Spade

A spade is a tool primarily for digging or removing earth and fixing soil. Early spades were made of riven wood. After the art of metalworking was discovered, spades were made with sharper tips of metal. Before the introduction of metal spades manual labor was less efficient at moving earth, with picks being required to break up the soil in addition to a spade for moving the dirt. With a metal tip, a spade can both break and move the earth in most situations, increasing efficiency.

Etymology

"tool for digging," Old English spadu "spade," from Proto-Germanic *spadan (cognates: Old Frisian spada "a spade," Middle Dutch spade "a sword," Old Saxon spado, Middle Low German spade, German Spaten), from PIE *spe-dh-, from root *spe- (2) "long, flat piece of wood" (cognates: Greek spathe "wooden blade, paddle," Old English spon "chip of wood, splinter," Old Norse spann "shingle, chip;" see spoon (n.)).

"A spade differs from a two-handed shovel chiefly in the form and thickness of the blade" [Century Dictionary]. To call a spade a spade "use blunt language, call things by right names" (1540s) translates a Greek proverb (known to Lucian), ten skaphen skaphen legein "to call a bowl a bowl," but Erasmus mistook Greek skaphe "trough, bowl" for a derivative of the stem of skaptein "to dig," and the mistake has stuck [see OED].

Tarka the Otter (film)

Tarka the Otter is a film released in 1979, based on the novel of the same name by Henry Williamson. Tarka the Otter was voted 98th in Channel 4’s poll of the 100 Greatest Family Films.

Production

The role of Tarka was played by an otter called Spade.

Tarka and me (a ripple of ancient sunlight)

The principal animal handler for the film, Peter Talbot, published an e-book called 'Tarka and me' with the sub-title 'a ripple of ancient sunlight'. The sub-title alludes to Williamson's view of nature being uniquely connected by this story to that of Gavin Maxwell. Talbot trained at the Otter Trust under Philip Wayre. In 1976, he was invited by film producers David Cobham and Bill Travers to hand rear a baby otter called Spade for the title role. The Author's note for 'Tarka and me' explains... "...A little over ten years ago I was contacted by a Channel 4 researcher who had been tasked with investigating a classic old animal film called Tarka the Otter. I was puzzled why and he told me that film had just won an award in a family movie category but, finding nothing written anywhere about the animals in the film, he had noticed my name on the credits. A year or so later I heard the sad news that another of my friends, from the Tarka period, had fallen silent and the shock prompted me into a decision to write it all down. The story belongs to them. It happened over a period of two years in the latter part of nineteen seventies whilst filming Henry Williamson’s classic novel. The film featured an otter called Spade as Tarka in real-time as he grew up and, for the duration as his minder, Tarka the Otter became a way of life for us both..."

Spade (disambiguation)

A spade is a digging and gardening tool.

Spade or Spades may also refer to:

Arts and entertainment

Places

People

Project

In contemporary business and science a project is a collaborative enterprise, involving research or design, that is carefully planned to achieve a particular aim.

Project can also be defined as a set of interrelated tasks to be executed over a fixed period and within certain cost and other limitations.

Projects can be further defined as temporary rather than permanent social systems or work systems that are constituted by teams within or across organizations to accomplish particular tasks under time constraints. An ongoing project is usually called (or evolves into) a program.

Overview

The word project comes the Latin word projectum from the Latin verb proicere, "before an action" which in turn comes from pro-, which denotes precedence, something that comes before something else in time (paralleling the Greek πρό) and iacere, "to do". The word "project" thus actually originally meant "before an action".

When the English language initially adopted the word, it referred to a plan of something, not to the act of actually carrying this plan out. Something performed in accordance with a project became known as an "object".Every project has certain phases of development.

Public housing

Public housing may be a form of housing tenure in which the property is owned by a government authority, which may be central or local. Social housing is an umbrella term referring to rental housing which may be owned and managed by the state, by non-profit organizations, or by a combination of the two, usually with the aim of providing affordable housing. Social housing can also be seen as a potential remedy to housing inequality. Some social housing organizations construct for purchase, particularly in Spain and to an extent elsewhere.

Although the common goal of public housing is to provide affordable housing, the details, terminology, definitions of poverty and other criteria for allocation vary within different contexts.

History

The origins of municipal housing lie in the dramatic urban population increase caused by the Industrial Revolution of the 19th century. In the large cities of the period, many social commentators, such as Octavia Hill and Charles Booth reported on the squalor, sickness and immorality that arose. Henry Mayhew, visiting Bethnal Green, wrote in the The Morning Chronicle: