The Viking age lasted from AD 790 to 1100. The Vikings were mainly from Norway, Denmark, and Sweden, and were the best shipbuilders and seamen of their time. They were able to travel long distances in their longships and attack towns on the coasts of Britain and Ireland. They reached Greenland, Iceland, and even America. The Vikings’ boats were long, narrow, light, and flexible. They made them out of oak wood. The typical length of a longship was about 20 meters. The hulls of the ships were shallow so that they could dock on beaches and sail in shallow water. A longship had a large, square, woolen sail, which the Vikings covered in horse fat to make it waterproof. The main power for the longship was from the oars, which were all along the ship. There were usually a crew of about 60 men who rowed the boat. The sailors usually placed their shields along the side of the boat for protection. They also carved the fronts of their ships into the shape of a dragon’s head in order to scare the enemies.

 Stop motion involves physically manipulating objects, making them appear to move on their own. The objects are moved in tediously small increments, and each tiny change in their position is photographed. When the series of pictures is played in a continuous sequence, the objects appear to move of their own free will. Because clay is a material that is particularly malleable, it is often used in films that utilize stop motion photography. 

The stop motion technique was first put to use in a film called The Humpty Dumpty Circus in 1898. Filmmakers used acrobat and animal toys to become pioneers in this new branch of the movie industry. In the 20th century, animators brought stop motion to the masses when the original King Kong film hit theaters in 1933. Decades later, Disney experimented with stop motion techniques character, Mickey Mouse, in 1978. Then, in 1993, The Nightmare Before Christmas, produced by the delightfully dark Tim Burton, became the first widely released stop motion feature film. 

Today, thanks to the Internet, entertaining stop motion films are always just a click away. One of the best the Web has to offer is T-Shirt War, which was made by Rhett McLaughlin and Link Neal. In the film, the two men use alternating images on their T-Shirts to push each other’s buttons. In all, it took 222 shirts to make the short video.

 Stop motion techniques have also infiltrated music videos, and one of the most impressive is Oren Lavie’s “Her Morning Elegance.” It consists of 3,225 still photographs of actors on a bed, which were shot by a single overhead camera. It took four weeks of meticulous planning to map out the computer animated storyboard for the video before a single frame was shot.

 In Taiwan, a stop motion animation video caused an online sensation. “Deadline”, a class project by Bang-yao Liu, a student at Savannah College of Art and Design, innovatively used Post-it notes. Bang-yao planned out the changing positions of over 6,000 Post-it notes for three months before beginning his four-day shoot. The moving notes tell the story of a young man dealing with a deadline as monsters, thunderstorms, and a submarine move across the wall in front of his desk. The works of Bang-yao and many other creative filmmakers show that there are no limits to this amazing method of movie making.

   In a city where eating well is an obsession, a statement by a senior official published in a national newspaper caused a public outcry. Vallop Suwandee, who chairs an advisory board to the governor of Bangkok, was quoted as saying that street vendors would be removed from all 50 districts of the city. It seemed that one of the most popular and distinctive aspects of Bangkok life was to be wiped out, days after CNN had voted Bangkok the best place in the world for street food, and just two months before the city government was planning to hold a street-food festival.

   Mr. Vallop now says he was misquoted: “Let me be clear, on behalf of the city of Bangkok. Street food will continue to be part of Bangkok life, on the condition that there will not be obstructions for pedestrians, and that the vendors observe sanitary rules in the interest of public health. We will allow them to be in certain areas, under strict conditions.”

   This is not the first time the Bangkok Metropolitan Authority (BMA), which is responsible for running the city, has tried to impose order and standards on the hundreds of thousands of food vendors operating on the streets. Right after the BMA was first established in 1972, it launched a similar campaign to force the vendors to operate in designated markets instead.

   Variations of that campaign were revived every few years but implementation has always been weak because the BMA recognised the vital role street vending played in providing a source of income in difficult economic times. Most of the time it has quietly chosen not to push too hard.

   This time may be different. The number of officially approved locations for street food vendors has been cut dramatically, from a peak of 726 four years ago to 243 by the end of last year. Tens of thousands of vendors have been forced to move already, leaving many downtown areas like Siam Square, Asok and Silom with few or no street-food stalls now visible during the day and night.

   The most recent area to be cleared is the increasingly wealthy neighbourhood of Thonglor. A small side street, or soi, which for many years had been famous for its street food, is no more, although city officials say the vendors were offered alternative locations in smaller sois further away.