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The Brits were onto something in wartime Malaysian jungles in 1942 – sonic warfare. Imagine the franchise possibilities for comic-book or spy villains (The Brides of Fu Manchu, 1966, or Some Girls Do, 1969, anyone?). Fortunately, this ignores such temptations and takes a long hard raw look at the reality of conflict, courage and cowardice, the desire and reality of killing.
Beginning as a fairly stock examination of men in combat, the usual clash of personalities, bullying loudmouths, and it being British elements of class distinction. But it quickly moves on to something much deeper, initially tough guys worrying about what their wives are getting up in their absence back home, but on capturing a Japanese soldier what exactly to do with him once his usefulness is over. Treat him according to the Geneva Convention as a prisoner-of-war and escort him back to base or just get rid of him and save yourself the trouble.
Five main characters make up this squad. Sgt Mitchem (Richard Todd) is the ruthless leader under pressure. He was busted down to corporal for losing a previous patrol, has got his stripe back and wants to prove his worth. But he appears to be from a different generation to his troops, his stiff upper lip only too evident while the others just give lip.
Corporal Johnstone (Richard Harris) likes to remind him of his previous misdemeanor and question his judgement. Racist Private Bamforth (Laurence Harvey) riles everyone, especially picking on Lance Corporal Macleish (Ronald Fraser) who is as likely to reply with his fists. Radio operator Private Whitaker (David McCallum) is over-keen on the spoils of war, kitbag stuffed with enemy mementoes.
After apprehending Jap soldier Tojo (Kenji Takaki) Johnstone is inclined to bayonet him right away (a bullet would attract attention). Others, more squeamish than principled, balk at the deed. At first Bamforth makes fun of the captive, belittling him, but then views him as a human being caught up in a war not of his making, giving him cigarettes, trying to make him more comfortable. When Macleish starts slapping the prisoner around, Bamforth defends him, though it’s obvious Mitchem and Johnstone have no intention of taking him back.
Then the tide turns. They are surrounded by Japs and it’s battle for real with an enemy who can defend itself. Action determines character. Some are revealed as complete cowards, others will abandon colleagues to save their skin, others are instinctively courageous, others yet again with a bit more cunning.
But the firefight when it comes is nothing like any other battle you have seen where Allied forces invariably triumph. There’s none of the clever ruses more typical of the genre.
This is by far the rawest depiction of British soldiers on the battle. The characters and conversation hit home. Tough guys are nothing but vulnerable. Although it appears that way, none of the characters actually change, it’s more that their real personalities emerge.
This is Laurence Harvey’s (The Running Man, 1963) best performance. In other pictures, his clipped delivery hid an edge of malevolence, and especially to retain audience sympathy he restrained an inner nastiness, even when ruthless as in Room at the Top (1958), this aspect more important if the male lead in a romance or essaying a decent character. Here, the real Harvey is let loose in the sense that his delivery is more normal, as if he delights in taking pleasure in using language to gut his victims. Sure, it’s an ideal central role, the guy who starts off one way and ends another, but he really brings it to life.
Richard Harris (This Sporting Life, 1963) was a rising star at this point. And it shows. He’s always trying to steal scenes, an unnecessary gesture, a roll of the eyes, forceful delivery. He turns out to be nastier than everyone else. Richard Todd (Subterfuge, 1968) also plays against type, no longer the heroic figure of The Dam Busters (1955) but fighting not just the enemy and his fellow soldiers but his internal demons.
Ronald Fraser (Fathom, 1967), often condemned to humorous supporting parts, also has a meatier role as does David McCallum (The Spy in the Green Hat, 1967).
Apart from a heavy dose of rain and some stock shots of animals, it betrays its stage roots, based on a play by Willis Hall, but that hardly matters when the dialog is so sharp, the characters so well-drawn and the drama so intense.
Leslie Norman (Dunkirk, 1958) does an excellent job of focusing on character and making the action believable. Wolf Mankowitz (The Day the Earth Caught Fire, 1961) was credited with the screenplay.
Producer Joseph E. Levine (The Graduate, 1967) would be cancelled these days for his treatment of Michael Caine back in 1964. Levine had stumped up (along with Paramount) the $1.7 million budget for what was assumed to be the actor’s breakout picture, Zulu (1964), and signed him up to a seven-year contract. Caine would receive $75,000 – his fee for Zulu had been just $10,000 – in his first year, with increments every following year.* But before the film was released Levine rescinded the contract on the basis that Caine “looked like a queer on screen.”
While Zulu was a box office smash in Britain, in the United States it was a big flop despite the marketing dollars thrown at it by Levine. And nobody needed a younger version of the British stiff- upper-lip. And despite the buzz before the film opened, producers were not clamouring at Caine’s door, the only options on the table a small part in a television production of Hamlet at Elsinore (1964) and the leading role in The Other Man (1964), a television drama about Britain succumbing to the Nazis in 1940.
That is, until Bond producer Harry Saltzman summoned him to his table in a restaurant and in a conversation that lasted all of two minutes offered him The Ipcress File and a seven-year contract. Aged 32 at this point, Caine was mature enough to be ranked a proper rising star, the casualty rate among the twenty-somethings accorded that status alarmingly high mostly due to their screen immaturity.
However, Saltzman owed his involvement in the picture to another chance meeting. He had been in the United Artists offices in New York when hair product entrepreneur Charles D. Kasher arrived to pitch Len Deighton’s novel The Ipcress File as a potential movie. Saltzman was looking for an alternative to James Bond that would appeal to international audiences with the emphasis on low-cost. He put together the picture on a budget of only $460,000. But the project looked dead in the water when original Hollywood backers Columbia pulled out shorlty before shooting was due to star. Universal saved the day.
Hammer director Jimmy Sangster recommended Canadian director Sidney J. Furie (Wonderful Life/Swingers’ Paradise, 1964) who had just turned down A Hard Day’s Night (1964) and just signed up to do indie horror movie Devil Doll (1964) before managing to ease himself out of that contract.
Caine was far from first choice. Christopher Plummer had chosen The Sound of Music (1965) instead and Richard Harris, a bigger name in Hollywood after MGM roadshow Mutiny on the Bounty (1962) and a critical success after This Sporting Life (1963) turned it down in favour of Sam Peckinpah western Major Dundee (1965). In a bid to give the character the ordinariness he required Harry H. Corbett (Rattle of a Simple Man, 1964) was also considered. Caine had been sharing a flat with Terence Stamp (The Collector, 1963) but when Stamp decamped to America moved in with composer John Barry and was thus the first to hear the music Barry had dreamed up for Goldfinger (1964).
Aware how easily contracts could be dissolved Caine “stuck to him (Saltzman) like a drowning man to a straw.” Thus, he was present when discussions arose over naming the spy – anonymous in the book which was written in the first person. It was decided the character should have a dull name. “Harry” was chosen before everyone present realized the producer might just take offence. However, Saltzman’s real first name was Herschel, so he laughed it off.
Saltzman also came up with idea of the character wearing glasses to make him look more ordinary. Caine was short-sighted in real life and always wore glasses and Saltzman noticed how comfortable he was with them, knowing how to handle them properly, unlike clear-sighted actors given spectacles for roles without having any idea what to do with them. It was surprising how fragile the spectacles were, though, Caine getting through the allocated three pairs and new supplies having to be commandeered. Saltzman took the ordinariness too far, suggesting a duel with supermarket trolleys as one of the big fight scenes.
Even though Furie had never met Caine, he disliked him, having come across the actor and his friend Terence Stamp at the White Elephant Club in London. “I’d see Terence Stamp always there with this other blonde guy who wore glasses,” recollected Furie, “and they were rather chummy and always had these pretty girls at their table, and they were always laughing. And I sort of hated him at the time. Sometimes, I would get a bit drunk and tell whomever I was with, ‘I want to punch that guy in the face.’ I guess I was jealous.”
Joan Collins, completely out of favour in Hollywood and with no roles since The Road to Hong Kong (1962), auditioned – as did the unknown Carol White (Poor Cow, 1967) – for the part of Jean that went to Sue Lyons, in her first featured role. Otherwise, the main roles went to established British character actors including Nigel Green (Zulu), Gordon Jackson (The Great Escape, 1963) and Guy Doleman (Thunderball, 1965)
Interestingly, laughable though it is now, a character who cooked was considered to be gay, even though Palmer clearly used his cooking skills for female seduction. Unfortunately, no great cook himself, Caine was unable to crack two eggs with one hand and the movie used the hands of author Len Deighton, so excellent a cook he had written a cookbook. That explains why the hands that picked up the eggs on screen had blond hairs but the hands that cracked them had black hairs. The cooking scene remained the cause of macho concern, with one U.S. studio executive demanding the scene be re-shot with the woman cooking the meal.
Director Sidney J. Furie (Wonderful Life/Swingers’ Paradise, 1964) hated the script and demonstrated his loathing by gathering cast and crew together on the first morning of filming and burning the script on the studio floor. While sticking to the basis of the screenplay, characters were encouraged to improvise. The poor script – Kasher had called it “garbage” – was the reason for introducing this kind of style, the script being rewritten as production proceeded.
