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Vanguard on guard

Nuclear submarine HMS Vanguard arrives back at HM Naval Base Clyde, Faslane, Scotland following a patrol

This Signpost "Featured content" report covers material promoted from 5 to 11 April. Text may be adapted from the respective articles and lists; see their page histories for attribution.

Featured articles

Six featured articles were promoted this week.

Engraving of The Tower House in 1878 (from a contemporary issue of The Building News).
Alice Cooper, lead singer of Alice Cooper, whose album Love It to Death is the subject of a new featured article.
  • The Tower House (nominated by Dr. Blofeld, KJP1, and Gareth E Kegg) The Tower House in Holland Park, London, was the home of the architect and designer William Burges. He is regarded as one of the greatest of the Victorian "art-architects", with a short but illustrious career beginning in 1863. By 1875, Burges was no longer receiving major commissions, and the Tower House was his last significant work. It was described by the architectural historian J. Mordaunt Crook as "the most complete example of a medieval secular interior produced by the Gothic Revival, and the last". The house is built of red brick, with Bath stone dressings and green roof slates from Cumberland, and is named after its distinctive cylindrical tower with a conical roof. The ground floor contains a drawing room, a dining room, and a library, while the first floor has two bedrooms and an armoury. It has not always been as protected as it ought; from 1962 to 1966 it stood empty and suffered vandalism and neglect. A survey of the house undertaken in January 1965 revealed that the exterior stonework was badly decayed, dry rot had eaten through the roof and the structural floor timbers, and the attics were infested with pigeons. Vandals had stripped the lead from the water tanks and had damaged the mirrors, fireplaces, and carving work. The most notable loss was the theft of the carved figure of Fame from the dining room chimneypiece. The house was later owned by the actor Richard Harris, followed by Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page, both of whom had restoration work carried out.
  • HMS Illustrious (nominated by Sturmvogel 66) HMS Illustrious (87) was a British Royal Navy aircraft carrier, launched in April 1939 and scrapped in 1957. She participated in the Battle of Taranto in 1940 when her aircraft sank one Italian battleship and badly damaged two others. The completion of Illustrious was delayed by two months to fit her with a Type 79Z early-warning radar; she was the first aircraft carrier in the world to be fitted with radar before completion. The main armament of the Illustrious class consisted of sixteen quick-firing (QF) 4.5-inch (110 mm) dual-purpose guns in eight twin-gun turrets, four on each side of the hull in sponsons.
  • Blackrock (film) (nominated by Freikorp) Blackrock is a 1997 Australian film about the rape and murder of a young girl after a party in Blackrock, a fictional "Australian beachside working-class suburb". The film follows Jared, a young surfer who witnesses his friends raping a girl. When she is found murdered the next day, Jared is torn between revealing what he saw and protecting his friends. The movie was based on the murder of Leigh Leigh, a 14-year-old girl from the east coast of Australia who was murdered in 1989. Twenty detectives, led by Detective Sergeant Lance Chaffey, were originally assigned to the case. An 18-year-old pleaded guilty to her murder and was sentenced to 20 years in prison. A truly sad case. (In happier news, or perhaps additional sad news, Blackrock features the first credited film performance of the late Heath Ledger.)
  • 2014 Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup Final (nominated by Cptnono) The 2014 Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup Final was played on September 6, 2014, at PPL Park in Chester, Pennsylvania. The match determined the winner of that year's U.S. Open Cup, an annual American soccer competition open to all United States Soccer Federation-affiliated teams, from amateur adult club teams to the professional clubs of Major League Soccer (MLS). The 2014 competition was the 101st edition of the oldest soccer tournament in the United States.
  • Love It to Death (nominated by Curly Turkey) Love It to Death, released in 1971, is the third album by the American rock band Alice Cooper (not to be confused with the lead singer of the band, whose name was also Alice Cooper). The original album cover featured the band's lead singer posed with his thumb protruding so it appeared to be his penis; Warner Bros. soon replaced it with a censored version. The band had taken the name Alice Cooper in 1968 and became known for its outrageous theatrical live shows. The loose, psychedelic freak rock of its first two albums failed to find an audience. The Love It to Death tour featured an elaborate shock rock live show: during "Ballad of Dwight Fry"—about an inmate in an insane asylum—Cooper would be dragged offstage and return in a straitjacket, and the show climaxed with Cooper's mock execution in a prop electric chair during "Black Juju".
"I can quote in elegiacs all the crimes of Heliogabalus" says Major-General Stanley. Hmm. Well, allow me to try. So, dactylic hexameter, then pentameter. Should be able to...

   Roses, my Emperor? Wow! you have brought us exceedingly many!
   Bugger it! Crushed beneath! Help! I will die! (Now I'm dead.)

Wait, when I quote all the crimes of Heliogabalus, do they need to be real crimes, or will probably fake crimes do? ...And what if he littered one day? Does that count? WHY DID YOU NOT SPECIFY, STANLEY?! WHY?!

Featured pictures

Fifteen featured pictures were promoted this week.

Dusty the dusky lory wanted a cracker, so she reached out using the web...
... to contract these nice Lijiang Yunnan China-Naxi-people, over Alibaba, to mass produce crackers, fill baskets with them, and deliver them directly to her, in the Gembira Loka Zoo, in Yogyakarta, via container ships. These baskets are not really filled with Dusty's Crackers (yet); in fact, these are performers in an open air stage in Lijiang, Yunnan, China. This photo was taken before the "Dusty's Crackers" phenomenon swept the globe and made Dusty rich through a wildly successful IPO.
Dusty now has a nice winter home in Schwäbisch Hall and runs a global cracker empire from here over the web with her business partner, Crisco 1492. You can find "Dusty's Crackers" the world over. Eat Dusty's!
Everyone loves Dusty's Crackers! Just ask Henri Gervex and his painting, A Session of the Cracker-Lovers' Jury. Dusty's won the special jury prize: a slice of cheese and a tall glass of cold milk.

[T]he time has come, and is indeed long past, for the likeness of a prominent American woman to be placed on a denomination of U.S. currency. We believe strongly that the likeness should be that of an actual woman and not that of an imaginary or symbolic figure. Susan B. Anthony contributed immeasurably to the advancement of human dignity in this nation. It is entirely fitting and appropriate that her memory be honored through this measure.

Susan B. Anthony was an American social reformer and feminist who played a pivotal role in the women's suffrage movement.

Good articles

These sixty-four good articles were promoted between 5 to 11 April, the week covered in this Signpost. (We simply can't produce these in three days!)

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