London

The Institute of Contemporary Arts is an artistic and cultural centre on The Mall in London, just off Trafalgar Square. It is located within Nash... House, part of Carlton House Terrace, near the Duke of York Steps and Admiralty Arch. It contains galleries, a theatre, two cinemas, a bookshop and a bar. The ICA was founded by Roland Penrose, Peter Watson, Herbert Read, Peter Gregory, Geoffrey Grigson and E.L.T. Mesens in 1946. The ICA's founders intended to establish a space where artists, writers and scientists could debate ideas outside the traditional confines of the Royal Academy. The first exhibitions were held in rented premises organised by Penrose, '40 Years of Modern Art' was followed by '40,000 Years of Modern Art' reflecting his interest in primitivism. In the late 1940s, the ICA met in the basement of the Academy of Cinema, 165 Oxford Street. The Academy Cinema building included the Pavilion, a restaurant, and the Marquee ballroom in the basement, the building was owned by George Hoellering the film, jazz and big band promoter. In December 1950, the ICA's first regular premises were opened at 17-18 Dover Street, with Ewan Phillips being its first director.
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The Natural History Museum is one of three large museums on Exhibition Road, South Kensington, London, England . Its main frontage is on Cromwell... Road. The museum is an exempt charity, and a non-departmental public body sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. The museum is home to life and earth science specimens comprising some 70 million items within five main collections: Botany, Entomology, Mineralogy, Palaeontology and Zoology. The museum is a world-renowned centre of research, specialising in taxonomy, identification and conservation. Given the age of the institution, many of the collections have great historical as well as scientific value, such as specimens collected by Darwin. The Natural History Museum Library contains extensive books, journals, manuscripts, and artwork collections linked to the work and research of the scientific departments. Access to the library is by appointment only.
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The Jewish Museum London is a museum of Jewish life and art in the London Borough of Camden, on the northern fringes of central London, England. The... museum was founded in 1932 in the Jewish communal headquarters in Bloomsbury. In 1995, it moved to its current site in Camden Town. Until recently it had a sister museum in Finchley, operated by the same charitable trust and sited within the Sternberg Centre. This branch closed in 2007. The Camden branch reopened in 2010 after two years of major building and extension work. The £10 million renovation was funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund and private donations. The museum is a registered charity. The museum houses a major international-level collection of Jewish ceremonial art including the notable Lindo lamp an early example of a British Menorah . The new building includes a gallery entitled "Judaism: A Living Faith", displaying the museum's noted collection of Jewish ceremonial art. This collection has been awarded "designated" status by the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council in recognition of its outstanding national importance.
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The Old Royal Naval College Visitor Centre in Greenwich in south east London provides an introduction to the history and attractions in the Greenwich... World Heritage Site. It is located in the Pepys Buildings near to the Cutty Sark within the grounds of the Old Royal Naval College, . Admission is free. The Centre explains the history of Greenwich as a royal residence and a maritime centre. Exhibits include: The following attractions are located in the World Heritage Site: The Visitor Centre contains a cafe and a gift shop and also the Greenwich Tourist Information Office, which offers practical advice on bookings, accommodation, travel and so on.
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Andrew Nicholas Castle is an English retired tennis professional, former British No. 1, and now television presenter. Castle was born in Epsom,... Surrey. His mother, Lavinia Pollock , was adopted shortly after her birth. She married fishmonger Frank Castle in April 1953. The couple had five children: James; Richard; David; Fiona; and Andrew, who was born in 1963. Castle's father was a master fishmonger who ran the fishmongers in Westerham, Kent, where his customers included the lady of nearby Chartwell House, Winston Churchill's wife Clementine. He went on to own shops in North Cheam; Norbury; Stoneleigh, Surrey; and in Taunton, Somerset. At the age of nine, Andrew was asked by a friend to come and play tennis: "I can remember every detail about the day, from the feel of the ball to how it sounded when coming off the net. I insisted we played for eight hours non-stop." His parents supported him, but ran out of money, and his father was declared bankrupt, so both of them became taxi drivers.
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Francesca Schiavone is an Italian tennis player who turned professional in 1998. She won the 2010 French Open singles title, becoming the first... Italian woman to win a Grand Slam event in singles. She was also runner-up at the 2011 French Open. As of 16 January 2012, Schiavone's ranking is World No. 11; her career high ranking is World No. 4, achieved on 31 January 2011. Schiavone employs an all court game and has a very classic approach to her clay game. She uses an extreme eastern grip on her one handed backhand. Chris Fowler and Brad Gilbert described her forehand as a "buggy whip." Schiavone has won four singles titles on the WTA tour, but has also achieved ten runner-ups in total, eight of them since the autumn of 2005. Schiavone lost her first eight career finals before finally winning her first title in July 2007. She and her Italian teammates Mara Santangelo, Flavia Pennetta, and Roberta Vinci beat the Belgium team 3–2 in the 2006 Fed Cup final. Justine Henin had to retire in the fifth and final match due to an injury in her right knee, which let Italy win their first Fed Cup trophy.
