Principality of Sealand

The Principality of Sealand is a micronation located on HM Fort Roughs, a former World War II Maunsell Sea Fort in the North Sea 10 km (six miles) off the coast of Suffolk, England.

Since 1967, the facility has been occupied by former radio broadcaster British Army Major Paddy Roy Bates; his associates and family claim that it is an independent sovereign state. External commentators generally classify Sealand as a micronation. It has been described as the world's smallest nation. Sealand is not currently officially recognized as a sovereign state by any United Nations member.

Several dozen different Sealand coins have been minted since 1972. In the early 1990s, Achenbach's German group also produced a coin, featuring a likeness of "Prime Minister Seiger". Sealand's coins and postage stamps are denominated in "Sealand dollars", which it deems to be at parity with the U.S. dollar. Sealand first issued postage stamps in 1969, yet no stamp issues have been made since the start of the 21st century, and Sealand is not a member of the Universal Postal Union, therefore its inward address is a PO Box in the United Kingdom.

Mellotron

The Mellotron is an electro-mechanical, polyphonic keyboard originally developed and built in Birmingham, England in the early 1960s. It superseded the Chamberlin, which was the world's first sample-playback keyboard. The heart of the instrument is a bank of parallel linear magnetic audio tapes, which have approximately eight seconds of playing time each. Playback heads underneath each key enable the playing of pre-recorded sounds.

The earlier MKI and MKII models contained two side-by-side keyboards: The right keyboard accessed 18 "lead/instrument" sounds such as strings, flutes, and brass; The left keyboard played pre-recorded musical rhythm tracks in various styles.

The tape banks for the later, lighter-weight M400 models contain only three selectable sounds including (typically) strings, cello, and an eight-voice choir. The sound on each individual tape piece was recorded at the pitch of the key to which it was assigned. To make up for the fewer sounds available, the M400 tapes came in a removable frame that allowed for relatively quick changes to new racks of sounds.

The Margate Elephant

The Margate Elephant is a six-story elephant-shaped architectural folly constructed of wood and tin sheeting in 1882 by James V. Lafferty in Margate City, New Jersey, two miles (3.2 km) south of Atlantic City, in an effort to sell real estate and attract tourism. The structure, whose original name was "Elephant Bazaar", was dubbed "Lucy the Elephant" in 1900. She stands 65 feet (19.7 m) high, 60 feet (18.3 m) long, and 18 feet (5.5 m) wide, weighs about 90 tons, and is made of nearly one million pieces of wood. She was sold to new owners in 1887.

Over the years, Lucy had served as a restaurant, business office, cottage, and tavern (the last closed by Prohibition). A popular story is that Lucy once housed a hotel but this is untrue. Lucy had fallen into disrepair by the 1960s and was scheduled for demolition. She was moved and refurbished as a result of a "Save Lucy" campaign in 1970 and received designation as a National Historic Landmark in 1976.

According to the official history of Lucy published by the Save Lucy Committee, in 1969 Edwin T. Carpenter and a group of Margate citizens formed the Margate Civic Association, which eventually under Josephine Harron and Sylvia Carpenter become the Save Lucy Committee. They were given a 30-day deadline for relocation, or be solely responsible to demolition and removal costs. Money was raised by various fund-raising events, with the most successful being a door to door canvass by volunteers. She was moved and refurbished in 1970 and received designation as a National Historic Landmark in 1976.

Lucy was struck by lightning for the first time in Spring 2006; the tips of the tusks became blackened.

The Big Sleep

The Big Sleep (1939) is a crime novel by Raymond Chandler, the first in his acclaimed series about hardboiled detective Philip Marlowe. The work has been adapted twice into film, once in 1946 and again in 1978.

The story is noted for its complexity and is heavily influenced by classic Greek tragedy, with many characters double crossing each other and many secrets being exposed throughout the narrative. The title is a euphemism for death; it refers to a rumination in the book about "sleeping the big sleep", and is not descriptive of the plot.

In 2005, Time magazine included the novel in its 100 Best Novels published after 1923.

