- published: 02 Mar 2015
- views: 68183315
Coordinates: 45°45′35″N 4°50′32″E / 45.7597°N 4.8422°E / 45.7597; 4.8422
Lyon (French pronunciation: [ljɔ̃] ( listen), locally: [lijɔ̃]; Occitan: Lion [liˈu]; Arpitan: Liyon [ʎjɔ̃]; English: /liːˈɒn/), traditionally spelt Lyons in English, is a city in east-central France in the Rhône-Alpes region, situated between Paris and Marseille. Lyon is located approximately 470 km (292 mi) from Paris, 320 km (199 mi) from Marseille, 420 km (261 mi) from Strasbourg, 160 km (99 mi) from Geneva, 280 km (174 mi) from Turin. The residents of the city are called Lyonnais.
The city of Lyon has 483,181 inhabitants. Together with its suburbs and satellite towns, Lyon forms the largest conurbation in France outside Paris with a population estimated to be 1,422,331; its overall metropolitan area was estimated to have a population of 2,118,132. Its urban region represents half of the Rhône-Alpes region population with 2.9 million inhabitants. Lyon is the capital of this region, as well as the capital of the smaller Rhône département.
George Francis Lyon (1795–1832) was a rare combination of Arctic and African explorer. By all accounts a fun loving extrovert, he also managed to be a competent British Naval Officer, Commander, explorer, artist and socialite. While not having a particularly distinguished career, he is remembered for the entertaining journals he kept and for the watercolour paintings he completed in the Arctic.
He was, in 1818, sent with Joseph Ritchie by Sir John Barrow to find the course of the Niger River and the location of Timbuktu. The expedition was underfunded, lacked support and because the ideas of John Barrow departed from Tripoli and thus had to cross the Sahara as part of their journey[clarification needed]. A year later, due to much officialdom they had only got as far as Murzuk where they both fell ill. Ritchie never recovered and died there, but Lyon survived and travelled a little further around the region. Exactly a year to the day he left, he arrived back in Tripoli, the expedition being a complete failure.
Benjamin Francis Leftwich (born 4 September 1989) is an English singer-songwriter from York.
Leftwich began playing at the age of ten and grew up listening to The Rolling Stones and Nina Simone; later discovering Nick Drake, Bob Dylan, and Elliott Smith. He cites Arcade Fire, Ryan Adams, and Bruce Springsteen as inspirations.
Leftwich was educated at Bootham School, an independent boarding school in the city of York, the county town of Yorkshire in the North of England.
Leftwich's debut album, the Ian Grimble-produced Last Smoke Before The Snowstorm, was released in July 2011. The Fly called it "a majestic debut" " "whilst The Sunday Times cited Leftwich as "a serious new talent".[citation needed]The Skinny described it as "occasionally a bit O.C. soundtrack...[but] enjoyable throughout", while the Sunday Express called it "lovely" but "increasingly repetitive over the course of 10 tracks". Hazel Sheffield, writing in The Guardian, gave it a 3/5 rating, as did David Pollock, writing for The Scotsman, who drew comparisons to Damien Rice and José González, but also stated "sadly there are also heavy hints of Chris Martin at his most mawkish".