Via Pegasus Books
How Do Some Authors “Lose Control” of Their Characters?
Is it the Mysterious Work of the Unconscious, or the Mechanized Brain?
By Jim Davies
Many fiction writers say that their characters seem to have minds of their own. Writers sometimes report that they feel that the events in their novel, or even the words themselves, are being dictated to them outside of their conscious control. Some writers report that they need their characters to do something, presumably for some plot reason, but the character “refuses” to do it.
This feeling, the “illusion of independent agency,” is quite common. I was at a writers’ panel and one author said that her characters wouldn’t do what she said, and another writer said that he was in complete control of his characters. Marjorie Taylor surveyed 50 fiction authors and found that a full 92 percent of them experienced this phenomenon of their characters having their own agency. Some writers even report that writing feels more like dictating what their characters do and say than creating the story deliberately. Some characters feel so real authors have imaginary conversations with them, much like children have conversations with imaginary friends.
John Foxwell’s research found that 69 percent of authors hear voices of their characters, and 42 percent can enter into dialogue with them. Sixty-five percent say they can act on their own accord.
Mary Watkins has documented evidence of many famous authors who insist that their characters are autonomous and out of their control. For example, Philip Pullman, author of the His Dark Materials trilogy, reports negotiating a deal with his character Mrs. Coulter to get her to spend time in a cave in one of his books. Some authors have reported that their characters give them unsolicited advice about the writer’s own life!
Seventy-one percent of authors say their characters become more autonomous over time. After about 30 thousand words, some of the main characters seem to take on lives of their own. One author said, “I nowadays just plan my books halfway as I know that in the middle of the writing process the characters will take over the story so my planning will be useless anyway.”
The perceived autonomy of these characters is very strong. Some authors even insist that one can’t be any good as a writer unless this is the case. One author said that without their main characters becoming autonomous, the characters become shallow archetypes.
But sometimes it can get in the way of the story the author is trying to write, when their characters refuse to behave and do what is needed for the book. One author said: “They develop their own narratives, rapidly accumulating their own histories and anecdotes—if unchecked, I have had to kill off characters to stop a story digressing out of sight.”
Just as authors sometimes complain that their characters will sometimes act in ways they do not like, imaginary companions can be very annoying to the children that create them.
When Alice Walker was writing The Color Purple, not only did her characters seem to choose their own actions in the plot, but they regularly visited her and commented, sometimes unwelcomely, on Walker’s own life.
When children feel that their imaginary friends have minds of their own, it could be like fiction authors who experience the illusion of independent agency—their imaginary friends are so familiar to them that they no longer feel like their own creations. Intriguingly, the writers who experienced the illusion were about twice as likely to have had imaginary friends as children.
We don’t even need to turn to imaginary companions or to fiction authors to find imagined characters acting with their own agency—most of us experience such characters every time we dream: we have imagined experiences of vivid characters we can’
t consciously control. This is even true for lucid dreamers. Composer Robert Schumann believed that his compositions were communicated to him by other (dead) composers, such as Beethoven.
Just as authors sometimes complain that their characters will sometimes act in ways they do not like, imaginary companions can be very annoying to the children that create them. At the core is the issue of control. Even though imaginary companions are make-believe and the people who have them know it, sometimes the friends feel out of control, or can even be downright frightening. One 14-year-old boy slept with his hands covered for three years out of fear that a giant would step out of a picture on the wall to cut off his hands.
It’s unclear whether this giant counts as an imaginary companion, because he does little more than scare the boy, but the normally friendly imaginary companions of children can not bother to accompany a child on a trip, sometimes fail to show for playtime, talk too loudly, not share, and so on. One child’
s day was ruined when his imaginary companion, a pony, had made other plans and could not accompany the child to a horse show.
Jennifer Mauro found that 34 percent of children with imaginary companions say they get angry with the children sometimes, and parents witness arguments between the child and the imaginary friend.
But most of the time children are in conscious control. Marjorie Taylor tried to get children in the lab to be envious of their imaginary companions. They gave the companions a present and informed the children that the companion refused to share. The experiment had to be discontinued, because the children got annoyed with the researcher rather than with the companion! They don’
t abide other people trying to control their companions.
So why do children sometimes seem to be in control of their companions and sometimes not? Why do some characters feel in control by their authors and other times not? We distinguish hallucination from other imagination, in part, because we are in control of what we imagine—in hallucination and dreaming, for example, we have little or no control. So if these children are simply imagining their friend, why not simply make the friend behave? Somehow, the friend seems, to the child, to have its own autonomy.
It could be that, in the cases of imaginary companions and well-fleshed out characters that authors imagine, the person’s idea of what the character is like is so detailed and well-understood that the mental processing done to explain and predict what these characters say and do becomes completely unconscious. It’
s not that the character is out of control of the person who imagined them, but they are out of control of the conscious part of the mind that created them. The character’s actions are determined by the deep tides of the unconscious ocean of their creator’s mind.
To understand my interpretation of this phenomenon, it’s important to understand a pervasive ability of the human mind known as “automatization,”or making things automatic. When you do something complex for the first time, it’s difficult or downright impossible—recall learning to drive, playing pinball, or dancing salsa. What happens is that over time the task becomes automatic. You can then do the task pretty well, often without even thinking about it.
You might have experienced meaning to stop at a store on the way home from work, but then finding yourself home, without having thought about the ride at all during your trip. While you were driving, you were thinking about other things. You might have started out with the intention to stop at the store on the way home but ended up not doing it. Your automatized memories got you home.
Just like all automatized things, it feels like it’s coming from nowhere. The characters are being thought about by the old brain, unconsciously.
When I was first learning to swing dance, it seemed impossible. If I paid attention to my feet, my hands did the wrong thing. If I turned my partner correctly, I’d lose the beat and not know where to put my feet. But after doing it for many years, I got to the point where I could do the basics without any conscious control at all. I could think about what was coming up in the song, so that I could time a dip perfectly. I could hold a philosophical conversation while swing dancing at a fast clip. And I met my wife this way. Such is the power of automatization. It can help you get married.
Activities get so well learned that they become fast and unconscious. It is most obvious in physical tasks, such as sports and driving. It could be that automatization can also happen to reasoning—that is, doing things that don’
t just involve moving your body. Sometimes, for example, I hear an argument from someone, and I instantly know that there’s something wrong with it. When asked to elaborate, I figure out why the argument was wrong as I talk it out, and usually my feeling that there was something wrong with the argument was right on.
But what’s interesting is that I was convinced that it was wrong before I was conscious of the reasons why! What is probably happening here is that there is an automatized, unconscious reasoning going on, and only when I have to talk about it am I required to use my conscious mind to reconstruct, or invent, a justification for the feeling.
Fiction authors need to create whole people in their minds, including appearance, mannerisms, culture, ways of speaking, attitudes, preferences, personalities, goals, and so on. At first, this can be cognitively demanding, but over time, thinking about this (fictional) person becomes automatized. Because the author is no longer conscious of the thinking process that determines what the character would want, do, or say, it feels like the character is a person telling her (in her mind) what’s what. It is similar to a mental models you create of people you know very well.
You instantly know that your spouse would like this book or not like this restaurant. It could be that the same trend is happening with imaginary companions and novelists’ autonomous characters: they start out as a conscious creation, but then when they become automatized, they can start “misbehaving.” So what might be happening with these authors is that they start out consciously thinking about a character, and after they get a good mental model of what the character is like, it becomes automatized, so that they no longer need to consciously reason out what the character would do in a particular situation, how they would react to things. Just like all automatized things, it feels like it’
s coming from nowhere. The characters are being thought about by the old brain, unconsciously.
The new and old brain distinction is important for understanding imagination and creativity, because often we have no idea where our creative ideas come from. The old brain is largely unconscious, so ideas that bubble up from its depths seem to come from nowhere. Long before a complex understanding of the unconscious mind, the ancient Greeks attributed these ideas, which seemingly came from nowhere, as being delivered by gods, the muses.
But not all of these unbidden ideas come from ancient evolved systems. Because we can automatize practiced actions, we can render them unconscious, too. My ability to swing dance without thinking about it certainly isn’t an evolved behavior!
Excerpted from Imagination: The Science of Your Mind’s Greatest Power. Used with the permission of the publisher, Pegasus Books. Copyright © 2019 by Jim Davies.
creativityfictional charactersimaginationImagination: The Science of Your Mind's Greatest PowerJim DaviesPegasus Booksthe writing lifeWriting process
Jim Davies
Jim Davies is a professor at the Institute of Cognitive Science at Carleton University. He is the director of the Science of Imagination Laboratory and the co-author on two editions of The GNU Scientific Library Reference Manual. He is the author of Riveted: The Science of Why Jokes Make Us Laugh, Movies Make Us Cry, and Religion Makes Us Feel One with the Universe. He lives in Minnesota.
Unearthing the Stories of Australia's Working Class
The Pain, Hidden in Plain Sight, of John Cheever's Darkest Work
I grew up in a working-class suburb of Melbourne, Australia. My parents were Sicilian. They left school at the end of Grade...


