A banquet (/ˈbæŋk.wɪt/; French: [bɑ̃.kɛ]) is a large meal or feast, complete with main courses and desserts. It usually serves a purpose such as a charitable gathering, a ceremony, or a celebration, and is often preceded or followed by speeches in honor of someone.
Overall, there is an archaeological debate of when feasting began. Archaeologist Brian Hayden argues that feasts were an important event because the surplus of food that resulted into feasts turned into social and political ties and a competition in order to display one's own wealth. During these feasts, luxury foods were offered to their guest. What these luxury goods were are still up to debate. However, Hayden argues that animal meat and rice are some of these luxury goods because they were domesticated despite their difficulty in doing so. The term banquet, however, termed from a different time period.
The idea of banqueting is ancient (see Sellisternium, Belshazzar's Feast, and Mead halls). In the 16th century, a banquet was very different from our modern perception and stems from the medieval 'ceremony of the void'. After dinner, the guests would stand and drink sweet wine and spices while the table was cleared, or ‘voided’. (Later in the 17th century ‘void’ would be replaced with the French ‘dessert’.) During the 16th century, guests would no longer stand in the great chamber whilst the table was cleared and the room prepared for entertainment, but would retire to the parlour or banqueting room.
Banquet is the fourth album by German progressive rock band Lucifer's Friend, released in 1974. By this time there was no hard rock sound, it was now strictly progressive rock mixed with jazz fusion. The song "Our World Is a Rock 'n' Roll Band" was the opening track on some versions (i.e. the U.S. version) of the original LP release, but the only CD releases to date do not include this track, which can instead be found as a bonus track on the Repertoire Records CD release of their self-titled debut.
The Banquet, released on DVD in the United States as Legend of the Black Scorpion, is a 2006 Chinese wuxia drama film. The film was directed by Feng Xiaogang and stars Zhang Ziyi, Ge You, Daniel Wu and Zhou Xun. It is a loose adaption of William Shakespeare's tragedy Hamlet and Henrik Ibsen's play Ghosts, featuring themes of revenge and fate. It is set in the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period in 10th century China.
It is the end of the Tang Dynasty and China is divided. The Crown Prince, Wu Luan, is deeply in love with the noblewoman Little Wan. However, his father, the Emperor, decides to marry Little Wan. Wu Luan, deeply hurt, flees to a remote theatre to study the arts of music and dance. Shortly after Wu Luan's departure, the Emperor is murdered by his brother, Li. The film begins as Empress Wan sends messengers to the theatre, informing Wu Luan that the Emperor has died, and that his uncle will succeed the throne. Unknown to Wan, the usurping Emperor Li has already dispatched riders to assassinate Wu Luan. However, Wu Luan survives the attack and returns to court where he is met by Empress Wan and her lady-in-waiting Qing Nu, the daughter of Minister Yin, who is officially still engaged to Wu Luan.
An emergency is a situation that poses an immediate risk to health, life, property, or environment. Most emergencies require urgent intervention to prevent a worsening of the situation, although in some situations, mitigation may not be possible and agencies may only be able to offer palliative care for the aftermath.
While some emergencies are self-evident (such as a natural disaster that threatens many lives), many smaller incidents require that an observer (or affected party) decide whether it qualifies as an emergency. The precise definition of an emergency, the agencies involved and the procedures used, vary by jurisdiction, and this is usually set by the government, whose agencies (emergency services) are responsible for emergency planning and management.
An incident, to be an emergency, conforms to one or more of the following: if it:
Emergency is a video game series of rescue simulations by the German developer Sixteen Tons Entertainment and creative director and founder of the series Ralph Stock. Publisher of the first game in 1998 was TopWare Interactive; In 2002 Emergency 2 was published by Take 2 Interactive who went on to publish both Emergency 3 in 2005 and Emergency 4 + Gold Edition in 2006 alongside the publisher Rondomedia. As of 2010 Deep Silver has taken over the publishing operations of the Emergency Series and its Spin-Offs.
In the game, players take control of the emergency services; firefighters, ambulance services, police and, technical services (THW). The central element of the Emergency games is to head up operations of fictional rescues, crimes, medical and catastrophe management, commanding a pool of vehicles and personnel.
Controls and graphics are typical of a Real-Time Strategy game; using the left-mouse button to select your unit(s), the right-mouse button to command movement or an action of the selected unit(s). Camera work takes typical angles of the RTS genre.
Steven John Rushton (born 30 October 1987, Chertsey, Surrey, England) is a British solo artist, and formerly co-lead singer bassist for the pop punk band, Son of Dork. Steve contributed two songs to the number 1 box office and billboard movie/soundtrack album, Hannah Montana the movie 'Game Over' and 'Everything I Want' which was the only song on the soundtrack to be written 100% and not a collaboration. The soundtrack has sold 4,000,000+ copies worldwide.
Rushton was born in Frimley Park Hospital in Surrey, and was introduced to music by his stepfather, an Elvis impersonator, when he used to bring Rushton up on stage with him to perform.
From early school years and up to college, Rushton was the writer, guitarist and singer for the band Mr. Cheerful. The band was heavily influenced by artists such as Elvis and Green Day. Their biggest brush with fame was their participation in the UK final for the 2003 Junior Eurovision Song Contest. Rushton was unable to continue with Mr. Cheerful when he was scouted for Son Of Dork.