The Bagne of Toulon was a notorious prison in Toulon, France, made famous as the place of imprisonment of the fictional Jean Valjean, the hero of Victor Hugo's novel Les Misérables. It was opened in 1748 and closed in 1873.

Origins: the galleys
The bagne was created by an ordinance of King Louis XV on September 27, 1748 to house the convicts who had previously been sentenced to row the galleys of the French Mediterranean fleet.  The decree stated, in article 11,  "All the galleys in the port will be disarmed, and the chiourmes (the ancient term for the convict galley rowers) will be kept on land in the bagnes, guarded halls, or other places which will be designated for their confinement."  The name 'bagne' came from the Italian word  (giving bagnio in English), or "bath", the name of a prison in Rome which had formerly been a Roman bath.
Other authors point to a prison in Livorno.

Since the 15th century, French prisoners had been sentenced to serve on the galleys, sometimes even for minor crimes. The galleys were long, narrow craft with cannon mounted on the bow and a high, ornamentally-decorated deck at the stern. Unlike sailing ships, they could operate when there was no wind. They were a force used only on the Mediterranean, where the sea was relatively calm, and were entirely independent of the Navy, with their own Grand Admiral. The galleys were used both for military missions and for ceremonial travel, for example carrying the Cardinal de Guise from France to Rome for the election of a new Pope after the death of Pope Paul IV in 1559. By the 18th century, changes in naval tactics and weapons had made the galleys obsolete, and the galleys were decommissioned,  However, prisoners sentenced to forced labor continued to be sent to the south of France.

The Bagne

The galleys were originally based in Marseille. In 1749, with the new decree, the galley fleet was transferred to Toulon, to  the port and arsenal of the French Mediterranean fleet. By the end of the 18th century there were about 3,000 prisoners in the Bagne. The convicts lived on the galleys, and then on larger prison ships, where the sanitary and health facilities were deplorable. Because of the poor health of the prisoners, in 1777 a hospital for the prisoners was installed in a casemate of the southeast rampart of the Darse Vauban, the immense naval port begun by Vauban during the reign of Louis XIV. The bagne was placed  next to the first dry dock on the Mediterranean, built between 1774 and 1779. In 1797 a  new building was constructed on the west quay of the Darse Vauban. It was two hundred meters long and two stories high, with towers with pyramid-shaped roofs at either end. The hospital occupied the first floor, a chapel for the prisoners was placed in the north end, and the rest of the building was occupied by the administration of the prison.

In the beginning, able-bodied prisoners lived in the casements of the ramparts or on prison ships. In 1814 they were transferred to a building on shore, 115 meters long, which was perpendicular to the hospital, located on the southwest quay, between the Darse Vauban and the entrance to the old port. Even after the construction of the new building, some prisoners continued to be held on ships when there was no place on land.

Docked next to the Bagne, at the entrance of the old port, was a decommissioned French ship, called L'Amiral. It had formerly been the frigate Muiron, which transported Napoleon Bonaparte from Egypt to France in 1799. It now had only a single mast. It fired a cannon every morning and evening, the signal to open and close the gates of the arsenal and to move the heavy chains which blocked the entrances to inner ports. If a prisoner escaped from the bagne, the Amiral fired a cannon, and hoisted a yellow flag, which remained until the prisoner was recaptured.

Life of the prisoners

In 1836 the Bagne held 4,305 prisoners, of whom 1,193 were sentenced to life imprisonment; 173 to more than twenty years' imprisonment; 382 to terms between sixteen and twenty years; 387 to terms between eleven and fifteen years; 1469 to terms of between five and ten years; and 700 to terms of less than five years.

Beginning in 1820, prisoners sentenced to forced labor were marched, in chains, from the Bicêtre Prison in Paris to Lyon. The prisoners were attached by collars around their necks to a single long chain.  They walked in a group,   called la chaine (the chain), escorted by soldiers. In towns along the way between Paris and Lyon, additional prisoners were added to the chain. The prisoners wore their original civilian clothing, rather than prison dress. When the chain arrived in Lyon, the prisoners, still chained, were transferred to open boats which were towed by ship down the Rhone to Arles, and then continued by land to Toulon. The entire journey took thirty-five days. Later in the 19th century, the chain was abandoned and prisoners were transported in closed prison wagons.

When the prisoners arrived at Castigneau, a town on the harbor of Toulon, they were formally handed over to the Commissaire of the Bagne, an officer of the French Navy. There the iron collars around their necks were removed, their hair was cut and they were shaved, they were given a bath in large basins under a tent, and then they were conveyed by boat to the Bagne.

The predominant color of the prisoner's costumes was red, the traditional color of the uniforms worn by the crews on the galleys in the 16th and 17th centuries. The costumes of the prisoners consisted of a white shirt, yellow trousers, red vest and smock and a cap which had different colors depending on the sentence duration. In early years those sentenced to life imprisonment wore green caps, all the others red caps. During the French Revolution, because the revolutionaries wore the red Phrygian cap, the symbol of freedom, the French Convention forbade prisoners to wear red caps, and they went bare-headed. Under Napoleon, the red caps were reinstated for all prisoners. The trousers were buttoned the whole length of the leg, so they could be removed without taking off the iron ring and chain on their ankle. The prisoners were shaven and were given a peculiar haircut, with one sideburns on one side shaven and on the other allowed to grow, so they could be identified more easily if they escaped.

An iron ring, called manille, was attached to one ankle. Attached to the manille was an iron chain with eighteen links. The ring and the chain together weighed seven kilograms and 250 grams. There were longer chains, of twenty-four links, for those with longer sentences, and for those sentenced to life imprisonment, an additional triangular ring so they could be chained to their bed.
Before the French Revolution and again after 1810, the prisoners were also branded on the shoulder with a hot iron, using the letters TF (travaux forcés, hard labour) and TFP (travaux forcés à perpétuité, hard labor for life).

Food and drink
The daily food ration for prisoners was meager: 30 ounces (937 grams) of bread; 4 ounces (125 grams) of beans in a soup; and 48 centiliters of wine. However, nearly all the prisoners had employment which paid a small salary, and they were able to purchase additional food: a bouillon of vegetables for five centimes a liter, or meat at ten centimes a portion. The prisoners used the word 'gourgane' (the word for 'beans' in the Provençal language), and used the same word to refer to the guards.

Employment

In the early years of the Bagne, only those prisoners with sentences of less than fifteen years were put to work in the arsenal; the others remained in chains in their dormitories. The resulting poor health of the long-term prisoners and epidemics in the Bagne led to a change in policy: all the prisoners were put to work, usually the heavy manual labor of the port, hauling cables, turning capstans, and carrying supplies. This duty was termed fatigue.

In 1821, the Commissaire of the Navy, Reynaud, observing that the prisoners who worked were better behaved, began a program to train and employ prisoners;  they were trained as masons, carpenters, stonemasons, metal workers and other professions, and employed as secretaries, nurses, cooks, and other professions. A number of prisoners were trained to pull teeth, and their services were offered at a reasonable price to the people of Toulon. Several of them opened up their own practices in Toulon upon their release from the Bagne.

In later years the prisoners had the right, at certain times of day, to make handicrafts which they could sell to the Toulonais in the Bazaar, or gift-shop of the Bagne. The money they earned could be spent to buy additional food, or could be put into a fund they would receive on their release. A collection of objects made by prisoners is on display in the museum of Old Toulon near the Cour Lafayette.

Punishment

For minor offenses, prisoners were punished with the bastonnade, lashed on the back with a leather whip. Prisoners who had committed more serious crimes were chained together with another prisoner, and were chained to their beds at night. If a prisoner killed a guard or another prisoner, the penalty was death. For those and other most serious offenses, the Bagne had its own guillotine, and one of the prisoners served as the executioner. All of the bagnards were summoned to attend executions, on their knees and with their heads uncovered.

The prisoners had their own system of punishment for other prisoners who spied on them on behalf of the guards,  or who encouraged prisoners to escape and then reported them to the guards to collect a reward. They were sometimes poisoned, stabbed, or were victims of deliberate "accidents" in the workplace.

Administration
The commander of the Bagne was a Commissaire of the Navy, and had the official title Chef des Services des chiourmes,  Chiourmes being the traditional term for the rowers in the galleys.  The guards were titled grades-chourmes, and were mostly former active-duty soldiers who wanted easier duty.  They wore dark blue uniforms with light blue trim, and a shako cap, and were armed with a  saber, or, when outside the bagne, a loaded rifle. They were held in low repute in Toulon, and were known for the drinking and an inclination  toward corruption.  Prisoners were known  to bribe guards for special favors.

Escapes
There were many attempts to escape from the Bagne, but few which were successful. The most common means of attempting to escape was, during their working periods, to find a hiding place within the arsenal, conceal some food there, to hide there until night, and then to try to get away. Escaping was difficult; the workshops of the arsenal and the area around the bagne were patrolled by the guards, and soldiers watched the gates of the city and patrolled the surrounding countryside. Citizens who reported an escaped prisoner received a reward of fifty francs for those captured within the arsenal, or one hundred francs for those captured in the city or outside.

Nonetheless, they tried. One prisoner, named Gonnet, was celebrated for his badly-planned escape attempts: he attempted to escape seven times, and was recaptured each time. Within the bagne, a poorly-planned escape attempt became known as a gonnette.  Another prisoner named Plassou hid within a small space in the wall, concealed behind stones and plaster.  He waited until nightfall, broke through the plaster, climbed over the wall, but was seen by two fisherman sleeping next to the wall and was handed over to the guards. Many escapees were captured by Legueneux, an assistant-adjudant guard who watched the main gate of the arsenal. He knew the faces of all the prisoners, and could spot a bagnard immediately by his peculiar way of walking, caused by years of wearing a heavy chain.

One mass escape attempt was made on the night of June 21–22, 1824, during very stormy weather. Fifteen prisoners, led by one prisoner who was a stonemason, made a hole in the wall of their dormitory, put dummies in their beds, escaped through the neighboring gunpowder storeroom, and made their way to the quay. One was wounded by a gunshot, two drowned in the harbor from the weight of their chains, but the other twelve escaped into the city and the countryside. However, within eight days, the remaining twelve escapees were all recaptured.

A rare successful escape was made by a group of ten prisoners, who were rowing a boat of supplies across the harbor of Toulon. They disarmed and tied up the two guards and the captain of their boat, rowed past the customs posts, landed on the far side of the port, released their prisoners, and fled. A few were later recaptured, but the majority were never found.

The Revolution and political prisoners
During the 1793 Siege of Toulon in the course of the French Revolution, Toulon was a stronghold of the royalists and was occupied by the British. When the British were forced to depart, largely thanks to the maneuvers of Napoleon Bonaparte, then a young officer of artillery, the British set fire to the Arsenal.  The prisoners of the Bagne assisted the sailors of the French navy in putting out the fires.  During the French Directory, wealthy prisoners were permitted to wear ordinary street clothing and to promenade freely outside the Bagne.  Instead of an iron ring on their ankle, they were permitted to wear a slender silver ring, which was largely concealed by their trousers.  During this time certain prisoners were allowed to work in the town as gardeners, domestic servants, musicians and teachers. After Napoleon took power in 1799, the more rigorous regime was restored.

