text:
Rationing and resource gatekeeping in the NHS is the consequence of privatisation
People march through London yesterday to mark 70 years of the NHS.
Gatekeeping has become a watchword within our public services over the past seven years. It's being driven by the government's deep affection for neoliberal dogma, the drive for never-ending 'efficiency savings' and the Conservatives' lean, mean austerity machine. Perish the thought that the public may actually need to use the public services that they have funded through their contributions to the Treasury, in good faith.
In the NHS, even the resource gatekeepers have gatekeepers, those receptionists standing sentry at the end of the telephone, and in general practices, who ration access to the GPs so assiduously we patients often get better before we've managed to arrange an appointment. Or ended up at an Accident and Emergency Department.
Only a service dedicated to keeping the public and service providers apart could have devised a system so utterly demeaning. It turns patients into supplicants and receptionists into bouncers who make decisions they are unlikely to be qualified to make, neither being roles to which any of us aspired.
Now, it has been decided that the NHS needs to scrap more medical procedures, including injections for back pain, surgery to help snorers and knee arthroscopies for arthritis, which form part of an initial list of 17 operations that will be discontinued completely or highly restricted by NHS England as many of these problems "get better without treatment."
I can assure you that arthritis of the knee, or anywhere else for that matter, doesn't tend to get better. Medical interventions can help patients with 'managing' the condition, however.
Varicose vein surgery and tonsil removal also feature on the list of routine operations to be axed as part of NHS England's drive to cease "outdated" and "ineffective" treatments.
The latest round of rationing is hoped to save £200m a year by reducing "risky" or "unnecessary" procedures. Patients are to be told they have a responsibility to the NHS not to request "useless treatment."
However, complications from varicose veins, for example, include leg ulcers which require more costly specialist treatment to help them heal.
Steve Powis, the medical director of NHS England, said: "I'm confident there is more to be done", adding that the list of 17 operations formed "the first stage" of rooting out futile treatments that are believed to cost taxpayers £2bn a year.
"We are also going to ask 'Are there other procedures and treatments we should add to the list?'. Additions could include general anaesthetics for hip and shoulder dislocations and brain scans for patients with migraines.
Hip and shoulder dislocations are notoriously excruciating, as is the process of having the joint relocated, though the latter is short-lived. It's particularly brutal to leave patients without pain relief, and especially children.
The reason why brain scans are often very important when people develop migraine symptoms is that they can determine whether the severe headaches are caused by something more serious, such as a subarachnoid haemorrhage (which happened to me) or a tumour (which happened to my mother). Sometimes 'migraines' are something else.
Powis added: "We have to spend taxpayers' money wisely. Therefore, if we are spending money on procedures that are not effective, that is money we could spend on new treatments that are clinically effective and would provide benefits to patients. It's absolutely correct that, in getting more efficient, one component of that is to make sure we are not undertaking unnecessary procedures."
The rationing comes as the government prepares to raise taxes and ditch an increase to the personal income tax allowance to pay for NHS funding plans. According to proposals, £20.5bn of extra funding would be set aside for the health service by 2023. In a speech at the Royal Free hospital in London a fortnight ago, Theresa May said tax rises were inevitable.
However, there doesn't seem to be any indication that this additional measure will ensure the public has value and adequate health care for their money.
The prime minister said: "As a country, taxpayers will need to contribute a bit more.But we will do that in a fair and balanced way. And we want to listen to people about how we do that, and the chancellor will bring forward the full set of proposals before the spending review."
Here are the 17 treatments NHS England may axe
Four procedures will only be offered at the request of a patient:
Dilation and curettage for heavy menstrual bleeding
Knee arthroscopies for osteoarthritis
Injections for non-specific back pain
A further 13 treatments will only be offered when certain conditions are met:
Removal of benign skin lesions
Grommets for glue ear
Haemorrhoid surgery
Hysterectomy for heavy menstrual bleeding
Removal of lesions on eyelids
Removal of bone spurs for shoulder pain
Carpal tunnel syndrome release
Dupuytren's contracture release
Excision of small, non cancerous lumps on the wrist called ganglia
Varicose vein surgery
Some of these procedures do improve the quality of people's lives. I'm wondering how this sits with the government's drive to push people with disabilities and medical conditions into work.
Although it was announced recently that the NHS is to hire 300 employment coaches to find patients jobs to "keep them out of hospital." It's what the government probably calls the 'two birds and one bullet' approach.
Yesterday, tens of thousands of people marched through London to mark the NHS's 70th anniversary and demand an end to government cuts and further privatisation of the health service. Bearing placards reading "Cuts leave scars", "For people not profit" and "Democracy or corporate power" demonstrators moved down Whitehall on Saturday afternoon to the chant of "Whose NHS? Our NHS".
The protesters stopped outside Downing Street to demand Theresa May's resignation en route to the stage where they were greeted by a choir singing "the NHS needs saving, don't let them break it". Shortly after, Jeremy Corbyn addressed the crowd – organisers said there were about 40,000 people present – demanding an end to privatisation, the closure of the internal market, for staff to no longer be subcontracted to private companies and for social care to be properly funded.
Corbyn said: "There have been huge attacks on our NHS over many years," he said. "The Tories voted against the original legislation and have always sought to privatise it and continue an internal market.
"Paying money out to private health contractors, the profits of which could and sometimes do, end up in tax havens around the world.
"Think it through, you and I pay our taxes because we want a health service for everybody, I don't pay my taxes for someone to rip off the public and squirrel the profits away."
I absolutely agree.
A brief history of the travailing NHS under Conservative governments
The government has failed to adequately fund the NHS since taking office as part of the coalition in 2010, and has overseen a decline in the once widely admired public health service, as a way to privatise it by stealth.
