title: Zebulon Pike

text: Pike and his men left Leech Lake on February 18, carrying diplomatic tokens from the Ojibwe chiefs to present to the Dakota chiefs as a gesture of reconciliation, arriving at their winter encampment on March 5. They re-embarked in their pirogues for the downriver journey on April 7, reaching St. Louis on April 20. Pike's was the second expedition dispatched by the government into its new territory, and the first to return.


title: Zebulon Pike

text: After Pike returned from this first expedition, General Wilkinson almost immediately ordered him to mount a second expedition, this time to explore, map, and find the headwaters of the Arkansas and Red rivers. Additional objectives of this exploratory expedition into the southwestern part of the Louisiana Territory were to evaluate natural resources and establish friendly relations with Native Americans. Beginning July 15, 1806, Pike led what became known as the "Pike Expedition".


title: Zebulon Pike

text: In early November 1806, Pike and his team sighted and tried to climb to the summit of the peak later named after him (Pikes Peak). They made it as far as Mt. Rosa, located southeast of Pikes Peak, before giving up the ascent in waist-deep snow. They had already gone almost two days without food.


title: Zebulon Pike

text: They then continued south, searching for the Red River's headwaters, and built a fort for shelter during the winter. However, they had crossed the border, whether through confusion or deliberation. Spanish authorities captured Pike and some of his party on February 26, 1807.


title: Zebulon Pike

text: Pike and his men were taken to Santa Fe and on to the capital of Chihuahua province, and presented to Commandant General Salcedo, who was governor of the state. Pike was treated well and invited to formal social dinners but still not quite given the treatment of a visiting dignitary, and his men were kept prisoner. Salcedo housed Pike with Juan Pedro Walker, a cartographer who also acted as an interpreter. Walker transcribed and translated Pike's confiscated documents, including his journal. Spanish authorities feared the spread of both democracy and Protestant Christian sects that might undermine their rule.


title: Zebulon Pike

text: During this time, Pike had access to various maps of the southwest and learned about Mexico's discontentment with Spanish rule. Spain filed official protests with the United States about Pike's expedition, but since the nations were not at war (and Spain was rebelling against Napoleon's brother, who was fighting England in the Peninsular War), Commandant Salcedo released the military men. The Spanish escorted Pike and most of his men north, releasing them at the Louisiana border on July 1, 1807.


title: Zebulon Pike

text: Pike was promoted to captain during the southwestern expedition. In 1811, Pike fought with the 4th Infantry Regiment at the Battle of Tippecanoe. He was promoted to colonel of the 15th Infantry Regiment in July 1812. Pike's military career also included service as deputy quartermaster-general in New Orleans and inspector general during the War of 1812.


title: Zebulon Pike

text: Pike commanded the advance guard of an American force which was defeated - primarily because of the poor planning and half-hearted effort of his commander, Henry Dearborn - at the first Battle of Lacolle Mills in November 1812. Pike was promoted to brigadier general in March 1813. Along with General Jacob Brown, Pike departed from the newly fortified rural military outpost of Sackets Harbor, on the New York shore of Lake Ontario, for what became his last military campaign. On this expedition, Pike commanded combat troops in the successful attack on York (now Toronto) on April 27, 1813. Pike was killed, along with numerous other American troops, by flying rocks and other debris when the withdrawing British garrison blew up its ammunition magazine as Pike's troops approached Fort York. His body was brought by ship back to Sackets Harbor, where his remains were buried at the military cemetery.


title: Zebulon Pike

text: The Spanish authorities confiscated Pike's journals, which were not recovered by the United States from Mexico until the 20th century. Pike wrote an account from memory of his expeditions, which was published in 1810 as "The expeditions of Zebulon Montgomery Pike to Headwaters of the Mississippi River, through Louisiana Territory, and in New Spain, during the Years 1805-6-7". It was popular and was later translated into Dutch, French, and German editions. It became popular reading for all American explorers who followed him in the 19th century.


title: Zebulon Pike

text: Pike's capture by the Spanish and travel through the Southwest gave Pike insight into the region. For example, he described the politics in Chihuahua, which led to the Mexican independence movement, and described trade conditions in the Spanish territories of New Mexico and Chihuahua.


title: Zebulon Pike

text: In some eastern regions of North America, a tradition or legend pervades often referred to as "The Lost City of Palanor" or "Zebulon's Gift" which has been attributed to Pike's journals. The myth, said to be derived from a missing portion of Pike's confiscated journals, is usually told in two segments. The first sequence involves Pike's unlikely acquisition of a great treasure. The second is a description of Pike's discovery of the lost city "Palanor," said to be built by pre-Columbian European settlers, and his decision to hide the treasure there.


title: Zebulon Pike

text: As Michael Olsen shows, after Pike's death in battle, his military accomplishments were widely celebrated in terms of biographies, mourning memorials, paintings, poems, and songs, and he became the namesake for dozens of towns, counties, and ships. His memory faded after the Civil War but rebounded in 1906, at the centennial of his Southwest Expedition. His 20th-century reputation focused on his exploration, and his name appeared often on natural features, such as dams, islands, lakes, and parks.


title: Zebulon Pike

text: Pike was honored in 1901 by General William Jackson Palmer with a marble statue placed near the main entrance of the Antlers Hotel.  Pike was later honored in 1926 with a bronze medallion portrait placed in the pavilion at Tahama Spring (named after Pike's Dakota guide, Chief Tahama) in Monument Valley Park, Colorado Springs.


title: Who Killed the Electric Car?

text: Who Killed the Electric Car? is a 2006 American documentary film directed by Chris Paine that explores the creation, limited commercialization and subsequent destruction of the battery electric vehicle in the United States, specifically the General Motors EV1 of the mid-1990s. The film explores the roles of automobile manufacturers, the oil industry, the federal government of the United States, the California government, batteries, hydrogen vehicles and consumers in limiting the development and adoption of this technology.


title: Who Killed the Electric Car?

text: After a premiere at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival, it was released theatrically by Sony Pictures Classics on June 28, 2006. A follow-up documentary, "Revenge of the Electric Car", was released in 2011.


title: Who Killed the Electric Car?

text: The film deals with the history of the electric car, its modern development, and commercialization. The film focuses primarily on the General Motors EV1, which was made available for lease mainly in Southern California, after the California Air Resources Board (CARB) passed the zero-emissions vehicle (ZEV) mandate in 1990 which required the seven major automobile suppliers in the United States to offer electric vehicles in order to continue sales of their gasoline powered vehicles in California. Nearly 5000 electric cars were designed and manufactured by Chrysler, the Ford Motor Company, General Motors (GM), Honda, Nissan, and Toyota; and then later destroyed or donated to museums and educational institutions. Also discussed are the implications of the events depicted for air pollution, oil dependency, Middle East politics, and global warming.


title: Who Killed the Electric Car?

text: The film details the California Air Resources Board's reversal of the mandate after relentless pressure and suits from automobile manufacturers, continual pressure from the oil industry, orchestrated hype over a future hydrogen car, and finally the George W. Bush administration.


title: Who Killed the Electric Car?

text: A portion of the film details GM's efforts to demonstrate to California that there was no consumer demand for their product, and then to take back every EV1 and destroy them. A few were disabled and given to museums and universities, but almost all were found to have been crushed. GM never responded to the EV drivers' offer to pay the residual lease value; $1.9 million was offered for the remaining 78 cars in Burbank, California before they were crushed. Several activists, including actresses Alexandra Paul and Colette Divine, were arrested in the protest that attempted to block the GM car carriers taking the remaining EV1s off to be crushed.


title: Who Killed the Electric Car?

text: The film explores some of the motives that may have pushed the auto and oil industries to kill off the electric car. Wally Rippel offers, for example, that the oil companies were afraid of losing their monopoly on transportation fuel over the coming decades; while the auto companies feared short-term costs for EV development and long-term revenue loss because EVs require little maintenance and no tuneups. Others explained the killing differently. GM spokesman Dave Barthmuss argued it was lack of consumer interest due to the maximum range of 80–100 miles per charge, and the relatively high price.


title: Who Killed the Electric Car?

text: The film also showed the failed attempts by electric car enthusiasts trying to combat auto industry moves and save the surviving vehicles. Towards the end of the film, a deactivated EV1 car #99 is found in the garage of Petersen Automotive Museum, with former EV sales representative, Chelsea Sexton, invited for a visit.


title: Who Killed the Electric Car?

text: The film also explores the future of automobile technologies including a deeply critical look at hydrogen vehicles, an upbeat discussion of plug-in hybrids, and examples of other developing EV technologies such as the Tesla Roadster (2008), released on the market two years after the film.


title: Who Killed the Electric Car?

text: The film features interviews with celebrities who drove the electric car, such as Ed Begley Jr., Mel Gibson, Tom Hanks, Peter Horton, and Alexandra Paul. It also features interviews with a selection of public figures including Jim Boyd, S. David Freeman, Frank Gaffney, Alan C. Lloyd (Chairman of the California Air Resources Board), Alan Lowenthal, Edward H. Murphy (representative of the American Petroleum Institute), Ralph Nader and James Woolsey (former Director of Central Intelligence), as well as news footage from the development, launch and marketing of EVs.


title: Who Killed the Electric Car?

text: The film also features interviews with some of the engineers and technicians who led the development of modern electric vehicles and related technologies, such as Wally Rippel, Chelsea Sexton, Alec Brooks, Alan Cocconi, Paul MacCready, Stan and Iris M. Ovshinsky, and other experts such as Joseph J. Romm (author of "Hell and High Water" and "The Hype about Hydrogen"). Romm gives a presentation intended to show that the government's "hydrogen car initiative" is a bad policy choice and a distraction that is delaying the exploitation of more promising technologies, such as electric and hybrid cars which could reduce greenhouse gas emissions and increase America's energy security. Also featured in the film are spokespersons for the automakers, such as GM's Dave Barthmuss, a vocal opponent of the film and the EV1, John Wallace from Ford, and Bill Reinert from Toyota.


title: Who Killed the Electric Car?

text: The film was written and directed by Chris Paine, and produced by Jessie Deeter, and executive produced by Tavin Marin Titus, Richard D. Titus of Plinyminor and Dean Devlin, Kearie Peak, Mark Roskin, and Rachel Olshan of Electric Entertainment.


title: Who Killed the Electric Car?