Furie recalled, “All day there were two writers writing our scenes for the next day…We knew where we had to get to because Harry Saltzman, the producer, had ordered the set for the climax built, so we were stuck with it.” If the pages didn’t turn up, Furie found ways to instigate delay, getting the cameramen spending an inordinate amount of time lighting a scene. Furie sipped whisky in his Scotch all day, not enough to be inebriated but “it would help me go with my gut.” The full complement of writers involved in the script were James Doran and W. H. Canaway plus uncredited contributions from Lukas Heller (The Dirty Dozen, 1967) , Lionel Davidson (source author for Agent 8 ¾, 1964) , Ken Hughes (The Trials of Oscar Wilde, 1960) and Johanna Harwood (Dr No, 1962).
Furie’s style on The Ipcress File was very distinctive – “scenes where you had someone’s shoulder blocking the screen and you could only see three quarters of the screen…If you try to use the screen the way a painter uses a canvas, somehow it’s not considered acceptable.”
Furie and Saltzman did not get on, the producer loathing what he saw as the director’s stylistic excesses and was convinced he required editor Peter Hunt to rescue the project once shooting was complete. For his part, Furie’s definition of producers was “the people who tried to wreck the movie.” Explained the director, “I was very depressed always when we started shooting, thinking that it was going to be really lousy and I didn’t know what to do, so I told myself I would come up with a style of shooting that is different. I put shoulders across the screen, I shot up at things, I shot down, just to make it different, to give it ambiance. It was done out of insecurity.”
At one point the director quit the set, resulting in a chase through London with the producer’s Rolls Royce in pursuit of the London bus on which the director had escaped. However, Furie conceded, “The movie would not have gotten made without him (Saltzman) and his devotion to seeing it through, considering the problems with Universal, no matter how much I fought with him during the making of it.
To Saltzman’s astonishment when Peter Hunt arrived and examined the dailies he told the producer “this is the most brilliant footage I’ve ever seen” In order to convince the producer that it was all going to work, Hunt edited together the sequence where, with a marching band in the background, Nigel Green marches in step to the tempo followed by “dialogue between Green and Guy Doleman, carefully intercut with their closed umbrellas stepping with them in motion…Once I assured him (Saltzman) it would be a good film, he started getting confident.”
While British critics lauded the picture, its reception Stateside was mixed, “though the public weighed in heavily with its money” – Variety noting not just that it was “short on thrills,” over-stylised, and could do with being a “a trifle more lively,” the overall verdict being that it was “so soft-pedalled that the audience will be screaming for more kicks” of the Bond kind.
*NOTE: In his autobiography Caine stated his $75,000 annual salary would double every year. That doesn’t sound right. A second year of $150,000 and even a third of $300,000 might be acceptable for a rising star. But if you were looking at $600,000 for his fourth year and $1.2 million for his fifth up to $4.8 million for the final year, that would make him by the end of the decade easily the highest-paid star in Hollywood. Caine would need to be working like a Trojan, four or five films a year, to come anywhere close to earning such sums and his movies would all have to be big hits. Of course, to cover his costs, Levine could farm him out to other studios, but even so, it was a disproportionate amount for any actor to earn. Even John Wayne and Steve McQueen would not pull in such a salary by 1971.
SOURCES: Daniel J. Kremer, Sidney J. Furie: Life and Films (University of Kentucky Press, 2015), p74-84; Michael Caine, What’s It All About? (Arrow Books, 1993) p189-190, 195-210; Michael Caine, The Elephant to Hollywood (Hodder and Stoughton, 2010), p85-90; Paul Rowlands, Interview with Sidney J. Furie, Money into Light website, 2017.
Star Albert Finney and director Karel Reisz of Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960) turned it down. Director Lindsay Anderson, screenwriter David Storey, author of the novel on which the film was based, and star Rachel Roberts all suffered from massive doubt in their own abilities.
Anderson was the last of a generation that included Reisz and Tony Richardson (Tom Jones, 1963) to make a movie. He was better known as film critic and theatre director. As far as the screen went, he had got only as far as five episodes of The Adventures of Robin Hood for television, and some documentaries and shorts. If he was going to make a movie it almost certainly depended on finance from British production outfit Woodfall which had backed Reisz and Richardson. However, Woodfall was outbid for the rights to This Sporting Life and Anderson only came into the frame when Reisz rejected the idea of directing the movie in favor of turning producer and giving Anderson his opportunity.
“I was not sure I was up to it,” confessed Anderson. Theoretically a tale of a rugby footballer Frank Machin’s (name changed from the Arthur Machin of the book) rise and fall, Anderson wanted to explore the novel’s “dark poetry” and the ambiguities of the a central character who was by turn overbearing and sensitive and involved in a “tortured, impossible relationship.”
However, Storey, also making his movie debut, struggled with the script. Until the sudden success of This Sporting Life, the aspiring artist had lived a debt-ridden life as a supply teacher (17 schools in three-and-a-half years) in poverty-stricken London boroughs, writing his novels on train journeys north to fulfill his contract to play professional rugby. Reprinted prior to publication This Sporting Life, his debut novel, received excellent reviews and won the inaugural U.S. MacMillan Award worth $7,500.
When the film industry came sniffing Storey took tea with Stanley Baker at the Dorchester Hotel, lunched with Tony Richardson at the Trocadero and was wooed by director Joseph Losey at his Knightsbridge flat. Initial expectations were that the rights would go for £3,000, but a bidding war between Woodfall and Rank sent the bill up to £10,000 with the latter emerging victorious. Karel Reisz agreed to become producer on condition he could choose director, writer and cast. He introduced Storey to Anderson and to an initially interested Albert Finney.
Storey, a working-class son of a coal miner, and Anderson stood at different ends of British class divide. Initially suspicious of each other, they had opposite temperaments. “Lindsay was an optimist,” explained Storey,” I was a reclusive, and when in doubt, morbid.” Even after Storey completed a treatment and the pair went north to scout locations, the project remained in doubt, in part because Anderson did not understand the book and had a “curious lack of confidence” and in part because Storey resisted reshaping the material into something “new.” In fact, Anderson’s lack of confidence was so deep it took several months before he actually signed his contract.
Storey, too, suffered from revisiting the area where he had grown up. The death of a sibling cast a devastating shadow over the rest of his life, the Wakefield rugby ground in fact “scarcely a stone’s throw “from the child’s grave. “Wakefield was being opened up to me in a way I had never known before,” explained Storey, referring to the grand houses visited as possible locations whose exteriors he had glimpsed while working as a marquee laborer.
Despite “exhaustive consultations” with Anderson and Reisz, the script failed to gell. “I felt the authority I wanted was not there,” commented Anderson. Although actors are often decried for interfering with the script, in this case it was star Richard Harris who arrived at the solution.
Anderson had been attracted to Harris from seeing him in the stage adaptation of J.P. Donleavy’s The Ginger Man. The director flew off to Tahiti where Harris was filming Mutiny on the Bounty (1962) to be met at the airport at five in the morning by the actor, “ his 18th century seaman’s hair down to his shoulders, bursting to tell me what he thought of the script we had sent him.”
Anderson recalled, “Within ten minutes we were at it…we talked and argued right through the day. I quickly realized he was right…we had lost what was most unique and brilliant in the novel…it was Richard, who, with passionate intransigence, brought us back to the book…in the evening after his shooting on the Bounty we sat in his bungalow going through the script and his own heavily-annotated copy of the novel…and slowly a conception emerged which began to satisfy us.”
Storey agreed with the new look which basically followed a subjective point-of-view rather than being cluttered by the novel’s flashbacks. “With an unequivocal endorsement of the book and the rejection of a script which had wearied me more than I’d imagined, I found rewriting the script in the manner in which the book had been written, from the inside looking out rather than the outside looking in, a surprisingly exhilarating task…Once Richard Harris had become identified with the part …the material was no longer a problem.”
Retaining that subjectivity was Anderson’s biggest issue An Oxford scholar, he had little innate understanding of Frank Machin’s world and in consequence “was liable to slip into an objective view of scenes that needed to be presented through Machin’s own temperament.” Harris proved instrumental in keeping the director on course.
Rachel Roberts twice turned down the role – Mary Ure (Look Back in Anger, 1959) was also in the frame with four other actresses – and failed to turn up for a screen test. Karel Reisz once commented how odd it was that “the two films that made this great-hearted flamboyant woman best-known (the other being Saturday Night and Sunday Morning) were ones in which she played withdrawn, bleak, ungiving women. Rachel’s great talent was to sink her personality into the part without losing access to her own sensuality. You felt the tension.”
Of This Sporting Life, Reisz added, “She had great doubts about her ability to play Mrs Hammond because she’s a very held back, undemonstrative woman. A passionate person, certainly, but someone who’s turned puritanical through so much constant repression of her feelings. Rachel was afraid of this: she didn’t know out of which part of herself to play the role.”
Lindsay Anderson was as unsure as Roberts: “She didn’t appear to me to be the Mrs Hammond character…Rachel was anything but repressed.” Actress Sybil Williams remembered finding a whole sheaf of notes in Rachel’s script about “the Mrs Hammond character she appeared to be playing so intuitively.” Said Anderson, “Richard Harris was bit awed by Rachel. She could acquit herself with a first-rate reading in just a couple of takes. Richard took a few more to feel he had got it right. Rachel’s security as an actress made him feelmore respectful towards her.”