Bueckers scores 22 but injured in UConn win over Irish
by: PAT EATON-ROBB, Associated Press
STORRS, Conn. (AP) — UConn won its rivalry game against Notre Dame but may have lost last year’s national player of the year to a knee injury in the process.
Paige Bueckers scored 22 points before going down with just seconds left in No. 2 UConn’s 73-54 victory over No. 24 Notre Dame on Sunday.
Bueckers, who is averaging a little more than 20 points per game, was dribbling up the court in the final minute of this one when she stumbled, twisting her ankle and coming down awkwardly on her left leg. She went to the floor a few seconds later and had to be carried off the court.
Coach Geno Auriemma said she injured her left knee but did not appear to twist it. He said the extent of the injury won’t be known until scans are completed on Monday.
“The initial report is, she might have hyperextended it,” Auriemma said. “But I think the first thing that goes through your mind is the worst thing.”
Olivia Nelson-Ododa added 14 points and 13 rebounds for the Huskies (5-1), who dominated underneath, outrebounding Notre Dame 45-32 and outscored the Fighting Irish 28-16 in the paint.
UConn freshman Caroline Ducharme scored a season-best 14 points and Aaliyah Edwards chipped in with 10.
Freshman Sonia Citron, coming off a 29-point game against Michigan State, scored 19 points for Notre Dame (7-2), which had its final lead at 10-9 in the first quarter.
The Huskies led by 10 points at halftime and by 12 early in the second half. But Notre Dame used a 6-2 run to cut the lead to 51-44 headed into the fourth quarter.
The Huskies took over from there. A 3-pointer from Bueckers made it 56-44 and UConn scored the first 13 points of the final quarter to put the game away.
“We played competitively for three quarters,” Notre Dame coach Niele Ivey said. “And in the fourth quarter they ran away with it. I think it’s a credit to UConn. They are a really great team. Unfortunately, we got outrebounded and I thought that was the difference.”
UConn fell behind early, before going on a 7-0 run to take the lead for good. The Huskies ended the first quarter leading 16-12.
A 3-point play by Nelson-Ododa after an offensive rebound gave UConn a 28-23 lead and sparked a run that saw the Huskies score 10 of the final 12 points in the half.
A long pass from Bueckers to Christyn Williams, who laid the ball in just before the buzzer, sent the Huskies into halftime leading 35-25.
UConn had 14 of its 18 second-chance points in the first half, while holding the Irish to just four during the game.
“We definitely celebrated the win, but we were definitely more concerned about Paige and just how she was feeling and her status right now,” Nelson-Ododa said. “You know, we’re praying for the best and praying for good news and just kind of waiting for the outcome.”
Notre Dame: This was Ivey’s first game against UConn as a head coach. The Irish are now 13-39 all-time against the Huskies, 0-9 in the month of December and 9-11 over the last 20 meetings.
UConn: Before the game, UConn dedicated a monument outside of Gampel Pavilion honoring the school’s Olympians, including 16 former Husky women’s basketball players. Eleven of those won gold medals, led by Sue Bird and Diana Taurasi, who each have five.
Auriemma was asked why Bueckers was on the floor in the final minute of what turned out to be a 19-point win. He said there is no good explanation for that.
“She never wants to come out,” he said. “She’s a pain in the (behind) to have on the bench, ‘cause all she does is complain about why she’s not playing and we’ve made a concerted effort in the last three or four games to get her some rest during the game.”
UConn likely will remain near the top of the poll, but how long it stays there may depend on the extent of Bueckers’ injury. Notre Dame’s losses have come to No. 20 Georgia in overtime and to UConn, which may be enough to push them outside the Top 25.
Notre Dame: Continues its road trip with a visit to Valparaiso on Wednesday.
UConn: Travels to Atlanta to face Georgia Tech on Thursday.
More AP women’s college basketball: https://apnews.com/hub/womens-college-basketball and https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-womens-college-basketball-poll and https://twitter.com/AP_Top25
Connecticut’s Paige Bueckers (5) is helped off the court by Amari DeBerrym, left, after injuring herself in the second half of an NCAA college basketball…
Connecticut’s Paige Bueckers (5) is helped off the court by Amari DeBerrym, left, after injuring herself in the second half of an NCAA college basketball game against Notre Dame, Sunday, Dec. 5, 2021, in Storrs, Conn. (AP Photo/Jessica Hill)


Jerry McBrien
Writer and Lecturer in Military History
Notes from Recent Lectures
Australia’s War: 80 years ago this week
Jerry’s new book “War in the Pacific: The First Six Months” is now available at all good ebook stores.
Jerry McBrien grew up in England at a time when World War 2 was recent and familiar history, and many people and the landscape still bore its scars.
In his twenties he settled in Australia, where he worked in strategy and planning roles in the chemical and power industries.
Now retired on the Sunshine Coast, he spends most of his time writing and lecturing on the history of the Second World War, particularly the War in the Pacific, which has been an interest since he arrived in Australia.
His book War in the Pacific: The First Six Months―Defending Australia tells this dramatic story to a new audience and celebrates the efforts of those who fought and won the war, from the infantrymen to the joint chiefs of staff.
In his spare time he drives an old sports car around the Sunshine Coast Hinterland and boats in Pumicestone Passage.
Copyright Jerry McBrien – All rights reserved
Jerry McBrien A WordPress.com Website.


France and Germany Order EU States to Open Up Borders for Mass Migration
EU states must pay fee if they don't accept refugees
By: Jacob Pramuk |@NeonNettle
on&nbsp7th December 2018 @ 4.00pm
Since the European migrant crisis started back in 2015, there has been growing tension among EU members regarding asylum seekers and who will take them.
The massive influx of refugees to places like Italy, who reportedly turned boats of migrants away and sent them to the European Union allies, has instilled public discontent over Brussels' immigration policy.
Now European Union member states who, like Italy, refused to take refugees, will have to pay a fee to EU budget or toward development projects in Africa, according to a report presented by France and Germany.
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In a separate scramble to stop intra-EU clashes over migration, Berlin and Paris submitted an amended version of a migration management mechanism, dealing with various migrant-related issues.
The document, obtained by Reuters, recommends a new formula for EU states obligation to take refugees, according to which first countries would carry the liability for migrants.
The Franco-German initiative also proposes extending strict rules on how to deal with migrants who entered in the EU after being rescued at sea.
According to Sputnik: The "alternative measures of solidarity" that could be forced upon member states in the event they decline to provide asylum seek to end the disputes between the West and East in the bloc as the former has been willing to take in refugees while the latter has denied giving shelter to migrants.
The document also recommends that the EU would need to create a mechanism to avoid a circumstance when all European Union states prefer to pay instead of accepting migrants.
No specific details regarding such a mechanism have been provided.
In 2015-2016 the EU experienced a huge influx of migrants and refugees. In 2015 more than one million migrants arrived in Europe, of which 250, 000 people came by sea.
The main migrant entry-points into the EU were in southern and eastern EU member states, such as Italy, Greece, Spain, etc.
EU authorities, to deal with the burden the migration created, established a quota system, according to which all EU states have to share liability for receiving migrants.
While the bloc's western states, such as Germany, were prepared to give shelter to refugees, eastern countries, such as Hungary and Poland strongly opposed the decision.
The UN is set to hold a conference on migrants on 10-11 December 2018, where the participant states are expected to sign The UN Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration.
The Compact has generated disagreement among EU states, leading some of them to reject it.
So far the US, Austria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Bulgaria, and Lithuania have rejected the UN Compact.
In November Italian Deputy Premier Matteo Salvini stated that Italy would not take part in the forthcoming conference, however, noting that "the floor of parliament must debate it. The Italian government will allow parliament to decide".
[RELATED] Journalist Who Exposed Misuse of EU Funds Found Brutally Murdered


