer of the Inner London Education Authority, while their brother Tristram (almost always called Jimmie) engaged in field work with Oxfam in Nigeria. She joined the Labour Party as a teenager.


title: Barbara Castle

text: Her father was a tax inspector, exempt from military service in the First World War due to his high rank in a reserved occupation. It was because of the nature of the tax-collecting profession, and the promotions he received, that the family frequently moved around the country. Having moved to Bradford in 1922, the Betts family swiftly became involved with the Independent Labour Party. Although her father was prohibited from formal political activity because of his role as a civil servant, he became editor of the "Bradford Pioneer", the city's socialist newspaper, after William Leach was elected to Parliament in 1935. Castle's mother ran the family home while also operating a soup kitchen for the town's coalminers. After Barbara had left home Annie was elected as a Labour councillor in Bradford.


title: Barbara Castle

text: Castle attended Love Lane Elementary School, then Pontefract and District Girls High School. After moving to Bradford at the age of twelve, she attended Bradford Girls' Grammar School. She became involved in acting at the school and developed oratorical skills. She excelled academically, winning numerous awards from the school. She also organised mock elections at the school, in which she stood as the Labour candidate. There were some aspects of the school that she did not like, notably the presence of many girls from rich families. In her last year she was appointed head girl.


title: Barbara Castle

text: Her education continued at St Hugh's College, Oxford, from which she graduated with a third-class BA in Philosophy, Politics and Economics. She began serious political activity at Oxford, serving as the Treasurer of the Oxford University Labour Club, the highest position a woman could hold in the club at the time. She struggled to accept the atmosphere of a university that had only recently begun to question its traditionally sexist attitudes. She was scornful of the elitist nature of some elements of the institution, branding the Oxford Union "that cadet class of the establishment".


title: Barbara Castle

text: Castle was elected to St Pancras Metropolitan Borough Council in 1937 (where she remained until 1945), and in 1943 she spoke at the annual Labour Party Conference for the first time. Throughout the Second World War she worked as a senior administrative officer at the Ministry of Food and she was an Air Raid Precautions (ARP) warden during the Blitz.


title: Barbara Castle

text: She became a reporter on the left-wing magazine "Tribune", where she had a romantic relationship with William Mellor, who was to become its editor, until his death in 1942. Following her marriage to Ted Castle in 1944, she became the housing correspondent at the "Daily Mirror".


title: Barbara Castle

text: In the 1945 general election, which Labour won by a landslide, Castle was elected as the Member of Parliament for Blackburn. As Blackburn was then a two-member constituency, she was elected alongside fellow Labour candidate John Edwards. Castle had secured her place as a parliamentary candidate through the women of the Blackburn Labour Party, who had threatened to quit unless she was added to the otherwise all-male shortlist.


title: Barbara Castle

text: Castle was the youngest of the handful of women elected. Although she had grown up in similar northern industrial towns, she had no prior connection to Blackburn. Eager not to appear as a parachute candidate, she studied weaving and spinning, and spent time living with a local family. In her maiden speech she highlighted the problems facing servicemen then going through demobilisation.


title: Barbara Castle

text: Immediately upon her entering the House of Commons Castle was appointed Parliamentary Private Secretary (PPS) to Sir Stafford Cripps, President of the Board of Trade, who had known her as a member of the pre-war Socialist League. Harold Wilson succeeded Cripps in 1947 and retained Castle as his PPS, marking the beginning of the pair's lengthy political relationship. She gained further experience as the UK's alternate delegate to the United Nations General Assembly for 1949–1950, when she displayed particular concerned for social and humanitarian issues. She soon achieved a reputation as a left-winger and a rousing speaker. During the 1950s she was a high-profile Bevanite, and made a name for herself as a vocal advocate of decolonisation and the Anti-Apartheid Movement.


title: Barbara Castle

text: Labour returned to government under Harold Wilson in October 1964 following a general election, defeating Alec Douglas-Home's Conservative government by winning a slim majority of four seats, thus ending 13 years of successive Conservative governments. Wilson had selected his core Cabinet four months prior to the election; Castle knew Wilson intended to place her within his Cabinet, which would make her the fourth woman in British history ever to hold position in a Cabinet, after Margaret Bondfield, Ellen Wilkinson and Florence Horsbrugh.


title: Barbara Castle

text: Castle entered the Cabinet as the first Minister for Overseas Development, a newly created ministry for which she, alongside the Fabian Society, had drawn up the plans for. For the last year she had acted as the opposition spokeswoman on overseas development. Castle's plans were extensive, though the ministry's budget was modest. She set about trying to divert powers from other departments related to overseas aid, including the Foreign Office and the Treasury. She was only partially successful in her aims and provoked an internal Whitehall dispute in the process.


title: Barbara Castle

text: In June 1965 Castle announced interest-free aid loans would be available to certain (not exclusively Commonwealth) countries. She had previously criticised the Conservative government for granting loans that only waived up to the first seven years of interest, which she considered to be counter-intuitive.


title: Barbara Castle

text: In August, Castle published her government white paper "Overseas Development: The Work of a New Ministry". The financial commitments of the ministry were omitted from the report, after a protracted clash between Castle and her Cabinet colleagues James Callaghan (Chancellor of the Exchequer) and George Brown (Secretary of State for Economic Affairs). Labour had made a manifesto promise to increase aid spending to 1% of gross national product, almost double Conservative spending. However, the national economy was unstable, public resentment towards the Commonwealth was growing due to immigration, and within Cabinet aid was viewed with either indifference or contempt. Castle grappled with Callaghan and Brown over the department's budgetary allocation; they reached a compromise following Wilson's intervention, but the sum only amounted to a small increase in spending.