text: The film features a film score composed by Michael Brook. It also features music by Joe Walsh, DJ Harry and Meeky Rosie. Jeff Steele, Kathy Weiss, Natalie Artin and Alex Gibney were also part of the producing team.


title: Who Killed the Electric Car?

text: The documentary was featured at the Sundance, San Francisco, Tribeca, Los Angeles, Berlin, Deauville, and Wild and Scenic Environmental film festivals and was released in theaters worldwide in June 2006.


title: Who Killed the Electric Car?

text: The later portion of the film is organized around the following hypothesized culprits in the downfall of the electric car:


title: Who Killed the Electric Car?

text: While few American consumers ever heard of the electric cars in California, those who did were not necessarily critical mass for this new technology. Thanks to lower gas prices and infatuation with sport utility vehicles (SUVs), few people sought out this new technology. While some were fans (as chronicled in the film), many more needed time to consider the advantages and disadvantages of these new cars; whether freedom from oil or with the perceived limitations of a city car with a 100-mile range. Although allegations are made about consumers by industry representatives in the film, perhaps explaining the film's "guilty" verdict, the actual consumers interviewed in the film were either unaware that an electric car was ever available to try or dismayed that they could no longer obtain one.


title: Who Killed the Electric Car?

text: In a bit of an unexpected turn, the film's sole "not-guilty" suspect is batteries, one of the chief culprits if one were to ask the oil or auto industries. At the time GM's EV1 came to market, it came with a lead acid battery with a range of 60 miles. The film suggests that since the average driving distance of Americans in a day is 30 miles or less, for 90% of Americans, electric cars would work as a daily commute car or second car.


title: Who Killed the Electric Car?

text: The second generation EV1 (and those released by Honda, Toyota, and others) from 1998 to the end of the program, featured nickel-metal-hydride or even lithium-ion (Nissan) batteries with a range of 100 or more miles. The film documents that the company which had supplied batteries for EV1, Ovonics, had been suppressed from announcing improved batteries, with double the range, lest CARB be convinced that batteries were improving. Later, General Motors sold the supplier's majority control share to the Chevron Corporation and Cobasys.


title: Who Killed the Electric Car?

text: As part of the not-guilty verdict, the famed engineer Alan Cocconi explains that with laptop computer lithium-ion batteries, the EV1 could have been upgraded to a range of 300 miles per charge. He makes this point in front of his T-Zero prototype, the car that inspired the Tesla Roadster (2008).


title: Who Killed the Electric Car?

text: The oil industry, through its major lobby group the Western States Petroleum Association, is brought to task for financing campaigns to kill utility efforts to build public car-charging stations. Through astroturfing groups like "Californians Against Utility Abuse", the oil-industry lobbyists posed as consumers instead of the industry interests that they actually represented.


title: Who Killed the Electric Car?

text: Mobil and other oil companies are also shown to be advertising directly against electric cars in national publications, even when electric cars seem to have little to do with their core business. At the end of the film, Chevron bought patents and a controlling interest in Ovonics, the advanced battery company featured in the film, ostensibly to prevent modern NiMH batteries from being used in non-hybrid electric cars.


title: Who Killed the Electric Car?

text: The documentary also refers to manipulation of oil prices by overseas suppliers in the 1980s as an example of the industry working to kill competition and to keep customers from moving toward alternatives to oil.


title: Who Killed the Electric Car?

text: With GM as its primary example, the film documents that car makers engaged in both positive and negative marketing of the electric car as its intentions toward the car and California legislation changed. In earlier days, GM ran Super Bowl commercials produced by Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) for the EV1. In later days it ran "award-winning" doomsday-style advertising featuring the EV1 and ran customer surveys which emphasized drawbacks to electronic vehicle technology which were not actually present in the EV1. (As a side note, CARB officials were quoted claiming that they removed their zero-emission vehicle quotas in part because they gave weight to such surveys purportedly showing no demand existing for the EV1s.) Other charges raised on GM included sabotaging their own product program, failing to produce cars to meet existing demand, and refusing to sell cars directly (they only leased them).


title: Who Killed the Electric Car?

text: The film also describes the history of automaker efforts to destroy competing technologies, such as their destruction (through front companies) of public transit systems in the United States in the early 20th century. In addition to EV1, the film also depicted how Toyota RAV4 EV, and Honda EV Plus were being cancelled by their respective car companies. The crushing of Honda EV Plus only gained attention after appearing quite by accident on an episode of PBS's "California's Gold" with Huell Howser.


title: Who Killed the Electric Car?

text: In an interview with retired GM board member, physicist, and former Caltech president Tom Everhart, the film points out that GM killed the EV1 to focus on more immediately profitable enterprises such as its Hummer and truck brands, instead of preparing for future challenges. Ralph Nader, in a brief appearance, points out that auto makers usually only respond to government regulation when it comes to important advances whether seat belts, airbags, catalytic converters, mileage requirements or, by implication, hybrid/electric cars. The film suggests Toyota supported the production of Toyota Prius hybrid in part as a response to Bill Clinton's Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles and other U.S. Government pressure that was later dropped.


title: Who Killed the Electric Car?

text: Though GM cited cost as a deterrent to continuing with the EV1, the film interviewed critics contending that the cost of batteries and electric vehicles would have been reduced significantly if mass production began, due to economies of scale. There is also discussion about electric cars threatening dealer profits since they have so few service requirements—no tuneups, no oil changes, and less frequent brake jobs because of regenerative braking.


title: Who Killed the Electric Car?

text: While not overtly political, the film documents that the federal government of the United States under the Presidency of George W. Bush joined the auto-industry suit against California in 2002. This pushed California to abandon its ZEV mandate regulation. The film notes that Bush's chief of staff Andrew Card had recently been head of the American Automobile Manufacturers Alliance in California and then joined the White House with Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, and other federal officials who were former executives or board members of oil and auto companies. By failing to increase mileage standards in a meaningful way since the 1970s and now interfering in California, the federal government had again served short-term industry interests at the expense of long-range leadership on issues of oil dependency and cleaner cars.


title: Who Killed the Electric Car?

text: In 2003, the California Air Resources Board (CARB), headed by Democrat Alan Lloyd, finally caved to industry pressure and drastically scaled back the ZEV mandate. CARB had previously defended the regulation for more than 12 years.


title: Who Killed the Electric Car?

text: While championing CARB's efforts on behalf of California's with its 1990 mandate (and other regulations over the years), the film suggests Lloyd may have had a conflict of interest, as the director of the California Fuel Cell Partnership. The ZEV change allowed a marginal number of hydrogen fuel cell cars to be produced in the future, versus the immediate continued growth of its electric car requirement. Footage shot in the meetings showed Lloyd shutting down battery electric car proponents while giving the car makers all the time they wanted to make their points.


title: Who Killed the Electric Car?

text: The hydrogen fuel cell was presented by the film as an alternative that distracts attention from the real and immediate potential of electric vehicles to an unlikely future possibility embraced by auto makers, oil companies and a pro-business administration in order to buy time and profits for the status quo. The film corroborates the claim that hydrogen vehicles are a mere distraction by stating that "A fuel cell car powered by hydrogen made with electricity uses three to four times more energy than a car powered by batteries" and by interviewing Joseph J. Romm, the author of "The Hype about Hydrogen", who lists five problems he sees with hydrogen vehicles: High cost, limits on driving range due to current materials, high costs of hydrogen fuel, the need for entirely new fueling compounds, and competition from other technologies in the marketplace, such as hybrids.


title: Who Killed the Electric Car?

text: The price of hydrogen has since come down to $4–6/kg (without carbon sequestering) due to reduction in the price of natural gas as a feedstock for steam reforming owing to the proliferation of hydraulic fracturing of shales. A kilo of hydrogen has the same energy yield as a gallon of gasoline although production currently creates 12.5 kg CO, 39% more than the 8.91 kg CO from a gasoline gallon.


title: Who Killed the Electric Car?

text: General Motors (GM) responded in a 2006 blog post titled "Who Ignored the Facts About the Electric Car?" written by Dave Barthmuss of GM's communications department. In his June 15, 2006 post—published 13 days before the film was released in the U.S.—Barthmuss claims not to have seen the film, but believes "there may be some information that the movie did not tell its viewers." He repeats GM's claims that, "despite the substantial investment of money and the enthusiastic fervor of a relatively small number of EV1 drivers—including the filmmaker—the EV1 proved far from a viable commercial success."


title: Who Killed the Electric Car?

text: He submits it is "good news for electric car enthusiasts" that electric vehicle technology since the EV1 was still being used. It was used in two-mode hybrid, plug-in hybrid, and fuel cell vehicle programs.


title: Who Killed the Electric Car?

text: Barthmuss also cites "GM's leadership" in flex-fuel vehicles development, hydrogen fuel cell technology, and their new "active fuel management" system which improve fuel economy, as reasons they feel they are "doing more than any other automaker to address the issues of oil dependence, fuel economy and emissions from vehicles."


title: Who Killed the Electric Car?

text: Responding to the film's harsh criticisms for discontinuing the EV1, Barthmuss outlines GM's reasons for doing so, implying that GM did so due to inadequate support from parts suppliers, as well as poor consumer demand despite "significant sums (spent) on marketing and incentives to develop a mass market for it." Barthmuss claimed he personally regretted the way the decision not to sell the EV1s was handled, but stated it was because GM would no longer be able to repair it or "guarantee it could be operated safely over the long term," with lack of available parts making "future repair and safety of the vehicles difficult to nearly impossible." He also claimed that "no other major automotive manufacturer is producing a pure electric vehicle for use on public roads and highways."


title: Who Killed the Electric Car?

text: In March 2009, however, outgoing CEO of GM Rick Wagoner said the biggest mistake he ever made as chief executive was killing the EV1 car and failing to direct more resources to electrics and hybrids after such an early lead in this technology. GM has since championed its electric-car expertise as a key factor in development of its 2010 Chevrolet Volt, Chevy Spark EV, and the Chevrolet Bolt.


title: Who Killed the Electric Car?

text: On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an 89% approval rating based on 105 reviews, with an average rating of 7.19/10. Metacritic, another review collator, reported a positive rating of 70, based on 28 reviews polled.


title: Who Killed the Electric Car?