After France began to colonize Algeria and North Africa, the Bagne included a contingent of Muslim prisoners;  they were allowed to have a distinctive haircut, different from the other prisoners, though they had to shave their beards.   The bagne also occasionally held military prisoners, including five hundred Prussian soldiers captured by Napoleon, released in 1814, and occasional political prisoners, including those who had participated in various conspiracies against the governments of the Restoration and Louis-Philippe,  and the Paris Commune and the Marseille Commune of 1871.

Celebrated prisoners
A few of the bagnards, or prisoners, were well-known, notably a famous imposter named Coignard, who pretended to be the Count of St. Helena, and Eugène François Vidocq (23 July 1775 – 11 May 1857) a French criminal who later became the first director of Sûreté Nationale and one of the first modern private investigators.  He was sentenced to the Bagne in Toulon, arriving on 29 August 1799. After a failed escape attempt, he escaped again on 6 March 1800 with the help of a prostitute.  He is sometimes cited as the model for both Javert and Jean Valjean in Les Misérables.

Abolition
At the beginning of the Second Empire of Napoleon III the government decided to close the prisons at the naval ports, which were considered undesirable and expensive to run. It was therefore decided to replace the so-called "bagnes métropolitains", the prisons within cities, with transportation to French Guiana (with the central administration in Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni and Devil's Island mainly used for political prisoners) and later also to Nouméa in French New Caledonia. The bagnes of Rochefort and Brest were closed in 1852 and 1858 respectively, but Toulon, the largest, took longer to empty.
It was finally closed, and the buildings were used by the Navy as offices and depots. The buildings survived until 1944, when the bagne was almost entirely destroyed by an Allied bombing raid. All that remains today is a fragment of wall on the southeast side of the Darse Vauban.

In literature
Almost all of the important writers of the romantic period, including Victor Hugo,  Honoré de Balzac, Alexandre Dumas,  George Sand, Prosper Mérimée and Gustave Flaubert stopped by Toulon to see the bagne for themselves.   Stendhal came in 1838 to visit the arsenal,  but refused to make the traditional visit to the  bagne, citing his "horror" of meeting the inmate; "the ugliness at all points had already depressed me enough."<ref>Memoires dun tourist, Volume I, editions Rencontre, Lausanne (1961), page 242</ref>

 The Memoirs of Francois Vidocq, published in 1828, described his experiences as a prisoner in both the bagnes of Brest and Toulon. After his criminal career, he became famous as the first chief of the Sureté, the elite branch of the French police.  With various modifications, Vidocq returned as a fictional character, and is often cited as the model for Jean Valjean in Les Misérables. (1862).
 Another character inspired by Vidocq, Vautrin, appears in three of Honoré de Balzac's novels within Le Comédie Humaine (1834–35); Le Père Goriot, Splendeurs et Misères des courtesans (1838–47), and Illusions Perdues.
 The Mysteries of Paris (1842–43) by Eugène Sue features a former bagnard  character named Chourineur.'
 Gaspard Caderousse and Benedetto, also known as Andrea Cavalcanti, are bagnards who appear in Le Comte de Monte-Cristo (1844), by Alexandre Dumas, père. A story by Dumas, Gabriel Lambert, also featuring a  bagnard, was adapted for the stage under the name Le Bagnard de l'opéra.
 Pierre Alexis Ponson du Terrail's Rocambole is imprisoned in the Bagne in his third novel, Les Exploits de Rocambole (1858–1859).
 Jean Valjean in Victor Hugo's Les Misérables (1862) was the most famous  bagnard in French literature.  At the beginning of the novel, he had just been released from the bagne, and later he is sent back and then escapes, after rescuing a sailor, by diving from a ship's mast into the harbor.  Hugo traveled to Toulon in 1839 and visited the bagne, making extensive notes, and expressing his strong dislike of the whole institution.   On one page of his notes he wrote, in large block letters, a possible name for a hero of his story:  JEAN TRÉJEAN.  He did not begin writing the novel until 1845, when Jean Tréjean became Jean Valjean.
 An early story by the young Jules Verne,  La Destinée de Jean Morénas'', has a prisoner en route to Toulon as its main character.
 In the C.S. Forester novel Flying Colours (novel), the main character, Captain Horatio Hornblower of the British Royal Navy, disguised as a Dutch customs officer in French service commandeers a chain gang of French prisoners to help man the cutter Hornblower uses to escape France.

Sources and references

Bibliography

External sources

 Article about the Bagne on Net Marine, French Association for Internet Diffusion of information about the French Navy (in French).

Defunct prisons in France
1748 establishments in France
1873 disestablishments in France
Buildings and structures destroyed during World War II
Toulon


Oliphants Drift is a village in Kgatleng District of Botswana. It is located 85 km north-east of Mochudi, close to the border with South Africa. The village has a primary school and a health clinic, and the population was 758 in 2001 census.

References

Kgatleng District
Villages in Botswana


The Southern Arctic Ecozone, as defined by the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC), is a Canadian terrestrial ecozone which spans the northern coast of mainland Northwest Territories, most of northern mainland Nunavut excepting the northeast peninsula, and a portion of northwestern Quebec. Its two constituent territories are interrupted by Hudson Bay.  The ecozone can also be described as including the northernmost part of the Interior Plains of Western Canada and parts of the Canadian Shield located on both sides of northern Hudson Bay.

It is sparsely populated, with less than 10,000 inhabitants in 17 major settlements, the largest of which is Rankin Inlet. About 80% of the population is Inuit.

Geography
Its southern boundary demarcates the tree line, and to the north it meets the Northern Arctic terrestrial ecozone and the Arctic Archipelago Marine ecozone. It was formed from glacial deposits left by retreating glaciers about 8,500 years ago, which amassed into moraines cut by long eskers up to 100 km long. The scouring of the land by the 3 km thick glaciers left numerous depressions, some of which contained stray chunks of ice that, upon melting during warmer periods, created kettle lakes and ponds. The Precambrian granite bedrock of the Canadian Shield protrudes to the surface through other sedimentary deposits in areas that surround Hudson Bay. Moreover, glacial erratic chunks of this rock may have been transported to other areas by the ice sheet, sometimes into surroundings with no common elements.

Permafrost occurs in a continuous, permanent sheet throughout the zone, which consists primarily of rollings plains west of the Shield area. Just a few centimetres from the surface in some parts, it prevents water from penetrating deep into the soil, hence pooling and creating waterlogged soil that freezes regularly. Cyclic freezing and thawing of the soils results in irregular features throughout the terrain, including hummocks and polygonal shapes.

The land is characterised by "sprawling shrublands, wet sedge meadows, and cold, clear lakes".

Ecoprovinces
This ecozone can be further subdivided into three ecoprovinces:
Amundsen Lowlands
Keewatin Lowlands
Ungava-Belcher

Climate
This ecozone experiences short summers which are cool and moist, with mean July temperatures of about 10 °C. Winters are long, dark and bitterly cold, with average January mean temperatures of -30 °C. The area in Quebec is relatively warmer, with mean January temperatures of -18 °C.

Annual precipitation increases eastward through the zone, with 250 mm in the west and no more than 500 mm in the east. It also varies latitudinally, with about twice as much precipitation at its southern edge than at the northern fringes.

Conservation
A number of protected areas have been established to protect representative and/or significant portions of this ecozone. These include Ivvavik National Park, Thelon Wildlife Sanctuary, Tuktut Nogait National Park, and Pingo Canadian Landmark.

References

Ecozones and ecoregions of Nunavut
Ecozones and ecoregions of the Northwest Territories
Ecozones and ecoregions of Quebec
Geography of the Arctic


Eugenie Glacier is a glacier on central Ellesmere Island, Nunavut, Canada. It rises to approximately  above sea level.

See also
List of glaciers

References

Glaciers of Qikiqtaaluk Region
Ellesmere Island
Arctic Cordillera


Malolwane is a village in Kgatleng District of Botswana. The village is located 70 km east of Gaborone, and the population was 2,369 in 2001 census.

References
The village has Wards (Dikgoro or Dikgotlana), Matlou, Matlotla, Phaphane, Malebye, Sione, Mokobeng, Motlabane, Deep Level. It is growing due to availability of plots around and attracting closer and farther inhabitants to make it their primary home.

Kgatleng District
Villages in Botswana


The Children's Museum in Easton is a children's museum in Easton, Massachusetts dedicated to educational, cultural, and social learning for children and families with a primary focus on children ages 1–5. It is located at 9 Sullivan Avenue in North Easton inside of a historic firehouse.  The museum is three floors of different activities designed for interactive learning.  It is also located close to Stonehill College.

History
The Children's Museum was started in 1986 by four Easton women, all mothers of young children in search of hands-on educational experiences for their children.  The location at that time was a historic firehouse built in 1904.  By 1986, it had not been a functioning fire station in decades, and the town of Easton had decided to sell it.  The mothers proposed the museum to the town, and the vote went to selectmen.  The vote passed, with the museum promising to donate $100,000 of its admission profits back to the town.  The mothers had no corporate sponsors, so it took five years of fundraising acitivties through the community until the museum received enough support to open in 1991.

References

External links
 The official website

Museums established in 1991
Children's museums in Massachusetts
History of Bristol County, Massachusetts
Museums in Bristol County, Massachusetts
Easton, Massachusetts
1991 establishments in Massachusetts


JournalReview.org was an online interdisciplinary journal club. It hosted an international community of doctors and existed for the purpose of facilitating critical discussion and post-publication peer review of all medical literature indexed by the National Library of Medicine in PubMed. It was part of the movement towards open peer review, telemedicine, and self-archiving/open access.

Contents
It was web-based and consisted of commentary and discussion related to published medical literature.

Members could participate individually, or by creating their own "journal clubs" – collections of members who were actively participating in discussion of mutual interest. Some residency training programs adopted this resource to meet ACGME requirements. Members utilized this resource to suggest future research, and to identify bias or limitations to published work. Educators  utilized this resource to help stimulate and document critical discussion of assigned journal articles. Authors  utilized this resource to answer questions about and provide supplement to their published work. This resource was also utilized by the public as a vehicle to better understand published trade literature.

Members consists of all the major specialties as well areas of basic science. Approximately 7,000 doctors, health care professionals, researchers, residency training programs, and students from all over the world participate. It was listed as a recommended resources by the New York Public Library, the Dalhousie University College of Pharmacy, the State University of New York Downstate Medical Library, as well as several other related websites.