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Timothy Henry "Tim" Henman OBE is a retired English professional tennis player and former British Number One. Henman played a serve-and-volley style... of tennis that suited the grass courts of Wimbledon. He was the first player from the United Kingdom since Roger Taylor in the 1970s to reach the semi-finals of the Wimbledon Men's Singles Championship. Henman never reached the finals of any Grand Slam but having reached six Grand Slam semi-finals, won 15 career ATP titles , and been ranked number 4 in the world, Henman was one of Britain's most successful open era male tennis players. He retired after helping Great Britain defeat Croatia in a Davis Cup match played in September 2007. Nicknamed "Tiger Tim", Henman is worth £17 million and remains a celebrity among the public. Tim Henman comes from a talented sporting family: his father Tony, a solicitor, was accomplished at various sports, including tennis and squash. His mother Jane, a dress designer, played Junior Wimbledon and introduced Tim and his older brothers Michael and Richard to tennis as soon as they could walk on the family's grass tennis court.
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Patrick Hart "Pat" Cash is a retired Australian professional tennis player who won the men's singles title at Wimbledon in 1987. Cash first came to... the tennis world's attention as a junior player in the early 1980s. He was ranked the top junior player in the world in 1981, and in 1982 he won the junior titles at both Wimbledon and the US Open. He turned professional in 1982 and won his first top-level singles title that year in Melbourne. Cash established a reputation on the tour as a hard-fighting serve-and-volleyer and for wearing his trademark black-and-white checked headband and his cross earring. In 1983, Cash became the youngest player to play in a Davis Cup final. He won the decisive singles rubber against Joakim Nyström as Australia defeated Sweden 3–2 to claim the cup. In 1984, Cash reached the men's singles semi-finals at both Wimbledon and the US Open. He lost in three sets in the Wimbledon semi-finals to John McEnroe and was defeated in the semi-finals at the US Open by Ivan Lendl, who won their match in a fifth set tiebreaker.
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Gregory "Greg" Rusedski is a British Canadian former tennis player who turned professional in 1991 and played until his retirement on 7 April 2007,... at the age of 33. He is a former British Number 1 and ATP World Number 4. Rusedski now provides commentary and analysis on the BBC's Wimbledon coverage. Rusedski's first career singles tournament title was at the Hall of Fame Championship in Newport, Rhode Island in 1993. Rusedski reached the singles final of the US Open in 1997, where he lost to Pat Rafter in four sets, . He also won the BBC Sports Personality of the Year Award. In 1998, Tim Henman eclipsed Rusedski as Britain's number one tennis player. Rusedski, however, won the Grand Slam Cup in 1999. Rusedski was defeated in the second round of Wimbledon in 2005 by Joachim Johansson of Sweden 7–6, 3–6, 6–4, 7–6. Following that disappointment, Rusedski had a successful July. He successfully defended his title at the Hall of Fame Championship, defeating Vince Spadea in the final.
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Ellen Allien, born Ellen Fraatz , is a German electronic musician, music producer and founder of BPitch Control music label. She lives in Berlin,... Germany. She sings in both German and English. She has said that one of the main inspirations for her music is the culture of reunified Berlin; her album Stadtkind was dedicated to the city. Her music is best described as a blend of IDM and electro music, which is dance-floor oriented, yet at the same time has noticeable experimental elements. Ellen was born in Berlin in 1969. Her father played guitar and piano. During 1989, she lived in London where she first came into contact with electronic music. When she later returned to Berlin, electronic music had become increasingly popular in Germany. In 1992, she became resident DJ in the Bunker, Tresor and in E-Werk. She started her own show on the Berlin radio station Kiss-FM and created her own record label, calling them both "Braincandy". Due to discrepancies with disk sales, she gave Braincandy up in 1997 and instead, organized parties with the name, "B Pitch". Allien created the label BPitch Control in 1999.
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Michael John Moorcock is an English writer, primarily of science fiction and fantasy, who has also published a number of literary novels. Moorcock... has mentioned The Gods of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Apple Cart by George Bernard Shaw and The Constable of St. Nicholas by Edwin Lester Arnold as the first three books which captured his imagination. He became editor of Tarzan Adventures in 1956, at the age of 16, and later moved on to edit Sexton Blake Library. As editor of the controversial British science fiction magazine New Worlds, from May 1964 until March 1971 and then again from 1976 to 1996, Moorcock fostered the development of the science fiction "New Wave" in the UK and indirectly in the United States. His serialization of Norman Spinrad's Bug Jack Barron was notorious for causing British MPs to condemn in Parliament the Arts Council's funding of the magazine. During this time, he occasionally wrote under the pseudonym of "James Colvin", a "house pseudonym" used by other critics on New Worlds. A spoof obituary of Colvin appeared in New Worlds #197 , written by "William Barclay" .