text: Manohla Dargis of "The New York Times" wrote, "It's a story Mr. Paine tells with bite. In 1996 a Los Angeles newspaper reported that 'the air board grew doubtful about the willingness of consumers to accept the cars, which carry steep price tags and have a limited travel range.' Mr. Paine pushes beyond this ostensibly disinterested report, suggesting that one reason the board might have grown doubtful was because its chairman at the time, Alan C. Lloyd, had joined the California Fuel Cell Partnership."


title: Who Killed the Electric Car?

text: Michael Rechtshaffen of "The Hollywood Reporter" noted Alan Lloyd's conflict of interest in the film.


title: Who Killed the Electric Car?

text: Pete Vonder Haar of "Film Threat" commented, "Boasting a particularly articulate and colorful bunch of noncelebrity talking heads, including former president Jimmy Carter, energy adviser S. David Freeman and Bill Reinert, the straight-shooting national manager of advanced technologies for Toyota who doesn't exactly sing the praises of the much-touted hydrogen fuel cell, the lively film maintains its challenging pace."


title: Who Killed the Electric Car?

text: Matt Coker of "OC Weekly" stated, "Like most documentaries, 'Who Killed the Electric Car?' works best when it sticks to the facts. Showing us the details about the California Air Resources Board caving in to the automakers and repealing their 1990 Zero Emissions Mandate, for example, is much more effective than coverage of some goofy mock funeral for the EV1 with Ed Begley Jr. providing the eulogy. As most of the lazy media, prodded by the shameless oil men in the White House, spin their wheels over false 'solutions' like hybrids and biodiesel and hydrogen and ethanol and ANWR, Korthof and his all-electric army continue to boost EV technology." Coker also interviewed EV activist Doug Korthof, who stated, "We don't deserve the catastrophe in Iraq, and the two madmen arguing over oil supply lines seem intent on martyrdom for Iraq in a widening war. With EV, we need not get involved in seizing and defending the oil supplies of the Mideast; nor need we maintain fleets, bomb and incarcerate people we can't stand, give foreign aid to oily dictators, and so on. It's not anything to laugh about."


title: Who Killed the Electric Car?

text: The film won the 2006 MountainFilm in Telluride (Colorado, USA) Special Jury Prize, the Canberra International Film Festival Audience Award, and also nominated for Best Documentary in the 2006 Environmental Media Awards, Best Documentary in Writers Guild of America, 2007 Broadcast Film Critics Association Best Documentary Feature. In 2008 socially conscious musician Tha truth released a song that summarized the film on the CD "Tha People's Music"."


title: Tiddlywinks

text: Tiddlywinks is a game played on a flat felt mat with sets of small discs called "winks", a pot, which is the target, and a collection of squidgers, which are also discs. Players use a "squidger" (nowadays made of plastic) to shoot a wink into flight by flicking the squidger across the top of a wink and then over its edge, thereby propelling it into the air. The offensive objective of the game is to score points by sending your own winks into the pot. The defensive objective of the game is to prevent your opponents from potting their winks by "squopping" them: shooting your own winks to land on top of your opponents' winks. As part of strategic gameplay, players often attempt to squop their opponents' winks and develop, maintain and break up large piles of winks.


title: Tiddlywinks

text: Tiddlywinks is sometimes considered a simple-minded, frivolous children's game, rather than a sophisticated strategic game. However, the modern competitive game of tiddlywinks made a strong comeback at the University of Cambridge in 1955. The modern game uses far more complex rules and a consistent set of high-grade equipment.


title: Tiddlywinks

text: "Tiddlywinks" derives from British rhyming slang for an unlicensed public house or a small inn only licensed to sell beer and cider (tiddlywink, kiddlywink).<ref name="google/books=dFUJAAAAQAAJ"></ref> Tiddly was slang for an alcoholic drink. It may be related to "pillywinks".


title: Tiddlywinks

text: Tiddlywinks is a competitive game involving four colours of winks. Each player controls the winks of a colour, the colours being blue, green, red and yellow. Red and blue are always partners against green and yellow. There are six winks of each colour, which begin the game in the corners of a felt mat measuring 6 feet by 3 feet. This mat is ordinarily placed on a table, and a pot is placed at its centre. There are two primary methods of play with the four colors of winks: a pairs game, and a singles game. The pairs game involves four players, playing in partnerships, with each winker playing a single color. The singles game involves a single winker playing against another single winker, each playing two colors of winks in alternation.


title: Tiddlywinks

text: The players take turns, and there are two basic aims: to cover (or "squop") opponent winks, and to get one's own winks into the pot. As in pool or snooker, if a player pots a wink of his own colour, then he is entitled to an extra shot, and this enables a skilled player to pot all of his winks in one turn. The point of squopping, which is the key element distinguishing the modern competitive game from the child's game (though recognized in even the earliest rules from 1890), is that a wink that is covered (even partially) may not be played by its owner. The wink on top may be played, though, and sophisticated play involves shots manipulating large piles of winks.


title: Tiddlywinks

text: The game ends in one of two ways: either all the winks of one colour are potted (a "pot-out"), or play continues up to a specified time limit (usually 25 minutes), after which each colour has a further five turns. Then a scoring system is used to rank the players, based on the numbers of potted and unsquopped winks of each colour.


title: Tiddlywinks

text: The important appeal of the game for many players is the required combination of manual dexterity and strategic thought as well as tactics. Tiddlywinkers often claim that the game combines physical skill (such as in snooker or golf) with the strategy of chess. Tiddlywinks is unique in the combination of skill and strategy it requires. Strategy in tiddlywinks is often rather deep, since winks can be captured by squopping (covering) them. Strategic and tactical planning involves anticipating opponents' moves rather than just building a sequence of one's own moves. Another factor that complicates the game is that there is a time limit to the play of the game; it does not merely run until some objective in the game has been met.


title: Tiddlywinks

text: All in all, tiddlywinks goes beyond the purely cerebral nature of a game such as chess. The fact that shots can be made or missed, together with the continuum of possible outcomes, makes strategy much less rigid than in chess, and prevents planning more than seven or eight shots in advance.


title: Tiddlywinks

text: The winks and pot used in competitive play are standard, and are supplied by the English Tiddlywinks Association. The pots are made of moulded plastic (historically always red), with specified diameters at the top and the base, and specified height. The winks are made to specified measurements, and are made by slicing an extruded cylinder rather than by moulding, and then smoothing them in a tumbler. Although this leads to some minor variation in thickness, it produces a much smoother edge to the wink than that seen on cheap moulded winks.


title: Tiddlywinks

text: The mats are made of thick felt. Mats obtained from different suppliers have different characteristics, and part of the skill of a tournament player is to adjust to different mats.


title: Tiddlywinks

text: Squidgers are custom-made by their owners or purchased from squidger makers. A player may use as many as he likes, selecting an appropriate squidger for each shot. Top players may carry up to twenty different squidgers, but will not typically use all of them in one game. The rules governing squidgers permit a range of dimensions, and the material is not specified, except for the condition that squidgers must not damage either the winks or the mat. Modern squidgers are predominantly made from different types of plastic, though antique ones were made from bone, vegetable ivory, and other materials. Squidgers are usually filed or sanded to form a sharp edge and then polished.


title: Tiddlywinks

text: Boondock: to free a squopped wink by sending it a long way away, leaving the squopping wink free in the battle area


title: Tiddlywinks

text: Bristol: a shot which moves a pile of two or more winks as a single unit; the shot is played by holding the squidger at a right angle to its normal plane


title: Tiddlywinks

text: Cracker (UK): a simultaneous knock-off and squop, i.e. a shot which knocks one wink off the top of another while simultaneously squopping it


title: Tiddlywinks

text: Good shot: named after John Good. The shot consists of playing a flat wink (one not involved in a pile) through a nearby pile with the intent of destroying the pile


title: Tiddlywinks

text: Gromp: an attempt to jump a pile onto another wink (usually with the squidger held in a conventional rather than a Bristol fashion)


title: Tiddlywinks

text: Tiddlies: points calculated when determining the finishing placement of winkers in a tiddlywinks game


title: Tiddlywinks

text: The game began as a parlour game in Victorian England. Bank clerk Joseph Assheton Fincher (1863–1900) filed the original patent application for the game in 1888 and applied for the trademark "Tiddledy-Winks" in 1889. John Jaques and Son were the exclusive distributors of the game named Tiddledy-Winks.


title: Tiddlywinks

text: However, competition was quite fierce, and for several years starting in 1888 other game publishers came out with their own versions of the game using other names, including Spoof, Flipperty Flop, Jumpkins, Golfette, Maro, Flutter, and many others. It became one of the most popular crazes during the 1890s, played by adults and children alike.


title: Tiddlywinks

text: Throughout its history, many different varieties were produced to meet the marketplace demands, including those combining tiddledy-winks principles with tennis, basketball, baseball, croquet, cricket, football, golf, and other popular sports and endeavours. Throughout the first half of the twentieth century, the public perception of the game changed.


title: Tiddlywinks

text: There are two national associations, the English Tiddlywinks Association (ETwA) and the North American Tiddlywinks Association (NATwA), (the Scottish Tiddlywinks Association having disbanded in the late 1990s). These organisations are responsible for conducting tournaments and maintaining the rules of the game. International competition is overseen by the International Federation of Tiddlywinks Associations (IFTwA), founded on 16 June 1963 though in practice it is rarely called upon to intervene.


title: Tiddlywinks

text: Although tiddlywinks nowadays is a singles or pairs game, competition in the 1950s until the 2000s centred on team competition, with teams consisting of several (two to four) pairs. There were a number of university teams, and international matches were also played. More recently, singles and pairs tournaments have come to be the focus of competitive tiddlywinks, with only a few team matches being played each year. The four most prestigious tournaments are the National Singles and National Pairs tournaments held in England and the United States. The World Singles and World Pairs championships operate on a challenge basis; anyone winning a national tournament (or being the highest-placed home player behind a foreign winner) is entitled to challenge the current champion.


title: Tiddlywinks

text: There are several other less prestigious tournaments in England and the United States throughout the year, often with a format designed to encourage inexperienced players. The results of tournaments and world championship matches are used to calculate Tiddlywinks Ratings, which give a ranking of players.


