title: Telecommunications engineering

text: Telecommunication systems are generally designed by telecommunication engineers which sprang from technological improvements in the telegraph industry in the late 19th century and the radio and the telephone industries in the early 20th century. Today, telecommunication is widespread and devices that assist the process, such as the television, radio and telephone, are common in many parts of the world. There are also many networks that connect these devices, including computer networks, public switched telephone network (PSTN), radio networks, and television networks. Computer communication across the Internet is one of many examples of telecommunication. Telecommunication plays a vital role in the world economy, and the telecommunication industry's revenue has been placed at just under 3% of the gross world product.


title: Telecommunications engineering

text: Samuel Morse independently developed a version of the electrical telegraph that he unsuccessfully demonstrated on 2 September 1837. Soon after he was joined by Alfred Vail who developed the register — a telegraph terminal that integrated a logging device for recording messages to paper tape. This was demonstrated successfully over three miles (five kilometres) on 6 January 1838 and eventually over forty miles (sixty-four kilometres) between Washington, D.C. and Baltimore on 24 May 1844. The patented invention proved lucrative and by 1851 telegraph lines in the United States spanned over 20,000 miles (32,000 kilometres).


title: Telecommunications engineering

text: The first successful transatlantic telegraph cable was completed on 27 July 1866, allowing transatlantic telecommunication for the first time. Earlier transatlantic cables installed in 1857 and 1858 only operated for a few days or weeks before they failed. The international use of the telegraph has sometimes been dubbed the "Victorian Internet".


title: Telecommunications engineering

text: The first commercial telephone services were set up in 1878 and 1879 on both sides of the Atlantic in the cities of New Haven and London. Alexander Graham Bell held the master patent for the telephone that was needed for such services in both countries. The technology grew quickly from this point, with inter-city lines being built and telephone exchanges in every major city of the United States by the mid-1880s. Despite this, transatlantic voice communication remained impossible for customers until January 7, 1927, when a connection was established using radio. However no cable connection existed until TAT-1 was inaugurated on September 25, 1956, providing 36 telephone circuits.


title: Telecommunications engineering

text: In 1880, Bell and co-inventor Charles Sumner Tainter conducted the world's first wireless telephone call via modulated lightbeams projected by photophones. The scientific principles of their invention would not be utilized for several decades, when they were first deployed in military and fiber-optic communications.


title: Telecommunications engineering

text: Over several years starting in 1894 the Italian inventor Guglielmo Marconi built the first complete, commercially successful wireless telegraphy system based on airborne electromagnetic waves (radio transmission). In December 1901, he would go on to established wireless communication between Britain and Newfoundland, earning him the Nobel Prize in physics in 1909 (which he shared with Karl Braun). In 1900 Reginald Fessenden was able to wirelessly transmit a human voice. On March 25, 1925, Scottish inventor John Logie Baird publicly demonstrated the transmission of moving silhouette pictures at the London department store Selfridges. In October 1925, Baird was successful in obtaining moving pictures with halftone shades, which were by most accounts the first true television pictures. This led to a public demonstration of the improved device on 26 January 1926 again at Selfridges. Baird's first devices relied upon the Nipkow disk and thus became known as the mechanical television. It formed the basis of semi-experimental broadcasts done by the British Broadcasting Corporation beginning September 30, 1929.


title: Telecommunications engineering

text: The first U.S. satellite to relay communications was Project SCORE in 1958, which used a tape recorder to store and forward voice messages. It was used to send a Christmas greeting to the world from U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower. In 1960 NASA launched an Echo satellite; the aluminized PET film balloon served as a passive reflector for radio communications. Courier 1B, built by Philco, also launched in 1960, was the world's first active repeater satellite. Satellites these days are used for many applications such as uses in GPS, television, internet and telephone uses.


title: Telecommunications engineering

text: Telstar was the first active, direct relay commercial communications satellite. Belonging to AT&T as part of a multi-national agreement between AT&T, Bell Telephone Laboratories, NASA, the British General Post Office, and the French National PTT (Post Office) to develop satellite communications, it was launched by NASA from Cape Canaveral on July 10, 1962, the first privately sponsored space launch. Relay 1 was launched on December 13, 1962, and became the first satellite to broadcast across the Pacific on November 22, 1963.


title: Telecommunications engineering

text: The first and historically most important application for communication satellites was in intercontinental long distance telephony. The fixed Public Switched Telephone Network relays telephone calls from land line telephones to an earth station, where they are then transmitted a receiving satellite dish via a geostationary satellite in Earth orbit. Improvements in submarine communications cables, through the use of fiber-optics, caused some decline in the use of satellites for fixed telephony in the late 20th century, but they still exclusively service remote islands such as Ascension Island, Saint Helena, Diego Garcia, and Easter Island, where no submarine cables are in service. There are also some continents and some regions of countries where landline telecommunications are rare to nonexistent, for example Antarctica, plus large regions of Australia, South America, Africa, Northern Canada, China, Russia and Greenland.


title: Telecommunications engineering

text: After commercial long distance telephone service was established via communication satellites, a host of other commercial telecommunications were also adapted to similar satellites starting in 1979, including mobile satellite phones, satellite radio, satellite television and satellite Internet access. The earliest adaption for most such services occurred in the 1990s as the pricing for commercial satellite transponder channels continued to drop significantly.


title: Telecommunications engineering

text: On 11 September 1940, George Stibitz was able to transmit problems using teleprinter to his Complex Number Calculator in New York and receive the computed results back at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire. This configuration of a centralized computer or mainframe computer with remote "dumb terminals" remained popular throughout the 1950s and into the 1960s. However, it was not until the 1960s that researchers started to investigate packet switching — a technology that allows chunks of data to be sent between different computers without first passing through a centralized mainframe. A four-node network emerged on 5 December 1969. This network soon became the ARPANET, which by 1981 would consist of 213 nodes.


title: Telecommunications engineering

text: ARPANET's development centered around the Request for Comment process and on 7 April 1969, RFC 1 was published. This process is important because ARPANET would eventually merge with other networks to form the Internet, and many of the communication protocols that the Internet relies upon today were specified through the Request for Comment process. In September 1981, RFC 791 introduced the Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) and RFC 793 introduced the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) — thus creating the TCP/IP protocol that much of the Internet relies upon today.


title: Telecommunications engineering

text: Optical fiber can be used as a medium for telecommunication and computer networking because it is flexible and can be bundled into cables. It is especially advantageous for long-distance communications, because light propagates through the fiber with little attenuation compared to electrical cables. This allows long distances to be spanned with few repeaters.


title: Telecommunications engineering

text: In 1966 Charles K. Kao and George Hockham proposed optical fibers at STC Laboratories (STL) at Harlow, England, when they showed that the losses of 1000 dB/km in existing glass (compared to 5-10 dB/km in coaxial cable) was due to contaminants, which could potentially be removed.


title: Telecommunications engineering

text: Optical fiber was successfully developed in 1970 by Corning Glass Works, with attenuation low enough for communication purposes (about 20dB/km), and at the same time GaAs (Gallium arsenide) semiconductor lasers were developed that were compact and therefore suitable for transmitting light through fiber optic cables for long distances.


title: Telecommunications engineering

text: After a period of research starting from 1975, the first commercial fiber-optic communications system was developed, which operated at a wavelength around 0.8 µm and used GaAs semiconductor lasers. This first-generation system operated at a bit rate of 45 Mbps with repeater spacing of up to 10 km. Soon on 22 April 1977, General Telephone and Electronics sent the first live telephone traffic through fiber optics at a 6 Mbit/s throughput in Long Beach, California.


title: Telecommunications engineering

text: The first wide area network fibre optic cable system in the world seems to have been installed by Rediffusion in Hastings, East Sussex, UK in 1978. The cables were placed in ducting throughout the town, and had over 1000 subscribers. They were used at that time for the transmission of television channels, not available because of local reception problems.


title: Telecommunications engineering

text: The first transatlantic telephone cable to use optical fiber was TAT-8, based on Desurvire optimized laser amplification technology. It went into operation in 1988.


title: Telecommunications engineering

text: In the late 1990s through 2000, industry promoters, and research companies such as KMI, and RHK predicted massive increases in demand for communications bandwidth due to increased use of the Internet, and commercialization of various bandwidth-intensive consumer services, such as video on demand. Internet protocol data traffic was increasing exponentially, at a faster rate than integrated circuit complexity had increased under Moore's Law.


title: Telecommunications engineering

text: Transmitter (information source) that takes information and converts it to a signal for transmission. In electronics and telecommunications a transmitter or radio transmitter is an electronic device which, with the aid of an antenna, produces radio waves. In addition to their use in broadcasting, transmitters are necessary component parts of many electronic devices that communicate by radio, such as cell phones,


title: Telecommunications engineering

text: Transmission medium over which the signal is transmitted. For example, the transmission medium for sounds is usually air, but solids and liquids may also act as transmission media for sound. Many transmission media are used as communications channel. One of the most common physical medias used in networking is copper wire. Copper wire is used to carry signals to long distances using relatively low amounts of power. Another example of a physical medium is optical fiber, which has emerged as the most commonly used transmission medium for long-distance communications. Optical fiber is a thin strand of glass that guides light along its length.


title: Telecommunications engineering

text: The absence of a material medium in vacuum may also constitute a transmission medium for electromagnetic waves such as light and radio waves.


title: Telecommunications engineering

text: Receiver (information sink) that receives and converts the signal back into required information. In radio communications, a radio receiver is an electronic device that receives radio waves and converts the information carried by them to a usable form. It is used with an antenna. The information produced by the receiver may be in the form of sound (an audio signal), images (a video signal) or digital data.


title: Telecommunications engineering

text: Wired communications make use of underground communications cables (less often, overhead lines), electronic signal amplifiers (repeaters) inserted into connecting cables at specified points, and terminal apparatus of various types, depending on the type of wired communications used.


title: Telecommunications engineering

text: Wireless communication involves the transmission of information over a distance without help of wires, cables or any other forms of electrical conductors. Wireless operations permit services, such as long-range communications, that are impossible or impractical to implement with the use of wires. The term is commonly used in the telecommunications industry to refer to telecommunications systems (e.g. radio transmitters and receivers, remote controls etc.) which use some form of energy (e.g. radio waves, acoustic energy, etc.) to transfer information without the use of wires. Information is transferred in this manner over both short and long distances.