The scenes between Harris and Roberts were endlessly rehearsed, involving a full 10 days prior to shooting and then during evening and weekends while in production. Roberts was playing a woman “whose feelings, though fierce, are almost continually suppressed: the relationship deepens without self-explanation…through incessant conflict…It called for an actress of exception ‘interior’ quality with real wildness within as well as the capacity for an iron restraint.”
Somewhere in the BBC archive is a programme, never aired, about the making of the film shot for its Monitor arts strand, although Storey was interviewed later on the show by Huw Wheldon, later BBC managing director.
Although Lindsay Anderson only made four more movies, the most memorable being If…(1968), and David Storey never wrote another screenplay, the pair achieved considerable success together when the author turned to writing plays such as Home (1970) and The Changing Room (1971), set in a rugby club.
If This Sporting Life appears to have two main characters driven by demons, part of the explanation as to how such creatures emerged from David Storey’s imagination can be found in his riveting memoir A Stinging Delight which traces a core of depression from his earliest days through to the times in later life when he was in and out of mental hospitals. Rachel Roberts also suffered from mental illness and committed suicide in 1980.
SOURCES: Lindsay Anderson, “Sport, Life and Art,” Films & Filming, February 1963, pages 17-20; David Storey, A Stinging Delight (Faber, 2021), pages 217-218, 221-223, 227-231, 233, 240-242; No Bells on Sunday, The Journals of Rachel Roberts, Edited with a documentary biography by Alexander Walker, Pavilion, 1984, pages 37, 55, 56, 58.
What began as the last gasp of the British New Wave working class kitchen sink drama has now after a six-decade gap resolved into a struggle over political and sexual ownership. Macho athlete Frank Machin (Richard Harris) jibes against his paymasters at a Yorkshire rugby league club – in similar fashion to Charlton Heston in Number One (1969) – while trying to hold sway over widowed landlady Margaret (Rachel Roberts). While documenting the class divide over which British writers and directors obsess, Lindsay Anderson’s debut takes a wry look at power.
Machin belongs to the Arthur Seaton (Saturday Night and Sunday Morning) class of loudmouth boors, determined to take as much as they can, riding roughshod over anyone who gets in their way, even attacking players of his own team. Although a fan favorite, his position at the club still requires backing from the moneyed directors, support that appears go awry when he rejects overtures from Mrs Weaver (Vanda Godsell), wife of a board director (Alan Badel). While Margaret eventually succumbs, her actions fill her with shame, the presents he buys making her feel like a kept woman.
Both Machin and Margaret are the rawest of creatures, forever appearing ready to topple into some emotional crevasse of their own making. At a time when marriage was the rock of society and women had little independence, a woman could dwindle away in face of scorn from neighbours, while a man lacking emotional intelligence would crumble in the face of his own fears.
The non-linear narrative blurs some aspects of the story. There is no reference to Machin’s background save that he was once a miner and still works somewhere unspecified to supplement his footballer’s income. He rejects the paternalism of ageing scout Johnson (William Hartnell) while appears to be seeking to resolve maternal issues, the widow with two small children at least a decade older, and although he could easily afford better accommodation refuses to move out.
His obsession with Margaret is never properly explained, except by her, who sees him as acting like an owner. Equally, Margaret is the opposite of the women in virtually every movie of the period, for whom marriage is the sole ambition. Whether she still grieves over the loss of her factory worker husband, who may have committed suicide, or loathes Machin’s dominant nature is never explained. It might have been better if they had married for unhappy husbands and wives tend to give each other both barrels, emotions never concealed. Or she could be in the throes of an undiagnosed depression – author David Storey suffered from this all his life – expressed as anger.
Machin is the other side of the British Dream – the assumption that anyone who escapes going down the pits or the mindless grind of the factory will automatically enjoy happiness. While Machin revels in his celebrity, he has no idea how to make his life happier. This is in contrast to the other footballers who either enjoy womanizing and drinking or are married or engaged and accept the unwritten rules of the game rather than fighting everyone.
There is plenty grime on show, and the football field has never been so pitilessly portrayed, and as a social document the movie fits in well to the small sub-genre of films depicting working class life, but the picture’s thrust remains that of two opposites who will clearly never meet except in the delusional head of Machin.
Power is demonstrated in various ways. Weaver has the clout to give Machin a hefty signing-on fee against the wishes of the board, Weaver’s wife takes her pick of the footballers to satisfy her sexual needs, Machin believes he is entitled to berate waiters in an upmarket restaurant, while Margaret is demeaned by accepting his present of a fur coat.
As ever with these films of the early 1960s there is a wealth of acting talent. Both Harris and Roberts were Oscar-nominated. Others making a splash in the cast were Alan Badel (Arabesque, 1966), Colin Blakely (The Vengeance of She, 1968), Jack Watson (The Hill, 1965), and if look closely you will spot double Oscar-winner Glenda Jackson (Women in Love, 1969). Future television stalwarts included William Hartnell (the first Doctor Who), Arthur Lowe (Dad’s Army, 1968-1977), Leonard Rossiter (Rising Damp, 1974-1978), Frank Windsor (Softly, Softly, 1966-1969) and George Sewell (Paul Temple, 1969-1971).
Lindsay Anderson (If… 1969) no doubt believed he was making an excoriating drama about the class struggle, but in fact has delivered a classic thwarted love story. David Storey wrote the screenplay based on his own novel.
As well as being first in the queue to see The Gladiator on original release over two decades ago and enjoying countless viewings since on DVD and television, the chance to see a big-screen revival (as part of this week’s cinematic triple bill) was not to be missed. There’s always some worry in going back to see a movie you adored that time will have caught up with it or that the big screen will magnify flaws. Instead, this was a pure blast, one of the greatest epics of all time and definitely one of the most brilliant scores.
I always feel kind of sorry for people who’ve only see this kind of picture on a small screen – no matter how big your television it comes nowhere near the cinematic experience. I’m not even sure why it was showing on the big screen – the 20th anniversary has passed so maybe the draw was the upcoming British Father’s Day.
If you’re quick, you will be able to see it until June 17 at the Showcase cinema chain in the U.K. This is a new 4K print. It may run longer if it picks up sufficient demand.
Director Ridley Scott was in something of a career lull after the highs of Blade Runner (1982) and Thelma and Louise (1991) and his previous historical adventures – The Duellists (1977) and 1492: Conquest of Paradise (1992) – had been box office duds, so this was a considerable big-budget gamble for Dreamworks and Universal.
Few historical epics begin with action. Directors tended to want to build up the various characters before any battle got under way. But apart from a few seconds of an idyllic pastoral setting establishing how much Roman General Maximus (Russell Crowe) wants to get back to his Spanish farm, we are immediately, with foot-tapping music by Hans Zimmer, into one of the best battles ever filmed, not just for the tactical detail, and the sense of danger – an emissary is returned missing his head – but the ferocity of the action.
Backgrounding this is politics. Dying Emperor Marcus Aurelius (Richard Harris) distrusts his son Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix) and want to make Maximus the power in Rome. The reaction of Commodus is to smother his father and murder his rival. Maximus escapes but ends up a slave in a gladiator camp in North Africa and eventually returns to Rome plotting revenge.
Into the mix comes Commodus’s sister Lucilla (Connie Nielsen) who had romantic yearnings for Maximus in the distant past and various senators plotting to remove Commodus from office. The story basically shifts from dramatic action in the arena to outside intrigue with Maximus being seen as a man who could potentially unseat the emperor.
But Ridley Scott has such a fine eye for everything, genuine locations mix in brilliantly with CGI, the action sequences are astonishing, and emotions are kept at a peak. Even when the main narrative pauses here and there to allow philosophic and patriotic speeches they are so deftly written they often amount to the best pieces of dialogue in the picture.
Few movies have as many memorable lines. Sample: “what we do in life echoes in eternity;” “death smiles at us all, all we can do is smile back;” “people should know when they are conquered;” “father to a murdered son, husband to a murdered wife, I will have my vengeance in this life or the next;” the “little bee” sequence; and the lines that ended up as taglines on the advertising posters” a general who became a slave, a slave who became a gladiator, a gladiator who defied an emperor.”
While he could easily have let the action speak for itself and who would not have welcomed more battles with Roman foes or more combat in the arena – and many other movies with a character in a similar predicament have succumbed to that temptation – Scott ensures that the tensions between the characters are never lost. So Commodus is driven both by wishing to please his father and desiring an incestuous relationship with his sister. Lucilla is torn between protecting her son (Spencer Treat Clark), her growing attraction to Maximus and trying to keep her brother at bay while plotting against him. Maximus, who has no head for politics, finds himself involved in intrigue as a way of gaining revenge on Commodus.
Nor does Scott get bogged down with too much exposition or the intricacies of character as has often been the downfall of epics. The story has been whittled down to essential conflict.
