COVID-19 vaccine clinical research

# COVID-19 vaccine clinical research

## Abstract

COVID-19 vaccine clinical research uses clinical research to establish the characteristics of COVID-19 vaccines. These characteristics include efficacy, effectiveness, and safety. As of November 2022, 40 vaccines are authorized by at least one national regulatory authority for public use:

- one DNA vaccine: ZyCoV-D

- four RNA vaccines: Pfizer–BioNTech, Moderna, Walvax, and Gemcovac

- twelve inactivated vaccines: Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, CoronaVac, Covaxin, CoviVac, COVIran Barekat, FAKHRAVAC, Minhai-Kangtai, QazVac, Sinopharm BIBP, WIBP, Turkovac, and VLA2001.

- six viral vector vaccines: Sputnik Light, Sputnik V, Oxford–AstraZeneca, Convidecia, Janssen, and iNCOVACC

- sixteen subunit vaccines: Abdala, Corbevax, COVAX-19, EpiVacCorona, IndoVac, MVC-COV1901, Noora, Novavax, Razi Cov Pars, Sanofi–GSK, Sinopharm CNBG, Skycovione, Soberana 02, Soberana Plus, V-01, and ZF2001.

- one virus-like particle vaccine: CoVLP

As of June 2022, 353 vaccine candidates are in various stages of development, with 135 in clinical research, including 38 in phase I trials, 32 in phase I–II trials, 39 in phase III trials, and 9 in phase IV development.

## Formulation

A wide variety of technologies are being used to formulate vaccines against COVID-19. The development and deployment of mRNA vaccines and viral vector vaccines has been outstandingly rapid and can be described as revolutionary. However, global vaccine equity against COVID-19 has not been achieved. Conventional vaccine manufacturing approaches using whole inactivated virus (WIV), protein-based subunit vaccines, and virus-like particles (VLPs) may offer advantages in the development of vaccines for use in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) and in addressing vaccine access gaps.

Many vaccine candidates use adjuvants to enhance immunogenicity, as part of the delivery system or as an accompanying immune stimulant. Vaccine adjuvant formulations using aluminum salts or "alum" may be particularly effective for technologies using inactivated COVID-19 virus and for recombinant protein-based or vector-based vaccines.

## Status

### Clinical trials

The clinical trial process typically consists of three phases, each following the success of the prior phase. Trials are doubly blind in that neither the researcher nor the subject know whether they receive the vaccine or a placebo. Each phase involves randomly-selected subjects who are randomly assigned to serve either as recipients are controls:

- Phase I trials test primarily for safety and preliminary dosing in healthy subjects. Dozens of subjects.

- Phase II trials evaluate immunogenicity, dose levels (efficacy based on biomarkers) and adverse effects. Hundreds of subjects. Sometimes Phase I and II trials are combined.

- Phase III trials typically involve more participants at multiple sites, include a control group, and test effectiveness of the vaccine to prevent the disease (an "interventional" or "pivotal" trial), while monitoring for adverse effects at the selected dose. Safety, efficacy, and clinical endpoints may vary, including the definition of side effects, infection or amount of transmission, and whether the vaccine prevents moderate or severe infection.

A clinical trial design in progress may adopt an "adaptive design". If accumulating data provide insights about the treatment, the endpoints or other aspects or the trial can be adjusted. Adaptive designs may shorten trial durations and use fewer subjects, possibly expediting decisions, avoiding duplication of research efforts, and enhancing coordination of design changes.

### Vaccine candidates in human trials

The table below shows various vaccine candidates and the phases which they had completed per the references. Current phases are also shown along with other details.

#### Homologous prime-boost vaccination

In July 2021, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued a joint statement reporting that a booster dose is not necessary for those who have been fully vaccinated.

In August 2021, the FDA and the CDC authorized the use of an additional mRNA vaccine dose for immunocompromised individuals. The authorization was extended to cover other specific groups in September 2021.

In October 2021, the FDA and the CDC authorized the use of either homologous or heterologous vaccine booster doses.

#### Heterologous prime-boost vaccination

The World Health Organization (WHO) defines heterologous prime-boost immunization as the "administration of two different vectors or delivery systems expressing the same or overlapping antigenic inserts." A heterologous scheme can sometimes be more immunogenic than some homologous schemes.

In October 2021, the FDA and the CDC authorized the use of either homologous or heterologous vaccine booster doses.

Some experts believe that heterologous prime-boost vaccination courses can boost immunity, and several studies have begun to examine this effect. Despite the absence of clinical data on the efficacy and safety of such heterologous combinations, Canada and several European countries have recommended a heterologous second dose for people who have received the first dose of the Oxford–AstraZeneca vaccine.

In February 2021, the Oxford Vaccine Group launched the Com-COV vaccine trial to investigate heterologous prime-boost courses of different COVID-19 vaccines. As of June 2021, the group is conducting two phase II studies: Com-COV and Com-COV2.

In Com-COV, the two heterologous combinations of the Oxford–AstraZeneca and Pfizer–BioNTech vaccines were compared with the two homologous combinations of the same vaccines, with an interval of 28 or 84 days between doses.

In Com-COV2, the first dose is the Oxford–AstraZeneca vaccine or the Pfizer vaccine, and the second dose is the Moderna vaccine, the Novavax vaccine, or a homologous vaccine equal to the first dose, with an interval of 56 or 84 days between doses.

A study in the UK is evaluating annual heterologous boosters by randomly combining the following vaccines: Oxford–AstraZeneca, Pfizer–BioNTech, Moderna, Novavax, VLA2001, CureVac, and Janssen.

On 16 December, WHO recommendations on heterologous vaccinations suggested a general trend of increased immunogenicity when one of the doses is of an mRNA vaccine, particularly as the last dose. The immunogenicity of a homologous mRNA course is roughly equivalent to a heterologous scheme involving a vector vaccine and an mRNA vaccine. However, the WHO has emphasized the need to address many evidence gaps in heterologous regimens, including duration of protection, optimal interval between doses, influence of fractional dosing, effectiveness against variants and long-term safety.

## Efficacy

Vaccine efficacy is the reduction in risk of getting the disease by vaccinated participants in a controlled trial compared with the risk of getting the disease by unvaccinated participants. An efficacy of 0% means that the vaccine does not work (identical to placebo). An efficacy of 50% means that there are half as many cases of infection as in unvaccinated individuals.

COVID-19 vaccine efficacy may be adversely affected if the arm is held improperly or squeezed so the vaccine is injected subcutaneously instead of into the muscle. The CDC guidance is to not repeat doses that are administered subcutaneously.

It is not straightforward to compare the efficacies of the different vaccines because the trials were run with different populations, geographies, and variants of the virus. In the case of COVID-19 prior to the advent of the delta variant, it was thought that a vaccine efficacy of 67% may be enough to slow the pandemic, but the current vaccines do not confer sterilizing immunity, which is necessary to prevent transmission. Vaccine efficacy reflects disease prevention, a poor indicator of transmissibility of SARS‑CoV‑2 since asymptomatic people can be highly infectious. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the European Medicines Agency (EMA) set a cutoff of 50% as the efficacy required to approve a COVID-19 vaccine, with the lower limit of the 95% confidence interval being greater than 30%. Aiming for a realistic population vaccination coverage rate of 75%, and depending on the actual basic reproduction number, the necessary effectiveness of a COVID-19 vaccine is expected to need to be at least 70% to prevent an epidemic and at least 80% to extinguish it without further measures, such as social distancing.

The observed substantial efficacy of certain mRNA vaccines even after partial (1-dose) immunization indicates a non-linear dose-efficacy relation already seen in the phase I-II study. It suggests that personalization of the vaccine dose (regular dose to the elderly, reduced dose to the healthy young, additional booster dose to the immunosuppressed) might allow accelerating vaccination campaigns in settings of limited supplies, thereby shortening the pandemic, as predicted by pandemic modeling.

Ranges below are 95% confidence intervals unless indicated otherwise, and all values are for all participants regardless of age, according to the references for each of the trials. By definition, the accuracy of the estimates without an associated confidence interval is unknown publicly. Efficacy against severe COVID-19 is the most important, since hospitalizations and deaths are a public health burden whose prevention is a priority. Authorized and approved vaccines have shown the following efficacies:

### Effectiveness

Evidence from vaccine use during the pandemic shows vaccination can reduce infection and is most effective at preventing severe COVID-19 symptoms and death, but is less good at preventing mild COVID-19. Efficacy wanes over time but can be maintained with boosters. In 2021, the CDC reported that unvaccinated people were 10 times more likely to be hospitalized and 11 times more likely to die than fully vaccinated people.

The CDC reported that vaccine effectiveness fell from 91% against Alpha to 66% against Delta. One expert stated that "those who are infected following vaccination are still not getting sick and not dying like was happening before vaccination." By late August 2021, the Delta variant accounted for 99 percent of U.S. cases and was found to double the risk of severe illness and hospitalization for those not yet vaccinated.

In November 2021, a study by the ECDC estimated that 470,000 lives over the age of 60 had been saved since the start of the vaccination roll-out in the European region.

On 10 December 2021, the UK Health Security Agency reported that early data indicated a 20- to 40-fold reduction in neutralizing activity for Omicron by sera from Pfizer 2-dose vaccinees relative to earlier strains. After a booster dose (usually with an mRNA vaccine), vaccine effectiveness against symptomatic disease was at 70%–75%, and the effectiveness against severe disease was expected to be higher.

According to early December 2021 CDC data, "unvaccinated adults were about 97 times more likely to die from COVID-19 than fully vaccinated people who had received boosters".

A meta-analysis looking into COVID-19 vaccine differences in immunosuppressed individuals found that people with a weakened immune system are less able to produce neutralizing antibodies. For example, organ transplant recipients need three vaccines to achieve seroconversion. A study on the serologic response to mRNA vaccines among patients with lymphoma, leukemia, and myeloma found that one-quarter of patients did not produce measurable antibodies, varying by cancer type.

In February 2023, a systematic review in The Lancet said that the protection afforded by infection was comparable to that from vaccination, albeit with an increased risk of severe illness and death from the disease of an initial infection.

A January 2024 study by the CDC found that staying up to date on the vaccines could reduce the risk of strokes, blood clots and heart attacks related to COVID-19 in people aged 65 years or older or with a condition that makes them more vulnerable to said conditions.

#### Studies

Real-world studies of vaccine effectiveness measure the extent to which a certain vaccine prevents infection, symptoms, hospitalization and death for the vaccinated individuals in a large population under routine conditions.

- In Israel, among the 715,425 individuals vaccinated by the mRNA vaccines from 20 December 2020, to 28 January 2021, starting seven days after the second shot, only 317 people (0.04%) displayed mild/moderate COVID-19 symptoms and only 16 people (0.002%) were hospitalized.