title: Barbara Castle

text: Initially reluctant to head up the department, Castle accepted the role of Minister of Transport (23 December 1965 – 6 April 1968) in a Cabinet reshuffle after Wilson proved persuasive.


title: Barbara Castle

text: In February 1966, Castle addressed Parliament, calling for "a profound change in public attitudes" to curtail increasing road fatality figures, stating: "Hitler did not manage to kill as many civilians in Britain as have been killed on our roads since the war". The statistics bore out; between 1945 and the mid-1960s approximately 150,000 people were killed and several million injured on Britain's roads.


title: Barbara Castle

text: She introduced the breathalyser to combat the then recently acknowledged crisis of drink-driving. Castle said she was "ready to risk unpopularity" by introducing the measures if it meant saving lives. She was challenged by a BBC journalist on "The World This Weekend", who described the policy as a "rotten idea" and asked her: "You're only a woman, you don't drive, what do you know about it?" In the 12 months following the introduction of the breathalyser, Government figures revealed road deaths had dropped by 16.5%.


title: Barbara Castle

text: Castle also made permanent the national speed limit (70 mph). Having been introduced as a four-month trial by outgoing Transport Minister Tom Fraser in December 1965, Castle first extended the limit period in 1966 and in 1967 made the limit permanent, following a controversial report from the Road Research Laboratory concluding that motorway casualties had fallen 20% since its introduction.


title: Barbara Castle

text: During a tour of New York City in October 1966, where Castle was examining the impact of traffic problems in American cities, she vocalised plans to introduce a London congestion charge, which was to be introduced as soon as the technical details of fee collection were solved. Castle urged New York's Transport Commissioner to adopt the same policy, describing plans for more roadways as "self-defeating", stating the solution was "more and better mass transit systems".


title: Barbara Castle

text: Castle also sanctioned the construction of the Humber Bridge, which was the world's longest suspension bridge upon its opening in 1981. In late 1965, the Labour MP for nearby Kingston upon Hull North died, triggering a by-election. The marginal seat was of critical importance to the government and its loss would have reduced Labour's majority in the House of Commons to just one. Harold Wilson invoked Castle to find the necessary funding and promise the bridge's construction as an 'election sweetener'. The move paid off, with Labour holding the seat.


title: Barbara Castle

text: She presided over the closure of approximately 2,050 miles of railways as she enacted her part of the Beeching cuts—a betrayal of pre-election commitments by the Labour party to halt the proposals. Nevertheless, she refused closure of several lines, one example being the Looe Valley Line in Cornwall, and introduced the first Government rail subsidies for socially necessary but unprofitable railways in the Transport Act 1968.


title: Barbara Castle

text: One of her most memorable achievements as Transport minister was to pass legislation decreeing that all new cars had to be fitted with seat belts. Despite being appointed to the Ministry of Transport, a role which she was originally unenthusiastic about, Castle could not actually drive herself, and was chauffeured to functions. (The Labour politician Hazel Blears recalled driving Castle at one time as a young Labour Party activist in the 1980s.) Despite her lack of a driving licence, she attracted controversy when she told local government leaders to give added emphasis to motor vehicle access in urban areas, as "most pedestrians are walking to or from their cars."


title: Barbara Castle

text: Castle and her husband, Edward Castle, had bought a new flat in John Spencer Square in late 1967 while she was the Minister of Transport.


title: Barbara Castle

text: As Secretary of State for Employment, Castle was also appointed First Secretary of State by Wilson, bringing her firmly into the heart of government. She was never far from controversy which reached a fever pitch when the trade unions rebelled against her proposals to reduce their powers in her 1969 white paper, 'In Place of Strife'. This also involved a major cabinet split, with threatened resignations, hot tempers and her future nemesis James Callaghan breaking ranks to publicly try to undermine the bill. The whole episode alienated her from many of her friends on the left, with the "Tribune" newspaper railing very hard against the bill, which they held to be attacking the workers without attacking the bosses. The split is often said to have been partly responsible for Labour's defeat at the 1970 general election. The eventual deal with the unions dropped most of the contentious clauses.


title: Barbara Castle

text: Castle also helped make history when she intervened in the Ford sewing machinists' strike of 1968, in which the women of the Dagenham Ford Plant demanded to be paid the same as their male counterparts. She helped resolve the strike, which resulted in a pay rise for Ford's female workers bringing them to 92 per cent of what the men received. Most significantly, as a consequence of this strike, Castle put through the Equal Pay Act 1970. A 2010 British film, "Made in Dagenham", was based on the Ford strike. She was portrayed by Miranda Richardson.


title: Barbara Castle

text: In April 1970, Castle's husband, Ted, lost his position as an alderman of the Greater London Council. He was devastated and although he was supportive of his wife's achievements, he considered himself a failure compared to her. Upset and concerned by her husband's distress, Barbara moved to persuade Wilson to grant Ted a peerage.


title: Barbara Castle

text: In May 1970, Wilson called a general election, held on 18 June. The Conservative Party, led by Edward Heath, enjoyed a surprise victory, despite opinion polling indicating a steady lead for Labour in the run-up. Castle privately blamed complacency within Labour for their loss and had expressed scepticism about their poll lead, writing in her diaries: "I have a haunting feeling there is a silent majority sitting behind its lace curtains waiting to come out and vote Tory."