The Tories have utilised a spin technique that carry Thatcher's fingerprints – it's called 'don't show your hand.'
Jeremy Hunt and the Conservatives insist the NHS is 'safe in our hands'
The direction of travel was set 25 years ago by the NHS review announced by Margaret Thatcher on the BBC Panorama programme in January 1988. The Conservatives have a poor track record with the NHS. Thatcher ushered in the NHS internal market, the mechanism that introduced what many in the health service still revile: competition.
Health authorities ceased to run hospitals but instead "purchased" care from hospitals who had to compete with others to provide it and became independent, self-governing trusts. The stated aim was to 'increase efficiency' and 'eliminate waste' through competition. Yet by the time John Major was prime minister, we saw the crisis deepen, with the postcode lottery and patients parked on hospital trolleys in hospital corridors for hours on end, waiting to see a worn out, overworked doctor.
In order to assess the impact of Thatcher's legacy on healthcare, it's essential to appreciate that NHS market reforms began on her watch. Even the apparently relatively minor step of outsourcing hospital cleaning services was to cast a dark shadow over hospital care decades later. Putting cleaning services out to competitive tender meant that the job of cleaning wards went to the lowest bidder – often to companies that used casual, untrained staff, supplied by job centres. The contrast between the high quality of surgical treatment and the dirtiness of wards became notorious. The level of hospital-acquired infections grew steadily, including those caused by 'superbugs' including MRSA.
A study published by the Health Service Journal laid the blame for the rise of antibiotic resistant infections on poor hygiene standards; finding hospitals full of rubbish, uncollected left-over food in canteens and dirty linen strewn over bedroom floors. The impact outsourcing has had on cleaning services has been a constant source of tension since those early reforms. While trade unions and medical professionals have consistently argued against it, business leaders have always rejected any connection between outsourcing, infection rates, and declining standards.
Public sector outsourcing is central to the present government's ideological strategy, despite the evidence that is now stacked against it being genuinely 'competitive'. Since 2010, the number of large contracts awarded has increased by over 47% with tens of thousands of workers in various sectors – health, defence and IT – being transferred to corporate employers like Serco, Capita and G4S. The UK's public sector has become the largest outsourcing market in the world, accounting for around 80% of all public sector contracting in Europe. These multinationals are not particularly interested in competition; they're interested in profit and being in a monopoly position where they can dominate the market. Despite the wake of scandals that follows these companies, growth in the public sector outsourcing market shows no signs of slowing and the government shows no signs of learning from these events.
Thatcher wanted to introduce even more radical changes – such as a shift to an insurance based healthcare model, with 'health stamps' for the poor – but in a busy decade, it seems that her battles with trade unions and left-wing Labour councils took priority.
It was under Thatcher's administration that the climate of austerity began within the NHS.
Then there was the Black Report into health inequalities, published in 1980 after a failed attempt by the Conservatives to block its publication, noted that health inequalities in the UK were linked to socio-economic factors such as income, housing and conditions of work. The government rejected the report's findings and recommendations.
Conservatives published a policy book called Direct Democracy in 2005. It claimed that the NHS was "no longer relevant", and a system was proposed whereby patients were funded "either through the tax system or by way of universal insurance, to purchase health care from the provider of their choice" – with the poor having their contributions "supplemented or paid for by the state". The authors included the current health secretary Jeremy Hunt.
Against a backdrop of austerity and public cuts, healthcare facilities are continuing to contract out their facilities management and clinical services. But, the practice remains deeply controversial and the consequences are becoming more visible.
Thatcher's competitive tendering was introduced for cleaning, catering and other ancillary non-medical services, and were extended by the Tories in the '90s under the NHS and Community Care Act – the first piece of legislation to introduce an internal market into the provision of healthcare. This was followed by the Private Finance Initiative (PFIs) in 1992 under the Major government. Lansley's reforms – premised on 'increasing the diversity of providers in the management of the NHS' – represent only the culmination of this legacy.
A centrally funded health service has demonstrated its a major contribution to reducing health inequality, by permitting healthcare practitioners and policy makers to design services and deliver care based on need, not the profit incentive. An increasingly privatised NHS has simply led to rationing and inadequate healthcare.
The biggest single contribution to health inequality is social inequality, a problem that has deteriorated significantly in the wake of the Conservative agenda of combined economic austerity and welfare reform.
Image courtesy of Robert Livingstone
The Coalition has deliberately financially trashed the NHS to justify its privatisation
Rogue company Unum's profiteering hand in the government's work, health and disability green paper
Private bill to introduce further charges to patients for healthcare services is due for second reading today
Labour challenge government about 'shocking' rise in coroner warnings over NHS patient deaths
I don't make any money from my work. I am disabled and don't have any paid employment. But you can contribute by making a donation and help me continue to research and write informative, insightful and independent articles, and to provide support to others. The smallest amount is much appreciated – thank you.