See also
 Peerage of Science
 Publons
 PubPeer

References

External links
 JournalReview.org Website

American medical websites
Academic publishing
Peer review


Ramonaka is a village in Kgatleng District of Botswana. The village is located 65 km east of Gaborone, and it has a primary school. The population was 518 in 2001 census.

References

Kgatleng District
Villages in Botswana


A Place to Bury Strangers is the debut studio album by American shoegazing band A Place to Bury Strangers, released on September 17, 2007.

Release
Most of the album's songs were recorded between 2004 and 2006 and were released as series of ad hoc EPs which were sold at shows by the band. The band came to the attention of Killer Pimp owner Jon Whitney in late 2006 and he asked if he could have the songs remastered and release them as an album on CD. The band deliberated over whether this would be a good move for some time before finally agreeing. The album was released in a limited edition in August 2007. This soon sold out and several repressings were made. As of March 2008 further pressings are ongoing. The album was also released on vinyl by Important Records as a limited edition of 1,000 copies with 300 on clear vinyl and 700 on black. These sold out and a second edition of 1,000 with 300 on red/white splatter was pressed. A third pressing of 1,000 was made with the first 300 on white in July 2008.

"To Fix the Gash in Your Head" appears on the Nine Inch Nails online release Lights in the Sky: Over North America 2008 Tour Sampler, which contains music from the opening acts, including A Place to Bury Strangers, of some concerts of the Lights in the Sky tour.

Critical reception

In 2016, Pitchfork ranked A Place to Bury Strangers at number 38 on its list of "The 50 Best Shoegaze Albums of All Time".

Track listing

References

2007 debut albums
A Place to Bury Strangers albums


Gustav, Gustaf or Gustave may refer to:
Gustav (name), a male given name of Old Swedish origin

Art, entertainment, and media
Primeval (film), a 2007 American horror film
Gustav (film series), a Hungarian series of animated short cartoons
Gustav (Zoids), a transportation mecha in the Zoids fictional universe
Gustav, a character in Sesamstraße
Monsieur Gustav H., a leading character in The Grand Budapest Hotel

Weapons
Carl Gustav recoilless rifle, dubbed "the Gustav" by US soldiers
Schwerer Gustav, 800-mm German siege cannon used during World War II

Other uses
Gustav (pigeon), a pigeon of the RAF pigeon service in WWII
Gustave (crocodile), a large male Nile crocodile in Burundi
Gustave, South Dakota
Hurricane Gustav (disambiguation), a name used for several tropical cyclones and storms
Gustav, a streetwear clothing brand

See also
Gustav of Sweden (disambiguation)
Gustav Adolf (disambiguation)
Gustave Eiffel (disambiguation)

Gustavo (disambiguation)
Gustavs (name)
Gustavsen
Gustavus (disambiguation)
Gustafson, also Gustafsson, Gustavson, or Gustavsson
Gustaw, Afghanistan


A fuel cell bus is a bus that uses a hydrogen fuel cell as its power source for electrically driven wheels, sometimes augmented in a hybrid fashion with batteries or a supercapacitor. The only emission from the bus is water. Several cities around the world have trialled and tested fuel cell buses, with over 5,600 buses in use worldwide, the majority of which are in China.

Background
Owing to the greenhouse gas emissions and particulate pollution produced by diesel buses, transport operators have been moving towards greener and cleaner buses (such as hybrid electric buses and battery electric buses) since the early 2000s. However, battery electric buses lack range compared to diesel buses, take time to charge and have reduced energy storage in cold weather.

Transport operators have therefore evaluated alternatives such as hydrogen fuel cell buses. Hydrogen fuel cells generate electricity by reacting hydrogen and oxygen in the presence of a catalyst, the by-product of which is water. This electricity is used as a power source for an electric motor, which drives the wheels of the bus. Some companies have proposed using the fuel cell as a range extender, combining it with a larger battery or a supercapacitor. Hydrogen has a higher energy density than lithium batteries, making it suitable for heavy vehicles such as buses and trucks.

The provenance of hydrogen fuel varies - with green hydrogen (produced using renewable electricity) being significantly more environmentally friendly than brown hydrogen (produced by burning coal or lignite) or grey hydrogen (produced by steam heating natural gas).

History

Initial tests and trials
From the late 1980s, concern regarding diesel emissions from buses led to experimentation regarding the use of fuel cells to power vehicles. Initial proof of concept work involved demonstrating that fuel cells could be packaged into a bus, and successfully power one. Between 1994 and 1995, the Georgetown Fuel Cell Bus Program (led by Georgetown University and the United States Department of Energy) demonstrated three  buses powered by a phosphoric acid fuel cell from Fuji Electric.
From the late 1990s, hydrogen-powered fuel-cell buses were trialled and experimented in a variety of cities. In 1998, Chicago and Vancouver began trials, using New Flyer Industries bus bodies and Ballard Power Systems hydrogen fuel cells. The three-year trial carried more than 200,000 passengers and travelled over .

From 2000, Hino and Toyota collaborated on the development of FCHV-BUS, a hydrogen fuel cell bus. After initial trials by Toei Bus in 2003, a fleet of 8 FCHV-BUS buses were then used at Expo 2005 in Aichi, Japan. During the Expo, they carried one million visitors and travelled about 130,000 kilometres. The buses were subsequently used as airport shuttle buses.

In the United States, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NERL) in the United States has been undertaking research work on hydrogen fuel cell buses since 2000, in collaboration with the Federal Transit Administration. AC Transit in the San Francisco Bay Area began trials of a hydrogen fuel cell bus in 2002.

Clean Urban Transport for Europe
From 2001, the European Union supported research project Clean Urban Transport for Europe (CUTE) began running hydrogen fuel cell powered buses in nine European cities, including London, Madrid and Hamburg. The project was supported by a consortium of transportation operators, hydrogen infrastructure and fuel cell developers, universities and city authorities. Three other cities - Reykjavík, Beijing and Perth - took part in similar demonstration projects, supported by the same consortium. The Fuel Cell Bus Club became a forum to share experiences and information between cities and researchers.

All three projects used Mercedes-Benz Citaro buses, with hydrogen fuel cells from Ballard Power Systems. At the time they claimed to be the largest fleet of fuel cell buses in the world. The buses were estimated to cost US$1.2 million each and had a range of  and carried around 70 passengers.

Completed in 2007, the projects were deemed a success by researchers. However, the buses were criticised by some operators for their high cost of operation, with Madrid reporting that they were around ten times as costly to fuel. Dedicated Hydrogen filling stations were also required to be built. The buses in Beijing - the first fuel cell buses in China - were withdrawn after one year, as air pollution reduced the efficiency and operating life of the fuel cells.

Further development
In 2006, the Federal Transit Administration announced the National Fuel Cell Bus Technology Development Program. $49m in federal grants would be provided to transit agencies to help develop and test hydrogen fuel cell buses, to improve the potential commercialisation of them. In 2003, AC Transit introduced a Thor “ThunderPower” bus into trial service, with tests complete by October 2004. In 2006, five Van Hool buses powered by UTC Power fuel cells entered service. These were replaced in 2010 by other Van Hool hydrogen fuel cell buses.

In 2009, BC Transit began operating fuel-cell buses in the town of Whistler in British Columbia, prior to the 2010 Winter Olympics. The fleet of 20 hydrogen fuel cell buses was the largest in the world at the time, with the project costing around $94m. Unlike previous projects, the hydrogen used was blue hydrogen, produced by Air Liquide in Quebec using hydroelectricity. Due to high operating costs, the program halted in 2015.

In 2010, eight hydrogen buses were introduced into service in London, with a substantially larger range than the fuel cell buses used in the mid-2000s. At the time, this was the largest hydrogen bus fleet in Europe. Transport for London acknowledged the high cost of the buses and the high cost in fuelling them, but noted that they "[expected] the costs to drop dramatically" as they become commercially viable.

In China, hydrogen fuel cell buses were used at Beijing 2008, Expo 2010 in Shanghai and the 2010 Asian Games in Guangzhou. These buses were developed by Higer Bus, with 3 deployed at Beijing 2008 and 196 at Expo 2010 in Shanghai.

The first Brazilian hydrogen fuel cell bus prototype began operation in São Paulo in 2009. The hydrogen bus was manufactured in Caxias do Sul. The programme, called "Ônibus Brasileiro a Hidrogênio" (Brazilian Hydrogen Autobus), includes three additional buses.

In March 2015, Europe's largest fleet of hydrogen fuel cell buses entered service in Aberdeen, Scotland. 10 Van Hool buses were used on a five-year trial.

Large scale commercial introduction

As of 2020, 5,648 hydrogen fuel cell buses are in use around the world, with 93.7% of them in China. Some early adopters of fuel cell buses have opted to focus on battery electric buses, with London having 950 battery electric buses, and 20 hydrogen fuel cell buses in their fleet as of 2023.

In 2015, Toyota began testing their updated hydrogen fuel cell bus in Tokyo, the Toyota FC Bus. Developed in conjunction with Hino Motors, it utilised technology from the Toyota Mirai hydrogen fuel cell car, as well as from Hino's hybrid buses. In 2017, Toyota unveiled the Toyota Sora bus, with production beginning in March 2018. By 2020, over 100 Toyota Sora buses had been delivered, operating on the Tokyo BRT, JR Bus Kanto and Toei Bus.

In 2018, Toyota announced that they would be supplying their hydrogen fuel cell technology to Portuguese bus manufacturer Caetano, for buses to be sold in Europe. The Caetano H2.City Gold has achieved numerous sales, such in Bielefeld, Cottbus, and Barcelona. Caetano has subsequently begun to brand the bus as a "Toyota", after Toyota became a majority shareholder.

In China, the Feichi (Allenbus) company began manufacturing hydrogen fuel cell buses in Yunfu after licensing the fuel cell technology from Ballard. The hydrogen fuel cell is combined with a 36kWh Lithium-ion battery, which powers the electric motors. Over 300 Feichi buses are now in service in the city of Foshan in Guangdong province in China. Other manufacturers in China also began to produce hydrogen fuel cell buses. Zhongtong Bus began a research and development programme in 2014, and began producing buses in 2016.

In 2018, Zhangjiakou ordered 74 hydrogen fuel cell buses in preparation for the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics. During the Games, over 800 hydrogen fuel cell buses and coaches were used from manufacturers Foton, Yutong, Geely and Zhongtong Bus. Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles were chosen over battery electric vehicles due to the cold weather prevalent in Hebei Province. The substantial use of hydrogen was criticised, given that much of China's hydrogen is "black hydrogen", produced by burning coal. This meant that each kilo of hydrogen produced around 15–20 kg of CO2.

Launched in 2017, the Hyundai  entered commercial service in South Korea in December 2019. By June 2021, 108 buses were in service across South Korea. Trial operations of the ElecCity with Wiener Linien in Vienna, Austria were planned from November 2021, with further tests in Germany also announced. The ElecCity has a range of over , and a maximum output of 180 kW. The cities of Busan and Ulsan announced in 2022 that they planned to introduce over 620 buses by 2025.