It’s hard to pick a winner from the various action scenes – the opening clash in the forests of Germania with snow beginning to fall; the first gladiatorial combat where Maximus takes control; a small band of gladiators fighting what seems a losing battle against chariots; Maximus being unexpectedly attacked by tigers in the arena; or his climactic fight with Commodus.
And there are substantial cameos for British stars – Richard Harris, Oliver Reed, David Hemmings – who have lost their box office luster but not their acting ability. Connie Nielsen was a revelation.
Russell Crowe became instant superstar with his majestic portrayal. His name had already been on the lips of Oscar voters, having been nominated the previous year for The Insider (1999), but he took the Best Actor Oscar here. Although the film was named Best Picture Ridley Scott lost out – unfairly I felt – in the Best Director category to Steven Soderbergh for Traffic. (How do the two films compare now, I wonder). Joaquin Phoenix and Hans Zimmer were also nominated and the movie also picked up nominations for cinematography and screenplay (David Franzoni, William Nicolson and John Logan.) All told it won five Oscars and seven nominations.
This was the climax to my cinematic triple bill this week and since it also included Nobody and The Father, it could well turn out to be one of the best days I have ever spent at the cinema.
CATCH-UP: I reviewed The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964) a while back and if you compare both pictures you can clearly see how much Ridley Scott owes a debt to the previous film.
There’s a company called Park Circus – http://www.parkcircus.com – which has the rights to show on the big screen virtually all the old movies made by Hollywood studios and it’s worth checking out whether this might be coming your way soon.
Stone-cold action classic that blazed a trail for the big-budget men-on-a-mission war picture like The Dirty Dozen (1967) and Where Eagles Dare (1968). Brilliantly structured, written and directed, and featuring a sea battle, storm, shipwreck, mountaineering, chase, interrogation scenes, infiltration of an impregnable fortress, a pair of romances, two traitors, and an awe-inspiring climax make this a candidate for one of the greatest war pictures ever made.
The set-up is simple. Knock out the gigantic guns at Navarone or two thousand men will perish. It’s mission impossible and the clock is ticking. You don’t know who to trust and the enemy is ruthless.
In the early days of the all-star-cast, producer Carl Foreman rounded up an astonishing line-up, bulking out the bestseller by Scottish thriller maestro Alistair Maclean (The Secret Ways, 1961) with three top stars in five-time Oscar nominee Gregory Peck (The Big Country, 1958), double Oscar-winner Anthony Quinn (Heller in Pink Tights, 1960) and Oscar-winner David Niven (Please Don’t Eat the Daisies, 1960). Add in British household names Anthony Quayle (Ice Cold in Alex, 1958), Stanley Baker (The Concrete Jungle, 1960) and James Robertson Justice (Doctor in Love, 1960), a sprinkling of rising stars in James Darren (Let No Man Write My Epitaph, 1960), Gia Scala (I Aim at the Stars, 1960) and Richard Harris (The Night Fighters, 1960) and renowned Greek actress Irene Papas (Antigone, 1961).
Each man is a specialist. Capt. Mallory (Gregory Peck) the mountaineer whose climbing skills are essential to completing the fist part of the mission, explosives expert Corporal Miller (David Niven), mechanic ‘Butcher’ Brown (Stanley Baker), Greek patriot Stavrou (Anthony Quinn) and the ruthless killer Pappadimos (James Darren) who has the contact with the Greek resistance. The stakes are ramped up when we learn both Mallory and Stavrou have bounties on their heads, not to mention the fact they are sworn enemies, and that before the mission even gets under way, spies are discovered in the camp. The ostensible leader of the group Major Franklin (Anthony Quayle) is wounded early on, turning him into a liability and making Mallory the de facto leader.
The stakes are ramped up further – this time through relationships. Their Greek contact turns out to be a woman, Maria (Irene Papas), brother of Pappadimos. She brings with her a mute girl Anna (Gia Scala) for whom Mallory develops romantic feelings while Stavrou has eyes for Maria. Mallory is also torn about Franklin, his best friend.
And from there it pitches into one disaster after another. They are too easily hunted by the Germans. They are shelled with mortars and attacked by dive bombers as they race across open mountains and through caves to reach their destination. They have to shoot their way out of traps and finagle their way into the fortress. There are twists and turns all the way, the clock ticking in almost James-Bond-style as the deadline for the destruction of the troops approaches.
And although this is clearly a war picture it is also as obviously an anti-war one, no end to the killing in sight, people dying pointlessly.
Although the acting was ignored come Oscar time, each of the stars delivers and it is a communal tour de force. Director J. Lee Thompson (Ice Cold in Alex) ensures that in visual terms none of the stars dominates, each given equal screen time while the strong supporting cast each has their own narrative arc. With over two-and-half-hours’ running time, Thompson has both the bonus of time to allow each element to be fully played out and the problem of keeping the picture taut and he succeeds brilliantly in both aims. It is a masterpiece of suspense. And it looked fabulous, the guns themselves, by which the picture might succeed or fail, were awesome.
Thompson was Oscar-nominated as was producer Carl Foreman for both Best Picture and the screenplay, Dmitri Tiomkin for the score (one of the longest-ever), John Cox for sound, Alan Osbiston for editing. Bill Warrington who did the visual special effects and Chris Greenham who did the sound effects were the only winners on the night.
It was a commercial smash, top picture of the year in the U.S., the biggest picture of all time at the British box office and breaking records all over the world.
Best viewed as a rehearsal for his classic The Wild Bunch (1969), this Sam Peckinpah western covers much of the same thematic ground – feuding friends, Mexico, betrayal, comradeship, brutality, and a grand gesture climax. But the set-up is more complicated than The Wild Bunch. This time out Unionist Charlton Heston in the titular role and former friend Confederate Richard Harris team up towards the end of the American Civil War to hunt down a band of Apaches. Heston’s prisoner, Harris faces the choice of joining his unit or being shot. Since both lived in the South, Harris sees Heston as a traitor for siding with the North. After the Apaches are destroyed, Harris plans to kill Heston.
If the set-up was as straightforward as that, it would have probably resulted in a better film. But once Heston’s soldiers cross the Rio Grande they also come up against the French. And the timescale of the picture covers a complete campaign from November 1864 to April 1865, barely a month before the end of the Civil War so the pace is sluggish despite being packed with incident. And it struggles with allowing the weight of narration – via the cliched diary – to fall on a young bugler (Michael Anderson Jr.), the only survivor of an Apache attack.
That said, the action sequences are terrific, especially the battle on the Rio Grande itself. Like the best military movies, there are clever maneuvers and deceptions – from both sides. And since the unit comprises not only the quarreling Heston and Harris but warring Unionists and Confederates, freed former slaves and a bunch of criminals in the same league as Robert Ryan’s Wild Bunch gang the tension remains high throughout. Subsidiary characters are given a full story arc – the raw lieutenant (Jim Hutton) making his bones, the bugler losing his virginity. Added to this, Major Dundee is clearly in the last chance saloon, his posting seen as a punishment, and several times his military decisions are, rightly, called into question. His attitude to command is also questionable, minus his uniform in the field and legs on the table while addressing junior officers. And, as with The Wild Bunch, this is no idealized Mexico, but an impoverished, savaged, ravaged country.
There was no romance in Peckinpah’s original take on the story. But the presence of Senta Berger as a widowed Austrian stranded in Mexico brings out the humanity in Heston. Unlike many of her more volatile Latin counterparts, Berger is soft-spoken and gentle. Here, that acts very much as a counterbalance to the pugnacious Heston. She is fearless, effectively acting as the leader of the Mexican village the soldiers initially intend to pillage, persuading them otherwise. She demonstrates considerable intelligence: “The war won’t last forever,” says Heston; “It will for you,” she replies. But, ultimately, she is betrayed by the womanizing Heston.
In the duel between old friends, Harris comes off best in terms of principle. He defuses an ugly racial incident and clearly commands more authority among his men. When difficult action must be taken regarding a deserter again he does not hesitate to act. And he keeps to his word of honoring a flag he despises as long as he is under Heston’s leadership. In some senses, he has the better part since he has to keep normal impulse in check. Many critics considered Heston miscast but that was mostly after the fact when Peckinpah was able to line up a more dissolute William Holden in The Wild Bunch because by that time the actor was already wasted physically from alcoholism. But Major Dundee’s inability to meet his own high standards is exactly the kind of role you want to see a physical specimen like Heston take on.
Half a century after initial release, another dozen minutes were added to the movie as part of an overall restoration, and the film was acclaimed by critics as a lost masterpiece. That was a rather rose-tinted perspective and, although the extra footage clarified some points, in general it did not lift the confusion surrounding the narrative. The movie needed fewer minutes not more. The deletion of the entire French section would have prevented the movie sinking under the weight of its own ambition. Certainly, the studio Columbia played its part in undermining the movie by shaving too much from the budget just as shooting was about to begin. It is still a decent effort and without it, and perhaps learning from his mistakes, the director might never had turned The Wild Bunch into a masterpiece.
Many of the films from the 1960s are to be found free of charge on TCM and Sony Movies and the British Talking Pictures as well as mainstream television channels. But if this film is not available through these routes, then here is the link to the DVD and/or streaming service.


