K.T.Tunstall

Scottish singer-songwriter and musician K.T.Tunstall was born 23 June 1975.Tunstall grew up in St Andrews, a town in Fife, attending Lawhead Primary, then Madras College in St. Andrews, and the High School of Dundee but she spent her last year of high school in New England at the Kent School, a selective prep school in Kent, Connecticut.She spent time busking on Church Street in Burlington, Vermnt, and at a commune in rural Vermont. Tunstall studied at Madras College in st. Andrews, Kent School in Connecticut, and at Royal Holloway, University of London. She has said: “…My earliest memories are Californian…”, attributed to a sabbatical that her father took at UCLA in 1979 Throughout Tunstall’s 20s, she played in indie music bands including Elia Drew and Tomoko. She focused on songwriting, as well as performing with members of the fledgling Fence Collective. KT Tunstall had lived with Gordon Anderson, (The Beta Band, and The Aliens), whom the song “Funnyman”, on the album Drastic Fantastic, is about. She toured with the Klezmer band Oi Va Voi, and stayed with them while they were making their album, Laughter Through Tears.

She broke into the public eye with a 2004 live solo performance of her song “Black Horse and the Cherry Tree” on Later… with Jools Holland.Her début album, Eye to the Telescope, was released in late 2004. Tunstall’s style of music varies from folk to pop. In Edinburgh and St Andrews, she played in a band called Red Light Stylus, which was regarded as one of the better bands to emerge from the limited Fife scene.The performance was notable as she had only 24 hours to prepare after scheduled performer Nas cancelled. Here performance caught the eye of many viewers, although she had previously performed it on French television only some weeks before, upstaging more established acts such as The Cure,Embrace, and The Futureheads; she then went on to top the post-show poll on the website for that episode.

Tunstall’s second album, Drastic Fantastic, was released in 2007, featuring the singles, “Hold On”, “Saving My Face” and “If Only”. Tunstall released a new acoustic album in May 2006, KT Tunstall’s Acoustic Extravaganza. Tunstall sang with Scottish band Travis on their 2007 album The Boy with No Name, on the track “Under the Moonlight”, a song written by Susie Hug (late of Katydids). KT Tunstall’s third album, titled Tiger Suit, was released in 2010. She had started her time off by travelling through the Arctic, South America and India, so as a result the album had a very primal, indigenous spirit by the time it came to recording. KT tunstall’s  fifth album  Invisible Empire // Crescent Moon features the single Feel It All, and was described is her most personal yet.A move away from the ‘stompy, sensitive girl-blues’ of old, it is a stripped-back, gentle affair, with strings, clarinet and euphonium adding subtle colour and is partly influenced by recent events in her life

During her career KT Tunstall has garnered many awards ln Tunstall’s breakthrough year, 2005, she received a nomination for the Mercury Music Prize, which eventually went to Antony and the Johnsons; and was awarded Best Track for her composition and performance of “Black Horse and the Cherry Tree” by Q magazine.In January the following year, 2006, she received three BRIT nominations – British Live Act, British Breakthrough Act, and British Female Solo Artist – eventually gaining the award for British Female Solo Artist, remarking that she wished to share it with fellow nominee Kate Bush. Later the same month she was given a European Border Breakers Award, which recognises the top-selling European Union artists outside their home country. Also, in 2006 she won the Ivor Novello Best Song Musically and Lyrically for “Suddenly I See”, along with Scottish Style Awards “Most Stylish Band or Musician”.

She gained more nominations in 2007 and 2008: a 2007 Grammy Award nomination for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance for “Black Horse and the Cherry Tree” (eventually going to Christina Aguilera for “Ain’t No Other Man”), and another BRIT nomination for British Female Solo Artist – the same accolade she had won in 2006. She has released five albums internationally: Eye to the Telescope (2004), KT Tunstall’s Acoustic Extravaganza (2006), Drastic Fantastic (2007), Tiger Suit (2010) and Invisible Empire // Crescent Moon (2013). During 2014, Tunstall wrote the song Miracle for the movie Winter’s Tale, featuring Colin Farrell, Russell Crowe, and Will Smith and Also wrote a song, called We Could Be Kings, with AR Rahman, which features in the soundtrack album for the Disney movie Million Dollar Arm. She has also appeared in an episode (S01E04) of the comedy series This is Jinsy on Sky Atlantic, and I’ve seen her perform live at Shrewsbury Folk Festival.

PauL Arthurs (Oasis, The Rain)

Paul Arthurs, English musician with Oasis and The Rain) was born Born 23 June 1965. Oasis were formed in Manchester in 1991, Oasis were Originally known as The Rain, the group was formed by Liam Gallagher (vocals & tambourine), Paul “Bonehead” Arthurs (guitar), Paul “Guigsy” McGuigan (bass guitar) and Tony McCarroll (drums, percussion), who were soon joined by Liam’s older brother Noel Gallagher (lead guitar and vocals). They have had eight UK number-one singles and eight UK number-one albums, and won fifteen NME Awards, nine Q Awards, four MTV Europe Music Awards and six Brit Awards, including one in 2007 for outstanding contribution to music and one for the best album of the last 30 years as voted by the BBC Radio 2 listeners; they have been nominated for three Grammy Awards. As of 2009, the band have sold an estimated 70 million records worldwide. The band were listed in the Guinness Book of World Records in 2010 for “Longest Top 10 UK Chart Run by a Group” after an unprecedented run of 22 top 10 hits in the UK. The band also holds the Guinness World Record for being the most successful act in the UK between the years 1995 and 2005, spending 765 weeks in the Top 75 singles and albums charts.