July 1, 2018 · Posted in Austerity, Neoliberalism, NHS · Tagged #privatisation, Andrew Lansley, Gatekeeping, Jeremy Corbyn, Jeremy Hunt, John Major, Margaret Thatcher, Outsourcing, PFI, Rationing, Steve Powis, Theresa May ·
24 thoughts on "Rationing and resource gatekeeping in the NHS is the consequence of privatisation"
Treatments should not be proscribed for non medical reasons. Heavy bleeding causes anaemia, bone spurs whic cause shoulder pain result in reduced mobility. You could make a different list with equal validity, gastric bands for obesity, infertility treatments, and so on. I suggest the list is political, in the sense of choosing targets which will on a casual glance seem ok. I was recently treated (not in U.K.) for a broken, displaced hip. If dislocation is as painful as this I can't imagine how anyone could suggest not using anaesthetic, and surely the choice should be governed by the medical assessment of the patient.
hugosmum70 says:
itll be back to chloroform next or worse still getting people drunk so they (assumedly) dont feel their leg being sawn off/ from pictures i have seen during my nurse training re the history of medicine it didnt look to me like the man enduring that operation was enjoying it. drunk or not.he looked to be in agony.
now…what follows is not saying i dont believe things are bad in hospitals.. on the contrary…. but last weds i had occasion to go to our local A& E department having ripped the 3 layers of skin off the back of my hand on a protruding nail. on arrival i saw the registration clerk in a matter of minutes. told to sit and wait, which i did, noticing a kind of light box which told you how long you could be waiting to see a Dr. (in this instance 2hrs 28mins) and how many patients were waiting …….19…i looked around and saw only about 6 at most. ok. "wonder where the other 13 are?" thinks I. dismissing it as maybe outside having a cigarette or already in cubicles waiting the next phase of the routine. ok. i set to reading a small booklet i had in my bag thinking i might as well if im going to be waiting so long. first paragraph of 6 lines and i was called in. a lovely male nurse practitioner who assessed the damage (yes it needed stitches but its not a good idea on back of hands so 12 or so sterri-strips, a piece of inidine gauze, square of normal gauze and a light bandage later i was done (10 minutes ..possibly 15) from walking in the door to walking out again and still very few others around in the waiting area. i had asked the nurse about the lack of countable bodies in the waiting area and did they really have patients laying on trollies in the corridors. answer was… only when they had no beds and my guess had been right about hardly any one waiting..but as an ex nurse who spent part of her training on A&E back in the early 60's and seen waiting rooms brimming over and knew Leeds infirmary at one point had beds down centre of wards as well as each side, you can imagine that now I feel a tad confused. I've heard so much about whats happening to the NHS and i am a strong Labour supporter so really do not want to distrust any of what i have heard but this experience does make you wonder. admitted was a red hot day, not middle of winter which i suppose makes a big difference. but what are the experiences of others in their local hospitals?
Kitty S Jones says:
I've ben left on a trolley in a corridor after being taken to A & E following a seizure. The corridor was full – many elderly people, one lady was in agony as she'd had a prolapse, and she also suffered from Alzheimers anddidn't understand what had happeneed to her. She was there at least 1 hour, so was I.
Last time I was at the hospital I was in septic shock through pneumonia, I was seen immediately and I remember being very carefully monitored in between all the tests and lung x ray. But there was no room in the ICU, and I spent half the night in a room on my own, though I had round the clock care, with drips and slow injections, BP, temp, oxygen therapy and so on.
Liz Douglas says:
Not a lot likely I'll come across more .. Here's the first newspaper article https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/nhs-world-ranking-uk-healthcare-worse-ireland-spain-slovenia-30th-lancet-a7744131.html https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(17)30818-8/fulltex The Kings Fund "Although the UK's performance against international benchmarks of health care quality is variable, British people rate the quality of their health care highly, and most are satisfied with the NHS overall. However, in a global online survey of public opinion, 47 per cent of British respondents thought quality would get worse over the next few years, making them the most pessimistic of the 23 countries surveyed." https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/publications/articles/big-election-questions-nhs-international-comparisons
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Jeremy Corbyn is set to claim there is mounting evidence austerity and inequality are "killing people", in a speech marking the 70th anniversary of the creation of the NHS.
Pledging to "declare war" on health inequality, the Labour leader will also promise to increase funding for the overstretched health service and launch a "national mission" to confront causes of ill health and deprivation.
It comes after Mr Corbyn joined thousands marching through London on Saturday, demonstrating against "deliberate" underfunding of services, nurses and health staff that has "pushed our NHS to the brink".
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/jeremy-corbyn-mounting-evidence-austerity-is-killing-people-government-cuts-labour-welfare-a8424381.html
Over the last two or three weeks, I've heard it said that the UK has the worst health service, and he lowest state pensions in the whole EU. Have you any idea whether these statements are true? Can they possibly _be_ true?? I can accept that things are most probably better in parts of northern Europe where they seem to think that the state should take care of its citizens, but the UK worse even than places like Greece and Portugal, not to mention all the former eastern block EU members. Does anyone have any reliable figures?
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tomiejones says:
Reblogged this on circusbuoy.
Mark Catlin says:
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Kitty.this is what i was getting at. your experience i know is similar to experiences of a lot of people. thats why i was so taken aback at how quickly i was seen and the nurse practitioners expertise was faultless. but the near empty waiting room i was shocked at because i had fully expected to see it heaving..i have never seen it almost empty on any occasion i have landed up going there in the past either for myself or with someone else.perhaps the blazing hot weather had something to do with it. (well you never know do you?the weather gets blamed for everything these days.)
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mohandeer says:
Reblogged this on Worldtruth.
Pingback: "Rationing and resource gatekeeping in the NHS is the consequence of privarisation" | Politics and Insights | COMRADE BOYCIE
cadxx says:
"State Crime By Proxy: corporate influence on state sanctioned social harm"
http://truepublica.org.uk/united-kingdom/research-paper-state-crime-by-proxy-corporate-influence-on-state-sanctioned-social-harm/
seachranaidhe1 says:
Reblogged this on seachranaidhe1.
snaithmagmailcom says:
loobitzh says:
I have developed a large filo-form Wart which is hanging down from the inside of my nose.
After trying various treatments to get rid of it and failing I went back to GP as the hospital had advised I would be eligible to have it surgically removed.