Czech Philharmonic • Jakub Hrůša
Czech Philharmonic
Introducing himself in Prague in Elgar’s Cello Concerto is 22-year-old British cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason, who won the BBC Young Musician award in 2016. Recently, Jakub Hrůša has been discovering one important composition after another by Josef Suk. This time he chose Epilogue, a late, mature, and highly sophisticated work in praise of love.
Subscription series C
Duration of the programme 1 hod 30 min
Cello Concerto in E minor, Op. 85
Adagio, moderato (attacca)
Lento. Allegro molto
Allegro. Moderato
— Intermission —
Epilogue, a symphonic composition for orchestra, large and small mixed choirs, soprano, baritone, and bass, Op. 37 (40')
Footsteps (Adagio)
Mothers’ Song (Andante semplice)
From Eternity to Eternity (Allegro appassionato)
Mysterious Wonder and Restlessness (Adagio maestoso e mesto)
Pilgrim – Bringer of Consolation (Adagio molto tranquillo)
Sheku Kanneh-Mason cello
Alžběta Poláčková soprano
Jiří Brückler baritone
Jan Šťáva bass
Czech Philharmonic Choir of Brno
Petr Fiala choirmaster
Jakub Hrůša conductor
20 Jan 2022 Thursday 7.30pm
Available seats
21 Jan 2022 Friday 7.30pm
22 Jan 2022 Saturday 3.00pm
Price from 220 to 1100 Kč
Tickets and contact information
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E-mail: info@czechphilharmonic.cz
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When Josef Suk wrote his last composition Sousedská in 1935 for an outdoor ensemble from the village where he was born, he inscribed in the score the comment: “Exemplifying a composition that demands skill from neither the composer nor the players.” This is just one example of Suk’s peculiar sense of humour. At the same time, Suk was very much aware that the path to the highest artistic standards was difficult for both composers and performers. For example, in his Cello Concerto Edward Elgar created what is today one of one of the most famous works for that instrument, but the failed premiere obscured the concerto’s exceptional quality, and as a result the concerto did not become widely known until many years after the composer’s death.
Sheku Kanneh-Mason violoncello
Sheku Kanneh-Mason is already in great demand worldwide. He became a household name in 2018 after performing at the wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex at Windsor Castle, a performance watched by nearly two billion people globally. Sheku initially garnered renown as the winner of the 2016 BBC Young Musician competition, the first Black musician to take the title. He has released two chart-topping albums on the Decca Classics label, Inspiration in 2018 and Elgar in 2020.
Sheku has made debuts with orchestras including the Seattle Symphony, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra, the Atlanta Symphony, Japan Philharmonic, BBC Symphony, London Philharmonic, and Baltimore Symphony orchestras. Highlights this season include performances with the Cleveland Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris, New York Philharmonic, and London Philharmonic orchestras.
In recital, Sheku has performed at venues and festivals around the world from Wigmore Hall London to Carnegie Hall New York. Current and future seasons include appearances at the Barbican Hall London, Berliner Philharmonie, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Suntory Hall Tokyo, and tours of North America, Italy, South Korea and China.
During the Covid-19 lockdown in spring 2020, Sheku and his siblings performed in twice-weekly livestreams from their family home in Nottingham to audiences of hundreds of thousands around the globe.
Sheku began learning the cello at the age of six and now continues his studies with Hannah Roberts at the Royal Academy of Music in London as a Bicentenary Fellow. Sheku was appointed a Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2020 New Year’s Honours List. He plays a Matteo Goffriller cello from 1700 which is on indefinite loan to him.
Alžběta Poláčková is one of today’s most sought-after Czech sopranos. The steady, radiant tone of her instantly recognisable soprano voice lies comfortably on the border between the lyric and the dramatic.
As a opera soloist at the National Theatre in Prague as well as at theatres outside of Prague and on foreign stages, she has performed many title roles in operas in a broad range of styles. She has also presented herself to the public at several festivals in this country and abroad (including the Glyndebourne Opera Festival and Smetana’s Litomyšl) under the leadership of important conductors. In the role of Jitka she took part in a recording of Smetana’s opera Dalibor with the BBC Symphony Orchestra led by Jiří Bělohlávek. Alžběta has collaborated with many important stage directors including Robert Carsen, Alice Nellis, and Calixto Bieito. Alongside Rolando Villazón she took part in the filming of the documentary “Rolando meets Don Giovanni”.
She was born in Prague, where she completed secondary school and then studied at the Academy of Performing Arts in the studio of René Tuček. She is a laureate of several international singing competitions.
The baritone Jiří Brückler completed his vocal studies at the Prague Conservatoire under Jiří Kotouč and at the Academy of Performing Arts under Roman Janál. Already as a student he was making guest appearances at the State Opera in Prague. Victory at the Antonín Dvořák International Singing Competition in Karlovy Vary earned him the opportunity of long-term engagements with opera houses in his native Liberec, and in Pilsen and Brno, where he appeared at first in minor roles. Later he obtained a key engagement at Prague’s State Opera and National Theatre. He is gradually building up a repertoire of leading baritone roles in the worldwide repertoire – The Marriage of Figaro, The Magic Flute, The Barber of Seville, Cinderella, Faust, Romeo and Juliet, Eugene Onegin, The Jacobin, and Werther. He has been repeatedly honoured with nominations for Thalia Awards (for portrayals of Silvia in Pagliacci and of Rodrigo in Don Carlos). He also sings in operas by Janáček, Martinů, and Britten as well as new works by contemporary composers. Jiří Brückler has been honoured by invitations to collaborate with the world famous artists José Cura and Plácido Domingo.
Jan Štáva (*1988, Brno) has been an ensemble member of the Janáček Opera of the National Theatre in Brno since 2010. His repertoire there includes the roles of Baron Ochs (Der Rosenkavalier), Leporello (Don Giovanni), and Kecal (The Bartered Bride). In 2011 he made his debut at the National Theatre in Prague as Osmin (Die Entführung aus dem Serail). Since then, he has appeared there in a number of other roles such as Leporello (Don Giovanni) and Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro). The stages where he has appeared abroad include the Opéra de Paris, the opera house in Montpellier, the Angers-Nantes Opéra, and the Opéra National de Lorraine in Nancy. He has appeared in concert in collaborations with such orchestras as the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestre National de Lyon, and the Philharmonie Leipzig. His concert repertoire includes bass parts in works by J. S. Bach (St John Passion), J. Haydn (The Creation), W. A. Mozart, A. Dvořák, and G. Verdi (Requiem). This season, his appearances will include Papageno (The Magic Flute) at Brno’s National Theatre.
The Czech Philharmonic Choir of Brno choir
The Czech Philharmonic Choir of Brno stands at the pinnacle of the field of choral music at home and in a worldwide context. Conductors, orchestras, and soloists who have worked with the choir speak of it in superlatives. Above all, music critics acclaim its compact sound and broad range of expression. The choir appears at most of Europe’s prestigious festivals and at important concerts. Because of its excellence, each year it gives more than 90 concerts at home and abroad. It collaborates with the world’s top orchestras and conductors. It has an extensive discography and has earned a number of important awards: a 2007 Echo Klassik Award from Germany as ensemble of the year, a 2011 Tokusen Award from Japan for a recording of Dvořák’s Requiem, and a 2019 Classic Prague Award in the Vocal Performance category for its interpretation of Janáček’s Glagolitic Mass. The man behind the choir’s successes is its founder, choirmaster, and director Petr Fiala. The assistant choirmaster is Michael Dvořák.
Choirmaster Petr Fiala graduated from the Brno Conservatoire (piano, composition, conducting) and the Janáček Academy of Performing Arts in the studio of Jan Kapr. Besides teaching (he has been a professor at the Brno Conservatoire) and composing (he has written about 180 compositions), he has been devoting himself intensively to the work of a choirmaster and conductor for over 50 years. Petr Fiala is a laureate of many national and international competitions. He receives invitations to guest conduct Czech and foreign orchestras and choirs. In 1990 he founded the Czech Philharmonic Choir of Brno, and under his leadership it has earned itself a place among Europe’s best choral ensembles. In 2009 the Czech Episcopal Conference honoured Fiala with the Order of Sts. Cyril and Methodius for outstanding achievements as a conductor and composer. In 2013 he received the Brno City Prize in the field of music for his many years of artistic activity and for representing the city of Brno, and in 2016 he won the South Bohemia Region Prize for significant representation of the South Bohemia Region in the area of culture.
Jakub Hrůša principal guest conductor
Jakub Hrůša is Chief Conductor of the Bamberg Symphony, and Principal Guest Conductor of the Czech Philharmonic and the Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia.
He is a frequent guest with the world’s greatest orchestras, including the Vienna, Berlin, Munich and New York Philharmonics; Bavarian Radio, NHK, Chicago and Boston Symphonies; Leipzig Gewandhaus, Lucerne Festival, Royal Concertgebouw, Mahler Chamber and The Cleveland Orchestras; Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, and Tonhalle Orchester Zürich. He has led opera productions for the Vienna State Opera, Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Opéra National de Paris, and Zurich Opera. He has also been a regular guest with Glyndebourne Festival and served as Music Director of Glyndebourne On Tour for three years.
His recording of Martinů and Bartók violin concertos with Bamberg Symphony was nominated for a Gramophone Award, and his Dvořák Violin Concerto CD with the Bavarian Radio Symphony was nominated for a Grammy Award. In 2020, his recordings of Dvořák and Martinů Piano Concertos with Bamberg Symphony, and Vanessa from Glyndebourne, won BBC Music Magazine Awards. Other releases include Dvořák and Brahms Symphonies with Bamberg Symphony, Suk’s Asrael with the Bavarian Radio Symphony, and Dvořák’s Requiem and Te Deum with the Czech Philharmonic.
Hrůša studied at Prague’s Academy of Performing Arts, where his teachers included Jiří Bělohlávek. He is President of the International Martinů Circle and The Dvořák Society. He was the inaugural recipient of the Sir Charles Mackerras Prize, and in 2020 was awarded the Antonín Dvořák Prize by the Czech Republic’s Academy of Classical Music, and – with Bamberg Symphony – the Bavarian State Prize for Music.
The English composer Edward Elgar grew up in the family of a church organist who owned a shop that sold sheet music and instruments. Little Edward began playing the piano at school, and he learned to play the organ by watching his father. He also borrowed a variety of instruments from the family shop and taught himself to play them without receiving any kind of instruction, so he soon mastered not only piano and organ, but also violin, viola, cello, and bassoon. He also began composing in a similar manner. At age 16 he became a free-lance musician, so he got experience mainly as an instrumentalist, church organist, and conductor. He mostly composed choral music, but he did not achieve true renown as a composer until he reached the age of 42, when he wrote his Enigma Variations, Op. 36. The great conductor Hans Richter held the work in high esteem and prepared and led its premiere. The idea of creating a set of variations with a secret, “encoded” theme is indicative of Elgar’s unusual imaginativeness, and as a self-taught composer, he was not under any restraints. The work is a covert tribute to the composer’s wife Alice and to the friends who supported Elgar during the years of uncertainty as he got his start as a composer.
Another of Elgar’s most important works is the Cello Concerto in E minor, Op. 85. Just choosing the cello as a solo instrument represents a great challenge for composers. Antonín Dvořák may have put it most succinctly, once warning his composition pupils that unlike the piano or violin, which are capable of carrying themselves in front of an orchestra as ideal solo instruments, the cello does not possess comparable tonal qualities: “it whines up high and mumbles down low”. It is possible that after Elgar’s Violin Concerto (1907–1910), he was taking on a challenge as Dvořák had done—dealing with a difficult compositional task. The solutions the composer selected definitely hint at this. Elgar chose an unusual four-movement layout that differs from most other concertos and is more typical of chamber music, and Elgar’s concerto has a great deal in common with the chamber music genre. The composer deals with the cello’s sonic limitations by using a very delicate instrumental touch, and the music itself is in fact very personal, even intimate in character. Elgar’s musical language achieves perfection in its musical expression of pain and sorrow. The melancholy phrases that descend ever more deeply into despair and gloom are the key to the interpreter’s grasp of the entire work. The concerto dates from a time of great resignation immediately after the First World War. The composer himself was battling illness, but above all he was affected by the decline of his beloved wife’s health. She managed to attend the concerto’s premiere, but she died the following year. Although the premiere on 27 October 1919 featured the superb cellist Felix Salmond, the London Symphony Orchestra, and Elgar conducting, the performance did not turn out well because of a lack of sufficient rehearsal time. The failed premiere proved to be too much for the concerto. Despite the efforts of many outstanding cellists, it was not until 1965 that the work gained wide recognition thanks to the legendary recording made by Jacqueline du Pré, who was 20 years old at the time.
Epilogue, a symphonic work for orchestra, large choir, small choir, soprano, baritone, and bass, Op. 37
The Czech composer, violinist, and teacher Josef Suk received his basic musical training from his father, a village teacher. The talented boy then got the best possible education at the Prague Conservatoire, where he first studied violin under Antonín Bennewitz, then composition under Karel Stecker and Antonín Dvořák. This is one reason for the unusual maturity of even Suk’s early works. The popular Serenade for Strings in E flat major, Op. 6 even captivated Johannes Brahms, who recommended the work to his publisher Fritz Simrock, although the composer was just 18 years old. As a recent conservatoire graduate, Suk also had other ambitious; immediately after finishing their studies, Suk and some classmates founded a string quartet, which soon earned recognition at home and around Europe. For a full four decades, Josef Suk played second violin in the Bohemian Quartet, performing on prestigious stages and spending a great deal of time on tour in trains and hotels. It is incredible that with such a busy schedule, he was able to focus on composing. His works were attracting the interest of performers and audiences. And Antonín Dvořák—Suk’s former teacher and now his father-in-law—was now satisfied. For example, Dvořák declared Suk’s incidental music to Zeyer’s play Radúz and Mahulena to be “music from heaven”.
Dvořák died in 1904, and a year later Suk’s wife, Dvořák’s daughter Otilie, died of a heart condition at the age of 27. The heartbroken composer later said: “This sad turn of events also brought a definitive turning point in my creative work, giving rise to a symphony bearing the name of the angel of death Asrael”. He dedicated the Asrael Symphony (1905–1906) “to the sublime memory of Dvořák and Otilie”. He gradually created an entire cycle of compositions dealing with serious questions of human existence. After Asrael he wrote Pohádka léta (A Summer’s Tale, 1907–1909) and Zrání (Ripening, 1912–1917), then in 1920 he began sketching the last part of the cycle: “The Harvest of Love”. Only after he had begun work on the composition did he give it the title Epilogue. Suk wrote the first two parts of the tetralogy for large orchestra only, then at the very end of Zrání he added a small women’s choir. In Epilogue he greatly strengthened the vocal component, adding a mixed choir and three solo voices – soprano, baritone, and bass. He selected the text from the Bible and from Julius Zeyer’s legend Under the Apple Tree. His work on the vast score was often interrupted because he assumed new duties in addition to playing in the quartet: teaching composition at the Prague Conservatoire and taking over as the director of the school. This is another reason why Epilogue was written during the long interval between 1920 and 1929 (with final revisions in 1933). The unique compositions flows without interruption, and it is divided internally into five parts (1. Footsteps, 2. Mothers’ Song, 3. From Eternity to Eternity, 4. Mysterious Wonder and Restlessness, 5. Pilgrim – The Bringer of Consolation). The movement titles do not appear in the score, but the composer revealed the titles and the thoughts behind them to his biographer J. M. Květ: “A man walking about the countryside is contemplating the mysteries of life and death until he is gripped by fear of death nearly to the point of despair. At the moment of greatest desperation, a recollection comes to him of a song sung by his mother, and in the beauty of maternal love he becomes aware of earthly love in its purest form. Deep in thought, he sees a vision of a flame rising from the earth, and in its radiance he envisions mankind’s eternal feelings and desires and the questions of life and death. Under the impression of this revelation, his heart is filled with mysterious wonder and restlessness. Redemption comes in the form of a Pilgrim, an embodiment of universal human desire, who rids men of the fear of death and fills them to their depths with the humble certainty that ‘the spirit of eternal love hovers over us’, and that in death are the seeds of new life.”
In reference to Suk’s humorous comment quoted above, it should be added that unlike Sousedská, his Epilogue definitely requires skill from its performers. At the work’s premiere on 20 December 1933 in Smetana Hall at the Municipal House in Prague, joining with three soloists and three Prague choirs were the Czech Philharmonic augmented by additional players and the conductor Václav Talich, to whom the composer dedicated the work. The President of Czechoslovakia T. G. Masaryk was among those present at the successful premiere.


