title: To the Manor Born

text: Peter Spence first thought of the idea behind "To the Manor Born" in the early 1970s when he was working for BBC Radio as a gag writer. One of the programmes that Spence wrote for featured a Cockney comedian, who had recently bought a manor house in an English country village. When holding a housewarming party, the comedian invited the previous occupant, a widow who could not afford to keep the house up and had moved to a smaller house in the village. The comedian's account of the lady, and the conversation he had with her, Spence later described as a "perfect description" of Audrey.


title: To the Manor Born

text: A few years later, following the success of "The Good Life", Spence was asked by BBC Radio to come up with an idea for a programme to feature Keith. Thinking of Keith's character in "The Good Life", Spence had the idea of an upper-class version of Margo Leadbetter and, from the account from the comedian, came up with Audrey fforbes-Hamilton. Instead of a Cockney comedian as the new owner of the manor, Spence decided on an American who sees the manor while in England looking for his roots. The American later discovers he is descended from the fforbes-Hamiltons. This was made into a radio pilot in 1976 with Bernard Braden as the American, but was never broadcast because of the interest to make it into a TV series.


title: To the Manor Born

text: When writing the TV series, Christopher Bond was brought in as the script associate and helped to adapt the series from radio to television. The American character was changed, and the idea of a character who appeared to be an English gentleman, but turns out not to be, was thought of. It was then decided that this character needed someone who could reveal his real background, and his mother was created, although it was not until Spence had nearly finished the first series that she was written in from the beginning. The characters of Brabinger and Marjory followed soon after. The first episode aired on 30 September 1979, a year after Keith had played Margo Leadbetter for the last time in "The Good Life".


title: To the Manor Born

text: "To the Manor Born" was filmed on location in Cricket St Thomas, Somerset, and in Studio TC1 at the BBC's Television Centre in Shepherd's Bush, London. The manor, Cricket House, was at the time of the original series owned by the father-in-law of Peter Spence, the show's creator and writer. Some interior scenes were also filmed inside Cricket House. The Old Lodge, which on screen was at the end of the manor's drive, is in fact about one mile away and called West Lodge. A false gatepost was installed to help the illusion that the two are close together. The 2007 special was, like the original series, filmed on location in Cricket St Thomas. This filming took place for about a week starting on 28 October 2007. The studio footage was filmed in front of a live audience at Pinewood Studios in Buckinghamshire on 25 November 2007.


title: To the Manor Born

text: All the episodes were directed by Gareth Gwenlan, who also produced the original series. The 2007 special was co-produced by Gwenlan and Justin Davies.


title: To the Manor Born

text: During the filming, many cars were used; but the BBC continued to use the same vintage Rolls-Royce through the entire series, including the opening titles for the show. The Rolls-Royce (BMG443) has also been used in other BBC programmes such as "Dad's Army".


title: To the Manor Born

text: The cast is led by Penelope Keith as Audrey fforbes-Hamilton and Peter Bowles as Richard de Vere. The other main cast members in the original series are Angela Thorne (playing Audrey's old friend Marjory), Daphne Heard (Richard's mother, Mrs. Polouvicka), John Rudling (Brabinger the butler), Michael Bilton (Ned, the odd-job man) and Gerald Sim (the Rector). Rudling was absent in the 1979 Christmas special and for much of the second series due to his ill health; his character was temporarily replaced as butler by Ned. Rudling died in 1983. Angela Thorne had worked with Keith before when she had played Lady "George" Truscott in a 1977 episode of "The Good Life". Michael Bilton played Basil Makepeace, a main character, in the first four series of the sitcom "Waiting for God" in the 1990s before his death in 1993.


title: To the Manor Born

text: Peter Bowles had been asked some years earlier to play Jerry Leadbetter, the husband of Keith's Margo, in "The Good Life". Owing to prior commitments, Bowles turned down the role, but had he played Jerry, it is unlikely he would have been offered the part of Richard; as Bowles later said, "There's no way I could have played Penelope Keith's screen husband in two separate sitcoms." However, in 1987 Bowles replaced Geoffrey Palmer as Keith's onscreen husband in the ITV sitcom "Executive Stress".


title: To the Manor Born

text: The series also features many recurring characters, who are either estate workers or members of Audrey's social circle. Celia Imrie, who makes two appearances as supermarket cashier Polly, later became known for her work with Victoria Wood, including the sitcom "Dinnerladies", as well as roles in "Kingdom" and "After You've Gone".


title: To the Manor Born

text: The 2007 Christmas special features four of the original cast members: Penelope Keith, Peter Bowles, Angela Thorne, and Gerald Sim. New characters include Alexander Armstrong as Adam fforbes-Hamilton, Audrey's nephew-by-marriage and godson; Alan David as Emmeridge, Audrey and Richard's outspoken butler; and Michael Cochrane as Archie Pennington-Booth, a neighbouring landowner. While the Rector makes only a brief appearance, the other three original characters are main characters throughout and are credited in the opening credits.


title: To the Manor Born

text: "To the Manor Born" is set in the fictional village of Grantleigh in Somerset, near the fictional town of Marlbury. The series begins with the funeral of Marton ("sic") fforbes-Hamilton, the Lord of the Manor of Grantleigh. Audrey, his widow (and apparently also his cousin), is far from distraught, as she now has control of the Grantleigh Manor Estate, which her family, the fforbes-Hamiltons, have controlled for 400 years. Her joy is short-lived though, as her solicitor, Arnold Plunkett, informs her that Marton was bankrupt and that the manor will have to be sold to pay off the debts. Audrey tries to buy back the manor at auction, but is outbid at £876,000. The new Lord of the Manor is Richard DeVere, a recently widowed self-made millionaire who started his career on an East End fruit barrow and founded the Cavendish Foods supermarket chain, though Audrey calls him a costermonger and sees him simply as a grocer. DeVere brings his domineering mother, Maria Poulouvicka (who is nicknamed by Audrey as 'Mrs. Poo'). She reveals to Audrey, who does not like foreigners, that she and her son came to Britain in 1939 from Czechoslovakia, and that Richard, whose real name is Bedřich Polouvicek, is half-Polish (on his late father Lazlo's side) and half-Czech. Mrs. Polouvicka tries hard to fit into British country life, but her accent often leads to many mispronunciations and she frequently comes out with sayings from her "old Czechoslovakia". From early on in the series, she encourages her son to court Audrey.


title: To the Manor Born

text: Audrey moves into the "Old Lodge", at the end of the drive, where she can see most of what goes on at the manor. Living with her is her elderly and loyal butler, Brabinger, who has worked for the fforbes-Hamiltons his whole life, and her beagle Bertie. Audrey's supportive best friend, and a frequent visitor, is the well-meaning Marjory Frobisher, who quickly develops a crush on DeVere. Marjory, who was at school with Audrey, is still a schoolgirl at heart and a committed countryside campaigner. Marjory has no organisational ability, which leads to her being nicknamed "Muddlesome Marj" by some. Despite Marjory's encouragement, Audrey refuses to get a job, saying her only job could be running the Grantleigh Estate and doing other public service, which includes her being a magistrate. This means that money is a constant problem and Audrey has to learn to live within her means and new circumstances. During the second series, Brabinger is away ill; and Ned, whose tied cottage is being renovated by Richard, takes over as Audrey's butler. Ned, a gardener and "outside man", has worked on the estate all his life and finds working indoors difficult to get used to and he tends to lack the refined characteristics that a trained butler such as Brabinger possessed. Other estate staff include the estate foreman Mr. Miller, the new estate manager Mr. Spalding and the cook Mrs. Beecham. Another character, Polly, originally works at the local "Cavendish Foods" supermarket and then at the doctors' surgery, while Linda Cartwright works in the stables and as a domestic. The postman, Mr. Purvis, appears in two episodes.


title: To the Manor Born

text: Other characters include the local rector, who is not unhappy when Audrey loses the manor, hoping that it will prevent the dominating Audrey from having a say in the running of the church and local causes. The rector favours Richard, who is frequently generous when it comes to donations to church funds. The village shop is run by Mrs. Patterson, the local gossip who also favours Richard and does not get on with Audrey. The typically English Brigadier Lemington, of the Somerset Rifles and a former Desert Rat, is another local landowner and friend of Audrey's and the Master of Foxhounds and, like Audrey and Marjory, has an interest in nature conservation and cricket. Arnold Plunkett and his wife Dorothy are friends of Audrey, while Arnold is also the family solicitor. Grantleigh's local estate agent is J.J. Anderson, of Anderson and Fish, who appears at manor parties.


title: To the Manor Born

text: During the course of the three series, Audrey and Richard grow closer. Hostile to each other at the start, they grew to understand and respect each other, as both try to adapt to each other's ways. The last two 1981 episodes show Richard having problems at his company Cavendish Foods. With his board of directors refusing to let Richard buy a refrigeration plant in Argentina, he seriously considers selling the manor to raise the money to buy the plant himself. Trying to help Richard, Audrey asks her uncle, a well-respected and connected member of the financial community, to lend Richard a hand. Thanks to him, things begin to go Richard's way. Unfortunately, Audrey's uncle dies before the deals are signed. Richard decides to sell the manor to pay for the refrigerated plant. By a twist of fate, Audrey inherits her uncle's fortune and buys the manor back. Now back home and on her own turf, Audrey asks Richard to marry her. Taken aback, Richard says yes and they are married in the final episode, broadcast on 29 November 1981.


title: To the Manor Born

text: As Richard and Audrey plan to celebrate their silver wedding anniversary, each planning a surprise party for the other, Richard confesses to Audrey that he owns Farmer Tom, a company that has been putting the neighbouring estates out of business. Audrey leaves him and goes to stay with Marjory, much to the latter's displeasure. Richard visits his mother's grave to develop a plan to win Audrey back. He decides to allow a rock concert to be held on the estate. When the licence application is up before the magistrates' court, Richard changes his mind. The following day, their anniversary, Marjory leads Audrey to a surprise party organised by Richard.


title: To the Manor Born

text: New characters in the 2007 Christmas special include Emmeridge, the outspoken butler replacing Brabinger; Adam fforbes-Hamilton, Marton's nephew and Audrey's godson, who has recently moved to Grantleigh to learn how to run an estate; and Archie Pennington-Booth, a neighbouring landowner driven to bankruptcy by Farmer Tom. Marjory now lives in the Old Lodge that Audrey occupied during the original series, and she and Adam develop a romantic interest in each other. A small acknowledgement of Bertie and Brabinger appears in the special, consisting of a photo of Brabinger and a small beagle statuette on a side table. Richard's mother, "Mrs. Poo", is acknowledged by a marble headstone in the church graveyard and a framed photograph on the mantel of the manor's sitting room.