- CDC reported that under real-world conditions, mRNA vaccine effectiveness was 90% against infections regardless of symptom status; while effectiveness of partial immunization was 80%.

- In the UK, 15,121 health care workers from 104 hospitals who had tested negative for antibodies prior to the study, were followed by RT-PCR tests twice a week from 7 December 2020 to 5 February 2021, a study compared the positive results for the 90.7% vaccinated share of their cohort with the 9.3% unvaccinated share, and found that the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine reduced all infections (including asymptomatic), by 72% (58–86%) three weeks after the first dose and 86% (76–97%) one week after the second dose, while Alpha was dominant.

- In Israel a study conducted from 17 January to 6 March 2021, found that Pfizer/BioNTech reduced asymptomatic Alpha infections by 94% and symptomatic COVID-19 infections by 97%.

- A study on the Queensland Population having only ever been exposed to the Omicron strain of COVID-19 found vaccine effectiveness against symptomatic hospitalizations to be 70% in the general population and similar for First Nations peoples.

- A study among pre-surgical patients across the Mayo Clinic system in the United States, showed that mRNA vaccines were 80% protective against asymptomatic infections.

- A UK study found that a single dose of the Oxford–AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine is about 73% (27 – 90%) effective in people aged 70 and older.

- A study finds that nearly all teenagers admitted to intensive care units because of COVID-19 were unvaccinated.

### Variants

The interplay between the SARS-CoV-2 virus and its human hosts was initially natural but is now being altered by the prompt availability of vaccines. The potential emergence of a SARS-CoV-2 variant that is moderately or fully resistant to the antibody response elicited by the COVID-19 vaccines may necessitate modification of the vaccines. The emergence of vaccine-resistant variants is more likely in a highly vaccinated population with uncontrolled transmission. Trials indicate many vaccines developed for the initial strain have lower efficacy for some variants against symptomatic COVID-19. As of February 2021, the US Food and Drug Administration believed that all FDA authorized vaccines remained effective in protecting against circulating strains of SARS-CoV-2.

#### Alpha (lineage B.1.1.7)

Limited evidence from various preliminary studies reviewed by the WHO indicated retained efficacy/effectiveness against disease from Alpha with the Oxford–AstraZeneca vaccine, Pfizer–BioNTech and Novavax, with no data for other vaccines yet. Relevant to how vaccines can end the pandemic by preventing asymptomatic infection, they have also indicated retained antibody neutralization against Alpha with most of the widely distributed vaccines (Sputnik V, Pfizer–BioNTech, Moderna, CoronaVac, Sinopharm BIBP, Covaxin), minimal to moderate reduction with the Oxford–AstraZeneca and no data for other vaccines yet.

In December 2020, a new SARS‑CoV‑2 variant, the Alpha variant or lineage B.1.1.7, was identified in the UK.

Early results suggest protection to the variant from the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines.

One study indicated that the Oxford–AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine had an efficacy of 42–89% against Alpha, versus 71–91% against other variants.

Preliminary data from a clinical trial indicates that the Novavax vaccine is ~96% effective for symptoms against the original variant and ~86% against Alpha.

#### Beta (lineage B.1.351)

Limited evidence from various preliminary studies reviewed by the WHO have indicated reduced efficacy/effectiveness against disease from Beta with the Oxford–AstraZeneca vaccine (possibly substantial), Novavax (moderate), Pfizer–BioNTech and Janssen (minimal), with no data for other vaccines yet. Relevant to how vaccines can end the pandemic by preventing asymptomatic infection, they have also indicated possibly reduced antibody neutralization against Beta with most of the widely distributed vaccines (Oxford–AstraZeneca, Sputnik V, Janssen, Pfizer–BioNTech, Moderna, Novavax; minimal to substantial reduction) except CoronaVac and Sinopharm BIBP (minimal to modest reduction), with no data for other vaccines yet.

Moderna has launched a trial of a vaccine to tackle the Beta variant or lineage B.1.351. On 17 February 2021, Pfizer announced neutralization activity was reduced by two-thirds for this variant, while stating that no claims about the efficacy of the vaccine in preventing illness for this variant could yet be made. Decreased neutralizing activity of sera from patients vaccinated with the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines against Beta was later confirmed by several studies. On 1 April 2021, an update on a Pfizer/BioNTech South African vaccine trial stated that the vaccine was 100% effective so far (i.e., vaccinated participants saw no cases), with six of nine infections in the placebo control group being the Beta variant.

In January 2021, Johnson & Johnson, which held trials for its Janssen vaccine in South Africa, reported the level of protection against moderate to severe COVID-19 infection was 72% in the United States and 57% in South Africa.

On 6 February 2021, the Financial Times reported that provisional trial data from a study undertaken by South Africa's University of the Witwatersrand in conjunction with Oxford University demonstrated reduced efficacy of the Oxford–AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine against the variant. The study found that in a sample size of 2,000 the AZD1222 vaccine afforded only "minimal protection" in all but the most severe cases of COVID-19. On 7 February 2021, the Minister for Health for South Africa suspended the planned deployment of about a million doses of the vaccine whilst they examine the data and await advice on how to proceed.

In a study reported in March and May 2021, the efficacy of the Novavax vaccine (NVX-CoV2373) was tested in a preliminary randomized, placebo-controlled study involving 2684 participants who were negative for COVID at baseline testing. Beta was the predominant variant to occur, with post-hoc analysis indicating a vaccine efficacy of Novavax against Beta of 51.0% for HIV-negative participants.

#### Gamma (lineage P.1)

Limited evidence from various preliminary studies reviewed by the WHO have indicated likely retained efficacy/effectiveness against disease from Gamma with CoronaVac and Sinopharm BIBP, with no data for other vaccines yet. Relevant to how vaccines can end the pandemic by preventing asymptomatic infection, they have also indicated retained antibody neutralization against Gamma with Oxford–AstraZeneca and CoronaVac (no to minimal reduction) and slightly reduced neutralization with Pfizer–BioNTech and Moderna (minimal to moderate reduction), with no data for other vaccines yet.

The Gamma variant or lineage P.1 variant (also known as 20J/501Y.V3), initially identified in Brazil, seems to partially escape vaccination with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.

#### Delta (lineage B.1.617.2)

Limited evidence from various preliminary studies reviewed by the WHO have indicated likely retained efficacy/effectiveness against disease from Delta with the Oxford–AstraZeneca vaccine and Pfizer–BioNTech, with no data for other vaccines yet. Relevant to how vaccines can end the pandemic by preventing asymptomatic infection, they have also indicated reduced antibody neutralization against Delta with single-dose Oxford–AstraZeneca (substantial reduction), Pfizer–BioNTech and Covaxin (modest to moderate reduction), with no data for other vaccines yet.

In October 2020, a new variant was discovered in India, which was named lineage B.1.617. There were very few detections until January 2021, but by April it had spread to at least 20 countries in all continents except Antarctica and South America. Mutations present in the spike protein in the B.1.617 lineage are associated with reduced antibody neutralization in laboratory experiments. The variant has frequently been referred to as a 'Double mutant', even though in this respect it is not unusual. the latter two of which may cause it to easily avoid antibodies. In an update on 15 April 2021, PHE designated lineage B.1.617 as a 'Variant under investigation', VUI-21APR-01. On 6 May 2021, Public Health England escalated lineage B.1.617.2 from a Variant Under Investigation to a Variant of Concern based on an assessment of transmissibility being at least equivalent to the Alpha variant.

#### Omicron (lineage BA.2 and BA.2.12.2)

COVID-19 vaccine effectiveness was studied in adults without immunocompromising conditions in 10 US states between 18 December 2021 – 10 June 2022, when Omicron was prevalent. 3 doses of mRNA COVID-19 vaccines was 69% against COVID-19–associated hospitalization 7–119 days after the third vaccine dose and 52% against COVID-19–associated hospitalization more than 4 months after the 3rd dose. Among adults aged ≥50 years, COVID-19 vaccine effectiveness against COVID-19–associated hospitalization ≥120 days after receipt of dose 3 was only 32%, increasing to 66% ≥7 days after the fourth dose.

### Effect of neutralizing antibodies

One study found that the in vitro concentration (titer) of neutralizing antibodies elicited by a COVID-19 vaccine is a strong correlate of immune protection. The relationship between protection and neutralizing activity is nonlinear. A neutralization as low as 3% (95% CI, 1 – 13%) of the level of convalescence results in 50% efficacy against severe disease, with 20% (14 – 28%) resulting in 50% efficacy against detectable infection. Protection against infection quickly decays, leaving individuals susceptible to mild infections, while protection against severe disease is largely retained and much more durable. The observed half-life of neutralizing titers was 65 days for mRNA vaccines (Pfizer–BioNTech, Moderna) during the first 4 months, increasing to 108 days over 8 months. Greater initial efficacy against infection likely results in a higher level of protection against serious disease in the long term (beyond 10 years, as seen in other vaccines such as smallpox, measles, mumps, and rubella), although the authors acknowledge that their simulations consider only protection from neutralizing antibodies and ignore other immune protection mechanisms, such as cell-mediated immunity, which may be more durable. This observation also applies to efficacy against variants and is particularly significant for vaccines with a lower initial efficacy; for example, a 5-fold reduction in neutralization would indicate a reduction in initial efficacy from 95% to 77% against a specific variant, and from a lower efficacy of 70% to 32% against that variant. For the Oxford–AstraZeneca vaccine, the observed efficacy is below the predicted 95% confidence interval. It is higher for Sputnik V and the convalescent response, and is within the predicted interval for the other vaccines evaluated (Pfizer–BioNTech, Moderna, Janssen, CoronaVac, Covaxin, Novavax).

## Side effects

All vaccines, including COVID-19 ones, can have minor side effects related to the mild trauma associated with the introduction of a foreign substance into the body. These include soreness, redness, rash, and inflammation at the injection site. Other common side effects include fatigue, headache, myalgia (muscle pain), and arthralgia (joint pain) which generally resolve within a few days.

Serious adverse events that follow the administration of vaccines are of high interest to the public. It is important to recognize that the occurrence of an adverse event following vaccination does not necessarily mean that the vaccine caused the adverse event; the health problem may have been unrelated. Reporting of all adverse events, careful followup and statistical analysis of occurrences are required to determine whether or not a specific health problem is more likely to occur after a vaccine is administered.