title: Tiddlywinks

text: The birth of the modern game can be traced to a group of Cambridge University undergraduates meeting in Christ's College on 16 January 1955. Their aim was to devise a sport at which they could represent the university. Within three years the Oxford University Tiddlywinks Society was formed; although the two universities had been playing matches since 1946. In 1957, an article appeared in "The Spectator" entitled "Does Prince Philip cheat at tiddlywinks?" Sensing a good publicity opportunity the Cambridge University Tiddlywinks Club (CUTwC) challenged Prince Philip (later to become Chancellor of the University in 1976) to a tiddlywinks match to defend his honour. The Duke of Edinburgh appointed The Goons as his Royal champions. The Duke presented a trophy, the Silver Wink, designed and made by Robert Welch for the British Universities Championship.


title: Tiddlywinks

text: The English Tiddlywinks Association (ETwA) was founded on 12 June 1958 with the Reverend Edgar "Eggs" Ambrose Willis as its first Secretary-General.


title: Tiddlywinks

text: In 1962, the Oxford University Tiddlywinks Society (OUTS) toured the United States for several weeks under the sponsorship of Guinness. They were undefeated against teams from various American colleges including Harvard and newspapers. A match against the New York Giants was scheduled but the football players backed out at the last moment. A very prominent article appeared in "Life" magazine on 14 December 1962 with coverage of the Harvard team. Harvard's Gargoyle Undergraduate Tiddlywinks Society (GUTS) dominated winks in this era. In the next few years, Harvard and other colleges continued to play, though at a low ebb. From 1962 to 1966, tiddlywinks play in the United States was governed by the National Undergraduate Tiddlywinks Association (NUTS).


title: Tiddlywinks

text: The North American Tiddlywinks Association (NATwA) was formed on 27 February 1966, replacing NUTS, with founders from both American (Harvard University and Harvard Medical School) and Canadian (University of Waterloo and Waterloo Lutheran University) teams.


title: Tiddlywinks

text: In the meantime, in the fall of 1965, Severin Drix started a team at Cornell, and challenged his friend Ferd Wulkan of MIT to start a tiddlywinks team. MIT and Cornell played in NATwA's tiddlywinks tournaments starting in February 1967, and became dominant. The Harvard and Waterloo teams disappeared from the scene by 1968. The game took particularly strong root at MIT, and the early development of most American players can still be traced to MIT today.


title: Tiddlywinks

text: While the basic elements of the modern strategic game were devised by CUTwC in its early years, the rules have continued to be modified under the auspices of the various national tiddlywinks associations. ETwA coordinated the game throughout the boom period of the 1960s when winks flourished. A decline in interest within the UK in 1969-1970 led to the establishment of the three national competitions which have been contested to date, namely the National Singles, National Pairs, and the Teams of Four. There are also annual Open Competitions, notably in Oxford, Cambridge and London.


title: Tiddlywinks

text: The first serious trans-Atlantic contact was established in 1972, when a team from MIT including Dave Lockwood toured the UK. The success of the Americans shocked complacent Britons. Competition started at the highest level, the World Singles, in 1973. A challenge system was agreed between ETwA and NATwA. The supreme ruling body in world contests is the International Federation of Tiddlywinks Associations (IFTwA). To challenge at the world level, a player must win one of the national titles, or finish as the highest placed home player behind a foreign winner. There have been over 65 World Singles contests to date. The Americans dominated all the early matches, and it was not until the 22nd contest that a Briton won for the first time. Since then the top Britons and Americans have been closely matched. After the establishment of the World Singles, a World Pairs event followed, and there have since been over 40 World Pairs contests. International matches have been played since 1972.


title: Tiddlywinks

text: During its history, winks has enjoyed variable levels of interest. The game has never taken a strong hold outside the UK and North America. The focus of British tiddlywinks is still at Cambridge, and CUTwC's 50th anniversary celebrations in 2005 were well attended. The Oxford University Tiddlywinks Society has recently fallen out of existence. Despite this there has recently been some resurgence in the game, with new clubs having been formed recently in the University of York and in Shrewsbury School.


title: Tiddlywinks

text: In America, there has been a tradition of tiddlywinks in Washington D.C., Boston, Eastern Ohio, and Ithaca, New York. There was a renewal of winks in 2007 through the MIT Tiddlywinks Association. National competitions are well attended, with a group of enthusiastic young players joining the stock of veteran players who have proved themselves at the highest level in world competition. In the US, the game had a firm footing in certain high schools, since the children of many of the players who took up the game in the late 1960s and early 1970s played when they were in high school. These players are now looking to revive university tiddlywinks in the United States.


title: Tiddlywinks

text: On 1 March 2008, there was a Royal Match in Cambridge to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the original Royal Match played against The Goons in 1958 (see above). CUTwC players took on HRH Prince Philip's Royal Champions, the Savage Club, with members of the original 1958 CUTwC team in attendance. Cambridge repeated their victory from 1958 by winning the match 24-18.


title: Tiddlywinks

text: Since 2000, the World Singles championship has been dominated by Larry Kahn and Patrick Barrie, with each player having won seven matches (as of December 2019).


title: Timeline of the telephone

text: This timeline of the telephone covers landline, radio, and cellular telephony technologies and provides many important dates in the history of the telephone.


title: CHA2DS2–VASc score

text: The CHADS score and its updated version, the CHADS-VASc score, are clinical prediction rules for estimating the risk of stroke in people with non-rheumatic atrial fibrillation (AF), a common and serious heart arrhythmia associated with thromboembolic stroke. Such a score is used to determine whether or not treatment is required with anticoagulation therapy or antiplatelet therapy, since AF can cause stasis of blood in the upper heart chambers, leading to the formation of a mural thrombus that can dislodge into the blood flow, reach the brain, cut off supply to the brain, and cause a stroke.


title: CHA2DS2–VASc score

text: A high score corresponds to a greater risk of stroke, while a low score corresponds to a lower risk of stroke. The CHADS score is simple and has been validated by many studies. In clinical use, the CHADS score (pronounced "chads two") has been superseded by the CHADS-VASc score ("chads vasc"), which gives a better stratification of low-risk patients.


title: CHA2DS2–VASc score

text: The CHADS-VASc score is a widely used medical tool used to guide physicians on blood thinning treatment to prevent stroke in people with non-valvular atrial fibrillation (AF).


title: CHA2DS2–VASc score

text: The CHADS score does not include some common stroke risk factors, and its various pros/cons have been carefully discussed. Adding together the points that correspond to the conditions that are present results in the CHADS score, that is used to estimate stroke risk.


title: CHA2DS2–VASc score

text: To complement the CHADS score, by the inclusion of additional 'stroke risk modifier' risk factors, the CHADS-VASc-score has been proposed.


title: CHA2DS2–VASc score

text: In clinical use, the CHADS score has been superseded by the CHADS-VASc score, which gives a better stratification of low-risk patients. The CHADS score has been outperformed by the CHADS-VASc in multiple patient groups including patients with AF who are receiving outpatient elective electrical cardioversion.


title: CHA2DS2–VASc score

text: Thus, the CHADS-VASc score is a refinement of CHADS score and extends the latter by including additional common stroke risk factors, that is, age 65–74, female gender and vascular disease. In the CHADS-VASc score, 'age 75 and above' also has extra weight, with 2 points.


title: CHA2DS2–VASc score

text: The maximum CHADS score is 6, whilst the maximum CHADS-VASc score is 9 (not 10, as might be expected from simply adding up the columns; the maximum score for age is 2 points).


title: CHA2DS2–VASc score

text: Major guidelines have used the above fixed annual stroke risk as a guideline of starting anticoagulant treatment; where the ischemic stroke risk of more than 1% to 2% should be an indication to start an anticoagulant therapy. However, actual risk of getting stroke varies according to sampling method and geographical regions, as well as use of appropriate study analysis methodology. A meta-analysis of various studies in 2015 shown that annual stroke risk is less than 1% in 13 of the 17 studies for CHADS-VASc score of 1, 6 out of 15 studies reported risk of 1 to 2% and 5 out of 15 studies reported risk of more than 2% for CHADS-VASc score of 2. Nevertheless, stroke rates vary by study setting (hospital vs community), population (trial vs general), ethnicity, etc. Some studies included in the metaanalysis include females with score 1 by virtue of gender (who are low risk), into the aggregate rates; others included do not account for followup anticoagulation use (thus lowering rates) and were analysed by excluding all patients ever started on anticoagulants ('conditioning on the future' error).


title: CHA2DS2–VASc score

text: The CHADS-VASc Score has shown increasing popularity over time while the CHADS has shown decreasing popularity, which could "partly be related to introduction of guidelines recommending the use of the CHADS-VASc score for stroke risk stratification". The predictive abilities of risk scores for ischemic stroke in patients with kidney function impairment is questionable: a large head-to-head external validation study demonstrated poor discrimination and calibration in patients with reduced kidney function.


title: CHA2DS2–VASc score

text: The CHADS-VASc score has been used in the 2012 and subsequent European Society of Cardiology guidelines for the management of atrial fibrillation. The 2014 American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association Task Force on Practice Guidelines and the Heart Rhythm Society guidelines also recommend use of the CHADS-VASc score.


title: CHA2DS2–VASc score

text: The European Society of Cardiology (ESC), and National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidelines recommend that if the patient has a CHADS-VASc score of 2 and above, oral anticoagulation therapy (OAC) with a vitamin K antagonist (VKA, e.g. warfarin with target INR of 2-3) or one of the direct oral anticoagulant drugs (DOACs, e.g. dabigatran, rivaroxaban, edoxaban, or apixaban) is recommended.


title: CHA2DS2–VASc score

text: If the patient is 'low risk' using the CHADS-VASc score (that is, 0 in males or 1 in females), no anticoagulant therapy is recommended.


title: CHA2DS2–VASc score

text: In males with 1 stroke risk factor (that is, a CHADS-VASc score=1), antithrombotic therapy with OAC may be considered, and people's values and preferences should be considered. Even a single stroke risk factor confers excess risk of stroke and mortality, with a positive net clinical benefit for stroke prevention with oral anticoagulation, when compared to no treatment or aspirin. As mentioned above, thromboembolic event rates differ according to various guideline treatment thresholds and methodological approaches.


title: CHA2DS2–VASc score

text: Based on the ESC guidelines on AF, oral anticoagulation is recommended or preferred for people with one or more stroke risk factors (i.e. a CHADS-VASc score of ≥1 in males, or ≥2 in females). This is consistent with a recent decision analysis model showing how the 'tipping point' on the decision to anticoagulate has changed with the availability of the 'safer' DOAC drugs, where the threshold for offering stroke prevention (i.e. oral anticoagulation) is a stroke rate of approximately 1%/year.