text:
How to Build Self Confidence: 4 Life-Altering Hacks
How to build self-confidence around men? That’s the million dollar question! When it comes to dating, relationships and love, self-confidence is everything. Having the confidence to put yourself out there on and offline, the courage to flirt, to take the chance of being ghosted and rejected, the self-confidence to take a chance on letting someone love you. To take a chance on getting a commitment… or not.
For example, Khloe, a curvaceous 43 year old was quite pretty but she was not aware of it. She had the kind of figure that would capture guys’ attention all the time. But she just didn’t see it. Literally. All that flirty attention went right over her head—because she just had no self-confidence.
In fact, she would dutifully go out to dinner with her friends and not see that the cute waiter was actually hitting on her. Her girlfriends had to point it out and, even then, Khloe became shy and tongue-tied when he brought the next course. Khloe felt so disappointed in the dating world. Perhaps you have felt that way too.
But Khloe got herself a fairy godmother (more on that later—and yes, they do exist, but as specially-trained coaches!). And Khloe’s coach taught her a powerful exercise to banish her nobody girl’s blues. In this blog you will learn exactly what Khloe’s fairy Godmother taught her to do—it’s called The Own Your Success Exercise. It brought Khloe right out of her shell! She was able to get out there and start dating some really good guys.
How to Build Self-Confidence: Own Your Successes, Small and Large!
We are wired to look at and focus on what has gone wrong or what is missing in our lives, just by our brain functioning. We forget where we came from and what we have overcome and how unstoppable we are. And we don’t give ourselves credit for change and growth. This tends to drag any hopeless ness in our past into our present and future. The danger is that if we do not notice the good aspects of the new life we are creating, we can miss out on wonderful opportunities. For example, you could meet the most wonderful prince in the world and still be miserable!!!
It is absolutely critical to retrain our brains to notice what is right, and how far we have come. And to own it and be grateful. Yes, it is there. You do have successes! Everyone does! In fact, there are things that you have done that have been amazing—surprising and wonderful. This is your greatness. But these are also the wonderful events that we tend to forget. And foolishly remember situations where we failed, even if it is only in some small way.
Now, here is a 4 step exercise to help you get in touch with your successes, so that you can have heightened self-confidence and personal empowerment in your love life, just like Khloe did.
How to Build Self-Confidence: Step 1. Remember a Time that You did Something You are Proud of.
Remember a time when you accomplished something others or you, yourself, said was “impossible” to do. Or a time when you accomplished something that made you very proud. Something that relates to dating or love—like seeing the attractiveness in your body, finding a great boyfriend for a bit, being pursued by a hottie who was smitten by you, even something as small as finding that special outfit that makes your beauty begin to pop!
How to Build Self-Confidence: Step 2. Journal about the Challenges You have Overcome
First, write about the obstacles and challenges and how you overcame each one to succeed in producing this accomplishment. For example, Khloe found her greatness by transforming her negative self-talk about her weight and her body into a more positive commentary about her “luscious curves” and “sauciness.” She wrote about the obstacles she overcame —which had to do with her parents, who had always called her chubby. And a jealous sister, who called her “the Blob” and tended to nitpick about how Khloe looked in form-fitting outfits.
How to Build Self-Confidence: Step 3. Identify Your Successful Mindsets, Unique Strengths and Behaviors
For example, Khloe developed the mindset that she would “never give up” when it came to loving herself. Her unique strength was that she had the emotional ability to take a bit of distance from her critical family. And her behavior, which her coach had her do every day was to look in the mirror and tell herself she was luscious and saucy. You may have other mindsets that serve you, like “I am tough”, or other strengths, like your ability to analyze a situation that is not good for you. Or, for example, like an ability to seek out excellent coaching or loving input.
How to Build Self-Confidence: Step 4. Create an Affirmation that Builds on these Breakthroughs
Here are examples that you can use:
- No worries, with (insert your mindset, strength, & behavior)–I am unstoppable in finding uplifting love.
- When I make up my mind, I gratefully get what I want for myself.
- I am blessed to accomplish the impossible.
- With Divine grace I am unstoppable when it comes to finding the One.
- Thankfully I accomplish the impossible.
- God helps me happily and creatively get the love I want.
Post your affirmation where you can see it and put your full attention on it for a few seconds every day. It will begin to retrain your brain to focus on your successes and personal empowerment, bigtime.
So when you do these self-confidence building steps you will be surprised at how you begin to see yourself differently—as a person who is on her own unique journey to love, who has overcome obstacles and moving along!!! And you are.
In fact, if you want more support, you can have it! I’ve helped savvy women around the world get priceless soulmate love….without dating burnout. How? Through coaching that supercharges their self-confidence, in a way that no other dating coach or matchmaker does. So let me buy you an introductory self-confidence turbocharging session with one of my experts.
Sign up here for a powerful gift!
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As a relationship expert, I've helped thousands of women get the love they want-even when it seemed impossible. I'm Dr. Diana Kirschner. You might know me from my PBS Special, seen me on Oprah, or have read one of my bestselling books.
I want to do everything I can to give you hands-on personalized support that will make a lasting difference.
During your powerful and dynamic one-on-one session, we will help you with your unique relationship or dating situation. You'll walk away inspired, with a clear step-by-step path forward to move through any obstacles and get the love you want.
Here's what women like you are saying:
"My session was an incredible game-changer! I was finally able to see a way forward with my boyfriend and he has proposed!
I'm very grateful!" -Jenn in New Mexico
"I was fifty-two years old with a career that was enviably successful. But my love life was not. And I couldn't figure out why. As my love mentor, Diana helped me understand that I not only deserved to have but could have a strong, loving life partner who would always be there for me. I found true love in three months! And after 4 plus years of marriage, my husband and I still pinch ourselves every day to make sure that it's not a dream!" - Midge Woolsey