My GP applied for special funding and I got the decision back from her yesterday.
Note. it is my GP who applies for the funding on my behalf.
Have typed the relevant paras from the letter the CCG sent my GP below..
The CCG has clinical criteria that must be satisfied for patients requiring this procedure…….
we are unable to agree to funding as the evidence provided does not demonstrate that the required criteria have been met.
It then drivvels on about exceptional Funding Request panel meetings etc…..
BaNES CCG requires the following to be demonstrated to fund any treatments/procedures under exceptional circumstances: (here comes the Orwellian twist…)
"The patient is significantly different to the general population of patients with the condition in question and…
The patient is likely to gain significantly more benefit from the intervention than might be normally expected for a patient with that condition.
The fact that a treatment is likely to be effective for a patient is not, in itself, a basis for exceptionality."
I have been advised that I could make a case as I am a cellist and perform solo etc. But this just seems plain discriminatory to me.
How is their criteria clinical in any way? It appears to me to be based on prejudice and wholly subjective.
~As for the use of scientific language such as "significant difference" etc. its deceitful. Gives the illusion of science when their criteria appears to me to be irrational and un-quantifiable!
No doubt this obfuscational style of language is there by design. to confuse and make things opaque.
Putting people off questioning decisions.
So appears unless I go private (think thats the end game here), I shall have to suffer the consequences of being stared at constantly by people who at first glance see something unsightly hanging from my nose which could easily resemble a large bogey!
Just a quick one for you Kitty
UN Special Rapporteur invites contributions from individuals & organisations working on issues related poverty human rights incl representatives of civil society organisations experts academics to provide input for preparation of his visit November 2018 https://shar.es/a13EH6
MadManagement says:
Really good article Kitty the Tories have nothing but bad intent for the NHS. In my blog I've been uncovering the horror show which is thew Tory management of the NHS. Please have a look if you can https://wordpress.com/post/jcashbyblog.wordpress.com
Too dim to figure out how to find you kitty will check twitter just wanted you to see this
Universal credit IT system 'broken', whistleblowers say
Service centre staff say glitches having harmful effect on huge number of claimants
Case studies: 'It was more about getting them off the phone'
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/jul/22/universal-credit-it-system-broken-service-centre-whistleblowers-say
blurredlines says:
This is gold. I absolutely love this. Passion bleeds off the page as much as common sense. Brilliant
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The government's eugenic turn violates human rights, costing families at least £2,800 each so far, according to DWP statistics
I'm a disabled person and Sarah Newton is an outrageous, gaslighting liar


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In 1970, together with Gianni Ascarelli, Evaristo Nicolao and Maurizio Macciocchi, he created Transit Design, a Group which operates in the fields of architecture, urbanism, design and interior design. Within Transit Design (www.studiotransit.it), he is presently responsible for the interior design and the design departments, with the assistance of Fabrizio Campaiola, Daniela Corrente, Matilde Guerra, Regina Morgioni and Alessandra Seggiani. The guiding principles which inspire his work in interior design may be found in each particular project. Among such principles are interpretation of the preexisting context, continuity with the site and culture to which it belongs, synthesis between languages of the past (so often visionary) and signs of our times, search for the correspondence between shape and its content.
One cannot be without having been
Each project is born and takes shape through the "métier" of the architect who, by preserving and giving life to the spaces - and who, by doing so, often discovers unexpected potentials – explores the capability of our construction and decoration tradition to describe itself, translated and decoded to meet the requirements of our times. The results of this constant research materializes into a project/organism whose complexity and consistency is utterly clear, both in its entirety and in its details: the design.
Each piece takes shape and life from the whole in which it is contained and from the character that distinguishes it, and expresses itself through an essential and rigorous design. By renewing itself in ancient and new shapes, each piece evokes the context from which it originated and tells its own history.

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I've swum with wild dolphins in the Maldives, fed baby kangaroos in Australia, spent hours in the shopping malls of Dubai and crash-landed a hot-air balloon in Poland – having spent the last decade travelling and freelancing, I am a joyful, nosy traveller, always meeting new experiences head on. I enjoy digging into the culture, listening to what's happening around me and taking thousands of photos on the way. Thanks to two decades of travelling extensively through Europe, the Middle and Far East and the Caribbean, I know the cities and countries I write about inside out. And even though I live in the Yorkshire Dales – surely the most beautiful place on earth – I never lose my enthusiasm for skiing in Zermatt, visiting my favourite cities in Italy and Poland or discovering new places to shop in Dubai.
Blackpool isn't quite yet a gastronomic destination in northwest of England; but it's slowly and surely shrugging off its reputation for serving little else but fish 'n' chips in soggy newspaper, or heart-attack-inducing full English breakfasts. With the help of a huge array of bars, cafés, pubs, and quality restaurants, there's something to suit every pocket as well as the very pickiest of junior diners.
As Blackpool is primarily a family seaside resort, most restaurants offer a simple children's menu for fussy young eaters (think burgers and spag bol).
Most restaurants in the UK take credit and debit cards, but some cafés and pubs may only accept cash.
Around a 10% tip is sufficient in restaurants, but staff in bars and pubs do not expect a tip.
Blackpool welcomes a lot of families, so evening service in restaurants starts early, with many commencing at around 5pm.
Step back in time to enjoy that most English of institutions – the afternoon tea – in the most English of surroundings: Blackpool Tower Ballroom. This spectacular red velvet and ornately gilt dance hall is famous the world over for its legendary Wurlitzer organ. Pass a sweetly sentimental afternoon, accompanied by neat cucumber sandwiches, cream-filled scones, and delicious pastries - as well as endless cups of tea - while watching couples swirling around the dance floor to show-time dance tunes from yesteryear. And if you want to show off your sharp footwork, just get up and join in!