title: To the Manor Born

text: "To the Manor Born" ran for three series and one Christmas special from 30 September 1979 to 29 November 1981. Each episode is half an hour long. The first series aired for seven episodes on Sundays at 8.45 pm, the second series for six episodes on Sundays at 8.35 pm and the seven-episode Series Three on Sundays at 7.15 pm. The Christmas special aired at 8.00 pm. All episodes aired on BBC1. A second Christmas special, announced on 24 October 2007, aired at 9.30 pm on BBC One on Christmas Day, 25 December 2007.


title: To the Manor Born

text: The theme tune for "To the Manor Born" was composed by Ronnie Hazlehurst, the BBC's Light Entertainment Music Director who composed the theme tunes for many sitcoms around this time.


title: To the Manor Born

text: The programme was very popular with viewers. Several episodes received extremely high audience figures, especially the first series. This was partly due to the fact that ITV, the main rival channel to BBC1 in the United Kingdom, was in the middle of a protracted strike which started in early August 1979. This saw nearly all of the local ITV companies go off air, with no programmes being aired from the network (except Channel Television in the Channel Islands), leaving only BBC 1 and BBC 2 as the channels left for the British public to watch until Wednesday 24 October 1979, when ITV returned to air, with the strike ending in a pay agreement.


title: To the Manor Born

text: However, many viewers remained with the BBC and with shows such as "To the Manor Born", as ITV took some months to get going again with new programmes. For the first month after the strike had ended, ITV found it hard to win back viewers who preferred to remain with the BBC, as ITV was airing repeats and filler programmes until new content was made from November 1979. This gave "To the Manor Born" a huge advantage with the viewing public.


title: To the Manor Born

text: In 1979, the last episode of the first series received 23.95 million viewers, the fourth-highest figures for any programme in the UK in the 1970s, and the highest for a non-live event. The following year, 21.55 million people watched the last episode of series two, the fifth-highest viewing figure for the 1980s. The final episode in 1981 received 17.80 million viewers. The 2007 Christmas special garnered 10.25 million viewers and ranked as the 6th most watched programme in the UK for that week.


title: To the Manor Born

text: Writing in the "Sunday Express" on 30 December 2007, Marshall Julius described the 2007 Christmas special as "so cosy and old-fashioned that I could easily have dismissed it with a cynical wave". However, he says he found himself enjoying it "about halfway through" and said "it was a real pleasure to see Peter Bowles and Penelope Keith, for both of whom I feel great affection, once again sparring on the small screen". Julius finished his review by commenting "Not that I'm saying I'd like a whole series of it but as a one-off event it was surprisingly welcome".


title: To the Manor Born

text: The British Comedy Guide was more critical saying that "whilst it gained great viewing figures it really wasn't a patch on the original episodes."


title: To the Manor Born

text: The writer Peter Spence wrote two books that accompanied "To the Manor Born". While they were based on the TV episodes, both books did differ with added conversations, changed storylines and the characters being given different personality traits. The first book, published in 1979 by Arrow Books, is entitled "To the Manor Born" and is based on the first series episodes 1, 2, 4, 6 and 7. In this book, Brabinger's first name, which is never mentioned in the TV series, is revealed as Bertram and Ned's surname revealed as Peaslake. The second book, titled "To the Manor Born Book 2", was published by the same publisher in 1980. This is a novelisation of the 1979 Christmas special and episodes 5, 4, 3, 2 and 6 from the second series, plus an original story.


title: To the Manor Born

text: A film version was announced by the Rank Organisation at the Cannes Film Festival in 1980, but then was abandoned when Rank pulled out of filmmaking.


title: To the Manor Born

text: In 1997, 16 years after the original series of "To the Manor Born" ended on television, ten 30-minute episodes were recorded for radio, the programme's original intended medium. The episodes, originally aired on Saturdays on BBC Radio 2 from 25 January to 29 March 1997, were written by Peter Spence, six adapted from TV episodes and four new episodes. Keith and Thorne returned as Audrey and Marjory, while Keith Barron replaced Bowles as Richard. Other actors, including Frank Middlemass and Nicholas McArdle, who played Miller in the TV version, replaced many of the by then deceased original television cast members. The series has subsequently been repeated on BBC 7/BBC Radio 4 Extra. All ten episodes, collected, are now available for purchase on Audible and iTunes.


title: To the Manor Born

text: All three series, including the 1979 and 2007 Christmas specials, of "To the Manor Born" have been released in the UK (Region 2). The first series and the 1979 Christmas special were released on 5 May 2003, followed by Series Two on 29 December 2003 and Series Three on 14 June 2004. The DVDs feature an interview with Peter Spence. The 2007 Christmas special was released on Region 2 DVD on 11 February 2008.


title: To the Manor Born

text: The complete original series was released in a boxset in the United States and Canada (Region 1) on 15 June 2004.


title: To the Manor Born

text: In Australia (Region 4), all three seasons and a complete series boxset have been released. Also the 25th Wedding Anniversary Special.


title: Plural

text: The plural (sometimes abbreviated pl., pl, or ), in many languages, is one of the values of the grammatical category of number. The plural of a noun typically denotes a quantity greater than the default quantity represented by that noun. This default quantity is most commonly one (a form that represents this default quantity of one is said to be of "singular" number). Therefore, plurals most typically denote two or more of something, although they may also denote fractional, zero or negative amounts. An example of a plural is the English word "cats", which corresponds to the singular "cat".


title: Plural

text: Words of other types, such as verbs, adjectives and pronouns, also frequently have distinct plural forms, which are used in agreement with the number of their associated nouns.


title: Plural

text: Some languages also have a dual (denoting exactly two of something) or other systems of number categories. However, in English and many other languages, singular and plural are the only grammatical numbers, except for possible remnants of dual number in pronouns such as "both" and "either".


title: Plural

text: In many languages, there is also a dual number (used for indicating two objects). Some other grammatical numbers present in various languages include trial (for three objects) and paucal (for an imprecise but small number of objects). In languages with dual, trial, or paucal numbers, plural refers to numbers higher than those. However, numbers besides singular, plural, and (to a lesser extent) dual are extremely rare. Languages with numerical classifiers such as Chinese and Japanese lack any significant grammatical number at all, though they are likely to have plural personal pronouns.


title: Plural

text: Some languages (like Mele-Fila) distinguish between a plural and a greater plural. A greater plural refers to an abnormally large number for the object of discussion. The distinction between the paucal, the plural, and the greater plural is often relative to the type of object under discussion. For example, in discussing oranges, the paucal number might imply fewer than ten, whereas for the population of a country, it might be used for a few hundred thousand.


title: Plural

text: The Austronesian languages of Sursurunga and Lihir have extremely complex grammatical number systems, with singular, dual, paucal, greater paucal, and plural.


title: Plural

text: Traces of the dual and paucal can be found in some Slavic and Baltic languages (apart from those that preserve the dual number, such as Slovene). These are known as "pseudo-dual" and "pseudo-paucal" grammatical numbers. For example, Polish and Russian use different forms of nouns with the numerals 2, 3, or 4 (and higher numbers ending with these) than with the numerals 5, 6, etc. (genitive singular in Russian and nominative plural in Polish in the former case, genitive plural in the latter case). Also some nouns may follow different declension patterns when denoting objects which are typically referred to in pairs. For example, in Polish, the noun "oko", among other meanings, may refer to a human or animal eye or to a drop of oil on water. The plural of "oko" in the first meaning is "oczy" (even, if actually referring to more than two eyes), while in the second - "oka" (even, if actually referring to exactly two drops).


title: Plural

text: Traces of dual can also be found in Modern Hebrew. Biblical Hebrew had grammatical dual via the suffix as opposed to for masculine words. Contemporary use of a true dual number in Hebrew is chiefly used in words regarding time and numbers. However, in Biblical and Modern Hebrew, the pseudo-dual as plural of "eyes" "eye / eyes" as well as "hands", "legs" and several other words are retained. For further information, see .


title: Plural

text: Certain nouns in some languages have the unmarked form referring to multiple items, with an inflected form referring to a single item. These cases are described with the terms "collective number" and "singulative number". Some languages may possess a massive plural and a numerative plural, the first implying a large mass and the second implying division. For example, "the waters of the Atlantic Ocean" versus, "the waters of [each of] the Great Lakes".


title: Plural

text: Ghil'ad Zuckermann uses the term "superplural" to refer to massive plural. He argues that the Australian Aboriginal Barngarla language has four grammatical numbers: singular, dual, plural and "superplural". For example:


title: Plural

text: A given language may make plural forms of nouns by various types of inflection, including the addition of affixes, like the English "-(e)s" and "-ies" suffixes, or ablaut, as in the derivation of the plural "geese" from "goose", or a combination of the two. Some languages may also form plurals by reduplication, but not as productive. It may be that some nouns are not marked for plural, like "sheep" and "series" in English. In languages which also have a case system, such as Latin and Russian, nouns can have not just one plural form but several, corresponding to the various cases. The inflection might affect multiple words, not just the noun; and the noun itself need not become plural as such, other parts of the expression indicate the plurality.


title: Plural

text: In English, the most common formation of plural nouns is by adding an "-s" suffix to the singular noun. (For details and different cases, see English plurals). Just like in English, noun plurals in French, Spanish and Portuguese are also typically formed by adding an "-s" suffix to the lemma form, sometimes combining it with an additional vowel (in French, however, this plural suffix is often not pronounced). This construction is also found in German and Dutch, but only in some nouns. Suffixing is cross-linguistically the most common method of forming plurals.


title: Plural

text: In Welsh, the reference form, or default quantity, of some nouns is plural, and the singular form is formed from that, eg "llygod", mice; "llygoden", mouse; "erfin", turnips; "erfinen", turnip.


title: Plural

text: In many languages, words other than nouns may take plural forms, these being used by way of grammatical agreement with plural nouns (or noun phrases). Such a word may in fact have a number of plural forms, to allow for simultaneous agreement within other categories such as case, person and gender, as well as marking of categories belonging to the word itself (such as tense of verbs, degree of comparison of adjectives, etc.)


title: Plural

text: Verbs often agree with their subject in number (as well as in person and sometimes gender). Examples of plural forms are the French "mangeons, mangez, mangent" – respectively the first-, second- and third-person plural of the present tense of the verb "manger". In English a distinction is made in the third person between forms such as "eats" (singular) and "eat" (plural).