title: CHA2DS2–VASc score

text: Those patients recommended for stroke prevention treatment via oral anticoagulation, choice of drug (i.e. between a vitamin K antagonist and direct oral anticoagulant (DOAC)) can be evaluated using the SAMe-TT2R2 score to help decision-making on the most appropriate oral anticoagulant.


title: CHA2DS2–VASc score

text: Stroke risk assessment should always include an assessment of bleeding risk. This can be done using validated bleeding risk scores, such as the HEMORRHAGES or HAS-BLED scores. The HAS-BLED score is recommended in guidelines, to identify the high risk patient for regular review and followup and to address the reversible risk factors for bleeding (e.g. uncontrolled hypertension, labile INRS, excess alcohol use or concomitant aspirin/NSAID use). If the patient is taking warfarin, then knowledge of INR control is needed to assess the 'labile INR' criterion in HAS-BLED; otherwise for a non-warfarin patient, this criterion scores zero. A high HAS-BLED score is not a reason to withhold anticoagulation. Also, when compared to HAS-BLED, other bleeding risk scores that did not consider 'labile INR' would significantly underperform in predicting bleeding on warfarin, and would often inappropriately categorise many patients who sustained bleeds as 'low risk'.


title: Razorlight

text: Razorlight are an English indie rock band, formed in 2002 in London by lead singer and guitarist Johnny Borrell. Along with Borrell, the current line-up of the band is composed of founding members Björn Ågren on guitar and bassist Carl Delemo, as well as drummer Andy Burrows. This lineup is a reunion of the lineup from the band's second and third albums.


title: Razorlight

text: The band have gone through several line-up changes, with Borrell remaining the sole permanent member. They released three studio albums before splitting up in 2014. The band reformed in 2017 and released the album "Olympus Sleeping" in 2018.


title: Razorlight

text: They are best known for the singles "Golden Touch" and "America", the latter of which was a number-one single on the UK Singles Chart in 2006.


title: Razorlight

text: The band was formed in 2002 by Johnny Borrell, after having performed across London with the likes of The Libertines as a solo acoustic singer-songwriter. It is often reported that Borrell was a member of the Libertines, but Carl Barat has since revealed that he was just taught the bass lines for four songs to play for a showcase for Rough Trade Records and failed to turn up for it and never played with the band live. Borrell first enlisted Swedish-born guitarist Björn Ågren via an advert in the NME, who then introduced fellow-Swede bassist Carl Dalemo to Borrell. Borell then brought in school friend Shïan (formerly Christian) Smith-Pancorvo on drums, and they rehearsed in east London for six months before playing their first gig on 17 September 2002 at Dingwalls in Camden, London supporting the Von Bondies. Former NME journalist Roger Morton, who had been managing the band from the beginning, began looking to get the band into a recording studio and a session was booked at Liam Watson's Toe Rag Studios to record early versions of the tracks "Rip It Up", "Rock 'n' Roll Lies" and "In the City". The results of these sessions gained radio play on the John Kennedy Show on XFM who described the band as being "the best unsigned band in Britain", and led to A&R attention. Following a bidding war to sign the band, they signed to Mercury Records.


title: Razorlight

text: The band released their debut album "Up All Night" on 28 June 2004, reaching number 3 in the UK album charts. The critical reception was generally positive, receiving good reviews from "NME", "Q" magazine and "Billboard". Drummer Shïan Smith-Pancorvo left the band in April and was replaced by Andy Burrows the following month. "Up All Night" was re-issued in April 2005, including the stand-alone single "Somewhere Else" as a bonus track, and peaked at Number 2.


title: Razorlight

text: In July 2005, the band performed at Hyde Park, London as part of the Live 8 series of concerts. However, the band came under fire for being the only band to not donate their extra revenue to charity. The band subsequently claimed that due to their "fledgling status", they were unable to make such a commitment.


title: Razorlight

text: Razorlight contributed the song "Kirby's House" to the War Child charity album "". A shorter alternative version of the song was included on the band's second album, "Razorlight".


title: Razorlight

text: In the midst of their first American headlining tour in support of "Up All Night", Razorlight created a stir in Denver, Colorado, when they stormed off stage five songs into their set during a show at the Larimer Lounge. After stumbling around stage, frontman Borrell shouted into the microphone "I'm going to kill myself now," and ran off the stage. The band's official statement stated that he was suffering from stagefright.


title: Razorlight

text: Razorlight debuted several new songs from their forthcoming second album live on 30 March 2006 at the Albert Hall in London, as part of Teenage Cancer Trust concerts, organised by Roger Daltrey. On 2 July, they played to a sold-out Hyde Park Calling, where they performed before The Who. The band went on to play on the beach opposite Brighton's West Pier on 12 July in a free concert as part of a Vodafone TBA event broadcast on Channel 4.


title: Razorlight

text: Razorlight released their second album "Razorlight" on 17 July 2006, in the United Kingdom and it debuted at No. 1 in the UK Albums Chart a week later. It received mixed reviews, "Q" magazine giving it a rare 5/5 rating, whilst Pitchfork Media gave it 2.8/10. The lead single from the album, "In the Morning" was released as a single on 3 July 2006, which peaked at No. 3 in the UK Singles Chart. To date, it is their third biggest single after "Somewhere Else", which peaked at No. 2, and "America", which peaked at No. 1. It also reached No. 2 on iTunes. In 2007, Razorlight were nominated for two BRIT Awards – one for Best British Band and the other for Best Song, "America". They were also nominated for two NME Brit Awards for Best Band and Best Album.


title: Razorlight

text: Razorlight supported Queen + Paul Rodgers on 15 July, in front of 60,000 people. This gig had been rescheduled following the July 2005 London bombings. In December of the same year, they supported Oasis, at Cardiff's Millennium Stadium. They also supported The Rolling Stones in Cologne and Paris. The band played their biggest tour to date in October–November 2006 and also supported Richard Ashcroft at the Lancashire County Cricket Club on 17 June. They headlined Reading on 24 August, and Leeds on 25 August 2007. They also played the Main Stage on 19 May in Preston for Radio 1's Big Weekend alongside bands such as Kasabian and Kaiser Chiefs. On 7 July 2007, Razorlight performed at both the UK leg of Live Earth at Wembley Stadium, London and T in the Park. In November 2006 the band were hospitalised after traces of radioactive poisoning was detected on their plane. Their British Airways return flight from Moscow was a scheduled route used by Russian ex-spy Alexander Litvinenko.


title: Razorlight

text: Razorlight were due to perform for BBC Children in Need 2008, but were forced to cancel due to Borrell suffering with vocal problems. The band made a donation to the charity. After months of working on new material, some of which was written by Borrell on the island of Tiree in the Inner Hebrides, Razorlight released their third studio album, "Slipway Fires", on 3 November 2008 with the lead single, "Wire to Wire", released on 20 October 2008. The second single from the album, "Hostage of Love", however, received little commercial attention and failed to enter the charts. As a result, a planned third single "Burberry Blue Eyes" was cancelled. Borrell later stated that the album was their weakest, and that the "album was just about greed – that's the only way I see that record". He added that after writing songs in the Inner Hebrides "I came back to London and the label had already booked studio time even though I wasn't really confident in the songs. The songs I wrote came from this place of total mental breakdown and they were shoe-horned into a pop album, which just didn't work. I was very conscious that I didn't tell anyone in the band what I thought about their part of a song, because I couldn't face the consequences of saying that and the tantrums that would ensue".


title: Razorlight

text: On 5 March 2009, it was announced that Andy Burrows had quit the band to "pursue other musical ventures". Johnny Borrell stated that although "over the last two albums and five years Andy has been an integral part of Razorlight and we will miss him", the band would continue. Burrows initially claimed that his time with the band had been "an amazing experience", but later went on to state that he "hated being in the band. Johnny and I didn't get on. Now I've got my freedom. He never wanted people to know that we both wrote songs". A well publicised fight between Borrell and Burrows occurred in 2006 at the Hawley Arms in Camden, London over songwriting credits for the song "America" with it being reported that Burrows was the main songwriter of the song. In 2019, Burrows revealed that he had bumped into Borrell in central London three years prior and was "brushed off". He stated that Borrell "acted like I was a stranger, it was the weirdest thing. I think I went off and got extremely drunk, but felt very weird for a couple of days… it was almost like seeing a ghost". In 2016, Borrell admitted that the band were collaborative and that Burrows had helped shape the sound of the second album, stating that "I rate the drummer Andy Burrows. He was a great drummer with a melodic ear – but if you want to figure out who was taking Razorlight in which direction, then maybe have a listen to what we're each doing now. I'm playing psychedelic blues-tango, and his stuff is so middle of the road it's got more white lines than Liam Gallagher in 1997".


title: Razorlight

text: Following Burrows' departure, the band enlisted David 'Skully' Sullivan Kaplan as a temporary replacement to fulfil live commitments, and soon became an official member. He had previously worked for the band's booking agent. With a top 5 album and single in Germany, the band toured America, Australia and Europe before returning to the UK for shows in May at The O2 and Manchester Evening News Arena followed by UK festivals. Towards the end of the album tour cycle, the band previewed the new song "Dr. Boushitan" at several German gigs.


title: Razorlight

text: In December 2009, Borrell revealed that the band were working with Steve Lillywhite and Dave McCracken on a new album and that they were eager to get the new songs out "soon". However, a UK and Europe tour of December 2010 featured an unannounced new band line-up. The band previewed several new tracks on tour, including Vertical Women and If It Bleeds.


title: Razorlight

text: On 26 January 2011 it was officially announced that Dalemo and Ågren had left the band, having "agreed on an amicable parting following unproductive early recording sessions for a new album late last year". The duo were replaced by guitarist Gus Robertson and bassist Freddie Stitz The new line-up was officially revealed on 26 January 2011 via a new press photo. The photo was widely mocked on social media. Borrell responded that "if people were laughing, then good! You shouldn't change what people ridicule you for, because in reality it's your strength".


title: Razorlight

text: The new line-up of the band, with Borrell as the only original member, toured the UK and Europe in September and October 2011. The band played several festivals including Get Loaded in the Park on Clapham Common on Sunday 12 June, Guilfest on 16 July 2011 and Shakedown Festival in Brighton on 17 September 2011. The band also headlined OsFest in Shropshire on 3 June 2012, Splendour Festival in Nottingham on 21 July 2012, Bingley Music Live on 1 September 2012 and The Big Feastival the next day on 2 September 2012.