title: Barbara Castle

text: In the immediate aftermath of the government's defeat, Castle found she was out of favour with Wilson. The day following the general election, Wilson held a final inner Cabinet meeting at Downing Street, to which Castle was not invited. Eager to make contact, she later called him at Chequers, where Wilson engaged in a brusque telephone conversation with her.


title: Barbara Castle

text: Refusing to acknowledge her career had been curtailed, Castle proposed to run for deputy leadership of the Parliamentary Labour Party. When she informed Wilson of her plans he was furious; Castle's reputation within the party had been damaged by the failure of "In Place of Strife" and Wilson censured her, claiming her plan would split the party. In an act of retribution for her challenge to the deputy leadership, Wilson impeded Ted Castle's peerage, which he had all but promised prior to the general election.


title: Barbara Castle

text: Despite not being elected to the Shadow Cabinet, Castle remained as the Labour shadow spokesperson on Employment. The new Government introduced many of her policy suggestions as part of their Industrial Relations Act. When she was attacking the Conservative bill, the government simply pointed to her own white paper, following which Wilson reshuffled her first to the health portfolio and then out of the shadow cabinet.


title: Barbara Castle

text: Despite having been on the Labour back benches since 1972 and not part of the shadow cabinet, in 1974, after Harold Wilson's defeat of Edward Heath, Castle became Secretary of State for Health and Social Services. While serving in this position, Castle introduced a wide range of innovative welfare reforms, including the introduction of the mobility allowance, the Invalid Care Allowance (July 1976) for single women and others who give up their jobs to care for severely disabled relatives, the introduction of a non-contributory invalidity pension for disabled persons who had not qualified for invalidity pension, reforms in child allowances, and the linking of most social security benefits to earnings rather than prices. She sought to remove private "pay beds" from the NHS, in conflict with the British Medical Association.


title: Barbara Castle

text: In the 1975 referendum debate she took a Eurosceptic stance. During a debate with Liberal leader Jeremy Thorpe he asked her whether, if the vote would be yes, she would stay on as a minister. To this she replied: "If the vote is yes my country will need me to save it." Despite her views she later became a Member of the European Parliament (1979–1989). Her public support of leaving the EEC infuriated Wilson. Castle recorded in her diary and in her subsequent autobiography that Wilson summoned her to Downing Street where he angrily accused her of disloyalty and that, as he had brought her back into the cabinet against others' wishes and advice, he deserved better from her. Castle claimed she offered to resign, but Wilson calmed down and she continued to campaign for leaving in the referendum.


title: Barbara Castle

text: In 1975, Castle introduced the Child Benefit Act, superseding the Family Allowances Act 1945. The act provided new support for families' first child, unlike the previous system in place, which provided benefit for second and subsequent children. Castle also ensured child benefit would be paid directly to mothers, not fathers, unlike Family Allowance, the previous system in place. The legislation faced opposition from unions whose male members would receive less take-home pay with the loss of Family Allowance.


title: Barbara Castle

text: Castle remained in cabinet until Wilson's resignation in March 1976. The head of the Downing Street policy unit, Bernard Donoughue, records in his diary that he warned Wilson that Castle's dogged pursuit of personal policy stances on public health would "wreck the NHS". Donoughue claims that Wilson agreed, but admitted he would leave it to his successor to resolve.


title: Barbara Castle

text: Castle lost her place as a Cabinet minister when her bitter political enemy James Callaghan succeeded Wilson as prime minister following a leadership election. Although he left Wilson's Cabinet virtually unchanged, he dismissed Castle almost immediately upon taking office, in the midst of a complex health bill that she was steering through the House Commons at the time. Although he had not yet decided on her successor at the time he fired her, Callaghan removed her under the pretext he wanted to lower the average age of his Cabinet, which she regarded as a "phoney reason". In an interview years later, she remarked that perhaps the most restrained thing she had ever achieved in her life was not to reply with "Then why not start with yourself, Jim?" (Callaghan was four years older than Wilson, the man he was replacing, and less than 18 months younger than Castle). Castle was angry to discover that Wilson had broken a private confidence in informing Callaghan that she had intended to retire from the cabinet before the next election.


title: Barbara Castle

text: Less than a month after she left Westminster in 1979 she stood for and was elected to the European Parliament, writing in the "Tribune" that "politics is not just about policies: it is about fighting for them in every available forum and at every opportunity." In 1982 she wrote in the "New Statesman" that Labour should abandon its opposition to British membership of the EEC and that the UK should fight its corner inside it. This led her former ally Ian Mikardo to say to her: "Your name is mud".


title: Barbara Castle

text: She represented Greater Manchester North from 1979 to 1984, and was then elected to represent Greater Manchester West from 1984 to 1989. She was at that time the only British MEP to have held a cabinet position.


title: Barbara Castle

text: Castle led Labour's delegation in the European Parliament. She also served as vice-chair of the Socialist Group, a member of the Committee on Agriculture, Fisheries and Rural Development, and a member of the Delegation for Relations with Malta.


