Michael Bolton

Michael Bolotin (born February 26, 1953), known professionally as Michael Bolton, is an American singer and songwriter. Bolton originally performed in the hard rock and heavy metal genres from the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s, both on his early solo albums and those he recorded as the frontman of the band Blackjack. He became better known for his series of pop rock ballads, recorded after a stylistic change in the late 1980s.

Bolton's achievements include selling more than 75 million records, recording eight top 10 albums and two number-one singles on the Billboard charts, as well as winning multiple American Music Awards and Grammy Awards.

Early life

Bolton was born Michael Bolotin in New Haven, Connecticut, the son of Helen (née Gubin) (1919-2015) and George Bolotin (1912-1981). He has a brother, Orrin, and a sister, Sandra, both older. His family was Jewish, and all of his grandparents had been immigrants from Russia. His parents were divorced when he was very young.

Career

Music

Game of Thrones

Game of Thrones is an American fantasy drama television series created by showrunners David Benioff and D. B. Weiss. It is an adaptation of A Song of Ice and Fire, George R. R. Martin's series of fantasy novels, the first of which is titled A Game of Thrones. It is filmed in a Belfast studio and on location elsewhere in Croatia, Iceland, Malta, Morocco, Northern Ireland, Spain, Scotland, and the United States, and premiered on HBO in the United States on April 17, 2011. The series has been renewed for a sixth season, which will premiere on April 24, 2016.

The series is set on the fictional continents of Westeros and Essos, and interweaves several plot lines with a large ensemble cast. The first narrative arc follows a civil war among several noble houses for the Iron Throne of the Seven Kingdoms; the second covers the attempts to reclaim the throne by the exiled last scion of the realm's deposed ruling dynasty; the third chronicles the rising threat of the impending winter and the legendary creatures and fierce peoples of the North.

Bolton

Coordinates: 53°34′41″N 2°25′44″W / 53.578°N 2.429°W / 53.578; -2.429

Bolton (ⁱ/ˈbɒltən/ or locally [ˈbɜʏtn̩]) is a town in Greater Manchester in North West England. A former mill town, Bolton has been a production centre for textiles since Flemish weavers settled in the area in the 14th century, introducing a wool and cotton-weaving tradition. The urbanisation and development of the town largely coincided with the introduction of textile manufacture during the Industrial Revolution. Bolton was a 19th-century boomtown, and at its zenith in 1929 its 216 cotton mills and 26 bleaching and dyeing works made it one of the largest and most productive centres of cotton spinning in the world. The British cotton industry declined sharply after the First World War, and by the 1980s cotton manufacture had virtually ceased in Bolton.

Close to the West Pennine Moors, Bolton is 10 miles (16 km) northwest of Manchester. It is surrounded by several smaller towns and villages that together form the Metropolitan Borough of Bolton, of which Bolton is the administrative centre. The town of Bolton has a population of 139,403, whilst the wider metropolitan borough has a population of 262,400. Historically part of Lancashire, Bolton originated as a small settlement in the moorland known as Bolton le Moors. In the English Civil War, the town was a Parliamentarian outpost in a staunchly Royalist region, and as a result was stormed by 3,000 Royalist troops led by Prince Rupert of the Rhine in 1644. In what became known as the Bolton Massacre, 1,600 residents were killed and 700 were taken prisoner.

Michael

Michael /ˈmaɪkəl/ is a male given name that comes from the Hebrew: מִיכָאֵל / מיכאל‎ (Mīkhāʼēl, pronounced [miχaˈʔel]), derived from the question מי כאל mī kāʼēl, meaning "Who is like God?" (literally, "Who is like El?). In English, it is sometimes shortened to Mike, Mikey, Mickey, or Mick.

Female forms of Michael include Michelle, Michele, Michaela, Mechelle, Micheline, and Michaelle, although Michael is occasionally seen as a female name; women named Michael include actresses Michael Learned and Michael Michele. Another form is Mychal, which can either be a male or female name.

Patronymic surnames that come from Michael include Michaels, Carmichael, MacMichael, McMichael, Micallef, Michaelson, Mikkelsen, DiMichele, Mikhaylov, Mykhaylenko, Mikeladze, Michels, and Mitchell.

Religion

The name first appears in the Hebrew Bible in the Book of Numbers, 13:13 where Sethur the son of Michael is one of 12 spies sent into the Land of Canaan. The archangel Michael features in the Book of Daniel 12:1, and in the Qur'an as Mikhail.

Ramsay Bolton

Ramsay Bolton, also known as Ramsay Snow, is a fictional character in the A Song of Ice and Fire series of fantasy novels by American author George R. R. Martin, and its television adaptation Game of Thrones.

Introduced in 1998's A Clash of Kings, Ramsay is the eldest son of Roose Bolton, the lord of Dreadfort, an ancient fortress in the North of the fictional kingdom of Westeros. He subsequently mentioned in Martin's A Storm of Swords (2000) and A Feast for Crows (2005). He later appears in Martin's A Dance with Dragons (2011).

Ramsay is portrayed by Iwan Rheon in the HBO television adaptation.

Character description

Ramsay Snow is the bastard son of Lord Roose Bolton. He is known as the Bastard of Bolton or the Bastard of the Dreadfort. Ramsay is vicious, sadistic, unpredictable, and fearless. He takes great pleasure in torturing others and enthusiatically practices the Bolton custom of flaying their enemies. Roose suspects that Ramsay murdered Roose's legitimate heir and expects that Ramsay will kill all of Roose's future children. He is described as ugly, with blotchy skin and dry, dark hair.