Worcestershire FA Discipline and Safeguarding Update
Worcestershire FA is providing this update as a result of a series of unacceptable incidents taking place in local grassroots football. Incidents have taken place across youth, adult, male and female matches and are not limited to a certain category.
PLEASE NOTE: Some of the content below contains expletives, inappropriate language and discriminatory comments.
Abusive behaviour within football towards anyone is totally unacceptable. Whilst Worcestershire FA can only affect change locally, rest assured that we are operating with a zero tolerance policy.
As recently as last weekend, we had referees verbally abused by players, coaches and spectators due to perceived poor decision making. To be clear: no matter how good, bad or indifferent you think a referees’ performance is, this does not give you any right whatsoever to approach a referee or make abusive comments. A referee will make mistakes, just like the player who misplaces a pass or misses an open goal.
With this in mind, there are teams currently under investigation that have their upcoming fixtures postponed due to the severity of their alleged actions.
Worcestershire FA would like to place on record our sincere thanks to our Leagues who have supported the above action. As well as our Leagues, our Safeguarding and Football Development Teams will also be made aware of these incidents to work with the Clubs to improve behaviour.
The following are real examples of incidents that we have recently dealt with. The sanctions issued are determined by The Football Association (FA) in line with Disciplinary Regulations. Any match-based suspensions are from All Football until the team that the offenders were participating for have completed the relevant number of matches.
1 – A substitute called a qualified assistant referee a “f***ing m***ole” and a “bald sp****c”. The player was charged with Improper Conduct aggravated on grounds of Discrimination. The player received a 7 match suspension, £90 fine and is required to complete an education course if they ever wish to return to football.
2 – A player used abusive langauge to another player, calling them a “p**i”. The player was charged with Improper Conduct aggravated on grounds of Discrimination. The player received a 7 match suspension, £75 fine and is required to complete an education course if they ever wish to return to football.
3 – An adult spectator shouted at a youth referee – a child – calling them a “sp****c”, telling the referee to “find his balls” and aggressively screamed several times regarding decisions. A witness stated “the Match Official was put under immense pressure and said to me he felt scared to give cards”. The spectator received a 302 day suspension (including ground ban), meaning they cannot attend any match to watch their child play during this period, £145 fine and is required to complete an education course if they ever wish to return to football. This individual has also been referred to FA Safeguarding.
4 – A player shouted at a referee that they would “drag me to the car park”. The player was charged with Improper Conduct including Threatening/Abusive behaviour. The player received a 119 day suspension, £75 fine and is required to complete an education course if they ever wish to return to football.
5 – Two youth team coaches were abusive towards a Match Official, making comments such as “f***ing disgraceful”, “you’re a joke”, “you’ve ruined the game” and approached the match official at half time to make derogatory comments related to their performance. The coaches both received a 3 match suspension (including a ground ban), £50 fine and were severely warned as to their future conduct. The two coaches involved in this incident have also been referred to The FA Safeguarding Team.
6 – An adult player went head to head with a referee, which was determined as an Assault – the player was charged with Assault on a Match Official. The player received a 7.5 year suspension from All Football, £100 fine and is required to complete an education course if they ever wish to return to football.
7 – A youth match was abandoned following a mass brawl between players and spectators of both clubs, who then continued the confrontation in the car park after the match. As well as red cards being issued to players, the clubs were charged with failing to ensure that participants conducted themselves in an orderly fashion. The Clubs were fined £100 each and severely warned as to their future conduct, as well as a referral to the Designated Safeguarding Officer for further education.
These are just 7 examples – sadly there are many more that we could have used.
We also remind everyone that our referees aged under 18 – who are children – wear bright yellow #SeeTheSocks and this means that they are safeguarded in the same way as youth players.
For far too long, inappropriate behaviour has taken place within grassroots football with very little accountability. Worcestershire FA promises you that where sufficient evidence exists we will take action. Together with everyone who behaves positively to improve the game, we will enhance the experience for all participants.


Wassim Abdul Khalek • December 6, 2021
Candlelight is gifting New Orleans with an intimate tribute to Taylor Swift in January — And you can now get your tickets!
Swifties, get ready to experience Tay’s hit songs in a whole different way! Candlelight is featuring a talented string quartet on January 27 in New Orleans and they will be playing your favorite anthems by the iconic pop and country music singer-songwriter, Taylor Swift.
From the moment you step into Livaudais Hall, you will be taken away to a warm and beautiful environment. What makes this experience magical is the perfect blend of breathtaking architecture, the glow of hundreds of candles and the soothing sound of a string quartet.
And tickets for this concert have just been released to the public!
Following its enormous success around the world—in cities like London, Manchester, Madrid, Barcelona, and Paris—Candlelight brings its unique experience to New Orleans to pay tribute to one of the most popular pop stars in the world.
Taylor recently redid her classic 2012 album ‘Red’, only this time it is Taylor’s version which means even bigger and glossier. And Fever’s Candlelight series will be playing homage to the most popular and loved songs from ‘Red’ and other albums — like “I Knew You Were Trouble”, “All Too Well” and “Shake it Off”.
The Candlelight series takes place twice each night, with two back to back 60-65 minute performances.
Experience a delightful evening orchestrated by the anthems of the legendary Taylor Swift. Get your tickets here!
Candlelight: A Tribute to Taylor Swift
Sponsored Things To Do


Crows Woes
By Daniel Emilio Amato
With one small step forward comes nine back. The Adelaide Crows are now in uncharted territory as a football club and sporting entity under new coach Matthew Nicks. It has now been one year since their last victory in amy capacity. That’s right… the last time Adelaide won any game of football was Round 20 last season, when they defeated an average St. Kilda outfit by 22 points to keep their below standard 2019 campaign alive.
Now this 365 days of losing may be considered misleading, and the halting of the 2020 AFL Season due to the COVID-19 pandemic is certainly worth taking note of … but you get the picture.
The Crows have lost their last twelve games, rounds 21-23 last year and the first nine games this season, by a combined average of 35 points. This eclipses their previous worst start to a campaign by three (0-6 in 2010) and also the most consecutive losses in club history by two (10 games from 1999-2000). These are officially the darkest days in the proud Adelaide Football Club’s history, which has always maintained a high on-field standard, with the lowest finish in club history being 14th with seven wins, 15 losses in 2011.
August 5th, 2020|