domain: psychology


Return to Transcripts main page
Ex-Trump Campaign Chair May Be Going To Rikers Island; Texas Couple Dies Of Mysterious Illness On Fiji Vacation; James Holzhauer's 32-Game Winning Streak On "Jeopardy!" Over; Trump Says U.K. Protests Against Him "Very, Very Small"; Trump And First Lady Host Dinner For Royal Family In U.K. Aired 2:30-3p ET
Aired June 4, 2019 - 14:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[14:30:14] BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Former Trump campaign chief, now convicted felon, Paul Manafort, may be on the move. CNN has learned Manafort may be relocated from a low-security level inside of a Pennsylvania federal prison to the notorious Rikers Island in New York City.
He's facing a 16-count criminal indictment on state fraud charges in New York and Manhattan's district attorney wants Manafort close by for the duration of the state trial.
A source tells CNN it is not clear when he will be moved. But it won't be this week. Manafort is currently serving 7.5 years for federal fraud crimes.
This change could also mean Manafort, who is 70 years of age, might end up in solitary confinement. And his attorneys tell CNN they do not want him at Rikers.
Ed Gavin, a former deputy warden with the New York City Department of Corrections is here with me. He was also a commanding officer with the efficiency accountability and Management system at Rikers Island.
So you know this place quite well.
It is nice to see you again, sir.
Rikers has this reputation as we were talking because of the violent, hostile inmates. It is just that kind of place. And so to think of Paul Manafort there, what would his every day look like?
ED GAVIN, FORMER DEPUTY WARDEN, NEW YORK CITY DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS: Well, Paul Manafort would be what we call a CMC, a centrally monitored case and he would be afforded protective custody status. And we would track him -- it is a CMC tracking.
And in all likelihood, he'll be in solitary confinement for his own personal protection at what we call the west facility, which is a former hospital facility on Rikers Island. And he'll have his own space in which he can live and he'll be fine. BALDWIN: It is not often you hear solitary confinement and he'll be
fine in the same sentence. The notion of living in this teeny tiny cell without seeing daylight is hell. But you see it's in an advantage for him.
GAVIN: Oh, absolutely.
GAVIN: He's going to be segregated and not with the garden-variety criminals, the felons, the rapists, armed robbers, the murders, people like that. He'll be by himself. And he'll do his time.
And he'll be brought back and forth to court and that should be it. He'll probably escorted to and from court by our Emergency Services Unit. And there will be heavily armed officers. And it is like taking a cab into Manhattan every day, only he'll have armed guards with him, armed correction officers.
BALDWIN: You think he shouldn't go to Rikers?
GAVIN: Yes. I don't think it is necessary.
BALDWIN: Tell me why.
GAVIN: If I was District Attorney Vance, I would have sent him to the Metropolitan Correctional Center, which is at 150 Park Road, which two blocks away. It would save the taxpayers money and provide him access to his attorneys. But common sense isn't very common.
I think this is a lot of fanfare on the part of the District Attorney Vance to request him being transferred to Rikers Island. It doesn't make any sense. He's a federal prisoner and convicted of process crimes. He could just as easily stay in solitary confinement two blocks away and escorted to court at Center Street. And that would make life easily for everyone and it would save the taxpayers money. But Vance doesn't want to do that.
BALDWIN: You mentioned what his life would look like. And it sounds like he would be so protected for however long his time would be at Rikers, if that is the case. I mean, can you give other examples of how he would be living, who he'll be in contact.
GAVIN: Likely with other prisoners, three or four prisoners in a dormitory setting.
BALDWIN: But not, to quote you, your garden-variety felons?
GAVIN: No. He'll be with garden-variety felons, people that are murderers, armed robbers, rapists, people like that.
GAVIN: He'll be kept in an environment. He'll get three squares. If he needs medical treatment, he's in close proximity to Elmhurst Hospital where we maintain a prison ward, or if we need better care, we take them to Bellevue where we maintain a prison ward. So he is just fine.
Of course, I'm not trying to make it like it is cake walk.
BALDWIN: A cake walk. Sure.
GAVIN: His freedom is being taken from him.
GAVIN: But he won't be at any risk. His physical safety, he won't be at risk.
But again, I say they should put him down the block at MCC and that is what I would do if I were the district attorney. There's no need to have him ordered to Rikers Island and sensationalize this more than it has already been. That's my opinion
BALDWIN: Ed Gavin, I appreciate your opinion. Thank you so much.
GAVIN: Thanks for having me on.
BALDWIN: Thank you.
A couple goes on vacation in Fiji and dies after this mysterious illness. What American health officials are trying to find out.
[14:34:35] And plus, it's one of the biggest issues in the 2020 election and, today, Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren releases plans to fight climate change. We have those details ahead.
BALDWIN: Family members of a Texas couple are desperate for answers after the pair died during a mysterious illness in a vacation to Fiji. David and Michelle Paul were on vacation in the South Pacific island when they both got sick and died.
CNN's Paul Vercammen is covering this for us.
And, Paul, what do you know about this couple and their mysterious deaths?
PAUL VERCAMMEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We know this is now an international investigation and involving the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control. Now saying they are going to get specimens from the couple's body and they're going to bring that to laboratories to look over.
[14:40:03] The big question, as you pointed out, how did this healthy couple somehow pass away on this idyllic vacation in Fiji.
And something I learned recently, I called the hospital in western Fiji, and they said, as a precaution, they also admitted five people who had come in contact with this couple. Four of them have been released. And that was a precaution just in case.
And more about this couple, according to "The Fiji Sun, he's 38, and on his LinkedIn, it said he's an engineer who works on F-35 fighter planes, and she's 35. They have a 2-year-old son and he has a daughter from a previous marriage.
So the focus of the investigation, of course, is on them. Their bodies can't leave Fiji, which is even more heartbreaking for the families in this now international mystery -- Brooke?
BALDWIN: Stay on this. How awful for the family having to go to Fiji.
Paul Vercammen, thank you, very much.
The president said he has not seen any protests during his trip to London, despite this massive Trump baby blimp. We'll talk to the woman behind this thing.
And the streak has come to an end. But did James Holzhauer, quote, "break the game of 'Jeopardy!?'" A previous winner joins me, live, next.
[14:45:44] James Holzhauer's captivating 32-game winning streak on "Jeopardy!" is over. After dominating for weeks, the professional sports gambler came up short in the bid to set the all-time record for money earned on the show.
Holzhauer became a phenomenon with his dominant win totals and brash Daily Double bets. He averaged more than $77,000 each win. But he finally met his match losing to a librarian from Chicago.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ALEX TREBEK, "JEOPARDY!" HOST: So, Emma, it is up to you. If you came up with the correct response, you're going to be the new jeopardy champion.
You did. What did you wager?
Oh, gosh -- $20,000.
TREBEK: What a pay day, $46,801.
TREBEK: What a game. Oh, my god.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BALDWIN: Like the high five. And we'll get back to that.
During the record run, he won 32 games, set a single game winning record and ended up winning more than $2.4 million. That is just shy of the all-time record.
So with me now, Austin Rogers, a former "Jeopardy!" champion, who won 12 games and more than $400,000 two years ago and became a "Jeopardy!" sensation for his brains and off-beat style. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TREBEK: Our returning champion, a bartender from New York, New York, Austin Rogers.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
AUSTIN ROGERS, FORMER "JEOPARDY!" CHAMPION: What is grandson.
ROGERS: Ozzy for $200.
Who is Napoleon Bonaparte.
TREBEK: You picked the right one.
TREBEK: And at the right time.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BALDWIN: So good.
I'm missing the hair, Austin. Where is the hair?
ROGERS: It grows back. It grows back.
BALDWIN: That's the great thing about hair.
So great to have you on.
ROGERS: Thank you, Brooke.
BALDWIN: His streak is over. Did he change "Jeopardy!" forever?
ROGERS: Yes. His streak is over but his legacy is cemented. Remember when "Jeopardy!" first came on, you could only win five games and you were booted. If you won anything over $75,000, it was donated to charity.
And they changed the rules and made the open era, what's called the Ken Jennings era.
ROGERS: And Ken broke that open. But you'll notice, in the Ken Jennings era, besides Ken, and Julia Collins, who won 20 games, everyone hovered around the eight to 12 to 14 mark.
BALDWIN: Until --
ROGERS: Until him. And now we're going to have this clear demarcation. Moving forward, you have to play in a James Holzhauer way or it is over.
BALDWIN: I want to come back to that. And you say he broke the game.
BALDWIN: He broke the game.
This is how the "New York Times" put it: "Holzhauer's statistic will be tough to beat. During his streak, he won an average of $77,000 per game, more than Jennings' rate. When he buzzed, in he got the right answer, that is question, 90 percent of the time. According to the show, he almost always entered Final Jeopardy so far head that no one could catch him."
So you can't argue with that. The man had the answers.
ROGERS: But, Ken himself said, I can't wait for someone to break my record. It is doable.
ROGERS: So this is doable, too. We'll see a new spate of players who play in the new manner.
BALDWIN: New way.
ROGERS: Because the rules haven't changed. It is just the strategy and the mentality have changed.
BALDWIN: Do you think they should change the rules?
ROGERS: No. Why? It is the world's perfect game. It is perfectly structured. No, there's no reason to change the rules.
BALDWIN: You had a huge run on the show.
BALDWIN: We played the highlights. And it served you well. So what does Holzhauer's life look like post-"Jeopardy!?"
ROGERS: He's the -- what is the world - (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANAUGE), in Spanish, the world is your handkerchief in Spanish.
BALDWIN: (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANUAGE)
BALDWIN: A Spanish major, I was not --
ROGERS: But the world is your oyster.
ROGERS: He can literally do anything right now. He can write his own legacy. Write his own -- right now, he's on social media lockdown, which is brilliant because I didn't know sort of what was coming for me. He knew how special his performance was so he knows what to come.
He's getting cold calls and his cell number is out there and blah, blah, blah.
ROGERS: And you have to be judicious because there are going to charlatans and snake-oil salesmen and people do the jingling keys, jingling keys.
He's already surmounted that. He probably has like a 10-year plan and this was part of it. He's that smart.
Let's just shout-out, the University of Chicago librarian, Emma Bettcher (ph), about her. At the UNC, Chapel Hill, where she got her masters, she wrote an award-winning master's thesis called "Predicting the Difficulty of Trivia Questions Using Text Features." So there you have it. She's the one that took him down.
[14:50:14] Austin Rogers, thank you.
ROGERS: Thank you very much.
BALDWIN: Thank you. Thank you.
Any moment now, President Trump will host Prince Charles for dinner and we'll take you there.
Plus, details on the first family's gift exchange and the first lady's special role in all of it.
We'll be right back.
BALDWIN: President Trump meeting outgoing Prime Minister Theresa May in London as thousands of protesters took to the streets.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[14:55:08] BALDWIN: Even the Trump baby blimp was inflated this morning in the square for the demonstrations. But despite the crowds and signs reading "Dump Trump," the president said all he saw was love.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I didn't see any protests. I did see a small protest today when I came -- very small. So a lot of it is fake news. I hate to say. But you saw the people waving the American flag, waving your flag. It was tremendous spirit and love. There was great love. It was an alliance.
And I didn't see the protesters until just a little while ago and it was a very, very small group of people put in for political reasons.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BALDWIN: And moments ago, I spoke with Cerise Abel-Thompson, who is one of the people behind the Trump baby blimp.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BALDWIN: I know a number of protesters are calling out President Trump's choice of language and insults, and yet you float a baby Trump blimp. Cerise, is that not perpetuating the problem?
CERISE ABEL-THOMPSON, ACTIVIST: Look, the blimp isn't there to answer all of the kind of problems around Donald Trump. It is a small part of a rich texture of protests that goes on in the U.K. It's part of a big history of political satire and it is not -- on top of that, it is calling out one person for his behavior.
He doesn't stand up for debate or to facts or truth and he stands up -- he is only affected by mockery. That is the language he uses. And so we answered him with that. But it is one part of a much bigger range of protests going on.
And it is not as damaging as the things that he's doing. The danger that he is to society with the rhetoric that he uses, the legitimization is widespread, and we're poking fun at him to damage his ego.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BALDWIN: All right. And we're going to come out of that, as we now see the president of the United States and the first lady ahead of this black-tie dinner they're hosting for the royal family there. Leaving the Winfield House, the U.S. ambassador's residence in the U.K.
So as we stay on the pictures, let me bring in Kate Bennett there and following all of these things.
And, Kate, talk to me about the dinner and how involved Melania Trump was in planning.
KATE BENNETT, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: So she's been very involved as they await Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall, Camilla. And they're talking about protesters and a lot of love, there's one gentleman that is particularly loud in the background. Sorry about that.
So they're awaiting guests. Melania Trump has been working on this dinner for the past several weeks. And one of her team members is telling me this is something she very much focused on, down to the menu and the guest list and to the seating charts, the flowers.
She was very actively involved. Planning it back home at the White House but working in concert with the people here at Winfield House in London as they host this dinner.
This is something that is a reciprocal dinner, a night after the state dinner at Buckingham Palace, something the Obamas did as well. They hosted the queen and Prince Philip. And tonight, we'll see Prince Charles and Camilla in the place of the queen.
And we'll also, Brooke, see, I believe, the adult Trump children on the list. They've joined them for this trip. We saw pictures of them last night at the state banquet. I'm talking about Tiffany Trump, Eric Trump and his wife, Lara, and Donald Trump Jr. Of course, Ivanka and Jared Kushner are part of the delegation.
But people are wondering about additions to the trip and they were at the press conference with Theresa May, and took a tour over there earlier today. But we'll see them here again tonight.
Back to you right now.
BALDWIN: Trying to listen to you over the megaphone. Listen, that is the reality of some of this. There have been a number of protesters, thousands of protesters talking to a woman behind that blimp. Although listening to the president earlier today, saying he hadn't been around it and all he feels is love.
While we stay on the picture, Kate, if you could still hear me, we were talking, you and I, yesterday, the white tie, the state banquet. And the toast with the queen and the president, and you have more details on the gifts exchange, right?
We know the queen gave Trump that first edition book by Winston Churchill on World War II. What do you know about the gifts that the first family presented to the queen and her husband?
BENNETT: The president got the Winston Churchill book. But Melania got a gift, a jewelry box inlayed with enamel that reflected the decor of the music room at the palace, which sounds beautiful and elaborate very thoughtful.