title: Plural

text: Adjectives may agree with the noun they modify; examples of plural forms are the French "petits" and "petites" (the masculine plural and feminine plural respectively of "petit"). The same applies to some determiners – examples are the French plural definite article "les", and the English demonstratives "these" and "those".


title: Plural

text: It is common for pronouns, particularly personal pronouns, to have distinct plural forms. Examples in English are "we" ("us", etc.) and "they" ("them" etc.; see English personal pronouns), and again "these" and "those" (when used as demonstrative pronouns).


title: Plural

text: In Welsh, a number of common prepositions also inflect to agree with the number, person, and sometimes gender of the noun or pronoun they govern.


title: Plural

text: Certain nouns do not form plurals. A large class of such nouns in many languages is that of uncountable nouns, representing mass or abstract concepts such as "air", "information", "physics". However, many nouns of this type also have countable meanings or other contexts in which a plural can be used; for example "water" can take a plural when it means water from a particular source ("different waters make for different beers") and in expressions like "by the waters of Babylon".


title: Plural

text: There are also nouns found exclusively or almost exclusively in the plural, such as the English "scissors". These are referred to with the term "plurale tantum". Occasionally, a plural form can pull double duty as the singular form (or vice versa), as has happened with the word "data".


title: Plural

text: The plural is used, as a rule, for quantities other than one (and other than those quantities represented by other grammatical numbers, such as dual, which a language may possess). Thus it is frequently used with numbers higher than one ("two cats", "101 dogs", "four and a half hours") and for unspecified amounts of countable things ("some men", "several cakes", "how many lumps?", "birds have feathers"). The precise rules for the use of plurals, however, depends on the language – for example Russian uses the genitive singular rather than the plural after certain numbers (see above).


title: Plural

text: Treatments differ in expressions of zero quantity: English often uses the plural in such expressions as "no injuries" and "zero points", although "no" (and "zero" in some contexts) may also take a singular. In French, the singular form is used after "zéro".


title: Plural

text: English also tends to use the plural with decimal fractions, even if less than one, as in "0.3 metres", "0.9 children". Common fractions less than one tend to be used with singular expressions: "half (of) a loaf", "two-thirds of a mile". Negative numbers are usually treated the same as the corresponding positive ones: "minus one degree", "minus two degrees". Again, rules on such matters differ between languages.


title: Plural

text: In some languages, including English, expressions that appear to be singular in form may be treated as plural if they are used with a plural sense, as in "the government are agreed". The reverse is also possible: "the United States is a powerful country". See synesis, and also .


title: Plural

text: In part-of-speech tagging notation, tags are used to distinguish different types of plurals based on their grammatical and semantic context. Resolution varies, for example the Penn-Treebank tagset (~36 tags) has two tags: "NNS - noun, plural," and "NPS - Proper noun, plural", while the CLAWS 7 tagset (~149 tags) uses six: "NN2 - plural common noun, NNL2 - plural locative noun, NNO2 - numeral noun, plural, NNT2 - temporal noun, plural, NNU2 - plural unit of measurement, NP2 - plural proper noun."


title: Mar del Plata

text: Mar del Plata is a city on the coast of the Atlantic Ocean, in Buenos Aires Province, Argentina. It is the seat of General Pueyrredón district. Mar del Plata is the second largest city in Buenos Aires Province. The name "Mar del Plata" is a shortening of "Mar del Rio de la Plata," and has the meaning of "sea of the Rio de la Plata basin" or "adjoining sea to the (River) Plate region". Mar del Plata is one of the major fishing ports and the biggest seaside beach resort in Argentina.


title: Mar del Plata

text: As part of the Argentine recreational coast, tourism is Mar del Plata's main economic activity with seven million tourists visiting the city in 2006. Mar del Plata has a sophisticated tourist infrastructure with numerous hotels, restaurants, casinos, theatres and other tourist attractions. Mar del Plata is also an important sports centre with a multi-purpose Olympic style stadium (first used for the 1978 World Cup and later upgraded for the 1995 Pan American Games), five golf courses and many other facilities.


title: Mar del Plata

text: As an important fishing port, industry concentrates on fish processing and at least two large shipyards.


title: Mar del Plata

text: There is a well-developed packaging machines industry, its quality being recognized in international markets. One of these companies was one of the pioneers in the automatic packaging of tea bags, exporting its original machine-designs abroad. Another company also exports its products and has sold royalties to other countries.


title: Mar del Plata

text: During the mid-1980s, Mar del Plata saw the birth of electronics factories, focused mostly on the telecommunications field, with two of them, Nexuscom and DelSat, succeeding in the international market. By the 2010s, a local technology company, PCBOX, was manufacturing and developing personal computers, tablet computers, smartphones and action-cams.


title: Mar del Plata

text: Also during the decade of 2010, the development of the software industry resulted in the formation of 92 companies and 440 microbusiness. One of these companies, Making Sense, opened offices at San Antonio, Austin and Boston, in the United States. Along with the American COPsync, Inc, the company developed in 2013 the software for VidTac, an in-car video system for law enforcement, and the internet landing page application Lander, bought by the Silicon Valley company QuestionPro in 2016.


title: Mar del Plata

text: Since the 2000s, a local company builds and develops oil industry equipment, with customers in the United States, Russia, Oman and Egypt.


title: Mar del Plata

text: Located southwest of the city there are quartzite quarries. The stone is traditionally used in construction. There is a huge area of farms in the rural areas surrounding the city, specialized mostly in the cultivation of vegetables. In 2012, Mar del Plata became a wine-producing area, when a wine company from Mendoza province produced 20,000 lt from a vineyard at Chapadmalal beach from grape varieties such as Sauvignon blanc, Chardonnay, Riesling and Gewürztraminer. Since then, the local winery turned into a tourist attraction. Microbeweries flourished during the 2010s, amounting by 2016 to one third of the national production.


title: Mar del Plata

text: Although the area had suffered from a high rate of unemployment from 1995 to 2003, Mar del Plata has seen 46,000 new jobs created from the third quarter of 2003 to the third quarter of 2008, representing an increase of 22%.


title: Mar del Plata

text: The 2008 Davis Cup Final was held in Mar del Plata and, after being shut for a decade the Gran Hotel Provincial (one of the largest hotels in Argentina) was reopened by the Madrid-based NH Hotels, in 2009.


title: Mar del Plata

text: Mar del Plata continues to lead Argentina's room availability: of 440,000 registered hotel rooms nationwide in early 2009, the city was home to nearly 56,000 (5,000 more than Buenos Aires).


title: Mar del Plata

text: Mar del Plata is served by Astor Piazzolla International Airport (MDQ/SAZM) with daily flights to Buenos Aires served by Aerolíneas Argentinas and Sol Líneas Aéreas and weekly flights to Patagonia served by LADE.


title: Mar del Plata

text: Due to COVID-19 pandemic, flights were reduced just to two daily flights to Buenos Aires served by Aerolineas Argentinas.


title: Mar del Plata

text: Highway 2 connects Mar del Plata with Buenos Aires and Route 11 connects it through the coastline, ending at Miramar, south of Mar del Plata. Route 88 connects to Necochea and Route 226 to Balcarce, Tandil and Olavarría.


title: Mar del Plata

text: The city has a bus and train station serving most cities in Argentina. There are two daily trains to Buenos Aires' Constitución station using new trains operated by Trenes Argentinos. These services are part of the General Roca Railway, owned by the government company Nuevos Ferrocarriles Argentinos.


title: Mar del Plata

text: Pre-Spanish era: The region was inhabited by "Günuna Kena" nomads (also known as northern Tehuelches). They were later (after the 11th century) strongly influenced by the Mapuche culture.


title: Mar del Plata

text: 1577–1857: First European explorers. Sir Francis Drake made a reconnaissance of the coast and its sea lion colonies; Don Juan de Garay explored the area by land a few years later, in 1581. In 1742, during the War of Jenkins' Ear, eight survivors of , part of Admiral Anson expedition, and led by midshipman Isaac Morris, lived through a ten-month ordeal before being decimated and captured by the Tehuelches, who eventually handed them to the Spaniards. After holding the Englishmen as prisoners, they returned Morris and his surviving companions to London in 1746. First colonization attempt by Jesuit Order near Laguna de los Padres ended in disaster (1751).


title: Mar del Plata

text: 1857–1874: The Portuguese entrepreneur José Coelho de Meirelles, taking advantage of the country's abundance of wild cattle, built a pier and a factory for salted meat near Cabo Corrientes, but the business only lasted a few years.


title: Mar del Plata

text: 1874–1886: Patricio Peralta Ramos acquired the now abandoned factory along with the surrounding terrain, and founded the town on February 10, 1874. Basque rancher Pedro Luro bought a part of Peralta Ramos land for agricultural production. First docks also erected around this time.


title: Mar del Plata

text: 1886–1911: The railway line from Buenos Aires, built by the Buenos Aires Great Southern reached Mar del Plata in 1886; the first hotels started their activity. The upper-class people from Buenos Aires became the first tourists of the new born village. They also established a local government that reflected their conservative ideals. Build-up of a French style resort. On 19 July 1907, the provincial legislature approved a bill that declared Mar del Plata as a city.


title: Mar del Plata

text: 1911–1930: The residents, mostly newly arrived emigrants from Europe, demanded and obtained the control of the Municipality administration. The socialists were the mainstream political force in this period, carrying out social reforms and public investment. The main port was also built and inaugurated in 1916.


title: Mar del Plata

text: 1930–1946: A military coup reinstated the Conservative hegemony in politics through electoral fraud and corruption, but at local levels they were quite progressive, their policies viewed in some way as a continuity of the socialist trend. In 1932, the construction of National Route 2 was completed, which connected Mar del Plata to Buenos Aires. Before this, a dirt road connected Mar del Plata to Buenos Aires using a different route, required almost two days to travel by car. The seaside "Casino" complex opened in 1939, was designed by architect Alejandro Bustillo, dates from this period.


title: Mar del Plata

text: 1946–1955: Birth of the Peronist movement. A coalition between socialists and radicals defeated this new party by a narrow margin in Mar del Plata, but by 1948 Peronism came to dominate the local administration. The massive tourism, triggered by the welfare politics of Perón and the surge of the middle class marked a huge growth in the city's economy.


title: Mar del Plata

text: 1955–1970: After the fall of Perón, the socialists regained the upper hand in local politics; the city reached the peak in activities like construction business and building industry. There was massive emigration from other regions of Argentina.