More serious side effects are very rare. Before COVID-19 vaccines such as Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech were authorized for use in the general population, they had to pass phase III studies involving tens of thousands of people. Any serious side effects that did not appear during that testing are likely to occur less often than ~1 in 10,000 cases. It is important that Phase III trials be diverse, to ensure that safety results apply broadly. It is possible that side effects may affect a population that was not adequately represented during the initial testing. Pregnant women, immunocompromised people, and children are usually excluded from initial studies because they may be at higher risk. Further studies may be done to ensure their safety before vaccines are authorized for use in such populations. Subsequent examinations of the use of COVID vaccines in pregnant people and in children have shown similar outcomes to the general population and do not suggest greater risk for these groups.


The Favourite

# The Favourite

## Abstract

The Favourite is a 2018 satirical absurdist period dark comedy film directed by Yorgos Lanthimos, and written by Deborah Davis and Tony McNamara. A co-production between Ireland, the United Kingdom, and the United States, the film stars Olivia Colman, Emma Stone, and Rachel Weisz. Set in early 18th century Great Britain, it examines the relationship between cousins Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough and Abigail Hill as they vie to be court favourite of Queen Anne.

Principal photography took place at Hatfield House in Hertfordshire and at Hampton Court Palace, lasting from March to May 2017. The film premiered on 30 August 2018 at the 75th Venice International Film Festival, where it won the Grand Jury Prize and the Volpi Cup for Best Actress for Colman. It was released theatrically in the United States on 23 November 2018 by Fox Searchlight Pictures, and in Ireland and the United Kingdom on 1 January 2019. The film was a box office success, grossing $95 million worldwide on a $15 million budget.

The Favourite received widespread critical acclaim, with particular praise drawn to Lanthimos's direction, the screenplay and performances of Colman, Weisz and Stone, and it won or was nominated for numerous awards, including ten Academy Award nominations, tying Roma for the most nominations of any film at that year's ceremony. It won ten British Independent Film Awards, seven BAFTA Awards, and eight European Film Awards, and Colman won Best Actress at each of those ceremonies, as well as the Academy Awards, the Golden Globes, and others. The American Film Institute named The Favourite one of the top ten films of 2018 and since its release, it has been assessed as one of the best films of the 21st century.

## Plot

In 1705 Great Britain is at war with France. Queen Anne is in poor health; she shows little interest in governing, preferring activities such as playing with her 17 rabbits, surrogates for the children she miscarried or who died in infancy. Her confidante, advisor, and furtive lover Sarah Churchill effectively rules the country through her influence over the Queen. Sarah's efforts to control Anne are undermined by Robert Harley, the Leader of the Opposition.

Abigail Hill, Sarah's impoverished younger cousin, arrives in search of employment. Her standing has been tainted by her father, who gambled her away in a game of whist. She is forced to do menial work as a scullery maid in the palace. After seeing the Queen's gout, Abigail forages for herbs for her. Sarah has Abigail whipped for entering the Queen's bedroom without permission but appoints her Lady of the Bedchamber after realising the herbs have helped the Queen. One night, Abigail witnesses Sarah and the Queen having sex. Harley asks Abigail to spy on Sarah and the Queen, hoping to circumvent Sarah's authority. Abigail refuses and tells Sarah, implying that she knows about their secret.

Abigail kindles a friendship with Anne that becomes sexual. Sarah finds out and unsuccessfully tries to remove her. Knowing she has gained a powerful enemy and desperate to be a lady again, Abigail reconsiders Harley's offer. She drugs Sarah's tea and Sarah awakens in a brothel. Anne, thinking Sarah has abandoned her, takes Abigail into her favour and allows her to marry Colonel Masham, thereby reinstating Abigail's noble standing as a Baroness. Abigail then helps Harley to influence the Queen's decisions about the war.

When Sarah returns, Abigail offers her a truce but is rejected. Sarah issues an ultimatum to Anne: change her stance on the war and send Abigail away or Sarah will disclose her correspondence with Anne that details their sexual relationship. Sarah, remorseful, burns the letters, but Anne nevertheless sends her away. Lord High Treasurer and key advisor Godolphin convinces Anne to mend her relationship with Sarah, persuading Sarah to send a letter that Anne eagerly awaits. When Abigail, who has been promoted to Keeper of the Privy Purse, presents "evidence" that Sarah had been embezzling money, Anne does not believe her. Sarah's letter arrives but is intercepted by Abigail, who burns it. Hurt that she did not receive the expected apology, Anne uses Abigail's claims about the embezzlement as an excuse to exile Sarah and her husband.

With Sarah gone and her position secure, Abigail begins to ignore Anne while indulging in society and openly having affairs. One day, she abuses one of Anne's rabbits. Anne, now very sick, sees what Abigail is doing, forces herself out of bed and angrily orders Abigail to kneel and massage her leg. She gradually pulls Abigail's hair as Abigail winces and begrudgingly massages her.

## Cast

- Olivia Colman as Queen Anne

- Emma Stone as Abigail Hill (later Abigail Masham, Baroness Masham)

- Rachel Weisz as Lady Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough

- Nicholas Hoult as Robert Harley, 1st Earl of Oxford and Earl Mortimer

- Joe Alwyn as Samuel Masham, 1st Baron Masham

- James Smith as Sidney Godolphin, 1st Earl of Godolphin

- Mark Gatiss as John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough

- Jenny Rainsford as Mae

- Jennifer White as Mrs Meg

- Lilly-Rose Stevens as Sally

## Production

### Writing

Deborah Davis wrote the first draft of The Favourite in 1998. She had no prior screenwriting experience and studied screenwriting at night school. She took the first draft, which was titled The Balance of Power, to producer Ceci Dempsey, who responded enthusiastically. Dempsey has said she was "haunted" by "the passion, the survival instincts of these women, the manipulations and what they did to survive."

Before working on the screenplay, Davis had little knowledge of Queen Anne and her relationships with Sarah Churchill and Abigail Masham. She discovered a "female triangle" through her research, which included studying letters written by Queen Anne, Sarah, and Abigail, saying:

I did a lot of research and as it turns out, there is a wealth of original sources. You have historical accounts of the period. One of the best sources is Winston Churchill who wrote the story about his ancestor who was the Duke of Marlborough and he covers the female triangle and the relationship between Anne, Sarah and Abigail in his four-part biography. There are enormous amounts of sources out there. Another one was, of course, Sarah's memoir where she wrote about how she was replaced in the Queen's favour by Abigail and how Abigail had become the absolute favourite.

### Pre-production

Dempsey had difficulty securing financing for the film due to the script's lesbian content and the lack of male representation, which financers felt would be challenging to market. Almost a decade after she saw the first draft, producer Ed Guiney obtained the script. He was also attracted to the complex plot and relationships of the three women and has said: "We didn't want to make just another British costume drama... a story that felt contemporary and relevant and vibrant—not something out of a museum."

Around this time, Guiney became acquainted with Lanthimos, whose film Dogtooth (2009) had received an Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Language Film. Guiney approached Lanthimos with the prospect of directing this film, and Lanthimos immediately became intrigued by the idea, as "hese three women possessed power that affected the lives of millions" and, at the same time, he found the story to be "intimate". He has said he was attracted to the script and how it acquainted him with "three female characters who happened to be real people", continuing that "it was an interesting story in its own right, but you also have the opportunity to create three complex female characters which is something you rarely see."

Lanthimos began working closely with screenwriter Tony McNamara on "freshening up" the script, after reading McNamara's pilot script for The Great. Of the film's lesbian-centric love triangle, Lanthimos said in 2018:

My instinct from the beginning was that I didn't want this to become an issue in the film, for us, like we're trying to make a point out of it... I didn't even want the characters in the film to be making an issue of it. I just wanted to deal with these three women as human beings. It didn't matter that there were relationships of the same gender. I stopped thinking about that very early on in the process.

He discussed how the Me Too movement related to the film, saying: "Because of the prevalent male gaze in cinema, women are portrayed as housewives, girlfriends... Our small contribution is we're just trying to show them as complex and wonderful and horrific as they are, like other human beings."

By 2013, the producers were receiving financing offers from several companies, including Film4 Productions and Waypoint Entertainment, which later worked on the film. In September 2015, it was announced Lanthimos would direct the film from Deborah Davis and Tony McNamara's screenplay, which was described as "a bawdy, acerbic tale of royal intrigue, passion, envy, and betrayal", and that Ceci Dempsey, Ed Guiney, and Lee Magiday would produce under their Scarlet Films and Element Pictures banners, respectively.

Of her working relationship with Lanthimos, Dempsey said:

He has a very particular, contained view. And he reserves it and conserves it, deliberately. He's very intuitive on every level. Casting, yes. Even hiring the department, it's all the same process... You're not going to talk him into anything ever, ever, ever, ever. Once you accept that, you have to intuit or inhale what he wants, but he's got a very particular contained view and you just need to go with it.

### Casting

Casting for The Favourite began in 2014 when Lanthimos contacted Olivia Colman. By September 2015, it was announced Emma Stone, Colman, and Kate Winslet had been cast to portray Abigail Masham, Queen Anne, and Sarah Churchill, respectively. By October 2015, Rachel Weisz had replaced Winslet. The Favourite is the second collaboration between Lanthimos, Colman, and Weisz, both actors having appeared in Lanthimos' The Lobster (2015). In February 2017, Nicholas Hoult joined the cast of the film, followed by Joe Alwyn in March 2017. On 8 August 2018, Mark Gatiss, James Smith, and Jenny Rainsford were announced as members of the cast.

Casting was crucial for Lanthimos, who describes his process as "instinctive", saying: "It's one of those things when you feel you're right and you need to insist no matter what." While Colman was his only choice for Queen Anne, after Winslet left the project, Lanthimos offered the role to Cate Blanchett before offering it to Weisz. Stone auditioned after asking her agent to contact Lanthimos, who then asked Stone to work with a dialect coach to make sure "we would be able to work creatively free without the accent being a hindrance in the way that we wanted to work".

Colman found playing Anne "a joy because she sort of feels everything." When asked if the character was just a petulant child, she responded: "she's just a woman who is underconfident and doesn't know if anyone genuinely loves her. She has too much power, too much time on her hands." About the difference between Anne and the previous queens she has played, Colman said, "The other queens didn't get to fall in love with two hot women." Weisz described the film as a comedy, comparing it to a "funnier, sex driven" All About Eve, and said she was primarily attracted to the project by the prominent female leads, considering her role to be "the juiciest" of her career. Stone was hesitant to accept the role, at first thinking Abigail was "a sweet kind of girl, the victim, a servant to these people", but changed her mind after reading the script and began "begging" Lanthimos to be cast. Her greatest concern was mastering her accent, saying: "It's 1705, which was about 300 years before any period I had ever done. It was pretty daunting on a few levels—having to be British and not stick out like a sore thumb."

