Spode Under the name 'Spode Ltd' the same factories and business was continued after 1970. In 2006, the business merged with Royal Worcester. The merged company entered administration on 6 November 2008. The brand names and intellectual property were acquired by Portmeirion Group on 23 April 2009. On 23 April 2009, Portmeirion Pottery purchased their rival Royal Worcester and Spode brands, together with some of the stock, after they had been placed into administration the previous November. The purchase did not include Royal Worcester or Spode manufacturing facilities. Many items in Spode's Blue Italian and Woodland ranges are now made at
The General (The Prisoner) music used during scene involving the Prisoner, Number 2 and the Professor's wife as "one of the strangest musical themes in the series". The General (The Prisoner) "The General" is an episode of the television series "The Prisoner". It was the tenth episode to be produced, and the sixth to be broadcast. The central themes of this episode are rote learning and indoctrination. Number Six — along with the rest of the Village population — is subjected to a new mind-altering education technology called "Speed Learn" which can instill a three-year university level course in history over a television screen