title: Mar del Plata

text: 1970–1989: Slight decline of tourism demand, counterbalanced by the increase of other industries such as fishing and machinery. General infrastructure renewal under the military rule. The centrist Radical Civic Union becomes the main political force after the return of Democracy in 1983.


title: Mar del Plata

text: 1989–2010: Though the Peronism replaced the radicals in central government amid a national financial crisis, the latter party continued to rule in Mar del Plata. Some resurgence of mass tourism in the early '90s was followed by a deep social crisis in town, with an increase of poverty, jobless rates and emigration. By contrast, the first decade of the 21st century shows an amazingly quick recovery in all sectors of the ailing economy.


title: Mar del Plata

text: Mar del Plata is the most popular destination for conventions in Argentina after Buenos Aires. Mar del Plata has a wide range of services in this sector. The summer season hosts over fifty theatrical plays.


title: Mar del Plata

text: Mar del Plata has a wide variety of clubs located by district: the area of Escollera Norte (known for its quantity of pubs and nightclubs) and Constitution Avenue.


title: Mar del Plata

text: The development of the city as a seasonal summer resort in the early 20th century led upper class tourists from Buenos Aires to build a European-inspired architecture, based mainly on the picturesque and later on the art deco styles. This gave Mar del Plata the nickname of the "Argentine Biarritz". The building industry became the main non-seasonal activity of the town by 1920.


title: Mar del Plata

text: During the 1930s, 1940s, and beyond, local architects and builders, like Auro Tiribelli, Arturo Lemmi, Alberto Córsico-Picollini and Raúl Camusso recreated and transformed the picturesque values into a middle-class scale, marking the beginning of a vernacular architecture, called Mar del Plata Style, consisting in small samples of the luxury-laden summer residences of high society, built for the summer visitor as well as for the local resident.


title: Mar del Plata

text: These chalets were built with stone "façades", gable roofs covered with Spanish or French tiles, prominent eaves and front porches. This gives the town some distinctive urban character compared with other Argentine cities, despite the fact that the growing mass of tourists in the '60s imposed the construction of large apartment buildings and skyscrapers as the predominant architectural style downtown.


title: Mar del Plata

text: Mar del Plata has an oceanic climate ("Cfb", according to the Köppen climate classification), with humid and moderate summers and relatively cool winters, although polar air masses from Antarctica are frequent. The average daily mean temperature in January is . It is in July. The West-Southwest winds can take the temperature below between mid May and early October, while the Southeast ones (the so-called "Sudestada") are stronger, producing coastal showers and rough seas, as well as strong squalls, but the cold is much less intense. There is fog in the last days of fall, and springtime is often marred by sea winds and sudden temperature changes.


title: Mar del Plata

text: The city's summer maximum temperatures fluctuate broadly around the average of : while there are many days between and (although less than in other areas of the Pampas region), strong on-shore or southerly winds can also keep temperatures closer to , and nights can sometimes be very cool even in midsummer (falling below sometimes). However, the summer nights are usually cool to pleasant, with values between to .


title: Mar del Plata

text: Traditionally, Easter is seen as the "last" weekend to go to the beach on the Argentine Atlantic Coast, and average maximum temperatures are around at that time. While some years can have the last few days of about around that time, it is also possible to experience daily highs of .


title: Mar del Plata

text: Winter temperatures average during the day and at night; they sometimes climb to especially in August, but there are also days where highs stay below and temperatures fall some degrees below at night.


title: Mar del Plata

text: Spring brings the most variable weather, with heat waves bringing highs of more than followed by highs of to and perhaps a late-season frosty night all perfectly possible in October and November.


title: Mar del Plata

text: There are about six days of frost each year in the city center, and almost 27 recorded at the airport. The average dates for the first and last frost are May 23 and October 4 respectively. Snowfall is not uncommon, but snow accumulation on the ground is rare, a phenomenon that takes place every six years or so, according to the last 40 years of data. Among the best known such occurrences in the last decades were the 1975 and 1991 snowstorms, but there were also snow accumulations in 1994 and 1997 in the highest hills area of Sierra de los Padres, in 1995 along the southern coast; the other two during the first hours of July 10, 2004 and July 15, 2010, and again in Sierra de los Padres and the southern coast on 11 September 2015. There were flurries in September 1986, June 2007, July 2011 and August 2013.


title: Mar del Plata

text: The record high is on January 14, 2022 while the record low is on July 6, 1988. The wet season occurs between October and April, especially in summer (December to March), with values over in each of those months. The average annual rainfall is .


title: Mar del Plata

text: Mar del Plata is the head of the department of General Pueyrredón. The current Mayor of the city and department is Guillermo Montenegro, of the "Juntos por el Cambio" party.


title: Mar del Plata

text: The town council has some legislative powers. The term of office for both the Mayor and council members is four years.


title: Mar del Plata

text: In 1919, Mar del Plata became the first town in South America to have a Socialist Mayor, a son of Italian Immigrants, Teodoro Bronzini. The Socialist Party would dominate the city political landscape for most of the 20th century.


title: Mar del Plata

text: There is an extensive but interesting work by the American political scientist Susan Stokes about the democratic process in Mar del Plata since 1983 in comparison to other regions of Argentina. One of the main thesis of her articles is that the social and economic development of Mar del Plata was quite atypical, with a strong prevalence of middle-class values that discouraged the policy of clientelism that is the common background in other urban environments of Argentina.


title: Mar del Plata

text: The area has many Schools and Universities, some of these are private or public. It once had a German school, Johann-Gutenberg-Schule.


title: Mar del Plata

text: Also, there are two Conservatories (Classical and popular music), a Vocational School of Art, and a Municipal School of Classical and Modern Dance.


title: Mar del Plata

text: Mar del Plata's most popular football (soccer) teams are Aldosivi, Alvarado and Kimberley. Aldosivi plays in Primera division, Alvarado and Kimberley in the Torneo Argentino B.


title: Mar del Plata

text: Peñarol and Quilmes de Mar del Plata are the most popular basketball teams. Peñarol have won eight official tournaments (Súper 8, FIBA Americas League, five National Leagues, InterLigas, and Copa Argentina). Mar del Plata hosted the 2011 FIBA Americas Championship, where the city's basketball fans supported Argentina's national basketball team to win the gold medal. All games were played in the 8,000 seat Polideportivo Islas Malvinas.


title: Mar del Plata

text: Mar del Plata hosted six matches in the 1978 FIFA World Cup at the Estadio José María Minella, which was built for the sporting event.


title: Mar del Plata

text: In 2003 Mar del Plata hosted the 2nd Parapan American Games that featured 1,500 athletes from 28 countries competed in nine sporting events. This was the last Parapan American Games that was not tied to the Pan American Games.


title: Dilwale (1994 film)

text: Dilwale ( The big-hearted) is a 1994 Indian Hindi-language romantic action film starring Ajay Devgn, Sunil Shetty, Raveena Tandon and Paresh Rawal. Originally Divya Bharti signed for the lead, but due to her sudden demise, she was replaced by Tandon. It was released on 4 February 1994 and had a runtime of 180 minutes. "Dilwale" was declared a superhit at the box office and went on to become one of the highest grossing films of 1994. Suniel Shetty got nominated for the Filmfare Best Supporting Actor Award. The film was remade into Bengali Bangladesh as Swapner Bashor, starring Riaz, Shabnur and Shakib Khan.


title: Dilwale (1994 film)

text: At a mental asylum, doctors discuss the strange case of Arun Saxena whose behaviour is very different from other patients. He tries to escape but is stopped just in nick of time by doctors. Arun's mother Jamuna sits in front of a temple everyday with her back turned to God, only vowing to face God when hope comes. Inspector Vikram Singh, a tough, young honest cop is assigned Arun's case. At first, he refuses but at a visit to Arun, he is touched by seeing his behaviour to his ex flame Sapna, because of whom he became mad. Vikram meets Jamuna to know Arun's story, and the film goes into past.


title: Dilwale (1994 film)

text: Arun was a happy free-spirited young poet who was always jovial in his life. Whilst attending a party, he sees and falls in love at first sight with Sapna, despite her not knowing this. Her evil uncle Rangeen "Mama" Thakur is holding a facade for last 20 years as his hidden motive is to usurp her wealth. Arun makes it clear to everyone how much he loves Sapna. He bashes up Shankar Bihari, a goon hired by Mama to marry Sapna, so that he can get her wealth. Sapna thinks Arun is a flirt, but later falls for him, seeing him almost commit suicide for her. Shankar sends Jyoti to Arun to go intimate with him. When Sapna sees this, she mistakes this as an affair. Arun clears the confusion; however Mama tries to attack and sends goons to kill him.


title: Dilwale (1994 film)

text: Arun and Jamuna are assaulted which sparks him into action, and he beats all goons. He pursues Sapna. Jyoti is falsely invited by Mama to click nude pictures at Arun's house and is murdered. Arun is framed for murder due to his acquaintance with her. Mama brutally tortures Jamuna when she comes in jail. Arun is forced to accept murder. Sapna starts hating him; Arun is unable to take this shock which drives him insane. One final attempt to kill Mama fails in the court; he's then taken to mental asylum.


title: Dilwale (1994 film)

text: Back to the present day, Vikram promises Jamuna that he will fight for Arun's justice. Vikram slowly becomes a thorn to Mama Thakur's illegal activities. Mama Thakur is in more trouble because Natwar had secretly clicked pictures of the murder and keeps blackmailing Mama, therefore Natwar is killed by contract killers. Arun, whilst running away from a mental hospital van, witness this. He reaches back to the mental hospital and draws evidence of the murderer in his hospital room wall. Vikram now realizes he has to catch Mama Thakur and starts to gather evidence against him. He also has to protect Arun by giving him accommodation at his home as his life is in danger. Mama Thakur tries to humiliate Vikram after he refuses to accept a bribe, but he and his brother are given a taste of their own medicine when they become smartasses to Vikram. Later, Vikram gets to know that the girl that he loved was actually Sapna, but she is Arun's now. Vikram has to reunite Arun with his love. He painfully makes Ram Singh tell the truth to Sapna as he was present when he and Arun's mum were tortured, but he was helpless due to Mama Thakur's fear, and Sapna is very resentful due to the mistake she gravely made.


