Alan Shacklock

Alan Shacklock (born 20 June 1950) is an English musician, composer, arranger and recording producer who currently lives and works in Nashville, Tennessee. His song "The Mexican" is considered influential in the early development of b-boying and hip-hop culture.

Life and career

Alan Shacklock was born in London and began playing guitar as a child, first playing with the band The Juniors with The Rolling Stones' guitarist Mick Taylor and Jethro Tull bassist John Glascock and then with Chris Farlowe's Thunderbirds. He later completed classical guitar and lute studies at the Royal Academy of Music in London, graduating with a master's degree in music.

In 1969 Shacklock played in a band called The Gods, and in 1971 formed the British band Babe Ruth. He worked as the band's songwriter and producer from 1971–75, and then left the band to work as a solo songwriter and record producer. He has received three nominations for Grammy awards and has produced a number of silver, gold and platinum recordings for artists including Mike Oldfield, Bonnie Tyler, Jeff Beck (of The Yardbirds), Meat Loaf, The Alarm, Roger Daltrey (of The Who), JoBoxers and Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber.

Babe Ruth

George Herman "Babe" Ruth, Jr. (February 6, 1895 – August 16, 1948) was an American professional baseball player whose career in Major League Baseball (MLB) spanned 22 seasons, from 1914 through 1935. Nicknamed "The Bambino" and "The Sultan of Swat", he began his MLB career as a stellar left-handed pitcher for the Boston Red Sox, but achieved his greatest fame as a slugging outfielder for the New York Yankees. Ruth established many MLB batting (and some pitching) records, including career home runs (714), runs batted in (RBIs) (2,213), bases on balls (2,062), slugging percentage (.690), and on-base plus slugging (OPS) (1.164); the latter two still stand today. Ruth is regarded as one of the greatest sports heroes in American culture and is considered by many to be the greatest baseball player of all time. He was one of the first five inductees into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1936.

At age seven, Ruth was sent to St. Mary's Industrial School for Boys, a reformatory where he learned life lessons and baseball skills from Brother Matthias Boutlier of the Christian Brothers, the school's disciplinarian and a capable baseball player. In 1914, Ruth was signed to play minor-league baseball for the Baltimore Orioles but was soon sold to the Red Sox. By 1916, he had built a reputation as an outstanding pitcher who sometimes hit long home runs, a feat unusual for any player in the pre-1920 dead-ball era. Although Ruth twice won 23 games in a season as a pitcher and was a member of three World Series championship teams with Boston, he wanted to play every day and was allowed to convert to an outfielder. With regular playing time, he broke the MLB single-season home run record in 1919.

The Mexican

The Mexican is a 2001 American comedy film directed by Gore Verbinski and starring Brad Pitt and Julia Roberts, with a plot that is a mixture of romantic comedy, adventure and road movie.

The script was originally intended to be filmed as an independent production without major motion picture stars, but Roberts and Pitt, who had for some time been looking for a project they could do together, learned about it and decided to make it. The movie was then advertised as a typical romantic comedy star vehicle, somewhat misleadingly, as the script does not focus solely on the Pitt/Roberts relationship and the two share relatively little screen time together. Ultimately, the film earned $66.8 million at the U.S. box office.

Plot

The story follows Jerry Welbach (Brad Pitt) as he travels through Mexico to find a valuable antique gun, The Mexican, and smuggle it into the United States. Five years earlier, Welbach had caused a traffic accident in which he hit the car of local mobster Arnold Margolese (Gene Hackman), who was jailed for five years after the police searched his car following the crash, finding someone tied up in his trunk. In compensation for the jail time, Welbach has been sent on various errands by Margolese's second-in-command, Bernie Nayman (Bob Balaban). Retrieving the gun will be his final errand. Welbach has a girlfriend, Samantha (Julia Roberts), whom he argues with constantly and who leaves Jerry prior to the trip over his lack of commitment to their relationship.

First base (disambiguation)

First base can mean:

Dave Hewitt

Dave Hewitt (born 1961) is editor of The Angry Corrie, a hillwalking magazine. He is editor in chief of TACit Press, author of Walking the Watershed, his account of the first continuous walking of the Scottish watershed, editor of A Bit of Grit on Haystacks, a celebration of the life of Alfred Wainwright, and editor of the Sport and Outdoor sections of the online Scottish newspaper Caledonian Mercury.

He contributes to the ongoing debates surrounding access to the wild land of Scotland, bagging of hills, conservation issues etc. via radio, the print media and The Angry Corrie. Hewitt finished his round of Munros on The Saddle on 22 July 2007, accompanied by about 50 friends. This was also his 1000th Munro. He has a keen interest in cricket and politics, and is also a competitive chess player, known in Scottish chess for his love of the Trompowsky Attack and his high-risk attack-minded style.

References

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