title: Telecommunications engineering

text: A telecom equipment engineer is an electronics engineer that designs equipment such as routers, switches, multiplexers, and other specialized computer/electronics equipment designed to be used in the telecommunication network infrastructure.


title: Telecommunications engineering

text: A network engineer is a computer engineer who is in charge of designing, deploying and maintaining computer networks. In addition, they oversee network operations from a network operations center, designs backbone infrastructure, or supervises interconnections in a data center.


title: Telecommunications engineering

text: A central-office engineer is responsible for designing and overseeing the implementation of telecommunications equipment in a central office (CO for short), also referred to as a wire center or telephone exchange A CO engineer is responsible for integrating new technology into the existing network, assigning the equipment's location in the wire center, and providing power, clocking (for digital equipment), and alarm monitoring facilities for the new equipment. The CO engineer is also responsible for providing more power, clocking, and alarm monitoring facilities if there are currently not enough available to support the new equipment being installed. Finally, the CO engineer is responsible for designing how the massive amounts of cable will be distributed to various equipment and wiring frames throughout the wire center and overseeing the installation and turn up of all new equipment.


title: Telecommunications engineering

text: As structural engineers, CO engineers are responsible for the structural design and placement of racking and bays for the equipment to be installed in as well as for the plant to be placed on.


title: Telecommunications engineering

text: As electrical engineers, CO engineers are responsible for the resistance, capacitance, and inductance (RCL) design of all new plant to ensure telephone service is clear and crisp and data service is clean as well as reliable. Attenuation or gradual loss in intensity and loop loss calculations are required to determine cable length and size required to provide the service called for. In addition, power requirements have to be calculated and provided to power any electronic equipment being placed in the wire center.


title: Telecommunications engineering

text: Overall, CO engineers have seen new challenges emerging in the CO environment. With the advent of Data Centers, Internet Protocol (IP) facilities, cellular radio sites, and other emerging-technology equipment environments within telecommunication networks, it is important that a consistent set of established practices or requirements be implemented.


title: Telecommunications engineering

text: Installation suppliers or their sub-contractors are expected to provide requirements with their products, features, or services. These services might be associated with the installation of new or expanded equipment, as well as the removal of existing equipment.


title: Telecommunications engineering

text: Outside plant (OSP) engineers are also often called field engineers because they frequently spend much time in the field taking notes about the civil environment, aerial, above ground, and below ground. OSP engineers are responsible for taking plant (copper, fiber, etc.) from a wire center to a distribution point or destination point directly. If a distribution point design is used, then a cross-connect box is placed in a strategic location to feed a determined distribution area.


title: Telecommunications engineering

text: The cross-connect box, also known as a serving area interface, is then installed to allow connections to be made more easily from the wire center to the destination point and ties up fewer facilities by not having dedication facilities from the wire center to every destination point. The plant is then taken directly to its destination point or to another small closure called a terminal, where access can also be gained to the plant if necessary. These access points are preferred as they allow faster repair times for customers and save telephone operating companies large amounts of money.


title: Telecommunications engineering

text: The plant facilities can be delivered via underground facilities, either direct buried or through conduit or in some cases laid under water, via aerial facilities such as telephone or power poles, or via microwave radio signals for long distances where either of the other two methods is too costly.


title: Telecommunications engineering

text: As structural engineers, OSP engineers are responsible for the structural design and placement of cellular towers and telephone poles as well as calculating pole capabilities of existing telephone or power poles onto which new plant is being added. Structural calculations are required when boring under heavy traffic areas such as highways or when attaching to other structures such as bridges. Shoring also has to be taken into consideration for larger trenches or pits. Conduit structures often include encasements of slurry that needs to be designed to support the structure and withstand the environment around it (soil type, high traffic areas, etc.).


title: Telecommunications engineering

text: As electrical engineers, OSP engineers are responsible for the resistance, capacitance, and inductance (RCL) design of all new plant to ensure telephone service is clear and crisp and data service is clean as well as reliable. Attenuation or gradual loss in intensity and loop loss calculations are required to determine cable length and size required to provide the service called for. In addition power requirements have to be calculated and provided to power any electronic equipment being placed in the field. Ground potential has to be taken into consideration when placing equipment, facilities, and plant in the field to account for lightning strikes, high voltage intercept from improperly grounded or broken power company facilities, and from various sources of electromagnetic interference.


title: Telecommunications engineering

text: As civil engineers, OSP engineers are responsible for drafting plans, either by hand or using Computer-aided design (CAD) software, for how telecom plant facilities will be placed. Often when working with municipalities trenching or boring permits are required and drawings must be made for these. Often these drawings include about 70% or so of the detailed information required to pave a road or add a turn lane to an existing street. Structural calculations are required when boring under heavy traffic areas such as highways or when attaching to other structures such as bridges. As civil engineers, telecom engineers provide the modern communications backbone for all technological communications distributed throughout civilizations today.


title: Telecommunications engineering

text: Unique to telecom engineering is the use of air-core cable which requires an extensive network of air handling equipment such as compressors, manifolds, regulators and hundreds of miles of air pipe per system that connects to pressurized splice cases all designed to pressurize this special form of copper cable to keep moisture out and provide a clean signal to the customer.


title: Telecommunications engineering

text: As political and social ambassador, the OSP engineer is a telephone operating company's face and voice to the local authorities and other utilities. OSP engineers often meet with municipalities, construction companies and other utility companies to address their concerns and educate them about how the telephone utility works and operates. Additionally, the OSP engineer has to secure real estate in which to place outside facilities, such as an easement to place a cross-connect box.


title: Chief Secretary to the Treasury

text: The chief secretary to the Treasury is a ministerial office in the government of the United Kingdom. The office is the second most senior in the Treasury, after the chancellor of the Exchequer. The office was created in 1961, to share the burden of representing the Treasury with the chancellor.


title: Chief Secretary to the Treasury

text: The minister is shadowed by the shadow chief secretary to the Treasury who sits on the Official Opposition frontbench.


title: Chief Secretary to the Treasury

text: Between 1961 and 2015, the holder of the office of Chief Secretary to the Treasury was of full cabinet rank. This formally made the HM Treasury the only department to have more than one ministerial position of cabinet rank. Since 2015, however, the status of the office has been reduced to "also attending Cabinet".


title: City of Cape Town

text: The City of Cape Town (; ) is the metropolitan municipality which governs the city of Cape Town, South Africa and its suburbs and exurbs. As of the 2011 census, it had a population of 3,740,026.


title: City of Cape Town

text: The remote Prince Edward Islands are deemed to be part of the City of Cape Town, specifically of ward 115. Cllr. Ian McMahon is the current ward councilor of ward 115.


title: City of Cape Town

text: Cape Town first received local self-government in 1839, with the promulgation of a municipal ordinance by the government of the Cape Colony. When it was created, the Cape Town municipality governed only the central part of the city known as the City Bowl, and as the city expanded, new suburbs became new municipalities, until by 1902 there were 10 separate municipalities in the Cape Peninsula. During the 20th century, many of the inner suburban municipalities became unsustainable; in 1913 the first major unification took place when the municipalities of Cape Town, Green Point and Sea Point, Woodstock, Mowbray, Rondebosch, Claremont, Maitland, and Kalk Bay were unified to create the first City of Cape Town. In 1927 the municipality of Wynberg was also merged with Cape Town, with the result that all of the Southern Suburbs were incorporated into the City.


title: City of Cape Town

text: Many new municipalities were established during the 20th century. Durbanville achieved municipal status in 1901, Goodwood in 1938, Parow in 1939, Bellville and Fish Hoek in 1940, Pinelands in 1948, Kuils River in 1950, Milnerton in 1955, Kraaifontein in 1957, Gordon's Bay in 1961, Brackenfell in 1970. In 1979 Bellville was upgraded to city status. The areas not included in a municipality were governed by divisional councils. Most of the Cape metropolitan area fell under the Divisional Council of the Cape, while the eastern parts around Brackenfell, Kuils River and the Helderberg area formed part of the Divisional Council of Stellenbosch, and an area in the northeast around Kraaifontein formed part of the Divisional Council of Paarl.


title: City of Cape Town

text: In earlier years the right to vote in local elections was not restricted by race (see Cape Qualified Franchise), but the policies of the apartheid government aimed for complete segregation of local government. A 1962 amendment to the Group Areas Act introduced management committees for the areas designated for coloured and Indian residents. These management committees were subordinate to the existing local authorityeither a municipality or the divisional council. From 1972 no new non-white voters could be registered as voters for municipal or divisional councils, and existing non-white voters lost their voting rights when a management committee was established for the area where they lived.


title: City of Cape Town

text: In 1982 the Black Local Authorities Act created elected town councils for black communities. Five such councils were established in the Cape metropolitan areas. They were generally regarded as under-resourced and unsustainable, and were opposed by the United Democratic Front and other civic organisations. Turnout in BLA elections was very low.


title: City of Cape Town

text: In 1987 the divisional councils of the Cape, Paarl and Stellenbosch were dissolved and the Western Cape Regional Services Council (RSC) was created in their place. The RSC councils were indirectly elected, consisting of representatives nominated by all the local authorities within its area, including municipalities, management committees and town councils. The Cape Rural Council represented the rural areas of the RSC that were not included in any local authority. Also in 1987, an act of the House of Assembly allowed the creation of local councils for white communities in peri-urban areas.


title: City of Cape Town

text: Thus at the end of apartheid in 1994, there were over 50 different local authorities in existence in the metropolitan area, listed below.


title: City of Cape Town

text: As part of the post-1994 reforms, municipal government experienced a complete overhaul. The existing local authorities, political parties, ratepayers' organisations, and community organisations were brought together into a negotiating forum. This forum agreed on the creation of a two-level local government system consisting of multiple transitional metropolitan substructures (TMSs), brought together in a transitional metropolitan council named the Cape Metropolitan Council (CMC). The CMC would replace the Regional Services Council and take over its responsibilities; it would also be responsible for metro-level planning and co-ordination, improving service delivery in disadvantaged areas, and cross-subsidization of poorer areas with revenue from affluent areas. Initially, in a period called the "pre-interim phase", the existing local authorities would become TMSs but their councils would be replaced by councillors nominated by the members of the negotiating forum. This agreement came into effect, and the pre-interim phase began, on 1 February 1995.