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Deandre Hopkins scores with his hometown
N.F.L. star wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins is giving back to his hometown of Central, S.C.
The former Clemson All-American is sponsoring the 12 and under Central Hurricanes, and gave them new cleats, uniforms and gloves. Hopkins was asked by relatives who have children in the league, and said he is just giving back to the community that helped raise him.

domain: sports


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The longest running symphony orchestra in Kansas, the Hays Symphony Orchestra, brings great music at a great value once again in its 97th performing season.
Dr. Terry Crull, president of the Hays Symphony Guild and assistant professor of music, invites the community of Hays and the surrounding areas to join the Hays Symphony Guild to support symphonic culture on the high plains.
"It is a well-documented fact that individual and family memberships are what keep an arts organization afloat," he said. "It is because of our strong base of support from the Hays and Ellis county community that we are able to sustain our orchestra and keep presenting the concerts that entertain, enrich and educate ourselves and the coming generation of young people."
Several levels of membership are available, from $25 to $1,000. Memberships above $100 come with two season tickets to the Hays Symphony Orchestra. Donations and ticket prices are tax deductible contributions.
In addition to two season tickets, contributions at or above $100 will receive two tickets to the FHSU Opera performance. Donations above $1,000 will receive eight season and eight opera tickets as well as special recognition at the end of the concert season.
For more information on membership in the Hays Symphony Guild or information about any of its performances, contact the guild at 785-628-4258.

domain: artistic


UK automotive firms have spent more than £735m on Brexit preparations, according to an industry body.
In excess of £235m has been spent in 2020 alone, the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) said.
It published the figures as it issued a “last-chance plea” for a zero-tariff, zero-quota trade deal between the UK and the EU.
The SMMT insisted the sector is doing “everything in its control” to prepare for when the Brexit transition period ends on 31 December, but warned that efforts are being hampered by a lack of clarity on future trading arrangements.
A no-deal scenario or failure to achieve a “workable deal” for the automotive industry would mean a £47bn hit over the next five years, the trade body stated.
Two-out-of-three (67%) companies across the sector say they are doing everything they can to prepare for new processes from 1 January, according to SMMT research.
About 70% have secured new identification numbers for customs procedures, 60% have spent “significantly” on stockpiling, and 52% have employed customs agents.
SMMT chief executive Mike Hawes said: “As the UK-EU FTA (free trade agreement) negotiations enter the endgame, now is the time for both sides to deliver on promises to safeguard the automotive industry.
“Securing a deal is absolutely critical but it cannot be any deal.
“To work for UK automotive, it must deliver for UK products and that means securing the right terms and conditions that allow our exports – now and in the future – to be zero-tariff and zero-quota trade.
“A deal that failed to achieve this would be the equivalent to no deal at all, devastating jobs and slamming the brakes on the UK’s ambitions to be a world-leading manufacturer and market for electrified mobility and battery technologies.”


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Create a Website Account - Manage notification subscriptions, save form progress and more.
The City Commission is looking for candidates to serve as a Trustee for PIDA and Library Trust.
The Perkins City Commission is looking for two people to serve:
*Perkins Industrial Development Authority – Required to live within City Limits
*Perkins Public Library Trust – Not required to live within City Limits
Please send a letter of interest, with references, to the City Manager by 5 PM on Friday, July 8, 2022.
The City Commission will consider the applicants at its Regular Meeting on Tuesday, July 12, at 6 PM.
Your letter may be delivered to City Hall at 110 N. Main Street or emailed to email@example.com.

domain: library


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Karen Gordy (MSN, RN, FNP-C) works with Dr. Crossnoe and received all of her medical degrees through the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center. Karen has a background in nursing and speech, language, and hearing sciences. Karen has been working in healthcare for over 14 years, including working in a Cardiothoracic Critical Care Unit, the Operating Room, the Emergency Room, and is now a Family Nurse Practitioner. Karen loves that there is always something more to learn in the healthcare industry and enjoys gaining new knowledge as she continues her career.
REQUEST AN APPOINTMENT
Submit your appointment request below. On receiving your information, a Grace Clinic® representative will contact you with your
appointment details and confirmation.

domain: medical


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J.M. Farkas Talks Girlhood, Recklessness, and Process
“Poetry is all about emotion, drama, curiosity, gossip, cruelty, discovery, tenderness, heartbreak. All of these things seem inherent and heightened in girlhood.”
Author of Be Brave and the forthcoming How to Be A Poet, J.M. Farkas has the unique ability to turn old into new. Both collections of poetry are done in the blackout style, meaning that the source text is covered or “blacked-out” to leave behind only a few words that make the poem. With How to Be a Poet on the horizon, J.M. Farkas took a moment for a quick Q&A, sharing with us some of her favorite work, her inspirations, and reflections on her life as a poet.
Thea Voutiritsas: What are you currently reading?
J.M. Farkas: I currently have a stack of about 10 books out from the library, in addition to my incurable book-buying habit. Right now, I’m reading Ann Patchett, Emmalea Russo, Jia Tolentino, Emily Vizzo, Dani Shapiro, and Hans Christian Andersen. I’m excited about Nina MachLaughlin’s retelling of the myths in Metamorphosis, called: Wake, Siren: Ovid Resung.
TV: Who are your favorite poets and how did you discover them?
JMF: Some of my favorite old-school poets are Neruda and Edna St. Vincent Millay. Some of my favorite contemporary poets are Louise Glück, Traci Brimhall, Jane Hirshfield, and Ada Limón. When I first discovered poetry, I was big on reading anthologies, like Best American Poets, and then I would go deeper and buy full collections of poets I admired. I also love and highly recommend the websites Verse Daily and the Poetry Foundation’s Poem of the Day. I also keep up with literary magazines to discover new writers.
TV: How did you discover Ars Amatoria and what made you want to use it as source text?
JMF: I first read it in graduate school with my advisor, the wonderful poet, Richard Jackson. It was rumored that Ovid, who is most known for writing the Metamorphosis, was exiled because of the scandalous nature of Ars Amatoria, which is essentially an ancient poetic manual on dating, relationships, and sex. Immediately, I was intrigued, but when I started reading it, I was so stunned by how modern and funny and offensive Ovid could be. At times, it reminded me of those ridiculous dating books from way back, like, The Rules.
TV: How did you find the process of blacking out Beowulf for Be Brave different from Ars Amatoria for How to Be a Poet?
JMF: Be Brave came out of a pure need to get myself through a difficult situation and work through a period of writer’s block. I didn’t envision it as a book or something that I would necessarily share with other people. With How to Be a Poet, I was very aware that this was my second book, so there was more self-consciousness and deliberateness. That being said, once I got into the groove of the erasure process, it felt very much the same, in the sense of the obsessive way I comb through a source text, looking to create an alternative and transformative narrative.
TV: How to Be a Poet is a message to poets but also to young girls. In what ways do you see poetry as a metaphor for girlhood?
JMF: Poetry is all about emotion, drama, curiosity, gossip, cruelty, discovery, tenderness, heartbreak. All of these things seem inherent and heightened in girlhood. I tend to write my poems about this stage of growing up too.
TV: Did you have a theme in mind before you began, or did the meaning emerge as you worked?
JMF: I didn’t have a theme. Especially with erasure poetry, the work tends to reveal itself as you progress through the pages. It usually starts with much unknowing, where I’m simply gathering or considering words or phrases I love; but there is this moment when something clicks, and I realize I have a real “thing” that is coming into focus and building upon itself with a loose narrative. With How to Be a Poet, for example, I don’t think I realized that I was speaking to girls, until several pages in, when I landed upon the line: “Be the girl who is too beautiful.” Then I knew I wanted the entire book to continue in this same way, speaking to this same female reader.
“Erasure is all about faith–the idea that what you are looking for is already there.”
TV: Tell us about your process. How do you take a page full of words down to a new meaning?
JMF: It’s a very mysterious process that I wrote about a bit in the introduction to my first book, Be Brave. Usually, I read the source text or have read it in the past, but I don’t read the book while I’m erasing. Rather, certain words seem to lift off the page and call to me, and then I try to connect them to the next word or phrase on the following page. There are many times when I’m searching for a specific word to create a very specific line, and often, that exact word that I need will appear. Erasure is all about faith–the idea that what you are looking for is already there.
TV: You quote Shirley Dent in saying “There is precise science in the recklessness of both riding a bike and writing a poem.” Can you explain what that means?
JMF: Like any good metaphor, I love the connection between unlikely things, such as poetry and motorcycles. I was very drawn to the inherent contradiction in both endeavors—this need for both precision and recklessness, stillness and motion. I also enjoy the almost-homophone with the words writing and riding.
TV: How do you stay inspired and keep things fresh?
JMF: Reading is the best way to stay inspired, but hearing from my readers has also propelled me forward in a new way. Movies and films have always had a way of loosening my creative-juices. I’m a big believer in going to the movies solo and sitting by yourself in the dark. I think that heightens the emotional and imagistic experience.
TV: Do you feel like poems should have to be solved, or should they be straightforward for the reader?
JMF: When I was in high school, I used to think poetry is something beautiful that I can’t understand. So, I think it can be very important for people who are new to poetry to realize that poems can be remarkably accessible and understandable. Poetry is like music, there are so many styles, and it’s just a matter of finding the kind you like and what moves you. As a reader continues to immerse herself in more poetry, I think tolerance and even, excitement, grow for more challenging or “difficult” poems. Overall, a poem should never “have to be” anything.
TV: Did teaching change your relationship to writing, or poetry at all? And if so, how?
JMF: Absolutely. I love introducing students—or anyone really—to poetry. I like prescribing it to a specific person or someone going through a specific situation, or just somebody desiring a certain emotional experience. I was also incredibly invested in my own students’ writing. Many of their pieces were born from models of contemporary writers, which resulted in incredible work. My students blew my mind with their raw writing talent and willingness to open up and be vulnerable on the page. They often inspired me to do the same.
TV: Did publishing your first book change your process for writing? If so, how?
JMF: In terms of erasure, it did, in an unexpected way. I realized that I needed to get the copyrights or permissions for translations before I started the blackout process. With ancient texts like Beowulf or Ovid, most people assume that the work is in the public domain because it’s so old; however, the translations can be contemporary and are often copyrighted. For Be Brave, I had to hunt down the estate and literary agent of the famous translator Burton Raffel who passed away well after I finished the project. If I didn’t get permission, it was possible that my book would not be published. Thankfully his family granted me the rights, but now I make sure I have the rights first before I begin a new project.
TV: Do you read your reviews?
JMF: Absolutely. I don’t know how anyone can resist this temptation. One of the reasons I write is to connect with readers, and so when that happens through a review or shared anecdote, I’m truly elated. For example, one of my favorite bookstagram accounts Folded Pages Distillery shared Be Brave with a 13-year-old girl who was upset about moving to a new state. Something in my book touched her during the exact time when she most needed it. Hearing this kind of thing is the best possible “review.”
Of course, the flip side is understanding that you will not connect with every reader. What helps me deal with bad reviews is looking up Amazon reviews of some of my favorite books. An entire five disastrously-wrong people have given Jonathan Safran Foer’s Everything Is Illuminated one star! This makes me realize that everyone has different tastes, and there is no way to please everybody.
“I bring a lot of fears to the table when I first begin or am staring at a blank page or screen. Once I get into the flow, I’m golden, but it can be difficult for me to get to that place.”
TV: What’s the biggest mistake you’ve made as a writer?
JMF: In general, I struggle quite a bit with writing and tend to get in my way. I bring a lot of fears to the table when I first begin or am staring at a blank page or screen. Once I get into the flow, I’m golden, but it can be difficult for me to get to that place. My biggest mistake, I think, has been hoping that these fears will go away or letting them stop me from moving forward—instead of accepting that this painful “stuff” is all part of the process and believing that I can move through the hard parts because history has shown that I can.
TV: What does literary success look like to you?
JMF: I have a somewhat troubled relationship with both of the words “literary” and “success.” I hope to continue to create new work in several genres of writing. To get better with each project (I love the word: project!)—and most importantly, to try to find and hold onto as much joy and faith in the writing process.
TV: Have your feelings towards your past work changed over time?
JMF: I look at past work almost like a time capsule or diary even. Whether or not the work is “true,” it does provide a certain kind of evidence for who you were at that time—for better or for worse. In general, I try to view my younger self, and my younger writing-self, with as much generosity and kindness (and sometimes, forgiveness) as possible.