title: Dilwale (1994 film)

text: Arun becomes better under Vikram's care. He almost gets killed by the men who killed Natwar after Vikram visited the mansion and told Mama Thakur his days were over. Arun gets an electric shock, however, that shock brings back all his memories and makes him sane again. Arun is now discharged from the hospital. Arun is sentenced to be hanged as soon as he is better but escapes to reunite with Sapna with Vikram's help. Arun then goes on a brutal vengeance mission and burns almost every godown (warehouse) of Mama Thakur, which angers the commissioner as he cannot persuade Arun to surrender. Arun then captures Mama Thakur from a police protection van and bashes him up badly. Vikram and Sapna arrive at the scene after Vikram rescues her from Shankar Bihari. All the goons are then killed. Arun's revenge is complete with Mama Thakur dead and Sapna back with him again.


title: Dilwale (1994 film)

text: Arun's mum and the commissioner arrive at the scene and tell Arun he is innocent as Advocate Sinha became the state witness, otherwise, he knows Arun would kill him for the role he played in getting Arun a death sentence. Arun forgives Sinha, and because he killed Mama Thakur, he has to go to jail. The commissioner promise Arun a short sentence in jail due to the physical and mental stress he has gone through. Vikram drives Arun and Sapna away in his van, secretly putting a brave smile on his face as he loved Sapna, as he sacrificed his own love for the happiness of Arun and Sapna, he justifies the name Dilwale.


title: Dilwale (1994 film)

text: The music of the film was composed Nadeem-Shravan, and the lyrics were penned by Sameer Anjaan. The soundtrack was released in 1994 on Audio Cassette, LP & Audio Cds in Venus Records & Tapes Music, which consists of 7 songs. The album is recorded by Kumar Sanu, Alka Yagnik and Udit Narayan.


title: Ten Percent (TV series)

text: Ten Percent is a British comedy series based on the French series "Call My Agent!" (titled "Dix pour cent" in French, which translates as 'ten percent'); both are set in talent agencies that see turbulence when their founder unexpectedly dies. The London talent agency, Nightingale Hart, has agents Jonathan Nightingale (Jack Davenport), Rebecca Fox (Lydia Leonard), Stella Hart (Maggie Steed), and Dan Bala (Prasanna Puwanarajah), interact with celebrity clients, featuring many real actors portraying versions of themselves. It was originally released in select markets on Amazon Prime Video on 28 April 2022, also being shown in the United States on BBC America.


title: Ten Percent (TV series)

text: Misha has decided to follow her absent father, Jonathan, and grandfather, Richard, in their talent agent career, arriving at London agency Nightingale Hart just in time to be spontaneously hired as an assistant when one is fired. Shortly after Misha joins, Richard dies, and Jonathan and another agent, Stella, discover the agency is struggling financially. Jonathan also struggles to keep his family from realising who Misha really is. Meanwhile, agent Rebecca is launching a production branch of the agency and falling for Margaux, the author of the book she's set to adapt, and agent Dan tries to launch the career of their receptionist-turned-actress, Zoe – also while falling for her. Stella sorts through a different personal dilemma and supports old friend and self-sabotaging actor Simon. Misha starts to help Jonathan's son Luke become a screenwriter. They all try to handle their temperamental celebrity clients while holding off the imposition of the American company who bought the agency.


title: Ten Percent (TV series)

text: Jim Broadbent played Richard Nightingale, the agency's founder (based on Samuel), who in the series is also the father of Jonathan. Smurf the dog portrays Stella's loyal dog, named Mathias (based on Arlette's dog, Jean Gabin). The characters Simon Gould, played by McInnerny, Kirsten Furst, played by Crisp, and Kevin, played by Holden, are original creations for the British series.


title: Ten Percent (TV series)

text: John Morton adapted the French series "Call My Agent!" ("Dix pour cent") for British television, after the success of his original British workplace satires "Twenty Twelve" and "W1A", the latter of which centred on the running of the BBC and had celebrity cameos. Morton felt there were two directions the adaptation could have gone, portraying the agent-client relationships either cynically or affectionately; he decided he wanted to take the latter route, which also aligned best with the tone of the original series.


title: Ten Percent (TV series)

text: The series was released in select regions on Amazon Prime Video on 28 April 2022, on SundanceNow and AMC+ in the United States on 29 April 2022, and began airing with weekly episodes on BBC America from 1 May 2022.


title: Ten Percent (TV series)

text: The series was received mildly, with critics saying that, based on the first two episodes, it is generally pleasant but is almost a direct copy of the original French series.


title: Ten Percent (TV series)

text: Rachel Cooke of the "New Statesman" thought the celebrity cameos were unimpressive, using "cut-price" actors compared to the original, which lessened the impact of the setting, but said she would personally continue watching. Camilla Long for "The Times" was instead pleased with the cameos, but found its release on subscription streaming platform Amazon off-putting and the series lacking in entertainment value.


title: Ten Percent (TV series)

text: "Variety" Scott Bryan, and Rebecca Nicholson of "The Guardian" found it enjoyable but too faithful to the original French series to be necessary: Bryan did think the dialogue was particularly good, and Nicholson said that "it also shares some of the original's jaunty spirit and bounce", though felt it was not as funny as it should have been. She suggested that viewers who have not seen the original would enjoy it more, as the direct similarities made it more of a re-watch. Conversely, Sophie Gilbert for "The Atlantic" found it charming and, though much alike the original, to have a distinctly British sensibility that gave it enough difference to enjoy as a product of its own, adding that its most resonant elements are those Morton created for the series, like Simon and the Americans, with no basis in the French show. NME's Andrew Trendell agreed, saying it kept the tone of "Call My Agent!" and added "a little more heart and piercing British humour".


title: Ten Percent (TV series)

text: Roslyn Sulcas of "The New York Times" noted that the first episode followed the French series beat-for-beat but, after the set-up, "the show's plotlines gradually begin to differ, and to cater more closely to the specific preoccupations of the British cultural industry".


title: Dope (band)

text: Dope is an American nu metal band from New York City, formed in 1997. The band has released six full-length studio albums with their most recent studio album, "Blood Money Part 1", being released in 2016. The lineup currently consists of founding member and lead singer Edsel Dope, guitarist Virus, bassist Acey Slade and drummer Daniel Fox.


title: Dope (band)

text: The band was founded in 1997 by songwriter and lead vocalist Edsel Dope. As a child, Edsel and his brother Simon Dope were separated when their parents divorced. When the two were adults, they reunited and Simon joined Edsel's band, playing keyboards, samples and percussion. The pair then recruited Tripp Eisen as guitarist, Preston Nash as drummer, and Acey Slade as bassist.


title: Dope (band)

text: Unlike many of the popular bands from the 1990s, Dope derived their sound from influences taken from heavy metal bands and fused that with the sound of industrial rock acts who had made waves earlier in the decade, such as Ministry and Skinny Puppy.


title: Dope (band)

text: In their earliest days, the band sold drugs to survive and purchase instruments. Furthermore, the band name "Dope" refers to heroin, which was the common substance Edsel and Simon sold around the New York City area as shown by their early T-shirt designs, which prominently displayed hypodermic needles.


title: Dope (band)

text: The band also had some early connections with fellow rockers Marilyn Manson; ex drummer Ginger Fish shared an apartment with Edsel Dope in Las Vegas during the earlier 1990s, before either of them were in their respective bands. Also, guitarist Zim Zum allowed the band to claim that they were "currently being produced by Zim Zum" on the cover of their promotional discs to help them gain a record deal. It was originally planned that Zum would produce their debut. However, he was busy recording the album "Mechanical Animals" at the time. Lead singer Edsel has also maintained a good friendship with ex-Manson guitarist Daisy Berkowitz.


title: Dope (band)

text: "Felons and Revolutionaries" was created after performing on the New York City club circuit, and releasing several promotional cassettes the band was signed by Epic Records. For the album's recording, Sloane Jentry had left the band and Tripp Eisen moved to guitar, while Acey Slade was brought in on bass. The album featured fourteen tracks including two covers, which were; "Fuck tha Police" by N.W.A and "You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)" by English new wave band Dead or Alive, which featured in the movie "American Psycho". "Debonaire" was also featured on the "Scream 3" movie soundtrack and the first "The Fast and the Furious" movie during the police raid on Johnny Tran's house scene.


title: Dope (band)

text: Dope toured extensively, taking part in several national tours with various acts ranging from Alice Cooper to Kid Rock. This helped "Felons and Revolutionaries" SoundScan more than 250,000 units in total.


title: Dope (band)

text: A live video for the song "Sick" was recorded to capture the energy of the group's live show. The first single and non-live promotional video released by the band from the album was "Everything Sucks", which failed to chart. The second single, a cover of "You Spin Me Round", saw the band gaining more attention; it received radio play and reached No. 37 on the US Mainstream Rock charts.


title: Dope (band)

text: After the relative success of their debut album, Dope decided to record a follow up entitled "Life". Several band changes had taken place once more; Tripp Eisen was fired from the group and joined industrial metal band Static-X, so Virus, a guitarist/producer from New York City who was originally hired for bass, replaced him on guitar in 2000. Acey Slade was moved to the position of guitar, while Sloane Jentry (who had remained friends with the band) rejoined, this time on bass. On drums, Preston Nash was replaced by Racci "Sketchy" Shay.


title: Dope (band)

text: The two singles from Life; "Now or Never" and "Slipping Away" reached No. 28 and No. 29 on the Mainstream Rock charts respectively. The album itself reached No. 180 on the Billboard charts and No. 6 on the Top Heatseekers, which up until that point was the band's highest charting. After the album's release, Simon Dope left the group to pursue a career as a video game producer.


title: Dope (band)

text: "Debonaire" from the first album was used in the movie "The Fast and the Furious". More soundtrack work was done by Dope in 2002, as the band recorded WWE chairman Vince McMahon's theme song "No Chance (In Hell)" for the "WWF Forceable Entry" audio release. Dope's music had previously been used as the background theme in ECW, and Rhino also used "Debonaire" as his entrance theme.


title: Dope (band)

text: Around this period, Edsel Dope also had a public rivalry with the band Murderdolls, particularly vocalist Wednesday 13. An early version of that group had featured Racci Shay on drums; and under the name Murderdolls, it featured Tripp Eisen. Dope guitarist Acey Slade then left the band to join Murderdolls in mid-2002.


title: Dope (band)

text: Disappointed with the label's perceived lack of promotion for the album, the band left Epic and joined Artemis Records, a New York independent record label.


title: Dope (band)

text: Dope's third studio album was titled "Group Therapy". A song from that album, "Today is the Day" served as the official theme song for WWE's pay-per-view event No Mercy 2003 in October.


title: Dope (band)

text: By 2005, Dope had regrouped once more, the band had a new bassist, Brian "Brix" Milner (former guitarist and keyboardist for Orlando's Skrape). For their new album entitled "American Apathy", the band returned to a harder sound similar in some respects to their debut, in an industrial metal style.