title: Barbara Castle

text: "The Castle Diaries" were published in two volumes in 1980 and 1984, chronicling her time in office from 1964 to 1976 and providing insights into the workings of cabinet government. Edmund Dell, reviewing the diaries that cover the years 1974–76 in the "London Review of Books", wrote that the volume "shows more about the nature of cabinet government – even though it deals with only one Cabinet – than any previous publication, academic, political or biographical. It is, I think, better than Crossman". Michael Foot in the "Listener" claimed that the book, "whatever else it is or not, is a human document, hopelessly absorbing". Paul Johnson wrote in the "Sunday Telegraph" that it was "a contribution of first-rate importance to our knowledge of modern politics".


title: Barbara Castle

text: In 1974 Ted Castle was made a life peer. This meant that Barbara was now formally Lady Castle, though she refused to use this courtesy title. Ted Castle died in 1979. On 16 July 1990 she was created a life peer in her own right, as Baroness Castle of Blackburn, of Ibstone in the County of Buckinghamshire. She remained active in politics up until her death, attacking the then Chancellor, Gordon Brown, at the Labour party conference in 2001 for his refusal to link pensions to earnings.


title: Barbara Castle

text: Castle was a critic of Blairism and "New Labour", in particular on economic policy, which she perceived as involving acceptance of "market economics, unchallenged globalisation and the dominance of the multinationals". She also accused Blairites of distorting and dismissing the Labour Party's past, stating in an interview published in the "New Statesman" in 2000, the year of the party's centenary:"They do not seem to have realised that all governments, whatever their complexion, end in apparent failure. Macmillan was triumphant in 1959 and was biting the dust shortly afterwards. Heath won in 1970, and spent three and half years doing U-turns, looking for the perfect answer. Thatcher was a remarkable woman, but her premiership ended in ignominy. But the current leadership seems preoccupied by the failing of Labour in power and in opposition."


title: Barbara Castle

text: Barbara Castle died of pneumonia and chronic lung disease at Hell Corner Farm, her home in Ibstone, Buckinghamshire, on 3 May 2002.


title: Barbara Castle

text: Castle has been acknowledged as the most important female Labour politician of the 20th century. An adept and gripping orator, Castle gained a reputation as a strong-willed, sometimes single-minded crusader. Political commentator Andrew Marr wrote of Castle in 1993: "Performance has been at the centre of her career. She makes excellent television and was a good Commons speaker. But she was really made for the platform, either at Labour conferences or during election campaigns. There, her wit, self-confidence and theatricality were displayed. A good Castle speech is unforgettable."


title: Barbara Castle

text: She was admired by Bill Deedes, Conservative politician and editor of "The Daily Telegraph", for "her astonishing tenacity, her capacity for getting her own way in Cabinet and nearly everywhere else," though he derided her politics. To her allies, Castle was loyal and would fiercely defend them. Colleague Roy Hattersley credited her with saving his career by insisting he remain her junior Minister when Harold Wilson attempted to sack him. Nevertheless, she remained unforgiving of her enemies; when questioned on James Callaghan in a 2000 interview in the "New Statesman", Castle said: "I think it is safest all round if I don't comment on him."


title: Barbara Castle

text: Referred to disparagingly by fellow Labour MP Gerald Kaufman as "the Norma Desmond of politics [...] always ready for her close-up", she was noted for always paying particular attention to her appearance. Variously described as sophisticated, stylish and glamorous, Castle was also characterised as vain, while her critics called her egocentric. Former Labour leader Neil Kinnock recalled she was distraught when her hairdresser cancelled before a television appearance; in response, Castle said: "If you're a woman in the public eye, getting your hair nice is a constant preoccupation." Her weekly appointments with her hairdresser were "an essential Friday engagement" according to Hattersley, although she occasionally wore a wig – which she nicknamed Lucy – for public appearances without the benefit of her hairdresser to hand.


title: Barbara Castle

text: In 2008, Castle was named by "The Guardian" as one of four of "Labour's greatest heroes" and in 2016 she was named on BBC Radio 4's "Woman's Hour" Power List as one of seven women judged to have had the biggest impact on women's lives over the past 70 years, alongside Margaret Thatcher, Helen Brook, Germaine Greer, Jayaben Desai, Bridget Jones, and Beyoncé. Several women politicians have cited Castle as an inspiration for embarking on their careers, including Shadow Foreign Secretary Emily Thornberry, Tulip Siddiq, and former Conservative MP Edwina Currie.


title: Barbara Castle

text: Since Castle's death there had been several plans mooted to memorialise her with a statue in her constituency town of Blackburn. In October 2021 a bronze statue of her was unveiled in Blackburn. The sculptor was Sam Holland. Castle is caught in mid-stride as she carries a copy of the Equal Pay Act 1970. In the town a dual carriageway that constitutes part of the ring road is named Barbara Castle Way.


title: Barbara Castle

text: She was commemorated on a postage stamp issued as part of the Royal Mail's Women of Distinction series in 2008 for piloting the Equal Pay Act through parliament. She appears on the 81p denomination.


title: Barbara Castle

text: Castle was portrayed by British actress Miranda Richardson in the 2010 film "Made in Dagenham", dealing with the 1968 strike at the Ford Dagenham assembly plant. She was later portrayed by stage actress Sophie-Louise Dann in the 2014 West End musical adaptation of the film. In the third series of Netflix drama "The Crown", Castle is portrayed by Lorraine Ashbourne. In the BBC One drama "The Trial of Christine Keeler" (2019–2020) Castle is portrayed by Buffy Davis.


