Monty Python's The Meaning of Life

# Monty Python's The Meaning of Life

## Abstract

Monty Python's The Meaning of Life, also known simply as The Meaning of Life, is a 1983 British musical sketch comedy film written and performed by the Monty Python troupe, directed by Terry Jones. The Meaning of Life was the last feature film to star all six Python members before the death of Graham Chapman in 1989.

Unlike Holy Grail and Life of Brian, the film's two predecessors, which each told a single, more-or-less coherent story, The Meaning of Life returned to the sketch format of the troupe's original television series and their first film from twelve years earlier, And Now for Something Completely Different, loosely structured as a series of comic sketches about the various stages of life. It was accompanied by the short film The Crimson Permanent Assurance.

Released on 23 June 1983 in the United Kingdom, The Meaning of Life was not as acclaimed as its predecessors, but was still well received critically and was a minor box office success; the film grossed almost $43 million against a $9 million budget. It was screened at the 1983 Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Grand Prix. The film appears in a 2010 list of the top 20 cult films published by The Boston Globe.

## Plot

Six fish in a restaurant's tank greet each other, then see their friend being eaten. This leads them to question the meaning of life. In the first sketch, "The Miracle of Birth", maternity doctors ignore a woman in labour while trying to impress the hospital's administrator. In Yorkshire, a Roman Catholic man loses his job and informs his numerous children that he must sell them for scientific experiments (" Every Sperm Is Sacred "). A Protestant man looks on disapprovingly and proudly remarks that Protestants can use contraception and have sex for pleasure (although his wife observes that they never do).

In "Growth and Learning", a class of boys learn school etiquette before partaking in a sex education lesson, which involves watching their teacher have sex with his wife. One boy laughs and is forced into a violent rugby match pitting pupils against the school masters as punishment. "Fighting Each Other" features three scenes concerning the British military. First, during the Battle of the Somme in World War I, a British officer tries to rally his men during an attack, but they instead present him with going-away gifts. Second, a modern army RSM bullies his soldiers to say what they would rather be doing than drill practice, then dismisses each in turn. Lastly, in 1879 during the Anglo-Zulu War during the Battle of Rorke's Drift, a soldier finds his leg has been bitten off. Suspecting a tiger, the soldiers hunt for it and find two men in a tiger costume.

An announcer introduces "The Middle of the Film," during which bizarre characters challenge the audience in a segment called "Find the Fish." "Middle Age" involves an American couple visiting a Hawaiian restaurant with a medieval torture theme, where, to the interest of the fish, the waiter offers a conversation about philosophy and the meaning of life. The customers are unable to make sense of it and move on to a discussion of live organ transplants. In "Live Organ Transplants", two paramedics visit an organ donor and remove his liver while he is alive. His wife is reluctant to donate her liver, but she relents after a man steps out of a refrigerator and reminds her of humanity's insignificance in the universe (" Galaxy Song "). Executives of an American conglomerate debate the meaning of life before a raid by The Crimson Permanent Assurance briefly interrupts them.

"The Autumn Years" starts off with a musician in a French restaurant singing about the joys of having a penis ("The Not Noël Coward Song"). As the song ends, the ill-tempered glutton Mr. Creosote enters the restaurant, causing the fish to scatter and hide. He vomits continuously and devours an enormous meal. After the maître d'hôtel persuades him to eat an after-dinner mint, Creosote's gut explodes, splattering the other diners. In "The Meaning of Life", the restaurant's cleaning woman proposes that life is meaningless before revealing that she is a racist. A waiter leads the audience to the house where he was born, recalls his mother's lessons about kindness, and then becomes angry when his point trails off.

"Death" features a condemned man choosing the manner of his own execution: being chased off the Cliffs of Dover by topless women in sports gear and falling into his own grave below. In a short animated sequence, despondent leaves commit suicide by throwing themselves from the branches of a tree. The Grim Reaper enters an isolated home and convinces the hosts and dinner guests, with difficulty, that they are all dead. They accompany the Grim Reaper to Heaven, revealed to be the Hawaiian restaurant from earlier. They enter a Las Vegas -style hotel where it is always Christmas and meet the characters from the previous sketches ("Christmas in Heaven").

The song ends abruptly for "The End of the Film". The hostess from "The Middle of the Film" opens an envelope and blandly reveals the meaning of life: "It's nothing very special, really. Try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations".

## Cast

- Graham Chapman as Chairman / Fish #1 / Doctor / Harry Blackitt / Wymer / Hordern / General / Coles / Narrator #2 / Dr. Livingstone / Transvestite / Eric / Guest #1 / Arthur Jarrett / Geoffrey / Tony Bennett

- John Cleese as Fish #2 / Dr. Spencer / Humphrey Williams / Sturridge / Ainsworth / Waiter / Eric's Assistant / Maître D' / Grim Reaper

- Terry Gilliam as Window Washer / Fish #4 / Walters / Middle of the Film Announcer / M'Lady Joeline / Mr. Brown / Howard Katzenberg

- Eric Idle as Gunther / Fish #3 / 'Meaning of Life' Singer / Mr. Moore / Mrs. Blackitt / Watson / Blackitt / Atkinson / Perkins / Victim #3 / Front End / Mrs. Hendy / Man in Pink / Noël Coward / Gaston / Angela

- Terry Jones as Bert / Fish #6 / Mum / Priest / Biggs / Sergeant / Man with Bendy Arms / Mrs. Brown / Mr. Creosote / Maria / Leaf Father / Fiona Portland-Smythe

- Michael Palin as Window Washer / Harry / Fish #5 / Mr. Pycroft / Dad / Narrator #1 / Chaplain / Carter / Spadger / Regimental Sergeant Major / Pakenham-Walsh / Rear End / Female TV Presenter / Mr. Marvin Hendy / Governor / Leaf Son / Debbie Katzenberg

- Carol Cleveland as Beefeater Waitress / Wife of Guest #1 / Leaf Mother / Leaf Daughter / Heaven Receptionist

- Simon Jones as Chadwick / Jeremy Portland-Smythe

- Patricia Quinn as Mrs. Williams

- Judy Loe as Nurse #1

- Andrew MacLachlan as Groom / Wycliff / Victim #1 / Guest #3

- Mark Holmes as Victim #2 (Cheerful Severed Head) / Troll Waiter / Guest #2

- Valerie Whittington as Mrs. Moore

- Jennifer Franks as Bride

- Imogen Bickford Smith as Nurse #2

- Angela Mann as Wife of Guest #2

- Peter Lovstrom as Brown's Son

- George Silver as Diner Eating Howard the Fish

- Chris Grant

## Production

According to Palin, "the writing process was quite cumbersome. An awful lot of material didn't get used. Holy Grail had a structure, a loose one: the search for the grail. Same with Life of Brian. With this, it wasn't so clear. In the end, we just said: 'Well, what the heck. We have got lots of good material, let's give it the loosest structure, which will be the meaning of life'".

After the film's title was chosen, Douglas Adams called Jones to tell him he had just finished a new book, to be called The Meaning of Liff; Jones was initially concerned about the similarity in titles, which led to the scene in the title sequence of a tombstone which, when hit by a flash of lightning, changes from "The Meaning of Liff" to "The Meaning of Life".

Principal photography began on 12 July 1982 and was completed about two months later, on 11 September. A wide variety of locations were used, such as Porchester Hall in Queensway for the Mr Creosote sketch, where hundreds of pounds of fake vomit had to be cleaned up on the last day due to a wedding being scheduled hours later. The Malham Moors were chosen for the Grim Reaper segment; the countryside near Strathblane was used for the Zulu War; and "Every Sperm Is Sacred" was shot in Colne, Lancashire, with interiors done at Elstree Studios. The school chapel scene with the song "O Lord, Please Don't Burn Us" was shot at Churchill College, Cambridge.

The film was produced on a budget of less than US$10 million, which was still bigger than that of the earlier films. This allowed for large-scale choreography and crowd sequences, a more lavishly produced soundtrack that included new original songs, and much more time able to be spent on each sketch, especially The Crimson Permanent Assurance. Palin later said that the larger budget, and not making the film for the BBC (i.e., television), allowed the film to be more daring and dark.

The idea for the hospital sketch came from Chapman, himself a doctor, who had noticed that hospitals were changing, with "lots and lots of machinery". According to Palin, the organ transplant scene harked back to Python's love of bureaucracy, and sketches with lots of people coming round from the council with different bits of paper.

During the filming of the scene where Palin's character explains Catholicism to his children, his line was "that rubber thing at the end of my sock ", which was later overdubbed with cock.

### The Crimson Permanent Assurance

The short film The Crimson Permanent Assurance introduces the feature. It is about a group of elderly office clerks working in a small accounting firm. They rebel against yuppie corporate masters, transform their office building into a pirate ship, and raid a large financial district. One of the boardrooms raided reappears later in the film, from shortly before the attack begins until the narrator apologises and a skyscraper falls and crushes the marauders.

The short was intended as an animated sequence in the feature, for placement at the end of Part V. Gilliam persuaded the other members of Monty Python to allow him to produce and direct it as a live action piece instead.

## Release

The original tagline read "It took God six days to create the Heavens and the Earth, and Monty Python just 90 minutes to screw it up" (the length of The Meaning of Life proper is 90 minutes, but becomes 107 minutes as released with the "Short Subject Presentation", The Crimson Permanent Assurance). In an April 2012 re-release held by the American Film Institute, the tagline is altered to read "It took God six days to create the Heavens and the Earth, and Monty Python just 1 hour and 48 minutes to screw it up".

Ireland banned the film on its original release as it had previously done with Monty Python's Life of Brian, but later rated it 15 when it was released on video. In the United Kingdom the film was rated 18 when released in the cinema and on its first release on video, but was re-rated 15 in 2000. In the United States the film is rated R.

## Reception

### Box office

The film opened in the United States on 31 March 1983. At 257 cinemas it ranked number six at the US box office, grossing US$1,987,853 ($7,734 per screen) in its opening weekend. It played at 554 cinemas at its widest point, and its total gross in the United States and Canada was $14,929,552. Internationally it grossed $27.8 million for a worldwide total of $42.7 million.

