Jon Petrie

Jonathan Michael Petrie (born 19 October 1976 in Dundee) is a Scottish rugby union footballer who played at flanker for Glasgow Warriors and Scotland.

He had two seasons in Scotland's under-21 team, making his debut against the Irish in 1997 while he was playing in France with Colomiers. Petrie's Scotland A debut was in the 99-0 win over the Netherlands at Murrayfield in December 1999. He won his first cap in the second test on the tour of New Zealand in 2000, his first try for Scotland came in the 31–8 November 2000 win against Samoa. He was given the captaincy by then Scotland coach Frank Hadden in 2005 leading Scotland to their first ever victory against the Barbarians.

He was Club Captain of Glasgow Warriors from 2004 to 2006.

Jon Petrie was denied his first test series as captain by injury ahead of the matches against Argentina, Samoa and New Zealand in November 2005.

His later career was blighted by injury and he was eventually replaced as captain by Jason White.

Jon Petrie announced his retirement as a player from Rugby Union in March 2007.

Misery Bear

Misery Bear is the subject of a series of short films made by Roughcut TV and published on the BBC website. The films centre on the depressing existence of the title character and his lack of success in work, lack of a girlfriend, or any real friends at all and his excessive drinking. In the films it appears that Jack Daniel's is often his drink of choice, but he's also seen on film drinking from cans of beer and wine.

The first 'Misery Bear' episode titled 'Trip to London' was released in October 2009. To date there have been 14 films in all. In March 2011 a Special Misery Bear film was made for Comic Relief guest starring Kate Moss, who initially befriends Misery Bear. They get steadily more and more drunk until Moss reveals her shrine to Misery Bear and it's clear her intention is to kidnap him. In conjunction with the film, a fundraising page was created for people to donate to Misery Bear's cause. In March 2012 another charity video was released for Sport Relief guest starring Mo Farah, Lionel Richie and Chris Kendall (aka crabstickz). In 2011 it was announced that Misery Bear would be appearing in a book called Misery Bear's Guide to Love and Heartbreak. The book was released in October 2011 containing his thoughts, stories, poems, photos, cartoons, diary entries, recipes and illustrations. In November 2012, he appeared with Pudsey Bear and Geri Halliwell in a sketch for Children in Need.

The Jungle Book

The Jungle Book (1894) is a collection of stories by English author Rudyard Kipling. The stories were first published in magazines in 1893–94. The original publications contain illustrations, some by Rudyard's father, John Lockwood Kipling. Kipling was born in India and spent the first six years of his childhood there. After about ten years in England, he went back to India and worked there for about six-and-a-half years. These stories were written when Kipling lived in Vermont. There is evidence that it was written for his daughter Josephine, who died in 1899 aged six, after a rare first edition of the book with a poignant handwritten note by the author to his young daughter was discovered at the National Trust's Wimpole Hall in Cambridgeshire in 2010.

The tales in the book (and also those in The Second Jungle Book which followed in 1895, and which includes five further stories about Mowgli) are fables, using animals in an anthropomorphic manner to give moral lessons. The verses of The Law of the Jungle, for example, lay down rules for the safety of individuals, families, and communities. Kipling put in them nearly everything he knew or "heard or dreamed about the Indian jungle." Other readers have interpreted the work as allegories of the politics and society of the time. The best-known of them are the three stories revolving around the adventures of Mowgli, an abandoned "man cub" who is raised by wolves in the Indian jungle. The most famous of the other four stories are probably "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi", the story of a heroic mongoose, and "Toomai of the Elephants", the tale of a young elephant-handler. As with much of Kipling's work, each of the stories is followed by a piece of verse.

Donald Petrie

Donald Mark Petrie (born April 2, 1954) is an American actor and film director.

Life and career

Petrie was born in New York City, New York, the son of Dorothea (née Grundy), a television producer, actor, and novelist, and Daniel Petrie, a director. He is the brother of writer Daniel Petrie, Jr.

Petrie has acted and guest-starred on television programs. His first directorial job was on the set of The Equalizer, a private detective television series, in 1985. Since, he has directed films such as Mystic Pizza (1988), Opportunity Knocks (1990), Grumpy Old Men (1993), The Favor (1994), Richie Rich (1994), The Associate (1996), Miss Congeniality (2000), How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days (2003), Welcome to Mooseport (2004), Just My Luck (2006) and My Life in Ruins (2009).

References

External links

The Jungle

The Jungle is a 1906 novel written by the American journalist and novelist Upton Sinclair (1878–1968). Sinclair wrote the novel to portray the harsh conditions and exploited lives of immigrants in the United States in Chicago and similar industrialized cities. However, most readers were more concerned with his exposure of health violations and unsanitary practices in the American meatpacking industry during the early 20th century, based on an investigation he did for a socialist newspaper.

The book depicts working class poverty, the lack of social supports, harsh and unpleasant living and working conditions, and a hopelessness among many workers. These elements are contrasted with the deeply rooted corruption of people in power. A review by the writer Jack London called it, "the Uncle Tom's Cabin of wage slavery."

Sinclair was considered a muckraker, or journalist who exposed corruption in government and business. He first published the novel in serial form in 1905, in the Socialist newspaper, Appeal to Reason, between February 25, 1905 and November 4, 1905. In 1904, Sinclair had spent seven weeks gathering information while working incognito in the meatpacking plants of the Chicago stockyards for the newspaper. It was published as a book on February 26, 1906, by Doubleday and in a subscribers' edition.