title: Dope (band)

text: Although released eight years after the band formed, four albums in and on an independent label, American Apathy performed well in the charts. It was a No. 1 hit on the Top Heatseekers chart, for the first time in the band's history and it also saw the band's highest charting on the Billboard chart to date.


title: Dope (band)

text: Ben Graves of the Murderdolls joined Dope as the live drummer on a tour of Japan. In 2006 Dope bassist Brix Milner played in Murderdolls front man Wednesday 13's solo band, replacing the injured Kid Kid.


title: Dope (band)

text: "No Regrets" is the band's fifth studio album. The album was released on March 10, 2009. The album debuted at No. 88 with 6,200 copies sold in its first week, making it the highest-charted album in the band's history. This CD is different from past releases in that the name of the CD is repeated in many of the songs, including "Dirty World," "My Funeral," "We Are," and the CD's title track. "Addiction" is the third single from the album. The song features a guitar solo by the guest musician Zakk Wylde.


title: Dope (band)

text: Dope has finished their spring tour of the United States, the tour, which took place over two months, included 22 dates. Tripp Lee played live on bass with the band (although Brix is still listed, and seems doubtful that he will return) and a new drummer named Angel Bartolotta, formerly of Pig and The Genitorturers has joined.


title: Dope (band)

text: It was announced on October 15, 2008, that the first single from "No Regrets" is called "Violence". The song is currently available to listen on the band's MySpace. There will be a music video, for "Violence", according to the image the band set for album art. One of the tracks for the album was released in late 2007 in the game, "". "Guitar Hero III" includes a song by Dope called "Nothing for Me Here" on the bonus list and mentions that it will be on the band's upcoming album.


title: Dope (band)

text: Some time in early 2009, Dope updated their official website, which now features promotion for "No Regrets", which was released on March 10, 2009. Previews of eight tracks from the new album can be heard via the music player on the site. In addition to this, the full music video for the single Addiction, which features Zakk Wylde of Black Label Society and well-known guitarist for Ozzy Osbourne is available to be viewed on the site. One of the tracks on the new album is a cover of the Billy Idol single, "Rebel Yell".


title: Dope (band)

text: On July 29, 2008, Dope released "American Apathy Reloaded"—a CD of remixes and alternate versions of songs from "American Apathy", plus a live DVD.


title: Dope (band)

text: The song "Nothing for Me Here" is featured in the video game "" as a bonus track, therefore making the song's original release date in 2007, 2 years before No Regrets was released.


title: Dope (band)

text: Virus, the lead guitarist, teaches guitar/bass at the Paul Green School of Rock in Fort Washington, Pennsylvania.


title: Dope (band)

text: Virus also produces up-and-coming bands and writes music for TV and video game companies such as Activision, Disney and ESPN.


title: Dope (band)

text: On the September 19, 2013, the band officially released a teaser for the song "Drug Music" from their upcoming sixth studio album, entitled "Blood Money" via their Facebook page. The album was originally set to be released in March 2014. However, in an interview with Dee J. Nelson, it was said that the release will take place in the summer. The music video for the album's first single "Selfish" was released on August 26, 2014, as frontman Edsel Dope announced that Blood Money will be a two-part album. In 2015, Dope announced the dates for the "Die Mother Fucker Die" reunion tour, featuring the classic lineup of Edsel Dope, Virus, Acey Slade, and Racci Shay. Dope also recorded their very first live album in Moscow which featured the four long time friends and bandmates. Dope's live album, titled "Live In Moscow", was released in 2016 summer via a fan-funded process through their website where all those who pre-ordered the live album and/or contributed to the fundraiser would have their name listed in the album's liner notes and would subsequently make the website's virtual thermometer grow as fans shopped around the website. The Thermometer would display the overall progress in reaching various fundraiser goals such as the release of the live DVD and making it to United Kingdom and Europe for a tour.


title: Dope (band)

text: After the release of their first live album, the band announced that they will be releasing their long-awaited album "Blood Money, Part 1" in the autumn of 2016, also stating that the second part of "Blood Money" would not see such lengthy delays as Part 1 did.


title: Dope (band)

text: Dope released the official music video for the two-part album's title track "Blood Money" on July 16, 2016. The band released the second single on the album entitled "Hold On" on August 26, 2016, as well as the official music video. Blood Money part 1 was officially released worldwide on October 28, 2016, via eOne Entertainment.


title: Dope (band)

text: After the release of "Blood Money, Part 1," Dope went to tour Russia and the United Kingdom as the headlining act as well as having toured with the classic lineup featured in the "Die Mother Fucker Die Reunion" tour. This reunion tour had guitarist Virus, drummer Racci Shay, and bassist Acey Slade return for the occasion.


title: Dope (band)

text: In the beginning of 2017, Dope released tour dates for Spring 2017, touring with co-headliner Combichrist and supporting acts September Mourning and Davey Suicide. They also released more tour dates for Fall 2017, this time touring with Hed PE.


title: Dope (band)

text: In 2019, Dope toured with Static-X, DevilDriver, Wednesday 13, and Raven Black in the US. In 2023, they are part of the Rise of the Machine tour with Static-X, Fear Factory, Mushroomhead and Twiztid.


title: Dope (band)

text: On July 19, 2022, the band announced "Blood Money Part Zer0", the prequel to “Blood Money, Part 1” as a free digital download for its release in 2023. The band also shared the songs "No Respect" and "Believe" on the same day. On August 22, 2022, a music video for Believe was released to YouTube. On September 7, they released a third new single from ‘Blood Money Part ZerØ’ F**k It Up.


title: Dope (band)

text: Dope have been described as alternative metal, speed metal, nu metal, and industrial metal. Dope's influences include Ministry, Nine Inch Nails, Kiss, Guns N' Roses, White Zombie, and Mötley Crüe. Dope's lyrics are known for being obscene and aggressive. In a review of Dope's album "Felons and Revolutionaries", NME said "In "American Pie", a boy puts his cock in an apple pie, to let us know that there's something rotten at the heart of the American Dream. Ex-con brothers Edsel and Simon Dope, though, would probably put someone else's cock in the apple pie, cut it off, lace the pie with strychnine, and serve it up at the Clinton dinner table."


title: Dope (band)

text: In terms of composition, the band mostly relies on simplicity. Edsel Dope describes one of his songs "Pig Society" a song that "encompasses the spirit of the band at its core development. Angry, simple, and full of middle fingers".


title: Dope (band)

text: The band's song "Die MF Die" has become Dope's most popular song, and also being used during military operations. About the song, Edsel Dope explained: ""It is a very progressive but very fun 'tongue in cheek' song. The real amazement to me is the power that song took on over the years and how many things it's done beyond way more than I ever thought it would. Apparently that song was used as kind of a battle cry for lots of soldiers as they went into the Iraq war and was used in training. There have been other rumours that they have used it when they have interrogated Iraqi POWs. It is kind of an aggressive song for people to lose their minds. It took on a whole other life that I had never ever imagined"."


title: R. K. Selvamani

text: R.K. Selvamani (born 21 October 1965) is an Indian film director. He was known to make films in the police or whodunit genres.


title: R. K. Selvamani

text: Born in Chengalpattu, R. K. Selvamani, an assistant of Manivannan, narrated a story line to Vijayakanth who then insisted Selvamani narrate the story to his friend, film producer Ibrahim Rowther. After being told that the actor was busy, Selvamani with the help of his friend Jothi decided to narrate the story through drawn pictures by having Hollywood films as reference and was given the opportunity to make the film.


title: R. K. Selvamani

text: The action thriller "Pulan Visaranai" (1990) was partly based on a real life confession by criminal Auto Shankar that he had kidnapped many girls at the behest of some political bigwigs and featured Vijayakanth alongside Rupini, Anandaraj, Radha Ravi and Sarathkumar in his first major role.


title: R. K. Selvamani

text: R.K. Selvamani initially imposed many rules and conditions which led to the cancelling of shooting for six months after the actor became displeased, but with the help of Manivannan, shooting was continued. The film was released in January 1990 and became successful film at the box-office, also going on to win critical acclaim by reviewers. The success of the film prompted Rowther to offer the actor and director another venture, with Selvamani making "Captain Prabhakaran" (1991). The title of the film was an homage to Prabhakaran, the LTTE leader, while the plotline was based on the forest brigand Veerappan. It marked the hundredth project of Vijayakanth and featured Rupini and Sarath Kumar again in pivotal roles. The film also became a large commercial success and Selvamani began to gain plaudits for his ability as a film director in the action genre.


title: R. K. Selvamani

text: Selvamani agreed to work on a film produced by Ravi Yadav with music scored by Ilaiyaraaja, having late Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi's assassination and the Sri Lankan civil war as its backdrop. Production work for the film, "Kuttrapathirikai" began in 1991 and it would feature Ramki, Rahman, Ramya Krishnan and Roja, in her second film, in the leading roles.


title: R. K. Selvamani

text: The film was launched in July 1991 and completed after short delays during December 1992. The film was stuck for fourteen years as the censor board refused to allow such a film with a drastic political message to be released, with Selvamani having no option but to move on to direct other films. In December 2006, in a landmark judgement, the Madras High Court dismissed a petition filed on behalf of the Central Board of Censors against an earlier verdict by the court, allowing the screening of the film with an 'A' certificate after certain cuts. The court subsequently directed the board to award an 'A' certificate to the film within four weeks of their judgement.


title: R. K. Selvamani

text: The petition had initially alleged that the film supported the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), while sections of the Tamil Nadu Congress had also taken exception to some scenes in the film. Selvamani revealed that the court had actually said there is no need to delete the portions, which the earlier verdict wanted to be cut. The scenes, which the censors wanted to cut, included the Tigers' training and police officers fleeing the venue, where Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated. The film won positive reviews after release in March 2007 with a critic stating "it is an interesting attempt to thread reality and some wonderful domestic drama. The style of the narration and the camera angles are slightly dated. But you cannot hold the director responsible for that." Other critics also questioned the ban, citing it was just "another run of the mill action film", with lookalikes used to represent real life characters.


title: R. K. Selvamani

text: He then made "Chembaruthi" an unusual love story starring Prashanth and Roja in 1992. In 1995, he worked again with Prashanth, making another romantic action film "Kanmani" (1994), which featured him alongside Mohini. The film won average reviews with a critic noting "though not very convincing and as powerful a story as he might have intended this to be, R. K. Selvamani still manages to keep one engrossed for most of the time with a narration sans hitches." Selvamani next worked on a political film titled "Makkal Aatchi" with Mammootty in the lead, which won critical and commercial acclaim after release in October 1995. The film's dialogues by Liaquat Ali Khan, won rave reviews. He then collaborated with another film maker Velu Prabhakaran, writing the script for two of his films, "Asuran" (1995) and "Rajali" (1996). He then produced and directed "Athiradi Padai", film was flopped and Selvamani incurred huge losses.