### Critical reception

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film two and a half stars out of four, calling it a "a barbed, uncompromising attack on generally observed community standards". In The New York Times, Vincent Canby declared it "the Ben Hur of sketch films, which is to say that it's a tiny bit out of proportion", concluding it was amusing, but he wished it were consistently amusing. Variety staff assessed it as disgusting, ridiculous, tactless, but above all, amusing. Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune awarded 3 stars out of 4, calling it "fresh and original and delightfully offensive. What more can you ask of a comedy?" Sheila Benson of the Los Angeles Times wrote that the film was full of "raunchy talk, blasphemy (well, sacrilege) and one example of what kids call a totally gnarly, gross-out scene. The problem for the reviewer (to be specific, this reviewer) is when you are laughing this much it makes logging all the fast-flying offenses almost impossible." Gary Arnold of The Washington Post was negative, writing that "The strongest impressions left by this picture have less to do with its largely tedious attempts to burlesque human weakness and pomposity than with the group's failure to evolve a coherent satiric outlook." A review by Steve Jenkins in The Monthly Film Bulletin was also negative, writing that the return to a sketch format constituted a "great leap backwards" for the troupe and that the film's outrageous moments "cannot disguise the overall air of déjà vu and playing it safe."

In 2004, acclaimed director Quentin Tarantino once stated "The only time I've ever had to look away, because I couldn't bear to watch, was The Meaning of Life, when that fat b***ard keeps being sick. I felt really nauseous – it was just too much. I was looking around and I thought, 'If anyone here is sick and I have to smell vomit, I'm going to hurl'. I just about held onto my lunch in the end, but I still can't think about that scene without retching."

In 2007, Empire ' s Ian Nathan rated it three of five stars, describing it as "too piecemeal and unfocused, but it possesses some of their most iconic musings and inspired madness". In 2014, The Daily Telegraph gave the film four stars out of five. In his 2015 Movie Guide, Leonard Maltin awarded it three stars, calling it "A barrel of bellylaughs", identifying the Mr. Creosote and " Every Sperm Is Sacred " sketches as the most memorable. Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane states: “I view Monty Python as the great originator of that combination. The Meaning of Life in particular comes to mind, and my favorite example is "Every Sperm Is Sacred." It's so beautifully written, it's musically and lyrically legit, the orchestrations are fantastic, the choreography and the presentation are very, very complex – it's treated seriously." The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a rating of 86% based on 34 reviews, with an average rating of 7.30/10. The website's critical consensus reads, " Monty Python's the Meaning of Life is rude, ribald, and unafraid to take comedic risks – which is to say it should more than satisfy fans of the titular troupe."

### Accolades

The Meaning of Life was awarded the Grand Jury Prize at the 1983 Cannes Film Festival. While the Cannes jury, led by William Styron, were fiercely split on their opinions on several films in competition, The Meaning of Life had general support, securing it the second-highest honour after the Palme d'Or for The Ballad of Narayama.

At the 37th British Academy Film Awards, Andre Jacquemin, Dave Howman, Michael Palin and Terry Jones were also nominated for Original Song for " Every Sperm is Sacred." The award went to " Up Where We Belong " in An Officer and a Gentleman.

## Home media

A two-disc DVD release in 2003 features a documentary on production and a director's cut, which adds deleted scenes into the film, making it 116 minutes. The first is The Adventures of Martin Luther, inserted after the scene with the Protestant couple talking about condoms. The second is a promotional video about the British army, which comes between the marching around the square scene and the Zulu army scene. The third and last is an extension of the American characters performed by Idle and Palin; they are shown their room and talk about tampons. In Region 1, it was released on Blu-ray to mark its 30th anniversary. In May 2020, it was released on Netflix in the United Kingdom.


September 2024 Al-Jawni School attack

# September 2024 Al-Jawni School attack

## Abstract

On 11 September 2024, the Israel Defense Forces bombed the UN -run Al-Jawni school in the Nuseirat refugee camp of central Gaza. The school had been sheltering people displaced by the Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip, including women and children. Per rescuers, 18 people were killed and more than 44 others were wounded. Among the killed were six United Nations workers, including the manager of the UNRWA shelter, making it the highest death toll for UN staff in any single incident of the Israel–Gaza War. The attack was one of a number of attacks on schools during the Israeli invasion of Gaza and the fifth bombing of the Al-Jawni School since October 2023.

## Background

On 6 July, UNRWA-run al-Jawni school sheltering 2,000 refugees at the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza was targeted by an IDF raid which killed sixteen Palestinians. On 7 July, the IDF targeted the Latin Patriarchate-owned Holy Family school located in Gaza City housing hundreds of refugees, killing four. On 8 July, IDF force struck a different Nuseirat UNRWA-run school in, causing several injuries requiring treatment in a local hospital. Philippe Lazzarini, the head of UNRWA, stated two-thirds of all UNRWA schools in Gaza had been hit since October 2023.

A United Nations Security Council Resolution adopted on 25 March 2024 had demanded an immediate ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas War.

## Attack

The IDF attacked the UN-run Al-Jawni school in Nuseirat refugee camp with two airstrikes, killing at least 18 people, including six UNRWA staff. The Israeli military stated that the attack was "a precise strike on terrorists who were operating inside a Hamas command-and-control centre". Witnesses reported that "women and children were blown to pieces" in the assault. The Hamas government media office reported that 5,000 displaced people were sheltering at the school when it was hit. A Palestinian woman reported losing all of her six children in the attack, stating "all of a sudden there was a huge explosion... Women and children were blown to pieces. We rushed to see our children but found them torn to pieces".

## Reactions

UN secretary-general António Guterres called Israel's actions in Gaza "totally unacceptable". In a social media post, World Food Programme head Cindy McCain stated her organization was "devastated" by the loss of their six UN colleagues, and that such attacks were "absolutely unacceptable" and needed to stop. UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini denounced what he called the "endless and senseless killing, day after day", and reported that "humanitarian staff, premises and operations have been blatantly and unabatedly disregarded since the beginning of the war". Israel responded that "it is unconscionable that the UN continues to condemn Israel in its just war against terrorists".

European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said that he was "outraged" by the killing of UNRWA staff and condemned the constant "disregard for the basic principles of international humanitarian law" by Israel.

Qatar condemned the attack as a "horrific massacre" and called for an independent UN investigation into the attack.


Monogastric

# Monogastric

## Abstract

A monogastric organism has a simple single-chambered stomach (one stomach). Examples of monogastric omnivores include humans, pigs, hamsters and rats. Furthermore, there are monogastric carnivores such as cats. A monogastric organism is comparable to ruminant organisms (which has a four-chambered complex stomach), such as cattle, goats, or sheep. Herbivores with monogastric digestion can digest cellulose in their diets by way of symbiotic gut bacteria. However, their ability to extract energy from cellulose digestion is less efficient than in ruminants.

Herbivores digest cellulose by microbial fermentation. Monogastric herbivores which can digest cellulose nearly as well as ruminants are called hindgut fermenters, while ruminants are called foregut fermenters. These are subdivided into two groups based on the relative size of various digestive organs in relationship to the rest of the system: colonic fermenters tend to be larger species such as horses and rhinos, and cecal fermenters are smaller animals such as rabbits and rodents. Great apes derive significant amounts of phytanic acid from the hindgut fermentation of plant materials.

Monogastrics cannot digest the fiber molecule cellulose as efficiently as ruminants, though the ability to digest cellulose varies amongst species.

A monogastric digestive system works as soon as the food enters the mouth. Saliva moistens the food and begins the digestive process. (Note that horses have no (or negligible amounts of) amylase in their saliva). After being swallowed, the food passes from the esophagus into the stomach, where stomach acid and enzymes help to break down the food. Once food leaves the stomach and enters the small intestine, the pancreas secretes enzymes and alkali to neutralize the stomach acid.


Emmanuël Sérusiaux

# Emmanuël Sérusiaux

## Abstract

Emmanuël Sérusiaux (born 3 October 1953) is a Belgian lichenologist. His career, spanning more than four decades, has combined both lichenology research and political aspects of nature conservation. He spent several periods working as a researcher at the National Fund for Scientific Research and the University of Liège, the latter in which he accepted a faculty position as professor and head of the Plant Taxonomy and Conservation Biology unit. Sérusiaux also served for three non-consecutive appointments as Deputy Chief of Staff in the Government of Wallonia. He retired from both his academic and political positions in 2019.

Sérusiaux published several phylogenies of lichen genera and described more than 200 new species, 20 genera, and the family Lepidostromataceae. This information was conveyed through his 145 authored or co-authored scientific publications from the period 1976 to 2020. He has had a strong research interest in the systematics of lichens that grow on leaves, the lichen flora of tropical Africa, the genus Parmelia (in the broad sense), and the order Peltigerales. Three lichen genera, several species of lichens and lichenicolous fungi, and a plant have been named in honour of Sérusiaux.

## Biography

Emmanuël Sérusiaux was born in Dinant, Belgium, on 3 October 1953. He obtained a master's degree in botany at the University of Liège in 1975 before spending a year at Harvard University on a fellowship from Rotary International. He earned a doctorate in botanical sciences, also from the University of Liège, in 1982 while working under the supervision of Professor Jacques Lambinon.

Sérusiaux's career has merged both lichenology research and the political aspects of nature conservation. His research career began as an associate at the National Fund for Scientific Research (NFSR) (1982–1984), then at the University of Liège (1984–1986). After this he took a position as Deputy Chief of Staff to Daniel Ducarme, the Minister of Agriculture and Environment of Wallonia (1986–88). He was a research fellow at NFSR from 1989 to 1999, and a professor at the University of Liège in the Department of Biology, Ecology and Evolution from 2004 to 2019. At the university, he was head of the Plant Taxonomy and Conservation Biology unit, which was later renamed Evolution and Conservation Biology. Interspersed, he had a second term as Chief of Staff (1999–2004) to Michel Foret, Minister of Territory Development, Urbanism and Environment of Wallonia, and third (2017–2019) term as Chief of Staff to Willy Borsus, the Minister-President of Wallonia. Sérusiaux retired from his academic and political positions in 2019.

As a professor, Sérusiaux taught courses about botany, plant systematics, lichenology, biogeography, biodiversity, evolutionary biology, and conservation biology. To help his students understand biodiversity in its natural habitats, he organised field courses for many of his classes, including to Tenerife (Canary Islands), Romania, Rwanda, and various locations in France (Vosges, Alsace, and Brittany). Sérusiaux has mentored several master's and doctorate post-graduate students. Worried that students in the master's degree program in biological sciences would not gain the expertise needed for successful employment in field biologist positions, in 2014 he founded a new master's degree program in conservation biology and biodiversity management.