title: Razorlight

text: In May 2011, Borrell revealed that the new band line-up were continuing work on the fourth album, and that they were "really gelling as a band and a group of people and we're really enjoying working together. There's a really good atmosphere, it feels great, really, really good. There are some songs coming together. But it'll be ready when it's ready". The band were set to work with either former Suede guitarist Bernard Butler or Steve Lillywhite producing. In October 2012, Kaplan confirmed that they had completed the album and were waiting to mix it. He revealed further song titles, "Good To Be Dead", "Boys" and "Reveal Yourself".


title: Razorlight

text: However, on 27 March 2013, Borrell announced that Razorlight was to be put on hold whilst he prepared to release solo material. Borrell later revealed that Mercury refused to release the album, stating that the band "really felt we had a record that we wanted to put out, but my label was very fractured and it was very hard to communicate with them. The label was focused on having a super-mega hit".


title: Razorlight

text: In July 2013, he released his debut solo album "Borrell 1" via Stiff Records. The album sold poorly, with the record label releasing a statement poking fun at the fact that it sold only 594 copies in its first week of release. When questioned about the statement, Borrell responded that he "had almost no knowledge of that statement and I'm not sure who put it out or even what it said. My manager told me that it was really weird and, yeah, it was really weird" and that "labels are scum".


title: Razorlight

text: Following the commercial failure of the solo album and despite the hiatus announced the previous year, Razorlight began playing numerous festival through 2014 and 2015, such as Y Not Festival,


title: Razorlight

text: Tartan Heart Festival, Festival Internacional de Benicàssim and Volksfest in Plymouth. On 4 June 2014 at the Electric Ballroom in Camden, Razorlight played on the tenth anniversary of their debut album. João Mello, an 18-year-old Brazilian who played saxophone on Borrell's solo project, played bass.


title: Razorlight

text: While announcing his new solo single "My World, Your Life" on 3 May 2018, Borrell also announced that a new Razorlight album would be released that year. The album was released on 25 October, titled "Olympus Sleeping". Four songs were immediately released with promo videos, along with the announcement of a UK tour. Borrell stated that the album "was about embracing English indie guitar pop". The song "Good Night" was previously played live in 2013 prior to the hiatus with Kaplan receiving a songwriting credit.


title: Razorlight

text: The new line-up featured guitarist David Ellis (who co-wrote several of the songs on the album and also appeared on Borrell's solo single "My World, Your Life"), bassist Harry Deacon (formerly of Kid Wave) and drummer David Kaplan.


title: Razorlight

text: Although drummer David Kaplan appeared in press shots for the album and toured in support of it, the album was recorded with drummer Martin Chambers. Borrell met Chambers at a David A. Stewart birthday gig and asked him if he'd like to play on the new album. Ellis and Borrell shared bass duties on the album. Kaplan left the band sometime in mid-2019. In July 2019, the band released the stand-alone single "Cops & Robbers", which featured Borrell on drums.


title: Razorlight

text: In November 2019, it was announced that original guitarist Björn Ågren had rejoined the band and would be taking part in the December 2019 tour. The duo were joined by keyboardist Reni Laine, bassist Ben Ellis and drummer Mat Hector. Ellis and Deacon left the band sometime prior to the tour. In 2020, the band released the single "Burn, Camden, Burn", which was recorded in 2009. It features on the Apple TV series "Trying".


title: Razorlight

text: In April 2021, the band announced the return of the original lineup, featuring Borrell and Ågren, as well as Andy Burrows and Carl Dalemo with a livestreamed concert to be held on 2 June 2021.This marked the first appearance of the classic lineup in over a decade.


title: Razorlight

text: In an August 2021 Carl Dalemo told local Swedish newspaper Nya Lidköpings-Tidningen that the band had been working on new music since April. Dalemo added that with him living in Sweden, and the Covid situation complicating travel, he was not able to make it to some of the gigs during early summer.


title: Fan coil unit

text: A fan coil unit (FCU), also known as a Vertical Fan Coil-Unit (VFC), is a device consisting of a heat exchanger (coil) and a fan. As part of an HVAC system found in residential, commercial, and industrial buildings using ducted split air conditioning or with central plant cooling, a fan coil unit is often connected to ductwork and a thermostat to regulate the temperature of one or more spaces as well as assisting the main air handling unit for each space if used with chillers. The thermostat controls the fan speed and/or the throughput of water to the heat exchanger using a control valve.


title: Fan coil unit

text: Owing to their simplicity and flexibility, fan coil units can be more economical to install than ducted 100% fresh air systems (VAV) or central heating systems with air handling units or chilled beams. Various unit configurations are available, including horizontal (ceiling mounted) or vertical (floor mounted).


title: Fan coil unit

text: Noise output from FCUs, like any other form of air conditioning, is principally due to the design of the unit and the building materials around it. Some offer noise levels as low as NR25 or NC25


title: Fan coil unit

text: The output from an FCU can be established by looking at the temperature of the air entering the unit and the temperature of the air leaving the unit, coupled with the volume of air being moved through the unit. This is a simplistic statement, and there is further reading on sensible heat ratios and the specific heat capacity of air, both of which have an effect on thermal performance.


title: Fan coil unit

text: "Fan Coil Unit" covers a range of products and will mean different things to users, specifiers, and installers in different countries and regions, particularly in relation to product size and output capability.


title: Fan coil unit

text: Fan Coil Unit falls principally into two main types: blow through and draw through. As the names suggest, in the first type the fans are fitted behind the heat exchanger, and in the other type the fans are fitted in front the coil such that they draw air through it. Draw through units are considered thermally superior, as ordinarily they make better use of the heat exchanger. However they are more expensive, as they require a chassis to hold the fans whereas a blow-through unit typically consists of a set of fans bolted straight to a coil.


title: Fan coil unit

text: An exposed fan coil unit may be wall-mounted, freestanding or ceiling mounted, and will typically include an appropriate enclosure to protect and conceal the fan coil unit itself, with return air grille and supply air diffuser set into that enclosure to distribute the air.


title: Fan coil unit

text: A concealed fan coil unit will typically be installed within an accessible ceiling void or services zone. The return air grille and supply air diffuser, typically set flush into the ceiling, will be ducted to and from the fan coil unit and thus allows a great degree of flexibility for locating the grilles to suit the ceiling layout and/or the partition layout within a space. It is quite common for the return air not to be ducted and to use the ceiling void as a return air plenum.


title: Fan coil unit

text: The coil receives hot or cold water from a central plant, and removes heat from or adds heat to the air through heat transfer. Traditionally fan coil units can contain their own internal thermostat, or can be wired to operate with a remote thermostat. However, and as is common in most modern buildings with a Building Energy Management System (BEMS), the control of the fan coil unit will be by a local digital controller or outstation (along with associated room temperature sensor and control valve actuators) linked to the BEMS via a communication network, and therefore adjustable and controllable from a central point, such as a supervisors head end computer.


title: Fan coil unit

text: Fan coil units circulate hot or cold water through a coil in order to condition a space. The unit gets its hot or cold water from a central plant, or mechanical room containing equipment for removing heat from the central building's closed-loop. The equipment used can consist of machines used to remove heat such as a chiller or a cooling tower and equipment for adding heat to the building's water such as a boiler or a commercial water heater.


title: Fan coil unit

text: Hydronic fan coil units can be generally divided into two types: Two-pipe fan coil units or four-pipe fan coil units. Two-pipe fan coil units have one supply and one return pipe. The supply pipe supplies either cold or hot water to the unit depending on the time of year. Four-pipe fan coil units have two supply pipes and two return pipes. This allows either hot or cold water to enter the unit at any given time. Since it is often necessary to heat and cool different areas of a building at the same time, due to differences in internal heat loss or heat gains, the four-pipe fan coil unit is most commonly used.


title: Fan coil unit

text: Fan coil units may be connected to piping networks using various topology designs, such as "direct return", "reverse return", or "series decoupled". See ASHRAE Handbook "2008 Systems & Equipment", Chapter 12.


title: Fan coil unit

text: Depending upon the selected chilled water temperatures and the relative humidity of the space, it is likely that the cooling coil will dehumidify the entering air stream, and as a by product of this process, it will at times produce a condensate which will need to be carried to drain. The fan coil unit will contain a purpose designed drip tray with drain connection for this purpose. The simplest means to drain the condensate from multiple fan coil units will be by a network of pipework laid to falls to a suitable point. Alternatively a condensate pump may be employed where space for such gravity pipework is limited.


title: Fan coil unit

text: Speed control of the fan motors within a fan coil unit is partly used to control the heating and cooling output desired from the unit. Some manufacturers accomplish speed control by adjusting the taps on an AC transformer supplying the power to the fan motor. Typically this would require adjustment at the commissioning stage of the building construction process and is therefore set for life at a fixed speed. Other manufacturers provide custom-wound Permanent Split Capacitor (PSC) motors with speed taps in the windings, set to the desired speed levels for the fan coil unit design. A simple speed selector switch (Off-High-Medium-Low) is provided for the local room occupant to control the fan speed. Typically this speed selector switch is integral to the room thermostat, and is set manually or is controlled automatically by the digital room thermostat. Building Energy Management Systems can be used for automatic fan speed and temperature control. Fan motors are typically AC Shaded Pole or Permanent Split Capacitor. More recent developments include brushless DC designs with electronic commutation. Compared to units with asynchronous 3-speed motors, the fan coil units with brushless motors will reduce the power consumption up to 70%.


title: Fan coil unit

text: Fan coil units linked to ducted split air conditioning units use refrigerant in the cooling coil instead of chilled coolant and linked to a large condenser unit instead of a chiller. They might also be linked to liquid-cooled condenser units which use an intermediate coolant to cool the condenser using cooling towers.


title: Fan coil unit

text: These motors are sometimes called DC motors, sometimes called EC motors and occasionally EC/DC motors. DC stands for Direct Current and EC stands for Electronically Commutated.