In 2019, Polish bus manufacturer Solaris Bus & Coach announced a hydrogen fuel cell bus on their popular Urbino 12 platform. This was subsequently tested by a range of major operators including RATP in Paris, and ordered by European bus operators including Connexxion, ÖBB Postbus, and MPK Poznań. In 2022, Solaris announced a hydrogen fuel cell version of their Urbino 18 articulated bus at InnoTrans 2022.

In 2020, the city of Nanning in China announced they planned to replace their entire 7,000 battery electric bus fleet with better performing hydrogen fuel cell/battery hybrid buses.

, the NERL was continuing work to evaluate fuel cell bus projects in the U.S., with 64 buses in service in California, Hawaii and Ohio. AC Transit has the largest fleet of hydrogen fuel cell buses in the United States, with 22 buses in service from Van Hool and New Flyer. This will allow a direct comparison between battery electric and hydrogen fuel cell buses, to guide future purchasing decisions in light of a desire for a zero emission bus fleet. AC Transit noted that they had the "most comprehensive zero-emission bus (ZEB) program in the United States", and had run  of service with zero emission buses since 2000.

In June 2021, the world's first hydrogen fuel cell double-decker bus (Wright StreetDeck Hydroliner) entered service with Metroline in London on route 7. These buses also entered service in Aberdeen, Scotland. The Hydroliner FCEV was developed as part of the European Union 'Joint Initiative for Hydrogen Vehicles across Europe' (JIVE).

Other bus manufacturers continued to enter the hydrogen fuel cell market, with Iveco announcing a memorandum of understanding with Air Liquide to develop 'hydrogen mobility', and Alexander Dennis announcing a 'next generation' double decker bus. New manufacturers also planned to enter the market, such as Hyzon Motors. Other countries continued to investigate the potential of hydrogen fuel cell buses, with Moscow announcing a pilot of Kamaz buses in 2022.

In May 2022, , the public transport operator for Cologne, Germany ordered up to 100 hydrogen fuel cell buses from Solaris and WrightBus. This followed the announcement of the 'National Hydrogen Strategy' in Germany, which made clear that hydrogen fuel cell buses were a feasible alternative for long-distance routes. Mercedes-Benz announced that their popular eCitaro bus would be made available with a range extender using a Toyota hydrogen fuel cell. This would increase the range of the bus to .

In July 2022, Île-de-France Mobilités (IDFM) ordered 47 fuel cell buses for the Grand Paris region in France at a cost of €48m. Green hydrogen will be used, with the hydrogen produced at an incinerator in Creteil. The managing director of IDFM stated that they wished to send a signal with their first order that bus manufacturers should "improve the technology, bring it to maturity, produce it [commercially] and we will be there".

In July 2022, over five hundred Foton AUV buses joined the Beijing Public Transport Group. Media reported that the buses have a range of around 600 km, and can be refilled in around 10 to 15 minutes. These buses had previously been used at the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics.

In August 2022, India's first domestically developed hydrogen fuel bus was unveiled in Pune. The bus was developed by KPIT Technologies and the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research.

Comparison with battery electric buses
Buses powered by hydrogen fuel cells have some similarities with battery electric buses, as well as key differences.

Both types are zero-emission at the tailpipe, with hydrogen fuel cell buses producing water. However many sources of hydrogen, including those most commonly used, are not zero-emission. Both are propelled by electric motors, and both have been produced by a range of bus manufacturers. Both have upfront costs - such as electric chargers, or a hydrogen fuelling station.

Unlike battery electric buses, hydrogen fuel cell buses can be refuelled in around 10 minutes, compared to an overnight charge for electric buses (or an energy intensive, high current fast charge of a battery). Hydrogen fuel cell buses have a greater range and longer run time than battery electric buses, with a range of around  before refuelling - compared to around  between charges for a battery electric bus. Hydrogen also has a higher energy storage density than batteries. Furthermore, as batteries are made larger to increase range - they become heavier, decreasing energy efficiency.

Hydrogen fuel cell buses are less affected by temperature, with consistent power and range at extreme hot or cold temperatures. Operators of battery electric buses have reported shorter range in low temperatures, with Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe (BVG) reporting a 30% shorter range in cold weather (around ).

The cost of fuelling Hydrogen buses is higher than battery buses. Costs of both battery electric buses and hydrogen fuel cell buses has fallen over time.

Range extender
Some manufacturers have used hydrogen fuel cells as a range extender for battery electric buses, allowing them to have greater range. For example, the Mercedes-Benz eCitaro has a range of  as a battery electric model, with the eCitaro fuel cell bus having a range of  thanks to a 60 kW Toyota fuel cell that recharges the battery.

Costs

Hydrogen fuel
The cost of fuelling buses has varied substantially, due to the cost and availability of hydrogen. Some transit operators have been able to use hydrogen by-product from industrial processes (such as the production of Polyvinyl chloride) to lower the cost. Other transit operators have built small scale plants to produce hydrogen from natural gas, or have purchased it directly from industrial producers.

In 2006, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory stated that the cost of hydrogen fuel was around $9 a kilogram, roughly comparing it to $2 a gallon for diesel. It further noted that the total cost per mile (including maintenance) was around $1 per mile for diesel and around $6.50 per mile for hydrogen. In Europe, the Clean Urban Transport for Europe (CUTE) project in the early 2000s reported fuelling costs around 10 times more than diesel.

In 2021,  reported that the cost of fuelling a hydrogen fuel cell bus is around 2.6 times higher than an equivalent diesel bus, with brown hydrogen predominately used in Japan.

In January 2022, the city of Montpellier, France, cancelled a contract to procure 51 buses powered by hydrogen fuel cells, when it found that "the cost of operation for hydrogen [buses] is 6 times the cost of electricity". The city ordered battery electric buses instead.

In 2021,  reported that their hydrogen fuel cell buses cost around the same as their diesel buses to operate. London reported that the cost of hydrogen was around £6 per kilogram in 2023, roughly comparable with the cost of diesel fuel. Projections from the Hydrogen Council are that hydrogen produced from renewable energy at scale could cost around $1.4 to $2.3 per kilogram.

Vehicles
Costs of fuel cell buses has gradually fallen as technology has become more widespread and commercially viable.

In 2007, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory stated that the purchase price of a hydrogen fuel cell bus was around $2–3m, a standard diesel bus was around $330,000 and a hybrid bus was around $480,000.  in Cologne, Germany reported that the Phileas bus cost them €1.86m to purchase in 2011, a Van Hool A330 cost around €850,000 to purchase in 2014 and €590,000 to purchase in 2020, and that prices had fallen further - with new hydrogen fuel cell buses costing around €500,000 in 2023.

In 2022, the Financial Times reported that the Japanese Toyota FC Sora cost ¥100m (€710,000) for a six-year lease, whereas a diesel bus costs around ¥24m (€170,000). Local authorities have subsidised the cost of the buses to get them into service.

In the United States, it was reported in 2022 that a hydrogen bus cost around $1.2m to purchase, compared to $750,000 for a battery electric bus. The Globe and Mail noted that European produced fuel cell buses are cheaper as they are produced in larger quantities.

Research groups such as H2Bus Consortium are working to lower the cost of hydrogen fuel cell buses to the level of diesel buses, with volume orders and mass production allowing manufacturers to take advantage of economies of scale.

Other costs
When compared to diesel buses, transit operators face additional upfront costs when moving to hydrogen fuel cell buses. This includes constructing hydrogen fuelling stations, as well as purchasing spare parts for new buses. Battery electric buses have similar upfront costs, requiring the installation of electric chargers and upgrades to the electrical grid to handle large numbers of electric buses being charged (often overnight).

Vehicles
, 5,648 hydrogen fuel cell buses are in use around the world, with 93.7% of them in China.

A wide variety of companies are currently producing hydrogen fuel cell buses. Bus manufacturers usually work with a provider of hydrogen fuel cells to power the bus, such as Ballard Power Systems or Toyota.

Vehicles include, but are not limited to:

See also

 Fuel cell vehicle
 List of fuel cell vehicles
 List of buses

References

External links

H2mobility.org Hydrogen buses worldwide [Dead Link]
Toyota FCHV-BUS data sheet
International Fuel Cell Bus Collaborative [Dead Link]

Fuel cell buses
Energy technology


Sikwane is a village in Kgatleng District of Botswana. The village is located 55 km east of Gaborone, close to the border with South Africa, and has primary and secondary schools. The population was 1,585 in 2001 census.

References

Kgatleng District
Villages in Botswana
Botswana–South Africa border crossings


A playscape is either a piece of land modified for children's play (a natural playscape), a particular structure on a playground, or a nontraditional type of play environment. Landscape architects and designers are increasingly using the term to express areas of cities that encourage interaction and enjoyment for all ages. The term was probably first used in the mid-twentieth century, possibly first attributable to the National Institute for Architectural Education in 1957, and associated in the 1960s with the New York-based Playground Corporation of America. It is mentioned by Joe Frost in his 1992 book, Play and Playscapes, referring to attempts to replace or add on to the rubberized surface, metal and plastic of traditional playgrounds.

Playscapes may or may not incorporate traditional playground equipment like swings, slides, and climbers. When they do so, they may incorporate slides or climbers in a more cohesive way than typical playgrounds do—often into embankments. Playscapes may also offer a wide range of open-ended play options that allow people to be creative and use their imagination including sand or earth to sculpt and blocks or other materials to build with.

The term playscape can function at similar scales as the term playground—describing an entire play area or a large part of the play area designated for a certain age group. It may also be applied at a larger scale to describe play landscapes that are organised in non-traditional ways (e.g. along greenways). Playscapes may be defined by clear boundaries or through their shaping of the landscape to encourage play and interaction. Landscape architects and designers are increasingly using the term to refer to areas of cities that encourage interaction and enjoyment for all ages.

History
The term was probably first used in the mid-twentieth century. It is possibly first attributable to the National Institute for Architectural Education in 1957.

The landscape architect Garrett Eckbo was among those who used the term playscape to describe his work. In a Spring 1960 article in Landscape Architecture (now Landscape Architecture Magazine), Eckbo used the term playscape to refer to a play landscape his firm Eckbo, Dean Austin Landscape Architects designed for the Longwood urban renewal project in Cleveland, Ohio:“The central play park became a playscape: a bowl of contoured grassy mounds and hollows, bordered with sheltering specimen trees, and incorporating a little grove of steel poplars, a family of concrete turtles, a fantastic village, contoured sand pit, saddle slide, jumping platform, and the terraced tile wading pool developed around William McVey’s abstract sculpture…” The term was associated in the 1960s with the New York-based Playground Corporation of America.

It is mentioned by Joe Frost in his 1992 book, Play and Playscapes, referring to attempts to replace or add on to the rubberized surface, metal and plastic of traditional playgrounds.