title: City of Cape Town

text: The second phase of the transformation, known as the "interim phase" began on 29 May 1996 when local elections were held. The pre-interim TMSs were dissolved, and six new TMSs were established covering the whole metropolitan area: City of Cape Town (Central), City of Tygerberg, South Peninsula Municipality, Blaauwberg Municipality, Oostenberg Municipality, and Helderberg Municipality. The Cape Metropolitan Council continued with its coordinating functions.


title: City of Cape Town

text: In 1998 Parliament enacted legislation (the Municipal Structures Act) determining the final form of local government in post-apartheid South Africa. This legislation determined that metropolitan areas would be governed by unified metropolitan municipalities. Local elections were held on 5 December 2000; the Cape Metropolitan Council and the six interim TMSs were dissolved and replaced by the unified City of Cape Town. It is for this reason that the City of Cape Town is sometimes referred to as the "Unicity". At the time of the 2000 election the northern boundary of the metropolitan area was also extended to include Philadelphia, Klipheuwel, and the surrounding farmland.


title: City of Cape Town

text: The current municipality covers Cape Point in the south-west, Gordon's Bay in the south-east, and Atlantis in the north, and includes Robben Island.


title: City of Cape Town

text: Cape Town is governed by a 231-member city council elected in a system of mixed-member proportional representation. The city is divided into 116 wards, each of which elects a councillor by first-past-the-post voting. The remaining 115 councillors are elected from party lists so that the total number of councillors for each party is proportional to the number of votes received by that party.


title: City of Cape Town

text: The council is divided into 24 subcouncils which deal with local functions for between three and six wards. A subcouncil consists of the ward councillors and a similar number of proportionally-elected councillors assigned to the subcouncil. A subcounil is chaired by one of the councillors and appoints a manager to run its day-to-day business. A subcouncil does not have any inherent responsibilities in law, but it is entitled to make recommendations to the City Council about anything that affects its area. The City Council may also delegate responsibilities to the subcouncils.


title: City of Cape Town

text: The executive authority for the city is vested in an Executive Mayor who is elected by the council. The mayor appoints a mayoral committee whose members oversee various portfolios. A City Manager is appointed as the non-political head of the city's administration.


title: City of Cape Town

text: With the Democratic Alliance (DA) having won an absolute majority of council seats in the election of 1 November 2021, its mayoral candidate Geordin Hill-Lewis, who had been a Member of Parliament since 2011, was elected.


title: City of Cape Town

text: The Mayoral Committee consists of 10 members who are appointed by the Executive Mayor. Each member manages a different area of the local government.


title: City of Cape Town

text: The current city manager is Lungelo Mbandazayo. He had been the acting city manager since the former city manager Achmat Ebrahim, who was appointed in April 2006, resigned in January 2018 amid misconduct allegations. He was formally appointed city manager in April 2018.


title: City of Cape Town

text: The local municipality was one of the four to have passed the 2009-10 audit by the Auditor-General of South Africa, who deemed it to have a clean administration.


title: City of Cape Town

text: The City of Cape Town Metropolitan Municipality in its present form took shape after the 2000 municipal elections. The old Central Cape Town MLC council had been governed by the New National Party (NNP), but they were losing support to the African National Congress (ANC) and the Democratic Party (DP). Fearing further losses, the NNP agreed to contest the upcoming local election in December 2000 together with the DP by forming the Democratic Alliance (DA), with DP and NNP members running as DA candidates. The DA won Cape Town with an outright majority, and Peter Marais, also a senior member of the provincial NNP, became mayor of the unicity. However, DA leader Tony Leon's attempt to remove Marais from his position in 2001 caused the disintegration of the alliance, and NNP came to ally with the ANC. Marais was replaced as mayor by Gerald Morkel, but Morkel was himself soon ousted during the October 2002 local floor crossing period after a large number of DA councillors had defected to the NNP. Nomaindia Mfeketo of the ANC became mayor supported by an ANC-NNP coalition. In 2004, after a dismal showing in the general elections that year, the NNP prepared for dissolution and merger with the ANC, and most of its councillors joined the governing party. This gave the ANC an outright majority on the council, which lasted until the next election.


title: City of Cape Town

text: In the 2006 local government election, the DA was the largest single party, ahead of the ANC, but with no party holding a majority. The new


title: City of Cape Town

text: Independent Democrats (ID) led by Patricia de Lille was in third place. The African Christian Democratic Party (ACDP) initiated negotiations with five other smaller parties who together formed a kingmaker block of fifteen councillors, collectively known as the Multi-Party Forum parties. Despite the ID voting with the ANC, Helen Zille of the DA was elected executive mayor on 15 March 2006 by a very narrow margin with the support of the Multi-Party Forum. Andrew Arnolds of the ACDP was elected executive deputy mayor and Jacob "Dirk" Smit of the Freedom Front Plus (FF+) was elected speaker. The initially fragile position of this new DA-led coalition, also known as the Multi-Party Government, was improved in January 2007 with the introduction of the ID following the expulsion of the small Africa Muslim Party for conspiring with the ANC. As a result of the ID's support, the coalition significantly increased its majority, resulting in a much more stable city government. The ID's Charlotte Williams became executive deputy mayor. However, she resigned just a few months later, and the post then went to Grant Haskin of the ACDP in late 2007. The DA would also bolster its position through by-election victories and floor crossing defections. With the ID and DA together holding a firm council majority, several of the smaller coalition partners were dropped from the city government by the time of the 2009 general elections, including the ACDP and FF+. The DA's Ian Neilson became deputy mayor, while Dirk Smit, who had defected to the DA, retained the position of speaker. Helen Zille left the mayorship the same year to take up the position of premier of the Western Cape, and Dan Plato became mayor.


title: City of Cape Town

text: In 2010, the DA and ID formalized an agreement in which the ID would merge into the DA by 2014. This was prompted in part by the ID's disappointing result in the 2009 general election. As per the agreement, ID ceased to exist at the local level after the 2011 municipal elections with ID members running as DA candidates. DA won a large outright majority in the election, and ID leader Patricia de Lille, who had defeated Plato in an earlier internal election, became the new mayor. The party extended its lead even further to win a two-thirds majority of the seats on the City of Cape Town council in the 2016 municipal elections, and De Lille was thus sworn in to serve a second term. It was however cut short following her resignation on 31 October 2018 after an extended battle with her party over accusations of covering up corruption, accusations she strongly denied. The previous mayor Dan Plato was chosen as her successor.


title: City of Cape Town

text: The following by-elections were held to fill vacant ward seats in the period since the election in November 2021.


title: City of Cape Town

text: Subdivision varies according to purpose. Main places for census purposes may differ from planning districts.


title: Maho Beach

text: Maho Beach is a beach on the Dutch side of the Caribbean island of Saint Martin, in the territory of Sint Maarten. It is famous for being adjacent to the Princess Juliana International Airport and is a popular site for tourists and plane watchers, who visit the beach to watch aircraft on final approach land at the airport.


title: Maho Beach

text: Due to the unique proximity of low-flying airliners arriving and departing from Princess Juliana International Airport, the location is popular with plane spotters. This is one of the few places in the world where aircraft can be viewed in their flight path just outside the end of the runway. Watching airliners pass over the beach is such a popular activity that daily arrivals and departures airline timetables are displayed on a board in most bars and restaurants on the beach.


title: Maho Beach

text: Maho Beach is unusually close to the threshold of a runway and is directly under the flight path, resulting in aircraft on their final approach flying over the beach at altitudes of less than above ground level. This makes the beach a popular location for photographers and video makers who intend to capture the aircraft approaching the airport.


title: Maho Beach

text: There is a danger of people standing on the beach being blown into solid objects or the water because of the jet blast from aircraft taking off from runway 10. The local government warns that closely approaching and departing aircraft can "result in serious injury and/or death". An additional fence has been added recently behind runway 10, in order to prevent people from hanging onto the main fence surrounding the runway to experience being blasted by the jet flow.


title: Maho Beach

text: The beach itself is white sand and has little to no vegetation because of jet blast erosion. The Caravanserai Resort, the Sunset Bar and other restaurants/night clubs such as Bamboo Bernies and Bliss are located nearby. The beach is popular with windsurfers and skimboarders because of occasional large waves.


title: Maho Beach

text: On October 16, 2008, the Maho area of St. Maarten was badly damaged by Hurricane Omar, which destroyed the Sunset Bar and Grill as well as Bamboo Bernies and Bliss. In November 2009, the Sunset Bar and Grill and Bliss were both re-opened. Hurricane Omar reduced the beach to boulders, and damaged the nearby Royal Islander Club La Plage which re-opened February 14, 2009. The same occurred with Hurricane Irma in 2017.


title: Maho Beach

text: On 12 July 2017, as Caribbean Airlines Flight 457 was taking off from the airport, a 57-year-old woman from New Zealand was killed by jet blast. The woman was holding on to a fence at the end of the runway when the wind blew her away, causing her head to smash into concrete.


title: This Is Your Life (British TV series)

text: This Is Your Life is a British biographical television documentary, based on the 1952 American show of the same title. It was hosted by Eamonn Andrews from 1955 until 1964, and then from 1969 until his death in 1987. Michael Aspel then took up the role of host until the show ended in 2003. It briefly returned in 2007 as a one-off special presented by Trevor McDonald.


title: This Is Your Life (British TV series)

text: In the show the host surprises a special guest, before taking them through their life with the assistance of the 'big red book'. Both celebrities and non-celebrities have been featured on the show. The show was originally broadcast live, and over its run it has alternated between being broadcast on the BBC and on ITV.


title: This Is Your Life (British TV series)

text: The surprise element was a very important part of the show; if the guest heard about the project beforehand, it would be cancelled.


