Total S.A.

Total S.A. (French pronunciation: ​[tɔtal]; English /toʊˈtæl/ or /toʊˈtɑːl/) is a French multinational integrated oil and gas company and one of the six "Supermajor" oil companies in the world. Its businesses cover the entire oil and gas chain, from crude oil and natural gas exploration and production to power generation, transportation, refining, petroleum product marketing, and international crude oil and product trading. Total is also a large-scale chemicals manufacturer. The company has its head office in the Tour Total in La Défense district in Courbevoie, west of Paris. The company is a component of the Euro Stoxx 50 stock market index.

History

Compagnie française des pétroles (CFP): 1924–1985

The company was founded after World War I, when the then French Prime Minister Raymond Poincaré rejected the idea of forming a partnership with Royal Dutch Shell in favour of creating an entirely French oil company. At Poincaré's behest, Col. Ernest Mercier with the support of ninety banks and companies founded Total on 28 March 1924, as the Compagnie française des pétroles (CFP), literally the "French Petroleum Company". Petroleum was seen as vital in the case of a new war with Germany. As per the agreement reached during the San Remo conference of 1920, the French state received the 25% share held by Deutsche Bank in the Turkish Petroleum Company (TPC) as part of the compensation for war damages caused by Germany during World War I. The French government's stake in TPC was transferred to CFP, and the Red Line agreement in 1928 rearranged the shareholding of CPF in TPC (later renamed the Iraq Petroleum Company in 1929) to 23.75%. The company from the start was regarded as a private sector company in view of its listing on the Paris Stock Exchange in 1929.

Total: From Joy Division to New Order

Total: From Joy Division to New Order is a compilation album of material from Joy Division and New Order. It was released in the United Kingdom on 6 June 2011 and is the first album to feature songs from both Joy Division and New Order in one album. It features five Joy Division tracks, including "Love Will Tear Us Apart", and thirteen New Order tracks, including a previously unreleased track, "Hellbent". An online "Deluxe version" also includes music videos.

Creation

The record label were unhappy with calling the record a "Best Of", so after brainstorming with the band the title Total was eventually chosen by Bernard Sumner.

The album cover was created by Howard Wakefield who previously served as understudy to Peter Saville. Peter was involved in art direction and told The Guardian: "I realised this was a record that would be sold in supermarkets and advertised on television. So the cover has a 'pile it high, sell it cheap' aesthetic. As you open it out, it says Total, but folded up you just see the 'O's. It says, 'From Joy Division to New Order'. I couldn't bear the words 'Best of'. It's a long way from the independent record shop to Tesco, almost 33 years. At Factory, I had a freedom that was unprecedented in communications design. We lived out an ideal, without business calling the shots. It was a phenomenon."

Total (Seigmen album)

Total is the third studio album by Norwegian rock band Seigmen. It was released on 21 October 1994, through record label 1:70.

Track listing

All lyrics written by Kim Ljung, all music composed by Klisne Seigmenn.

Release

The album was certified gold in Norway in 2006.

Personnel

References

External links

Record of Lodoss War

Record of Lodoss War (ロードス島戦記, Rōdosu-tō Senki, lit., "Lodoss Island War Chronicle") is a franchise of fantasy novels by Ryo Mizuno based on the work he originally created for a world called Forcelia as a rules-free setting for role-playing games (RPGs). There have since been multiple manga, anime and computer game adaptations, several of which have been translated into English. The plots generally follow the conventions and structure of the RPG systems including Dungeons & Dragons and Sword World RPG, in which several characters of distinct types undertake a specific quest.

Origins

Record of Lodoss War was created in 1986 by Group SNE as a Dungeons & Dragons "replay" serialized in the Japanese magazine Comptiq, though they also used the setting with other systems such as Tunnels & Trolls and RuneQuest. Replays are not novels, but transcripts of RPG sessions, meant to both hold the interest of readers and convey the events that took place. They have proven to be popular, even to those who do not play role-playing games but are fans of fiction (including fantasy fiction). Similar to light novels, many characters and parties in replays have become popular as characters of anime. An example of such a character is the female elf Deedlit in Record of Lodoss War, who was played by science fiction novelist Hiroshi Yamamoto during the RPG sessions.

Fruit of Life

Fruit of Life is the debut album for American Alternative band Wild Colonials, released in 1994 (see 1994 in music).

Details

Fruit of Life features some of Wild Colonials' more popular early songs, including first single "Spark", "Victim" and "Rainbow." Most of the songs on the album were recorded during a single day at the Sunset Sound Factory in Hollywood, CA to see if the band worked well with Engineer/Producer Tchad Blake. The recordings were all done live to 24 track with the band in the same room and vocalists Angela McCluskey and Shark using the same mic. After a successful and productive day and wishing to continue recording there were some scheduling conflicts as Tchad Blake was about to start work in England with Elvis Costello and the reformed Attractions on what would become the album Brutal Youth. During a break in pre-production on the Elvis Costello album, Tchad Blake invited the Wild Colonials to England where the band recorded for a week at Peter Gabriel's Real World Studios in Box, England. Reconvening later in Los Angeles they did some additional recording with Red Hot Chili Peppers' drummer Chad Smith.

Spark (Transformers)

Within the narrative of the fictional Transformers universe, a spark is usually the "soul" of a Transformer. Likewise, the AllSpark is an ancient artifact or object capable of creating new Transformer life by bestowing machinery with sparks. The term "AllSpark" was created by writer Robert N. Skir, who responded to a fan question about the TV series Beast Machines July 21, 1999 web page. Skir explained that the Beast Machines entity called The Oracle was actually the AllSpark, consisting of "the spark of every transformer who has ever lived, or ever will live". In a November 6, 1999 web page, Skir clarified that the Matrix was something called the AllSpark and was "made up of every Spark that ever was, and every Spark that ever will be".

In the Beast Machines television series, the term "AllSpark" was used for the Transformers' afterlife. Although the concept of the Transformers afterlife was briefly touched upon in the original series and Beast Wars series, it was not until Beast Machines that the concept was explored further. The Autobot Matrix of Leadership, as seen in the original series, was not merely a receptacle for the consciousness of deceased Autobot leaders; it was a gateway that led to the AllSpark, from which all current and future Transformers' sparks came. Possessing a sentience, the AllSpark had sent Sparks out into the world to live. When any Transformers, good or evil, were destroyed, their Spark would return to the AllSpark and share with it all that it had experienced, thereby adding to the timeless fountain of knowledge and wisdom. The facility on Cybertron, which produces Maximal protoforms, was named after the aforementioned Matrix, and was analogous to human's Heaven. A similar Predacon facility also exists, named the Pit, and was analogous to Hell. The Pit was also known as the Inferno until the late-season addition of the character Inferno.