Neil Hamburger

Neil Hamburger is a stand-up comedian character played by Gregg Turkington.

Hamburger's jokes range from variations of "Why did the chicken cross the road?" to celebrity targets, such as Michael Jackson, Paris Hilton, Britney Spears, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Diana, Princess of Wales, to jokes about his ex-wife. His pacing is off, and he clears his throat nonstop through his entire routine (often to keep overzealous fans from shouting out his punchlines), which has caused critics to tag him as "the world's 'worst' stand-up comedian." He has performed his brand of comedy, much of it anti-humor, in front of audiences from the New York University Thompson Center to Jimmy Kimmel Live and is often compared to Tony Clifton^[1]. One of his most famous gags is the "Zipper Lips," in which he asks an audience member a question. If the audience member doesn't respond, Hamburger derides them for being a "zipper lips." A common phrase used by the comedian is "But that's my life!"

Gin

Gin is a spirit flavoured with juniper berries. Distilled gin is made by redistilling white grain spirit which has been flavoured with juniper berries. Compound gin is made by flavouring neutral grain spirit with juniper berries without redistilling. The most common style of gin, typically used for mixed drinks, is London dry gin. London dry gin is made by taking a neutral grain spirit (usually produced in a column still) and redistilling after the botanicals are added. In addition to juniper, it is usually made with amounts of citrus botanicals like lemon and bitter orange peel.

Plymouth Gin, the brand, like all gins claims to use a unique recipe, but "Plymouth" is a place designated type of gin, not just the actual brand name itself, and typically uses a subset of the botanicals above, similar to London dry gin. It has lemon and orange, angelica, anise, cardamom, coriander and Juniper. Distilled gin evolved from the Dutch spirits jonge- and oude- Jenever or Genever (young and old Dutch gin), Plymouth gin, and Old Tom gin. Sloe gin is a common ready-sweetened form of gin that is traditionally made by infusing sloes (the fruit of the blackthorn) in gin.

A well-made gin will be relatively dry compared to other spirits. Gin is often mixed in cocktails with sweeter ingredients like tonic water or vermouth to balance this dryness.

In London in the early eighteenth century, gin sold on the black market was prepared in illicit stills (of which there were 1500 in 1726) and was often adulterated with turpentine and sulfuric acid. As late as 1913 Webster's Dictionary states without further comment that 'Common gin is usually flavored with turpentine.'

The column still was invented in 1832, and the "London dry" style was developed later in the 19th century. In tropical British colonies, gin was used to mask the bitter flavour of quinine, a protection against malaria, which was dissolved in carbonated water to form tonic water. This was the origin of today's popular gin and tonic combination, even though it is not necessary for the majority of today's consumers of the drink. Quinine is still prescribed for malaria in many developing countries where more recent treatments are prohibitively expensive.

Tony Wilson

Tony Wilson was an English record label owner, radio presenter, TV show host, nightclub manager, impresario and journalist for Granada Television and the BBC. Wilson was the music mogul behind some of Manchester's most successful bands. He was the founder and manager of The Haçienda nightclub, and was one of the five co-founders of Factory Records. Wilson was also known as Mr. Manchester, dubbed as such for his work in promoting the greater cultural status of Manchester throughout his career.

Wilson's involvement in popular music stemmed from hosting Granada's culture and music programme "So It Goes". Wilson, who intensely disliked the music scene of the mid 1970s, saw the Sex Pistols at the Manchester Lesser Free Trade Hall, in June 1976, an experience which he described as "nothing short of an epiphany" . He booked them for the last episode of the first series, probably the first television showing of the then-revolutionary British strand of punk rock.

He was the manager of many bands, including A Certain Ratio and The Durutti Column, and was part owner and manager of Factory Records, home of the Happy Mondays and Joy Division - the band managed by friend and business partner Rob Gretton. He also founded and managed The Haçienda nightclub and Dry bar, together forming a central part of the music and cultural scene of Manchester. The scene was termed "Madchester".

He never made a fortune from Factory Records or the Haçienda, despite the enormous popularity and cultural significance of both endeavours. Both Factory Records and the Haçienda came to an abrupt end in the late 1990s.