title: This Is Your Life (British TV series)

text: The British version of the show was launched in 1955 on the BBC and was first presented by Ralph Edwards to the first "victim", Eamonn Andrews, who was the presenter from the second show. The scriptwriter for the first 35 episodes was Gale Pedrick. In 1958, it was the most popular regular show on the BBC with audiences between 8.75 and 10.5 million. It ended in 1964 when Andrews moved to ABC Weekend TV, but it was revived by Thames Television for broadcast on ITV in 1969.


title: This Is Your Life (British TV series)

text: The only other occasion during Andrews' presentational run where he was not the presenter was in 1974 when he was the subject a second time, and the show was presented by David Nixon. Michael Aspel (himself, a "victim" in 1980) became presenter after Andrews died in 1987. The show returned to the BBC in 1994 but was still produced independently by Thames Television, by then no longer an ITV contractor. The programme was discontinued again in 2003.


title: This Is Your Life (British TV series)

text: At first, the show was broadcast live; later, programmes were sometimes pre-recorded. Live broadcasts ended in 1980 when boxer Alan Minter could not stop swearing during his appearance.


title: This Is Your Life (British TV series)

text: The show returned in June 2007 on ITV for a one-off-special programme hosted by Sir Trevor McDonald with guest Simon Cowell. The new edition was co-produced by ITV Productions, STV Productions, TIYL Productions, Click TV and Ralph Edwards Productions.


title: This Is Your Life (British TV series)

text: "Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway" featured a return of "This Is Your Life" to celebrate Ant & Dec's 25 years together, quizzing them on their 25 years as part of "Ant vs Dec" in episode 6 of Series 11. Michael Aspel returned as host alongside Ashley Roberts.


title: This Is Your Life (British TV series)

text: Lynn Redgrave, in December 1996, was caught while taking her bow in her one-woman show on stage at the Haymarket Theatre, the only time the Redgrave family was seen together on stage at the same time. Bob Hope and Dudley Moore have been the only subjects of two-part editions of the programme, in 1970 and 1987 respectively. Both were broadcast over two weeks.


title: This Is Your Life (British TV series)

text: Clive Mantle's profile included a post-credits sequence, in which he thanked the audience for coming.


title: This Is Your Life (British TV series)

text: Footballer Danny Blanchflower turned down the "red book" in February 1961. Author Richard Gordon (of "Doctor in the House" fame) in 1974, and Bill Oddie (of "The Goodies") in 2001 initially turned it down, but then relented and appeared on the show. Actor Richard Beckinsale was featured on the show at the age of 30, just sixteen months before his death.


title: This Is Your Life (British TV series)

text: Hattie Jacques appeared in 1963, with her husband John Le Mesurier who had helped set up the surprise; however, much to her extreme discomfort, she was at the time living separately from Le Mesurier with her lover John Schofield.


title: This Is Your Life (British TV series)

text: Ronnie Barker was planned to be one of the show's subjects and his wife Joy Tubb was helping the producers with the set up and pre-production, but Barker revealed in his autobiography that he had become extremely upset by his wife's obvious secrecy and even begun to suspect she might have been having an extra-marital affair. Barker confronted his wife and she had to explain to him about the programme, leading to its cancellation. Barker took the opportunity to impress upon his wife that he never wanted to be featured on the show, so future attempts to plan an edition around him were thwarted.


title: This Is Your Life (British TV series)

text: Maureen Lipman revealed in her first autobiographical book that she had made an arrangement with her agent and her husband that she would never participate in the programme should they ever be approached, with her husband Jack Rosenthal also agreeing he would never be the subject. Both were willing and happy to appear as a guest on other editions featuring their friends. Lipman light-heartedly revealed that her refusal to be featured was the thing that upset her mother the most about her career.


title: This Is Your Life (British TV series)

text: Christopher Lee was the subject of the show in April1974. He was surprised by Eamonn Andrews during a fencing match that was being filmed for the children's TV series "Magpie".


title: This Is Your Life (British TV series)

text: Peter Davison was the featured celebrity in March 1982. He later revealed in interviews and his autobiography that the planned finale of his edition was to be the appearance of actress Beryl Reid, but Davison's then-wife Sandra Dickinson objected and persuaded the producers not to end the show in this way as Davison and Reid barely knew each other, having worked together only once for two days' recording. Reid's inclusion was to maximise publicity for the two episodes of "Doctor Who" that the BBC were airing at the same time as Davison's "This Is Your Life". Dickinson won her argument, and although Reid appeared, the edition ended instead with the reunion of Davison and his Guyanese aunt.


title: This Is Your Life (British TV series)

text: In May 1971, Googie Withers was the featured guest, but the surprise planned by host Eamonn Andrews did not go according to plan, when Withers arrived in the studio, thinking she was going to be interviewed by Godfrey Winn. When Andrews stepped forward with the red book, Withers asked him why he was working as a floor manager and no longer as a presenter. This was in part due to her living in Australia where the show was not known.


title: This Is Your Life (British TV series)

text: In 1996, the "Sunday Mirror" reported that a planned show for Cockney comedy actor Arthur Mullard was pulled after researchers contacted his eldest son. The same report featured claims that Mullard had terrorised his family and had sexually abused his daughter for many years.


title: This Is Your Life (British TV series)

text: The programmes originally included non-celebrities who had done extraordinary things in their lives. In later years, following a persistent criticism of only celebrities being featured on the show, non-celebrities were featured again. These included business people, military personnel, the clergy and those that had performed outstanding community or charity service but who were not well known to the general public. Examples include: paramedic Allan Norman; Group Captain Leonard Cheshire; Cromer lifeboatman Henry ""Shrimp"" Davies; Colonel Tod Sweeney; Mary Ward, community nurse to the boat people of the canals; Chay Blyth; Sir Nicholas Winton; Group Captain Sir Douglas Bader; and Sir Fitzroy Maclean. The series never profiled serving politicians, although retired politicians were occasionally featured.


title: This Is Your Life (British TV series)

text: Forty-two celebrities have appeared on the show twice – including Honor Blackman, Dora Bryan, Bob Monkhouse and Eamonn Andrews himself.


title: This Is Your Life (British TV series)

text: David Butler was 17 when he became the youngest ever subject of "This Is Your Life" (episode aired 5 March 1962). He was surprised by Eamonn Andrews in the headmaster's study of Hemel Hempstead Grammar School. Butler lost both his legs and a hand when, aged 11, he found an unexploded bomb on Ivinghoe Beacon.


title: This Is Your Life (British TV series)

text: When snooker player Stephen Hendry was surprised with the red book in 1990, aged 21, he remarked that he had "hardly had a life".


title: This Is Your Life (British TV series)

text: Ant and Dec presented a one-off episode on The Chris Moyles Show in 2012 celebrating his second-to-last day on BBC Radio 1 with special guests Billie Piper, Roy Walker and Gary Barlow live from the BBC Radio Theatre.


title: This Is Your Life (British TV series)

text: The theme tune used from 1969 onwards was called "Gala Performance", and was composed by Laurie Johnson for KPM.


title: This Is Your Life (British TV series)

text: In Series 8, Episode 1 of the television detective series "Endeavour", Jack Swift, a celebrity footballer, is surprised by Eamonn Andrews and becomes the subject of "This Is Your Life" after attending a fashion show in Oxford. Andrews is played by Lewis Macleod.


title: Jeff Atwood

text: Jeff Atwood (1970) is an American software developer, author, blogger, and entrepreneur. He co-founded the computer programming question-and-answer website Stack Overflow and co-founded Stack Exchange, which extends Stack Overflow's question-and-answer model to subjects other than programming. He is the owner and writer of the computer programming blog "Coding Horror", focused on programming and human factors.


title: Jeff Atwood

text: Atwood's most recent project as of 2012 is the development of Discourse, an open source Internet discussion platform.


title: Jeff Atwood

text: Atwood started a programming blog, Coding Horror, in 2004. As a result, he met Joel Spolsky, among others.


title: Jeff Atwood

text: In 2007, Jeff Atwood made the quote that was popularly referred to as Atwood’s Law:“Any application that "can" be written in JavaScript, "will" eventually be written in JavaScript.”In 2008, together with Spolsky, Atwood founded Stack Overflow, a programming question-and-answer website. The site quickly became very popular, and was followed by Server Fault for system administrators, and Super User for general computer-related questions, eventually becoming the Stack Exchange network which includes many Q&A websites about topics decided on by the community.


title: Jeff Atwood

text: From 2008 to 2014, Atwood and Spolsky published a weekly podcast covering the progress on Stack Exchange and a wide range of software development issues. Jeff Atwood was also a keynote presenter at the 2008 Canadian University Software Engineering Conference.


title: Jeff Atwood

text: On February 5, 2013, Atwood announced his new company, Civilized Discourse Construction Kit, Inc. Its flagship product is an open source next-generation discussion platform called Discourse. Atwood and others developed it out of their frustration with current bulletin board software that hadn't seemed to evolve since 1990.


title: Buck passing

text: Buck passing, or passing the buck, or sometimes (playing) the blame game, is the act of attributing to another person or group one's own responsibility. It is often used to refer to a strategy in power politics whereby a state tries to get another state to deter or fight an aggressor state while it remains on the sidelines.


title: Buck passing

text: The expression is said to have originated from poker in which a marker or counter (such as a knife with a buckhorn handle during the American Frontier era) was used to indicate the person whose turn it was to deal. If the player did not wish to deal, the responsibility could be passed by the passing of the "buck," as the counter came to be called, to the next player.


title: Buck passing

text: Passing the buck in international relations theory involves the tendency of nation-states to refuse to confront a growing threat in the hopes that another state will. The most notable example was the refusal of the United Kingdom, United States, France, and/or the Soviet Union to confront Nazi Germany effectively in the 1930s. With the Munich Agreement, France and the United Kingdom passed the buck to the Soviet Union, which then avoided armed confrontation by signing the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact.


title: Buck passing

text: Similarly, John Mearsheimer argues that the delay of the Normandy Invasion shows that a buck passing state can shift the balance of power in its favor: "There is no question that the United States benefited greatly from delaying the Normandy invasion until late in the war, when both the German and the Soviet armies were battered and worn down. Not surprisingly, Joseph Stalin believed that the United Kingdom and the United States were purposely allowing Germany and the Soviet Union to bleed each other white, so that those offshore balancers [the United States and the United Kingdom] could dominate postwar Europe."