There are three daily time slots for afternoon tea at the Ballroom – noon, 1pm, and 2pm.
There are often themed tea dances at the Blackpool Tower Ballroom – such as a special 1940s afternoon or a salsa session – so check ahead online to see what's coming up.
Part of the ongoing Blackpool foodie revolution, Toast is a cool, newly designed café, with bare brick and stripped pine décor, knowledgeable - and smiley - service, and a thrumming cocktail bar. With a fast turnover of stuffed baguettes, burgers, and pizza during the day, the restaurant turns serious in the evening with internationally influenced dishes, featuring anything from tapas to fresh mussels or risotto, all freshly cooked to order from local ingredients.
Kids get to eat free of charge between 3pm-6pm Sunday to Thursday, when adults buy one main course and a drink.
Toast is open 10am-10pm Sunday to Thursday, and 9am-11pm Friday and Saturday.
Want to channel your inner James Bond? The Toast mixologists hold regular 90-minute cocktail master classes.
There is another branch of Toast in St Annes, Blackpool's upmarket seaside neighbour.
Decked out in bright reds and cozy greens, and voted among the top three Chinese restaurants in the UK for 2014 by tripadvisor users, Michael Wan's Mandarin is fast approaching its 55th year. Along with all the usual suspects - chow mein and crispy duck - are some unusual dishes such as spicy nasi goreng pork noodles from Indonesia, Cantonese fish and tofu stew, and shared multi-course banquets which are excellent value and all cooked without MSG. Unusually for a Chinese restaurant, Mandarin also has a decent list of European and New World wines.
Bookings must be made at least four days in advance.
Mandarin is open Monday to Thurday 5.30pm-10.45pm, Friday and Saturday 5.30pm-11.45pm, Sun 5.30pm-10.30pm.
Mandarin has a "Little Panda" menu for kids (chicken satay and chips or stir fry) and there are pre-theatre and midweek options on the menu too.
Wednesday is live music night at the Mandarin - expect anything from jazz to Rat Pack.
It is almost compulsory that a visit to an English seaside resort include ice cream - and Blackpool's oldest vendor has been going strong for nearly 90 years. Notarianni is a retro-style gelateria owned by the Italian Vettese family since 1928. The USP is a simply delicious vanilla - the recipe is so secret that the family are reputed to have turned down £1 million for it - which is made daily, and comes in either cones or calorific family favorites such as towering Knickerbocker Glories and banana splits. On hot days, lines outside Notarianni wind their way down the street; eat out on the beach or sit in the simple little café.
Notarianni is open all summer daily 10am-7pm.
Notarianni does not accept payment by debit or credit cards, so go armed with cash.
The cream of the many, many pubs scattered around Blackpool's seafront, the Mitre is a little gem, rightly popular for its welcoming embrace and spotless bar. Smartly kitted out with a sprightly red and blue Victorian façade, it's just off the Prom and is the haunt of many a local drinker as well as visitors, making for raucous, laughter-filled late-night karaoke and sing-alongs to 1950s crooners on the jukebox. A well-tended and well-poured pint of ale adds to the fun, as well as a long list of spirits and wines. Simple dishes are served including roasts, burgers, and sarnies (sandwiches), but 'the crack' is really the major attraction here.
Opening hours at the Mitre are Monday to Saturday 11am-11pm, Sunday noon 10.30pm.
The Mitre has special DJ nights, often showcasing Northern Soul tracks.
Leading Blackpool's burgeoning fine-dinning scene for the last decade or so, Kwizeen is overseen by Catalan chef Marco Calle-Calatayud, who takes Lancashire ingredients such as crumbly cheese or shellfish from Morecambe Bay, and makes them sing. Don't be put off by the unassuming frontage; once inside all is as it should be, with stripped wooden floors and warm colours. The cooking is consistent and innovative without being too clever-clogs, with menus changing every few weeks, incorporating the best of local produce, from black pudding to crayfish, according to the season. Kwizeen also has a well-priced wine list featuring several unusual Spanish wines, and even champagne by the glass.
The daily Lancashire Market Menu is a steal for for three courses, and there's an early eater option too.
Booking at Kwizeen is recommended and although there's no strict dress policy, people wearing shorts and tracksuits will not be admitted.
Kwizeen is open Monday to Friday 11.45am-1.45pm and 6pm-9pm; Saturday 6pm-9pm.
No list of Blackpool eateries would stand up for scrutiny without including a good old chippy, and they don't come any better than The Cottage. Both a takeaway and restaurant, it is housed in a historic, whitewashed house built in the 1850s, and has been a family-owned business since 1920. All of the battered fish served is from sustainable sources, and with the exception of the haddock (which arrives fresh from Aberdeen daily), all are sourced from Fleetwood Fish Market nearby. Apart from the statutory mound of chips, accompaniments are minimal, but still include the traditional side dishes of mushy peas or curry sauce.
Hours vary seasonally so call ahead to be sure.
The Cottage gets incredibly busy in summer so book ahead to eat in the restaurant.
Standing by a river in the countryside, just inland from Blackpool, the Cartford was built in the 17th century as a coaching inn, and is an increasingly rare find: a proper English pub with open fires and an equally toasty welcome. Thanks to its watery setting and gastronomic reputation, the Cartford is increasingly popular, so book ahead to be sure of a table for the evening. Along with a delicate seasonal menu of Fleetwood fish, meats sourced from local farmers, and dainty desserts, the pub also serves local boutique beers and fine wines.