During his professorship at the University of Liège, Sérusiaux established the aCREA (Conseils et recherchesen écologie appliquée), a research and consulting firm with ties to the university. Its work and research focuses on taking ecology into account in the fields of safeguarding and managing natural resources, biodiversity, and landscapes. Other administrative positions that Sérusiaux held relating to environmental organisations include: president of Aquapole, a research centre within the Liège University campus dedicated to water science, from 2002 to 2019; member of the Research Council of the University of Liège from 2005 to 2009; and member of the Administrative Board of LEPUR (Centre de recherche sur la ville, le territoireet le milieu rural) from 2004 to 2019. He has also served administratively for Natagora, a non-governmental organisation dedicated to biodiversity and conservation in Wallonia, from 2012 to 2017, and as the president of the Société wallonne des eaux from 2001 to 2007.

## Research

Sérusiaux helped to develop a molecular biology facility at the University of Liège where DNA was extracted and prepared from thousands of lichen specimens. This has enabled him and his colleagues to publish phylogenies for several lichen genera, including Nephroma, Peltigera, Niebla, Sticta, and the family Pannariaceae. Sérusiaux has a broad range of interests in lichenology, as is shown by the variety of different taxa covered in his publications. In addition to circumscribing a new family (Lepidostromataceae) and twenty new genera (Aplanocalenia, Bapalmuia, Brasilicia, Bryogomphus, Eugeniella, Fellhaneropsis, Ferraroa, Gallaicolichen, Hippocrepidea, Isalonactis, Jamesiella, Kantvilasia, Lambinonia, Lilliputeana, Lithogyalideopsis, Nyungwea, Phyllocratera, Rubrotricha, Savoronala, Sporopodiopsis), he has also formally described 206 new species. He has had a strong interest in the systematics of foliicolous lichens, the lichen flora of tropical Africa (in particular, the countries Burundi, Réunion, Rwanda, Zaire, and Zimbabwe), the genus Parmelia (in the broad sense), and the lichen order Peltigerales.

Throughout his career, Sérusiaux has organized many field trips, mostly to tropical locations, to study the local lichen flora. These have been quite productive and have help further the knowledge of lichenology in these areas. For example, an expedition to Papua New Guinea in 1992 with friends and colleagues resulted in the collection of almost 10,000 specimens, and the publication of 6 new genera and 89 new species.

The reproductive structures of foliicolous lichens were a particular research focus for Sérusiaux in the 1980s. He investigated campylidia, unusual helmet-shaped structures containing conidia. He defined the term goniocystangium —a concave, hollow, cup-like structure producing goniocysts that are found in the genera Catillaria and Opegrapha. His 2009 work "Liste rouge des macrolichens dans la Communauté Européenne" ("Red list of macrolichens in the European Community") was the first Regional Red List of lichens for the European Community (later the European Union), which was prepared as part of the Habitats Directive (Council Directive 92/43/EEC on the Conservation of natural habitats and of wild fauna and flora).

## Recognition

After his retirement, a Festschrift in the scientific journal Plant and Fungal Systematics (volume 65, issue 1, 2020) was dedicated to Sérusiaux. In this volume of 16 publications, several new taxa were named after him.

### Eponymy

Sérusiaux has had three lichen genera and several species of lichens and lichenicolous fungi named in his honour: Serusiauxiella S.H.Jiang, Lücking & J.C.Wei (2020); Emmanuelia Ant.Simon, Lücking & Goffinet (2020) and Serusiauxia Ertz & Diederich (2020); Echinoplaca serusiauxii Lücking (1997); Badimiella serusiauxii Malcolm & Vězda (1994); Bapalmuia serusiauxiana Van den Broeck, Lücking & Ertz (2014); Opegrapha serusiauxii Lücking (2008); Plectocarpon serusiauxii Ertz & Diederich (2005); Polycoccum serusiauxii Matzer (1996); Pseudopyrenula serusiauxii Aptroot (1998); Sclerococcum serusiauxii Boqueras & Diederich (1993); Taeniolella serusiauxii Diederich (1992); Xanthoparmelia serusiauxii Hale (1986); Enterographa serusiauxii Lebreton & Aptroot (2020); Fulvophyton serusiauxii Sparrius & Tehler (2020); Ikaeria serusiauxii Sipman (2020); Impatiens serusiauxii Eb.Fisch., Raheliv. & Killmann (2020); Peltigera serusiauxii Magain, Miadl., Goffinet & Ant.Simon (2020); and Sticta emmanueliana Moncada, Lücking & Lumbsch (2020).

## Selected publications

A comprehensive list of Sérusiaux's publication is given in Magain and colleagues' 2020 tribute. His first scientific publication, in 1975, was about the water birds of the upper Meuse, a river in Belgium; this was followed a year later by a study of the foliicolous lichen specimens held at the Farlow Herbarium of Cryptogamic Botany. As of 2020, Sérusiaux had authored or co-authored 145 publications relating to lichenology. Some representative publications include:


Chemistry (Kelly Clarkson album)

# Chemistry (Kelly Clarkson album)

## Abstract

Chemistry is the tenth studio album by American pop singer Kelly Clarkson. It was released on June 23, 2023, through Atlantic Records. The album is produced by Clarkson's longtime collaborators, Jason Halbert and Jesse Shatkin, as well as newcomers Erick Serna and Rachel Orscher. Debuting at number six on Billboard 200, it became Clarkson's ninth top ten album on the chart. It is her first full-length studio album release of original material since 2017's Meaning of Life.

The album features collaborations with Steve Martin and Sheila E., and according to Clarkson, it illustrates "the arc of an entire relationship", showing every emotion you experience from the beginning to the end, related to the end of her marriage with Brandon Blackstock.

Chemistry was promoted with two singles: the double-A-side singles, " Mine " / " Me " and " Favorite Kind of High ". The album supported Clarkson's first ever Las Vegas residency, Chemistry: An Intimate Evening with Kelly Clarkson, which ran for fourteen nights from July 28, 2023, to February 10, 2024.

Chemistry was met with positive reviews, with critics praising Clarkson's voice and the album's emotional and sonic dexterity. A deluxe reissue of the album featuring five new tracks was released on September 22, 2023. Chemistry was nominated for Best Pop Vocal Album at the 66th Annual Grammy Awards.

## Background

Clarkson started working on the follow-up to her 2017 album, Meaning of Life, in 2019. In June 2020, she announced her divorce from husband Brandon Blackstock. Prior to the divorce, she described the album as if Breakaway (2004) and Stronger (2011) had a baby, and more like Meaning of Life. When she appeared on Sunday Today with Willie Geist in September 2020, she then described the album as every emotion you experience from the beginning to the end of a relationship. She calls it the most personal one she has ever released, and it has been therapeutic for her. Clarkson mentioned she had written around sixty songs while going through her divorce.

In a September 2022 interview with Variety, Clarkson talked about the album. She said she had been working on it for two years; it was an important one, and a lot of the songs were recorded two years earlier (2020). When the divorce happened, she needed to write about it. She told her label, "I can't talk about this until I've gone through it," and it's just taken some time to do that. That's one of the reasons we've done a lot of the Christmas stuff the past two years – because I was like, "Well, that's happy!" Describing the record, she says, "And it's not all bad – like, there is heartbreak in it, and there is sadness in it."

In January 2023, during an Instagram live, she mentioned she had just done the album photo shoot with Brian Bowen Smith. While appearing on Angie Martinez 's Angie Martinez IRL podcast, Clarkson mentioned one of the songs on the album is called "Red Flag Collector".

## Recording and production

Clarkson recorded most of the album in 2020. Two of Clarkson's frequent collaborators, Jason Halbert and Jesse Shatkin, returned to produce this album along with newcomers Eric Serna and Rachel Orscher.

## Composition

Clarkson wrote on all but two of the album's tracks. "High Road" the third track, is an original song by the duo Jane Black. Rachel Orscher of Jane Black is the associate music producer for The Kelly Clarkson Show, and when Clarkson heard it she thought about asking Orscher if she could cover it during one her Kellyoke segments. Orscher then allowed Clarkson to record the song for the album. Orscher helped produced it with Halbert, and allowed Clarkson to take the song up an octave.

The fourth song " Me " was first written by Gayle and Josh Ronen. They wrote the first verse and chorus. When Clarkson told Atlantic that she was a fan of Gayle's, they told her that she was their artist. Atlantic then sent Clarkson the song. In one night, Clarkson finished the rest of the song.

Clarkson, Jesse Shatkin, and Carly Rae Jepsen wrote the seventh song " Favorite Kind of High ". Before it was given to Clarkson, Jepsen wrote the track to it, with Clarkson writing the lyrics and melody when she was given it. One of the happier songs on the album, it is described as a "sexy-ass song" and how it's about "that high when you first see someone and you're like 'Oh, shit.'"

"Red Flag Collector", written by Clarkson, Halbert, and her guitarist Jaco Caraco, begins with a western saloon style vibe with a guitar strum and whistling (from Caraco). The song then takes a more rock turn. A whip can be heard throughout the song, and trumpets are added halfway through. In the bridge, the western saloon style briefly returns with the piano.

The thirteenth track, "I Hate Love", which Clarkson describes as a pop-punk track, features Steve Martin on banjo. Clarkson references Martin in the song which gave her to the idea for Martin to play banjo on it. The title of the track is used in a sarcastic manner. Sheila E. plays drums on the last song "That's Right."

## Release and promotion

Chemistry was released by Atlantic Records on June 23, 2023. In a September 2022 interview with Variety, Clarkson announced she would release the album in 2023, calling the album "important" and citing music as "helpful" in vocalizing what she feels. On March 25, 2023, Clarkson tweeted wine, heartbreak and sunshine emojis, which is how she described the album while appearing on Access Daily in January 2023. The following day, she announced the album's title on her social media accounts and announced it would be released "soon". There are multiple colored Vinyl LPs.

On April 24, 2023, to help celebrate the release of the album, Clarkson performed the entire Chemistry album at the Belasco Theatre in Los Angeles. The show was taped. On June 22, 2023, she appeared on The Today Show to promote the album. She returned to Today on September 22, 2023, to perform. She performed " Favorite Kind of High ", " Mine ", "Lighthouse", and " Since U Been Gone ". The deluxe reissue of the album was released the same day. On October 13, she performed "Lighthouse" on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. On October 16, she opened the fifth season of her talk show with "I Won't Give Up", and later appeared on Late Night with Seth Meyers.