What makes The Favourite work are its women, who rule, both literally within the movie and outwardly, commanding our enjoyment Lanthimos's latest makes the men extraneous, building a potent hothouse atmosphere that swirls with secret desires.

Critic Joshua Rothkopf's analysis of the gender dynamics in the film

Hoult and Alwyn were intrigued to be part of a film dominated by three complex, leading, female characters. Hoult, commenting on the appeal a three-way love/power struggle would have for audiences, said: "It's obviously very timely to have three female leads, and it's wonderful to see because it's so rare". Alwyn held similar views, saying: "It's unusual, I suppose, to have a film led by three women, and these three women are so unbelievably talented and generous as performers and also as people, and to spend time with them and be on set with them and everyone else was just a lot of fun. I was just happy to be a part of it at all. It's rare to get a film like this to come along that is so different from what we're used to seeing, especially with a director like this, so to be any part in it was brilliant."

Prior to principal photography, Lanthimos engaged the main actors in an unorthodox rehearsal process that lasted three weeks. The actors "delivered their lines while trying to tie themselves in knots, jumping from carpet tile to carpet tile, or writhing around on the floor", according to the New York Times. According to Weisz, one exercise involved the actors linking arms to create a "human pretzel somebody's butt is in your face, your face is in their butt, and you're saying the lines for a really serious, dramatic scene while doing that." Stone said Lanthimos wanted to see "how much we could sense each other without seeing each other", and Colman said, "He had us do all sorts of things that keep you from thinking about what your lines mean". As for himself, Lanthimos said he believed the rehearsals allowed the actors "to not take themselves too seriously, learn the text in a physical way by doing completely irrelevant things to what the scene is about, just be comfortable about making a fool of themselves".

### Filming

Filming was expected to begin in the spring of 2016, but was postponed for a year, during which time Lanthimos made The Killing of a Sacred Deer. Principal photography began in March 2017 at Hatfield House in Hertfordshire. Regarding his choice of location, Lanthimos said: "from the beginning, I had this image of these lonely characters in huge space". Scenes that show Anne in "Parliament" were filmed in the Convocation House and Divinity School at Oxford's Bodleian Library. After 45 days of filming, production wrapped in May.

The most challenging aspect of filming for cinematographer Robbie Ryan was trying to capture fluid camera movement without the use of a Steadicam:

We explored a lot of ways of trying to have a fluid camera movement that wasn't a Steadicam move. He showed me a film early on called Angst He wanted to try and instill that in the way we shot The Favourite, but it was going to be really difficult to do that. Because of the costumes and just the physicality of it, it was not going to be possible. So we tried to come up with ways of being as fluid as we could with the camera. That was exciting because we came up with some interesting rigs—we explored different gimbal rigs and things like that.

Lanthimos encouraged Ryan to use fisheye and wide-angle lenses for a majority of the shots, which Ryan believed contributed significantly to the story:

The wide lens is twofold. By showing you the whole room and also isolating the character in a small space you get a feeling of no escape. I think one of the critiques of the film believed it was like a playground that turns into a battleground that turns into a prison. I think that's a very good explanation of what the film tries to get across with these characters. I think the wide lenses are pretty integral to that, as well.

### Set design

Production designer Fiona Crombie drew inspiration for the film's colour palette from the chequered, black-and-white marble floor in the Great Hall at Hatfield House, noting that "a character will walk into a room and you get this incredible wide-shot—we're talking seeing from the floors to the ceilings to the corners. You see everything." Several rooms at the house, particularly the one used as the Queen's room, were altered by removing paintings, furniture, and other decorations, to "put our own language into it." The filmmakers used mostly natural lighting, even for the candle-lit night time scenes, which Crombie said was challenging because, "as you imagine, there are very strict protocols about managing candles we had to use an enormous number of wax-catchers. But the people who manage Hatfield were very supportive and we negotiated and negotiated, and we would be able to do a vast majority of what we wanted to do."

### Costume design

Because she was a fan of his work, costume designer Sandy Powell specifically sought out Lanthimos. She wanted Abigail's rise to power to be reflected in her costumes, as she "wanted to give her that vulgarity of the nouveau riche, and her dresses get a little bolder and showier. There's more pattern involved and there are black-and-white stripes I wanted her to stand out from everybody else as trying too hard." Since the film's Queen Anne spends most of her time wearing a nightgown because she is ill, Powell wanted her to have an "iconic" look and constructed a robe made of ermine:

This is the queen at her most queenly, in her ceremonial outfit I looked at images and real things like it, and normally would be solid gold, embroidered, and bejewelled, so I thought what else can I do just to give it an air of royalty? Ermine is associated with royalty, it's usually just used as a decoration in small amounts, so I decided to just cover her in it. Because in the rest of the film I have her in a nightgown, not bothering to get dressed every day.

Although unintentional, Powell drew inspiration for Sarah's contrasting feminine gowns and masculine recreational attire from her earlier designs for Tilda Swinton 's character in Orlando (1992), saying, "I didn't think about it at the time, it was just subliminal. I do think there is a similarity between the two films because Orlando was the last unconventional period film I'd done, so there is a similarity."

During filming, Powell would deliver the costumes to the set, check they fitted the actors and that the actors had no problems, and would leave, as Lanthimos requested. Of this, she said:

He knew he wanted to be left alone with his actors and his camera. A lot of the time I wasn't aware of how it was going to be. Even when you see the dailies, you can't really tell until it's all put together But when it all comes together, you're like of course it was all going to come together, he knows exactly what he's doing. We were all part of the jigsaw and he could put all the pieces together.

Powell said Lanthimos wanted the women in the film to have natural hair and faces, but he wanted the men to wear considerable makeup and large wigs. About this choice, Lanthimos said: "Normally films are filled with men and the women are the decoration in the background, and I've done many of those, so it was quite nice for it to be reversed this time where the women are the centre of the film and the men are the decoration in the background. Of course, they've got serious, important parts, but I think the frivolity of them is quite funny."

Powell commissioned Vicki Sarge to create the jewellery worn by the film's female characters. Initially only wanting a crown, Powell eventually requested earrings after seeing Vicki Sarge pieces inspired by the Cheapside Hoard.

### Soundtrack

The soundtrack of The Favourite consists mostly of baroque music, including pieces by Purcell, Vivaldi, Handel, and J. S. and W. F. Bach, but there are also pieces by romantic composers Schubert and Schumann, 20th-century composers Olivier Messiaen and Luc Ferrari, and the 21st-century composer Anna Meredith. The first song to play over the closing credits is " Skyline Pigeon " from Elton John 's debut album Empty Sky (1969), which features John playing the harpsichord and organ.

Johnnie Burn, the film's sound designer, said that "There was no composer on this film; we were working a lot in that space between music and sound" and "used very specific EQ frequencies to shape like score".

## Release

In May 2017, the film's distribution rights were acquired by Fox Searchlight Pictures. It had its world premiere at the 75th Venice International Film Festival on 30 August 2018, was screened at the BFI London Film Festival and the Telluride Film Festival, and was the opening-night film at the New York Film Festival. The Favourite was given a limited theatrical release in the United States on 23 November 2018, and was released in Ireland and the United Kingdom on 1 January 2019.

The film was released on Digital HD on 12 February 2019, and on Blu-ray and DVD on 5 March.

## Reception

### Box office

The Favourite grossed $34.4 million in the United States and Canada, and $61.6 million in other territories, for a worldwide gross of $96 million. Its opening weekend, the film grossed $422,410 from four theaters; its per-venue average of $105,603 was the best of 2018, beating Suspiria ' s $89,903. The film made $1.1 million from 34 theaters its second weekend (a per-venue average of $32,500), $1.4 million from 91 theaters its third weekend (which followed the announcement of the film's Golden Globe nominations), and $2.6 million from 439 theaters its fourth weekend.

Its fifth weekend of release, The Favourite opened across the U.S., grossing $2.1 million from 790 theaters that weekend, and $2.4 million the next. In the film's tenth week of release, which followed the announcement of its ten Oscar nominations, it was added to 1,023 theaters (for a total of 1,540) and made $2.5 million, an increase of 212% from the previous weekend.

### Critical response

On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 93 % based on 425 reviews, with an average score of 8.5/10; the website's "critics consensus" reads: " The Favourite sees Yorgos Lanthimos balancing a period setting against rich, timely subtext—and getting roundly stellar performances from his well-chosen stars." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 91 out of 100, based on 53 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". Audiences polled by PostTrak gave the film 2.5 out of 5 stars, with 37% saying they would definitely recommend it.

Peter Travers of Rolling Stone gave the film five stars, writing: "Emma Stone, Rachel Weisz and the mighty Olivia Colman turn a period piece into a caustic comeuppance comedy with fangs and claws", "It's a bawdy, brilliant triumph, directed by Greek auteur Yorgos Lanthimos with all the artistic reach and renegade deviltry he brought to Dogtooth (2009), The Lobster (2015) and The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017)", and " The Favourite belongs to its fierce, profanely funny female trio." Anthony Lane of The New Yorker contrasted the film's ″unmistakable whiff of... fun" to the mood of Lanthimos' previous film, The Killing of a Sacred Deer, making note of the strength of this film's female characters.

In his review for Entertainment Weekly, Chris Nashawaty gave the film an "A" rating, praising the effective presentation of themes dealing with royalty and associated "steamier, fact-adjacent subplots" and saying: "It's worth pointing out that The Favourite is easily Lanthimos' most user-friendly movie, which isn't to say it isn't strange enough to please his fans, just that it may also convert a legion of new ones". David Sims, writing for The Atlantic magazine, found the film to be a "deliciously nasty" satire of its historical period, stating: "Were it just a straightforward comedy, The Favourite would still be a success. It has plenty of satirical bite, and its plot structure (the roller-coaster-like power struggle between Abigail and Sarah) is an utter blast. But Lanthimos also manages to smuggle a shred of humanism into this chaotic world of backstabbing".

Two reviewers for Entertainment Weekly, in their assessment of the year's best films, listed the film in first place, with Leah Greenblatt writing: "You might not actually want to live in Yorgos Lanthimos' sticky tar pit of palace intrigue—a place where Olivia Colman's batty Queen can't trust anyone beyond her pet rabbits, and Rachel Weisz and Emma Stone treat loyalty like a blood sport—but God it's fun as hell to visit". The film was ranked number 35 in Vulture ' s list of over 5,200 films of the 2010s, with Angelica Jade Bastién praising the script, costumes, directing, and performances, which "work in concert to create a film of piercing magnitude". It also ranked number 15 in Time Out ' s list of the "100 Best Films of the 21st Century So Far," with Phil de Semlyen writing "If eighteenth-century England was half as much fun as director Yorgos Lanthimos' regal romp makes it look, you'd say to hell with all the itchy skin complaints and rotten teeth and move there. The Favourite plays like The Crown on helium, with bawdiness and bitchiness vying for space with political manoeuvring that would have made Molière proud." In 2023, it ranked number 35 on The Hollywood Reporter ' s list of "The 50 Best Movies of the 21st Century So Far," calling it Lanthimos' "most accessible" film, "but also arguably the richest in feeling and most dazzlingly performed, as well as chock-full of cruel ironies and caustic wit... The dialogue blends modern colloquialisms with mock-17th century turns of phrase and a liberal sprinkling of Anglo-Saxon cuss words. That bracing mix of old and new courses throughout this feast of a film, from Robbie Ryan's digital cinematography, with its fish-eye lens, to Sandy Powell's stylized but period-accurate costumes."

