The Wall

The Wall is the eleventh studio album by the English progressive rock band Pink Floyd. It is the last studio album released with the classic lineup of guitarist David Gilmour, bassist/lyricist Roger Waters, keyboardist Richard Wright and drummer Nick Mason before Wright left the band. Released as a double album on 30 November 1979, it was supported by a tour with elaborate theatrical effects, and adapted into a 1982 feature film, Pink Floyd – The Wall. The album features the band's only number one single; "Another Brick in the Wall Part 2".

As with Pink Floyd's previous three albums, The Wall is a concept album and explores themes of abandonment and personal isolation. The album is a rock opera that follows Pink, a character whom Waters modelled after himself and the band's original leader, Syd Barrett. Pink's life begins with the loss of his father during the Second World War and continues with abuse from his schoolteachers, an overprotective mother, and the breakdown of his marriage; all contribute to his eventual self-imposed isolation from society, represented by a metaphorical wall. Waters conceived the album during Pink Floyd's 1977 In the Flesh Tour, when his frustration with the audience became so acute that he imagined a wall between the audience and the stage.

Nathaniel Wallich

Nathaniel Wallich FRS (28 January 1786 – 28 April 1854) was a surgeon and botanist of Danish origin who worked in India, initially in the Danish settlement near Calcutta and later for the East India Company. He was involved in the early development of the Calcutta Botanical Garden, describing many new plant species and developing a large herbarium collection which was distributed to collections in Europe. Several of the plants that he collected were named after him.

Biography

Early Life and Education

Nathaniel Wallich was born in Copenhagen in 1786 as Nathan ben Wulff. His father Wulff ben Wallich (or Wolff Wallich) was a merchant who settled in Copenhagen and came from the Holsatian town Altona near Hamburg late in the 18th century. He later adopted the name Nathan Wallich, and as an adult Nathaniel. Wallich obtained the diploma of the Royal Academy of Surgeons at Copenhagen and at the end of the year was appointed as Surgeon in the Danish settlement at Serampore, then known as Frederiksnagore in Bengal. He sailed for India in April 1807 via the African cape and arrived at Serampore the following November. He was an honorary doctor at the University of Copenhagen and member of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters.

Wall

A wall is a structure that defines an area, carries a load, or provides shelter or security. There are many kinds of walls:

Etymology

Wall comes from Latin vallum meaning "...an earthen wall or rampart set with palisades, a row or line of stakes, a wall, a rampart, fortification..." while the Latin word murus means a defensive stone wallEnglish uses the same word to mean an external wall and the internal sides of a room, but this is not universal. Many languages distinguish between the two. In German, some of this distinction can be seen between Wand and Mauer, in Spanish between pared and muro.

Defensive wall

The word wall originally referred to defensive walls and ramparts.

Great Wall of China

The Great Wall of China is a series of fortifications made of stone, brick, tamped earth, wood, and other materials, generally built along an east-to-west line across the historical northern borders of China to protect the Chinese states and empires against the raids and invasions of the various nomadic groups of the Eurasian Steppe. Several walls were being built as early as the 7th century BCE; these, later joined together and made bigger and stronger, are now collectively referred to as the Great Wall. Especially famous is the wall built 220–206 BCE by Qin Shi Huang, the first Emperor of China. Little of that wall remains. Since then, the Great Wall has on and off been rebuilt, maintained, and enhanced; the majority of the existing wall is from the Ming Dynasty.

Other purposes of the Great Wall have included border controls, allowing the imposition of duties on goods transported along the Silk Road, regulation or encouragement of trade and the control of immigration and emigration. Furthermore, the defensive characteristics of the Great Wall were enhanced by the construction of watch towers, troop barracks, garrison stations, signaling capabilities through the means of smoke or fire, and the fact that the path of the Great Wall also served as a transportation corridor.

Aaron Taylor-Johnson

Aaron Taylor-Johnson (born Aaron Perry Johnson; 13 June 1990) is an English actor, best known as the title character in the Kick-Ass films and Quicksilver in Avengers: Age of Ultron. He began performing at age six and has appeared in films such as Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging (2008) and The Illusionist (2006). He then moved onto starring roles in Nowhere Boy, in which he played John Lennon; Kick-Ass and its sequel Kick-Ass 2, in which he played the title character; in the crime thriller film Savages and the monster movie Godzilla. Johnson played Quicksilver in a mid-credits scene in Captain America: The Winter Soldier in 2014, and reprised the role in 2015's Avengers: Age of Ultron, the sequel to The Avengers.

He was initially credited as Aaron Johnson, but began being billed as Aaron Taylor-Johnson in 2013, with Kick-Ass 2. He had legally changed his name after marrying director Sam Taylor-Wood.

Early life

Johnson was born in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, the son of a housewife mother and civil engineer father. He has a sister, Gemma, who appeared in his film Tom & Thomas (2002) in a small role. Johnson is Jewish. He was educated at Holmer Green Senior School and attended the Jackie Palmer Stage School in High Wycombe between 1996 and 2008, where he was tutored in drama, tap, jazz, acrobatics, and singing.