David Stafford

David Stafford is a writer, broadcaster and occasional musician born 1949 in Birmingham, England.

Stafford began his career in fringe and community theatre in the 1970s. In the early 1980s, he collaborated and toured with Alexei Sayle, which resulted in two series for Capital Radio, two plays for TV, a book, Great Bus Journeys of the World, and various songs and recordings including Doctor Marten's Boots. At the same time he was a presenter on the Channel 4 consumer programme 4 What It’s Worth, contributed to many arts programmes and documentaries including The Media Show (Channel 4) and extensively to The Late Show (BBC2). His TV plays include Dread Poets Society (BBC2) co-written with the poet Benjamin Zephaniah. For ten years he also wrote a weekly column for the Saturday Guardian, eventually called Staffordshire Bull.

During the 1990s, he presented Tracks for BBC2, Going Places for BBC Radio 4 and was a regular panellist on Radio 4’s literary parody game, Booked. More recently he has collaborated with his wife Caroline, writing comedies and dramas, mostly for radio, including Man of Soup, The Brothers, Hazelbeach,The True and Inspirational Life Of St Nicholas (winner of the Prix Marulic),The Day The Planes Came, The Year They Invented Sex, Hancock's Ashes and a series of legal dramas based on the true-life cases of Norman Birkett.

HM Prison Stafford

HM Prison Stafford is a Category C men's prison, located in Stafford, Staffordshire, England. The prison is operated by Her Majesty's Prison Service.

History

Stafford Prison was built on its current site in 1793, and has been in almost continuous use, save a period between 1916 and 1939. It held Irish Internees taken by the British after the 1916 Easter Rising from May. They were released Christmas 1916.

Among its earlier prisoners was George Smith who served several sentences for theft there but began his later work as a hangman while a prisoner, assisting William Calcraft. He officiated at several executions in the prison later in his life, notably that of poisoner William Palmer in 1866.

In November 1998, an inspection report from Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Prisons heavily criticised security at Stafford Prison, after it emerged that inmates were being supplied with drugs flown in on paper planes. Inmates were fashioning strips of paper into planes, then attaching lines to them and flying them over the 19-foot (5.8-metre) perimeter wall. The lines were then used to pull packages containing drugs and other banned substances back over the wall. The prison was also criticised for being overcrowded, under-resourced, and failing to prepare prisoners for release.

Stafford, Texas

Stafford is a small city in the U.S. state of Texas, within Houston–The Woodlands–Sugar Land metropolitan area. The city is mostly in Fort Bend County, with a small portion in Harris County. As of the 2010 census, Stafford's population was 17,693.

History

William Stafford established a plantation with a cane mill and a horse-powered cotton gin in 1830. On April 15, 1836, during the Texas Revolution, the forces of Antonio López de Santa Anna stopped at Stafford's plantation and ordered it to be burned. Stafford rebuilt his plantation and resided there until his 1840 death. A settlement called Stafford's Point established itself around the plantation; it became a townsite in August 1853 when the Buffalo Bayou, Brazos and Colorado Railway began stopping at Stafford's Point. Stafford's Point had a post office from 1854 to 1869. Staffordville had a post office from January 5, 1869 to February 26, 1869. The settlement, now known as Stafford, operated a post office from 1869 to 1918; the post office reopened in 1929.

Borough of Stafford

The Borough of Stafford is a local government district with borough status in Staffordshire in England. It is named after and includes the town of Stafford. It also includes the smaller town of Stone and numerous villages.

The borough was formed on 1 April 1974, under the Local Government Act 1972, as a merger of the municipal borough of Stafford, Stone urban district, Stafford Rural District and Stone Rural District.

Most its parishes fell within the Hundred of Pirehill.

Wards

It has 26 wards: Barlaston and Oulton, Baswich, Chartley, Church Eaton, Common, Coton, Eccleshall, Forebridge, Fulford, Gnosall and Woodseaves, Haywood and Hixon, Highfield and Western Downs, Holmcroft, Littleworth, Manor, Milford, Milwich, Penkside, Rowley, Seighford, St. Michael's, Stonefield and Christchurch, Swynnerton, Tillington, Walton and Weeping Cross.

Settlements and parishes of Stafford

References

Coordinates: 52°48′18.05″N 2°6′59.99″W / 52.8050139°N 2.1166639°W / 52.8050139; -2.1166639

David of Bulgaria

David (Bulgarian: Давид) (died 976) was a Bulgarian noble, brother of Emperor Samuel and eldest son of komes Nicholas. After the disastrous invasion of Rus' armies and the fall of North-eastern Bulgaria under Byzantine occupation in 971, he and his three younger brothers took the lead of the defence of the country. They executed their power together and each of them governed and defended a separate region. He ruled the southern-most parts of the realm from Prespa and Kastoria and was responsible for the defence the dangerous borders with Thessalonica and Thessaly. In 976 he participated in the major assault against the Byzantine Empire but was killed by vagrant Vlachs between Prespa and Kostur.

Family tree

Another theory

However, there's also another version about David’s origin. David gains the title "comes" during his service in the Byzantine army which recruited many Armenians from the Eastern region of the empire. The 11th-century historian Stepanos Asoghik wrote that Samuel had one brother, and they were Armenians from the district Derjan. This version is supported by the historians Nicholas Adontz, Jordan Ivanov, and Samuil's Inscription where it’s said that Samuel’s brother is David. Also, the historians Yahya and Al Makin clearly distinguish the race of Samuel and David (the Comitopouli) from the one of Moses and Aaron (the royal race):

David, Chiriquí

David (Spanish pronunciation: [daˈβið]) officially San José de David is a city and corregimiento located in the west of Panama. It is the capital of the province of Chiriquí and has an estimated population of 144,858 inhabitants as confirmed in 2013. It is a relatively affluent city with a firmly established, dominant middle class and a very low unemployment and poverty index. The Pan-American Highway is a popular route to David.

The development of the banking sector, public construction works such as the expansion of the airport and the David-Boquete highway alongside the growth of commercial activity in the city have increased its prominence as one of the fastest growing regions in the country. The city is currently the economic center of the Chiriqui province and produces more than half the gross domestic product of the province, which totals 2.1 billion. It is known for being the third-largest city in the country both in population and by GDP and for being the largest city in Western Panama.

David (Bernini)

David is a life-size marble sculpture by Gian Lorenzo Bernini. The sculpture was one of many commissions to decorate the villa of Bernini's patron Cardinal Scipione Borghese – where it still resides today, as part of the Galleria Borghese It was completed in the course of seven months from 1623 to 1624.

The subject of the work is the biblical David, about to throw the stone that will bring down Goliath, which will allow David to behead him. Compared to earlier works on the same theme (notably the David of Michelangelo), the sculpture broke new ground in its implied movement and its psychological intensity.

Background

Between 1618 and 1625 Bernini was commissioned to undertake various sculptural work for the villa of one of his patrons, Cardinal Scipione Borghese. In 1623 – only yet 24 years old – he was working on the sculpture of Apollo and Daphne, when, for unknown reasons, he abandoned this project to start work on the David. According to records of payment, Bernini had started on the sculpture by mid–1623, and his contemporary biographer, Filippo Baldinucci, states that he finished it in seven months.