Clarkson promoted the album during a fourteen night Las Vegas residency, Chemistry: An Intimate Evening with Kelly Clarkson. It ran from July 28 to August 19, 2023, December 30–31, 2023, and February 9–10, 2024, at the Bakkt Theater.

### Singles

" Mine " and " Me " served as the album's lead single as a double-A-side. Clarkson explained the reason behind the release, saying "we decided to release 'Mine' and 'Me' at the same time because I didn't want to release just one song to represent an entire album, or relationship." It was released on April 14, 2023.

" Favorite Kind of High " was released as the album's second single on May 19, 2023.

"I Hate Love" featuring Steve Martin and "Red Flag Collector" were released as promotional singles on June 2 and 9, 2023.

Two days before the album was released, "Lighthouse" was released as the third promotional single on June 21, 2023 before being released as the album's third single on vinyl along with "I Won't Give Up" on March 1, 2024.

## Critical reception

Chemistry was met with positive reviews from critics, who praised Clarkson's voice and the album's emotional and sonic dexterity. On review aggregator Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from professional publications, chemistry received a score of 70 out of 100 based on seven reviews.

Critics praised the personal nature of chemistry, with Hanif Abdurraqib of The New Yorker writing that the album "successfully preserves the aura of interpersonal intimacy that Clarkson has cultivated with audiences for two decades" with Clarkson at times "sing in a torrential flow, like a person who has held her frustrations and aches inside for too long." Ilana Kaplan of Rolling Stone similarly wrote, "the record hinges on Clarkson's emotive vocals and soul-baring lyrics, turning Chemistry into her most vulnerable project since My December."

Lindsay Zoladz of The New York Times praised Clarkson's vocals and highlighted the "wrenching, piano-driven torch song 'Lighthouse'" in particular, a song she described as "one of the album’s most impassioned vocal performances."

Kate Solomon of i also praised the album's exploration of emotion and wrote, "Chemistry ripples with sadness even at its most upbeat moments. Clarkson has always been a master of the heartbroken power ballads but these feel more understated than her adolescent weepies. She's more restrained, more mature and more conflicted." Lucy Norris of Metro wrote, "Chemistry was three years in the making and ultimately ripped apart her breakup, while allowing listeners physically feel her put herself right back together again in the most triumphant exploration of love we’ve ever heard from the 2002 American Idol champion."

## Commercial performance

Chemistry debuted at number 6 on the Billboard 200 with 53,000 equivalent album units earned, of which 9,000 SEA units account for 11.25 million on-demand official streams and 43,000 albums sales, making it the top-selling physical album of the week. It became Clarkson's ninth top-10 album in the United States.

## Track listing

## Personnel

Vocals

Musicians

Production

Imagery

- Gloria Elias-Foeillet – makeup

- Alex Kirzhner – art direction

- Candace Lambert McAndrews – styling

- Robert Ramos – hair

- Brian Bowen Smith – photography

## Charts


2024 Cincinnati Bengals season

# 2024 Cincinnati Bengals season

## Abstract

The 2024 season is the Cincinnati Bengals ' 55th season in the National Football League (NFL), their 57th overall and their sixth under head coach Zac Taylor. They will attempt to improve on their 9–8 record from last year and make the playoffs after a one-year absence.

## Offseason

### Free agents

### Trades

- March 12 – Running back Joe Mixon was traded to the Houston Texans for a seventh-round pick (No. 224 overall).

## Draft

Notes

- Pick 97 and 214 were compensatory draft picks.

- Pick 224 was acquired as part of Joe Mixon trade from Houston Texans.

## Preseason

### Game summaries

#### Preseason Week 1: vs Tampa Bay Buccaneers

at Paycor Stadium, Cincinnati, Ohio

- Date: August 10

- Game time: 7:00 p.m. EDT

- TV announcers (WXIX): Mike Watts (play-by-play), Anthony Munoz (color analyst), and Marisa Contipelli (sideline reporter)

## Regular season

### Schedule

Notes

- Intra-division opponents are in bold text.

- Networks and times from Weeks 5–16 are subject to change as a result of flexible scheduling.

- The date, time and network for Week 17 will be finalized at a later date.

- The date, time and network for Week 18 will be finalized at the end of Week 17.

### Game summaries

#### Week 1: vs. New England Patriots

at Paycor Stadium, Cincinnati, Ohio

- Date: September 8

- Game time: 1:00 p.m. EDT

- Game weather: Sunny, 66 °F (19 °C)

- Game attendance: 66,214

- Referee: Land Clark

- TV announcers (CBS): Ian Eagle, Charles Davis, and Evan Washburn

- Recap, Game Book

#### Week 2: at Kansas City Chiefs

at Arrowhead Stadium, Kansas City, Missouri

- Date: September 15

- Game time: 4:25 p.m. EDT/3:25 p.m. CDT

- Game weather: 89 °F (32 °C)

- Game attendance: 73,558

- Referee: Alex Kemp

- TV announcers (CBS): Jim Nantz, Tony Romo and Tracy Wolfson

- Recap, Game Book

#### Week 3: vs. Washington Commanders

at Paycor Stadium, Cincinnati, Ohio

- Date: September 23

- Game time: 8:15 p.m. EDT

- TV announcers (ABC): Joe Buck, Troy Aikman, and Lisa Salters

- Preview

### Standings


The Good Girl

# The Good Girl

## Abstract

The Good Girl is a 2002 American comedy-drama film directed by Miguel Arteta from a script by Mike White. The film stars Jennifer Aniston, Jake Gyllenhaal and John C. Reilly.

The Good Girl premiered at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival, and released to theatres on August 7, 2002, in the United States.

## Plot

Justine Last is a bored thirty-year-old woman living in small-town Texas with her husband Phil, a house painter who spends most of his free time smoking marijuana with his best friend, Bubba. Phil wants to start a family with Justine, but she is not ready. Justine works at Retail Rodeo, the local big-box store, with Cheryl, Gwen, and security guard Corny.

Holden is hired as a cashier at work, and Justine introduces herself. They spend time together, and she confides that she feels underappreciated at home. Holden becomes smitten with Justine, but when he tries to start sexual activity with her, she rejects him. He writes her a letter saying she will never see him again if she does not meet him at 5 p.m. that day. Though Justine is hesitant, she meets Holden at a motel, where they have sex.

Justine's marriage deteriorates as her affair with Holden continues. One night, she spots Bubba's truck in the motel parking lot. Convinced he knows, she tells Holden at work that she can't see him anymore. Bubba invites Justine to his house and blackmails her into having sex with him. Holden, who is following Justine, sees them through a window.

Holden does not show up at work the next day but is drunkenly waiting in Justine's car when her shift ends. He calls her a whore and demands an apology, offering to kill her husband to free her from her marriage. Justine becomes desperate to extricate herself from their relationship. Talking to his parents, she tells them that he is mentally ill and has imagined a romantic liaison between them. That night after feeling unwell all day, Justine takes a pregnancy test. The results come up positive; Phil is overjoyed, but Justine feels uneasy as she doesn't know who the father is.

The following day at work, $15,000 is suspected to have been stolen by Holden. Justine is interrogated by her boss Jack about their relationship. Holden later brags about the stolen money to her and his plans for them to run away. He tells her to meet him the following morning at a hotel. When Justine gets home, Phil, Bubba, and Bubba's new girlfriend are waiting to celebrate the baby news. A doctor phones Phil to tell him that his sperm, recently tested for fertility, is "no good.” Bubba assures Phil that the doctors made a mistake.

The next morning, Justine packs a suitcase and assesses whether she should stay or run away with Holden. At Retail Rodeo, she tells her manager where Holden is hiding. Later, she watches a news report announcing that the police have surrounded Holden at the hotel in a standoff that results in his suicide. The next day, Bubba tells Justine that Phil saw the motel room on the credit card statement, then begs her not to tell Phil about their encounter.

When Justine arrives home, Phil asks if she has been having an affair. When she says, "yes", he strikes her. Phil expresses remorse for hitting her and asks if the baby is his. Justine assures him he is the father. Phil still insists on knowing who she had an affair with, and when he asks if it was with Corny the security guard, Justine lies and says yes. At work the next morning, Corny has a bruised face and his arm in a sling. Cheryl informs Justine that after Bible study the previous night, two guys with painted faces jumped him.

As the movie concludes, Justine still works at Retail Rodeo. Phil brings the newborn baby to Justine. She lovingly holds the child, and the couple seems content.

## Cast

- Jennifer Aniston as Justine Last

- Jake Gyllenhaal as Thomas " Holden " Worther

- John C. Reilly as Phil Last

- John Carroll Lynch as Jack Field

- Tim Blake Nelson as Bubba

- Zooey Deschanel as Cheryl

- Mike White as Corny

- Deborah Rush as Gwen Jackson

- Aimee Garcia as Nurse

## Critical reception

The Good Girl was well received by most critics. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports an 82% approval rating, based on reviews from 159 critics. The site's consensus reads, "A dark dramedy with exceptional performances from Jennifer Aniston and Jake Gyllenhaal, The Good Girl is a moving and astute look at the passions of two troubled souls in a small town." Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, calculated a "generally favorable" average score of 71, based on 35 reviews.

Much critical praise went to Jennifer Aniston for her against- type performance. Ella Taylor of LA Weekly opined it is "especially gratifying to see her play a woman who's had it up to here with making nice, and making do." Critic James Berardinelli wrote, "Her performance is forceful and effective - she effortlessly submerges herself into the role, and, after only a moment's hesitation, Aniston has vanished and all that's left is lonely, trapped Justine."

Elvis Mitchell of The New York Times wrote, "It's Ms. Aniston who surprises in The Good Girl. In some ways she may feel as trapped as Justine by playing Rachel Green, the poor little rich daddy's girl of television's Friends. She comes up with an inventively morose physicality for Justine: her arms hang at her sides as though shackled; they're not limp appendages but weighed down with unhappiness. The plucky dream girls she's played in movies like the underseen 1999 classic Office Space are expressive and given to anxious displays of hand waving. But here she articulates Justine's sad tales through a narration that's as affected and misery laden as Holden's ragged, ripped-off fiction."