Safety
Playscapes are designed to eliminate fall heights. Playscapes have rolling hills and fallen logs rather than a central play structure with monkey bars. Playscapes have much lower injury rates than standard playgrounds.

Playscapes have a fraction of the number of child injuries compared to standard playgrounds with play structures. The most frequent injury to children on playgrounds is a fracture of the upper limb resulting from falls from climbing apparatuses.  The second most common cause of injury to children on playgrounds is falls from slides.  Fall heights are the largest safety issue for most safety inspectors.

Playscapes combat the issue of fall heights by using topography changes for children to climb and experience changes in height. Companies in Canada have made strides in reducing fall height by using topography as a main feature in their designs.  Topography changes allow designers to be creative when placing components in the playscape.

Developmental benefits
Playscapes offer a wide range of benefits such as increasing physical activity, fine and gross motor skills & cognitive development. They are also used in horticultural therapy for rehabilitation of mental and/or physical ailment. They increase participation rates and decrease absenteeism, decrease bullying, decrease injury rates, increase focus and attention span and help with social skills in schools. Playscapes have shown to increase children's level of physical activity, and motor ability. Playscapes are found to be very beneficial in the growth and development of children both mentally and physically. Cognitive development, focus, attention span and social skills are all improved.

Design
Playscapes are not intimidating regardless of ability or fitness level. Playscapes have no central location, or prescribed area of play. They are open-ended spaces that entice children to use their imagination and creativity. Playscapes do not prescribe in an area that encourages a physical hierarchy, thus reducing bullying and competition based on physical strength and ability.

Playscapes are not limited to public parks and schools.  Select hospitals in Sweden and North America have playscapes on their facility.  Hospitals use playscapes for horticultural therapy, which has proven to increase emotional, cognitive, and motor improvements and increased social participation, quality of life and well-being.

Since 2006 Landscape Architects Adam White and Andrée Davies have pioneered the playscape approach to play space design in the UK. They have won a number of design and community engagement awards each year for their work; these have included: RHS Gold Medal and BBC Peoples Choice Award, Landscape Institute Communication & Presentation Award, Horticultural Weekly Award and Children and Young Peoples Services Award for genuine community design engagement.

In 2009 they won the award for the 'UK's Best Play Space' at the Horticultural Week Awards and were shortlisted for December's BALI Construction Awards and the UK Landscape Architects Design Awards. In 2007 and they were reported as ‘ahead of the game’ in their profession by the Sunday Telegraph, and in June 2009 they were profiled in The Times for their recently completed Lyric Theatre Roof Terrace Garden in Hammersmith, London.

Natural playground
Nature playgrounds use natural landscapes, natural vegetation, and materials in a creative and interactive way for child play and exploration. Nature playscapes are created for the enhancement of a child's curiosity, imagination, wonder, discovery, to nurture a child's connectedness and affinity for the world around them. Using native plants, rolling hills, and many trees, these playscapes may represent a natural place such as a forest. Playscapes are designed with the intent of bringing people back to nature. (See Richard Louv's Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature Deficit Disorder, 2005).

North Carolina State University Landscape Design professor, Robin C. Moore, has been designing and studying both nature playgrounds and urban playscapes for many years. His 2014 book, Nature Play and Learning Places: Creating and Managing Places Where Children Engage with Nature, was written in collaboration with Alan Cooper of the US National Wildlife Federation. This user-friendly text is a resource for stakeholders wanting to both view and consider elements to include in a playscape design. Many other books are available that serve as guides for playscape creation, too.

The technological age has changed the ways in which children play. It is therefore up to parents, communities and schools to re-introduce to children what it means to play in the outdoors.

Play components may include earth shapes (sculptures), environmental art, indigenous vegetation (trees, shrubs, grasses, flowers, lichens, mosses), boulders or other rock structures, dirt and sand, natural fences (stone, willow, wooden), textured pathways, and natural water features.

See also
 Children Youth and Environments Journal
 Buddy bench

References

Moore, R.C. (2014). Nature play and learning places: Creating and managing places where children engage with nature. (With A. Cooper) Raleigh, NC: Natural Learning Initiative and Reston, VA: National Wildlife Federation.

Frost, J.L. (1992). Play and playscapes. Clifton Park, NY: Delmar.

Play (activity)
Types of garden
Landscape architecture


Mmathubudukwane is a village in Kgatleng District of Botswana.

Location
The village is located 60 km east of Gaborone, close to the border with South Africa.

Healthcare
It has a health clinic.

Population
The population was 2,049 in 2001 census.

References

Kgatleng District
Villages in Botswana


Sirngmikuluk (Inuktitut syllabics: ᓯᕐᖕᒥᑯᓗᒃ) formerly Narsarsuk Glacier is a glacier in the southeastern Byam Martin Mountains of Bylot Island, Nunavut, Canada.

See also
List of glaciers in Canada

References

Glaciers of Qikiqtaaluk Region
Arctic Cordillera


Jilotepec de Molina Enríquez, known as Jilotepec de Abasolo until 1986, and commonly known as Jilotepec, is a city located in the northwest zone of the State of Mexico in Mexico. The name comes from Náhuatl, meaning "hill of corncobs". It is the municipal seat and largest city of the municipality of Jilotepec (not Jilotepec de Molina Enríquez). It is located in hilly and forested terrain about an hour's drive from Mexico City and the state capital of Toluca, 40 minutes from San Juan del Río, 30 minutes from Tula and 20 minutes from Tepeji. The Mexico City–Querétaro highway and the new Transoceanic Freeways that unite the coasts of Mexico from Veracruz to Michoacán converge within its territory.

The municipality of Jilotepec is located 1670 meters above sea level and covers an area of 586.53 km2, being the fourth-largest municipality in the State of Mexico. According to INEGI data, Jilotepec de Abasolo has a population of 71,624. The municipality borders the municipalities of Polotitlan, Aculco, Timilpan, Chapa de Mota, Villa del Carbón, Soyaniquilpan and the state of Hidalgo. At the end of the 18th century, Jilotepec was part of the municipality of Huichapan, in the District of Tula. On March 11, 1824, Jilotepec de Abasolo was created from parts of Huichapan Chapa de Mota, Villa del Carbón, and Acambay.

The town of Jilotepec de Molina Enríquez

The city had a population of 10,503 as of 2005.

The region was originally inhabited by Otomis then  conquered in 1379 by Acamapichtli the Aztec tlatoani (chief), later during the Viceroyalty of New Spain and the porfirian era, Jilotepec received waves of mostly Spanish and French settlers. After the Spanish Conquest, Jilotepec was recorded in ecclesiastical records as a village with a single priest, administrated by the Franciscans with the Brothers Alonso de Rangel and Antonio de Ciudad Rodrigo being the first to evangelize the area. Sometime in the middle of the 16th century, silver was discovered in Zacatecas and Guanajuato, leading to the construction of the Camino Real a Zacatecas (Royal Road to Zacatecas) with passed through>

Geography
Jilotepec lies in the north of the state of Mexico. To its north is the state of Hidalgo, to the south are the municipalities of Chapa de Mota and Timilpan, to the southeast is Villa del Carbón, to the east is Soyanilquilpan, and to the west are Polotitlán and Aculco.

Political Geography
There is one city in the municipality of Jilotepec, the municipal head Jilotepec de Molina Enríquez which is divided into six neighborhoods, or colonias: Colonia Centro, Javier Barrios, La Merced, El Deni, La Cruz de Dendho, and Xhisda.

There is only one village, or villa, the Villa de Canalejas

There are 23 towns, or pueblos:

There are 24 small towns, or rancherías:

Physical Geography
The primary geographical features of the region are fertile plains interrupted by hills and canyons. The municipality sits at the northern edge of the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt physiographic region on the Sierra Nevada mountain range. The municipality is further divided by the subregions of the plains and mountains of Querétaro and Hidalgo to the north, and the lakes and volcanoes of Anáhuac comprising a small part of the municipality to the south. It is the fifth largest municipality in the state of Mexico.

Geology
The geological substrate of the municipality is primarily extrusive igneous rock, that is, volcanic in origin.  These rocks are notable for the presence of basaltic lava flows, deposits of basaltic ash, slag, and pyroclastic rocks. Many of the older buildings in Jilotepec were built using these basaltic rocks.

The soil is mostly luvisolic, comprises 75% of the municipality's soil, and is particularly suited to agricultural industry though susceptible to erosion. About 15% of the soil is vertisolic and is located in the east of the municipality. This soil is prone to contraction in the dry season and is suited for grasses and grazing.

The primary mineral resource of the region is kaolin, a white clay that is useful in porcelain and medicine making. Other minerals that can be found in the municipality include chalcedony and tezontle.

Hydrology
Jilotepec is in the Alto Pánuco hydrologic region of the state of Mexico in the San Juan river basin. The most notable river in the municipality is the Coscomate which feeds into the Danxho reservoir and numerous streams such as Los Charcos, El Colorado, Dedeni, La Mina and 40 others. The Huapango reservoir is the municipality's largest at 120 million m3, followed by the Danxho with 31 million m3, and the Santa Elena with 5 million m3. In addition to other smaller streams and reservoirs the municipality is supplied with water by the San Pablo Huantepec spring which flows at 10 L/s.

The municipality has a good supply of underground water thanks to the high permeability of the soil in most of the region. The quality of the water is "acceptable" though it is contaminated with waste and untreated water, especially in the municipal head where the Coscomate River and Colorado Stream flow.

Fauna
Jilotepec has not done an exhaustive survey of the wildlife within its municipal borders but they do have an informal registry of species. There is a diversity of frogs, lizards, and snakes (only three of which are venomous) in Jilotepec. The birds of the region concentrate around the forests and lakes and represent the greatest diversity of wildlife in the municipality. The mammals of the region include common herbivores and carnivores such as weasels, coyotes, squirrels, and possums.

Fish
Only the charal is common to the region. It is commonly fished for food and typically dried. The charal has a wide tolerance for changes in weather common to the municipality throughout the year. Though it is easily found and commonly consumed, there is no industry actively exploiting the charal population in Jilotepec. Though not native to the region, carp (Cyprinus carpio) and largemouth bass (Micropterus salmoides) are commercially farmed, recently being introduced to the Huapango reservoir.

Flora
Jilotepec's vegetation is predominantly semiarid grassland. In the north, the oak forests of Las Peñas are the largest in the state of Mexico. Throughout the municipality maguey, nopal, and tejocote are common, as well as many plants used in traditional medicinal recipes. There are two protected areas in Jilotepec: the state park El Llano Canalejas and the municipal park Las Sequoias as well as many smaller local parks and forests.

Climate
The climate of Jilotepec varies between Cwa and Cwb on the Köppen climate classification, meaning it's in a temperate zone with dry winters and warm to hot summers. The southern portion of the region is noticeably cooler than the northern region which is closer to the warmer region of the Bajío. Likewise, rain is more intense in the south of the state than in the north.