### Accolades

The Favourite received numerous awards and nominations, starting by winning the Grand Jury Prize and the Volpi Cup for Best Actress at the 75th Venice International Film Festival. It won ten British Independent Film Awards (including Best British Independent Film, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Actress, and Best Supporting Actress), seven BAFTA Awards (including Best British Film and Best Actress in a Supporting Role for Weisz), and eight European Film Awards (including Best Film and Best Director), and Colman won Best Actress at each of those ceremonies, as well as the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Comedy or Musical, the Academy Award for Best Actress, and numerous other awards. The film was nominated for four additional Golden Globes (including Best Picture – Musical or Comedy) and nine additional Oscars (including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Supporting Actress for both Stone and Weisz), tying Roma for the most nominations of any film at that year's Academy Awards. Additionally, the American Film Institute named the film one of the top 10 films of 2018.

## Historical accuracy

Lanthimos said: "Some of the things in the film are accurate and a lot aren't." Joe Alwyn said there was little concern for historical research of characters' backgrounds, saying:

I think people turn up to the rehearsal period thinking maybe they should've read their history books and thought about their characters and their intentions and all of that stuff that you normally think about but Yorgos made it quite clear early on there wasn't going to be much consideration for historical accuracy to a degree. He wasn't too caught up with or concerned about that. He just wanted us to have fun as people, as a cast and to explore the relationships between us, which is what we did.

In his review of the film, Anthony Lane commented on its anachronisms, saying: "For Lanthimos and his screenwriters all historical reconstruction is a game and to pretend otherwise—to nourish the illusion that we can know another epoch as intimately as we do our own—is merest folly".

While the broad outlines of Sarah and Abigail's rivalry for Anne's attentions are true, many of the major episodes and themes of the film are speculative or fictional, such as Abigail poisoning Sarah. Any evaluation of the sexual aspect of the historical relationships depicted in the film requires an understanding of contemporaneous mores and practices and use of language, and arguments both for and against the possibility of a sexual relationship between Anne and Sarah or Abigail have been discussed by scholars of the era. Most historians consider it unlikely Anne was physically intimate with her female friends, but Sarah, who is erroneously referred to in the film as "Lady Marlborough" (she became Duchess of Marlborough in 1702), is known to have tried blackmailing Anne with the threat of publishing private letters between them, which has led some to wonder if the letters contained evidence the two women had a sexual relationship. Alternately, it has been speculated that Anne's health problems were severe enough that she may have had little sex drive.

Queen Anne was close to her husband Prince George, Duke of Cumberland, but he is not portrayed in the film, though he lived until October 1708 and was therefore alive for much of the time covered. Anne's loss of children is accurate, but she did not keep rabbits, which at that time were considered food or pests.


2000 in Greece

# 2000 in Greece

## Abstract

Events in the year 2000 in Greece.

## Events

- 8 February The 2000 presidential election is held. The Hellenic Parliament re-elects Konstantinos Stephanopoulos as President of the Hellenic Republic for a second term.

- The 2000 presidential election is held. The Hellenic Parliament re-elects Konstantinos Stephanopoulos as President of the Hellenic Republic for a second term.

- 15 May – Gianna Angelopoulos-Daskalaki becomes the President of the Athens Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games, to became the first woman succeed Panagiotis Thomopoulos.

- 26 September - The MS Express Samina collided with the Portes Islets rocks in the Bay of Parikia off the coast of the Greek island of Paros, resulting in the death of 81 people.

- 1 October – At the Closing Ceremony, the Olympic Games are handover from Sydney to Athens and returned back to birthplace where the they will host the next Olympic Games in Athens 2004.


Hungover (album)

# Hungover (album)

## Abstract

Hungover is the debut studio album by American country music singer Ella Langley. It was released through Sawgod/ Columbia on August 2, 2024.

## Content

Langley co-wrote all of the album's 14 tracks, with Will Bundy producing the project. The title track, "Paint the Town Blue", "Nicotine", and " You Look Like You Love Me " were all issued ahead of the album's release as promotional singles. The latter, a duet with Riley Green, became Langley's first entry on the Billboard Hot 100, debuting at number 53, and was released as her debut single to country radio on August 5, 2024.

Langley promoted the album with her first headlining tour, The Hungover Tour, beginning on August 15, 2024.

## Track listing


Waitara railway station, New Zealand

# Waitara railway station, New Zealand

## Abstract

Waitara railway station is an urban railway station on the Waitara Branch railway serving the regional town of Waitara in New Zealand 's Taranaki district. It previously served the local freezing works and local port.

It is now run by the Waitara Railway Preservation Society who run heritage services on the line.

## History

The original railway station was officially opened on 14 October 1875, the day the New Plymouth – Waitara railway opened to traffic (though the builders John Brogden and Sons had operated limited services since 26 June that year). The station was located at the edge of the small settlement, then named Raleigh, on the banks of the Waitara River.

Facilities included a Vogel-era Class 5 station building with wooden platform (on the northern side of the yard), a goods shed, 3 loops on the southern side of the yard, an engine shed and sidings to West Quay and the port. Shortly afterwards a 5th-class stationmaster's house was also built.

On 15 June 1893 a fire broke out in the station building's lamp room. The station was destroyed, with the only items surviving being documents in the safe, and a round table salvaged before the fire consumed it. The passenger carriages were pushed to safety as well. Consideration was given to relocating the Class-5 station building from Ngaere as a replacement before eventually deciding to build a brand new building.

The replacement building was recorded as being a Vogel-era Class 4 station, though photographs show a Class 3 station was built. By now the following facilities were in place: station building with a concrete passenger platform, cart approach & urinals, a 60ft x 40ft goods shed, an engine shed, water services, a weighbridge for goods received by boat & a stationmaster's house. Trackage included 3 loops with capacity for 27 wagons (x1) and 16 wagons (x2), and back shunts of 7 wagons, 5 wagons and 4 wagons length. The opportunity was taken to move the station to the town side of the yards, and cattle and sheep yards were added 2 years later.

### Municipal tensions

There was considerable agitation around the location of the railway station almost from the time it opened, as the station effectively split the township in two, with only one level crossing at Queen Street.

In January 1878, an estimate was prepared for the moving Waitara station to leave Queen Street unobscured. In 1884 and again in 1885, the Raleigh Town Board applied for a crossing to be provided at Cracroft Street (which was eventually built), and in 1886 and 1887 the Town Board asked for the station to be moved to allow for a level crossing at Domett Street.

In 1893 after the original station building burnt down, the town board and petitioners successfully lobbied to have the replacement building built on the town side of the yards where it remained for nearly 100 years.

### New century

By the early 20th century the station had become a busy location. For example, in March 1909 the station recorded the following traffic: 2,986 Passengers, 14 season tickets, 189 parcels, 29 dogs, 8 horses, 168 cattle, 15,851 sheep, 24 pigs, 126 ton of chaff, 200 bales of wool, 157,600 feet of timber, 40 ton grain, 290 ton merchandise, 77 ton of coal & 111 ton of other minerals. Total revenue for the month was £1,105 9s 6d. Space at the goods shed was so tight a considerable number of trucks filled with goods were unable to be unloaded owing to want of space in the shed.

Complaints were also mounting around the lack of weather protection for passengers and goods at the station building. In 1905 the mayor requested to premier Richard Seddon during a town visit, for both a verandah at the station and improved carriages for passenger services. It would be 1911 that the station finally received its verandah, and was repainted at the same time along with general improvements to the goods shed.

In 1941 the engine shed was moved to a more convenient site closer to the station building, and a new siding for washing stock wagons was provided. The siding ran behind the goods shed and allowed for stock wagons to be washed out over a specially designed pit by means of pressure hoses. This was screened off from public view by a high wall with hinged doors provided for the purpose of shovelling the manure when it was being carted away.

## Other facilities

### Waitara Port sidings

The port at Waitara was located on West Quay, just down from the road bridge over the river. The port was already established when the Waitara Branch was opened and was a major reason this line was built before the route south. Between 1875 and 1885 (when the Breakwater line was opened connecting to the deep water port in New Plymouth) Waitara Port was the only rail-served port in the district. Several warehouses and stores were built at the port along West Quay, served by both ship and rail.

The port slowly declined in importance, with the river bar being a major issue. The port was finally decommissioned in 1941. The railway sidings were noted by this point as not having been used for several years. However a backshunt was retained through the former port as it also served the nearby meat works and cool stores. This was finally removed in November 2002 in preparation for the upgrade of West Quay as a recreational space.

### Post Office

On 1 December 1876, a post office for the town was opened in the station building. This was initially operated by Railways staff; in 1885 it was reported as being run by the railways ganger. On 1 April 1885 post office staff were employed to run the postal side of the business.

The post office remained when the station was rebuilt, but in December 1898 the post office moved to a new site on the corner of Queen and Whittaker Streets.

### Meat works sidings

In 1885 the New Zealand Frozen Meat Company established a meet freezing works and cannery on land adjacent to the port and railway line. The site was chosen as steamers could load directly from the site without needing further transport, but there were also good rail links to the deep water port at Moturoa and the rest of the province. The works has a rocky start – in 1887 they were closed due to financial issues with the parent company and equipment removed. In 1890 they were purchased privately and reopened, and after another sale in 1898 were eventually purchased by Thomas Borthwick and Sons Ltd on 13 April 1903.

Traffic from the works was steady, with livestock arriving and chilled goods dispatched. This became more important as sea exports from the port stopped in the early 20th century. By the mid-20th century, multiple sidings served the works and cool stores. These lasted in place until the closure of the (now AFFCO) works in 1997 and the demolition of the abattoir (the cool stores continued to be used).

## Decline and closure

In the post-war years, much of the general traffic started to drop away as motor vehicles became more affordable. The first to go was passenger services, which were replaced with Road Services buses. At first these ran between Waitara and Lepperton stations to connect with passenger and mixed services on the Marton-New Plymouth railway, but eventually ran direct to New Plymouth.