Wilson died of a heart attack in Manchester's Christie Hospital on 10 August 2007 aged 57.

Pop Rocks

Pop Rocks is a carbonated candy with ingredients including sugar, lactose, corn syrup, and flavoring.

The idea of the product was patented by General Foods research chemist William A. Mitchell in 1956. The Pop Rocks candy was first offered to the public in 1975. Around 1983, General Foods stopped selling the candy. Some incorrectly believed that this was because of an urban legend that mixing Pop Rocks with carbonated soda could result in a person's stomach exploding. In fact the candy was withdrawn for reasons largely owing to its success in the marketplace and to its relatively short shelf life. While distribution was initially tightly controlled to ensure product freshness, with its "exploding" popularity, unauthorized redistribution from market to market resulted in out-of-date product reaching consumers, many of whom complained that the candy was not performing as expected.

The candy is made by mixing its ingredients and heating them until they melt, then exposing the mixture to pressurized carbon dioxide gas (about 600 pounds per square inch) and allowing it to cool. The process causes tiny high pressure bubbles to be trapped inside the candy. When placed in the mouth, coming into contact with saliva the candy breaks and dissolves, releasing the carbon dioxide from the tiny atmosphere bubbles, resulting in a popping and sizzling sound and leaving a slight tingling sensation. The bubbles in the candy pieces can be viewed when aided by a microscope.

During the product's heyday, rumors persisted that eating Pop Rocks and drinking cola would cause a person's stomach to explode. The company spent large sums sending out flyers to debunk the rumor. This is, in part, caused by the false assumption that pop rocks contain an acid/base mixture (such as baking soda and vinegar) which produces large volumes of gas when mixed through chewing and saliva. The most famous of these myths involved a child named Mikey from the Life cereal commercials. Mikey was reported to have died after eating a Pop Rocks and cola mixture. The rumor is false and the former child actor who was in the commercials, John Gilchrist, is still alive and well.

Loki

In Norse mythology, Loki is a god or jötunn (or both). Loki's relation with the gods varies by source. Loki assists the gods, and sometimes causes problems for them. Loki is a shape shifter and in separate incidents he appears in the form of a salmon and a mare. Loki's positive relations with the gods ends with his role in engineering the death of the god Balder. Loki is eventually bound by the gods with the entrails of one of his sons. A serpent drips venom from above him that his wife Sigyn collects into a bowl. However, Sigyn must empty the bowl when it is full, and the venom that drips in the mean time causes Loki to writhe in pain. During the events of Ragnarök, Loki is foretold to fight against the gods among the forces of the jötnar. There, he will encounter the god Heimdallr and the two will slay each other.

Edward Ruscha

Edward Ruscha is an American artist associated with the Pop art movement. He has worked in the media of painting, printmaking, drawing, photography, and film. He achieved recognition for paintings incorporating words and phrases and for his many photographic books, all influenced by the deadpan irreverence of the Pop Art movement.

While in school in 1957, Ruscha chanced upon then unknown Jasper Johns’ Target with Four Faces in the magazine Print and was greatly moved. Ruscha has credited these artists’ work as sources of inspiration for his change of interest from graphic arts to painting. He was also impacted by Arthur Dove’s 1925 painting Goin’ Fishin’, Alvin Lustig's cover illustrations for New Directions Press, and much of Marcel Duchamp’s work.

Since 1964, Ruscha has been experimenting with painting and drawing words and phrases, often oddly comic and satirical sayings. When asked where he got his inspiration for his paintings, Ruscha responded, “Well, they just occur to me; sometimes people say them and I write down and then I paint them. Sometimes I use a dictionary.”

In his drawings, prints, and paintings throughout the 1970s, Ruscha experimented with a range of materials including gunpowder, blood, fruit and vegetable juices, axle grease, and grass stains. Stains, an editioned portfolio of 75 stained sheets of paper produced and published by Ruscha in 1969, bears the traces of a variety of materials and fluids. Ruscha has also produced his word paintings with food products on moiré and silks.