Economy

6,416 hectares of the municipality is dedicated to the production of corn (the major crop), beans, wheat and livestock which is very important activity in the economic life of Jilotepec. Livestock includes cows pigs, sheep, and deer being a major dairy and meat producer. There are also farms with 8.5 millions birds for the production of meat and eggs. The raising of freshwater fish is a growing industry in the municipality as well.

The municipality has two types of industry, the first being family workshops which produce clothes, ceramics and pottery.  The second are factories focused on the production and embroidery of clothes for men and the manufacturing of plastic containers and other wool products. Its largest employer is the tool manufacturing company Truper.

References

External links

  Municipal Official Site

Municipalities of the State of Mexico
Populated places in the State of Mexico
Otomi settlements
Municipality seats in the State of Mexico


Modipane is a village in Kgatleng District of Botswana. The village is located 25 km east of Gaborone, close to the border with South Africa and has a primary school. The population was 2,423 in 2001 census.

References

Kgatleng District
Villages in Botswana


Jimi Maasi Glacier is a glacier in northeastern Baffin Island, Nunavut, Canada.

See also
List of glaciers

References

Glaciers of Baffin Island
Arctic Cordillera


Mabalane is a village in Kgatleng District of Botswana.

Location
It is located 55 km east of Gaborone, close to the border with South Africa.

Education
It has a primary school.

Population
The population was 814 in 2001 census.

References

Kgatleng District
Villages in Botswana


Muslim society #3 is considered a terrorist group of the Wahhabism stream, operating in Russia. This is on the account of members committing a grouping explosions of apartment houses in Moscow and Volgodonsk in 1999 (232 victims), 2 acts of terrorism in the Moscow underground in 2004 (52 victims, 300 wounded men), acts of terrorism in Krasnodar (3 victims, 20 wounded men), Voronezh (1 victim, 6 wounded men), Stavropol Territory, the Rostov-on-Don area. It was created in 1995.

It preached ideas of wahhabism, having created branches in Karachay–Cherkessia and Kabardino-Balkaria. The members of the "Society" have developed the plan of the armed capture of authority in Karachay–Cherkessia and Kabardino-Balkaria and creations in their territory of an Islamic state. To carry out these plans of the wahhabits were not successful because of the beginning of operations in the Chechen Republic in the end of 1999. It then began carrying out acts of terrorism.

References
google books

External links
 Конец «общества № 3» // Время новостей, 27 сентября 2002
 Карачаево-Черкесcкий джамаат // Агентура. Ру
 Пожизненная кара // Время новостей, 5 февраля 2007

Islamic terrorism in Russia


Mark Adler (born 1959) is an American software engineer. He is best known for his work in the field of data compression as the author of the Adler-32 checksum function, and a co-author together with Jean-loup Gailly of the zlib compression library and gzip. He has contributed to Info-ZIP, and has participated in developing the Portable Network Graphics (PNG) image format.
Adler was also the Spirit Cruise Mission Manager for the Mars Exploration Rover mission.

Early life and education
Adler was born in Miami, Florida and raised as the only child of David and Bertha Adler. Adler earned his Bachelor of Science in mathematics and Master of Science in electrical engineering degrees from the University of Florida in 1981 and 1985, respectively.  In 1990, Adler earned his Ph.D. in physics from the California Institute of Technology.

Career

Post-doctoral
After his doctorate, Adler worked for Hughes Aircraft in their Space and Communications Group, working on diverse projects including the analysis of the effects of X-ray bursts on satellite cables, development of new error-correcting codes, designing an automobile anti-theft key, and digital image and video compression research (wavelets and MPEG-2).

Mars exploration
From 1992 through 1995, Adler was the Lead Mission Engineer on the Cassini–Huygens mission. Afterwards, he became the Mars Exploration Program Architect at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) from 1996 through 1998, which meant that Adler was responsible for planning the Mars exploration missions from 2001 on as well as handling inter-project engineering issues for missions in flight and in development during the time. In 1999 and early 2000, Adler was the Mission and Systems Manager and Chief Engineer for the Mars Sample Return project, which was to launch three missions in 2003 and 2005 to bring Martian samples back to Earth in 2008. The project was canceled after the failure of Mars Polar Lander.

Mars Exploration Rover mission
Adler initiated and led a three-and-a-half-week study on the concept that was later selected as the Mars Exploration Rover (MER) mission for 2003. He has served as the Deputy Mission System Manager, the Acting Project Engineer, the Deputy Assembly, Test, and Launch Operations Manager, the Landing Site Selection Engineer, and the Spirit Mission Manager.

Low Density Supersonic Decelerator
Adler is currently the project chief of the Low Density Supersonic Decelerator.

Personal life and interests
Adler is an instrument-rated private pilot, a certified scuba diver, and an amateur theater actor.

He is married to Diana St. James. They live in La Cañada, California. They have two children, Joshua and Zachary. St. James works at the California Institute of Technology and acts in and directs theatrical performances.

Awards and recognition
Together with co-author Jean-loup Gailly, Adler received the 2009 USENIX Software Tools User Group (STUG) award for their contributions to FLOSS algorithms for data compression.

References

1959 births
Living people
People from Miami
American computer scientists
20th-century American mathematicians
21st-century American mathematicians
21st-century American physicists
GNU people
People from La Cañada Flintridge, California
California Institute of Technology alumni
University of Florida College of Engineering alumni
NASA people
Jet Propulsion Laboratory


Utinatuk Glacier is a glacier located on the central coast of Baffin Island, Nunavut, Canada.

See also
List of glaciers

References

Glaciers of Baffin Island
Arctic Cordillera


Elizabeth Freya Garbus (born April 11, 1970) is an American documentary film director and producer. Notable documentaries Garbus has made are The Farm: Angola, USA, Ghosts of Abu Ghraib, Bobby Fischer Against the World, Love, Marilyn, What Happened, Miss Simone?, and Becoming Cousteau. She is co-founder and co-director of the New York City-based documentary film production company Story Syndicate.

Early life and education
Garbus grew up in New York City. She is the daughter of civil rights attorney Martin Garbus and writer, therapist, and social worker Ruth Meitin Garbus. Her family is Jewish.

In 1992, Garbus graduated magna cum laude with a bachelor's degree in history and semiotics from Brown University.

Career
While in high school, Garbus made a documentary about students' last day of school. Then while at Brown she took classes in video production.

After college, Garbus worked as an intern at Miramax, eventually getting a job working for filmmaker Jonathan Stack.

In 1998, The Farm: Angola, USA, which she co-directed with Jonathan Stack, was nominated for an Academy Award. The film garnered multiple awards including the Sundance Grand Jury Prize and two Emmy awards.

In 1998, she co-founded an independent documentary production company, Moxie Firecracker Films, with fellow Brown University alumna Rory Kennedy. The company name is a combination of each woman's previously separate production companies: Kennedy's company was called Moxie and Garbus’ company was called Firecracker.

In 2002, Garbus' film The Execution of Wanda Jean was shown at the Sundance Film Festival.

In 2003, Garbus directed The Nazi Officer's Wife, which was narrated by Susan Sarandon and Julia Ormond.

In 2005, Garbus collaborated with partner Rory Kennedy to executive-produce Street Fight about the 2002 Newark mayoral election; it was nominated for an Academy Award.

In 2006, the pair worked with actress Rosie Perez to produce her film Yo Soy Boricua.

In 2007, Garbus' film Ghosts of Abu Ghraib premiered at Sundance and won an Emmy for Outstanding Non-Fiction Special of 2007.

In 2007, Garbus directed the film Coma, which aired on HBO in July of that year. The film follows four brain-injured patients receiving treatment at the JFK-Johnson Medical Facility in New Jersey.

In 2009, Garbus’s film, Shouting Fire: Stories from the Edge of Free Speech (HBO) premiered at the Sundance Film Festival.

In 2011, There's Something Wrong with Aunt Diane was chosen to be a part of HBO’s Documentary Films Summer Series.

In 2011, Garbus directed Bobby Fischer Against the World, which chronicled the great Cold War showdown between Bobby Fischer and Boris Spassky in 1972. The film premiered on HBO and opened the Premiere Documentary Section of the Sundance Film Festival.

Bobby Fischer Against the World, opened the documentary section of the 2011 Sundance Film Festival, reserved for master American documentary filmmakers.

In 2011, Garbus was nominated a second time for an Academy Award, for her film Killing in the Name, which she produced with her producing partner Rory Kennedy.

Garbus' 2012 film, Love, Marilyn featured Elizabeth Banks, Ellen Burstyn, Glenn Close, Viola Davis, Jennifer Ehle, Lindsay Lohan, Lili Taylor, Uma Thurman, Marisa Tomei, Evan Rachel Wood and others reading from Monroe’s never-before-seen private writings. The film opened as a Gala Premiere at the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival and was acquired by HBO for a 2013 debut.

Love, Marilyn, internationally opened as a Gala Premiere at the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival and aired on HBO summer of 2013.

In 2014, A Good Job: Stories of the FDNY, which Garbus directed and produced, premiered on HBO and featured first-hand accounts of veteran firefighters and interviews conducted by former FDNY member Steve Buscemi.

In 2015, she directed What Happened, Miss Simone? a documentary about the singer Nina Simone. What Happened, Miss Simone? was the opening night film for Sundance Film Festival, it was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature 2015, a Grammy for Best Music Film 2015, and Garbus was nominated for a DGA Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Documentary. The film was released by Netflix on June 26, 2015. It won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Documentary.

In January 2018, The New York Times announced that Garbus and a documentary crew had been "basically living in the...newsroom since Inauguration Day [with] full access to the Russia investigation and much more." The completed work called The Fourth Estate aired on Showtime in May 2018.

In May 2018, HBO premiered Garbus' documentary, A Dangerous Son, which portrays three families as they deal with severe mental illness of three different children, and their efforts to get treatment and navigate the health care system.

In September 2020, Garbus released All In: The Fight for Democracy, a documentary film about voting rights in the United States starring voting rights activist Stacey Abrams and featuring other American politicians including former United States Attorney General Eric Holder and then-Representative Marcia Fudge.

In 2021, Garbus released Becoming Cousteau, a documentary revolving around Jacques Cousteau for National Geographic Documentary Films. In 2022, Garbus directed Harry & Meghan, a documentary series for Netflix revolving around Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.

Personal life
Garbus is married to film producer Dan Cogan, the two have a daughter, Amelia, and a son, Theodore.