While general traffic was falling, stock and frozen meat traffic from the freezing works remained steady. However, stock traffic moved to trucks in the 1970s as railways moved away from the carriage of live animals. By 1979 all that remained at the station was the station building & passenger platform, jigger sheds, goods shed with crane, low-level loading bank and the sidings to the freezing works.

In April 1984 the goods shed was removed. By this time Queen Street had been diverted through the former stock yard and cleaning area to connect with Grey Street. In 1989 the station building was demolished also. By this time, frozen meat containers were the only remaining freight on the line.

The railway station's final closure came swiftly. In 1997 the AFFCO meatworks closed (having begun laying off staff in 1989). With no other traffic on offer, the line was closed by Tranz Rail on 2 February 1999 and the station (by now reduced to a main line, single loop and works sidings) with it.

## Today

The station still exists as the Waitara Railway Preservation Society purchased the line in 2001 and now operates heritage passenger services along the branch. Two loops have been partially reinstated for wagon storage, though no station building has been built in the town to replace the one demolished in 1989. Trains now operate from an abridged port siding that stops just before West Quay.

The land where the goods shed and stock yards once were is now fenced off and used as a bus depot and commercial business, using a building originally erected to restore railway locomotives built by the Hooterville Heritage Charitable Trust. Grey Street has been extended over the railway yards as well.

Some railway tracks remain in the former works site, where ANZCO Foods Ltd set up a plant to manufacture beef patties, hamburgers, salamis, beef jerky and sausages. This remaining trackage is not connected to the station yards.


Thirty Minutes over Tokyo

# Thirty Minutes over Tokyo

## Abstract

" Thirty Minutes over Tokyo " is the twenty-third and final episode of the tenth season of the American animated television series The Simpsons. It first aired on Fox in the United States on May 16, 1999. In the episode, after being robbed by Snake Jailbird, the Simpsons visit a money-saving seminar, where they learn ways to limit their expenses. Soon, the family can afford a cheap last-minute flight to another country, the only disadvantage being that they do not know where their plane tickets will bring them, which leads them to spend their vacation in Japan.

The episode was written by Donick Cary and Dan Greaney, while Jim Reardon served as director. It was one of the last episodes written in its production line, and its title is a reference to the war film Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo. Several guest-stars appeared in the episode, including George Takei as the host for The Happy Smile Super Challenge Family Wish Show. This episode parodies aspects of Japanese culture, including the cruelty of Japanese game shows.

The episode was seen by approximately 8 million viewers in its original broadcast. In 2005, the episode was first released on home video, and in 2007, it was released as part of the tenth season DVD box set.

Following the tenth season's home video release, "Thirty Minutes over Tokyo" received mixed reviews from critics. Because of a scene in which the Emperor of Japan is thrown into a trunk filled with sumo thongs, the episode has never aired in Japan, as the scene was considered disrespectful. Likewise, the episode is unavailable for streaming on Disney+ in Japan.

## Plot

While visiting an Internet café with Bart and Lisa, Homer is cyber-robbed by Snake, who downloads the savings that the family planned to use for a vacation. Homer attempts to save money by burgling Ned Flanders, who catches him and explains that he learned thrifting strategies from attending the Chuck Garabedian Mega-Savings Seminar. Homer steals Ned's tickets for the next seminar, where he and Marge learn they can afford a family vacation by buying unclaimed airline tickets for a discount price.

The family wait at the airport for a cancellation and claim tickets from the Flanders for Tokyo. Arriving in Japan, with Lisa wanting to explore the local culture, the family eat at an American-themed restaurant before Homer and Bart attend a sumo match. When his pretzel is stolen by a wrestler, Homer subdues him (with the help of Bart) before throwing Emperor Akihito into a receptacle of worn mawashi. He and Bart are put in jail and bailed out by Marge, leaving the family with a single million yen note. To cheer up a disappointed Lisa, Homer makes the note into an origami crane, which subsequently blows away in the wind.

Needing to earn the money to return home, the family work in a fish-gutting factory in Osaka, where they happen upon a TV game show called The Happy Smile Super Challenge Family Wish Show, where winners are given a prize of their choice. They go on the show and are subject to humiliating challenges at the behest of the host Wink in order to win plane tickets to Springfield. Their final challenge has them collect the tickets from a rickety bridge over an active volcano, which they succeed at but fall into the lava, which turns out to be Orangeade with added wasabi. The Simpsons finally leave Japan, though their flight out is briefly halted by four giant monsters – Godzilla, Mothra, Gamera, and Rodan.

## Production

The episode, which was originally titled "Fat Man and Little Boy" (which went on to be used for the name of a season 16 episode), was directed by Jim Reardon and written by Donick Cary and Dan Greaney. It was first broadcast on the Fox network in the United States on May 16, 1999. "Thirty Minutes over Tokyo" was one of the last episodes produced for the series' tenth season. Staff writers Cary and Greaney wrote the draft in a couple of days, and it was then rewritten "extensively" with The Simpsons ' writing staff. Originally, there would be a long scene about how Homer had bought a "pre-Columbian vase" on the Internet, however the scene was ultimately cut from the episode. The episode's title is a reference to the 1944 war film 30 Seconds Over Tokyo. Originally, the staff wanted the title to be "Twenty-two Minutes over Tokyo", since an episode of The Simpsons is approximately twenty-two minutes long, but they eventually changed it to its current rendition because it “sounds closer to” the title of the film it references. According to Cary, the writers did a lot of research in order to accurately depict the Japanese language for the episode. For example, the three categories in The Happy Smile Super Challenge Family Wish Show are written in Japanese.

In the scene at the seminar, a character closely resembling the mascot of Hasbro 's Monopoly can be seen sitting next to Mr. Burns. Because the design is slightly different from the real-life mascot, the Simpsons staff did not have to pay Hasbro for using their character in the episode. The design of Homer in a Jamaican attire was very popular among the staff, and Mike Scully, the showrunner for the episode, called the design "great". A scene in the episode shows Homer buying a square watermelon, which turns out to be round and slips out of his hands. In the background, cars are driving on the left side of the street. Originally, the animators had drawn the cars driving on the right side. However, Tomi Yamaguchi, a Simpsons layout artist at the time, pointed out that cars in fact drive on the left side of the street in Japan. Because of this, the animators had to redraw the whole scene, and Yamaguchi received a technical advisor credit for the episode. The speech that Homer gives to the audience in The Happy Smile Super Challenge Family Wish Show was originally much longer, and would partially involve kitchenettes from Broyhill. The design of the male Canadian in the game show was based on Canadian Simpsons director Neil Affleck.

The anime version of The Simpsons ' theme song that plays at the end of the episode was conceived by composer Alf Clausen. Chuck Garabedian, the speaker at the seminar, was portrayed by series regular voice actor Hank Azaria, who plays Moe Szyslak among other characters. The Japanese waiter in Americatown was played by American actor Gedde Watanabe. Wink, the host for The Happy Smile Super Challenge Family Wish Show, was portrayed by George Takei. Takei has appeared on The Simpsons several times before, and he is, according to Scully, one of the staff's favorite guest-stars. The episode also features the voices of Tress MacNeille, Denice Kumagai as Japanese mother, Karen Maruyama as Japanese stewardess, Keone Young as the sumo wrestler, and Karl Wiedergott as both Mr. Monopoly and Woody Allen.

## Themes and cultural references

In his book Gilligan Unbound, American literary critic Paul Cantor described how "Thirty Minutes over Tokyo" references and mocks several aspects of Japanese and American culture, as well as differences between the two. The Hello Kitty factory from Sanrio is featured. At a sumo wrestling match, Bart and Homer encounter the then current Japanese emperor, Akihito. After Homer throws him into a trunk of sumo thongs, Bart and Homer are put in jail, where they have to re-enact a kabuki play about the forty-seven Ronin, do origami, flower arranging and meditation. After Marge bails them out, Bart and Homer can speak fluent Japanese, and have fully absorbed, as Cantor writes, the "exclusionary" character of the Japanese culture, as Homer asks Bart (in Japanese, with English subtitles): "Should we tell them the secret to inner peace?", to which Bart replies (still in Japanese), "No, they are foreign devils." The episode also references the Japanese's adaption to American culture, and is, according to Cantor, "filled" with signs of how eagerly Japanese have taken to American culture. In one scene, the Simpsons eat at a restaurant called Americatown, filled with US memorabilia and having only American items on the menu. Another scene shows director Woody Allen filming a commercial for Japanese television.

In order to get back to the United States, the Simpsons have to enter a humiliating game show called The Happy Smile Super Challenge Family Wish Show. According to Cantor, this is where the family finds a difference between Japanese and American culture, as Wink, the game-show host, explains to them: "Our game shows are a little different from yours. Your shows reward knowledge. We punish ignorance." Japanese game shows have indeed been greatly focused on using the format of physical challenges, with injuries even being reported by contestants. These game shows have also been known for using comedy as a way to distract people from paying too much attention to the cruelty of the physical challenges. As with many other episodes in the series, "Thirty Minutes over Tokyo" suggests that, in the end, the Simpsons are more attached to the local than to the global, and, as Cantor writes: "indeed the global is ultimately important in the series only insofar as it can be made local, that is, part of Springfield. For all its cosmopolitanism, the show keeps returning to the American theme of 'there's no place like home ' ".

The computers seen in the internet café that the Simpsons visit in the beginning of the episode are based on the Apple iMac computers. In a scene inside Flanders' kitchen, a note which reads "1 COR 6:9–11" can be seen. This refers to the Bible, 1 Corinthians, chapter 6, verses 9 to 11: "Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves nor the greedy, nor drunkards nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God." The cups in the 33 cent store read That '70s Show, a reference to which Danny Masterson, one of the lead actors in That '70s Show, was entertained by, according to Scully. Battling Seizure Robots, the seizure-inducing television show that the Simpsons watch in their hotel room, is based on an episode of Pokémon, called " Dennō Senshi Porygon ", which caused 685 children to develop epileptic seizures. According to Scully, the staff received "several angry letters" from people for the scene. After the cartoon, an advertisement for Mr. Sparkle, a character that first appeared in the season 8 episode " In Marge We Trust ", can be seen on the television screen. Barney, while impersonating Homer, says "That boy ain't right", a line frequently used by Hank Hill, the main character of the animated television series King of the Hill. The giant monsters attacking at the end of the episode are Godzilla, Gamera, Rodan, and Mothra, all of which are famous from Japanese monster movies. The scene was included as a reference to the 1998 action science fiction film Godzilla, in which three of the main The Simpsons cast members (Azaria, Cartwright and Shearer) had a live-action role. In the Mexican dub of the episode, whilst The Simpsons family works through the fish-gutting factory, when witnessing the factory's jingle (and before flipping through TV stations with a well-placed eel) Homer directly references Dragonball Z

## Release and reception

In its original American broadcast on May 16, 1999, "Thirty Minutes over Tokyo" received an 8.0 rating, according to Nielsen Media Research, translating to approximately 8 million viewers. On May 23, 2005, the episode was released along with the season 12 episode " Simpson Safari ", the season 13 episode " Blame It on Lisa " and the season 15 episode " The Regina Monologues ", as part of a DVD set called The Simpsons – Around The World In 80 D'Oh's. On August 7, 2007, the episode was again released as part of The Simpsons – The Complete Tenth Season DVD box set. Matt Groening, Mike Scully, Donick Cary, George Meyer, Ron Hauge, Matt Selman and Jim Reardon participated in the DVD's audio commentary of the episode.