title: R. K. Selvamani

text: He then made a quick action film "Adimai Changili" (1997) with Arjun, Roja and Rambha in the leading roles. During the making of the film, it was reported that Rambha fell out with the director due to his excessive promotion of the film's other heroine Roja over her.


title: R. K. Selvamani

text: The story was taken in forest areas and is based on a true story where a small community fights against majority rule. The film released to poor reviews and became a disaster at the box office. The success of "Makkal Aatchi", prompted the actor and director to come together in another political film titled "Arasiyal" (1997). The director, prior to release, played down any potential controversial story plots and indicated it would be more about a politician's personal life rather than his work. The team shot across North India in 1997 with scenes also filmed at the Harmandir Sahib, Punjab.


title: R. K. Selvamani

text: The film fared less well critically than the previous collaboration, with a reviewer noting "the director is caught in a cross-fire between, coming out with a realistic movie, and at the same time, one with the hero running around the trees, and the heroine." It, however, went on to win the third place award in the category for Best Film at the Tamil Nadu State Awards. Selvamani once again launched another political drama venture titled "Indian Express" in 1997, which would narrate the happenings of an event which had occurred in Trivandrum. However, despite signing up Sarath Kumar to play the lead role as well as Khushbu, Roja and Anupam Kher, the film became stalled and was discontinued after the launch. He instead went on to make a big budget Telugu action film, "Rajasthan" with Sarathkumar and Vijayashanti. The film was later dubbed and released in Tamil with a few re-shot scenes and a reworked storyline to relate to Tamil Nadu instead of Andhra Pradesh. A critic noted the director was "losing his touch", criticising that aspects were almost "cartoonish" but praised his ability to maintain the viewer's suspense. A further film titled "Operation Veerappa", based on the kidnapping of actor Rajkumar by dacoit Veerappan, was announced in 2001 but later dropped.


title: R. K. Selvamani

text: He returned briefly to direct his partner Roja's 100th film, "Durga", a Telugu language devotional subject. The film opened in 2001 to poor reviews, with a critic noting it "lacks the distinctive touch" of the director, the film was simultaneously shot in Tamil as "Pottu Amman" with his brother being credited as the director for Tamil version. Another film which he launched during the project, "Police Commissioner" featuring Sathyaraj, was shelved shortly after production began. Selvamani became the managing director of a channel named "Thamizh Thirai" in 2003, working to form a new cable television channel, which would be run by film producers and help assist them financially, bypassing network channels. He was engaged in a series of legal tussles before the channel was finally launched to air in May 2005. The project ran into troubles shortly after, with Selvamani opting out of his role to re-begin work as a director. He was also involved in his wife Roja's election campaign in 2005, taking charge of her promotional activities and trying to ensure maximum publicity. Selvamani began working on "Pulan Visaranai 2" in November 2005, a sequel to his 1990 film, and cast Prashanth in the leading role of the investigative cop.


title: R. K. Selvamani

text: He revealed that the idea had come to him in the early 2000s and Vijayakanth's unavailability had meant the film only materialised after a delay. Prashanth underwent strength training for the venture, while beauty pageant winner Medha Raghunath was briefly signed on to play the lead female role, before opting out again. The film progressed slowly, also a result of Prashanth's marital problems, and reports in May 2007 suggested that Rowther was unhappy with the film's content and felt the film lacked a proper storyline unlike the previous version. The film ran into problems with the censor in April 2008, with the committee highlighting twenty-six objectionable scenes. Selvamani subsequently appealed and compromised by agreeing to remove controversial dialogues and a sequence which involved an actress depicting Indian tennis player Sania Mirza. The producer subsequently accepted an "A" certificate for the film, with the soundtrack releasing the following week. The team also revealed that the film would be released the following month, though this proved to be untrue.


title: R. K. Selvamani

text: After a long period of delay, the film was released in 2015. Selvamani chose to take a break from films and remain heavily involved in running the Tamil Nadu Film Directors' Association, working to increase salary for assistant directors and helping conduct celebratory events.


title: R. K. Selvamani

text: The director re-emerged after a sabbatical from film making in 2013, announcing that he was working on a project titled "Kannivedi" featuring newcomers. He revealed that the film would wove a triangular love story into present day problems in society, adding that he will also feature as an actor in the film, however the project was shelved after announcement. Selvamani made his acting debut portraying negative role in "Express" (2017).


title: Cle Shaheed Sloan

text: Cle "Bone" Shaheed Sloan (born May 22, 1969) is an American activist, actor and documentary director from Los Angeles County, California. While still a member of Athens Park Bloods, a Los Angeles street gang, Sloan worked to reform gang culture to put an end to gang violence from the inside.


title: Cle Shaheed Sloan

text: Sloan was introduced to the film industry by football legend Jim Brown, who helped him secure a job as an assistant when he was released from prison. The job allowed Sloan to meet director Antoine Fuqua and sparked his interest in becoming a cinematographer. Sloan has since appeared in small roles in three of Fuqua's hit movies "Training Day", "Tears of the Sun", and "Brooklyn's Finest". During the production of "Training Day", Sloan worked as a gang adviser and helped persuade actual gang members to lend their credibility to the project on-screen.


title: Cle Shaheed Sloan

text: Sloan directed and appears in the 2006 documentary film "Bastards of the Party" which appeared at the 2005 Tribeca Film Festival and at the 2006 Hollywood Black Film Festival. "Bastards of the Party" aired on HBO on February 6, 2007.


title: Cle Shaheed Sloan

text: Sloan was featured on Bill O'Reilly's "The O'Reilly Factor" and "Anderson Cooper 360°" speaking out against gang violence on behalf of his non profit organization AKTIVE which is helping to "Change the gangs from the inside" by working with active gang members in communities nationwide.


title: Cle Shaheed Sloan

text: Sloan starred in three of David Ayer's directorial efforts, the Los Angeles films 2008's "Street Kings" featuring Forest Whitaker and Keanu Reeves, and "End of Watch", a 2012 film about the life of two LAPD officers (Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Peña), and 2020's "The Tax Collector" about a LA drug gang enforcer and his family. He later appeared on the TNT Drama "Southland" as Ronnie, a Los Angeles pimp.


title: Cle Shaheed Sloan

text: On January 29, 2015, Sloan and Terry Carter were struck by a truck in a hit-and-run incident in Compton, California. The accident, allegedly caused by Suge Knight, killed Carter and injured Sloan. Though Sloan refused "to be used as a snitch" and testify against Knight, on September 21, 2018, Knight pleaded guilty to manslaughter and was sentenced to 28 years in prison.


title: Jason Reynolds

text: Jason Reynolds (born December 6, 1983) is an American author of novels and poetry for young adult and middle-grade audience. Born in Washington, D.C. and raised in neighboring Oxon Hill, Maryland, Reynolds found inspiration in rap and had an early focus on poetry, publishing several poetry collections before his first novel in 2014, "When I Was The Greatest", which won the Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe Award for New Talent.


title: Jason Reynolds

text: In the next four years, Reynolds wrote eight more novels, most notably the "New York Times" best-selling Track series—"Ghost" (2016), "Patina" (2017), "Sunny" (2018), "Lu" (2018),—and "As Brave As You" (2016). "Ghost" was a National Book Award Finalist for Young People's Literature and "As Brave As You" won the Kirkus Prize, the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work for Youth/Teen, and the Schneider Family Book Award. Reynolds also wrote a Marvel Comics novel called "Miles Morales: Spider-Man" (2017).


title: Jason Reynolds

text: In 2017, Reynolds returned to poetry with "Long Way Down", a novel in verse that was named a Newbery Honor book, a Printz Honor Book, and best young adult work by the Mystery Writers of America's Edgar Awards. In 2019, he wrote "Look Both Ways", for which he won a Carnegie Medal.


title: Jason Reynolds

text: Reynolds was named as the Library of Congress' national ambassador for young people's literature in January 2020.


title: Jason Reynolds

text: Reynolds was born on December 6, 1983, in Washington, DC, and grew up just across Maryland border in Oxon Hill, a neighborhood where his mother, a special


title: Jason Reynolds

text: education teacher in a Maryland public school, could afford a house with a yard and enough space for Reynolds, his three siblings, and sometimes other extended family.


title: Jason Reynolds

text: third album, "Black Reign", to start writing poetry. Outside of her rap, few literary works spoke to his experience of urban life growing up as a black child and then teenager in the 1980s and 1990s, and he didn't start reading books until he was 17. In the meantime, Tupac and Biggie also formed major influences.


title: Jason Reynolds

text: One of Reynolds's earliest poems dealt with his grandmother's death in 1994 when he was 10. He wrote a few lines in an effort to console his mother, who printed the poem on the program for the funeral, and after that Reynolds wrote poems as each of his grandmother's siblings passed. Moved by these experiences of "the power of language", he continued to pursue poetry through high school, graduating from Bishop McNamara High School in 2000, and college, even as he received poor grades and discouragement from professors in his English courses at the University of Maryland (he ultimately graduated with a BA in English.)


title: Jason Reynolds

text: While an undergraduate, Reynolds met collaborator Jason Griffin, who became his roommate. Reynolds was also introduced to spoken word in this period and began performing, including eventually solo shows, and in 2001, his first book came out, a poetry collection called "Let Me Speak."


title: Jason Reynolds

text: During college, Reynolds also worked at a DC bookstore chain called Karibu Books, which specialized in African-American literature. At Karibu he encountered prose that resonated with him for the first time, such as Richard Wright's novel "Black Boy". Enthralled with Wright's novel from the first page, Reynolds next began making his way through the great works of African-American literature on the store's shelves, reading James Baldwin, Zora Neale Hurston, and Toni Morrison. While at Karibu he also encountered street fiction, also known as urban fiction, which is a literary genre Reynolds compares to rap's capacity for being "raw and honest. For some kids, this was their life."


title: Jason Reynolds

text: Reynolds moved back to Washington, D.C. from Brooklyn in 2016. He collects items related to African-American literature, including a letter by Langston Hughes, a pre-publication review copy of Claude Brown's "Manchild in the Promised Land" and an autographed first edition copy of Toni Morrison's "Beloved". He appeared on "Antiques Roadshow" in 2021 to discuss his collecting.