title: Barbara Castle

text: Barbara Castle was a recipient of the Order of the Companions of O. R. Tambo in Silver, a South African award to foreign nationals for friendship with that country. In a statement the South African government recognised Castle's "outstanding contribution to the struggle against apartheid, and the establishment of a non-sexist, non-racial and democratic South Africa". Castle was an active supporter of the Anti-Apartheid Movement (AAM) in Britain from the very start of its existence.


title: Barbara Castle

text: In 1990 Castle received a Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany for "services to European democracy".


title: Barbara Castle

text: In 2002 Castle was posthumously awarded an honorary doctorate by the Open University for public service in areas of special educational concern to the university.


title: Barbara Castle

text: In September 2008 Northern Rail, Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council and the PTEG (Passenger Transport Executive Group) named a train after her. The plaque was unveiled by Castle's niece, Sonya Hinton, and Ruth Kelly MP, then Secretary of State for Transport. A commemorative brochure was produced by the PTEG for the event.


title: Pyridoxal phosphate

text: Pyridoxal phosphate (PLP, pyridoxal 5'-phosphate, P5P), the active form of vitamin B, is a coenzyme in a variety of enzymatic reactions. The International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology has catalogued more than 140 PLP-dependent activities, corresponding to ~4% of all classified activities. The versatility of PLP arises from its ability to covalently bind the substrate, and then to act as an electrophilic catalyst, thereby stabilizing different types of carbanionic reaction intermediates.


title: Pyridoxal phosphate

text: PLP acts as a coenzyme in all transamination reactions, and in certain decarboxylation, deamination, and racemization reactions of amino acids. The aldehyde group of PLP forms a Schiff-base linkage (internal aldimine) with the ε-amino group of a specific lysine group of the aminotransferase enzyme. The α-amino group of the amino acid substrate displaces the ε-amino group of the active-site lysine residue in a process known as transaldimination. The resulting external aldimine can lose a proton, carbon dioxide, or an amino acid sidechain to become a quinonoid intermediate, which in turn can act as a nucleophile in several reaction pathways.


title: Pyridoxal phosphate

text: In transamination, after deprotonation the quinonoid intermediate accepts a proton at a different position to become a ketimine. The resulting ketimine is hydrolysed so that the amino group remains on the complex. In addition, PLP is used by aminotransferases (or transaminases) that act upon unusual sugars such as perosamine and desosamine. In these reactions, the PLP reacts with glutamate, which transfers its alpha-amino group to PLP to make pyridoxamine phosphate (PMP). PMP then transfers its nitrogen to the sugar, making an amino sugar.


title: Pyridoxal phosphate

text: PLP is also involved in various beta-elimination reactions such as the reactions carried out by serine dehydratase and GDP-4-keto-6-deoxymannose-3-dehydratase (ColD).


title: Pyridoxal phosphate

text: PLP plays a role in the conversion of levodopa into dopamine, facilitates the conversion of the excitatory neurotransmitter glutamate to the inhibitory neurotransmitter GABA, and allows SAM to be decarboxylated to form propylamine, which is a precursor to polyamines.


title: Pyridoxal phosphate

text: PLP is also found on glycogen phosphorylase in the liver, where it is used to break down glycogen in glycogenolysis when glucagon or epinephrine signals it to do so. However, this enzyme does not exploit the reactive aldehyde group, but instead utilizes the phosphate group on PLP to perform its reaction.


title: Pyridoxal phosphate

text: Although the vast majority of PLP-dependent enzymes form an internal aldimine with PLP via an active site lysine residue, some PLP-dependent enzymes do not have this lysine residue, but instead have a histidine in the active site. In such a case, the histidine cannot form the internal aldimine, and, therefore, the co-factor does not become covalently tethered to the enzyme. GDP-4-keto-6-deoxymannose-3-dehydratase (ColD) is an example of such an enzyme.


title: Pyridoxal phosphate

text: Human Serine hydroxymethyltransferase 2 regulates one-carbon transfer reactions required for amino acid and nucleotide metabolism, and exists in dimeric and tetrameric forms. The dimeric SHMT2 variant is a potent inhibitor of the BRISC deubiquitylase enzyme complex, which regulates immune-based cell signaling. Recent studies show that SJMT2 tetramerization is induced by PLP. This prevents interaction with the BRISC deubiqutylase complex, potentially linking vitamin B6 levels and metabolism to inflammation.


title: Pyridoxal phosphate

text: The pyridoxal-5′-phosphate-dependent enzymes (PLP enzymes) catalyze myriad reactions. Although the scope of PLP-catalyzed reactions appears to be immense, the unifying principle is the formation of an internal lysine-derived aldimine. Once the amino substrate interacts with the active site, a new Schiff base is generated, commonly referred to as the external aldimine. After this step, the pathway for each PLP-catalyzed reactions diverge.


title: Pyridoxal phosphate

text: Specificity is conferred by the fact that, of the four bonds of the alpha-carbon of the amino acid aldimine state, the bond perpendicular to the pyridine ring will be broken (Dunathan Stereoelectronic Hypothesis). Consequently, specificity is dictated by how the enzymes bind their substrates.


title: Pyridoxal phosphate

text: An additional role in specificity is played by the ease of protonation of the pyridine ring nitrogen.


title: Pyridoxal phosphate

text: PLP is retained in the active site not only thanks to the lysine, but also thanks to the interaction of the phosphate group and a phosphate binding pocket and to a lesser extent thanks to base stacking of the pyridine ring with an overhanging aromatic residue, generally tyrosine (which may also partake in the acid–base catalysis). Despite the limited requirements for a PLP binding pocket, PLP enzymes belong to only five different families. These families do not correlate well with a particular type of reaction. The five families are classified as fold types followed by a Roman numeral.