Black Lives Matter Activist Starts "Church For Black Men" In Detroit
(WJBK) - Black Lives Matter Activist & Christian Pastor Jomo Kenyatta Johnson announced he is founding a new Christian denomination of house churches called, "Church for Black Men."
Johnson, a 2014 Westminster Seminary Graduate and former pastor that became known for his radio debate with Rapper Meek Mill, states in his latest book, that Black men are the least churched demographic in America and therefore are in need of a safe place to be unapologetically black while learning and seeking spiritual truth.
According to Johnson, Church for Black Men will be distinct in three ways: 1. the congregations do not meet in a building, but a home; 2. that the Church will not receive financial offerings from its members. 3. The church will forfeit non-profit status in order to speak on political issues.
The belief is that by removing the church's emphasis on money while also addressing political issues that lead to black oppression will enable a greater number of black males to partake.
Johnson, who graduated Seminary in 2014 before working for a number of predominantly White Presbyterian churches stated,
"The reason that Black man do not connect with the American Evangelical church," said Johnson. "Is because we they refuse to suffer with and therefore are unable to communicate in a message by which Black men can understand."
Church for Black Men launched its first Sunday home meeting on February 4th in Detroit, Michigan.


Tag: Fender Electric Instrument Manufacturing Company
The Hardware: Fender Stratocaster
Perhaps no other model embodies the electric guitar more than the Fender Stratocaster
To me the Fender Stratocaster is the Porsche 911 of electric guitars. Similar to the iconic German sports car, the Strat was designed decades ago but its basic shape has remained unchanged.
The Stratocaster was developed by the founder of the Fender Electric Instrument Manufacturing Company (“Fender”) Leo Fender, guitarist and adviser Bill Carson and company associates George Fullerton and Freddie Tavares. It was Tavares who came up with the two-horned body shape, similar to the Precision Bass that Fender had launched in 1951.
Introduced in 1954, the Strat became Fender’s third defining model after the Telecaster and the Precision Bass. While Les Paul built the first solid-body guitar, it was Leo Fender who started mass-producing the first such guitar in 1948, the Fender Broadcaster. A few years later, it was renamed the Telecaster and introduced in 1951. The Telecaster gained quick popularity among country and early rock & roll guitarists.
It is quite amazing that to this day, more than 60 years later, the Telecaster, Precision Bass and Stratocaster continue to be manufactured. By the way, it was Fender’s head of sales Don Randall who came up with the name Stratocaster.
The Strat featured several innovations. It was the first electric guitar with three pickups; the Telecaster had two. The Strat’s rounded edges and deep body and forearm contours were another first. The so-called “Comfort Contour Body” was another contrast to the Telecaster with its squared-off body that dug into the player’s body and picking-hand forearm.
The new shape, which has been attributed to guitarist Rex Gallion, made the instrument more comfortable to play. Gallion reportedly once asked Leo Fender, “Why not get away from a body that is always digging into your ribs?” The new shape also looked pretty cool – there was simply no other guitar like it!
Another key innovative feature of the Strat was its spring tension tremolo system. Leo Fender came up with the design after scraping the initial vibrato system due to poor performance. In the new design the whole bridge moved with the strings rather than having the strings move over rollers with the bridge remaining stationary. The spring tension tremolo system allowed the pitch to vary by at least three half steps.
The tremolo system turned out to be hugely impactful. For example, without this feature, Hank Marvin, lead guitarist of The Shadows, could not have created his signature sound on Apache and many of the band’s other songs. And more than a decade later, Jimi Hendrix’s epic performance of Star-Spangled Banner at Woodstock would not have been possible without his guitar’s vibrato bar.
Despite all of its novel features, the Strat was not an overnight sensation. Many guitarists considered it gimmicky. The early rock & rollers largely relied on flat-top acoustic or big, hollow-body electric guitars by Gibson and Gretsch. Leo Fender and his staff continued tweaking the Stratocaster until 1957 when they finally had improved it to the form that largely has remained unchanged to this day.
The Strat is a versatile guitar that has been used in many music genres, including blues, country, soul, rock, punk, heavy metal and jazz. Following are some of the influential musicians who have played the Strat.
Buddy Holly was the first “Strat hero.” According to Fender’s official website, Holly purchased his first Strat in his hometown of Lubbock, Texas in 1955, with money he had borrowed from his brother Larry. He helped popularize the guitar with his 1957 appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show. Peggy Sue also happens to be one of my favorite tunes from that era.
Hank Marvin reportedly was the first U.K. owner of a Strat. His initial preference for the guitar was based the wrong assumption that his favorite guitarist James Burton, who played with Ricky Nelson at the time, was using that model. “We loved the sound he and Buddy Holly had,” Marvin told Vintage Guitar Magazine in 2006. “We just assumed that James would be using the same, because it seemed to be the top model…That’s how I got my Strat. And it was a beautiful guitar, [Fiesta Red] with a birdseye maple neck and gold-plated hardware.”
Like Buddy Holly, Jimi Hendrix helped popularize the Strat, especially his favorite white-finish version, the guitar he used at Woodstock. Two years earlier, at Monterey Pop Festival, Hendrix also proved you can set a Stratocaster on fire – don’t try this at home!
Eric Clapton became a Strat enthusiast in 1967, after originally having played Gibson guitars. The guitar he used to record Layla was a second-hand 1956 sunburst-finish Strat he had purchased in London in May 1967, which he nicknamed “Brownie.” Clapton’s other main Fender guitar, “Blackie,” was assembled from three different Strats. He used it until the mid-80s. In 1988, Fender introduced the Eric Clapton Stratocaster, the first model in the company’s signature series. Here is Clapton with It’s Too Late, together with Derek & The Dominos.
Rory Gallagher was well known for his battered 1961 sunburst Stratocaster, which he described as “a part of my physical make-up.” Since 1997, Fender’s Custom Shop has built the Rory Gallagher Signature Stratocaster, an exact replica of the Irish blues rocker’s instrument. Here is a clip of a 1977 live performance of Tattoo’d Lady on German TV music broadcast Rockpalast.
Mark Knopfler, another big Strat enthusiast, has been using this Fender model throughout his career. Together with his fingerstyle playing, he created his own signature sound. Sultans of Swing is one of the finest examples. In an interview with Guitar World last year, Knopfler commented on the role his Strat played for the song. “I thought it [the National Steel guitar he used to write the tune] was dull, but as soon as I bought my first Strat in 1977, the whole thing changed, though the lyrics remained the same. It just came alive as soon as I played it on that ’61 Strat.”
Stevie Ray Vaughan is another great guitarist who is closely associated with the Strat. In January 1992, Fender introduced the Stevie Ray Vaughan Stratocaster, a signature model based on his favorite guitar, “Number One.” Here is a clip of Pride And Joy, together with Double Trouble.
David Gilmour is considered to be one of the more influential Stratocaster players since the instrument’s invention, according to Wikipedia. He has played the Strat during his time with Pink Floyd and as a solo artist. Here is a clip of Comfortably Numb, which includes an epic Strat solo.
Buddy Guy has played a Strat throughout his career. There has been a Buddy Guy Signature Stratocaster since the early 1990s. Here’s a clip of one of my favorite Guy tunes, Whiskey, Beer & Wine. It rocks like a Hendrix reincarnation!
Bonnie Raitt has owned a Stratocaster since 1969 and told Guitar Player she hasn’t missed one concert with that guitar since then. She also owns various Bonnie Raitt signature Strats. Here is a clip of Gypsy In Me from her last album.
In 1965, poor health made Leo Fender sell the company to CBS. While Fender significantly grew over the next 20 years, there was a lack of commitment and true understanding of musicianship at CBS. In 1981, it brought in new management to “re-invent” Fender. Eventually, CBS sold the company in 1985 to a group of Fender employees and investors. That transaction started a turnaround of the company and may well be reason why it’s still alive today and hopefully will be around for many years to come.
Sources: Wikipedia; Jeff Owens: The History of the Fender Stratocaster: The 1950s, Fender website; Mental Floss; Guitar Player; Vintage Guitar Magazine; Guitar World; YouTube
Author christiansmusicmusingsPosted on July 4, 2017 November 28, 2020 Categories The HardwareTags Apache, Bill Carson, Bonnie Raitt, Buddy Guy, Buddy Guy Signature Stratocaster, Buddy Holly, Comfortably Numb, David Gilmour, Derek & The Dominos, Don Randall, Double Trouble, Ed Sullivan Show, Eric Clapton, Eric Clapton Stratocaster, Fender Broadcaster, Fender Electric Instrument Manufacturing Company, Fender Precision Bass, Fender Stratocaster, Fender Telecaster, Freddie Tavares, George Fullerton, Gretsch, Gypsy In Me, Hank Marvin, It's Too Late, James Burton, Jimi Hendrix, Layla, Leo Fender, Les Paul, Mark Knopfler, Peggy Sue, Pink Floyd, Pride and Joy, Rex Gallion, Ricky Nelson, Rockpalast, Rory Gallagher, Rory Gallagher Signature Stratocaster, Star-Spangled Banner, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Stevie Ray Vaughan Stratocaster, Sultans of Swing, Tattoo'd Lady, The Shadows, Whiskey Beer & Wine8 Comments on The Hardware: Fender Stratocaster