Writing for DVD Talk, Geoffrey Kleinman said, "There are two things which make The Good Girl work so well: the fantastic script by Mike White, which is smart, funny, and honest, and the breakout performance by Jennifer Aniston who simply embodies her character. Whether or not you are a fan of Aniston, you'll appreciate a look at the real depth she has as an actress and I hope to see her in more films that challenge her as an actress."

Roger Ebert gave the film three and a half stars and also praised Aniston's performance, and saying The Good Girl is an "independent film of satiric fire and emotional turmoil".


Synyster Gates

# Synyster Gates

## Abstract

Brian Elwin Haner Jr. (born July 7, 1981), better known by his stage name Synyster Gates or simply Syn, is an American guitarist, best known as the lead guitarist of heavy metal band Avenged Sevenfold. He ranks No. 9 on Guitar World ' s best metal guitarists of all time. Gates was voted as Best Metal Guitarist in the World by Total Guitar in 2016 and once again in 2017.

## Early life

Synyster Gates is the son of musician, author, and comedian Brian Haner Sr., known as Papa Gates, who worked with Sam the Sham 's band in the 1970s and has done session work for Avenged Sevenfold. Gates studied at the Musicians Institute in Los Angeles, California, as part of the Guitar Institute of Music program, studying jazz and classical guitar.

## Career

### Avenged Sevenfold

Gates was featured on the EP Warmness on the Soul, which contains select songs from the first album as well as his new version of "To End the Rapture". His name on the EP was written as "Synyster Gaytes".

Gates was voted Sexiest Male in the 2008 Kerrang! Readers Poll. In 2010, Guitar World listed him as one of the 30 greatest shredders of all time. They described him as being able to perform finger-twisting licks, acrobatic sweeps, devilish chromatics and towering dual-harmonies. Gates was chosen as one of Guitar Hero's 50 fastest guitarists. On Guitar World's 2010 Readers Poll, Gates was chosen Snappiest Dresser and the Best Metal Guitarist. Rock One Magazine's 2010 Readers Poll voted Gates the No. 3 best musician in the industry. On April 20, 2011, Gates won the Revolver Golden God award for Best Guitarist along with bandmate Zacky Vengeance. Avenged Sevenfold picked up numerous other awards and delivered the headlining performance of the night.

In the special edition of Revolver magazine that was released the same day as the Nightmare album, Gates stated that he originally started out writing the song " So Far Away " in honor of his grandfather. However, the song is now primarily about his former bandmate, best friend and previous drummer of Avenged Sevenfold, The Rev, who died on December 28, 2009.

### Pinkly Smooth

Gates and The Rev played in an experimental metal band named Pinkly Smooth. Formed in the summer of 2001 in Huntington Beach, California, the band featured ex-Ballistico members Buck Silverspur on bass and D-Rock on drums. The band released one album, Unfortunate Snort on Bucktan Records, which features a crossover sound of mostly punk, ska and progressive metal. Former Avenged Sevenfold bassist Justin Sane played keyboards and piano on the album. There was speculation that Pinkly Smooth was going to produce another record, but due to the death of the Rev, it is highly unlikely that they will produce any more material. However, Gates has said that he would consider remastering the tracks from Unfortunate Snort and re-releasing the album.

## Influences

Besides metal music, Gates is a big fan of jazz, gypsy jazz, classical, and avant garde. He cites Dimebag Darrell, Django Reinhardt, Steve Vai, John Petrucci, Slash, Marty Friedman, Zakk Wylde, Allan Holdsworth, Mr. Bungle, Frank Gambale, Oingo Boingo, and Danny Elfman as his artistic influences.

Gates has named bassist Trevor Dunn of Mr. Bungle "one of favorite songwriters of all time", praising his compositions of "masterful and incredibly singable atonal brilliance throughout ", and concluded: " is nothing short of pure genius."

## Personal life

Gates married Michelle DiBenedetto in May 2010. The couple have two children, a son born in 2017 and a daughter born in 2019.

Michelle's twin sister, Valary, is married to M. Shadows. This makes him and M. Shadows brothers-in-law in addition to band-mates. They live close to one another and see each other very often because of their wives' being very close as twin sisters.

## Discography

### With Avenged Sevenfold

- Sounding the Seventh Trumpet (2001) (only on the re-release version of "To End the Rapture")

- Waking the Fallen (2003)

- City of Evil (2005)

- Avenged Sevenfold (2007)

- Nightmare (2010)

- Hail to the King (2013)

- The Stage (2016)

- Life Is But a Dream... (2023)

### With Pinkly Smooth

- Unfortunate Snort (2001)

### Featured guest appearances

- Bleeding Through 's " Savior, Saint, Salvation," track (with M. Shadows).

- Good Charlotte 's " The River " track and music video (with M. Shadows).

- Burn Halo 's " Dirty Little Girl " track and music video.

- Burn Halo 's "Anejo" track.

- Brian Haner 's "Blow-Up Doll" music video.

- The Jeff Dunham Show intro song (with his father).

- AxeWound 's "Vultures" from their debut album of the same name.

- Machine Gun Kelly 's "Save Me" from the album Lace Up (with M. Shadows).

- Linkin Park 's " Faint " live at Chester Bennington's memorial concert (with M. Shadows).

## Guitars

Gates uses mainly Schecter Guitars. Schecter Guitar Research has been sponsoring him and he has signature Avenger models. He has also used Gibson Guitars when Avenged Sevenfold recorded Waking the Fallen and City of Evil. He has his own Seymour Duncan pickups, a custom SH-8 Invader, with Black, Gold, White or Chrome caps.

- Schecter Synyster Custom-S (Black with Silver pinstripes, Black with Gold pinstripes, Black with Red pinstripes, White with Gold pinstripes, White with Black pinstripes, Gold Burst, Dark Earth Burst, Black Relic)

- Schecter custom models with Rebel flag / Confederate Flag, American flag, German flag, Black with Red Stripes, Red with Black Stripes, White with Gold Stripes, White with Black Stripes, one featuring Jack Nicholson's Joker art and color scheme.

- Schecter Synyster Gates Custom with "REV" inlays on fret board, instead of "SYN" featured in the " So Far Away " music video

- Schecter Synyster Custom

- Schecter Synyster Acoustic

- Schecter Synyster 8-String Prototype

- Schecter Synyster Deluxe Prototype

- Schecter Synyster Special

- Schecter Avenger

- Schecter C-1 Classic - Transparent Blue

- Schecter Custom C-1 FR

- Schecter Omen-6 FR

- Gibson ES-335

- Schecter Hellraiser C-1 FR(white, black)

- Schecter Scorpion with Seymour Duncan JBs

- Schecter PT Fastback

- Schecter S-1 loaded with Seymour Duncan JBs

- Gibson Les Paul Custom (arctic white)

- Parker Fly Deluxe

- Epiphone Rockbass

- Fernandez Guitars FR95s with a sustainer single coil pickup as seen on "Making of Brompton Cocktail"


Body Language (game show)

# Body Language (game show)

## Abstract

Body Language is an American game show produced by Mark Goodson Productions. The show aired on CBS from June 4, 1984, until January 3, 1986, and was hosted by Tom Kennedy. Johnny Olson announced until his death in October 1985; Gene Wood and Bob Hilton shared the announcing duties afterward, having substituted on occasion before then.

The show pitted two teams against each other, each consisting of a contestant and a celebrity guest, in a game of solving word puzzles; the words in said puzzles were relayed by playing charades, which followed the game play of the earlier game show Showoffs while adding an element seen in the more recent Password revival series of the time.

## Gameplay

### Main Game

Two rounds were played, with each team receiving one turn per round. On a team's turn, one member stood behind a podium while the other was shown a series of five words or phrases, one at a time, and had to get their partner to guess as many of them as possible in 60 seconds. The clue-giver was not allowed to speak or use any props, including their own clothing, but had to use gestures to communicate the target words/phrases; any violation of this rule forfeited the rest of the team's time. The clue-giver could pass on a word and return to it after playing through all five if time allowed.

Each word puzzle consisted of seven blanks, two of which stood for words that were not shown to the clue-giver. Each correctly guessed word was placed into the puzzle and the guesser was given a chance to guess. A correct answer awarded money to the team.

If the guesser did not solve the puzzle, the guesser on the opposing team chose a blank to reveal and then offered a guess. The teams alternated in this manner until one guesser solved the puzzle. If neither of the guessers solved it after all seven blanks were filled, the clue-givers were then allowed one guess each. If neither of them could solve it, the solution was revealed and the money carried over to the next puzzle. If, after time ran out, the original clue-giver revealed a word that had not been guessed, the opposing team received the first chance at the puzzle.

In the first round, each puzzle was worth $100, and the celebrities gave clues while the contestants guessed. After the first two rounds, the team members traded roles for the third round, with the puzzle value increased to $250. The first team to reach $500 won the game. If neither team had reached $500 after the four rounds, a $250 playoff puzzle was played with no clues acted out. The two contestants took turns revealing one blank at a time and offering a guess. Contestants again took turns revealing a chosen blank and guessing the puzzle until one guessed correctly, won the extra $250 and the game.

Beginning with the sixth week of the series, parentheses were placed around the two words in each puzzle that were not available to be acted out. Starting on September 3, 1985, and continuing for the rest of the run, any contestant who got their celebrity partner to guess all five words during the second round won a $500 bonus, which did not affect the scores.

### Bonus Round (The Sweepstakes)

In the first half of the bonus round, one team member had 60 seconds to act out up to 10 words or phrases. Originally, the celebrity gave the clues; starting on June 10, 1985, the champion decided whether to give or receive the clues. As in the main game, the clue-giver could pass on a word and return to it if time allowed. The champion received $100 for each correct word. An illegal clue eliminated only the current word instead of ending the round.

For the second half, the clue-giver had to act out three new words or phrases in 20 seconds. Guessing all three multiplied the first-half total by 10, for a maximum bonus of $10,000; a failure awarded the first-half total to the player. Any illegal clue ended this half of the bonus round immediately.

### Champions/Returning players rule

Originally, defending champions remained on the show until losing once in the main game, in the sweepstakes five times, or reaching the $25,000 winnings limit that was in effect for CBS game shows at the time, whichever came first. On September 24, 1984, the rules were changed to allow a contestant who are defending champions to stay on the show until they either have two losses in the main game or have been in the sweepstakes six times. The winnings limit was increased to $50,000 on October 22 of that year.