title: Pyridoxal phosphate

text: Animals are auxotroph for this enzyme co-factor and require it or an intermediate to be supplemented, hence its classification as a vitamin B, unlike MoCo or CoQ10 for example. PLP is synthesized from pyridoxal by the enzyme pyridoxal kinase, requiring one ATP molecule. PLP is metabolized in the liver.


title: Pyridoxal phosphate

text: Two natural pathways for PLP are currently known: one requires deoxyxylulose 5-phosphate (DXP), while the other does not, hence they are known as DXP-dependent and DXP-independent. These pathways have been studied extensively in "Escherichia coli" and "Bacillus subtilis", respectively. Despite the disparity in the starting compounds and the different number of steps required, the two pathways possess many commonalities.


title: Pyridoxal phosphate

text: The DXP-dependent biosynthetic route requires several steps and a convergence of two branches, one producing 3-hydroxy-1-aminoacetone phosphate from erythrose 4-phosphate, while the other (single enzyme) producing deoxyxylulose 5-phosphate (DXP) from glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate (GAP) and pyruvate. The condensation product of 3-hydroxy-1-aminoacetone phosphate and deoxyxylulose 5-phosphate is pyridoxine 5'-phosphate. The condensation is catalyzed by PNP synthase, encoded by "pdxJ", which creates PNP (pyridoxine 5' phosphate). The final enzyme is PNP oxidase ("pdxH"), which catalyzes the oxidation of the 4' hydroxyl group to an aldehyde using dioxigen, resulting in hydrogen peroxide.


title: Pyridoxal phosphate

text: The first branch is catalyzed in "E. coli" by enzymes encoded by "epd", "pdxB", "serC" and "pdxA". These share mechanistical similarities and homology with the three enzymes in serine biosynthesis ("serA" (homologue of "pdxB"), "serC", "serB" — however, "epd" is a homologue of "gap"), which points towards a shared evolutionary origin of the two pathways. In several species there are two homologues of the "E. coli" "serC" gene, generally one in a ser operon ("serC"), and the other in a pdx operon, in which case it is called "pdxF".


title: Pyridoxal phosphate

text: A "serendipitous pathway" was found in an overexpression library that could suppress the auxotrophy caused by the deletion of pdxB (encoding erythronate 4 phosphate dehydrogenase) in "E. coli". The serendipitous pathway was very inefficient, but was possible due to the promiscuous activity of various enzymes. It started with 3-phosphohydroxypyruvate (the product of the "serA"-encoded enzyme in serine biosynthesis) and did not require erythronate-4-phosphate. 3PHP was dephosphorylated, resulting in an unstable intermediate that decarboxylates spontaneously (hence the presence of the phosphate in the serine biosynthetic pathway) to glycaldehyde. Glycaldehyde was condensed with glycine and the phosphorylated product was 4-phosphohydroxythreonine (4PHT), the canonical substate for 4-PHT dehydrogenase ("pdxA").


title: Pyridoxal phosphate

text: The DXP-independent PLP-biosynthetic route consists of a step catalyzed by PLP-synthase, an enzyme composed of two subunits. PdxS catalyzes the condensation of ribulose 5-phosphate, glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate, and ammonia, this latter molecules is produced by PdxT which catalyzes the production of ammonia from glutamine. PdxS is a (β/α)8 barrel (also known as a TIM-barrel) that forms a dodecamer.


title: Pyridoxal phosphate

text: The widespread utilization of PLP in central metabolism, especially in amino acid biosynthesis, and its activity in the absence of enzymes, suggests PLP may be a "prebiotic" compound—that is, one that predates the origin of organic life (not to be confused with prebiotic compounds, substances which serve as a food source for beneficial bacteria).


title: Pyridoxal phosphate

text: In fact, heating NH3 and Glycolaldehyde spontaneously forms a variety of pyridines, including pyridoxal. Under certain conditions, PLP is formed from cyanoacetylene, diacetylene, carbon monoxide, hydrogen, water, and a phosphoric acid.


title: Pyridoxal phosphate

text: One type of inhibitor forms an electrophile with PLP, causing it to irreversibly react with the active site lysine. Acetylenic compounds (e.g. propargylglycine) and vinylic compounds (e.g. vinylglycine) are such inhibitors.


title: Pyridoxal phosphate

text: A different type of inhibitor inactivates PLP, and such are α-methyl and amino-oxy substrate analogs (e.g. α-methylglutamate). Still other inhibitors have good leaving groups that nucleophilically attack the PLP. Such is chloroalanine, which inhibits a large number of enzymes.


title: Pyridoxal phosphate

text: Pyridoxal-5-phosphate (vitamin B6)-dependent enzymes have multiple evolutionary origins. The overall B6 enzymes diverged into four independent evolutionary lines: α family (i.e. aspartate aminotransferase), β family (serine dehydratase),D-alanine aminotransferase family and the alanine racemase family. An example of the evolutionary similarity in the Beta family is seen in the mechanism. The β enzymes are all lyases and catalyze reactions where Cα and Cβ participate. Overall, in the PLP-dependent enzymes, the PLP in every case is covalently attached via an imine bond to the amino group in the active site.