Filmography

Works and publications

Selected honors and awards
 Open Society's Center on Crime, Communities, and Culture, Fellow
 1998: Sundance Film Festival, Documentary, Grand Jury Prize for The Farm: Angola, USA with Jonathan Stack – tied with Frat House
 1998: L.A. Film Critics Association Awards, Best Documentary/Non-Fiction Film for The Farm: Angola, USA with Jonathan Stack
 1998: New York Film Critics Circle Awards, Best Non-Fiction Film for The Farm: Angola, USA with Jonathan Stack
 1999: Emmy Award, Outstanding Non-Fiction Special (nominee) for The Farm: Angola, USA with Jonathan Stack, Gayle Gilman, Michael Cascio
 1999: Academy Award, Best Documentary, Feature (nominee) for The Farm: Angola, USA with Jonathan Stack
 2002: Sundance Film Festival, Documentary, Grand Jury Prize (nominee) for The Execution of Wanda Jean
 2003: SXSW Film Festival, Documentary Feature, Audience Award for Girlhood
 2006: Emmy Award, Outstanding Continuing Coverage of a News Story - Long Form (nominee) for P.O.V. Street Fight with Rory Kennedy, Cara Mertes, Sally Jo Fifer, Marshall Curry
 2007: Emmy Award, Outstanding Non-Fiction Special for Ghosts of Abu Ghraib with Rory Kennedy, Jack Youngelson, Diana Barrett, Sheila Nevins, Nancy Abraham
 2009: Sundance Film Festival, Documentary, Grand Jury Prize (nominee) for Shouting Fire: Stories from the Edge of Free Speech
 2012: Emmy Award, Outstanding Non-Fiction Special (nominee) for Bobby Fischer Against the World with Sheila Nevins, Dan Cogan, Stanley F. Buchthal, Rory Kennedy, Matthew Justus, Nancy Abraham
 2015: Peabody Award for What Happened, Miss Simone?
 2016: Directors Guild of America Award, Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Documentary (nominee) for What Happened, Miss Simone?
 2016: Emmy Award, Outstanding Non-Fiction Special for What Happened, Miss Simone? with Sidney Beaumont, Amy Hobby, Justin Wilkes, Jayson Jackson
 2016: Emmy Award, Outstanding Directing for Nonfiction Programming (nominee) for What Happened, Miss Simone?
 2016: Academy Award, Best Documentary, Feature (nominee) for What Happened, Miss Simone? with Amy Hobby, Justin Wilkes
 2021: Peabody Award (nominee) for Nuclear Family

References

External links

1970 births
Living people
Brown University alumni
American documentary film directors
Place of birth missing (living people)
20th-century American Jews
American documentary film producers
American film producers
American women documentary filmmakers
American women television directors
American television directors
21st-century American Jews
20th-century American women
21st-century American women


The 2005–06 Scottish Challenge Cup was the 15th season of the competition, competed for by all 30 members of the Scottish Football League. The defending champions were Falkirk, who defeated Ross County 2–1 in the 2004 final. Falkirk did not compete in the tournament after being promoted to the Scottish Premier League.

The final was played on 6 November 2005 and was won by St Mirren who defeated Hamilton Academical 2–1 in the final at Excelsior Stadium in Airdrie.

Schedule

First round
Airdrie United and Dumbarton received random byes into the second round

Source: ESPN Soccernet

Second round

Source: ESPN Soccernet

Quarter-finals

Semi-finals

Final

External links
 ESPN Soccernet Scottish League Challenge Cup page

Scottish Challenge Cup seasons
Challenge Cup


Minimal Man was an American industrial and experimental rock project, formed in 1979 in San Francisco, California by leader Patrick Miller.

Background

Minimal Man was formed in San Francisco, California in 1979 by leader Patrick Miller, a visual and sound artist who moved to San Francisco in the late 1970s. The band often changed members, featuring at different times members of bands such as Tuxedomoon, Factrix and others active in the then-thriving San Francisco experimental, post-punk and industrial scenes.

Minimal Man remained active in San Francisco recording on the Subterranean Records label until the mid-1980s, after which Miller relocated to Europe, often working with compatriots Tuxedomoon who had made a similar move previously.

The Minimal Man output ceased after the 1980s, and Miller returned to Los Angeles, where he worked as a set dresser.

Miller died at his home in Eagle Rock on December 14, 2003.

Discography
 Studio albums

 The Shroud Of (1981)
 Safari (1984)
 Sex with God (1985)
 Slave Lullabyes (1986)
 Hunger Is All She Has Ever Known (1988)
 Pure (1988)

 Extended plays

 Sex Teacher (1985)

 Single

 "She Was a Visitor"/"He Who Falls" (1980)
 "Two Little Skeletons"/"Tired Death" (1983)
 "Mock Honeymoon" (1987)

References

External links

 "The Pop Life; Drugs, Demons: A Man in a Mask" – New York Times article on Minimal Man

Musical groups from San Francisco
American industrial music groups


David Reekie is an eminent English glass sculptor who uses drawing and glass casting to express his unique vision of the human condition. His art can be found in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, as well as in several other public collections in the United Kingdom.

A founding member of British Artists in Glass, now the Contemporary Glass Society, Reekie's work has featured in countless periodicals and in over 60 exhibits worldwide.

Background and education

Born in the London Borough of Hackney (1947), David Reekie discovered an early love of drawing that has remained central to his life and work for well over four decades. Distinguished by his talent with a pencil and an active perceptive faculty he was encouraged to attend art college.

Reekie studied art at Stourbridge College of Art (1967–1970). Set in the heart of the UK's traditional glass making industry, Stourbridge College of Art was a natural place of innovation and discovery in the world of glass art. What is thought to be the only complete remaining glass cone of its kind, reaching 100 ft into the air and enclosing a furnace around which glass has been made for almost two centuries, the Red House Cone, dominates the landscape.

At Stourbridge, Reekie studied under the pioneering glass sculptor Harry Seager whose plate glass stacking pieces, were ahead of his time. He also drew inspiration from Professor Keith Cummings commonly known as the father of English cast glass. A pioneer of cire perdue, or the lost wax casting technique, Professor Cummings is an internationally recognised glass artist and author of a number of books on the subject. Reekie went on to study at Birmingham College of Art Education, eventually obtaining a fellowship in glass at Lincolnshire and Humberside Arts (1975–1980).

In 1976 Reekie was part of a group of glass artists who founded British Artist's in Glass, now the Contemporary Glass Society This organisation was partly instrumental in bringing Reekie's work international recognition.

In 1988, he was awarded a Winston Churchill Travel Fellowship to research glass in architecture in the US. His work is currently shown in America by Thomas R.Riley Galleries, Cleveland, Ohio. Reekie has lectured extensively on glass sculpture and his own casting technique, in the UK Europe, US and Australia.

Modus operandi

An innovator both artistically and technically in the field, Reekie's work more often than not, begins on the page with a sketch or a drawing. These drawings are surreal in character and similar in attitude to the humorist John Tenniel, who worked first for Punch magazine and later collaborated with Lewis Carroll in producing the illustrations for Alice in Wonderland.

Like Tenniel, Reekie is driven not so much by the inner nature or surface beauty of his medium, so much as by his observations of the foibles and failings of human and animal character. As Jennifer Hawkins Opie of the Victoria and Albert Museum puts is:

"Unlike many of his contemporaries, the intrinsic beauty of glass holds little fascination for Reekie; in his work the material must be pressed into the service of narrative and comment. His telling explorations of humankind's obsessions are unique in contemporary British glass and they tread a fine between comedy and tragedy"

This combination of pictorial satirist and skilled craftsman, places Reekie's work in the tradition of the London born painter, engraver and social critic, William Hogarth

The 18th-century Hogarth took a lively interest in London street life and the political questions of the day, which he expressed in his paintings and engravings. A Londoner himself, Reekie states that one of the sources of his inspiration is newspaper photographs. The penny dreadfuls of today perhaps providing a ready source of images and stories, revealing the often absurd nature of our relationships with one another and political life.

Reekie's drawings also share certain qualities with those of the French caricaturist Honoré Daumier. The chequered shirt in Reekie's Different People may well be an implicit reference to the influence of Daumier on his Art.

While these drawings are the means by which Reekie initially expresses his ideas, what makes them unique among his forerunners, is that they are given three-dimensional form in coloured, cast glass.

Method

An early enthusiast of cast glass, Reekie has developed his own distinct version of the lost wax casting method. The lost wax process can be traced back to the Romans and involves creating a wax model which is then encased in a casting material and steamed out.

The piece is modelled first in wax with the base being moulded out of clay. The modelling is a gradual process that takes about two weeks.

Reekie is not simply an artist, but a craftsman par excellence, and it is here the skills of his craft first come to the fore. When the artist is satisfied with the model, it is carefully encased in a plaster and flint mould. As soon as the mould is dry, the clay is gently removed and the wax model is steamed out. The mould is now ready to be filled with glass cullet.

Whilst the mould is still damp, Reekie paints the inside surfaces with vitreous enamel which gives the glass the kind of 'painterly quality' that characterises his drawings: a technique perfected over many years. In this way the colour is transferred to the three dimensional glass sculpture. A displacement test, using a bucket of water in the manner of Archimedes, is used to measure the quantity of glass needed. The mould is then filled with cullet and transferred to a kiln.

The kiln firing programme takes about ten days. During the first 24 hours of the firing programme, more glass is added as the cullet melts down. After 48 hours the glass will have melted and there is nothing to do but wait for the firing cycle to run its course. The cooling or annealing process, takes about a week. The mould can then be carefully removed, using wooden tools. When cold. the glass is ground and polished with diamond tools.

Themes

A central theme of Reekie's work is the threat that modern life poses to our individuality and to the natural world. Much of his work is Kafkaesque in its perception of the powerful, anonymous forces that try to shape us; and our ability (or lack of it) to either adapt to them or escape them.

His expression of this is often satirically humorous, see for example the Robot Series in the gallery below. Reekie states that this series was partly inspired by his childhood memories of watching Forbidden Planet and Robby the Robot in the 1950s. Before the appearance of Robby, robots in movies and plays tended to lack personality characteristics, being simple mechanical devices. The artist suggests that his pieces are created to question our own, often robotic or mindless behaviour. Indeed, human stupidity is a recurrent theme of Reekie's work.

Perhaps the fact that today we give robots human characteristics, is as much a reflection on our own mechanical and unimaginative responses to the conditions we find ourselves in, as it is to developing technologies. In some sense our adaptability may well be our undoing. The title of the Robot Series, can be understood as a humorous take on Isaac Asimov's Robot series – and the Three Laws of Robotics may well feature. Another work by the artist, expressing the same themes is 'The Engineers'.

