Essex

Essex /ˈɛsᵻks/ is a county in England, immediately north-east of London. It borders the counties of Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south and London to the south-west. The county town is Chelmsford, which is the only city in the county. Essex occupies the east of the pre-England Kingdom of Essex. As well as rural areas, the county also includes the Lakeside Shopping Centre, London Stansted Airport and the new towns of Basildon and Harlow.

History

The name Essex originates in the Anglo-Saxon period of the Early Middle Ages and has its root in the Old English Ēastseaxe (i.e. the "East Saxons"), the eastern kingdom of the Saxons (cf. Middlesex and Sussex) during the Heptarchy. Originally recorded in AD 527, Essex occupied territory to the north of the River Thames, incorporating all of what later became Middlesex (which probably included Surrey) and most of what later became Hertfordshire. Its territory was later restricted to lands east of the River Lea.Colchester in the north east of the county is Britain's oldest recorded town, dating back to before the Roman conquest, when it was known as Camulodunum and was sufficiently well-developed to have its own mint. In AD 824, following the battle of Ethandun, the kingdoms of the East Saxons, the South Saxons and the Kentish were absorbed into the kingdom of the West Saxons, uniting Saxland under King Alfred's grandfather Egberht. In changes before the Norman conquest the East Saxons were subsumed into the Kingdom of England and, following the Norman conquest, Essex became a county.

Ed Sheeran

Edward Christopher "Ed" Sheeran (born 17 February 1991) is an English singer-songwriter and musician. He was born in Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire and raised in Framlingham, Suffolk. After dropping out of school at 16, he moved to London the following year, in 2008, to pursue a career in music. In early 2011, Sheeran independently released the extended play, No. 5 Collaborations Project, which caught the attention of Elton John and Jamie Foxx. After signing with Asylum Records, his debut album, + (read as "plus"), was released on 9 September 2011 and has since been certified six-times platinum in the UK. The album contains the single "The A Team", which earned him the Ivor Novello Award for Best Song Musically and Lyrically. In 2012, Sheeran won the Brit Awards for Best British Male Solo Artist and British Breakthrough Act.

Sheeran's popularity abroad began in 2012. In the US, he made a guest appearance on Taylor Swift's fourth studio album, Red. "The A Team" was nominated for Song of the Year at the 2013 Grammy Awards, where he performed the song with Elton John. He spent much of 2013 opening for Swift's The Red Tour in North America dates. In late 2013, he performed three sold-out shows at New York's Madison Square Garden as a headline act. He was nominated for Best New Artist at the 2014 Grammy Awards.

Grand Theft Auto V

Grand Theft Auto V is an open world, action-adventure video game developed by Rockstar North and published by Rockstar Games. It was released on 17 September 2013 for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, on 18 November 2014 for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, and on 14 April 2015 for Microsoft Windows. The game is the first main entry in the Grand Theft Auto series since 2008's Grand Theft Auto IV. Set within the fictional state of San Andreas, based on Southern California, the single-player story follows three criminals and their efforts to commit heists while under pressure from a government agency. The open world design lets players freely roam San Andreas's open countryside and fictional city of Los Santos, based on Los Angeles.

The game is played from either a first-person or third-person view and its world is navigated on foot or by vehicle. Players control the three lead protagonists throughout single-player and switch between them both during and outside of missions. The story is centred on the heist sequences, and many missions involve shooting and driving gameplay. A "wanted" system governs the aggression of law enforcement response to players who commit crimes. Grand Theft Auto Online, the online multiplayer mode, lets up to 30 players explore the open world and engage in cooperative or competitive game matches.

BMW X5

The BMW X5 is a midsize luxury SUV (Sport Utility Vehicle) produced by BMW. The first generation of the X5, with the chassis code E53, made its debut in 1999. It was BMW's first SUV (Sport Utility Vehicle), also known as "Four-by-Four" (4x4) in the UK, which featured 4WD all-wheel drive and was available with either manual or automatic transmission. In 2006 the second generation X5 was launched, known internally as the E70, featuring the torque-split capable xDrive all-wheel drive system mated to an automatic transmission, and in 2009 the X5 M performance variant was released as a 2010 model.

BMW branded the X5 as a Sport Activity Vehicle (SAV) rather than an SUV, to emphasize its on-road ability despite its size. Like the Lexus RX 300, the X5 heralded the shift from light truck-based body-on-frame SUVs to crossovers underpinned by unibody car platforms that would come to fruition in the late 2000s. Among German luxury automakers, while the Mercedes-Benz M-Class had beaten the X5 to the market by a year, the X5 was the first to use a unibody chassis whereas the M-Class used a light truck platform until its second generation. While the Lexus RX is based on the Toyota Camry mass market sedan, the X5 shares its underpinnings with the BMW 5 Series performance luxury sedan.