title: Czesław Miłosz

text: Czesław Miłosz (, , ; 30 June 1911 – 14 August 2004) was a Polish-American poet, prose writer, translator, and diplomat. Regarded as one of the great poets of the 20th century, he won the 1980 Nobel Prize in Literature. In its citation, the Swedish Academy called Miłosz a writer who "voices man's exposed condition in a world of severe conflicts".


title: Czesław Miłosz

text: Miłosz survived the German occupation of Warsaw during World War II and became a cultural attaché for the Polish government during the postwar period. When communist authorities threatened his safety, he defected to France and ultimately chose exile in the United States, where he became a professor at the University of California, Berkeley. His poetry—particularly about his wartime experience—and his appraisal of Stalinism in a prose book, "The Captive Mind", brought him renown as a leading "émigré" artist and intellectual.


title: Czesław Miłosz

text: Throughout his life and work, Miłosz tackled questions of morality, politics, history, and faith. As a translator, he introduced Western works to a Polish audience, and as a scholar and editor, he championed a greater awareness of Slavic literature in the West. Faith played a role in his work as he explored his Catholicism and personal experience. He wrote in Polish and English.


title: Czesław Miłosz

text: Miłosz died in Kraków, Poland, in 2004. He is interred in Skałka, a church known in Poland as a place of honor for distinguished Poles.


title: Czesław Miłosz

text: Czesław Miłosz was born on 30 June 1911, in the village of Šeteniai (), Kovno Governorate, Russian Empire (now Kėdainiai district, Kaunas County, Lithuania). He was the son of Aleksander Miłosz (1883–1959), a Polish civil engineer, and his wife, Weronika (née Kunat; 1887–1945).


title: Czesław Miłosz

text: Miłosz was born into a prominent family. On his mother's side, his grandfather was Zygmunt Kunat, a descendant of a Polish family that traced its lineage to the 13th century and owned an estate in Krasnogruda (in present-day Poland). Having studied agriculture in Warsaw, Zygmunt settled in Šeteniai after marrying Miłosz's grandmother, Jozefa, a descendant of the noble Syruć family, which was of Lithuanian origin. One of her ancestors, Szymon Syruć, had been personal secretary to Stanisław I, King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania. Miłosz's paternal grandfather, Artur Miłosz, was also from a noble family and fought in the 1863 January Uprising for Polish independence. Miłosz's grandmother, Stanisława, was a doctor's daughter from Riga, Latvia, and a member of the German/Polish von Mohl family. The Miłosz estate was in Serbiny, a name that Miłosz's biographer Andrzej Franaszek has suggested could indicate Serbian origin; it is possible the Miłosz family originated in Serbia and settled in present-day Lithuania after being expelled from Germany centuries earlier. Miłosz's father was born and educated in Riga. Miłosz's mother was born in Šeteniai and educated in Kraków.


title: Czesław Miłosz

text: Despite this noble lineage, Miłosz's childhood on his maternal grandfather's estate in Šeteniai lacked the trappings of wealth or the customs of the upper class. He memorialized his childhood in a 1955 novel, "The Issa Valley", and a 1959 memoir, "Native Realm." In these works, he described the influence of his Catholic grandmother, Jozefa, his burgeoning love for literature, and his early awareness, as a member of the Polish gentry in Lithuania, of the role of class in society.


title: Czesław Miłosz

text: Miłosz's early years were marked by upheaval. When his father was hired to work on infrastructure projects in Siberia, he and his mother traveled to be with him. After World War I broke out in 1914, Miłosz's father was conscripted into the Russian army, tasked with engineering roads and bridges for troop movements. Miłosz and his mother were sheltered in Vilnius when the German army captured it in 1915. Afterward, they once again joined Miłosz's father, following him as the front moved further into Russia, where, in 1917, Miłosz's brother, Andrzej, was born. Finally, after moving through Estonia and Latvia, the family returned to Šeteniai in 1918. But the Polish–Soviet War broke out in 1919, during which Miłosz's father was involved in a failed attempt to incorporate the newly independent Lithuania into the Second Polish Republic, resulting in his expulsion from Lithuania and the family's move to what was then known as Wilno, which had come under Polish control after the Polish–Lithuanian War of 1920. The Polish-Soviet War continued, forcing the family to move again. At one point during the conflict, Polish soldiers fired at Miłosz and his mother, an episode he recounted in "Native Realm." The family returned to Wilno after the war ended in 1921.


title: Czesław Miłosz

text: Despite the interruptions of wartime wanderings, Miłosz proved to be an exceptional student with a facility for languages. He ultimately learned Polish, Lithuanian, Russian, English, French, and Hebrew. After graduation from Sigismund Augustus Gymnasium in Wilno, he entered Stefan Batory University in 1929 as a law student. While at university, Miłosz joined a student group called The Intellectuals' Club and a student poetry group called Żagary, along with the young poets Jerzy Zagórski, Teodor Bujnicki, Aleksander Rymkiewicz, Jerzy Putrament, and Józef Maśliński. His first published poems appeared in the university's student magazine in 1930.


title: Czesław Miłosz

text: In 1931, he visited Paris, where he first met his distant cousin, Oscar Milosz, a French-language poet of Lithuanian descent who had become a Swedenborgian. Oscar became a mentor and inspiration. Returning to Wilno, Miłosz's early awareness of class difference and sympathy for those less fortunate than himself inspired his defense of Jewish students at the university who were being harassed by an anti-Semitic mob. Stepping between the mob and the Jewish students, Miłosz fended off attacks. One student was killed when a rock was thrown at his head.