Reekie's work is occasionally overtly political, in Rising Tension for instance, we are told that the piece "relates to terrorism or the Israeli-Palestinian conflict" and that it shows his own frustration about people's stubbornness and inability to get along. More often than not however, he is concerned with questions that relate to the human condition generally:
 "My work is influenced by our reaction and adaptation to the society that surrounds us. We live in a world that grows more complex and difficult to comprehend. It has tensions and temptations that pull us in different directions. This creates characters and situations that provide a constant source of material from which I take my ideas",

In A Captive Audience (a work commissioned by the Victoria and Albert Museum) the text accompanying the piece described it in the following terms:
A band of naked figures stands rooted to the spot, each the clone of his neighbour, each indistinguishable from his neighbour, all hemmed in by a barrier and trapped on a confining platform. Seven of the figures face forward, but the eighth, at the back and unseen by his companions, has turned his head. He looks outside the barrier, perhaps hoping for a world with fewer rules and restrictions."

In a series of sculptures entitled Living in Confined Spaces, Reekie explores his sense of the ever-increasing restrictions we place upon ourselves.

The food we eat, the way we think, our notions of physical and political space are all in some ways becoming more limited. ... At the same time, these pieces also illustrate how humans can rise above their limited and shrinking world and somehow manage to find ways of making their predicament more tolerable'.

Recent work

An Exchange of Information

Reekie's latest work can be found in a solo exhibition, hosted by Dan Klein Associates. The exhibition is entitled, An Exchange of Information.

In these pieces the artist uses an 'Everyman' figure in the form of an archetypal glass head and a series of small ceramic birds, to express his perception of our relationship with birds.

These small ceramic, mass-produced birds, are familiar artefacts in our cultural landscape. Frequently found at car boot sales, they haunt the shelves of charity shops and the mantelpieces of old ladies who treasure them. The juxtappositon of these small birds alongside slightly unnerving, disembodied, glass heads, reminds us of the work of the surrealist René Magritte, who often used everyday, familiar objects, placed in new contexts, to infuse the object with a new significance, while making us aware of its hidden ambiguities.

As the artist himself puts it, "through surreal uses of situation and perception. I have tried to illustrate aspects of human behaviour. Often I used ironic. sometimes macabre humour to make a point"

Birds have always had a certain place in our mythology and literature. In Ancient Egypt, the God Thoth has a bird's head (the head of an ibis). He is considered the 'heart and tongue' of Ra, and the means by which Ra's will is translated into speech. An Augur, or priest of Ancient Rome, was said to be able to interpret 'the will of the Gods' by reading the behaviour of birds. While Native Americans, renowned for their understanding of the natural world and their reverence for it, relied upon the eagle, to take their prayers to the Great Spirit. We need only remind ourselves of the recent devastation caused by avian influenza to gain an appreciation what is at stake in our relationship with these small garden birds. It is symptomatic of our relationship with the natural world itself. As Mark Cocker in his review of these pieces, writes:

It may seem absurd today. But perhaps we should reflect that in 1997 the Labour government offered a series of indices to measure the quality of life in this country. One of those yardsticks for the good life in Britain was bird populations. We are all now familiar how birds act as indicators for the quality of our environment. The owl, whose cry pierces the darkness, or the kestrel which wrestles the wind to a standstill at the motorway verge, will only survive if the trees, the insects, the other animals, the flowers and the countryside itself are all present and correct.

In An Exchange of Information the distinct nature of the materials used for the different parts of the sculpture, appears to underpin the distance between human beings and birds in modern life.

The ceramic birds used in these pieces are mass-produced and 'made in Taiwan, while the glass head is hand-crafted by the artist himself. The bird and the man survey one another, raising questions not simply about ourselves and the natural world, but about the relationship between Art itself and these Cultural artefacts. We live in close proximity with these small creatures, who find their way into our homes and shared spaces and yet the distance between us appears unbridgeable. The work speaks on many levels. These latest pieces suggest an affinity with the work of William Morris and his understanding of the part that methods of production play in the conditions in which we find ourselves.

Besides the evident surreal humour in these pieces, Reekie's work displays a sympathetic 'self mockery' and casts a sidelong, rather amused look back at itself. Like the artist himself, the pieces refer ironically to their own fragile existence in the modern world.

Gallery

Exhibitions
2008 'Myths and Legends', Contemporary Applied Arts, St Percy St, London.
2008 Palm Beach3, US Thomas R Riley Galleries. Exchange of Information, Dan Klein Associates Co[]etc. V&A Museum, London
2007 Palm Beach3, US Thomas R Riley Galleries. Verriales 2007. Galerie Internationale Du Verre, Biot, France
2006 Palm Beach3 Contemporary, US. Thomas R Riley Galleries
2005 Talking to Strangers, One man show at Thomas R Riley galleries, Cleveland, Ohio
2005 21st Century British Glass, Danial Katz Gallier/ Dan Klein associates, DUAL VISION, The Simona and Jerome Chazen Collection, Museum of Arts & Design, New York, SOFA New York, Thomas R Riley Galleries, The Art of Craft, Medici Gallery, London. Glass Collectors Weekend, Wheaton Village, New Jersey, Verriales 2005. Galerie Internationale du Verre, Biot, France
2004 Palm Beach Contemporary, US. Thomas R Riley Galleries. The Human Condition. The Figure in British Art 1950–2002 Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery. British Glass Biennale
2003 ArtForm, Palm Beach, US, Thomas R Riley Galleries. The 31st Annual International Glass Invitational, Habatat Galleries, Michigan, US
SOFA 2003, New York City, Thomas R Riley Galleries
Verriales 2003. Galerie Internationale Du Verre, Biot, France. Glass Collectors Weekend, Wheaton Village, New Jersey, US, Thomas R Riley Galleries.
SOFA 2003, Chicago, US, Thomas R Riley Galleries
2002 30th Annual International Glass Invitational, Habatat Galleries, Michigan US
2002 Palm Springs International Art Fair
2001 Cowdy Gallery, 31 Culver St, Newent, Gloucestershire
2001 Millennium Glass Commissions, Broadfield Glass Museum, West Midlands
2001 29th Annual International Invitational, Habatat Galleries, Michigan, US
2001 David Reekie: Sculptor in Glass, Humour, Politics and the Human Condition at the Rotunda Gallery, Norwich Castle, Norwich, Norfolk
2001 International Glass, Habatat Galleries, Millennium Museum, Beijing Shanghai Fine Arts Museum
2001 SOFA Chicago 2001, Navy Pier, Chicago, US
2001 4th Hsin-Chu International Glass Art Festival and Symposium, Hsin-Chu Municipal Glass Museum, Hsin-Chu, Taiwan.1999 SOFA 99, New York City
2000 SOFA 2000 New York City
1999 Verriales 99, Galerie Internationale Du Verre, Biot, France
1999 New Glass Economy, Shanghai Public Library, People's Republic of China
1999 SOFA 99, Chicago, US
1998 SOFA 98, New York City
1998 Jerwood Prize for Glass Exhibition, Crafts Council, London
1998 SOFA 98, Chicago, US 1995 English Glass Art, Galerie Rob Van Den Doel, The Hague, Netherlands
1997 Hsinchu International Glass, Taiwan. 1990 British Glass, Williamson Museum, Liverpool
1996 William Morris Revisited, Questioning the Legacy, Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester
1996 Verriales 96, Galerie Internationale Du Verre, Biot, France
1996 Venezia Aperto Vetro, Ducal Palace, Venice
1995 SOFA 95, Chicago, US
1995 David Reekie, One Man Show, Miller Gallery, New York City
1995 Breaking Point, Alden Biesen, Belgium
1994 World Glass Now 94, Hokkaido Museum of Modern Art, Sapporo, Japan
1994 New Kilnformed Glass: Heller Gallery, Palm Beach, US 1984 Verre Contemporain en Europe, Galerie Paskine de Gignoux, Strasbourg, France
1993 The Glass Show, Crafts Council Gallery, London, England
1992 David Reekie, Galerie Suzel Berna, Antibes & Paris, France
1991 Cast Glass Invitational, Habatat Galleries, Boca Raton, Florida, US
1991 David Reekie, Miller Gallery, New York
1991 International Glass Show, Marco Museo del Arte Contemporanio, Monterrey, Mexico & Museo Rufino Tamayo, Mexico
1991 La Verre, International Exhibition of Glass, Rouen, France
1990 18th International Glass Invitational, Habatat Galleries, Michigan, US
1989 Form, Construction and Glass, Contact Gallery, Norwich
1989 Masterworks of Contemporary Glass, Christies, New York
1989 New Art Forms, Chicago International Art Exposition, US
1988 International Exhibition of Glass Craft 88, Kanazawa, Japan
1988 British Contemporary Glass, Braggiotti Gallery, Rotterdam
1987 Stourbridge Glass 1854–1987, Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery
1987 Studio Glass Gallery of Great Britain, Montclair, New Jersey, US
1985 Studio Glass, British Crafts Centre, London 1987 Glass Art, Museum of Art, São Paulo, Brazil
1984 New Glasswork from Britain, Essener Glasgalerie, Essen, Germany
1984 Studio Glass since 1945, Royal Pavilion Art Gallery & Museum, Brighton
1983 British Glass Artists, Glass Art Gallery, Toronto, Canada
1983 David Reekie & Jim Roddis, Het Glashuis, Alkmaar, Netherlands
1981 New Glass, Victoria & New Albert Museum, London
1979 Glass Now, Portsmouth Museum and Art Gallery
1979 British Artists in Glass, Galerie SM, Frankfurt, Germany
1978 Six Modern Glassmakers, Dudley Art Gallery
1977 Glass Constructions, Usher Gallery, Lincoln
1977 British Artists in Glass, British Crafts Centre, London
1973 Glass & Ceramics, Dudley Art Gallery
1971 New Dimensions 71, Camden Arts Centre, London
1970 Manufactured Art, Camden Arts Centre, London

Work in Museums
Manchester City Art Gallery
Small Cast Heads 1977

Portsmouth Museum & Art Gallery
Construction No. 3 1978

Broadfield House Glass Museum, Kingswinford, West Midlands
Construction with Guarding Figures 1978
Struggling Man 1984,
A Human Oddity 2001

Usher Art Gallery, Lincoln
Cast Glass Construction 1980

Pilkington Glass Museum, St Helens
Strange Offering II 1986
Man With a Wheel 1990

Glasmuseet Ebeltoft, Denmark
Strange Offering IV 1987

Norwich Castle Museum, Contemporary Glass Collection
Spring Return 1988

Liberty Museum, Philadelphia, US
Which Way? 1990

Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, US
Greek Head III 1993

Victoria & Albert Museum, London Contemporary Glass Collection
Greek Head V 1994
A Captive Audience 2000

Birmingham City Art Gallery
Living in Confined Spaces II 1998

Musee-Atelier du Verre de Sars Poteries, France
Living in Confined Spaces III 1998

Tutsek Foundation, Munich, Germany
Someone Else's Body II

Shipley Art Gallery & Museum
Sitting on the Fence II 2003

External links
Artist's Website
Victoria and Albert Museum
Keith Cummings/ Keith Cummings
Contemporary Glass Society
Riley Galleries
Dan Klein Associates

References

British sculptors
British male sculptors
1947 births
Living people
British glass artists