title: Fan coil unit

text: DC motors allow the speed of the fans within a Fan Coil Unit to be controlled by means of a 0-10 Volt input 'Signal' to the motor/s, the transformers and speed switches associated with AC Fan Coils are not required. Up to a signal voltage of 2.5 Volts (which may vary with different fan/motor manufacturers) the fan will be in a stopped condition but as the signal voltage is increased, the fan will seamlessly increase in speed until the maximum is reached at a signal Voltage of 10 Volts. Fan Coils will generally operate between approximately 4 Volts and 7.5 Volts because below 4 Volts the air volumes are ineffective and above 7.5 Volts the Fan Coil is likely to be too noisy for most commercial applications.


title: Fan coil unit

text: The 0-10 Volt signal voltage can be set via a simple potentiometer and left or the 0-10 Volt signal voltage can be delivered to the fan motors by the terminal controller on each of the Fan Coil Units. The former is very simple and cheap but the latter opens up the opportunity to continuously alter the fan speed depending on various external conditions/influences. These conditions/criteria could be the 'real time' demand for either heating or cooling, occupancy levels, window switches, time clocks or any number of other inputs from either the unit itself, the Building Management System or both.


title: Fan coil unit

text: The reason that these DC Fan Coil Units are, despite their apparent relative complexity, becoming more popular is their improved energy efficiency levels compared to their AC motor driven counterparts of only a few years ago. A straight swap, AC to DC, will reduce electrical consumption by 50% but applying Demand and Occupancy dependent fan speed control can take the savings to as much as 80%. In areas of the world where there are legally enforceable energy efficiency requirements for Fan Coils (such as the UK), DC Fan Coil Units are rapidly becoming the only choice.


title: Fan coil unit

text: In high-rise buildings, fan coils may be vertically stacked, located one above the other from floor to floor and all interconnected by the same piping loop.


title: Fan coil unit

text: Fan coil units are an excellent delivery mechanism for hydronic chiller boiler systems in large residential and light commercial applications. In these applications the fan coil units are mounted in bathroom ceilings and can be used to provide unlimited comfort zones - with the ability to turn off unused areas of the structure to save energy.


title: Fan coil unit

text: In high-rise residential construction, typically each fan coil unit requires a rectangular through-penetration in the concrete slab on top of which it sits. Usually, there are either 2 or 4 pipes made of ABS, steel or copper that go through the floor. The pipes are usually insulated with refrigeration insulation, such as acrylonitrile butadiene/polyvinyl chloride (AB/PVC) flexible foam (Rubatex or Armaflex brands) on all pipes, or at least on the chilled water lines to prevent condensate from forming.


title: Fan coil unit

text: A unit ventilator is a fan coil unit that is used mainly in classrooms, hotels, apartments and condominium applications. A unit ventilator can be a wall mounted or ceiling hung cabinet, and is designed to use a fan to blow outside air across a coil, thus conditioning and ventilating the space which it is serving.


title: Fan coil unit

text: The Fan Coil is composed of one quarter of 2-pipe-units and three quarters of 4-pipe-units, and the most sold products are "with casing" (35%), "without casing" (28%), "cassette" (18%) and "ducted" (16%).


title: Piers Plowman

text: Piers Plowman (written 1370–86; possibly ) or "Visio Willelmi de Petro Ploughman" ("William's Vision of Piers Plowman") is a Middle English allegorical narrative poem by William Langland. It is written in un-rhymed, alliterative verse divided into sections called (Latin for "step").


title: Piers Plowman

text: Like the Pearl Poet's "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight", "Piers Plowman" is considered by many critics to be one of the greatest works of English literature of the Middle Ages, even preceding and influencing Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales". "Piers Plowman" contains the first known reference to a literary tradition of Robin Hood tales.


title: Piers Plowman

text: There exist three distinct versions of the poem, which scholars refer to as the A-, B-, and C-texts. The B-text is the most widely edited and translated version; it revises and extends the A-text by over four thousand lines.


title: Piers Plowman

text: The poem, a mix of theological allegory and social satire, concerns the narrator/dreamer's quest for the true Christian life in the context of medieval Catholicism. This journey takes place within a series of dream visions; the dreamer seeks, among other things, the allegorical characters Dowel (""Do-Well""), Dobet (""Do-Better""), and Dobest (""Do-Best""). The poem is divided into "passus" ('steps'), the divisions between which vary by version.


title: Piers Plowman

text: The poem begins in the Malvern Hills between Worcestershire and Herefordshire. A man named Will (which can be understood either simply as a personal name or as an allegory for a person's will, in the sense of 'desire, intention') falls asleep and has a vision of a tower set upon a hill and a fortress ("donjon") in a deep valley; between these symbols of heaven and hell is a 'fair field full of folk', representing the world of mankind. A satirical account of different sections of society follows, along with a dream-like fable representing the King as a cat and his people as rodents who consider whether to bell the cat.


title: Piers Plowman

text: Lady Mede travels to the royal court; the King proposes she marry Conscience; but Conscience denounces her.


title: Piers Plowman

text: Will falls back to sleep. Reason gives a sermon to the Field of Folk and the people decide to repent. The Seven Deadly Sins make confession and in penance attempt to go on pilgrimage to St Truth. They get lost, and Piers Plowman makes his first appearance: he will help the penitents if they help him plough his half-acre.


title: Piers Plowman

text: Piers and the penitents plough the half-acre. Some people refuse to work, and Hunger punishes them until they work. But once Hunger has been sated, the people return to idleness.


title: Piers Plowman

text: Eventually, Truth sends Piers a pardon for the penitents' sins; its main content is 'Do well and have well and God shall have your soul' and 'Do evil and have evil, and expect nothing other than that after your death, the Devil shall have your soul'. When challenged on the pardon's validity by a priest, Piers angrily tears it in two. Will is awakened by their arguing and, musing on his dreams, decides to seek ‘Do-wel’.


title: Piers Plowman

text: Will's search for Dowel begins. He enters into a disputation with Friars. He then falls asleep once more and meets Thought. Thought instructs Will in 'Do well, do better, do best'. Practical interpretation of what these concepts mean is to be provided by Wit.


title: Piers Plowman

text: There is an extended allegory featuring Dowel and the Castle of Flesh, exposing the need for people to be governed by their ‘Inwit’. The text discusses poverty and marriage. Wit makes further inroads to understanding Dowel, as active virtue.


title: Piers Plowman

text: Will meets Wit's wife, Dame Study. She complains to Will about his ignorance. Will then proceeds to Clergy and Scripture to learn more about Dowel. He considers what use scholarship might have in helping him achieve salvation.


title: Piers Plowman

text: Scripture complains about Will's lack of self-knowledge. Angered, Will (who is already dreaming) goes to sleep and has a dream-within-a-dream in which he meets Fortune. He serves her into old age, but she abandons him. Will learns about the salvation of the Emperor Trajan and the power of love. Kynde ('character, natural disposition, nature', here understood as an aspect of God) shows Will the world. Will has an argument with Reason: Reason, Will concludes, does not do enough to keep people from sin; but Reason disagrees. Will awakes from the dream-within-a-dream. He now meets Imaginatif, who advises Will to be patient.


title: Piers Plowman

text: Imaginatif teaches Will, bringing together and improving his understanding of earlier discussions in the poem. Imaginatif emphasises the need for humility and the importance of Grace.


title: Piers Plowman

text: Will awakens and then falls back to sleep; he dreams of sharing a feast with Conscience, Scripture, Clergy and Patience; he encounters a greedy Doctor of Divinity (who later shows disdain for love) and as well as eating actual food also dines on spiritual food. Piers the Plowman offers a definition of Do Well, Do Better and Do Best. Then Conscience and Patience meet Haukyn the Active Man, who wears a coat of Christian faith which is, however, soiled with the Seven Deadly Sins.


title: Piers Plowman

text: Conscience teaches Haukyn to seek forgiveness and do penance; Patience teaches Haukyn about the merits of embracing poverty. Haukyn cries out for God's mercy, which awakens Will.


title: Piers Plowman

text: Will finds himself alienated from the waking world, but Reason helps him to go back to sleep, whereupon Will meets Anima ('spirit'). Anima tells Will off for his pride in wanting to know too much, but goes on to talk about charity, in particular how the Church should care for its flock, but how its priests and monks do not always fulfil this duty. Talking to Anima, Will starts to conclude that Piers the Plowman is Christ. Will realises that he needs to switch from searching for Dowel to searching for Charity.


title: Piers Plowman

text: Will falls into another dream-within-a-dream, this time about the Tree of Charity, whose gardener is Piers the Plowman. Will participates in a re-enactment of the Fall of Man and then has a vision of the life of Christ; when this reaches the point where the Devil is defeated, Will wakes up from the dream-within-a-dream. Will goes looking for Piers and meets Faith/Abraham, who is himself searching for Christ.


title: Piers Plowman

text: Next, Will meets Hope/Moses, characterised by the tablets of law, who is also in search of Christ. Will learns about the Good Samaritan, the prospect of salvation, and the importance of Love. He wakes up.


title: Piers Plowman

text: Will sleeps again, and experiences the climactic section of "Piers Plowman". He experiences Love and the intersection of human and divine time. Will witnesses Christ/the Good Samaritan/Piers Plowman riding into Jerusalem and Christ's crucifixion. He then witnesses the Four Daughters of God (Truth, Justice, Mercy, Peace) in debate; the Harrowing of Hell; and Redemption.


title: Piers Plowman

text: During the mass, Will falls back to sleep and meets Conscience once more. Conscience recounts the life and Passion of Christ and how Piers/Peter was given his power by Grace/Christ. Will finds out about Pentecost; once more sees Piers as a ploughman, and witnesses Pride attacking Unity/Holy Church. He wakes up and records his dream.


title: Piers Plowman

text: While awake, Will meets Need. He falls asleep again and now dreams of the Antichrist. Kynde sends Old Age, Death, and Pestilence, to chastise people: Will is attacked by Old Age. He witnesses Holy Church undermined by a hypocritical Friar. Conscience goes on pilgrimage to seek Piers the Plowman, and calls on Grace for helpwhereupon Will wakes up.


title: Piers Plowman

text: It is now commonly accepted that "Piers Plowman" was written by William Langland, about whom little is known. This attribution rests principally on the evidence of an early-fifteenth-century manuscript of the C-text (see below) of "Piers" held at Trinity College, Dublin (MS 212), which ascribes the work to one man, called 'Willielmus de Langlond':


title: Piers Plowman

text: Other manuscripts also name the author as "Robert or William Langland", or "Wilhelmus W." (which could be shorthand for "William of Wychwood").


