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Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency
''Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency'' is a humorous detective novel by English writer Douglas Adams, published in 1987. It is described by the author on its cover as a "thumping good detective-ghost-horror-who dunnit-time travel-romantic-musical-comedy-epic". The book was followed by a sequel, ''The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul''. The recurring major characters are the eponymous Dirk Gently, his secretary Janice Pearce and Sergeant Gilks. Adams began work on another novel, ''The Salmon of Doubt'', with the intention of publishing it as the third book in the series, but died before completing it. A BBC Radio 4 adaptation of six episodes was broadcast from October 2007. A second series based on the sequel was broadcast from October 2008. A 2010 television adaptation for BBC Four borrowed some of the characters and some minor plot elements of the novel to create a new story, and a 2016 television adaptation for BBC America served as a continuation of the books. Writing ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Douglas Adams
Douglas Noel Adams (11 March 1952 – 11 May 2001) was an English author and screenwriter, best known for ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy''. Originally a 1978 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (radio series), BBC radio comedy, ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'' developed into a "trilogy" of five books that sold more than 15 million copies in his lifetime. It was further developed into The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (TV series), a television series, several stage plays, comics, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (video game), a video game, and a 2005 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (film), feature film. Adams's contribution to UK radio is commemorated in Radio Academy, The Radio Academy's Hall of Fame. Adams also wrote ''Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency'' (1987) and ''The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul'' (1988), and co-wrote ''The Meaning of Liff'' (1983), ''The Deeper Meaning of Liff'' (1990), and ''Last Chance to See'' (1990). He wrote t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Time Lord
The Time Lords are a fictional ancient race of extraterrestrial people in the British science fiction television series ''Doctor Who'', of which the series' main protagonist, the Doctor, is a member. Time Lords are so named for their command of time travel technology and their non-linear perception of time. Originally, they were described as a powerful and wise race from the planet Gallifrey, from which the Doctor was a renegade; details beyond this were very limited for the first decade of the series. They later became integral to many episodes and stories as their role in the universe developed. For the first eight years after the series resumed in 2005, the Time Lords were said to have been destroyed during the Last Great Time War at some point in the show's continuity between the original series' cancellation in 1989 and the show's revival. In 2013, the 50th anniversary special "The Day of the Doctor" concerned this supposed destruction and their eventual survival. The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
British Telecom
BT Group plc (trading as BT and formerly British Telecom) is a British multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered in London, England. It has operations in around 180 countries and is the largest provider of fixed-line, broadband and mobile services in the UK, and also provides subscription television and IT services. BT's origins date back to the founding in 1846 of the Electric Telegraph Company, the world's first public telegraph company, which developed a nationwide communications network. BT Group as it came to be started in 1912, when the General Post Office, a government department, took over the system of the National Telephone Company becoming the monopoly telecoms supplier in the United Kingdom. The Post Office Act of 1969 led to the GPO becoming a public corporation. The ''British Telecom'' brand was introduced in 1980, and became independent of the Post Office in 1981, officially trading under the name. British Telecommunications was privat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach (28 July 1750) was a German composer and musician of the late Baroque period. He is known for his orchestral music such as the ''Brandenburg Concertos''; instrumental compositions such as the Cello Suites; keyboard works such as the '' Goldberg Variations'' and ''The Well-Tempered Clavier''; organ works such as the '' Schubler Chorales'' and the Toccata and Fugue in D minor; and vocal music such as the '' St Matthew Passion'' and the Mass in B minor. Since the 19th-century Bach revival he has been generally regarded as one of the greatest composers in the history of Western music. The Bach family already counted several composers when Johann Sebastian was born as the last child of a city musician in Eisenach. After being orphaned at the age of 10, he lived for five years with his eldest brother Johann Christoph, after which he continued his musical education in Lüneburg. From 1703 he was back in Thuringia, working as a musician for Protestant c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Person From Porlock
The person from Porlock was an unwelcome visitor to Samuel Taylor Coleridge during his composition of the poem ''Kubla Khan'' in 1797. Coleridge claimed to have perceived the entire course of the poem in a dream (possibly an opium-induced haze), but was interrupted by this visitor from Porlock while in the process of writing it. ''Kubla Khan,'' only 54 lines long, was never completed. Thus "person from Porlock", "man from Porlock", or just "Porlock" are literary allusions to unwanted intruders who disrupt inspired creativity. Story In 1797, Coleridge was living at Nether Stowey, a village in the foothills of the Quantocks. However, due to ill health, he had "retired to a lonely farm house between Porlock and Lynton, on the Exmoor confines of Somerset and Devonshire".Samuel Taylor Coleridge, ''Christabel, Kubla Khan, and the Pains of Sleep'', 2nd edition, William Bulmer, London, 1816. Reproduced in ''The Complete Poems'', ed. William Keach, Penguin Books, 2004. It is unclear whe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scuba Gear