November government funding for Clapham Junction’s upgrade scheme scrapped
Posted on May 30, 2010 by Cyril Richert
>> Your chance to contribute: tell us what your think on Clapham Junction station redevelopment
Following yesterday’s article on Transport funding cut, I forgot to report on the more specific news regarding the scrapping of the millions promised to upgrade the worst stations in Britain.
The report in Railnews.co.uk on the 26th May says:
“A £50 million DfT grant intended to upgrade the ten worst stations in Britain following the Station Champions’ report last November has been scrapped as part of the Government’s budget cuts.
The Department for Transport has lost £683 million from its budget for this year, as its share of a £6.2 billion reduction in spending ordered by the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
At first, the DfT had only outlined the reductions following the Chancellor’s announcement. They include £309 million withdrawn from councils and a proposed cut of £108 million for Transport for London.
Another item on the brief DfT list had been £100 million cut from the grant to Network Rail, and it’s now been revealed that half that sum is the £50 million which had been allocated to station upgrades in November 2009.“
However all is not lost for Clapham Junction as, according to the article, Network Rail pointed out that funding is also coming from other sources (Manchester Victoria will still go ahead, for example, because only £5 million of the £30 million to be spent there was coming from the Better Stations fund in any case). Clapham Junction is said to be benefiting from other funding. We have not heard of any of them and I would be curious to know what are the other parts of the £10m funding that was promised.
Obviously it gives me mixed feelings:
Although not welcomed, it is understandable that the new government is cutting first the last minute spending from its predecessor.
When we met with Office of Rail Regulation last November, our discussions were not considering the last minute funding provided by the government, and we were focusing on the next budget period, especially CP5 (2014-19). Although it has to be discussed in line of the proposed funding for these period, the topic still remains.
We were outraged by Network Rail saying, when we met with them in January, there won’t be much allocation for Clapham Junction station in CP5 as it already received a lot currently (pointing out the £50m grant for the 10 worst stations). Hopefully they won’t dare use this argument any more to explain their future allowance to CJ station.
Obviously it does not prevent us to carry on with our consultation, giving an opportunity for local residents to have their say o nthe future of Clapham Junction station. I want to believe that we will receive the same support and encouragement from our new MP, Jane Ellison, as we did from Martin Linton.
This entry was posted in The station by Cyril Richert. Bookmark the permalink.


LB Jaylon Smith joins Packers one day after Cowboys drop him
by Shereen Siewert October 8, 2021 October 8, 2021
FILE - In this Monday, Sept. 27, 2021, file photo, Dallas Cowboys linebacker Jaylon Smith leaves the field after an NFL football game against the Philadelphia Eagles in Arlington, Texas. The Cowboys are moving on from Smith without getting into the specifics of the decision to release their leading returning tackler four games into 2021. (AP Photo/Roger Steinman, File)
GREEN BAY, Wis. (AP) — Jaylon Smith has joined the Green Bay Packers, one day after the Dallas Cowboys released the veteran linebacker.
The Packers officially announced Thursday afternoon that they had signed Smith. Packers coach Matt LaFleur had talked earlier in the day about how the former Cowboy would fit in with the Packers.
“I just think (he’s) a veteran guy who’s played at a really high level and just can bring kind of a mentality and leadership to our defense,” LaFleur said.
“Certainly he’s going to be behind quite a bit, being the fact we’re heading to Week 5 and it’s a totally different system, so there’s going to be a lot of work that needs to be put in, not only from him but from our coaching staff to get him up to speed, but we’ll let him kind of come in here and compete to play.”
Smith wasn’t available to practice on Thursday, and LaFleur said it’s “highly unlikely” that Smith would play for the Packers (3-1) as soon as Sunday’s game in Cincinnati (3-1).
When defensive coordinator Joe Barry spoke to reporters late Thursday afternoon, he still hadn’t met Smith. Barry said teaching the verbiage will be the starting point.
“He’s a good football player,” Packers linebackers coach Kirk Olivadotti said after meeting Smith for the first time. “He’s played a ton of football. He can do a lot of different things. To be quite honest, we’ll find out more once we get our hands on him a little bit.”
Smith made the Pro Bowl as an injury replacement in 2019 and led the Cowboys in tackles each of the past two seasons. He had nine tackles against Green Bay during the Packers’ 34-24 victory at Dallas in 2019.
“I remember he was a bad dude in there,” Packers offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett said. “He was definitely somebody we had to account for sideline to sideline, being a force in the middle, so excited to have him on the team.”
Smith’s performance had dipped over the past year. Smith played just 16 snaps in a season-opening loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers as the Cowboys cleared the way for rookie linebacker Micah Parsons, the 12th overall pick in this year’s draft.
The Cowboys released Smith at the same time they anticipated getting linebacker Keanu Neal back after the converted safety missed two games because of a positive COVID-19 test.
“I like him as a person, and he’s a super like friendly, happy guy, even on the field,” Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers said Wednesday when he was asked about Smith.
“He’s a fierce competitor, but he always has a smile on his face. So I appreciate that about him, and it was just more of a respectful competitor-to-competitor conversation after the game.
“I haven’t heard if anything’s been done yet, but in general, I think anytime you add a veteran player to a team, there’s the possibility of a guy getting an opportunity who’s played football before at a high level, and sometimes it just takes an environment switch for some of those guys to play their best football.”
Smith’s pending move to Green Bay would reunite him with LaFleur, who spent the 2014 season as Notre Dame’s quarterbacks coach when Smith was starring for the Fighting Irish.
Smith won the Butkus Award as college football’s most outstanding linebacker the following year, but suffered a severe knee injury in the Fiesta Bowl that dropped him into the second round of the 2016 draft and caused him to miss his entire rookie season.
LaFleur said that Smith was one of his favorite players during his year at Notre Dame.
“He’s got a great presence, No. 1,” LaFleur said. “He’s got an infectious personality. He’s a guy that everybody on the team really gravitated to, was a great leader not only by example but vocal as well. And then he was a pretty damn good player, too. He was the complete package.”
While the Packers seemed on the verge of welcoming a veteran inside linebacker, they also likely lost a reserve outside linebacker for the rest of the season. LaFleur said Chauncey Rivers suffered a significant knee injury during Wednesday’s practice and was placed on injured reserve Thursday.
“My heart goes out to him because I think he was really doing a great job,” LaFleur said. “He was battling. He was getting us snaps on defense, playing on special teams. He came to work every day with a great attitude, a great mentality, was a great teammate in the locker room.”
Tagged: Chauncey Rivers, Dallas Cowboys, Green Bay Packers, Jaylon Smith, Matt LaFleur


Efficiency at core of EPA transport program
HILTON HEAD, S.C.—The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is inviting commercial tire manufacturers as well as truck fleets to join a unique industry-government partnership to improve the efficiency of freight transport, according to a speaker at the Clemson University Tire Industry Conference.
Launched in 2004, the SmartWay Transportation Partnership is designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from truck fleets, promote U.S. energy security and save trucking companies money, said Cheryl L. Bynum, senior policy analyst for SmartWay at the EPA.
“Shippers assess the carbon footprint of their freight operations, using information from carriers that employ SmartWay-verified technologies,” Bynum said. SmartWay partners that have the greatest reductions in their carbon baseline are entitled to use the SmartWay logo in their publicity in recognition of their achievements, she said.
The SmartWay program has doubled in size annually since its inception, according to Bynum. Today it has more than 1,500 partners driving more than 584,000 trucks and representing 7 percent of the trucking industry, she said.
For 2009 alone, SmartWay partners will save 7 million tons of carbon dioxide, 1,000 tons of particulate matter, 41,000 tons of nitrogen oxide, 625 million gallons of diesel fuel, and $1.5 billion in fuel and maintenance costs over the figures recorded before SmartWay was introduced, according to EPA estimates.
Persuading truckers to join SmartWay wasn't easy in the beginning, said Bynum, who worked in the transportation industry before joining the agency.
“Many fleets weren't willing to work with us because they knew us only from the regulatory side,” she said. “They were skeptical, and trucking is a conservative business to begin with.”
The small, mom-and-pop trucking companies that form the base of the industry were particularly hard to reach because they don't necessarily belong to the American Trucking Association and other professional groups, Bynum said. But through public service announcements, booths at truck shows and talks at state trucking association meetings, the EPA got the word out.
“We told them, 'Let us be your environmental consultant,' ” she said. “ 'You might as well get your money's worth because we're doing it for you.' ”
Bynum and other EPA officials met with all truck manufacturers to identify the most fuel-efficient truck models and also the most fuel-efficient truck configurations, including parts and trailers.
The SmartWay program has specifications for parts and configurations across the entire length of a tractor-trailer, including low-rolling-resistance tires with aluminum wheels.
Tractor-trailers bearing SmartWay-approved design features are 10- to 20-percent more fuel-efficient than those without them, Bynum said.
SmartWay-approved truck tires must provide 15-percent lower rolling resistance per axle position than the most commonly used tires in that size, providing 3-percent or greater fuel savings, according to Bynum.
The EPA reviews and publishes a list of SmartWay-approved tires on its Web site and plans to add technical verification/verified products pages to the site, she said. SmartWay also is working with the retread industry to develop a comparable SmartWay specification for retread tires, she said.
Tire manufacturers use different test methods to certify fuel efficiency for SmartWay, Bynum said. These include the J1269 tire rolling resistance test and the J1321 vehicle fuel economy test, both from the Japan Automobile Tyre Manufacturers Association. Tire makers can use vehicle averaging in the J1269 test, as long as at least one tire meets the target figure, she said.
The International Standards Organization should unveil its 28580 rolling resistance test sometime around October of this year, Bynum said. “We want all manufacturers to use this method because it will end variability,” she said.
Purchasing fuel-efficient tires and equipment is expensive, particularly for smaller companies, Bynum said. In recognition of this, SmartWay developed the SmartWay Finance Center at www.smartwayfinancecenter.com.