The authors of the book I Can't Believe It's a Bigger and Better Updated Unofficial Simpsons Guide, Warren Martyn and Adrian Wood, gave the episode a positive review, and wrote that it was "A magnificent end to the season." They wrote that the episode was "thoroughly racist" but "completely inoffensive because it's simply very funny."

Jake MacNeill of Digital Entertainment News was also favorable, considering it to be one of the better episodes of the season.

James Plath of DVD Town wrote that the episode has "some funny moments."

Aaron Roxby of Collider was more critical, denouncing the episode's dated references. He wrote: "I am going to go ahead and give this one the benefit of the doubt and assume that making fun of Japanese junk culture and game shows felt fresher in 1999 than it does do now."

Colin Jacobson of DVD Movie Guide called the episode "mediocre". He wrote that, though the episode's concept should "open up lots of interesting possibilities", it "doesn't explore them particularly well". While he did not consider it to be a bad episode, he thought it "fail to live up to its potential".

## Censorship

"Thirty Minutes over Tokyo" is one of two episodes that never aired in Japan, China, Hong Kong and Taiwan (the other being season 11 episode " Little Big Mom "). The reasoning behind this was that a scene in the episode, which shows Homer throwing Akihito, the then emperor of Japan, into a box filled with sumo thongs, was considered disrespectful. There was also a rumor that Sanrio and Hello Kitty creator Yuko Shimizu was outraged by the inclusion of the Hello Kitty factory featured briefly in the episode. The episode has become study material for sociology courses at University of California, Berkeley, where it is used to "examine issues of the production and reception of cultural objects, in this case, a satirical cartoon show", and to figure out what it is "trying to tell audiences about aspects primarily of American society, and, to a lesser extent, about other societies".

This episode was also originally banned in South Korea due to its policy on restricting Japanese culture on television at the time, following Japan's past colonization of Korea (1910–1945). The ban for the episode in South Korea was lifted sometime before 2007, when it was available to Koreans for the first time on the Season 10 DVD boxset. However, the episode remains banned in Japan.


2003 in Greece

# 2003 in Greece

## Abstract

Events in the year 2003 in Greece.

## Events

### Undated

- My Excuse alternative modern rock band release their first album.

## Deaths

- July 6 – Nikos Psyroukis, Greek writer, journalist and historian (b. 1926)


The Flight of the Gossamer Condor

# The Flight of the Gossamer Condor

## Abstract

The Flight of the Gossamer Condor is a 1978 American short documentary film directed by Ben Shedd, about the development of the Gossamer Condor, the first human-powered aircraft, by a team led by Paul MacCready. The Academy Film Archive preserved The Flight of the Gossamer Condor in 2007.

## Reception

In the education magazine Media & Methods, David Mallery called Flight of the Gossamer Condor "a film or extraordinary appeal", writing that "the Shedds' most subtle achievement - least flashy, most serving to their subject - is that we are thoroughly caught up in the work of the MacCready group, are intimately a part of their struggles, their determination, their energy." Mallery concludes "It's a joyous experience. I recommend it with special enthusiasm."

The Flight of the Gossamer Condor won an Oscar at the 51st Academy Awards in 1979 for Documentary Short Subject.

## Cast

- Bryan Allen as Himself - Final Pilot

- Paul B. MacCready as Himself (as Paul MacCready)

- Tyler MacCready as Himself

- Greg Miller as Himself

- Peter Lissaman (Engineer) as Himself

- Roger Steffens as Narrator (voice)


Xouba

# Xouba

## Abstract

Xouba also known as little sardine or parrocha is a small sardine and a type of Pelagic fish. Xoubas are small sardines from Galicia, Spain. They are a species of ray-finned fish in the monotypic genus Sardina. The juvenile Xouba has the scientific name of European pilchard which is in the family Clupeidae.

## Description

The fish is blue-green and has a silver underside. In comparison to the other sardines, the xouba, is diminutive. Xouba means little fish; the fish lives is shallow areas of water between 5 m (16 ft) and 50 m (160 ft). The fish is harvested between the months of May and July when it reaches 13 cm (5.1 in) in length. Xoubas, are small sardines, and a they come from Galicia, Spain. The small Xouba is a juvenile version of a European pilchard. In some areas the Xouba is is called Parrocha. Xouba are from the family Clupeidae.

Xoubas have a tender distinct flavor and they are small sardines, nutrient-dense. They have a high omega-3 fatty acid content and they are high in healthy fats. Xouba has more fat than other sardines.

## History

Since the 15th century, Xouba is caught with a technique called Xeito. The technique employs a a net stretched between boats; a type of drift netting. In Spain there are several annual events to celebrate the Xouba. One such event is the Burial of the xoubiña. It is celebrated on Ash Wednesday and it includes funeral procession that is satirical. The procession ends with the burning of the effigy of a sardine. Galicia, Spain is the home of a festival (Festa da Xouba } celebrating the Xouba. The event takes place about the same time as the "Feast of Santiago Apóstol" which happens in July.

### Preparation

Prepared as a dish, it can be used in empanadas, or pickled, or made in a casserole with potatoes. Xouba is also grilled and served on bread. Or breaded with chickpea flour and fried.


Lê Quang Liêm

# Lê Quang Liêm

## Abstract

Lê Quang Liêm (born 13 March 1991) is a Vietnamese chess grandmaster, the top-ranked of his country. He was awarded the title of Grandmaster by FIDE in 2006. Liêm won the Asian Chess Championship in 2019 and was the World Blitz Chess Champion in 2013.

He has competed for team Vietnam at the Chess Olympiad since 2006. The best result occurred in 2012, when he scored 8/10 points on board 1 and his team finished in 7th place, the highest ever for Vietnam.

Quang Liêm now lives in St. Louis, Missouri and is the head coach for the Webster University Chess Team.

## Chess career

### Early career

Lê Quang Liêm won a gold medal at the 2003 Asian Youth Chess Championships, held in Calicut, India, in the Under 12 category. As a result of this victory he was awarded the title of FIDE Master. In the 2004 edition, which took place in Singapore, Lê Quang Liêm won the Under 14 section. Also in 2004, he tied with Subramanian Arun Prasad for first place in the Asian Under 16 Championship in Tehran, Iran, taking the silver medal on tiebreak score. The next year Quang Liêm won the Under 14 division of the World Youth Chess Championship in July in Belfort, France.

### 2008

During August–September, he won the 1st Dragon Capital Vietnam chess open with 7/9.

### 2009

In September, he won the 4th Kolkata Open Chess Tournament ahead of 13 higher-rated players.

In December, Lê Quang Liêm with Vietnamese team won the silver prize at Tata Steel Asian Team Chess Championship in India, behind the host India. His personal performance is +4=1-1.

### 2010

In February, Lê Quang Liêm participated in the Moscow Open tournament in Moscow, Russia. With +5=4 performance, he tied for 1st-4th with Konstantin Chernyshov, Evgeny Bareev and Ernesto Inarkiev. Immediately after the Moscow open at the same venue, Quang Liêm won the 9th Aeroflot Open with 7/9 (+5=4), earning him an invitation to the Dortmund Sparkassen Chess Meeting.

From July 15 through the 25th, he took part in his first elite invitational tournament in Dortmund, in a field consisting of nine-time Dortmund champion and former World Champion Vladimir Kramnik, world No. 6 Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, former FIDE world champion Ruslan Ponomariov, 2004 World Chess Championship challenger Peter Leko, and former Dortmund champion Arkadij Naiditsch. Facing Kramnik with the black pieces in the opening round, Quang Liêm held the former world champion to a draw, and after defeating the eventual winner Ponomariov in round 4, and Leko in round 5, Quang Liêm finished with five consecutive draws to secure clear second place with 5½/10 (+2=7-1) and a performance rating of 2776.

From August 28 to September 3, he participated in 1st Campomanes Memorial Cup Open in the Philippines. His final score was 7/9 (+5=4), a shared first place with Zhao Jun of China, who won on tiebreak score.

From 20 September to 4 October at Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia, Quang Liêm with the other Vietnamese players took part in 39th World Team Chess Championship. Playing on board one, Quang Liêm's score was +2=7-2.

### 2011

From February 7 to February 18, he once again participated in Aeroflot Open and successfully defended the title. His score was 6½/9, a shared first place with Nikita Vitiugov and Evgeny Tomashevsky. At the time he was the only player to have won Aeroflot Open twice, now having been matched by Ian Nepomniachtchi in 2015. His win automatically qualifies him for a return invitation to the Dortmund Invitational tournament, where he competed in a field that included Vladimir Kramnik, Hikaru Nakamura, and Ruslan Ponomariov among others.

From May 10 to May 21, he was invited to play in the Elite group of the Capablanca Memorial tournament, a very strong field of players (FIDE category 19) including reigning champion Vassily Ivanchuk, Latin America's number one Leinier Domínguez, Czech Republic's number one David Navara, Lázaro Bruzón of Cuba and Dmitry Andreikin of Russia. After the final round defeat to Ivanchuk, his score was 6½/10, a shared first place but ranked second after Ivanchuk via tiebreak score.

### 2012

From October 12 to 21, he participated in the SPICE Cup, the highest rated international invitational round-robin tournament in US history (FIDE category 18) including Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Ding Liren, Wesley So, Georg Meier, and Csaba Balogh. He was undefeated but finished in a tie for second with Ding Liren, half point behind the winner Vachier-Lagrave. After the tournament, he accepted a 4-year scholarship to attend Webster University, starting in August 2013.

### 2013

From March 19 to 24, he participated in the HD Bank Cup Open, the highest rated international open tournament in Vietnam. He was undefeated with six wins, three draws, scoring 7½/9 and winning the tournament.

From May 16 to 26, he participated in the Asian Continental Championships, which was held in the Philippines. He finished at 4th place with a score of 6½/9. Quang Liêm won the blitz championship with 8½/9.