title: Buck passing

text: "The buck stops here" is a phrase that was popularized by U.S. President Harry S. Truman, who kept a sign with that phrase on his desk in the Oval Office. The phrase refers to the notion that the President has to make the decisions and accept the ultimate responsibility for those decisions. Truman received the sign as a gift from a prison warden who was also an avid poker player. It is also the motto of the U.S. Naval Aircraft Carrier USS "Harry S. Truman" (CVN-75).


title: Buck passing

text: President Jimmy Carter arranged to borrow the sign from the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library and Museum. Footage from Carter's "Address to the Nation on Energy" shows the sign on the desk during his administration.


title: Buck passing

text: The reverse of the sign reads, "I'm from Missouri." This is a reference to Truman's home state as well as Willard Duncan Vandiver's statement: "I'm from Missouri. You've got to show me."


title: Buck passing

text: On January 10, 2019, 19 days into a federal government shutdown, a reporter asked President Donald Trump if "the buck stops with you over this shutdown." Trump responded with "The buck stops with everybody."


title: Buck passing

text: In 2019, in his first speech as U.K. Prime Minister, Boris Johnson vowed to "take personal responsibility for the change" that he would advance, saying "The buck stops here".


title: Buck passing

text: In 2021, U.S. President Joe Biden said in his statement regarding his affirmation of the Afghanistan withdrawal, "The buck stops with me".


title: Frank Beamer

text: Franklin Mitchell Beamer (born October 18, 1946) is a retired American college football coach, most notably for the Virginia Tech Hokies, and former college football player. He is the father of current South Carolina Gamecocks head coach Shane Beamer.


title: Frank Beamer

text: Beamer was a cornerback for Virginia Tech from 1966 to 1968. His coaching experience began in 1972, and from 1981 to 1986 Beamer served as the head football coach at Murray State University. He then went on to become the head football coach at Virginia Tech from 1987 until his final game in 2015. He was one of the longest tenured active coaches in NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision and, at the time of his retirement, was the winningest active coach at that level. Upon retiring, Beamer accepted a position as special assistant to the Virginia Tech athletic director, where he focuses on athletic development and advancement. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 2018.


title: Frank Beamer

text: Beamer is a direct descendant of the notorious Allen clan of Carroll County, Virginia. In 1912, during a court trial, his great-uncle, Floyd Allen, fired rounds in a spasm of violence. The courtroom shooting left five people dead, including the judge, a prosecutor, and the county sheriff.


title: Frank Beamer

text: In 1953, at the age of seven, Beamer suffered a life altering accident. After using a push broom to keep a pile of burning trash in place, he returned it to its place in the garage, unaware that it was smoldering. A spark ignited a nearby can of gasoline, which exploded in front of him. His 11-year-old brother, Barnett saved him by rolling him around on the ground. He was left with burns on his shoulders, chest, and the right side of his neck. Over the next several years, Beamer underwent dozens of skin graft procedures, leaving him with permanent scarring.


title: Frank Beamer

text: Beamer attended high school in Hillsville, Virginia, and earned 11 varsity letters in three different sports: football, basketball, and baseball. In 1966, he attended Virginia Tech and played football. He was a starting cornerback for 3 years, playing in the 1966 and 1968 Liberty Bowls. He graduated from Virginia Tech in 1969 with Omicron Delta Kappa distinction, and attended Radford University for graduate school, while serving as an assistant football coach at Radford High School.


title: Frank Beamer

text: Beamer began as an assistant at Radford High School from 1969 through 1971. His college coaching experience began in 1972, when he became a graduate assistant for the University of Maryland, College Park. After one season, he became an assistant coach at The Citadel under Bobby Ross. He spent seven seasons at The Citadel, the last two as the defensive coordinator.


title: Frank Beamer

text: Beamer was hired as the defensive coordinator at Murray State University in 1979 under head coach, Mike Gottfried. In 1981, after two seasons as defensive coordinator, he was promoted to head coach. In his six years as head coach, Beamer compiled a record of 42–23–2 (.642). He hired former Murray State defensive back Bud Foster as a graduate assistant in 1981. Foster later joined Beamer's coaching staff at Virginia Tech in 1987.


title: Frank Beamer

text: On December 22, 1986, Beamer was hired as the head coach at Virginia Tech, replacing Bill Dooley, the winningest coach in school history to date. However, Dooley had been forced to resign due to numerous NCAA violations. Beamer signed a four-year contract worth $80,000 annually, hired by Virginia Tech's new athletic director, Dale Baughman, also replacing Dooley in that capacity. Beamer took over a Virginia Tech football program that had reached six bowl games to that point (three under Dooley).


title: Frank Beamer

text: As a result of the violations uncovered under Dooley's watch, the Hokies were limited to 85 total scholarships in 1988 and 1989, and 17 initial scholarships in 1989. The sanctions hampered the Hokies, and Beamer went a combined 5–17 in 1987 and 1988. Beamer's record in his first six seasons was 24-40-2, a win percentage of .385. After the team went 2–8–1 in 1992, athletic director Dave Braine believed in Beamer and thought he deserved more time. It proved to be a wise decision; the Hokies would not suffer another losing season under Beamer's watch. At his hall of fame induction, Beamer said he would have been unlikely to survive his early years had he been coaching in the 2010s.


title: Frank Beamer

text: In 1993, the Hokies would go 9-3 and won the Independence Bowl; at the time, it was only the fourth time in school history that the Hokies had won as many as nine games in a season. The Hokies would go on to a combined record of 75–21 from 1993 to 2000. This included the Hokies' first major-bowl appearances in school history, after the 1995, 1996 and 1999 seasons. The peak year in this stretch was 1999, when the Hokies went 11–0 in the regular season earning a spot to the 2000 Sugar Bowl to play Florida State for the BCS National Championship. Behind the play of quarterback Michael Vick, Virginia Tech led Florida State 29–28 early in the fourth quarter, but lost 46–29. The Hokies finished third in the AP Poll and second in the Coaches' Poll–the highest final rankings in school history, and the highest for a Division I team from Virginia.


title: Frank Beamer

text: Virginia Tech continued its bowl eligibility streak into the new millennium and won the 2004 ACC Championship in its first season in the league. Over the course of the next seven seasons, from 2005 to 2011, Virginia Tech won at least 10 games every season. The Hokies were the only team in the country to do so. Beamer's record from 1993 to 2011 was 185–58 for a winning percentage of .761. This was the 4th highest win percentage in the country over this period. Although Virginia Tech went just 28–23 from 2012 to 2015, the Hokies still finished each season with a winning record and a bowl bid.


title: Frank Beamer

text: On November 1, 2015, Beamer announced his retirement from coaching, effective at the end of the 2015 season. He was carried off the field after beating Virginia in the final regular season game to become bowl eligible. Beamer's last game was a 55–52 win over Tulsa in the Independence Bowl on December 26. Memphis' Justin Fuente replaced Beamer as the head football coach at Virginia Tech at the end of the 2015 season.


title: Frank Beamer

text: Beamer amassed an overall record of 238–121–2 (.663) in his 29 years at the school. His teams went to postseason play after every season from 1993 until his retirement in 2015. The Hokies' consecutive bowl appearances streak—the longest in the nation at the time—continued under his successor, Justin Fuente, until the 2020 season. At the time of his retirement, Beamer owned all of the Hokies' 11-win seasons in school history, as well as all of the seasons in which the Hokies won 10 games on the field. Bill Dooley's last team, in 1986, finished with nine wins on the field, but was awarded a tenth win by forfeit.


title: Frank Beamer

text: Beamer's teams won three Big East championships and four ACC titles. Beamer won many awards over his career. He was named the Big East Coach of the Year three times, in 1995, 1996, and 1999. He also was named the ACC Coach of the Year in 2004 and 2005.


title: Frank Beamer

text: Beamer led the Virginia Tech Hokies to 23 consecutive bowl games beginning in his seventh season in 1993 until he retired in 2015. It was the second-longest active consecutive bowl streak in the country at the time of his retirement.


title: Frank Beamer

text: <nowiki>*</nowiki> Assistant Head Coach, Shane Beamer was the acting Head Coach for the 2014 Military Bowl.


title: Frank Beamer

text: On November 1, 2015, after 29 seasons as head coach of Virginia Tech, Beamer announced his retirement from coaching, effective at the end of the 2015 season. During his tenure, he coached the Hokies to 23 consecutive bowl games, including a national championship appearance, along with seven conference championship titles. At the time of his retirement, he was the winningest active coach in Division I FBS with 280 career victories. and is the sixth winningest coach in history at the Division I FBS level.


title: Frank Beamer

text: In late 2015, shortly after announcing his retirement at the end of the season, Beamer signed an eight-year contract with Virginia Tech, serving as a special assistant to Whit Babcock, director of athletics at Virginia Tech, focusing on athletic development and advancement.


title: Frank Beamer

text: On January 17, 2017, Beamer was appointed to the College Football Playoff Committee. Beamer joined the 13-member panel, which was formed when the College Football Playoff was implemented in 2013. It is a 3-year appointment and he was the 14th person to be named to the committee. The members meet each of the final six weeks of the regular season to create a weekly poll of the top 25 teams in the country. The panel determines the top four college football teams for the playoff games to decide the national champion.


title: Frank Beamer

text: During Beamer's tenure at Virginia Tech, putting points on the scoreboard has become a full team effort with the offensive, defensive and special teams units. Often when the team scores one or more non-offensive touchdowns, the style of play is described as "Beamerball". Since Beamer's first season in 1987, a player at every position on the defensive unit has scored at least one touchdown, and 35 different players have scored touchdowns on Virginia Tech's special teams.


title: Frank Beamer

text: On August 6, 2015, Virginia Tech renamed Spring Road to 'Beamer Way' in honor of Beamer. Located on the west side of Lane Stadium, it is the primary access route to the campus sports facilities. The Virginia Tech Athletics Department also changed its mailing address to '25 Beamer Way' to commemorate his jersey number as a player at the school.