### Tournaments

In the summer of 1985, Body Language had a two-month-long "Teen Week". The teens played the standard game; any winnings up to $2,500 were awarded in cash, while anything over that amount went into a savings bond that matured on the player's 18th birthday. During the two-month-long Teen Week, getting all five words in the second round won the team a bonus prize. The prize/ticket cue for the show was reworked and later used as the Classic Concentration theme.

### Pilots

Three pilots for the series were made on October 9, 1983. The only change in the front game was the scoring, with puzzles worth $100–$200–$300–$400, and $500 was needed to win the main game. Future actress Anne-Marie Johnson, was a contestant on one of the pilots; Johnson had also appeared as a contestant on Goodson-produced Child's Play earlier in 1983.

The endgame was called "7 Chances". Two puzzles were shown with the requisite 7 blanks. The celebrity chose the blank to be revealed, and the contestant tried to guess the puzzle. If the contestant got both puzzles, they won $7,000 + $1,000 per leftover chance. If they got one puzzle, that contestant won $500.

Other differences include the set, which looked much greener, and the use of the theme song. The theme song was Working Girl March by Dave Grusin, from the 1982 film Tootsie. In addition, the theme was also later used for other unsold Goodson-produced game show pilots of Star Words in 1983 and On a Roll in 1986. Also, the win cue from the endgame "7 Chances" was also used from Mindreaders and later on, the 1980 pilot of Puzzlers and the 1983 pilot of Star Words.

One of the three pilots later aired on Buzzr as part of their "Lost and Found" week on September 11, 2015.

## Development

The idea for the TV series Body Language originated with the Milton Bradley board game of the same name, which was created by Dr. Cody Sweet in 1974.

Mark Goodson and Bill Todman had previously used the format on the short-lived game show Showoffs, which aired on ABC in 1975.

## Broadcast History

Body Language replaced the second version of Tattletales at 4:00 pm (Eastern)/3:00 pm (Central / Mountain / Pacific). Although its sole network competition on ABC, The Edge of Night, was nearing the end of a long run, the show struggled nonetheless because many CBS affiliates had for years preempted the network feed at that time in favor of syndicated programming, which likely brought in larger advertising revenues.

Although some stations tape-delayed the show for broadcast the next morning, Body Language still managed only a fraction of the audience that daytime games such as The Price Is Right and The $25,000 Pyramid did. As such, CBS cancelled the show in December 1985 and aired its last episode on January 3, 1986. Body Language was then replaced on January 6 by a revival of Goodson's Card Sharks, which occupied the 10:30 am timeslot, forcing a move of Press Your Luck to 4:00 pm at the same time; CBS would return the 4:00 pm timeslot to its affiliates after Press Your Luck aired its last episode on September 26, 1986.

## Miscellaneous

All episodes of Body Language were taped in studio 33 at CBS Television City in Hollywood.

Near the end of Body Language's broadcast run, host Tom Kennedy also hosted The Nighttime Price Is Right. His hair had visibly grayed by the time Body Language began production, and he dyed his hair brown to host Price (as daytime host Bob Barker was still doing at the time; Barker reverted to his natural white hair in 1987). Kennedy can be seen with his hair dyed brown in Body Language's later episodes.

## Episode status

All episodes are intact. Game Show Network has aired the show at various times since 1994.

Body Language was also seen in select markets on Fremantle's Buzzr station, beginning on June 1, 2015, and again on January 19, 2020. The show continued to air until September 24, 2021. The series returned to BUZZR’s daily lineup on April 15, 2024.

## In popular culture

Two clips of an episode featuring Betty White as a celebrity partner were shown on a third-season episode of Hot in Cleveland in 2012 titled "How Did You Guys Meet, Anyway?" The footage was digitally altered to include a nametag on White that read "Elka", to make it appear that White's character, Elka Ostrovsky, was appearing as a contestant.


Multiple sub-Nyquist sampling encoding

# Multiple sub-Nyquist sampling encoding

## Abstract

MUSE (Multiple sub-Nyquist Sampling Encoding), commercially known as Hi-Vision (a contraction of HI gh-definition tele VISION) was a Japanese analog high-definition television system, with design efforts going back to 1979.

It used dot-interlacing and digital video compression to deliver 1125 line, 60 field-per-second (1125i60) signals to the home. The system was standardized as ITU -R recommendation BO.786 and specified by SMPTE 260M, using a colorimetry matrix specified by SMPTE 240M. As with other analog systems, not all lines carry visible information. On MUSE there are 1035 active interlaced lines, therefore this system is sometimes also mentioned as 1035i. It employed 2-dimensional filtering, dot-interlacing, motion-vector compensation and line-sequential color encoding with time compression to "fold" an original 20 MHz bandwidth source signal into just 8.1 MHz.

Japan began broadcasting wideband analog HDTV signals in December 1988, initially with an aspect ratio of 2:1. The Sony HDVS high-definition video system was used to create content for the MUSE system, but didn't record MUSE signals. By the time of its commercial launch in 1991, digital HDTV was already under development in the United States. Hi-Vision was mainly broadcast by NHK through their BShi satellite TV channel, although other channels such as WOWOW, TV Asahi, Fuji Television, TBS Television, Nippon Television, and TV Tokyo also broadcast in MUSE.

On May 20, 1994, Panasonic released the first MUSE LaserDisc player. There were also a number of players available from other brands like Pioneer and Sony.

Hi-Vision continued broadcasting in analog until 2007.

## History

MUSE was developed by NHK Science & Technology Research Laboratories in the 1980s as a compression system for Hi-Vision HDTV signals.

- Japanese broadcast engineers immediately rejected conventional vestigial sideband broadcasting.

- It was decided early on that MUSE would be a satellite broadcast format as Japan economically supports satellite broadcasting. MUSE was transmitted at a frequency of 21 GHz or 12 GHz.

- Japanese broadcast engineers had been studying the various HDTV broadcast types for some time. It was initially thought that SHF, EHF or optic fiber would have to be used to transmit HDTV due to the high bandwidth of the signal, and HLO-PAL would be used for terrestrial broadcast. HLO-PAL is a conventionally constructed composite signal (based on Y {\displaystyle Y} for luminance and C {\displaystyle C} for chroma like NTSC and PAL) and uses a phase alternating by line with half-line offset carrier encoding of the wideband/narrowband chroma components. Only the very lowest part of the wideband chroma component overlapped the high-frequency chroma. The narrowband chroma was completely separated from luminance. PAF, or phase alternating by field (like the first NTSC color system trial) was also experimented with, and it gave much better decoding results, but NHK abandoned all composite encoding systems. Because of the use of satellite transmission, Frequency modulation (FM) should be used with power-limitation problem. FM incurs triangular noise, so if a sub-carrierred composite signal is used with FM, demodulated chroma signal has more noise than luminance. Because of this, they looked at other options, and decided to use Y / C {\displaystyle Y/C} component emission for satellite. At one point, it seemed that FCFE (Frame Conversion Fineness Enhanced), I/P conversion compression system, would be chosen, but MUSE was ultimately picked.

- Separate transmission of Y {\displaystyle Y} and C {\displaystyle C} components was explored. The MUSE format which is transmitted today, uses separated component signalling. The improvement in picture quality was so great, that the original test systems were recalled.

- One more power saving tweak was made: lack of visual response to low frequency noise allows significant reduction in transponder power if the higher video frequencies are emphasised prior to modulation at the transmitter and de-emphasized at the receiver.

## Technical specifications

MUSE's "1125 lines" are an analog measurement, which includes non-video scan lines taking place while a CRT 's electron beam returns to the top of the screen to begin scanning the next field. Only 1035 lines have picture information. Digital signals count only the lines (rows of pixels) that have actual detail, so NTSC's 525 lines become 486i (rounded to 480 to be MPEG compatible), PAL's 625 lines become 576i, and MUSE would be 1035i. To convert the bandwidth of Hi-Vision MUSE into "conventional" lines-of-horizontal resolution (as is used in the NTSC world), multiply 29.9 lines per MHz of bandwidth. (NTSC and PAL/SECAM are 79.9 lines per MHz) - this calculation of 29.9 lines works for all current HD systems including Blu-ray and HD-DVD. So, for MUSE, during a still picture, the lines of resolution would be: 598-lines of luminance resolution per-picture-height. The chroma resolution is: 209-lines. The horizontal luminance measurement approximately matches the vertical resolution of a 1080 interlaced image when the Kell factor and interlace factor are taken into account. 1125 lines was selected as a compromise between the resolution in lines of NTSC and PAL and then doubling this number.

MUSE employs time-compression integration (TCI) which is another term for time-division multiplexing, which is used to carry luminance, chrominance, PCM audio and sync signals on one carrier signal/in one carrier frequency. However, TCI achieves multiplexing by compression of the contents in the time dimension, in other words transmitting frames of video that are divided into regions with chrominance compressed into the left of the frame and luminance compressed into the right of the frame, which must then be expanded and layered to create a visible image. This makes it different from NTSC which carries luminance, audio and chrominance simultaneously in several carrier frequencies. Hi-Vision signals are component video signals with 3 channels: they were RGB initially, and later YP P.

Key features of the MUSE system:

- Scanlines (total/active): 1,125/1,035

- Pixels per line (fully interpolated): 1122 (still image)/748 (moving)

- Reference clock periods: 1920 per active line

- Interlaced ratio: 2:1

- Aspect ratio 16:9

- Refresh rate: 59.94 or 60 frames per second

- Sampling frequency for broadcast: 16.2 MHz

- Vector motion compensation: horizontal ± 16 samples (32.4 MHz clock) / frame, a vertical line ± 3 / Field

- Audio: "DANCE" discrete 2- or 4-channel digital audio system: 48 kHz/16 bit (2 channel stereo: 2 front channels)/32 kHz/12 bit (4 channel surround: 3 front channels + 1 back channel)

- DPCM Audio compression format: DPCM quasi-instantaneous companding

- Required bandwidth: 27 MHz

### Colorimetry

The MUSE luminance signal Y {\displaystyle Y} encodes Y M {\displaystyle YM}, specified as the following mix of the original RGB color channels:

The chrominance C {\displaystyle C} signal encodes B − Y M {\displaystyle B-YM} and R − Y M {\displaystyle R-YM} difference signals. By using these three signals (Y M {\displaystyle YM}, B − Y M {\displaystyle B-YM} and R − Y M {\displaystyle R-YM}), a MUSE receiver can retrieve the original RGB color components using the following matrix:

The system used a colorimetry matrix specified by SMPTE 240M (with coefficients corresponding to the SMPTE RP 145 primaries, also known as SMPTE-C, in use at the time the standard was created). The chromaticity of the primary colors and white point are:

The luma (E Y {\displaystyle EY}) function is specified as:

The blue color difference (E P B {\displaystyle EPB}) is amplitude-scaled (E B − E Y {\displaystyle EB-EY}), according to:

The red color difference (E P R {\displaystyle EPR}) is amplitude-scaled (E R − E Y {\displaystyle ER-EY}), according to:

### Signal and Transmission

MUSE is a 1125 line system (1035 visible), and is not pulse and sync compatible with the digital 1080 line system used by modern HDTV. Originally, it was a 1125 line, interlaced, 60 Hz, system with a 5:3 (1.66:1) aspect ratio and an optimal viewing distance of roughly 3.3H. In 1989 this was changed to a 16:9 aspect ratio.