Opening hours are as follows: Monday 5.30pm-9pm; Tuesday to Thursday noon-2pm and 5.30pm-9pm; Friday and Saturday noon-2pm and 5.30pm-10pm; Sunday noon-8.30pm.
Should the wine list get the better of diners, there are also 15 luxurious bedrooms available at the Cartford.


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text:
Bully is een gemeente in het Franse departement Rhône (regio Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes) en telt 1739 inwoners (1999). De plaats maakt deel uit van het arrondissement Villefranche-sur-Saône.

Geografie
De oppervlakte van Bully bedraagt 12,6 km², de bevolkingsdichtheid is 138,0 inwoners per km².

Demografie
Onderstaande figuur toont het verloop van het inwonertal (bron: INSEE-tellingen).

Externe links

Gemeente in Rhône

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
by kerazay USER (6 Reviews)
May 20th, 2006 | 14 replies
Release Date: 2003 | Tracklist
As a big Mac fan (see what I did there?! ha ha I'm hilarious...) I had a few doubts about this 2003 outing. Why? Stevie Nicks, Lindsey Buckingham, Mick Fleetwood and John McVie were missing s link in the chain-Christine McVie. After taking her retirement from the band after The Dance tour in 1997, I didn't think the rest of the band would record another album without her. But here they were, recording a fresh set of tracks in 2002 for their first outing minus Ms McVie. And I think they did pretty well. 18 tracks fitted onto the CD, nine by Nicks and nine by Buckingham.
Although Christine's absence is felt, Buckingham and Nicks manage well with just each other. Buckingham's "Red Rover," demonstrates his skill with a guitar-minus plectrums, as always-as does the excellent and extremely sweet "Say Goodbye." Buckingham's versatility as a writer comes through in his songs on this album, which range from the dark toned "Come," to the bittersweet "Bleed To Love," (which was actually recorded in 1997 when Christine was still with the band-and it is one of my favourite songs on the album, and a reason for this is due to the presence of her vocals). Another strong song of Lindsey's is the opening track of the album, "What's The World Coming To." Both he and Nicks penned tracks which could be seen as their reflection on the world after 9/11, and the title of this song gives away its meaning.
As usual Stevie Nicks' has her poetic imagery running through all of the tracks on this album. Although the title track, Say You Will, does not hold a lot of this it is still a great piece of work. "Illume (9/11)," her first song on the album, brings the listener back into the world of the infamous gypsy poet herself. However her stand out pieces on the album would have to be Smile At You and Running Through The Garden, which are worth comparing with her classic Fleetwood Mac songs. Nicks's trademark husky vocals soar over Lindsey's guitar picking in "Smile At You," "Thrown Down," and the beautiful "Goodbye Baby," at the very end of the album.
Lindsey and Christine's vocals had complimented each other so well on past Mac records so their duetting was a feature that I missed here. McVie had a tendency to write uplifting songs that fitted in perfectly with Stevie and Lindsey's more melancholy songs. Seeing as Nicks and Buckingham were always two extreme artists writing on many problems (Lindsey's feelings came through in his playing, Stevie's in her sometimes cryptic and confusing lyrics) Christine McVie stood as a key link between the two and somehow without her keyboards and vocals, the Mac just wasn't the same on this album as before.
That being said, Say You Will is still an excellent album showing Buckingham, Nicks, Fleetwood and McVie at their best. The voices of the two singers aren't what they used to be but they still hold well under the test of time. And the legendary rhythm section that is Mick Fleetwood and John McVie doesn't let down on his record either. An excellent album with tracks that could easily join their predecessors in the group of classic Fleetwood Mac, the only thing I have left so say is-Christine McVie you are deeply missed so please come back!!!
Recent reviews by this author
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user ratings (81)
rate it Awful - 1 Very Poor - 1.5 Poor - 2 Average - 2.5 Good - 3 Great - 3.5 Excellent - 4 Superb - 4.5 Classic - 5
Rank: #0 for 2003
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recommended by reviewer
Fleetwood Mac Rumours
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Comments: Add a Comment
Nice pun. Okay review.
Honeymoon_Croon
Not a bad review
Liked the pun
Disagree with the rating a little bit. The album does have highlights, but I don't think it's a 4
kerazay
Album Rating: 5.0
Ha ha the pun seems to be getting a better reception than the review! Heh heh!!!
Other than Rumours this is my favorite of my very favorite band...I'd still be listening to rap if this didn't come out while I was in fifth grade. My favorites are bleed to love her and say goodbye.
Your very favourite band... Mine too... the Mac are the shit!
you're a little biased towards Christine, as I am not.
I'm not biased towards her. It's just that her absence is definitely felt.
btw patrick... loving the avatar!
I might review this, but I'd shoot for a 4.5. That's how much I enjoy this. Running Through The Garden, Thrown Down, Peacekeeper, Say Goodbye, What's The World Coming To, Miranda, Bleed To Love Her etc....There's just so many unbelivably good songs here.
Thrown Down and Bleed To Love Her would probably be my favourites... but Goodbye Baby gets me very emotional!
Oh my god I just went and gave this entire album a listen from start to finish, it's been a while since I had it on ya see, and wow I'm giving it a higher rating! It's amzing!
theamazingjamez
I grew up listening to the song "Say You Will"... then I sorta forgot about it for a while...
Then, recently, I listened to it again...Now I listen to it nearly every day.