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Bai Fangli: Selfless donation to poor students
0 Comment(s) Print E-mail CNTV, February 15, 2012
The last instalment of Unsung Heroes series is one hero provided financial help to poor students. But this is no millionaire -- he made a living by pedalling a pedicab. Bai Fangli donated a total of 350,000 yuan to help more than 300 poor students continue with their studies. In 2005, he passed away at the age of 93.
For almost twenty years, to save up for his donations, Bai Fangli peddled his pedicab everyday.
His devotion started in 1987 when he was 74 years old. Bai had prepared to retire and say goodbye to his job.
But after coming back to his hometown, a group of children working in the field aroused his attention.
Bai's daughter, Bai Jinfeng said:" He asked why the children didn't go to school. And our relatives told him that it was because they were too poor to afford tuition. My father was worried so he decided to donate 5,000 yuan to the schools in our hometown. But for him, it was all he owned."
As soon as he returned to Tianjin, Bai went back to work. All of his earnings went to support the needy students.
His sons and daughters tried to persuade him to change his mind, as they wanted him to enjoy a relaxing life. But the father turned a deaf ear to them.
Bai Jinfeng also said:" At that time, he went out at dawn and wouldn't return until darkness fell. He earned 20 to 30 yuan each day. After returning home, he put his earnings in a place carefully."
Bai had always felt regretful that he was illiterate. So he hoped the next generation could change their destiny with education.
Later on, to increase his effort to assist students in need, Bai moved to a simple room near the Tianjin Railway Station. He waited for clients 24 hours a day, ate simple food and wore discarded second-hand clothes he found.
At the age of 82 years old, to his children's surprise, Bai made another decision.
He founded an education support fund with the help of loans.
But his life driving a pedicab continued.
Xu Xiuxiang, one of the workers of Education Support Fund, said:" He never forgot when to give money to the schools and often urged us to give his earnings to the school. Each time he gave the money he felt very happy and said he had completed his mission again."
In 2001, he drove his pedicab to Tianjin YaoHua Middle School, to delivering his last installment of money. Nearly 90 years old, he told the students that he couldn't work any more. All of the students and teachers were moved to tears.
Bai Fangli said:" I hope the students could study hard and get a good job, and then make contributions to our country."
A long journey of supporting and aiding students lasted two decades.
In 2005, he was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer.
Although he had kept none of his earnings for himself, he was left with his selfless spirit and love.
Bai Fangli donated a total of 350,000 yuan to help more than 300 poor students continue with their studies.


Warrant Out For San Jose Real Estate Agent Accused In $500K Scam
Filed Under:Amalek Elyassnia, Arrest warrant, Crime, Fraud, Grand theft, Real Estate, Real Estate Fraud, San Jose
Amalek Elyassnia, a San Jose real estate agent, is accused of scamming investors out of $500,000. (San Jose Police Department)Amalek Elyassnia, a San Jose real estate agent, is accused of scamming investors out of $500,000. (San Jose Police Department)
SAN JOSE (CBS SF) — An arrest warrant has been issued for a San Jose real estate agent charged with scamming victims in a deal involving a building in Modesto, prosecutors said Friday.
Amalek Elyassnia is wanted on 10 charges of grand theft filed by the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office on April 22, Deputy District Attorney Katharina Wells said.
Prosecutors allege that Elyassnia scammed a number of people out of about $500,000 after persuading them to invest in a medical office building in Modesto that did not exist, Wells said.
The district attorney’s office is urging anyone with information about where Elyassnia is to call District Attorney Investigator John Carrillo at (408) 792-2977.
(Copyright 2013 by CBS San Francisco and Bay City News Service. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)


What is a building permit?
A building permit is a license which grants legal permission to start construction of a building. Permits allow the enforcement of codes, standards, and bylaws which have been adopted by the local or provincial governing body. The enforcement of the building code standards and bylaws is carried out to protect the health, safety, and welfare of the public. The governing body which enforces the code is acting to assure safe construction.
Why a building permit?
A building permit provides the means for building officials to protect the public by reducing the potential hazards of unsafe construction and is therefore ensuring public health, safety, and welfare. A building permit helps the public understand what the local or provincial laws are in relation to the construction of a building. Before any construction or any re-modelling work begins applications for a permit should be made. The building permit provides the means for the building official to inspect construction, ensure minimum standards are met, and appropriate materials are used.
A building permit is required prior to most construction. A fee is charged for all building permits.
Contact the Preeceville Town Office at 1-306-547-2810 to find out if your building project will require a Permit.
Permits expire after 6 months from date of issue but may be renewed for a further 6 months without fee.


Natures AidHealthNatures Aid & AFC Fylde Commercial Partnership Announcement
Natures Aid & AFC Fylde Commercial Partnership Announcement
Natures Aid are delighted to announce a partnership with AFC Fylde – the football team of the Fylde Coast. The partnership will see Natures Aid take a presence at Mill Farm, and within the team’s match day programme. We will also be the main match sponsor for this Saturday’s top of the table clash against Kidderminster Harriers!
Natures Aid have supplied the AFC Fylde first team squad with supplements and vitamins crucial to aiding recovery between games for the remainder of this season. The partnership has been welcomed by AFC Fylde manager Dave Challinor who commented, “We’d like to thank Natures Aid for their support, it’s brilliant to be working with a locally based company with a great experience who can offer their products and expert advice to the lads on the run in to the end of the season.”
Tim Gaunt, Technical Director at Natures Aid said; “I am delighted to be working with the players from AFC Fylde with regards to creating a nutritional programme to help achieve optimal performance. The team have a clear goal and I hope that providing the right supplements and advice will help them to achieve this. The supplements that we are using with the players are designed to help them recover more quickly from their training sessions and the games that they play and also provide them with the energy to continue to perform at the same high levels that they have achieved so far this season.”
The partnership has also been welcomed by AFC Fylde Commercial Manager, David Broadbent, “We are delighted to be partnering up with Natures Aid. They are a prominent, locally based, business and employer with very similar values to those of the Club in that they are embedded within the community and are continuously looking to grow. The supplements provided by Natures Aid will prove to be a huge benefit to the AFC Fylde first team as we continue our push for the title and I’d like to thank Chris and Tim for their help and enthusiasm for working with AFC Fylde to develop this partnership over the last couple of weeks and it’s a partnership we’re all excited about.”
From left to right: Caspar Hughes, Brendon Daniels, Dan Bradley, Chris Morrey (Natures Aid), David Broadbent, Dom Collins, Tony Thompson and David Morgan.
AFC Fylde are currently sitting top of the National League North, seeking promotion to the National League for the first time in their history, with the aim of reaching the football league by 2022.
To find out more about our new partners, visit their website: www.afcfylde.co.uk


