Edward Bazalgette

Edward Bazalgette is a British television director and former musician.

Biography

Bazalgette was the lead guitarist in the 1980s rock group The Vapors, whose hit "Turning Japanese" remains a popular one-hit wonder. He later became a film editor, television producer and director. In 2003, the BBC commissioned a seven part series of documentaries called The Seven Wonders of the Industrial World. Edward Bazalgette directed and produced the documentary The Sewer King which charted his great-great-grandfather Sir Joseph Bazalgette's design and engineering of the London sewers. His third cousin Peter Bazalgette later presented a show for Five called The Great Stink.

He has also directed two drama documentaries for the BBC - Genghis Khan (2005) and Hannibal - Rome's Worst Nightmare (2006). He has also directed episodes of EastEnders and Holby City, as well as location films for Top Gear. In 2013, he directed The Guilty, and in 2014 Poldark with Will McGregor.

In 2015, he directed two episodes ("The Girl Who Died" and "The Woman Who Lived") and "The Doctor's Meditation" prequel for the BBC series, Doctor Who.

Doctor Who

Doctor Who is a British science-fiction television programme produced by the BBC from 1963 to the present day. The programme depicts the adventures of the Doctor, a Time Lord—a space and time-travelling humanoid alien. He explores the universe in his TARDIS, a sentient time-travelling space ship. Its exterior appears as a blue British police box, which was a common sight in Britain in 1963 when the series first aired. Accompanied by companions, the Doctor combats a variety of foes, while working to save civilisations and help people in need.

The show is a significant part of British popular culture, and elsewhere it has become a cult television favourite. The show has influenced generations of British television professionals, many of whom grew up watching the series. The programme originally ran from 1963 to 1989. There was an unsuccessful attempt to revive regular production in 1996 with a backdoor pilot, in the form of a television film. The programme was relaunched in 2005 by Russell T Davies, who was showrunner and head writer for the first five years of its revival, produced in-house by BBC Wales in Cardiff. The first series of the 21st century featured Christopher Eccleston in the title role and was produced by the BBC. Series two and three had some development money contributed by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), which was credited as a co-producer.Doctor Who also spawned spin-offs in multiple media, including Torchwood (2006–2011) and The Sarah Jane Adventures (2007–2011), both created by Russell T Davies; K-9 (2009–2010); and a single pilot episode of K-9 and Company (1981). There also have been many spoofs and cultural references to the character in other media.

Genghis Khan

Genghis Khan (/ˈdʒɛŋɡɪs ˈkɑːn/, often pronounced /ˈɡɛŋɡɪs ˈkɑːn/;Mongol: [tʃiŋɡɪs xaːŋ]; c. 1162 – 18 August 1227), born Temüjin, was the founder and Great Khan (emperor) of the Mongol Empire, which became the largest contiguous empire in history after his demise.

He came to power by uniting many of the nomadic tribes of Northeast Asia. After founding the Mongol Empire and being proclaimed "Genghis Khan", he started the Mongol invasions that resulted in the conquest of most of Eurasia. These included raids or invasions of the Qara Khitai, Caucasus, Khwarezmid Empire, Western Xia and Jin dynasties. These campaigns were often accompanied by wholesale massacres of the civilian populations – especially in the Khwarezmian and Xia controlled lands. By the end of his life, the Mongol Empire occupied a substantial portion of Central Asia and China.

Before Genghis Khan died, he assigned Ögedei Khan as his successor and split his empire into khanates among his sons and grandsons. He died in 1227 after defeating the Western Xia. He was buried in an unmarked grave somewhere in Mongolia at an unknown location. His descendants extended the Mongol Empire across most of Eurasia by conquering or creating vassal states out of all of modern-day China, Korea, the Caucasus, Central Asia, and substantial portions of modern Eastern Europe, Russia, and Southwest Asia. Many of these invasions repeated the earlier large-scale slaughters of local populations. As a result, Genghis Khan and his empire have a fearsome reputation in local histories.

The Vapors

The Vapors were an English new wave and power pop band, that existed between 1979 and 1982. They had a hit with the song "Turning Japanese" in 1980, which reached No. 3 in the UK Singles Chart, and No. 36 in the US Billboard Hot 100.

Career

Based in Guildford, Surrey, their members were David Fenton (songwriter, guitarist and vocalist), Howard Smith (drummer), Edward Bazalgette (lead guitarist) and Steve Smith (bass guitarist and vocals). (The band's two Smiths were unrelated.) The group's name was originally spelled "Vapours," but they removed the U to seem like an American band.

They were discovered and managed by John Weller (father of Paul Weller) and by The Jam's bassist Bruce Foxton. The song for which they are mainly remembered, "Turning Japanese", was produced by The Jam's producer Vic Coppersmith-Heaven and hit the Top Three in the UK at the same time that "Going Underground" was at number one. It was also a top ten hit in Canada, New Zealand and Australia, and (just barely) a top 40 in the US, something The Jam never managed.

Turning Japanese

"Turning Japanese" is a song released by English band The Vapors, from their album New Clear Days, and the song for which they are best known. The lyric consists mainly of the singer talking about pictures of his love. Musically, it features an Oriental riff played on guitar.

Overview

Songwriter David Fenton explains: "Turning Japanese is all the clichés about angst and youth and turning into something you didn't expect to."

The band knew they had a success with "Turning Japanese", so much so that they waited until their second single before releasing it, fearing that if they released it as their first they would become "one-hit wonders". They never matched its success.

The song enjoyed some sales in Japan after its great success in Australia, where it spent two weeks at No. 1 during June 1980.

"Turning Japanese" was believed to euphemistically refer to masturbation — i.e. the act causing the man to squint and therefore resemble a Japanese person's eyes or possibly, referencing the British slang word "Jap's eye" (the urinary meatus) and the act of turning referring to the process of masturbation — but the song's author Fenton denied that claim in an interview on VH1. "It could have been (turning) Portuguese, Lebanese, anything that fitted with that phrase. It has nothing to do with the Japanese...The first time the idea of masturbation came up was when we were touring America. It was written about that 'turning Japanese' was an English phrase for masturbation, which it wasn't."