title: Piers Plowman

text: The attribution to William Langland is also based on internal evidence, primarily a seemingly autobiographical section in Passus 5 of the C-text of the poem. The main narrator of the poem in all the versions is named Will, with allegorical resonances clearly intended, and Langland (or Longland) is thought to be indicated as a surname through apparent puns; e.g., at one point the narrator remarks: "I have lyved in "londe"... my name is "longe wille"" (B.XV.152). This could be a coded reference to the poet's name, in the style of much late-medieval literature. New evidence suggests that this reverse cryptogram was read as "Will Long Will" by contemporary scribes and that the rebels of 1381 used this name as a pseudonym alongside the name "Piers Plowman". Langland's authorship, however, is not entirely beyond dispute, as recent work by Stella Pates and C. David Benson has demonstrated. In their work, "The Langland Myth", they claim there is not enough evidence to suggest that Langland is, in fact, the author, but instead that it is the work of a man by the name of William de la Rokele.


title: Piers Plowman

text: In the sixteenth century, when "Piers" was first printed, authorship was attributed by various antiquarians (such as John Bale) and poets to John Wycliffe and Geoffrey Chaucer, amongst others. Some sixteenth- and seventeenth-century persons regarded the poem as anonymous, and/or associated it with texts in the plowman tradition of social complaint, particularly the Chaucerian pseudepigrapha "The Ploughman's Tale" and "Pierce the Ploughman's Crede". (The latter was appended to Owen Rogers' 1560 edition of "Piers Plowman", a degraded version of Robert Crowley's 1550 editions.) The character of Piers himself had come to be considered by many readers to be in some sense the author.


title: Piers Plowman

text: The first printed editions by Crowley named the author as "Robert Langland" in a prefatory note. Langland is described as a probable protégé of Wycliffe. With Crowley's editions, the poem followed an existing and subsequently repeated convention of titling the poem "The Vision of Piers" [or Pierce] "Plowman", which is in fact the conventional name of just one section of the poem.


title: Piers Plowman

text: Some medievalists and text critics, beginning with John Matthews Manly, have posited multiple authorship theories for "Piers", an idea which continues to have a periodic resurgence in the scholarly literature. One scholar now disputes the single-author hypothesis, supposing that the poem may be the work of between two and five authors, depending upon how authorship is defined. Also, scholars like Charlotte Brewer suggest that scribes and their supervisors be regarded as editors with semi-authorial roles in the production of early modern texts like "Piers Ploughman".


title: Piers Plowman

text: "Piers Plowman" is considered to be one of the most analytically challenging texts in Middle English textual criticism. There are 50–56 surviving manuscripts, some of which are fragmentary. None of the texts are known to be in the author's own hand, and none of them derive directly from any of the others.


title: Piers Plowman

text: All modern discussion of the text revolves around the classifications of W. W. Skeat. Skeat argued that there are as many as ten forms of the poem, but only three are to be considered authoritative—the A, B, and C-texts—although the definition of "authoritative" in this context is problematic. According to the three-versions hypothesis, each version represents different manuscript traditions deriving from three distinct and successive stages of authorial revision. Although precise dating is debated, the A, B, and C texts are now commonly thought of as the progressive (20–25 years) work of a single author.


title: Piers Plowman

text: According to the three-versions hypothesis, the A-text was written  1367–70 and is the earliest. It breaks off, apparently unfinished, at Book 11, and Book 12 is written by another author or interpolator. The poem runs to about 2,500 lines. The B-text (Warner's ur-B text) was written  1377–79; it revises A, adds new material, and is three times the length of A. It runs to about 7,300 lines. The C-text was written in the 1380s as a major revision of B except for the final sections.


title: Piers Plowman

text: There is some debate over whether the poem can be regarded as finished or not. It entails additions, omissions, and transpositions; it is not significantly different in size from B. Some scholars see it as a conservative revision of B that aims at disassociating the poem from Lollardy and the religious and political radicalism of John Ball during the Great Rising of 1381. (Ball appropriated Piers and other characters in the poem for his own verses, speeches, and letters during the Rising.) There is little actual evidence for this proposal, and much against it.


title: Piers Plowman

text: Skeat believed that the A-text was incomplete and based his editions on a B-text manuscript (Oxford, MS. Laud Misc. 581) that he wrongly thought was probably a holograph. Modern editors following Skeat, such as George Kane and E. Talbot Donaldson, have maintained the basic tenets of Skeat's work: there were three final authorial texts, now lost, that can be reconstructed, albeit imperfectly and without certainty, by rooting out the "corruption" and "damage" done by scribes.


title: Piers Plowman

text: The Kane, Kane-Donaldson, and Russell-Kane editions of the three versions, published by the Athlone Press, have been controversial, but are considered among the most important accomplishments in modern editorial work and theory in Middle English. A. V. C. Schmidt has also published a parallel edition of A, B, C and Z; the second volume containing a full critical apparatus indicating his editorial decisions was finally published in 2008, long after the first volume fell out of print.


title: Piers Plowman

text: A. G. Rigg and Charlotte Brewer hypothesized the existence of a Z-text predecessor to A which contains elements of both A and C. The Z-text is based on Oxford MS. Bodley 851, which Rigg and Brewer edited and published. It is the shortest version, and its authenticity is disputed. Ralph Hanna III has disputed the Rigg/Brewer approach based on codicological evidence and internal literary evidence; consequently, the Z-text is now more commonly viewed as a scribal corruption of A with C elements. More recently, Lawrence Warner has shown that what was thought of as B in fact incorporates matter produced as part of the C-revision: if B circulated before C, it looked nothing like what previous editors had assumed.


title: Piers Plowman

text: John Ball, a priest involved as a leader in the Great Rising of 1381 (also known as the Peasants' Revolt), included Piers and other characters in his writings. If "Piers Plowman" already had perceived associations with Lollardy, Ball's appropriations from it (assuming he was not referring to a folk character also appropriated by Langland) enhanced his and its association with the Lollards as well. The real beliefs and sympathies at work in Langland's poem and the revolt remain, for this reason, mysterious and debatable. New evidence suggests that in Norfolk the rebels of 1381 had access to the B version of the text and that they used the author-persona's name - Will Long Will - as a pseudonym.


title: Piers Plowman

text: No doubt because of Ball's writings, the "Dieulacres Abbey Chronicle" account of the revolt refers to Piers, seemingly as a real person who was a leader with Ball in the revolt. Similarly, early in the history of the poem's dissemination in manuscript form, Piers is often treated as the author of the poem. Since it is hard to see how this is credible to those who read the poem, perhaps the idea was that Piers was a mask for the author. Or, as the ideal character of the poem, Piers might be seen as a kind of alter-ego for the poet that was more important to his early readers than the obviously authorial narrator and his apparent self-disclosures as Will. Ironically, Will's name and identity were substantially lost.


title: Piers Plowman

text: In some contemporary chronicles of the Rising, Ball and the Lollards were blamed for the revolt, and Piers began to be associated with heresy and rebellion. The earliest literary works comprising the Piers Plowman tradition follow in the wake of these events, although they and their sixteenth-century successors are not anti-monarchical or supportive of rebellion. Like William Langland, who may have written the C-text version of "Piers Plowman" to disassociate himself from the Rising, they look for the reform of the English church and society by the removal of abuses in what the authors deem a restorative rather than an innovative project.


title: Piers Plowman

text: The first recorded owner of a copy of "Piers Plowman" was the Irish judge Walter de Brugge, who died in 1396.


title: Piers Plowman

text: The most conspicuous omissions from William Caxton's press were the Bible and "Piers Plowman". Robert Crowley's 1550 editions of "Piers Plowman" present the poem as a proto-Protestant goad to the reformation of religion and society. In the passus summaries in the second and third editions, Crowley emphasizes material in the poem warning of political instability and widespread corruption when the king is a child (as was then the case). Crowley may have made small attempts to remove or soften single references to transubstantiation, the Mass, purgatory, and the Virgin Mary as a mediator and object of devotion (although almost a dozen references to purgatory remain, as well as three significant references to Mary). He actually added a line to his second and third editions that clearly refers to Marian intercession (F1r).


title: Piers Plowman

text: After 1550, it was not printed again until 1813 except for Owen Rogers' 1561 edition—a cheap knock-off of Crowley's text. The few people who mention "Piers Plowman" before 1700 usually attribute it to someone other than Langland, and often it is unclear whether they are referring to Langland's poem or one of the many other texts circulating in print as part of the Piers Plowman tradition, particularly "The Ploughman's Tale". Since Piers was conflated with the author and dreamer-narrator of the poem at an early date, "Piers Plowman" or a Latin equivalent is often given as the name of the author, which indicates unfamiliarity with, or disbelief of, Crowley's preface.


title: Piers Plowman

text: When Langland's poem is mentioned, it is often disparaged for its barbarous language. Similar charges were made against Chaucer, but he had more defenders and was already well established as a historical figure and "authority." Despite the work of Bale and Crowley, Langland's name appears to have remained unknown or unaccepted since other authors were suggested after Crowley's editions. Sometimes "Piers Plowman" was referred to as the author of the poem, and when writers refer to a list of medieval authors, they will often mention "Piers Plowman" as an author's name or a substitute for one. One gets the overall impression that Langland and "Piers Plowman" had less existence as author and text than did the fictional figure of Piers, whose relationship to a definite authorial and textual origin had been obscured much earlier.


title: Piers Plowman

text: Samuel Pepys owned a copy of "Piers Plowman". Milton cites "Chaucer's Ploughman" in "Of Reformation" (1641) when he is discussing poems that have described Constantine as a major contributor to the corruption of the church. The end of "Piers Plowman", Passus 15, makes this point at length—but it is also made briefly in one stanza in "The Ploughman's Tale" (ll. 693–700). In "An Apology for a Pamphlet ..." Milton refers to "The Vision and Crede of Pierce Ploughman", which might mean one or both of these texts. Perhaps it refers to Rogers' 1561 edition which put them together. Henry Selden (1622) appears to have read the poem closely enough to admire it for its criticism of the church as well as its judgment and invention. John Weever (1631) also names Robert Langland, as does David Buchanan (1652). Buchanan, however, makes Langland a Scot and attributes other works to him aside from "Piers Plowman".