From June 6 to 8, he took part in the World Rapid Chess Championship, held in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia. He finished 4th, with 10/15, behind Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (11½/15), Ian Nepomniachtchi (11/15) and Alexander Grischuk (10½/15). After that he participated in World Blitz Chess Championship, which he won, scoring 20½/30. He is the first Vietnamese athlete to achieve the world champion title.

### 2014

From June 15 to 20 Quang Liêm competed in the 2014 World Rapid and Blitz Championships in Dubai, UAE as the defending champion in blitz. At blitz Quang Liêm finished fourth with +12=4-5, behind the new champion Magnus Carlsen, Ian Nepomniachtchi and Hikaru Nakamura. At rapid Quang Liêm finished 19th with +7=4-4.

From 2 to 15 August, Quang Liêm, Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son, and other Vietnamese chess players took part in Chess Olympiad in Tromsø, Norway. Quang Liêm scored 5½ points from 10 games (+3-2=5) at board 1.

### College chess

Quang Liêm graduated summa cum laude from Webster University in St. Louis, Missouri, US in May, 2017. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in finance and a Bachelor of Arts degree in management. While at Webster University, Quang Liêm played Board 1 for the national championship chess team under the leadership of Susan Polgar, winning the President's Cup all four years as a student, 2014 through 2017.

### 2017

In March, Quang Liêm won the 7th HDBank tournament in Ho Chi Minh City, with total score 7 in 9 games (+5=4).

From 1 to 5 July, Quang Liêm participated in the World Open as the number 1 seed and finished at second place (behind Tigran L. Petrosian) with 7 points after 9 rounds.

From 8 to 18 July, Quang Liêm participated in Danzhou SuperGrandmaster Tournament in Danzhou, China. His result of 5½/9 (+2=7) earned him second place behind the winner Wei Yi, having the same number of points as Ding Liren but a worse tiebreak.

From 13 to 19 of August, Quang Liêm was invited to the Saint Louis rapid and blitz event of the Grand Chess Tour, with attendance of top super-grandmasters, including the return of Garry Kasparov. He shared the 5th place with Fabiano Caruana and Leinier Dominguez. In the event Quang Liêm won against Caruana, Aronian, Nakamura and Kasparov.

In early September he competed in the FIDE World Cup in Tbilisi, Georgia. He beat Vitaly Kunin from Germany in the first round, then Quang Liêm was eliminated by Vidit Santosh Gujrathi from India in the second.

From 21 to 27 September, Quang Liêm participated in the 5th Asian Indoor and Martial Art Games in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan. He won the gold medal with 5½ points after 7 games in the individual classical category. Then he also won, together with Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son, the team rapid and blitz categories.

### 2018

In the second Danzhou super-grandmaster tournament with all 8 participants with Elo higher than 2700, Quang Liêm finished second with 4/7 (+2=4-1). His only loss was to Bu Xiangzhi. Quang Liêm defeated Vidit Gujrathi and Samuel Shankland in the last two rounds.

### 2019

In June, Quang Liêm won the Asian Continental Championship in Xingtai, China, becoming the first Vietnamese player ever to do so. Soon after he also won the Summer Classic A tournament in St. Louis, US and the World Open (after a playoff with Jeffery Xiong) in Philadelphia, US.

### 2021

In 2021 Quang Liêm participated in the Meltwater Champions Chess Tour 2021. He scored 30 points across the tour, placing him 10th out of the 41 total tour participants. Consequently, he narrowly missed out on the tour finals. His most successful tournament in the tour was the Chessable Masters, where he beat super grandmasters Alireza Firouzja and Levon Aronian on his way to the final where he lost to Wesley So.

In the same year, Le took the offer to be the chess coach at his alma mater Webster University, succeeding Susan Polgar.

### 2022

In February Quang Liêm participated in the Airthings Masters round of the Champions Chess Tour 2022 where he qualified for quarter finals, which he lost to the eventual tournament winner Magnus Carlsen.

In March, he played in the second leg of the Champions Chess Tour, Charity Cup. He had a dominant qualifying, placing first with the score of 32/45 (football scoring, +9=5-1). He beat David Navara in the quarterfinal, but lost to Jan-Krzysztof Duda in the semifinal.

In April, he beat Magnus Carlsen in the Oslo Esports Cup. Liêm has a good chance to become Oslo Esports Cup champion but Liêm are unfortunately unable to win a big victory over Jorden Van Foreest, grandmaster Le Quang Liem was satisfied with the Oslo Esports Cup runner-up with 13 points. In the end, the top three places of the Oslo Esports Cup belonged to Jan-Krzysztof Duda (14 points), Le Quang Liem (13 points) and Magnus Carlsen (12 points), Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa (12 points).

In July, Quang Liêm won the 2022 Biel Chess Festival with a score of 35.5.

In August (15-22), Quang Liêm participated at FTX Crypto Cup and finished fourth after Magnus Carlsen, Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa and Alireza Firouzja, with results of +4-3.

### 2023

In April, the Webster University Chess Team won its sixth national collegiate chess title under the guidance of Coach Quang Liêm. This was Webster's first national chess title since 2017, when Lê Quang Liêm was still a student.

In July, Quang Liêm defended his title at the 2023 Biel Chess Festival with a score of 32.5.

## Notable tournament results

- 2005 World Championship (U14), Belfort (Classical) 1st 9/11

- 2008 Dragon Capital VietNam Chess Open (Classical) 1st 8/9

- 2009 Kolkata Open (classical) 1st 8/10

- 2010 Aeroflot Open (classical) 1st 7/9

- 2010 Dortmund Sparkassen Chess Meeting (classical) 2nd 5.5/10

- 2010 Campomanes Memorial (classical) 2nd 7/9

- 2010 Moscow Open (Classical) 3rd 7/9

- 2011 HD BANK Cup (Classical) 4th 6.5/9

- 2011 TATA Steel (Group B) 4th 7.5/13

- 2011 Aeroflot Open (classical) 1st 6.5/9

- 2011 Capablanca (classical) 2nd 6.5/10

- 2011 Dortmund Sparkassen Chess Meeting (classical) 2nd 5.5/10

- 2011 SPICE Cup (classical) 1st 17/10 (football score system)

- 2012 HD BANK Cup (classical) 2nd 7.5/9

- 2012 FIDE World Blitz Championship 7th 16.5/30

- 2012 SPICE Cup (Classical) 2nd 5.5/10

- 2012 Chess Olympiad Istanbul 2012 5th 8/11

- 2013 HD BANK Cup (Classical) 1st 7.5/9

- 2013 Asian Continental Chess Championships 4th 6.5/9

- 2013 Asian Continental Blitz Chess Championships 1st 8.5/9

- 2013 FIDE World Rapid Championships 4th 10/15

- 2013 FIDE World Blitz Championships 1st 20.5/30

- 2013 SPICE Cup (Classical) 3rd 6/9

- 2014 HD BANK Cup (Classical) 3rd 7/9

- 2014 FIDE World Blitz Championships 4th 14/21

- 2015 HD BANK Cup (Classical) 1st 7.5/9

- 2015 President's Cup (Armageddon) 1st 10/24

- 2015 Millionaire Chess Open (Classical) 2nd 6/7

- 2015 SPICE Cup (Classical) 1st 7/9

- 2016 College Final Four (Classical) 1st 3/3

- 2016 Asian Nations Cup (Blitz) 1st 4.5/5

- 2016 Asian Continental Chess Championships 2nd 6.5/9

- 2016 Asian Continental Blitz Chess Championships 2nd 7/9

- 2017 HD BANK Cup (Classical) 1st 7.0/9

- 2017 Danzhou Super Chess Grandmaster Tournament (Classical) 2nd 5.5/9

- 2017 St. Louis, Grand Chess Tour (rapid and blitz) : tied 5th (10 players in the tourney).

- 2017 AIMAG (Asian Indoor and Martial Art Games in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan) : 1st 5.5/7 (classical) and gold medals in team rapid and blitz categories.


Chris Fehn

# Chris Fehn

## Abstract

Christopher Fehn (born February 24, 1973) is an American musician. He was a percussionist and backing vocalist for the heavy metal band Slipknot from 1998 to 2019, in which he was designated #3. He was also the bassist for Will Haven from 2010 to 2012.

## Career

### Slipknot

Fehn joined Slipknot in 1998, replacing percussionist Brandon Darner. As well as lending his percussion talents to the band, he has also sung backing vocals on a number of songs Slipknot has both recorded and performed live. Fehn describes himself as a "big fan of the band" and says of Slipknot, "the world needed something like this."

In an interview with Face Culture, Fehn stated that the band members gave him a hard time during his early years with the band. He described that his time during the self-titled album era was his "hazing period."

Slipknot bassist Paul Gray stated in an interview that Fehn "often brings humor to the band," and that they "definitely need that guy." Fehn would wear a Pinocchio -style mask and would frequently stroke the nose as if he was masturbating.

On March 14, 2019, Fehn filed a lawsuit against Slipknot, citing payment being held back. Fehn specifically accused Corey Taylor and Shawn Crahan for what he felt was questionable business dealings.

On March 18, 2019, Fehn officially split with Slipknot following the filing of his lawsuit. However, a few days later, the message was removed from the website and according to Fehn's lawyer, the percussionist's employment status with the band had not changed since his initial filing.

## Personal life

In the early years of Slipknot before their signing with Roadrunner Records, Fehn was an electrician.

Outside Slipknot, Fehn is a very keen golfer, and shown on an interview he did on the band's 2006 DVD, Voliminal: Inside the Nine, where he is interviewed at a golf course.

Fehn has two sons, born in 2012, and 2023.

Fehn has ornithophobia.

## Discography

### with Slipknot

- Slipknot (1999)

- Iowa (2001)

- Vol. 3: (The Subliminal Verses) (2004)

- 9.0 Live (2005)

- All Hope Is Gone (2008)

- Antennas to Hell (2012)

- .5: The Gray Chapter (2014)

- Live at MSG (2023)

### with Will Haven

- Voir Dire (2011)

### Other appearances

- Phil Campbell – Old Lions Still Roar (2019) drums on "These Old Boots"

## Filmography

- 1999: Welcome to Our Neighborhood

- 2000: Slipknot: Generation Z

- 2002: Disasterpieces

- 2002: Rollerball

- 2003: Slipknot: Up to Our Necks

- 2006: Voliminal: Inside the Nine

- 2008: Nine: The Making of "All Hope Is Gone"

- 2009: Of the (sic): Your Nightmares, Our Dreams

- 2010: (sic)nesses

- 2013: Motionless in White – America (appears in the video as the freakshow host)

- 2016: Officer Downe

- 2017: Day of the Gusano: Live in Mexico