Necrotica
"As a big Mac fan (see what I did there?! ha ha I'm hilarious...)"
good lord
Gemini1979
March 2nd 2016
My favorite song on this album is probably Steal Your Heart Away. Bleed to Love Her, What's the World Coming To and Miranda are great as well. The songs I don't like are Murrow Turning Over in His Grave, Red Rover and Come. The rest of the tracks are pretty good or decent. Not a bad record but it has too many songs. There's too many fillers but I guess it's still better than most of what they put out in the 80's and 90's.
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Behind the Scenes At Pacquiao-Bradley 2: Part One
Thomas Hauser
Shortly after one o'clock on the afternoon of Thursday, April 10, Manny Pacquiao concluded a series of satellite interviews that originated in Section 118 of the MGM Grand Garden Arena. The interviews were designed to promote his April 12 fight against Tim Bradley and everything had gone according to plan.
"My advantage is that I'm quicker than him and punch harder than him," Pacquiao told one interviewer.
When asked about being knocked out by Juan Manuel Marquez, Manny responded, "Sometimes these things happen. That is boxing."
An interviewer for Sky-TV posed the all-but-obligatory question of whether or not Pacquiao would fight Floyd Mayweather.
"I'm happy for that fight," Manny said. "If not in boxing, maybe we can play one-on-one in basketball."
As for his musical talents, Pacquiao acknowledged, "I can sing, but my voice is really not that good. The fans like my singing because of what I've done in boxing."
At one point, Manny noted, "Sportsmanship is very important to me because it is my way of displaying respect to the sport of boxing, to my opponent, and to the fans."
After the interviews ended, Pacquiao was leaving Section 118 when a voice from across the arena shouted out loud and clear: "Manny, we love you. Manny, we love you. Manny! Manny!"
Pacquiao turned to acknowledge the fan, one of many who follow him wherever he goes. Then his face broke into a broad smile. The man shouting was Tim Bradley.
Manny waved, Tim waved back. In two days, they would try to beat each other senseless in a boxing ring. But for now there was fondness between them.
Welcome to Pacquiao-Bradley 2, featuring two elite fighters who carried themselves with dignity and grace throughout the promotion with no lapse of decorum by either man.
Pacquiao's saga is well known. In an era of phony championship belts and unremitting hype, he has been a legitimate champion and also a true peoples' champion. The eleven-month period between December 6, 2008, and November 14, 2009, when he demolished Oscar De La Hoya, Ricky Hatton, and Miguel Cotto were his peak years in terms of ring performance and adulation.
That was a while ago.
Tim Bradley believes in himself and epitomizes Cus D'Amato's maxim: "When two fighters meet in the ring, the fighter with the greater will prevails every time unless the opponent's skills are so superior that the opponent's will is never tested."
Most elite athletes are overachievers. Bradley comes as close to getting one hundred percent out of his potential as anyone in boxing. He's a more sophisticated fighter than many people give him credit for. He's not just about coming forward, applying pressure, and throwing punches. He has a good boxing brain and knows how to use it. But he isn't particularly fast, nor does he hit particularly hard. The keys to his success are his physical strength and iron will.
"I'm not the most talented fighter in the division," Tim acknowledges. "Not at all. There are guys with better skills and better physical gifts than I have. Where I separate myself from other fighters is my determination. I wear the other guy down. That's what it is; hard work and determination. I work my butt off. I come ready every time. People keep saying that I don't hit that hard, that I don't box that well. But I keep winning, don't I?"
Before each fight, Bradley promises himself that his opponent will remember him for the rest of his life. Marvin Hagler is his favorite fighter. Blue-collar work ethic, shaved head, overshadowed by boxing's glamour boys.
Pacquiao and Bradley met in the ring for the first time on June 9, 2012. During that bout, Tim suffered strained ligaments in his left foot and a badly swollen right ankle. He was rolled into the post-fight press conference in a wheelchair.
"Both of my feel were hurt in that fight," he recalls. "And I had a lion in front of me. All I could do was take it round by round. And it wasn't enough to survive each round. I had to win them."
Bradley, as the world knows, prevailed on a split-decision. A firestorm of protest followed.
In the aftermath of the bout, Pacquiao was an exemplary sportsman. "I'm a fighter," Manny said. "My job is to fight in the ring. I don't judge the fights. This is sport. You're on the winner's side sometimes. Sometimes you're on the loser's side. If you don't want to lose, don't fight."
But others were less gracious. The beating Bradley took outside the ring was worse than the punishment he took in it.
"After the fight," Tim remembers, "they announced that I was the winner. I was on top of the world, and then the world caved in on me. It should have been the happiest time of my life, and I wound up in the darkest place I've ever been in. I thought the fight was close. I thought the decision could have gone either way. You prepare your entire life to get to a certain point; you get there; and then it all gets taken away. I was attacked in the media. People were stopping me on the street, saying things like, 'You didn't win that fight; you should give the belt back; you should be ashamed of yourself; you're not a real champion.' I got death threats. I turned off my phone. All I did was do my job the best way I could, and It was like I stole something from the world."
"It was bad," says Joel Diaz, who has trained Bradley for the fighter's entire career. "Tim was all right with people criticizing the decision, but the personal attacks really hurt. Tim is a proud man, and it was hard for him to walk tall anywhere."
In Pacquiao's next fight, he suffered a one-punch knockout loss at the hands of Juan Manuel Marquez. Eleven months later, he rebounded to decision Brandon Rios. Meanwhile, Bradley edged Ruslan Provodnikov in a thriller and outboxed Marquez en route to another split-decision triumph.
That set the stage for an April 12 rematch at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. Bradley was the reigning champion, but Pacquiao was the engine driving the economics of the fight. The event was labeled "Pacquiao-Bradley 2", and Manny was guaranteed a $20 million purse ($6 million less than for their initial encounter). Tim was promised $6 million (one million more than the first time around).