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I’m thrilled to have won the Windsor Fringe Kenneth Branagh Award for New Drama Writing with my play The Space Between.
It was a privilege to share the stage with the other finalists, David Hendon and Eleanor Clare Taylor, who both wrote fantastic plays. The three finalists were selected from 289 scripts from 18 countries. Performances took place at Windsor Fringe on October 6th, 7th, and 8th.
I loved to watch as Debbie Christie (actor, below right) breathed life into Frida’s story, directed by Hellena Taylor (below, left); both women brought such heart and talent to the production.
The judges said The Space Between was “truly beautiful, evocative and thought-provoking” (Jenny Seagrove)
and “written in a very inventive and dynamic style…the presentation is quite unique but what impressed me most was the poignancy of the writing and the universal nature of its thoughts and ideas” (Andrew C Wadsworth).
I learned so much from seeing my play performed to an audience three times – different every night. I’m grateful to have received the £500 prize and I’ve grown so much as a writer. Sincere thanks to the Windsor Fringe Drama Award Team.


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Backup offensive lineman Maurice Hurt missed Thursday’s offseason practice to have arthroscopic surgery on one of his knees, Redskins coach Mike Shanahan said.
Hurt missed last week’s round of offseason practices with a groin injury. Shanahan wasn’t sure on Thursday which knee the third-year pro had injured. He is expected to be healed in time for the start of training camp, the coach said.
Hurt, a seventh-round guard/tackle out of Florida in 2011, appeared in 13 games last season, starting one of them at right tackle. He started eight games at left guard in 2011.
Also absent for Thursday’s practice was backup safety Jordan Pugh, who had an ear infection and wasn’t able to make the flight from Dallas, Shanahan said.
Defensive end Adam Carriker remains unable to take the field as he continues to rehab from a torn quad tendon. Carriker suffered the injury in Week 2 of last season and had to have surgery. He suffered a setback this offseason, and Shanahan said that there is no update on Carriker’s progress. The seventh-year pro, who restructured his contract this offseason, isn’t expected to return before the start of training camp.
Meanwhile, tight ends Fred Davis (Achilles’ tendon) and Jordan Reed (knee), running backs Chris Thompson (knee) and Roy Helu Jr. (toe), wide receiver Pierre Garcon (labrum), guard Josh LeRibeus (hamstring), linebacker Keenan Robinson (pectoral muscle), cornerbacks Josh Wilson (labrum) and Chase Minnifield (knee) and safeties Brandon Meriweather (knee) and Jordan Bernstine (knee) all continue to be held out of practice. Those players all went through conditioning and strength drills. And the tight ends, running backs and receivers caught passes from quarterback Robert Griffin III. Defensive lineman Ron Brace also did not practice.
D.C. Sports Bog: Griffin and Liddicoat to be married in Denver
D.C. Sports Bog: Eleanor Holmes Norton calls out Snyder on MSNBC
Reliable Source: RGIII buys a $2.5 million home
Morning Pixels: McNabb, Doug Williams take issue with Griffin criticism
D.C. Sports Bog: Another RGIII thank-you note, with photo
The Other 31: A look at the offseasons of NFL teams around the league

domain: news


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The company reported an adjusted EPS of 55 cents, ahead of the 50 cents expected. At the same time, the revenue came in at $9.02 billion versus the $8.6 billion forecasted. The results were driven by the monthly improvement in demand, especially in China, where uncertainty caused by COVID-19 has fallen. But in North America and Western Europe, the demand takes longer to recover. However, at a global level, the volume in March returned to 2019 levels.
Coca-Cola CEO James Quincey stated: “We are encouraged by improvements in our business, especially in markets where vaccine availability is increasing, and economies are opening up, and we remain confident in our full-year guidance.” The full-year forecast refers to an organic revenue increase in the high single digits, while the adjusted EPS is seen between high single numbers to low double digits.
In a separate filing, Coca-Cola announced that it is looking to list Coca-Cola Beverages Africa publicly. It will sell a portion of its holdings in an IPO, which is expected to occur in 18 months, with shares listed in Amsterdam and Johannesburg.
Following the news, Coca-Cola stock price went up less than 1%.


Sending Ask Dr. Vinny: How bad is a day of rough handling for a good bottle of wine? Every time I go to my local wine merchant and buy some really expensive bottles, I worry about how bad the ride home is for them. I fret about whether I should take them straight down to the cellar, or if I can take them up to my home off
WineSpectator.com seeks an assistant editor in its New York City office to help develop content for its website, e-mail newsletters, social media platforms and apps. Candidates should have one to three years of journalism experience in a digital environment and be able to handle daily deadlines. Get more details.


Last week markettiers4dc welcomed England rugby star Danny Cipriani into our studios, to launch a new mentoring scheme on behalf of Alliance & Leicester.
Alliance & Leicester launched the 'Premier 21 Current Accounts' and the mentor scheme, designed to help those who are starting out in their working life make the most of their hard-earned cash and opportunities within their chosen career, with the help of high profile mentors, podcasts and online tips.
The survey commissioned by Alliance & Leicester Current Accounts and carried out by Opinion Matters, revealed that eight out of ten (78%) 16 to 21 year olds who have left education believe they would have benefitted from having a career mentor or advisor. The most popular source of advice for school leavers was their mother, with over half (52%) looking for maternal guidance, with four in ten (41%) looking for fatherly advice, and one in three (35%) getting advice from friends. The survey also revealed that two thirds (64%) of youngsters of school-leaving age, over one and a half million, will be choosing to begin their working lives rather than attempt further education.
To raise awareness of the scheme and the announcement of A&L's first mentor for 2009, markettiers4dc conducted a series of radio interviews with England rugby star Danny Cipriani to coincide with the release of the new A&L research – revealing severe gaps in careers advice and support for school leavers.
While Cipriani credits his mum for being his biggest mentor, the England and London Wasps fly-half is now helping today's youth make the most of their career opportunities by becoming the first mentor (of three) for Alliance & Leicester's Premier 21 Master Class programme 2009. Steve Gracey from the Alliance & Leicester was also on hand to discuss the scheme.
markettiers4dc achieved coverage in excess of 65 stations with a potential audience reach 42,281,000, spanning a huge 8hrs 15mins 9secs and an ad rate comparison of £118,836. Radio coverage included BBC Radio 2, Absolute, LBC, BBC London, talkSPORT, and online included The Guardian, Metro, Virgin Media.


on the ar-15/m16 the headspace in on the barrel extension. the barrel extension threads on the barrel and is set to a standard HS if the barrel is properly set up.
to change the headspace on a barrel/barrel extension you would have to remove the set pin and tighten or loosen the barrel extension to get the correct space, then re insert the barrel pin. the downside is if the gas port is drilled it is now going to be "off".
Hess/Vulcan and SARCO have shipped barrels with the gas port off that was either welded over and re drilled of just left canted. pretty messy job to clean up a furbar. it is usually cheaper to replace than fix it.
a new barrel and a new bolt will work perfectly (mostly) and a new bolt and a used barrel are generally OK , a used barrel and a used bolt from another set up may be out--
generally it pays to check them all. the modular AR/M16 will generally have the HS on the money PROVIDED the makers stuck to the blueprint specs for the barrel/bolt. 99.5% of the time they do on s USGI type build.
on match type builds sometimes the chamber has to be honed cause they will set the HS to standard but leave a overly tight chamber for the smith to finish.
some makers on exotic conversions like 6.5G and 6.8SPC have used a not standard HS on the bolt and the extension.


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