For terrestrial MUSE transmission a bandwidth limited FM system was devised. A satellite transmission system uses uncompressed FM.

The pre-compression bandwidth for Y {\displaystyle Y} is 20 MHz, and the pre-compression bandwidth for chrominance is a 7.425 MHz carrier.

The Japanese initially explored the idea of frequency modulation of a conventionally constructed composite signal. This would create a signal similar in structure to the Y / C {\displaystyle Y/C} composite video NTSC signal - with the Y {\displaystyle Y} (luminance) at the lower frequencies and the C {\displaystyle C} (chrominance) above. Approximately 3 kW of power would be required, in order to get 40 dB of signal to noise ratio for a composite FM signal in the 22 GHz band. This was incompatible with satellite broadcast techniques and bandwidth.

To overcome this limitation, it was decided to use a separate transmission of Y {\displaystyle Y} and C {\displaystyle C}. This reduces the effective frequency range and lowers the required power. Approximately 570 W (360 for Y {\displaystyle Y} and 210 for C {\displaystyle C}) would be needed in order to get a 40 dB of signal to noise ratio for a separate Y / C {\displaystyle Y/C} FM signal in the 22 GHz satellite band. This was feasible.

There is one more power saving that appears from the character of the human eye. The lack of visual response to low frequency noise allows significant reduction in transponder power if the higher video frequencies are emphasized prior to modulation at the transmitter and then de-emphasized at the receiver. This method was adopted, with crossover frequencies for the emphasis/de-emphasis at 5.2 MHz for Y {\displaystyle Y} and 1.6 MHz for C {\displaystyle C}. With this in place, the power requirements drop to 260 W of power (190 for Y {\displaystyle Y} and 69 for C {\displaystyle C}).

## Sampling systems and ratios

The subsampling in a video system is usually expressed as a three part ratio. The three terms of the ratio are: the number of brightness (luma) Y {\displaystyle Y} samples, followed by the number of samples of the two color (chroma) components C b {\displaystyle Cb} and C r {\displaystyle Cr}, for each complete sample area. Traditionally the value for brightness is always 4, with the rest of the values scaled accordingly.

A sampling of 4:4:4 indicates that all three components are fully sampled. A sampling of 4:2:0, for example, indicated that the two chroma components are sampled at half the horizontal sample rate of luma - the horizontal chroma resolution is halved. This reduces the bandwidth of an uncompressed video signal by one-third.

MUSE implements a similar system as a means of reducing bandwidth, but instead of static sampling, the actual ratio varies according to the amount of motion on the screen. In practice, MUSE sampling will vary from approximately 4:2:1 to 4:0.5:0.25, depending on the amount of movement. Thus the red-green chroma component C r {\displaystyle Cr} has between one-half and one-eighth the sampling resolution of the luma component Y {\displaystyle Y}, and the blue-yellow chroma C b {\displaystyle Cb} has half the resolution of red-green.

## Audio subsystem

MUSE had a discrete 2- or 4-channel digital audio system called " DANCE ", which stood for Digital Audio Near-instantaneous Compression and Expansion.

It used differential audio transmission (differential pulse-code modulation) that was not psychoacoustics-based like MPEG-1 Layer II. It used a fixed transmission rate of 1350 kbp/s. Like the PAL NICAM stereo system, it used near-instantaneous companding (as opposed to Syllabic-companding like the dbx system uses) and non-linear 13-bit digital encoding at a 32 kHz sample rate.

It could also operate in a 48 kHz 16-bit mode. The DANCE system was well documented in numerous NHK technical papers and in a NHK-published book issued in the USA called Hi-Vision Technology.

The DANCE audio codec was superseded by Dolby AC-3 (a.k.a. Dolby Digital), DTS Coherent Acoustics (a.k.a. DTS Zeta 6x20 or ARTEC), MPEG-1 Layer III (a.k.a. MP3), MPEG-2 Layer I, MPEG-4 AAC and many other audio coders. The methods of this codec are described in the IEEE paper:

## Real world performance issues

MUSE had a four-field dot-interlacing cycle, meaning it took four fields to complete a single MUSE frame. Thus, only stationary images were transmitted at full resolution. However, as MUSE lowers the horizontal and vertical resolution of material that varies greatly from frame to frame, moving images were blurred. Because MUSE used motion-compensation, whole camera pans maintained full resolution, but individual moving elements could be reduced to only a quarter of the full frame resolution. Because the mix between motion and non-motion was encoded on a pixel-by-pixel basis, it wasn't as visible as most would think. Later, NHK came up with backwards compatible methods of MUSE encoding/decoding that greatly increased resolution in moving areas of the image as well as increasing the chroma resolution during motion. This so-called MUSE-III system was used for broadcasts starting in 1995 and a very few of the last Hi-Vision MUSE LaserDiscs used it (A River Runs Through It is one Hi-Vision LD that used it). During early demonstrations of the MUSE system, complaints were common about the decoder's large size, which led to the creation of a miniaturized decoder.

Shadows and multipath still plague this analog frequency modulated transmission mode.

Japan has since switched to a digital HDTV system based on ISDB, but the original MUSE-based BS Satellite channel 9 (NHK BS Hi-vision) was broadcast until September 30, 2007.

## Cultural and geopolitical impacts

- (1940s): The NTSC standard (as a 525 line monochrome system) was imposed by the US occupation forces.

- (1950s-1960s): Unlike Canada (that could have switched to PAL), Japan was stuck with the US TV transmission standard regardless of circumstances.

- (1960s-1970s): By the late 1960s many parts of the modern Japanese electronics industry had gotten their start by fixing the transmission and storage problems inherent with NTSC's design.

- (1970s-1980s): By the 1980s there was spare engineering talent available in Japan that could design a better television system.

MUSE, as the US public came to know it, was initially covered in the magazine Popular Science in the mid-1980s. The US television networks did not provide much coverage of MUSE until the late 1980s, as there were few public demonstrations of the system outside Japan.

Because Japan had its own domestic frequency allocation tables (that were more open to the deployment of MUSE) it became possible for this television system to be transmitted by Ku Band satellite technology by the end of the 1980s.

The US FCC in the late 1980s began to issue directives that would allow MUSE to be tested in the US, providing it could be fit into a 6 MHz System-M channel.

The Europeans (in the form of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU)) were impressed with MUSE, but could never adopt it because it is a 60 Hz TV system, not a 50 Hz system that is standard in Europe and the rest of the world (outside the Americas and Japan).

The EBU development and deployment of B-MAC, D-MAC and much later on HD-MAC were made possible by Hi-Vision's technical success. In many ways MAC transmission systems are better than MUSE because of the total separation of colour from brightness in the time domain within the MAC signal structure.

Like Hi-Vision, HD-MAC could not be transmitted in 8 MHz channels without substantial modification – and a severe loss of quality and frame rate. A 6 MHz version Hi-Vision was experimented with in the US, but it too had severe quality problems so the FCC never fully sanctioned its use as a domestic terrestrial television transmission standard.

The US ATSC working group that had led to the creation of NTSC in the 1950s was reactivated in the early 1990s because of Hi-Vision's success. Many aspects of the DVB standard are based on work done by the ATSC working group, however most of the impact is in support for 60 Hz (as well as 24 Hz for film transmission) and uniform sampling rates and interoperable screen sizes.

## Device support for Hi-Vision

### Hi-Vision LaserDiscs

On May 20, 1994, Panasonic released the first MUSE LaserDisc player. There were a number of MUSE LaserDisc players available in Japan: Pioneer HLD-XØ, HLD-X9, HLD-1000, HLD-V500, HLD-V700; Sony HIL-1000, HIL-C1 and HIL-C2EX; the last two of which have OEM versions made by Panasonic, LX-HD10 and LX-HD20. Players also supported standard NTSC LaserDiscs. Hi-Vision LaserDiscs are extremely rare and expensive.

The HDL-5800 Video Disc Recorder recorded both high definition still images and continuous video onto an optical disc and was part of the early analog wideband Sony HDVS high-definition video system which supported the MUSE system. Capable of recording HD still images and video onto either the WHD-3AL0 or the WHD-33A0 optical disc; WHD-3Al0 for CLV mode (up to 10 minute video or 18,000 still frames per side); WHD-33A0 for CAV mode (up to 3 minute video or 5400 still frames per side). These video discs were used for short video content such as advertisements and product demonstrations.

The HDL-2000 was a full band high definition video disc player.

### Reel to reel VTRs

For recording Hi-Vision signals, Three reel to reel analog VTRs were released, among them are the Sony HDV-1000, the NEC TT 8-1000 and the Toshiba TVR-1000. These analog VTRs had a head drum angular speed of 3600 RPM and are similar to Type C VTRs. They have a bandwidth of 30 Mhz for luma and 7 Mhz for both chroma channels each, with a signal to noise ratio of 41 dB. They accept luma and chroma signals with bandwidths of up to 30 Mhz for both. Signals are recorded onto the tape using FM modulation. Linear tape speed is 483.1 mm/s and writing speed at the heads is 25.9 m/s. The head drum is 134.5 mm wide and has 4 video record heads, 4 video playback heads and 1 erasing head. It could record for 45 minutes on 10.5 inch reels. The video heads are made of Mn-Zn ferrite material, those used for recording have a gap of 0.7 microns and a width of 80 microns and those for playback have a gap of 0.35 microns and a width of 70 microns. It records audio on 3 linear tracks, and control signals on a linear track. Unlike conventional type C videotape recorders, Vertical Blanking Intervals are not recorded on the tape. Helical tracks have groups of 4 signals length-wise with red chrominance, blue chrominance, and two green chrominance signals with luminance information. Two tracks for green chrominance plus luminance are used to increase the bandwidth of these signals that can be recorded on the tape.

