High (David Hallyday song)

"High" is a 1988 song recorded by French artist David Hallyday. It was the second of the four singles from his debut studio album True Cool. Released in November 1988, the song was a hit in France, becoming David Hallyday's first number-one single.

Song information

The song was composed by Lisa Catherine Cohen and the music composed by the singer himself. As for the rest of the album, lyrics are in English-language. The music video was shot in a church, Hallyday playing the organ, while a chorus composed of women chanted 'high' during the refrains. With this vigorous song, Hallyday presents "a musical style at the joint of Californian rock and pop".

In France, the single debuted on the singles chart at #45 on November 19, 1988, climbed quickly and entered the top ten in its fourth week. It topped the chart for five consecutive weeks, then almost didn't stop to drop on the chart and totaled 15 weeks in the top ten and 23 weeks in the top 50. Although it was not certified by the SNEP, the French certifier, its sales made the song the 440th best-selling single of all time in France. The song was the most successful from the album True Cool and the second one in Hallyday's career, behind "Tu ne m'as pas laissé le temps".

High (The Blue Nile album)

High is the fourth studio album by Scottish band The Blue Nile, released on 30 August 2004 on Sanctuary Records. A single, "I Would Never", was released one week prior to the album: a second song, "She Saw the World", was made available as a promotional single, but never released officially.

"Soul Boy" had already been recorded by former Spice Girl Melanie C for her album Reason the previous year.

Critical reception

The album received generally favourable reviews, with many critics considering High to be a stronger album than their previous effort Peace at Last. AllMusic said "the Blue Nile have returned with a more balanced album [than Peace at Last] and Buchanan is broken-hearted again, thank the stars. He's been struggling with fatigue and illness and as selfish and inconsiderate as it sounds, it's brought the spark back to his writing... given the time to sink in, the album fits well in their canon."The Guardian believed that with High "the emotional commitment of Peace at Last is combined with the observational detachment of the earlier work... In pop, most people do their best work within five or six years. How extraordinary, then, that after more than two decades of activity, the Blue Nile remain on course, their range expanded, their focus more refined, unshaken in their determination to proceed at their own measured pace."

High (Knut Anders Sørum song)

"High" was the Norwegian entry in the Eurovision Song Contest 2004, performed in English by Knut Anders Sørum.

The song is a dramatic ballad, with Sørum expressing his desire to bring an unnamed person "high". The lyrics suggest that this person has been beset by problems, and that Sørum believes he can go some way to curing them.

As Norway had finished the Eurovision Song Contest 2003 in the top 10, the song was pre-qualified for the final. Here, it was performed third, following Austria's Tie Break with "Du bist" and preceding France's Jonatan Cerrada with "À chaque pas". At the close of voting, it had received 3 points, placing 24th (last) in a field of 24, thus requiring Norway to qualify through the semi-final at the next Contest.

The low score, and long wait before Norway scored any points at all, led Australian commentator Des Mangan to jokingly offer money for anyone prepared to vote for the country. Initially, this was "a thousand bucks", later climbing to "ten thousand bucks and my house". Mangan explained during this commentary that he did not want Norway to further extend its unwanted record of failing to record a point on the most occasions.

5th Special Air Service

The 5th Special Air Service or 5th SAS was an elite airborne unit during World War II, consisting entirely of Belgian volunteers. It saw action as part of the SAS Brigade in Normandy, Northern France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany. Initially trained in sabotage and intelligence gathering, they converted to motorised reconnaissance on armoured jeeps. They were noted for being the first Allied unit to set foot onto Belgian soil and the first to cross the Siegfried line. This latter feat although was merely accomplished by accident.

History

A Belgian Independent Parachute Company was officially installed at Malvern Wells (Worcestershire) on the 8th of May 1942 by Henri Rolin, the then-Belgian undersecretary for defence. It comprised the following:

23 Special Air Service Regiment (Reserve)

23 Special Air Service Regiment (Reserve) (23 SAS(R)) is a regiment of the British Army Reserve. Together with 21 Special Air Service Regiment (Artists) (Reserve) (21 SAS(R)), it forms the Special Air Service (Reserve) (SAS(R)) unlike the regular SAS Regiment it accepts members of the general population without prior military service.

History

The unit was founded in 1959, as an additional regiment of the Territorial Army, and was created from the former Reserve Reconnaissance Unit, itself descended from the body of the organisation known as Military Intelligence 9. The regiment's first commander was H. S. Gillies, at the time a lieutenant colonel. Anthony Hunter-Choat OBE was the commanding officer of the regiment from 1977 to 1983. Sebastian Morley, at that time a major, was for a period commander of D squadron until his resignation sometime during 2008.

21st century

The reservists were at some time involved directly in the training the Afghan National Police, during the most recent Afghan war, following a review of their unit's operational capability they were withdrawn from front line operations and the task handed over to a "regular" infantry unit. The report found that the TA SAS lacked a clearly defined role, and also stated that the reservists lacked the military capability and skillset to serve alongside the regular special forces

SAS (Action Force)

SAS Force is a fictional special forces military unit originated and designed by Palitoy as part of their Action Force range of 3 3/4 inch action figures and vehicles; similar to the G.I. Joe action figures and featured in a comic book series called Battle Action Force.

Graphic Representation

The SAS characters and their representative figures and vehicles were based on the SAS and SBS special forces regiments of the British, New Zealand and Australian armed forces. The Action Force characters were devised around the time of the Iranian Embassy Siege (later depicted in the movie Who Dares Wins) when the SAS were extremely highly regarded in the British popular media.

Described in promotional material as:

the unit was introduced as part of the second generation of Action Force (see Action Force – second generation) although there was a single SAS figure in the first generation of Action Force. The graphic representation of the SAS Force characters and vehicles borrowed heavily from their real-world counterparts by using the dark garb of the SAS and SBS units while on urban counter terrorism duties (and made popular by the Iranian Embassy Siege), although adding yellow for some of the armaments and insignia. Despite taking its name from the SAS units of the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand, the SAS unit was written as a single multi-national fighting force including soldiers from Britain, the USA, Mexico, Canada, Iceland and Belgium among others.