Scuba diving is a mode of underwater diving whereby divers use breathing equipment that is completely independent of a surface air supply. The name "scuba", an acronym for " Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus", was coined by Christian J. Lambertsen in a patent submitted in 1952. Scuba divers carry their own source of breathing gas, usually compressed air, affording them greater independence and movement than surface-supplied divers, and more time underwater than free divers. Although the use of compressed air is common, a gas blend with a higher oxygen content, known as enriched air or nitrox, has become popular due to the reduced nitrogen intake during long and/or repetitive dives. Also, breathing gas diluted with helium may be used to reduce the likelihood and effects of nitrogen narcosis during deeper dives. Open circuit scuba systems discharge the breathing gas into the environment as it is exhaled, and consist of one or more diving cylinders containing brea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Answering Machine
An answering machine, answerphone or message machine, also known as telephone messaging machine (or TAM) in the United Kingdom, UK and some Commonwealth countries, ansaphone or ansafone (from a trade name), or telephone answering device (TAD), was used for answering telephones and recording callers' messages. If a phone rings a number of times predetermined by the phone's owner, and nobody is present to answer the incoming call, the answering machine will activate and play either a generic announcement or the voice of the person being called announcing that nobody is able to come to the phone at the moment. Following the announcement is a beeping tone which prompts the caller to record a message after the tone concludes. Unlike voicemail, which can be a centralized or networked system that covers, and mostly extends, similar functions, an answering machine is set up in the user's premises alongside—or incorporated within—the user's land-line telephone. Unlike operator mes ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kubla Khan
''Kubla Khan'' () is a poem written by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, completed in 1797 and published in 1816. It is sometimes given the subtitles "A Vision in a Dream" and "A Fragment." According to Coleridge's preface to ''Kubla Khan'', the poem was composed one night after he experienced an opium-influenced dream after reading a work describing Shangdu, the summer capital of the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty of China founded by Kublai Khan (Emperor Shizu of Yuan). Upon waking, he set about writing lines of poetry that came to him from the dream until he was interrupted by " a person from Porlock". The poem could not be completed according to its original 200–300 line plan as the interruption caused him to forget the lines. He left it unpublished and kept it for private readings for his friends until 1816 when, at the prompting of Lord Byron, it was published. The poem is vastly different in style from other poems written by Coleridge. The first stanza of the poem describes Khan's ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (; 21 October 177225 July 1834) was an English poet, literary critic, philosopher, and theologian who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poets. He also shared volumes and collaborated with Charles Lamb, Robert Southey, and Charles Lloyd. He wrote the poems '' The Rime of the Ancient Mariner'' and '' Kubla Khan'', as well as the major prose work '' Biographia Literaria''. His critical work, especially on William Shakespeare, was highly influential, and he helped introduce German idealist philosophy to English-speaking cultures. Coleridge coined many familiar words and phrases, including " suspension of disbelief". He had a major influence on Ralph Waldo Emerson and American transcendentalism. Throughout his adult life, Coleridge had crippling bouts of anxiety and depression; it has been speculated that he had bipolar disorder, which had not been defined during his lifet ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cambridge
Cambridge ( ) is a College town, university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge became an important trading centre during the Roman and Viking ages, and there is archaeological evidence of settlement in the area as early as the Bronze Age. The first Town charter#Municipal charters, town charters were granted in the 12th century, although modern city status was not officially conferred until 1951. The city is most famous as the home of the University of Cambridge, which was founded in 1209 and consistently ranks among the best universities in the world. The buildings of the university include King's College Chapel, Cambridge, King's College Chapel, Cavendish Laboratory, and the Cambridge University Library, one of the largest legal deposit libraries in the world. The city's skyline is dominated by several Colleg ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
BWV 6
(Stay with us, for evening falls), 6, is a Bach cantata, cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach for use in a Lutheran service. He composed it in Leipzig in 1725 for Easter Monday and first performed it on 2 April 1725. The prescribed readings for the feast day were Peter the Apostle, Peter's sermon from the Acts of the Apostles, and the Road to Emmaus appearance, Road to Emmaus narration from the Gospel of Luke. The text by an anonymous Libretto, librettist begins with a line from the gospel, and includes as the third Movement (music), movement two stanzas from Philipp Melanchthon's hymn "" and its second stanza by Nikolaus Selnecker. The text ends with the second stanza of Martin Luther's hymn "". Derived from the gospel scene, the topic is pleading for light in a situation of threatening darkness. Bach structured the cantata in six movements and scored it for four vocal soloists, a SATB, four-part choir and a Baroque instruments, Baroque instrumental ensemble of oboes, strings and c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
St John's College, Cambridge
St John's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge founded by the Tudor matriarch Lady Margaret Beaufort. In constitutional terms, the college is a charitable corporation established by a charter dated 9 April 1511. The full, formal name of the college is the College of St John the Evangelist in the University of Cambridge. The aims of the college, as specified by its statutes, are the promotion of education, religion, learning and research. It is one of the larger Oxbridge colleges in terms of student numbers. For 2022, St John's was ranked 6th of 29 colleges in the Tompkins Table (the annual league table of Cambridge colleges) with over 35 per cent of its students earning first-class honours. College alumni include the winners of twelve Nobel Prizes, seven prime ministers and twelve archbishops of various countries, at least two princes and three saints."Johnian Nobel Laureates". St John's College, Cambridge. 2016. Retrieved 5 May 2016. http://www.j ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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