Word: astone
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...British censor, called "a piece of incoherence in the manner of Samuel Beckett" - unintentional high praise indeed. It's the tale of an old homeless man, Jenkins (played onstage and in the excellent 1963 film version by Donald Pleasance), who is brought to the home of the simple-minded Aston (Robert Shaw) and his conniving brother Mick (Alan Bates). Jenkins begins as the ratty interloper but becomes sympathetic by default as the brothers play their mind games. The plot fits the contours of a standard nightmare: being invited into a place where you are misled and mistreated...
...could call The Caretaker an Old Dark House horror movie, where a ghost comes in to haunt the humans and is scared away by their calculated nastiness. It's also Pinter's first political play: Jenkins is a refugee, poor and tired, the very definition of wretched refuse. Aston, who as a teenager was submitted to shock therapy, leaving him effectively lobotomized, can be seen as a victim of state-sponsored torture. And Mick is the bluff overlord, cracking jokes as he metaphorically cracks skulls...
...friends in the Senate, and I've got a lot of friends in the Senate." - Robert Dole, former senator, on Daschle taking a job at lobbying firm Aston & Bird, where Dole also worked, Washington Post March...
...What's Next The irony about being called on the carpet in Washington is that Detroit actually has a fairly clear idea of where it's going. Ford, for instance, under the leadership of Alan Mulally, has rationalized the company, dumping Jaguar, Aston Martin, Land Rover and some of its stake in Mazda. Volvo may be next. "We have streamlined all of the brands to focus on Ford," he says. Ford wants to be able to create small- and medium-size cars around the world from a single global blueprint. The initial product of the One Ford strategy...
...Beeb's two main channels - Top Gear regularly pulls in more than 7 million viewers, roughly a quarter of all Britons watching TV during the program's Sunday-night slot. Chalk that up to the show's high speed and high production values: crazy challenges and outlandish races - an Aston Martin versus a train between England and Monte Carlo, for instance (the Aston won) - are, like the rest of the show, beautifully shot and edited. Add in the bickering, bantering, male-but-not-macho presenters, and Top Gear has "touched something in the zeitgeist," says Steve Hewlett, a former British...