title: Frank Beamer

text: Before the beginning of the 2016 football season, new coach Justin Fuente and his staff collaborated on ideas of how to honor Beamer during the season. On August 29, 2016, the team announced that as an homage to Beamer's transcendent contributions and dedication to special teams, one deserving special teams player would be chosen to wear the number 25 jersey for each game of the 2016 season, earning the title ""Special Teams Player of the Week"". Beamer wore the number 25 when he played at Virginia Tech as a cornerback from 1966 to 1968. The honorary jersey became so popular with the players, fans, and coaches that the team continued the tradition beyond the 2016 season.


title: Frank Beamer

text: February 4, 2016 was declared ""Frank Beamer Day"" in the Commonwealth of Virginia by Governor Terry McAuliffe. In a ceremony on the steps of the Virginia State Capitol in front of a crowd of Virginia Tech students, faculty, and alumni— including his wife, Cheryl Beamer, government affairs directors, Paul Rice and Harvey Creasey III, and university president, Timothy Sands— Governor McAuliffe presented Beamer with a framed certificate to honor his achievements as the head coach of the Virginia Tech football program.


title: Frank Beamer

text: On October 6, 2018, Virginia Tech renamed its indoor practice facility to the "Beamer-Lawson Indoor Practice Facility". The building, constructed in 2016 was renamed for Beamer and the family of John Lawson, a former rector of the Virginia Tech Board of Visitors and longtime donor


title: Frank Beamer

text: On October 6, 2018, a permanent bronze statue, honoring Beamer's legendary coaching career at Virginia Tech, was unveiled on Moody Plaza outside the Southwest entrance to Lane Stadium, on Virginia Tech's Campus.


title: Frank Beamer

text: Beamer married Cheryl (née Oakley) on April 1, 1972. The two met on a blind date, arranged by Cheryl's sister Sheila, while Beamer was a senior at Virginia Tech. They have two children, Shane and Casey, and five grandchildren. His son, Shane played football at Virginia Tech as a long snapper, and was a member of the 1999 team that played for the national championship. After assistant coaching stops at four different universities, Shane was hired by Virginia Tech in 2011 as the running backs coach and associate head coach. Shane left Virginia Tech upon his father's retirement in 2015 and after assistant coaching stops at Georgia and Oklahoma currently serves as the head coach at the University of South Carolina.


title: Frank Beamer

text: In 2006, Beamer and his wife Cheryl published the children's book "Yea, It's a Hokie Game Day!" under Virginia publisher Mascot Books, Inc.


title: Frank Beamer

text: After the April 16, 2007, Virginia Tech shooting, Beamer was a powerful voice in the Blacksburg community, stating that the most important thing that the Virginia Tech and surrounding community could do was to disallow the act of violence to define the university. Beamer is quoted as saying, "We can't let one person destroy what goes on here every day, the caring, the thoughtfulness. We can't let one person destroy that."


title: Susanne Daniels

text: Susanne Lieberstein Daniels (born May 7, 1965) is an American entertainment executive, producer, and author. She developed TV shows such as "Dawson's Creek", "Buffy The Vampire Slayer", "Gilmore Girls", and "Cobra Kai" (a sequel to the 1980s film, "The Karate Kid"), and YouTube livestream events with artists including Katy Perry, Taylor Swift, and Paul McCartney.


title: Susanne Daniels

text: Daniels currently serves as the Global Head of Original Content for YouTube, and leads the company's overall efforts and investments in original content. In March 2022, she will depart from that position due to the reduction of the YouTube Original Series division. While at the platform, Daniels has overseen programming such as "David Blaine: Ascension", "Coachella: 20 Years In The Desert", "The Age of A.I. featuring Robert Downey Jr", "Cobra Kai", "", ""; and premium livestream events with artists and celebrities including Katy Perry, Will Smith, Taylor Swift and Paul McCartney.


title: Susanne Daniels

text: Prior to YouTube, Daniels worked as the President at MTV while previously holding positions including President of Lifetime Television and The WB, Vice President of Comedy for Fox Television and more. In these roles, Daniels was responsible for green-lighting TV shows including "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", "Dawson's Creek", "Gilmore Girls", "The Steve Harvey Show", "The Parent 'Hood featuring Robert Townsend", "Army Wives", "Charmed", "7th Heaven", "Smallville", "Project Runway", "Drop Dead Diva", "The Jamie Foxx Show", "Living Single featuring Queen Latifah", "The Wayans Brothers Show", "Are You the One?", "The Secret Life of Teenagers", and "Scream".


title: Susanne Daniels

text: Daniels currently serves on the boards of Common Sense Media, NATPE, UCLA MEMES, and the George Foster Peabody Awards.


title: Susanne Daniels

text: In 2018, Daniels was inducted into the Variety Hall Of Fame. In 2018, Daniels also received the Brandon Tartikoff Legacy Award and Women In Film Business Leadership Award. Additional awards and recognitions include: Media Project Shine Award (for pro-social messaging in series); American Women In Television & Radio: GENII Award; The Help Group Honoree; The National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy Honoree; along with maintaining a consistent presence in all top executives lists e.g. CableFax; Hollywood Reporter; Variety Power 100.


title: Susanne Daniels

text: Daniels grew up in Westport, Connecticut, and attended Harvard University for her undergraduate degree. Daniels is currently based in Los Angeles where she resides with her husband, writer-producer-director Greg Daniels ("The Office", "Parks and Recreation" and "King of the Hill") and their four children, including actor Owen Daniels. Daniels is the sister of Paul Lieberstein, writer for "King of the Hill" and the replacement showrunner of "The Office" for Greg Daniels.


title: Susanne Daniels

text: In November 2019, Susanne Daniels played a big role in reinstating banned accounts by YouTube after they spammed emoticons, she called Markiplier saying that the issue would be fixed and the accounts were reinstated soon after.


title: Seal Beach, California

text: Seal Beach is a coastal city in Orange County, California, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 25,242, up from 24,168 at the 2010 census.


title: Seal Beach, California

text: Seal Beach is located in the westernmost corner of Orange County. To the northwest, just across the border with Los Angeles County, lies the city of Long Beach and the adjacent San Pedro Bay. To the southeast are Huntington Harbour, a neighborhood of Huntington Beach, and Sunset Beach, also part of Huntington Beach. To the east lie the city of Westminster and the neighborhood of West Garden Grove, part of the city of Garden Grove. To the north lie the unincorporated community of Rossmoor and the city of Los Alamitos. A majority of the city's acreage is devoted to the Naval Weapons Station Seal Beach military base.


title: Seal Beach, California

text: Beginning in the mid-1860s, the eastern area of what is now Old Town Seal Beach became known as Anaheim Landing. A warehouse and wharf had been built on a small bay where Anaheim Creek emptied into the Pacific Ocean. It was established by farmers and merchants in the newly settled town of Anaheim who wanted a closer, more convenient port to ship the wine they were growing and also to receive items they needed to help build homes and buildings in their new town. For a few years Anaheim Landing came close to rivaling San Pedro for its volume of shipping, but the arrival of the railroad in Anaheim in 1875 made it easier to ship product via the rails than by hauling a wagon overland across 12 miles of soft soil to the Landing. However, the beaches and surrounding rolling Anaheim Landing had by this time also become popular as a getaway from hot summer days. Los Angeles newspapers talk of a permanent summer population of as many as 400 and even more on special days. Throughout the year, the landing was also home to a number of fishing boats that plied the local fishing areas. This activity was written about by Nobel-prize winning author Henryk Sienkiewicz in a short essay, "The Cranes." The site of Anaheim Landing is now registered as a California Historical Landmark.


title: Seal Beach, California

text: In 1903 Los Angeles realtor Philip A. Stanton, very familiar with the area from his time selling land in Anaheim, and Huntington Beach and also from representing the local real estate interests of banker (and Pacific Electric Railroad co-owner) Isaias W. Hellman, put together a syndicate to lay out the town of Bayside on the land between Anaheim Landing and Anaheim Bay and the eastern edge of Alamitos Bay. The new town would be along the still not-announced leg of the Pacific Electric which would run from Long Beach to Newport Beach. As there was already a town called Bayside in Northern California (by Eureka) Stanton's group instead called their new town Bay City. Due to many factors—including competition from other beach resort areas (Long Beach, Redondo Beach and Venice/Ocean Park/Santa Monica), some national financial crises, and the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake which sent most investment dollars to the more lucrative rebuilding of San Francisco—Bay City failed miserably as a real estate investment. In 1913, Stanton optioned the land to real estate promoter Guy M. Rush who invested in building a renovated pier with pavilions on either side. Rush also re-branded the town as Seal Beach and marketed it via postcards and advertisements around the country. This too failed and by early 1915 Rush had let his options lapse. In 1915 Stanton tried again, arranging to obtain some amusements from the closing San Francisco Panama-Pacific International Exposition and rebuild them as part of new amusement area which would be called The Joy Zone. As part of this plan, the Bayside Land Company led a campaign to incorporate the town (October 27, 1915) and then had the new city council approve legal drinking in the town. This made it different from the Pike at Long Beach which was a "dry city." The Joy Zone, a beach-side amusement park built in 1916, was the first in Orange County. It achieved some brief popularity, but the US entry into World War I and the resulting restrictions on rubber and metal dramatically impacted the amusement area.


title: Seal Beach, California

text: After the war, Prohibition impacted the town's value as an amusement resort. After 1920, the town's location on two Bays with many inlets to offload bootleg liquor, its small police department, and its location on the county line, allowed it to become a popular place for rumrunners and then gamblers. From 1928 to 1939, the town had as many as six gambling establishments on Main Street. In addition most of Southern California's famous gambling ships ("Johanna Smith, Rose Isle, Johanna Smith II, SS Caliente, SS Tango, Showboat, Mt. Baker") operated off the Seal Beach just over the line from Long Beach. With gambling being a misdemeanor, the trials were held in the town's municipal court and a Seal Beach jury never returned a guilty verdict, to the dismay of Orange County and Long Beach officials. But around 1941, with significant pressure being put on the gamblers by State Attorney General Earl Warren, most of the Seal Beach and gambling ship ended Their absence was soon filled by a former Los Angeles police detective named William L. Robertson.