title: Jason Reynolds

text: Reynolds does not start with a particular age audience in mind; instead he focuses on the trying to write the voice of his characters authentically and lets that dictate who the book would appeal to. All of Reynolds' writings feature minority characters, which Reynolds sees as a reflection of the modern world.


title: Jason Reynolds

text: After graduating from college, Reynolds moved to New York with a classmate, Jason Griffin; in 2005, the pair self-published a collaboration, collecting Griffin's visual art and Reynolds's poetry, called "SELF." The book earned the pair an agent and then a book contract. Four years later they published "My Name Is Jason. Mine Too.: Our Story. Our Way", a memoir about moving to New York to pursue their dreams, expressed through Reynolds's poetry and Griffin's illustrations. They published the book with the HarperTeen imprint of HarperCollins, working with editor Joanna Cotler (after Cotler retired, she referred him to Caitlin Dlouhy, who would become the editor on his next seven books). In the meantime, Reynolds moved home to DC in 2008 after losing his apartment in New York. He worked at a department store—the Lord & Taylor in Wheaton, Maryland—to pay the bills, going to a Border's bookstore on his lunch break to see his book arrive on the shelf in 2009. Next, he became a caseworker in a mental health clinic his father directed.


title: Jason Reynolds

text: Eventually, Reynolds returned to New York, again working in retail while he applied to graduate school, unsuccessfully because of his college grades. Nevertheless, he began writing a young adult novel—"often while standing at the cash register when business was slow" at the Rag & Bone store he managed—spurred by his friend Chris Myers, son of Walter Dean Myers and himself an author and illustrator. Reynolds had told Chris he had basically stopped writing, but Chris pointed out that with his father aging (the elder Myers died in 2014), there would soon be a shortage of new works written about young black children, particularly black boys. He suggested Reynolds look at some of his father's old works, and "The Young Landlords" particularly connected with Reynolds; the work gave Reynolds the confidence to "write in my voice, use my tongue, my language, my style, and write a story. Before that I always felt like I wasn’t good enough because I wasn’t Baldwin, or Toni Mor, or Richard Wright." but after reading Myers's work, "the floodgates were opened."


title: Jason Reynolds

text: In 2014, Reynolds published "When I Was The Greatest" (with the Atheneum of Simon & Schuster), a young adult novel set in Reynolds' own neighborhood of Bedford-Stuyvesant. For the work, Reynolds won the 2015 Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe Award for New Talent from the American Library Association.


title: Jason Reynolds

text: In 2015, Reynolds published "The Boy in the Black Suit", about a child grieving the loss of his mother. It won a Coretta Scott King Honor from the American Library Association.


title: Jason Reynolds

text: Also in 2015, Reynolds published "All American Boys", co-authored with Brendan Kiely. The book depicts a black teenager assaulted in a convenience store by a white police officer who wrongly suspected him of stealing. The book is written in two voices, with Reynolds writing from the point of view of the teenaged victim, Rashad Butler, in a hospital bed, while Kiely wrote the character Quinn Collins, a white teenager and family friend of the police officer, who witnessed the violent attack. In a review for "The New York Times", Kelka Magoon found both main characters "successfully drawn" and called the novel "a book to be grappled with, challenged by, and discussed. 'All American Boys' represents one voice — even better, two voices — in a national conversation that must continue beyond its pages."


title: Jason Reynolds

text: The book arose from personal conversations between Reynolds, who is black, and Kiely, who is white. The two met on a Simon & Schuster book tour in 2013, which coincided with the news that George Zimmerman had been acquitted of the murder of Trayvon Martin. Though strangers, Reynolds and Kiely began to share their feelings, each finding the other was "as frustrated as angry and as confused as I was", as Reynolds put it. A friendship developed and the conversations continued with increasing urgency; after a white police officer shot and killed Michael Brown, Kiely reached out to Reynolds to propose they write a book addressing police brutality and racial profiling.


title: Jason Reynolds

text: The book won the inaugural Walter Dean Myers Award from the We Need Diverse Books organization, as well as a Coretta Scott King Honor.


title: Jason Reynolds

text: In 2016, Reynolds published "As Brave As You", which won the 2016 Kirkus Prize, the 2017 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work for Youth/Teen, the 2017 Schneider Family Book Award, and the 2017 Coretta Scott King Honor. The book describes two African-American brothers from Brooklyn who are sent to spend the summer with their grandfather in Virginia. In "The Washington Post", reviewers said, "Reynolds deftly blends humor and heart through lively dialogue and spot-on sibling dynamics."


title: Jason Reynolds

text: The "Track" series follows a different protagonist in each novel, all of whom are members of the Defenders, an elite track team. In 2016, Reynolds published "Ghost", a National Book Award Finalist for Young People's Literature. Reviewing "Ghost" in "The New York Times", Kate Messner said that in his title character, Reynolds has created a protagonist "whose journey is so genuine that he's worthy of a place alongside Ramona and Joey Pigza on the bookshelves where our most beloved, imperfect characters live." "Ghost" was published by the Caitlyn Dlouhy imprint of Atheneum on August 30, 2016.


title: Jason Reynolds

text: Three more books have followed in the series. "Patina" (2017) depicts another young star runner, Patina "Patty" Jones. Patty feels out of place at her nearly all-white private school. Patty and her younger sister live with their dead father's brother and his white wife because their birth mother is unable to take care of them after losing her legs due to diabetes. Critics noted the deft way the book handles many issues including teamwork and non-traditional family structures. This was the first book Reynolds had written with a female point of view. Reynolds wanted to write about the special burdens some teen girls assume in their families. In his "New York Times" review, Tom Rinaldi called the novel "excellent". The book was also well received by other reviewers, earning a starred review in "Kirkus Reviews", School Library Journal, Horn Book Magazine, and Booklist.


title: Jason Reynolds

text: The third installment in the series, called "Sunny", was released on April 10, 2018. "Paste" magazine named the audiobook, narrated by Guy Lockard, one of the 13 best of 2018 to date, saying, "The whole series is a must-listen, but "Sunny" is a particular treat" thanks to the Lockard's portrayal of the "lolling, goofball voice" of the novel's first-person protagonist.


title: Jason Reynolds

text: Reynolds is the author of "Miles Morales: Spider-Man" (2017), a novel based on the Marvel Comics' Afro-Puerto Rican teen character. Reynolds has described his ambitions for the book as similar to Jordan Peele's approach to "Get Out", namely to engage the audience with systemic social issues by "distill[ing] it down to a single family." Speaking to "School Library Journal", Reynolds said, "It was a trip to take these issues I care so much about and figure out what they look like as a person. What do they sound like? How do they dress? How do they act? What do they do?" Reviewing the book for the "Washington City Paper", Kayla Randall said, "The result...was exceptional."


title: Jason Reynolds

text: Reynolds's 2017 book, "Long Way Down", is a novel written in verse. It describes a 15-year-old who sees his brother shot to death, drawing on Reynolds's experience of having a friend murdered when Reynolds was 19. Reynolds was moved to write the book by his visits to juvenile detention centers, where he frequently encounters children caught in a cycle of violence that, under slightly different circumstances, might have been his own: Reynolds has said that after his own friend's murder, he and other friends planned to seek revenge but never did so as the perpetrator wasn't conclusively identified, something he looked back on and "realized how lucky that was." "Long Way Down" was named a 2018 Newbery Honor book by the American Library Association, a Printz Honor Book, best young adult work at the Mystery Writers of America's Edgar Awards, a Walter Dean Myers Award from the We Need Diverse Books organization, a Coretta Scott King Honor, and a finalist for the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work for Youth/Teens. An adaptation by Martine Kei Green-Rogers of "Long Way Down" was commissioned by the Kennedy Center and performed at the Kennedy Center's Family Theater in October/November 2018.


title: Jason Reynolds

text: In October 2020, a graphic novel addition of "Long Way Down" was published with art by Danica Novgorodoff.


title: Jason Reynolds

text: On April 10, 2018, Reynolds released "For Every One," a work of poetry. He originally performed the poem at the unveiling of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial at the Kennedy Center. Two weeks later, Reynolds occupied three slots on "The New York Times" best-seller lists for children's literature: two on the young adult hardcover list ("Long Way Down" and "For Every One"), and one on the children's series list for the Track series.


title: Jason Reynolds

text: Reynold's published a list for teenagers with 10 things he thought they should know about life and their futures. It was posted on May 28, 2018, on Powell's Book Blog.


title: Jason Reynolds

text: "Look Both Ways" was published on October 8, 2019. The story is told across ten blocks in different perspectives as middle schoolers walk home from school. On the day of its release, "Look Both Ways" became a finalist for the National Book Award and later made the New York Times Best Sellers List. Jason Reynolds explained that he wanted to explore kids' autonomy in this book, saying, "It is a time when they are unsupervised" and they "get to learn about the world on their own, for better or for worse." He won the 2021 Carnegie Medal for the book.


title: Jason Reynolds

text: Reynolds announced "Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You" in August 2019 in collaboration with Ibram X. Kendi. Releasing in March 2020, Reynolds' book is an adaptation of Kendi's book "Stamped from the Beginning", which won the National Book Award in 2016. The book is for teens and young adults and serves to start a conversation among them about race and racism in America. Reynolds says, "I think that we have a rare opportunity to give the historical context of how we made it here today. This is the definitive history of race in America from the 1400s to today. It isn't about how to fix it per se. It's just about contextualizing why it is the way it is."


title: Jason Reynolds

text: In 2021, Reynolds, alongside Kendi and Sonja Cherry-Paul, published "Stamped (For Kids): Racism, Antiracism, and You", which was illustrated by Rachelle Baker. The book is a "New York Times" best seller.


title: Ivan Serov

text: Ivan Alexandrovich Serov (; 13 August 1905 – 1 July 1990) was a Russian Soviet intelligence officer who served as the head of the KGB between March 1954 and December 1958, as well as head of the GRU between 1958 and 1963. He was Deputy Commissar of the NKVD under Lavrentiy Beria, and played a major role in the political intrigues after Joseph Stalin's death. Serov helped establish a variety of secret police forces in Central and Eastern Europe after the creation of the Iron Curtain, and played an important role in crushing the Hungarian Revolution of 1956.


title: Ivan Serov

text: Serov headed both the political intelligence agency (KGB) and the military intelligence agency (GRU), making him unique in Soviet/Russian history. Inside the Soviet security forces, Serov was widely known for boasting to his colleagues that he could "break every bone in a man's body without killing him".