title: Czesław Miłosz

text: Miłosz's first volume of poetry, "A Poem on Frozen Time", was published in Polish in 1933. In the same year, he publicly read his poetry at an anti-racist "Poetry of Protest" event in Wilno, occasioned by Hitler's rise to power in Germany. In 1934, he graduated with a law degree, and the poetry group Żagary disbanded. Miłosz relocated to Paris on a scholarship to study for one year and write articles for a newspaper back in Wilno. In Paris, he frequently met with his cousin Oscar.


title: Czesław Miłosz

text: By 1936, he had returned to Wilno, where he worked on literary programs at Radio Wilno. His second poetry collection, "Three Winters", was published that same year, eliciting from one critic a comparison to Adam Mickiewicz. After only one year at Radio Wilno, Miłosz was dismissed due to an accusation that he was a left-wing sympathizer: as a student, he had adopted socialist views from which, by then, he had publicly distanced himself, and he and his boss, Tadeusz Byrski, had produced programming that included performances by Jews and Byelorussians, which angered right-wing nationalists. After Byrski made a trip to the Soviet Union, an anonymous complaint was lodged with the management of Radio Wilno that the station housed a communist cell, and Byrski and Miłosz were dismissed. In summer 1937, Miłosz moved to Warsaw, where he found work at Polish Radio and met his future wife, Janina (née Dłuska; 1909–1986), who was at the time married to another man.


title: Czesław Miłosz

text: Miłosz was in Warsaw when it was bombarded as part of the German invasion of Poland in September 1939. Along with colleagues from Polish Radio, he escaped the city, making his way to Lwów. But when he learned that Janina had remained in Warsaw with her parents, he looked for a way back. The Soviet invasion of Poland thwarted his plans, and, to avoid the incoming Red Army, he fled to Bucharest. There he obtained a Lithuanian identity document and Soviet visa that allowed him to travel by train to Kyiv and then Wilno. After the Red Army invaded Lithuania, he procured fake documents that he used to enter the part of German-occupied Poland the Germans had dubbed the "General Government". It was a difficult journey, mostly on foot, that ended in summer 1940. Finally back in Warsaw, he reunited with Janina.


title: Czesław Miłosz

text: Like many Poles at the time, to evade notice by German authorities, Miłosz participated in underground activities. For example, with higher education officially forbidden to Poles, he attended underground lectures by Władysław Tatarkiewicz, the Polish philosopher and historian of philosophy and aesthetics. He translated Shakespeare's "As You Like It" and T. S. Eliot's "The Waste Land" into Polish. Along with his friend the novelist Jerzy Andrzejewski, he also arranged for the publication of his third volume of poetry, "Poems", under a pseudonym in September 1940. The pseudonym was "Jan Syruć" and the title page said the volume had been published by a fictional press in Lwów in 1939; in fact, it may have been the first clandestine book published in occupied Warsaw. In 1942, Miłosz arranged for the publication of an anthology of Polish poets, "Invincible Song: Polish Poetry of War Time", by an underground press.


title: Czesław Miłosz

text: Miłosz's riskiest underground wartime activity was aiding Jews in Warsaw, which he did through an underground socialist organization called Freedom. His brother, Andrzej, was also active in helping Jews in Nazi-occupied Poland; in 1943, he transported the Polish Jew Seweryn Tross and his wife from Vilnius to Warsaw. Miłosz took in the Trosses, found them a hiding place, and supported them financially. The Trosses ultimately died during the Warsaw Uprising. Miłosz helped at least three other Jews in similar ways: Felicja Wołkomińska and her brother and sister.


title: Czesław Miłosz

text: Despite his willingness to engage in underground activity and vehement opposition to the Nazis, Miłosz did not join the Polish Home Army. In later years, he explained that this was partly out of an instinct for self-preservation and partly because he saw its leadership as right-wing and dictatorial. He also did not participate in the planning or execution of the Warsaw Uprising. According to Irena Grudzińska-Gross, he saw the uprising as a "doomed military effort" and lacked the "patriotic elation" for it. He called the uprising "a blameworthy, lightheaded enterprise", but later criticized the Red Army for failing to support it when it had the opportunity to do so.


title: Czesław Miłosz

text: As German troops began torching Warsaw buildings in August 1944, Miłosz was captured and held in a prisoner transit camp; he was later rescued by a Catholic nun—a stranger to him—who pleaded with the Germans on his behalf. Once freed, he and Janina escaped the city, ultimately settling in a village outside Kraków, where they were staying when the Red Army swept through Poland in January 1945, after Warsaw had been largely destroyed.


title: Czesław Miłosz

text: In the preface to his 1953 book "The Captive Mind", Miłosz wrote, "I do not regret those years in Warsaw, which was, I believe, the most agonizing spot in the whole of terrorized Europe. Had I then chosen emigration, my life would certainly have followed a very different course. But my knowledge of the crimes which Europe has witnessed in the twentieth century would be less direct, less concrete than it is". Immediately after the war, Miłosz published his fourth poetry collection, "Rescue"; it focused on his wartime experiences and contains some of his most critically praised work, including the 20-poem cycle "The World," composed like a primer for naïve schoolchildren, and the cycle "Voices of Poor People". The volume also contains some of his most frequently anthologized poems, including "A Song on the End of the World", "Campo Dei Fiori", and "A Poor Christian Looks at the Ghetto".