title: Seal Beach, California

text: In early 1944. during World War II, the Navy purchased most of the land around Anaheim Landing to construct the United States Navy's Naval Weapons Station Seal Beach for loading, unloading, and storing of ammunition for the Pacific Fleet, and especially those US Navy warships home-ported in Long Beach and San Diego. With closure of the Concord Naval Weapons Station in Northern California, it has become the primary source of munitions for a majority of the United States Pacific Fleet. The arrival of the Navy catalyzed a growth in population which eventually succeeded in shutting down Robertson's gambling operations.


title: Seal Beach, California

text: Surfing has always had a presence in Seal Beach. Newspaper advertisements showing surfers were part of Guy M. Rush's "Seal Beach" campaign of 1913. The town hosted the mainland's first surfing competition—it was at a private gathering of the annual Minnesota Picnic. But its popularity really took off after the war with the arrival of legendary surfer Blackie August, who taught many of the local kids how to surf. August's son, Robert, was one of the pair of surfers featured in the classic surf film, "Endless Summer". Local legends Jack Haley and Mike Haley were the winners of the first two national surfing championships.


title: Seal Beach, California

text: The deadliest mass killing in Orange County history occurred in Seal Beach. On October 12, 2011, a mass shooting took place at the local Salon Meritage hair salon. Eight people inside the salon and one person in the parking lot were shot, and only one victim survived. The suspect in the shooting, 41-year-old Scott Evans Dekraai, was arrested without incident and charged with eight counts of murder and one count of attempted murder. Prior to the shooting, there had been only one murder in Seal Beach during the previous four years.


title: Seal Beach, California

text: According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of . of it is land and of it (13.45%) is water.


title: Seal Beach, California

text: Seal Beach is bounded by the CDP of Rossmoor and the city of Los Alamitos to the north, the West Garden Grove neighborhood and city of Westminster to the east, Huntington Beach to the east and south, and the Pacific Ocean to the west.


title: Seal Beach, California

text: Seal Beach has a semi-arid climate (Köppen climate classification "BSh") with Mediterranean characteristics.


title: Seal Beach, California

text: The 2010 United States Census reported that Seal Beach had a population of 24,168. The population density was . The racial makeup of Seal Beach was 20,154 (83.4%) White (76.9% Non-Hispanic White), 279 (1.2%) African American, 65 (0.3%) Native American, 2,309 (9.6%) Asian, 58 (0.2%) Pacific Islander, 453 (1.9%) from other races, and 850 (3.5%) from two or more races. There were 2,331 Hispanic or Latino residents, of any race (9.6%).


title: Seal Beach, California

text: The Census reported that 23,943 people (99.1% of the population) lived in households, 22 (0.1%) lived in non-institutionalized group quarters, and 203 (0.8%) were institutionalized.


title: Seal Beach, California

text: There were 13,017 households, out of which 1,866 (14.3%) had children under the age of 18 living in them, 4,891 (37.6%) were opposite-sex married couples living together, 788 (6.1%) had a female householder with no husband present, 283 (2.2%) had a male householder with no wife present. There were 383 (2.9%) unmarried opposite-sex partnerships, and 66 (0.5%) same-sex married couples or partnerships. Of the households, 6,312 (48.5%) were made up of individuals, and 4,340 (33.3%) had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 1.84. There were 5,962 families (45.8% of all households); the average family size was 2.65.


title: Seal Beach, California

text: In Seal Beach there were 3,151 people (13.0%) under the age of 18, 1,176 people (4.9%) aged 18 to 24, 4,076 people (16.9%) aged 25 to 44, 6,513 people (26.9%) aged 45 to 64, and 9,252 people (38.3%) who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 57.3 years. For every 100 females, there were 78.8 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 76.3 males.


title: Seal Beach, California

text: There were 14,558 housing units at an average density of , of which 9,713 (74.6%) were owner-occupied, and 3,304 (25.4%) were occupied by renters. The homeowner vacancy rate was 2.0%; the rental vacancy rate was 4.4%. 17,689 people (73.2% of the population) lived in owner-occupied housing units and 6,254 people (25.9%) lived in rental housing units.


title: Seal Beach, California

text: During 2009–2013, Seal Beach had a median household income of $51,242, with 9.9% of the population living below the federal poverty line.


title: Seal Beach, California

text: As of the census of 2000, there were 24,157 people, 13,048 households, and 5,884 families residing in the city. The population density was 2,099.5 inhabitants per square mile (810.3/km). There were 14,267 housing units at an average density of . The racial makeup of the city was 88.91% White, 1.44% African American, 0.30% Native American, 5.74% Asian, 0.18% Pacific Islander, 1.28% from other races, and 2.16% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 6.43% of the population.


title: Seal Beach, California

text: There were 13,048 households, out of which 13.8% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 38.2% were married couples living together, 5.3% had a female householder with no husband present, and 54.9% were non-families. Of all households, 48.8% were made up of individuals, and 34.5% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 1.83 and the average family size was 2.65.


title: Seal Beach, California

text: In the city, the population was spread out, with 13.3% under the age of 18, 4.0% from 18 to 24, 21.5% from 25 to 44, 23.7% from 45 to 64, and 37.5% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 54 years. For every 100 females, there were 78.3 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 75.4 males.


title: Seal Beach, California

text: The median income for a household in the city was $42,079, and the median income for a family was $72,071. Males had a median income of $61,654 versus $41,615 for females. The per capita income for the city was $34,589. About 3.2% of families and 5.5% of the population were below the poverty line, including 6.2% of those under age 18 and 5.3% of those age 65 or over.


title: Seal Beach, California

text: The major employer in Seal Beach is Boeing, employing roughly 1,000 people. Its facility was originally built to manufacture the second stage of the Saturn V rocket for NASA's Apollo manned space flight missions to the Moon and for the Skylab program. Boeing Homeland Security & Services (airport security, etc.) is based in Seal Beach and Boeing Space & Intelligence Systems (satellite systems and classified programs) is headquartered in Seal Beach.


title: Seal Beach, California

text: According to the city's 2009 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report, the top employers in the city are:


title: Seal Beach, California

text: The Lions Club Pancake Breakfast in April and its Fish Fry (started in 1943) in July are two of the biggest events in Seal Beach. There has been a Rough Water Swim the same weekend as the Fish Fry since the 1960s. The Seal Beach Chamber of Commerce sponsors many events, including: a Classic Car Show in April, a Summer Concert series once every week in July and August, the Christmas Parade in December along with Santa and the Reindeer. Also in the fall is the Kite Festival in September. The Taste for Los Al, which since 2001 has been benefitting activities at Los Alamitos High School (home high school for Seal Beach students), takes place every October and has one of the largest silent auctions in the nation, often having over 100 tables.


title: Seal Beach, California

text: The record label Mash Down Babylon Records is based in Seal Beach, operated out of a garage known as The Elizabethan. The label was founded by Matt Embree, lead vocalist and guitarist in the Seal Beach-based progressive rock/post-hardcore band RX Bandits.


title: Seal Beach, California

text: On Electric Avenue where the railroad tracks used to run, there is the Red Car Museum which features a restored Pacific Electric Railway Red Car. The Balboa Line once passed through Seal Beach going south to the Balboa Peninsula in Newport Beach. Going north into Long Beach a rider could then take the Red Cars through much of Los Angeles County.


title: Seal Beach, California

text: Seal Beach is also home to the Bay Theatre, which was a popular venue for independent film and revival screenings. It was closed in 2012 but was purchased in 2017 by Paul Dunlap who is currently restoring it.


title: Seal Beach, California

text: The Seal Beach National Wildlife Refuge is located on part of the Naval Weapons Station Seal Beach. Much of the refuge's is the remnant of the saltwater marsh in the Anaheim Bay estuary (the rest of the marsh became the bayside community of Huntington Harbour, which is part of Huntington Beach). Three endangered species, the Ridgway's light-footed rail, the California least tern, and the Belding's Savannah sparrow, can be found nesting in the refuge. With the loss and degradation of coastal wetlands in California, the remaining habitat, including the Bolsa Chica Ecological Reserve in Huntington Beach and Upper Newport Bay in Newport Beach, has become much more important for migrating and wintering shorebirds, waterfowl, and seabirds. Although the refuge is a great place for birdwatching, because it is part of the weapons station, access is limited and usually restricted to once-a-month tours.


title: Seal Beach, California

text: The second longest wooden pier in California (the longest is in Oceanside) is located in Seal Beach and is used for fishing and sightseeing. The pier has periodically suffered severe damage due to storms and other mishaps, requiring extensive reconstruction. A plaque at the pier's entrance memorializes Federal Emergency Administration of Public Works, 1938, Project No. Calif. 1723-F, a rebuilding necessitated by storms in 1935. Another plaque honors the individuals, businesses, and groups who helped rebuild the pier after a storm on March 2, 1983, tore away several sections. A "Save the Pier" group formed in response to an initial vote by the City Council not to repair the pier. The ensuing outcry of dismay among residents caused the City Council to reverse its stance while claiming the city lacked the necessary funds. Residents mobilized and eventually raised $2.3 million from private and public donors to rebuild the pier.


title: Seal Beach, California

text: Surfing locations in Seal Beach include the Seal Beach pier and the river-"Stingray Bay" (or Ray Bay—the surfer's nickname for the mouth of the San Gabriel River—the stingrays are attracted by the heated water from several upstream powerplants). Classic longboard builders in the area include Harbour Surfboards, established in 1959, in Seal Beach.


title: Seal Beach, California

text: The city is administered under a council-manager form of government, and is governed by a five-member city council serving four-year alternating terms. The mayor and mayor pro tempore are chosen by and from the council.


title: Seal Beach, California

text: Seal Beach's municipal jail offers a pay for stay program in which offenders who would normally go to county jails could stay at Seal Beach's jail for a price.


