c2c is a British train operating company, part of the National Express Group. It provides passenger rail services on the London, Tilbury and Southend Railway line from Fenchurch Street railway station in the City of London to east London and along the northern Thames Gateway area of southern Essex, including Basildon, Chafford Hundred (for Lakeside Shopping Centre), Tilbury and Southend-on-Sea. This route was called the Thameside franchise, renamed the Essex Thameside franchise in 2009. The main route from Fenchurch Street to Shoeburyness via Basildon is 39.5 miles (63.57 km), with a fastest timetabled journey time from of 58 minutes giving an average speed of 40.7 mph, although the route can be done in 47 minutes, an average speed of 50 mph. The line has a speed limit of 75 mph (121 km/h), although the Class 357 Electrostar electric multiple-unit trains that run on it are capable of 100 mph (160 km/h). Before July 2002, it traded under the name LTS Rail. The managing director is Julian Drury.

Louis Armstrong (August 4, 1901 – July 6, 1971), nicknamed Satchmo or Pops, was an American jazz trumpeter and singer from New Orleans, Louisiana.

Coming to prominence in the 1920s as an "inventive" cornet and trumpet player, Armstrong was a foundational influence in jazz, shifting the music's focus from collective improvisation to solo performance. With his instantly recognizable deep and distinctive gravelly voice, Armstrong was also an influential singer, demonstrating great dexterity as an improviser, bending the lyrics and melody of a song for expressive purposes. He was also greatly skilled at scat singing (vocalizing using sounds and syllables instead of actual lyrics).

Renowned for his charismatic stage presence and voice almost as much as for his trumpet-playing, Armstrong's influence extends well beyond jazz music, and by the end of his career in the 1960s, he was widely regarded as a profound influence on popular music in general. Armstrong was one of the first truly popular African-American entertainers to "cross over," whose skin-color was secondary to his music in an America that was severely racially divided. It allowed him socially acceptable access to the upper echelons of American society that were highly restricted for a black man. While he rarely publicly politicized his race, often to the dismay of fellow African-Americans, he was privately a strong supporter of the Civil Rights movement in America.^{[citation needed]}