Nairobi

Nairobi (/naɪˈroʊbi/; locally [naɪˈroːbi]) is the capital and largest city of Kenya. It is famous for having the Nairobi National Park, the world’s only game reserve found within a major city. The city and its surrounding area also form Nairobi County, whose current governor is Evans Kidero.

The name "Nairobi" comes from the Maasai phrase Enkare Nairobi, which translates to "cool water". The phrase is also the Maasai name of the Nairobi river, which in turn lent its name to the city. However, it is popularly known as the "Green City in the Sun", and is surrounded by several expanding villa suburbs.

Nairobi was founded in 1899 by the colonial authorities in British East Africa, as a rail depot on the Uganda Railway. The town quickly grew to replace Machakos as the capital of Kenya in 1907. After independence in 1963, Nairobi became the capital of the Republic of Kenya. During Kenya's colonial period, the city became a centre for the colony's coffee, tea and sisal industry. The city lies on the River Athi in the southern part of the country, and has an elevation of 1,795 metres (5,889 ft) above sea level.

The Nairobi Trio

The Nairobi Trio was a skit Ernie Kovacs performed several times for his TV shows. It combined many existing concepts and visuals in a novel and creative way.

People in gorilla suits have always been a comedy staple. The notion of well-known or predictable music pieces gone awry has long been practiced by artists as diverse as Stan Freberg, Spike Jones or P. D. Q. Bach. The "slow burn" of one character being annoyed by another, resulting in eventual retaliation, was not new. But the combination of all those ingredients, combined with impeccable timing, produced a unique and memorable result.

Origins

It was a live-action version of a child's animatronic wind-up music box, and performed to the tune "Solfeggio" by Robert Maxwell. According to an interview with Edie Adams contained in John Barbour's 1982 documentary Ernie Kovacs: Television's Original Genius, when Kovacs first heard a recording of the Maxwell's composition, he immediately came up with a mental image of what would become The Nairobi Trio: Barry Shear, Kovacs' director at DuMont Television Network, brought the tune to Kovacs' attention in 1954.

Hot Butter

Hot Butter was an instrumental cover band fronted by the keyboard player Stan Free. The other band members were Dave Mullaney, John Abbott, Bill Jerome, Steve Jerome, and Danny Jordan. They are best known for their 1972 cover of the Moog synthpop instrumental, "Popcorn", originally recorded by its composer, Gershon Kingsley, in 1969. The track became an international hit, selling a million copies in France, 250,000 in the United Kingdom, and over two million globally.

Career

The liner notes to the CD indicate that Free played the Moog synthesizer. Based upon the photograph and the sound of the album, the group had two additional keyboardists, two percussionists, and a guitarist.

The group released two albums, Hot Butter (Musicor MS-3242; 1972) and More Hot Butter (Musicor MS-3254; 1973), primarily of covers, on LP issued by Hallmark Records. The two albums were compiled on CD as Popcorn on the Castle Music label in 2000 (with an album cover from the 1974 Australian release of More Hot Butter titled Moog Hits, depicting the five other band members immersed in melted butter produced by Free's synthesizer), though several tracks, including Roger Whittaker's "Mexican Whistler", were deleted.

Robert Maxwell

Ian Robert Maxwell, MC (born Ján Ludvík Hyman Binyamin Hoch; 10 June 1923 – 5 November 1991) was a Czechoslovakian-born British media proprietor and Member of Parliament (MP). He rose from poverty to build an extensive publishing empire. After Maxwell's death, huge discrepancies in his companies' finances were revealed, including his fraudulent misappropriation of the Mirror Group pension fund.

Early in his life, he escaped from Nazi occupation, joining the Czechoslovak Army in exile in the Second World War and was decorated after active service in the British Army. In subsequent years he worked in publishing, building up Pergamon Press to a major publishing house. After six years as an MP during the 1960s, he again put all his energy into business, successively buying the British Printing Corporation, Mirror Group Newspapers and Macmillan, Inc, among other publishing companies.

Maxwell had a flamboyant lifestyle, living in Headington Hill Hall in Oxford from which he often flew in his helicopter, and sailing in his luxury yacht, the Lady Ghislaine. He was notably litigious and often embroiled in controversy, including about his support for Israel at the time of its 1948 Palestine war. In 1989, he had to sell successful businesses, including Pergamon Press, to cover some of his debts. In 1991, his body was discovered floating in the Atlantic Ocean having fallen overboard from his yacht. He was buried in Jerusalem.