Ecological transition: the ECB and budgetary authorities referred to their responsibilities
Ollivier Bodin
by Michael Vincent
Financial stability expert, President of Greentervention (for the green and social transition)
by Ollivier Bodin
The 2018/19 European Semester, which coordinates the member states’ economic policies every year, has just been launched. This provides an opportunity to question the contribution of the mix of monetary and budgetary policies to the ecological transition. Paradoxically, it appears it is the ECB that is most advanced in this reflection.
A recent speech by Benoît Cœuré, a member of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank, indeed reports on a quiet revolution in the conduct of monetary policy. According to Cœuré, monetary policy is apparently affected by global warming in three ways. Firstly, new kinds of shock on the economy are emerging whose identification and understanding pose serious problems. In addition, there is uncertainty as to the economic effects of regulations adopted to mitigate and adapt to climate change. Secondly, climate change increases the frequency of natural disasters whose impact may require monetary policies outside the norm. Thirdly, climate change leads to major and lasting changes in physical and human conditions, notably migration flows, whose effects on economic activity and prices will be difficult to determine.
The Central Bank’s primary mandate is monetary stability. It is not on the front line to fight against global warming. However, Cœuré suggests that while pursuing its main objective, the Central Bank can make an important contribution through its policy of directing certain green financing towards “green” investments. By identifying climate change as a major risk for the eurozone, Benoît Cœuré is drawing a new responsibility for the ECB that is clearly of a political nature. The ECB’s consideration of this issue is welcome. But, as highlighted in his speech, this new responsibility without new accountability can arouse criticism. To whom, for example, is the Bank accountable when it decides to favour the fight against climate change over safeguarding jobs in the automotive industry? At a time when the ECB’s political role in crisis resolution is welcomed by some, but regularly contested by others, whether in Germany or Italy, the central banker’s approach to the ecological issue will undoubtedly be questioned.
With his speech, Benoît Cœuré particularly lays the responsibility on politicians who have budgetary and regulatory tools at their disposal. In the absence of a substantial European budget, the combination of national budgetary policies is crucial. The Commission has just adopted the “Annual Growth Survey” which sets out general priorities for the whole EU, and a “recommendation for the euro area”. This year, the climate emergency is taken much better into account in the Annual Growth Survey than in previous years. It is to be hoped that this will ultimately be reflected in the country-specific recommendations. The climate emergency does not feature, however, in the recommendation for the euro area, which continues to be dominated by the so-called excessive budget deficit and excessive macroeconomic imbalances procedures. These procedures, codified after the 2008 crises and from the start of the decade, focus on financial and debt indicators, and completely ignore the impact of the risks posed by global warming on economic and financial stability.
The climate emergency does not feature, however, in the recommendation for the euro area, which continues to be dominated by the so-called excessive budget deficit and excessive macroeconomic imbalances procedures.
The “excessive macroeconomic imbalances procedure” is triggered in the event of financial imbalances or external (current accounts, competitiveness) or internal relative prices (private and public debt, price of certain assets). The analysis “takes account” of the employment situation but disregards the progress to be made towards the energy transition. This is all the more harmful given that all public policies, including those that can have a direct or indirect impact on the energy transition, are likely to be called to the rescue in the event of excessive imbalances. Yet the assessment of a country, for example, with a current account surplus above 6% of GDP (one of the only alert thresholds) and a balanced budget – and the economic policy recomendations thus made to it – should not be the same all the ways. It should depend, for example, on whether it is experiencing growing wage inequality and/or whether it is on a path that will enable it to achieve the 2030 carbon goals, or not. Or the assessment of private sector credit growth exceeding the alert threshold and the recommendations should be different depending on whether it involves the assessment of consumer credit, or financing for investments in the energy efficiency of housing linked to public aid in a country lagging behind on the energy transition goals. The five-yearly report on the implementation of this procedure, which is due out in 2019, will be an opportunity to start thinking about the integration of the climate emergency into this procedure.
It should depend, for example, on whether it is experiencing growing wage inequality and/or whether it is on a path that will enable it to achieve the 2030 carbon goals, or not.
The “excessive budget deficits procedure” does not take account of the challenges of energy transition either. Only the main budgetary aggregates are at issue here. Yet in the long term, better resilience to climate shocks reduces the risks that would be linked to the debt level. By focusing exclusively on debt reduction, the procedure does not encourage arbitrating in the short term in favour of support for public or private investment that would strengthen this resilience and have a beneficial effect on public finance in the long term. For sure, margins of flexibility exist within the procedure that enable certain investments to be deducted before comparing the deficit to the benchmark. But the definition of these margins should be revised to favour investments and spending that have a verifiable impact on the greening of the economy.
The procedures set up after the financial crisis to coordinate the economic policies of the European Union’s member states are no longer adapted to the urgency of the climate change challenge. It is urgent to review the way this works. Before becoming technical, the debate will have to be political and brought during the electoral campaign in order to be picked up by the next Parliament and next Commission.
Ollivier Bodin est économiste.
Michael Vincent est expert en régulation financière et membre de l’observatoire de l’économie de la Fondation Jean-Jaurès.
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HomeIran News NowIran Human RightsIran: New Arrests of Political Prisoners Reveal the Regime’s Insecurity
Iran News NowIran Human Rights
Iran: New Arrests of Political Prisoners Reveal the Regime’s Insecurity
Written by Mansoureh Galestan
There have been reports in recent days of former Iranian political prisoners being re-incarcerated. Furthermore, some reports point to a much broader strategy of harassment, with the families of known activists being caught up in the latest crackdown by the Iranian regime’s authorities. Much of that harassment has been squarely focused on the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI-MEK)
In the final days of 2017, protests against worsening economic conditions gave rise to a nationwide uprising, which featured provocative anti-government slogans and explicit calls for regime change. In the midst of that uprising, the regime’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, delivered a speech that attributed this messaging to the social influence and growing organizational strength of the MEK.
Several dozen peaceful protesters were killed over the course of January 2018, and several political prisoners have since been executed for taking part in this and subsequent anti-government protests that same year. Tehran’s fear of the uprising also led to the regime targeting foreign affiliates of the MEK and utilizing a terrorist network within Iranian embassies toward that end. In July 2018, a high-ranking Iranian diplomat was arrested by German authorities after being identified as the mastermind of a foiled plot to bomb the annual gathering of Iranian expatriates organized near Paris by the National Council of Resistance of Iran.
The latest crackdown on dissent inside Iran is an extension of all these activities, but it is also a response to their repeated failure. This defiance took on new dimensions in November 2019 when the regime’s announcement of a spike in gas prices turned out to be the spark for an even larger nationwide uprising.
For just over a week in the middle of that month, furious protests took place in nearly 200 cities and towns, featuring many of the same slogans as had defined the previous uprising. The second protest movement would have surely lasted longer than the first, if not for the fact that it immediately met with what may have been the worst political repression Iran has seen in more than 30 years.
Unsurprisingly, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps took the lead in that repression, firing live ammunition into crowds and recognizably shooting to kill. The NCRI released reports indicating that 1,500 people had been killed across a number of cities, while 4,000 more had been wounded and 12,000 arrested. Since then, it has been revealed that a number of those arrestees are facing the death penalty, while all those who are still behind bars are at serious risk of torture, Covid-19 infection, and medical neglect.
The death toll from last November’s IRGC shooting incidents pales in comparison to the 1988 massacre of political prisoners, but 1,500 is a shocking number of civilian casualties by any objective standard. In fact, supporters of the Iranian Resistance have expressed concern that Tehran may have gauged the international response to last year’s killings in order to determine whether it can expect to get away with further killings, which might push the death toll closer to the record set in 1988. And if this is the case, it must be acknowledged that the international community has so far given the regime little incentive to change course and spare the lives of political dissidents.
On November 11 alone, agents of Iran’s Intelligence Ministry conducted raids on the homes of several activists and former political prisoners, including Saeed Asghari, Saeed Samimi, and Kasra Bani-Ameriyan. Those three individuals had all previously been detained in March 2018, when the regime was still reeling from the effects of the initial uprising. They had all been subjected to two months of interrogation before being released on bond, and their re-arrest does not appear to be based on anything other than a desire to exert more pressure on those whom the regime fears may still make trouble or contribute to unrest.
It is probably no coincidence that the raids in question coincided very closely with the anniversary of the November 2019 uprising. The Iranian Resistance has made strong efforts to commemorate that anniversary over the past two weeks and to memorialize the 1,500 victims of the IRGC’s reprisals. But when they have tried to do so in public spaces inside Iran, their efforts were obstructed by regime authorities, who even went so far as to close cemeteries where some of the victims were interred. Such actions betray the regime’s awareness of the symbolic significance of the anniversary, as well as the underlying danger that unrest could resume at any time.
Regime officials have acknowledged that danger themselves, sometimes identifying the MEK by name in its warnings about the explosive state of Iranian society. It is therefore little surprise that figures like Alireza Salar and Seyyed Reza Zargar have recently been arrested. Both of these individuals had loved ones who were members of the MEK in the 1980s before they were executed on political grounds. In reopening these wounds, the regime seems to be signaling that it fears the November anniversary will shine a light on simmering outrage not just over last year’s killings but also over the entire history of repression by the regime.
Naturally, Tehran’s reaction to the anniversary puts countless activists at risk. But if that risk can be mitigated, the potential for another uprising could present the regime with its greatest challenge yet. Western powers could help to realize that challenge, and all they would need to do is uphold their own commitments to universal human rights.
Toward that end, the NCRI issued a statement in response to recent arrests, in which it urged “the United Nations Secretary-General, the Human Rights Council, the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the UN Special Rapporteurs, and all human rights organizations to take urgent action to secure the release of political prisoners” and to establish “an international fact-finding commission to visit Iran’s prisons and meet with prisoners, especially political prisoners.”
MEK-Iran
Iran Human Rights
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Iran Opposition & Resistance
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Visiting National Trust Properties (Dorset) in Summer 2020 with Phased Re-openings
Over the last few weeks, the UK has started to lift restrictions and more of our favourite places are becoming accessible again. National Trust has opened more than 100 of their parklands and gardens but visits need to be pre-booked so they can limit the number of visitors.
Tickets can be pre-booked each Friday via their website and you can pick a slot which suits you. The more popular locations such as Stourhead are getting fully booked almost immediately but we have managed to book tickets for Corfe Castle and Kingston Lacy here in Dorset without any problems. Members and non-members can pre-book but non-members will have to pay in advance. For us as members, we just had to enter our membership number and our spaces were booked. When booking you have to pick a 30 minute arrival time but there are no restrictions on how long you stay, although they cannot guarantee entry if you're late for your slot.
Our first place we visited was Kingston Lacy (we've been twice recently) and we love it here, the grounds are so pretty and the kids love the space to run around! When we arrived in the car park there was a member of staff who ticked our name off the list and that was it, we didn't need to show our membership card.
Our timeslot was 2pm and it was very quiet, although there were cars in the overflow too. We followed the path in and there were clear signs regarding the walks around the garden and woodland trail. There was a one-way system in place which worked well. There were lots of families enjoying the sunshine but it was very easy to maintain a distance, even on the paths.
The Kitchen Garden is currently closed but we still had a pleasant walk around, passing the Japanese Garden and the beautiful meadow area. I've never actually seen the meadow in bloom like this, the daisys were so pretty.
The children enjoyed climbing trees, rolling down the hill on the front lawn, and best of all, playing hide and seek in the long grass!
The cafe was open on both our visits but just as a takeaway, there is no seating in the stables and the picnic tables have been moved onto the grassy area near the entrance. The toilets were also open and there was extra sanitiser available.
Corfe Castle is another favourite of ours and we were so excited to visit again. We arranged to meet some friends there and we both booked our tickets on the Friday before with no issues.
When we arrived in Corfe, I did notice that the carpark was very quiet and I assume this was because of restricted numbers in the castle. The visitors centre and toilets were also closed.
It's a really pleasant walk from the carpark, the path takes you around the foot of the castle and it's away from the road so alot safer for the children. There's a great little trim trail to climb along too which my kids love!
Once at the castle, we gave our names to the member of staff at the ticket tent and we were ticked off the list. Like Kingston Lacy, we didn't need to show our tickets or membership number.
Our visit to the castle was much like previous visits however there is a one way route to follow around certain parts. This worked well and due to the low number of visitors, we didn't feel rushed. The children were able to explore and have as much fun as normal!
If you fancy a treat after your visit, the National Trust tearooms are open (public toilets too!), We decided to order fish & chips from The Greyhound pub which is right outside the entrance to Corfe Castle. We weren't able to sit in the beer garden as there were still restrictions in place when we visited, but we were allowed to take our food back into the Castle grounds where there were tables and chairs available.
Lunch with a view!
It's fantastic that the National Trust have put all these measures in place so visitors can still enjoy a day out at their many properties. If you are thinking about booking a visit then I would definitely recommend going online as early as possible on a Friday morning to give you more chance of getting tickets.
For more information, please visit https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/
Labels: corfe castle, days out, dorset, family days out, kingston lacy, National Trust
Visiting National Trust Properties (Dorset) in Su...