Its members were signed to independent record label Creation Records and afterwards released their record-setting debut album Definitely Maybe in 1994. The following year, the band recorded (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? (1995) with their new drummer Alan White in the midst of rivalry with Britpop peers Blur in the charts. The Gallagher brothers featured regularly in tabloid newspapers for their sibling disputes and wild lifestyles. In 1997, Oasis released their third album, Be Here Now, and although it became the fastest-selling album in UK chart history, the album’s popularity tapered off quickly. The band lost members Paul McGuigan and Paul Arthurs as they went on to record and release Standing on the Shoulder of Giants in 2000 and were replaced by Gem Archer and Andy Bell who joined the group for the tour in support of Giants. The band found renewed success and popularity starting with 2005′s Don’t Believe the Truth.

However It didn’t last long and Oasis split accrimoniously before a gig in Paris, and the two Gallagher brothers, Liam and Noel, who have always had a rather fractious relationship, went their seperate ways. Liam formed Beady Eye with Gem Archer and Andy Bell, and Noël formed Noël Gallagher’s High Flying Birds. They have both achieved renewed success with their new bands, With Beady Eye releasing the albums Different Gear Still Speeding and BE and Noël releasing Noël Gallagher’s High Flying Birds

Tribute to Alan Turing

British mathematician, logician, cryptanalyst, and computer scientist Alan Turing OBE, FRS was Born on June 23rd, 1912 in Maida Vale, and grew up in Hastings. He displayed great individuality from a young age. At 14 he went to Sherborne School in Dorset.Turing subsequently read mathematics at Cambridge,He was completely original thinkerwho shaped the modern world, and assisted in the development of the innovative Manchester computers. He was also highly influential in the development of computer science, providing a formalisation of the concepts of “algorithm” and “computation” with the Turing machine, which played a sinificant role in the creation of the modern computer. Turing is widely considered to be the father of computer science and artificial intelligece.He also became interested in mathematical biology and wrote a paper on the chemical basis of morphogenesis, and predicted oscillating chemical reactions such as the Belousov–Zhabotinsky reaction, which were first observed in the 1960s.

On 4 September 1939 the day after Britain declared war on Germany, Turing reported to Bletchley Park where he worked for the Government Code and Cypher School (GCCS)the forerunner of GCHQ, Britain’s codebreaking centre. For a time he was head of Hut 8, the section responsible for German naval cryptanalysis. Turing led a team whose ingenuity and intellect were turned to the task of breaking German ciphers. He devised a number of techniques for breaking German ciphers and One of Turing’s main contributions whilst there was to invent the Bombe, an electromechanical machine used to find the daily settings of the Enigma machine. as a result he played an absolutely vital part of the British war effort and It is without question that his efforts helped shorten the war significantly, saving the lives of millions of people.He was also a remarkable British hero who helped create the modern world. Now known as the father of computer science, his inventions contributed greatly to the groundwork for the modern computer.

After the war he worked at the National Physical Laboratory, where he created one of the first designs for a stored-program computer, the ACE. In 1948 Turing joined Max Newman’s Computing Laboratory at Manchester University, where he assisted in the development of the Manchester computers and invented a type of theoretical machine now called a Turing Machine, which formalized what it means to compute a number. Turing’s importance extends far beyond Turing Machines. His work deciphering secret codes drastically shortened World War II and pioneered early computer technology.He was also an early innovator in the field of artificial intelligence, and came up with a way to test if computers could think – now known as the Turing Test. Besides this abstract work, he was down to earth; he designed and built real machines, even making his own relays and wiring up circuits. This combination of pure math and computing machines was the foundation of computer science.

Despite his invaluable help during WorldWar II AND all his other achievements, he was treated badly. A burglary at his home led Turing to admit to police that he was a practicing homosexual, at a time when it was illegal in Britain. This led to his arrest and conviction in 1952 for ‘gross indecency’. He was subsequently forced to choose between imprisonment and chemical castration. He chose chemical castration (treatment with female hormones) as an alternative to prison.As a result of his conviction he lost security clearance and was not allowed to continue his work. Sadly On 8 June 1954 just over two weeks before his 42nd birthday, Turing was found dead from cyanide poisoning. An inquest determined that his death was suicide and he had poisoned himself with cyanide.

Since Turing’s birth, attitudes have changed and The US-based Association of Computing Machinery has given The Turing Award annually since 1966. This is the computing world’s highest honour for technical contribution to the computing community and considered equivalent to the Nobel prize.On 10 September 2009, following an Internet campaign, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown also made an official public apology on behalf of the British government for “the appalling way he was treated”.Despite his valuable contributions Turing did not receive the recognition and plaudits that he deserved while alive, However this has now been redressed and there is now A fully functional replica of the Bombe which can be found today at Bletchley Park, along with the excellent Turing exhibition