In 1987, technical standards for digital recording of Hi-Vision signals were released by NHK, and Sony and Hitachi developed the HDD-1000 and the HV-1200 digital reel to reel VTRs respectively. Audio is recorded digitally similarly to a DASH (Digital Audio Stationary Head) digital audio recorder, but several changes were made to synchronize the audio to the video. These digital VTRs can record 8 channels of digital audio on linear tracks (horizontally along the entire length of the tape). According to the standards, these VTRs operate with a head drum speed of 7200 RPM, have a bit rate of 148.5 Mb/s per video head, a linear tape speed of 805.2 mm/s and a writing speed at the heads of 51.5 m/s, are similar to Type C VTRs, have a head drum 135mm wide, 8 playback, 8 recording and 2 erase heads, with 37 micron wide helical tracks. Bandwidth is 30 Mhz for luma (Y) and 15 Mhz for chroma (P, P). Audio is recorded with a sampling rate of 48 kHz stored at 16 bits per sample in linear tape tracks, sampling rate for luma is 74.25 Mhz and 37.125 Mhz for chroma stored at 8 bits per sample. Signal to noise ratio is 56 dB for chroma and luma. Video fields are divided into 16 helical tracks on the tape. Total video bandwidth is 1.188 gigabits/s. Cue signals are recorded into 3 linear tape tracks. Video is recorded in groups of 4 tracks length-wise within each helical track, to allow for parallelization: high total data rates with relatively low data rates per head, and reduce the linear tape speed. Digital video signals are recorded line by line (1 row of pixels in every frame of video or 1 line of video at a time) with ECC (Error Correcting Code) at the end of each line and in between a number of vertical lines. Reed-Solomon code is used for ECC and each line also has an ID number for trick play such as slow motion and picture search/shuttle.

### Displays

MUSE requires a display capable of handling 30 Mhz of video bandwidth simultaneously for each of the video channels: Y, P and P. It was displayed on direct view color CRTs and CRT projectors, and plasma displays and Talaria projectors were explored to determine their ability to display MUSE images.

### Cameras

Cameras based on Saticon tubes, Plumbicon tubes, Harpicon tubes and CCD image sensors were used to capture footage using the Hi-Vision format. A prototype based on Vidicon tubes was also created.

### MUSE decoders

A MUSE decoder is required for receiving MUSE broadcasts from satellites, and for viewing content in the MUSE format. The decoder converts MUSE format signals into component video signals.

### Video cassettes

W-VHS allowed home recording of Hi-Vision programmes.

For recording Hi-Vision video, NHK and 10 Japanese companies ("NEC, Matsushita Electric Industrial, Toshiba, Sharp, Sony, Hitachi, Sanyo Electric, JVC, Mitsubishi Electric, Canon") in 1989 released UniHi, a professional videocassette format. Recorders for the format were manufactured by Panasonic, Sony, NEC, and Toshiba. These machines were less expensive than their Type C counterparts. Both studio and portable versions were made. The head drum spins at 5400 RPM and uses tape that is 12.65 mm wide. It has a luminance (Y) bandwidth of 20 MHz and a chrominance (P, P) bandwidth of 7 MHz. The head drum is 76mm wide. It uses two video heads with azimuth recording and records each frame of video into 12 helical tracks; only 6 tracks are necessary for each video field if recording interlaced video. Audio is recorded digitally as a PCM signal, as a section on the helical tracks. Writing speed at the heads is 21.4 m/s. The tape also has 3 linear tracks, one for audio, control and time code each. Signal to noise ratio for luminance is 41 dB and for chrominance it is 47 dB. The tape is wrapped 180° around the head drum. Development began in 1987. It uses metal particle tape. It could record video for 1 hour (63 minutes). Linear tape speed is 120 mm/s. The cassette measures 205mm (width) x 121mm (depth) x 25mm (height). Signals are recorded using time-compression integration, in groups of two signals length-wise on each helical track. Grouping is used to increase the bandwidth that can be recorded on the tape. The cassette is intented to be air-tight with two flaps in the cassette's opening to protect the tape.

This videocassette format was developed in order to reduce the size of HD recording equipment. The Sony version of the UniHi VTR, the HDV-10, had a price of over 90,000 US dollars.


Miles Copeland Jr.

# Miles Copeland Jr.

## Abstract

Miles Axe Copeland Jr. (July 16, 1916 – January 14, 1991) was an American musician, businessman, and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) founding member best known for his relationship with Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser and his public commentary on intelligence matters. Copeland participated in numerous covert operations, including the March 1949 Syrian coup d'état and the 1953 Iranian coup d'état.

A conservative who was influenced by the ideas of James Burnham, Copeland was associated with the American political magazine National Review. In a 1986 Rolling Stone interview, he stated "Unlike The New York Times, Victor Marchetti and Philip Agee, my complaint has been that the CIA isn't overthrowing enough anti-American governments or assassinating enough anti-American leaders, but I guess I'm getting old."

## Early life

The son of a doctor, Copeland was born in Birmingham, Alabama. He did not graduate from college.

According to the history professor Hugh Wilford, there is nothing in Copeland's CIA files to suggest he was a professional musician, but "several relatives and friends have testified to his musical ability." Copeland's books contain "several impressive statements about his days as a jazz musician," including that "he spent a week playing fourth trumpet in the Glenn Miller orchestra," but thatclaim has been discredited.

Copeland was married to the archeologist Lorraine Adie. He was the father of the music manager Miles Copeland III; the booking agent Ian Copeland; the film producer Lorraine (Lennie) Copeland; and the drummer Stewart Copeland, a founding member of the rock band The Police.

## Career

### Foundation of CIA

At the outbreak of World War II, Copeland joined the National Guard and contacted Representative John Sparkman of Alabama, who arranged a meeting with William J. Donovan. The two hit it off immediately, but Copeland was not recruited to Donovan's Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and instead joined the Corps of Intelligence Police in Europe during World War 2, which became the Counterintelligence Corps (CIC) in January 1942. Copeland was stationed in London and reportedly gained the top-secret " Bigot " clearance and took part in discussions about Operation Overlord.

After the conversion of the OSS into the Strategic Services Unit on 1 October 1945, Copeland joined what would become part of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Serving in London, he became a lifelong Anglophile. He married Lorraine Adie, a Scot he had met during the war while she was serving in the Special Operations Executive.

### CIA career

After the end of World War II and the creation of the CIA, Copeland was asked to organize the agency’s information-gathering unit in the Middle East. He was stationed in Damascus, Syria, as a CIA case officer under the cover title "cultural attaché," beginning a long career in the Middle East. Together with Stephen Meade (1913–2004) he played a role in supporting the March 1949 Syrian coup d'état. Working with Kim Roosevelt, he was instrumental in arranging Operation Ajax, the 1953 coup against Prime Minister of Iran Mohammad Mosaddegh.

In 1953, Copeland returned to private life at the consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton and remained a non-official cover operative for the CIA. He traveled to Cairo to meet Gamal Abdel Nasser, who had overthrown King Farouk and taken power in Egypt; advised Nasser on the development of the Mukhabarat; and became a close advisor to Nasser. Along with Richard P. Mitchell, Copeland also conducted espionage activities on the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. In 1957 in Beirut, he was friends with Kim Philby and Nicholas Elliott and keeping an eye on Philby for James Jesus Angleton, Counterintelligence Chief for the CIA.

Copeland opposed major paramilitary CIA operations such as the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion of Cuba in 1961 on the grounds that they were impossible to keep secret because of their size.

Copeland was known for his "Machiavellian sense of pessimism about human nature," which he derived in part from The Machiavellians, a book written by his "intellectual mentor," the Trotskyist -turned-conservative James Burnham. Copeland requested Burnham's "advice about ways to shore up revolutionary governments" and distilled Burnham's teachings into three key points: 1) The major priority of any government is perpetuating its rule. 2) Political leaders must remain cognizant of the irrationality of their subjects. and 3) A successful revolution requires a certain degree of political repression although it is more advantageous if repression is kept to a minimum.

In The Game Player, Copeland recounted that he was sent to Egypt to assess the feasibility of assassinating Nasser "on the tacit understanding that he would reach a negative assessment" and thus "discourage any British attempt."

Arriving in Cairo, Miles immediately confessed his mission to Nasser, whereupon the old friends began gaming out possible assassination plots. "How about poison?" the American asked the Egyptian. "Suppose I just wait until you turn your head and then slip a pill into your coffee?" "Well, there's Hassan standing right there," replied Nasser. "If I didn't see you Hassan would." "But maybe we could bribe a servant to poison the coffee before bringing it in?" "The coffee would only kill the taster." And so the conversation carried on—at least in Miles's recollection.

### Retirement

Copeland retired from the CIA in May 1957 to start the consulting firm Copeland & Eichelberger in Beirut, with his CIC and CIA colleague James Eichelberger, but he continued to perform assignments for the CIA on request. Copeland and his family returned to London in 1970. He made regular appearances on British television as an intelligence expert and pursued work in journalism, wrote books on foreign policy and an autobiography, and contributed to the conservative American magazine ]. He helped Waddingtons design a board game, The Game of Nations, in which superpowers compete for influence in "the imaginary region of Kark"; the game was loosely based on Copeland's book of the same name.

Copeland's memoirs have a strong literary quality and contain many embellishments, which make it difficult to gauge the historical accuracy of the covert operations that he describes. He was active in 1970s political efforts to defend the CIA against critics, including the Church Committee. In 1988, he wrote an article titled "Spooks for Bush," which asserted that the intelligence community overwhelmingly supported George H. W. Bush for president; he had named Bush his favorite CIA director.

## Books

- The Game of Nations: The Amorality of Power Politics. New York: Simon and Schuster; London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson (1969).

- Without Cloak or Dagger: The Truth About the New Espionage. New York: Simon and Schuster (1974). Published in the United Kingdom as Real Spy World. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson (1974).

- Published in the United Kingdom as Real Spy World. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson (1974).

- Beyond Cloak and Dagger: Inside the CIA. New York: Pinnacle Books (1975).

- The Game Player: Confessions of the CIA's Original Political Operative. London: Aurum Press (1989).