Portsmouth vs El Oso

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Portsmouth ( (listen)) is a port city primarily built on Portsea Island in the county of Hampshire, South East England. It is also known colloquially as Pompey, a nickname shared with HMNB Portsmouth and the Portsmouth Football Club. It is the United Kingdom's only island city. Portsmouth is situated 70 miles (110 km) south-west of London and 19 miles (31 km) south-east of Southampton. Portsmouth's population was recorded as 205,100 in the 2011 UK Census. The city forms part of the South Hampshire conurbation. Portsmouth's history can be traced back to Roman Britain. A significant naval port for centuries, it has the world's oldest dry dock. Portsmouth was England's first line of defence during the 1545 French invasion. By the early nineteenth century, the world's first mass-production line was set up in Portsmouth Dockyard's Block Mills; this made it the world's most industrialised site, and the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution. Portsmouth was the most heavily-fortified town in the world and was considered "the world's greatest naval port" at the height of the British Empire, during the Pax Britannica. The Palmerston Forts were built around Portsmouth in 1859 in anticipation of another invasion from continental Europe. King Richard I first granted Portsmouth market town status on 2 May 1194 with a royal charter and a coat of arms, "a crescent of gold on a shade of azure, with a blazing star of eight points". On 21 April 1926, Portsmouth was elevated from town to city status. Its motto, "Heaven's Light Our Guide" (referring to the city's eight-pointed star and crescent-moon emblem), was registered in 1929. The 800th anniversary of the royal charter was celebrated on 2 May 1994. Portsmouth became a unitary authority on 1 April 1997, with its city council gaining the powers of a non-metropolitan county and district council previously held by Hampshire County Council.

The city was extensively bombed in World War II's Portsmouth Blitz (which resulted in the deaths of 930 people), and was the pivotal embarkation point for the 6 June 1944 D-Day landings. In 1982, a large proportion of the task force dispatched to liberate the Falkland Islands deployed from the city's naval base. Her Majesty's Yacht Britannia left the city to oversee the 1997 transfer of Hong Kong which, for many, marked the end of the British Empire. HMNB Portsmouth, considered the home of the Royal Navy, is the base for two-thirds of the UK's surface fleet. The city has a number of famous ships, including HMS Warrior; the Tudor carrack Mary Rose, and Horatio Nelson's flagship HMS Victory (the world's oldest naval ship still in commission). The former HMS Vernon naval-shore establishment has been redeveloped as the Gunwharf Quays retail park. Portsmouth is among the few British cities with two cathedrals: the Anglican Cathedral of St Thomas and the Roman Catholic Cathedral of St John the Evangelist. The waterfront and Portsmouth Harbour are dominated by the Spinnaker Tower, one of the United Kingdom's tallest structures at 170 metres (560 ft). Southsea is a seaside resort with an amusement arcade on Clarence Pier. Portsmouth F.C., the city's professional football club, play their home games at Fratton Park in Milton. Portsmouth has good road and rail links to London and the south of England. Portsmouth International Port is a commercial cruise-ship and international ferry port. It is the UK's second-busiest port (after Dover), handling about three million passengers a year. The University of Portsmouth has a student population of 23,000. Portsmouth is the birthplace of author Charles Dickens, engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel and former Prime Minister James Callaghan.

Source: Wikipedia

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El Oso (Spanish for The Bear), released in 1998 (see 1998 in music), is the third and final studio album by the New York City band Soul Coughing. Before starting work on the album, the band toured with Full Cycle DJs Krust and Die (in fact, their band with Roni Size, Reprazent, won the Mercury Prize in 1997 and thus put the kibosh on a notion to have them produce). As such, the disc is marked by a deep drum and bass influence and by a scattershot approach to production: Tchad Blake (the band's own Ruby Vroom, Latin Playboys, Sheryl Crow), Pat Dillett (They Might Be Giants, Doveman, Mary J. Blige), and British drum and bass DJ Optical (Goldie, Grooverider, Ed Rush). Artist Jim Woodring (Frank) drew the cartoon "monkey-bear" on the disc's cover. The chorus of the song "$300" is a sample of a Chris Rock joke; singer Mike Doughty heard the joke which is backmasked on Rock's Roll with the New.

Curious, Doughty recorded it into his ASR-10 sampler with the intention of simply reversing it and seeing what the joke was, and wrote the song around what he found there. The song was used in the House episode "The Softer Side" in 2009. The disc contained their biggest hit single, "Circles". Tchad Blake, who produced the tune, hated it, and told them it would be a mistake to release it. Cartoon Network gave it a music video in which a Flintstones cartoon was synched to the song as part of their Groovies interstitial. The music video featured Fred, Barney and other Hanna-Barbera characters walking in front of the same repeating background. The video for the song "Rolling" was also produced, which was synced with a scene from a Betty Boop cartoon. The song was used in the 2004 remake of Walking Tall. El Oso made #1 on KTUH's charts on the week of January 25, 1999.

Source: Wikipedia