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Charles George Patrick Shaughnessy, 5th Baron Shaughnessy , simply known as Charles Shaughnessy, is a British peer, and television, theatre and film... actor. He is known for his roles on American television, as Shane Donovan on the soap opera Days of our Lives and as Maxwell Sheffield on the sitcom The Nanny. Along with his brother, David Shaughnessy and Ophelia Soumekh, he is a partner in 3S Media Solutions Inc. Shaughnessy was born on 9 February 1955 in London, the son of Alfred Shaughnessy, a television writer who was the scriptwriter for Upstairs, Downstairs, and the actress Jean Lodge. His brother, David Shaughnessy, is also an actor and a television producer and director. Having been born into a show-business family, he started appearing in plays during primary school. After attending Eton College, he read for a law degree at Magdalene College of University of Cambridge where he wrote a thesis on the House of Lords. While at Cambridge, he joined the Footlights club. After graduating, he decided to return to acting and enrolled in a London drama school, which led to him touring in a repertory company.
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Clive Morton was an English actor who made many screen appearances, especially on television. In 1955, he appeared in Laurence Olivier's Richard III... and is recalled by fans of Doctor Who for his role as Trenchard in The Sea Devils in 1972. He was Commander Rogue in the first series of the fondly-remembered children's TV series Rogue's Rock in 1974. One of his last roles was as an aged butler in an episode of Upstairs Downstairs. Morton was also a Shakespearian actor and an Associate Artiste of the Royal Shakespeare Company. In the 1964 'Histories' Repertoire he played the Bishop of Carlisle in Richard the Second, The Earl of Worcester in Henry IV and the ferocious Earl of Talbot in Henry VI. Morton was married to Fresh Fields actress Fanny Rowe.
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Sid Vicious was an English musician best known as the bassist of the influential punk rock group Sex Pistols. In 2006 he was inducted posthumously... into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Sex Pistols. Sid Vicious was born John Simon Ritchie in Lewisham South East London to John and Anne Ritchie . His mother dropped out of school early due to a lack of academic success and went on to join the RAF, where she met her husband-to-be, Ritchie's father. His father was a guardsman at Buckingham Palace and a semi-professional trombone player on the London Jazz scene. Shortly after John's birth, he and his mother moved to the island of Ibiza, where they expected to be joined by John's father, who was supposed to support the family financially until he joined them; however, after the first few pay cheques never arrived, Anne realised that he would not be coming. Anne later married Christopher Beverley, a middle class man in 1965, before setting up a family home back in Kent. John had taken his stepfather's surname and was known as John Beverley.
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Richard Harvey is a BAFTA Award–winning British musician and composer. He is best known for his film and television soundtracks. He is also... known for his Guitar concerto "Concerto Antico", which was composed for the guitarist John Williams and the London Symphony Orchestra. Born in London, Harvey soon became involved in music, learning the recorder when he was four years old, switching first to percussion and later playing clarinet in the British Youth Symphony Orchestra. By the time he graduated from London's Royal College of Music in 1972, he was accomplished in the recorder flute, krumhorn, and other mediaeval and Renaissance-era instruments, as well as the mandolin and various keyboards. He could have joined the London Philharmonic Orchestra, but instead chose to work with Musica Reservata, an early music ensemble. He subsequently met another RCM graduate, Brian Gulland, and went on to form the progressive rock and folk band Gryphon. During that period, he also worked with other folk rock musicians such as Richard and Linda Thompson and Ashley Hutchings.
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Stanley Augustus Holloway, OBE was an English stage and film actor, comedian, singer, poet and monologist. He was famous for his comic and character... roles on stage and screen, especially that of Alfred P. Doolittle in My Fair Lady. He was also renowned for his comic monologues and songs, which he performed and recorded throughout most of his 70-year career. Born in London, Holloway pursued a career as a clerk in his teen years. He made early stage appearances before infantry service in the First World War. After the war he had his first major theatre success in Kissing Time, which he starred in when the musical transferred to the West End from Broadway in 1919. In 1921, he joined a concert party, The Co-Optimists, and his career began to flourish. At first he was chiefly employed as a singer, but his skills as an actor and reciter of comic monologues were soon recognised. Characters from his monologues such as Sam Small, invented by Holloway, and Albert Ramsbottom, created for him by Marriott Edgar, were absorbed into popular British culture, and Holloway developed a following for the recordings of his many monologues.
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