title: Seal Beach, California

text: Seal Beach once had its own elementary school district and sent its older children to Huntington Beach or Marina High School in the Huntington Beach Union High School District. Since the early 1980s it has been part of the Los Alamitos Unified School District. Younger students (K-5) go to McGaugh Elementary School, Hopkinson Elementary School, Rossmoor Elementary, Lee Elementary, Los Alamitos Elementary or Weaver Elementary. Students in grades 6–8 attend either Oak Middle School or McAuliffe Middle School. High school students go to Los Alamitos High School, which is a Gold Ribbon School. Until 2000, the Orange County High School of the Arts was part of Los Alamitos High School. In 2000, the school district suffered a major blow when the community lost the Orange County High School of the Arts to Santa Ana, where it is now located.


title: The Wedding Present

text: The Wedding Present are an English indie rock group originally formed in 1985 in Leeds, England, from the ashes of The Lost Pandas. The band's music has evolved from fast-paced indie rock in the vein of their most obvious influences The Fall, Buzzcocks and Gang of Four to more varied forms. Throughout their career, they have been led by vocalist and guitarist David Gedge, the band's only constant member.


title: The Wedding Present

text: Closely linked to the C86 scene, the band has charted a total of eighteen singles in the top 40 of the UK Singles Chart, including a historic run of twelve singles – one for each month – in the year of 1992, which tied Elvis Presley's record for most top 40 hits in a single year.


title: The Wedding Present

text: The band has its origins in the Lost Pandas, which folded in 1984 when Janet Rigby, the drummer for the band, left following departure of guitarist Michael Duane. David Gedge and The Lost Pandas' bass player, Keith Gregory, decided to continue the band, renaming it The Wedding Present. The name was jointly conceived by Gedge and his girlfriend at the time, as they were both avid fans of The Birthday Party and it was an homage to their favourite band.


title: The Wedding Present

text: Gedge and Gregory recruited an old schoolmate of Gedge's, Peter Solowka, to play guitar and auditioned a string of drummers, including John Ramsden, and Mike Bedford, with whom they recorded a demo tape, before settling on Shaun Charman. The country's clubs and bars were toured as the band prepared for the recording of their first, self-financed single. "Go Out and Get ’Em, Boy!" was chosen over early favourite "Will You Be Up There?" Charman felt somewhat insecure about his drumming abilities and so the A-side features drumming by hired hand Julian Sowa (Charman does, however, play drums on its B-side). The single was released on the band's own Reception Records label with distribution through Red Rhino.


title: The Wedding Present

text: Two more singles followed that did well on the independent charts helped by veteran BBC Radio 1 DJ John Peel who was one of their first champions. He invited them to do a radio session (three songs from the session are included on the 1988 compilation "Tommy 1985-1987;" the entire session had already been released as an EP in 1986), starting a long collaboration. By the time the band started work on their debut album, a number of independent and major record companies showed interest, but the band declined all offers and decided to keep releasing their material themselves. The album was released in 1987 and titled "George Best" after the well-known Northern Irish football player. It was produced by the band and Chris Allison.


title: The Wedding Present

text: Upon its release, the album was critically acclaimed and the band were soon classified, with some of their peers, as members of the 'shambling' or C86 scene, a categorisation that they vehemently declined (although they were featured on the original C86 compilation). Musically, the album featured fast-paced rhythm guitar; lyrically, apart from a few excursions into social critique ("All This and More") and politics ("All About Eve"), Gedge's main concerns (which would become his trademark) were love, lust, heartbreak and revenge. Soon after the release of "George Best", the early singles and radio sessions were compiled and released as "Tommy (1985-1987)." When Solowka, who has Ukrainian roots, started fooling around with a Ukrainian folk tune during one of their Peel sessions, the idea arose to devote some of their radio time to recording their versions of Ukrainian folk songs, encouraged by Peel. To this end, two guest musicians were invited, singer/violin player Len Liggins and mandolin player Roman Remeynes, and three Peel sessions were recorded with Gedge temporarily limiting himself to playing rhythm guitar and arranging the songs.


title: The Wedding Present

text: Between the recording of the first and the second 'Ukrainian' session, Charman was fired from the band. His replacement was Simon Smith, who remained the band's drummer until 1997 and for a long time was, next to Gedge, the only other stable factor in the shifting line-ups. The band planned on releasing eight cuts from the Ukrainian sessions on a 10" LP and an initial batch was pressed when Red Rhino went into receivership. Rather than trying to find a new distribution company, the band decided to fold their Reception label altogether and sign with a regular record company: RCA.


title: The Wedding Present

text: Although the band were criticized by some quarters for 'selling out', under the terms of their contract they were allowed their own choice of producer and singles. They also had the option of releasing any singles rejected by the label independently without breach of contract. The band's new record company bought the initial Reception stock of the Ukrainian record from the band, pressed another batch, and released the record in April 1989 under the name of "Українські Виступи в Івана Піла" (meaning 'Ukrainian John Peel Sessions'; the Latin transliteration "Ukraïnski Vistupi v Ivana Peela" appeared on the sleeve's spine only).


title: The Wedding Present

text: The first proper album that The Wedding Present recorded for their new label was released in the same year 1989 and reunited them with producer Chris Allison. "Bizarro"’s lyrical themes were largely the same as before and the songs featured the same three-chord structures, but its production values had increased due to a larger recording budget. The album was recorded at Jacobs Studios by Steve Lyon and mixed by him and Chris Allison. The album's companion single, "Kennedy", provided the band with their first British Top 40 hit.


title: The Wedding Present

text: In 1989, the band covered the song "Box Elder" by a then-unknown American indie rock band named Pavement. Gregory had found Pavement's limited pressing debut single during a trip to the United States and The Wedding Present's cover inspired John Peel to promote Pavement on his radio show, a key step in Pavement's breakthrough.


title: The Wedding Present

text: Seeing that they were growing more popular in the American college radio scene, the band turned towards America for their next project. The band decided to re-record "Bizarro" track "Brassneck" with the former Big Black frontman Steve Albini. It was the start of a two-year collaboration: the next single, "Corduroy" and album, "Seamonsters", were also recorded by Albini at Pachyderm Recording Studio in Cannon Falls, Minnesota.


title: The Wedding Present

text: "Melody Maker" likened listening to the record to sandpapering your ears. End of year readers polls, however, showed the opening track and lead single of the album, "Dalliance", amongst the top of the favourites list. Almost directly after recording the album, the band announced that they had sacked Solowka. His replacement was Paul Dorrington of local band, Tse Tse Fly (also formerly of A.C. Temple). Solowka teamed up again with Liggins and Remeynes to form The Ukrainians, and continued to blend post-punk with traditional Ukrainian music.


title: The Wedding Present

text: The next year saw the band release twelve 7" singles in one year. Each single had a limited pressing of 10,000 copies which all reached the Top 30 in the UK Singles Chart, equalling Elvis Presley's record for the most UK Top 30 hits in one year. To economise on songwriting, the B-sides consisted of cover versions of songs including Julee Cruise's "Falling" (the theme tune from "Twin Peaks"). The singles and their B-sides, produced by various producers such as Ian Broudie (Lightning Seeds) and Jimmy Miller (The Rolling Stones) were collected on two albums, "Hit Parade 1" and "Hit Parade 2".


title: The Wedding Present

text: The demand in the United Kingdom for The Wedding Present's singles was so high that distributors began poaching from a separate 5,000-copy stash meant for sale in all other markets to sell in the UK. The Wedding Present had the distinction of having all 12 hit singles be solely original material, whereas Elvis reached his record through archival re-issues. "The Hit Parade" effectively served as the band's third album under the RCA contract, and the band played "Top of the Pops" four times in the same year.


title: The Wedding Present

text: "Seamonsters", "Hit Parade 1" and "Hit Parade 2" were released in the United States in 1991 and 1992 by New York-based pseudo-indie label First Warning Records. Shortly after the 1992 singles scheme had ended, the band announced they were leaving RCA.


title: The Wedding Present

text: The band spent most of 1993 taking time off, occasionally playing gigs. A stopgap compilation of three more archive radio sessions, "Peel Sessions 1987-1990", was released by Strange Fruit. When they re-emerged in early 1994 with the news that they had signed to Island Records, it was quickly followed by the announcement that Gregory had left the band, due to lack of enthusiasm, and was replaced by Darren Belk. For their next album, The Wedding Present again left for the United States and enlisted Steve Fisk (Screaming Trees, Nirvana). The result was "Watusi". The album's songs ranged from warm lo-fi pop ("Gazebo", "Big Rat") to semi-psychedelic, Velvets-like workouts ("Click Click", "Catwoman").


title: The Wedding Present

text: No further albums were recorded for Island, and the best part of 1995 was spent the same way as 1993: touring, writing new material, no recording. Paul Dorrington decided to quit the band; no replacement was made as Belk doubled on bass and guitar. In the autumn of 1995, The Wedding Present released "Sucker", a self-financed single that was sold at their gigs only (it has since been included on compilation albums). Shortly after, the band signed with independent label Cooking Vinyl.


title: The Wedding Present

text: The band, still a three-piece, recorded their newly written material and issued the car-themed six-track mini-album, "Mini". Belk played both guitar and bass on the songs but struggled at the lead instrument. Shortly after releasing the album, Jayne Lockey, who had already sung backing vocals on "Mini", was announced as the band's new bass player. Belk decided to quit the band and was replaced by Simon Cleave. Both Lockey and Cleave were former members of Tse Tse Fly, along with Paul Dorrington and Mark Goodham.


title: The Wedding Present

text: The band still had material from their sabbatical year and went into the studio again to record "Saturnalia". This proved to be the last new material by The Wedding Present for a long time. After playing a number of gigs to support the album, the last one in Liverpool on 18 January 1997, the band took a long sabbatical.


title: The Wedding Present

text: To fulfill contractual obligations, two more compilations were released by Cooking Vinyl: another Peel sessions volume, "John Peel Sessions 1992-1995" (1998), and "Singles 1995-1997" (1999). Additionally, Strange Fruit offered another radio sessions compilation, "Evening Sessions 1986-1994" (1997), and the band's American label released "Singles 1989-1991" (1999), a 2CD package which added rarities and live tracks. Gedge recorded an album, "Va Va Voom", in 1998 under the Cinerama band name with his girlfriend, Sally Murrell, and some session musicians. The project became a full-time band.