Each fighter felt that there was unfinished business between them.
"There is a big question mark on our first fight," Pacquiao said at a February 6 press conference in New York. "This time, we will answer that question."
"The whole Pacquiao situation still bothers me," Bradley added. "So on April 12, I'm going to clean that up."
Fight week had a strange feel to it. The Pacquiao-Bradley rematch hadn't taken place earlier because neither HBO nor Top Rank (which promoted both fighters) thought it would sell well. But after Marquez starched Pacquiao and Bradley beat Marquez, the possibility of beating Tim loomed as a more impressive credential for Manny. Also, as part of a deal to secure the fight, Bradley agreed to a two-year extension of his promotional contract, which was due to expire in December 2014.
That said, the promotion was struggling a bit.
Elite fighters have a glow, an aura around them. Pacquiao in his prime was electrifying. But in recent years, the Pacquiao super nova has dimmed.
In the days leading up to Pacquiao-Bradley 2, the narrative was no longer about Manny's Magical Adventure. The media no longer waited in heightened anticipation for his arrival at publicity events. The fighter himself seemed to have a bit of "Pacquiao fatigue." Certainly, he was aware of the talk that his career was nearing an end.
Again and again during fight week, Manny told interviewers, "My time in boxing is not yet done. I want to prove that my journey in boxing will continue."
There was the mandatory appearance by Pacquiao on Jimmy Kimmel Live and all of the ritual hype. But pay-per-view sales were tracking poorly, an estimated 650,000-to-700,000 buys (down from 875,000 for the first Pacquiao-Bradley fight). Ticket sales were respectable, but there wouldn't be a sell-out.
It was Bradley who generated much of the energy in the media center. Tim is inherently likable with an exuberance for life and a smile that lights up a room when he enters. Insofar as his status as a role model is concerned, he and his wife, Monica, appear to have a loving stable marriage. When Bradley takes his children to school in the morning, it's not a designed photo op for television cameras. There's no bimbo girlfriend, no charge of domestic violence, no conspicuous spending. The thought of Tim blowing twenty thousand dollars in a strip club is ludicrous.
Bradley loves challenges. "I'm looking forward to the fight," he told the media. "It will be fun."
Reflecting on his football-playing days, Tim opined, "Boxing is more fun than playing quarterback. I like it better where, if someone hits me, I can hit him back."
Defending the judges' decision in Pacquiao-Bradley I, Tim told an interviewer, "Everybody has an opinion. That means I have an opinion too. Manny Pacquiao is one of the best fighters ever to lace on a pair of gloves. I'm a big fan of Manny Pacquiao. But I beat him."
Then the interviewer stated proudly that he was rooting for Pacquiao, and Bradley responded, "If you're a Pacquiao fan; hey, Manny is a good dude. I respect the person he is and I respect what he has done for the sport. I have no problem with anyone who roots for him."
That left the trashtalking to Bob Arum, who spent much of the week denouncing the host site and the MGM Grand's president of entertainment, Richard Sturm.
Arum was appropriately angry that the hotel-casino was festooned with advertising for the May 3 fight between Floyd Mayweather and Marcos Maidana to the detriment of his own promotion. Introducing Sturm at the final pre-fight press conference on Wednesday, he referenced the executive as "the president of hanging posters and decorations for the wrong fight."
Then, at the end of the press conference, Arum went further, declaring, "I know the Venetian [which had hosted Pacquiao's previous fight in Macau] would never make a mistake like this, They would know what fight was scheduled in three or four days, and they wouldn't have a 12-to-1 fight all over the building that's going to take place three weeks from Saturday. That's why one company makes a billion dollars a quarter and the other hustles to pay it's debt."
The following day, Arum elaborated on that theme, telling reporters, "There are two companies which are the leadingAmerican companies in gaming, and it's for a reason. It's because they're smarter than these guys and they know what they're doing. First is the Venetian-Sands company and then there is the Wynn. Pick up a paper and look at where the stock of each company is going. Then tell me who has smarter people. Is it luck? I don't think so. If one company is making so much more than the other company and doesn't have financial problems because they borrowed too much money, it's not luck. It's because they're smarter and conduct themselves better. This company really has a serious management problem."
Thereafter, in various interviews, Arum called Sturm "a horse's ass . . . totally clueless . . . a moron . . . a brain-dead moron," and added, "He doesn't have a fucking clue what the f— he's doing."
On Friday, the promoter proclaimed, "They [the MGM Grand] did something that I believe is an absolutely horrendous thing to do. It shows tremendous disrespect for the Filipino people, who are suchnice people. If I were Flipino, I would never patronize an MGM Hotel again."
Then, as a helpful guide to Filipino high-rollers who might have been offended by the slight, Arum listed all of the MGM Grand properties that they might want to avoid in the future.
Meanwhile, the odds had settled on Pacquiao as a 9-to-5 favorite, down from 4-to-1 in the first Pacquiao-Bradley encounter.
Bradley has never been thought of as a big puncher. His ledger shows a meager twelve knockouts, with only one in the past seven years. Pacquiao, by contrast, has 38 career KOs. But Manny's record is devoid of stoppages since his 2009 demolition of Miguel Cotto.
That led Bradley to declare, "Manny is still sensational physically, but I don't think the fire is there anymore. He's not the same fighter he used to be. He's still a tremendous fighter. But the killer instinct, the hunger, is gone and it won't come back again. Manny fights for the money. I have the hunger to win. I just feel that his heart isn't in it anymore."
Were Bradley's comments about Pacquiao no longer having "killer instinct" designed to undermine Manny's confidence? Or perhaps to goad him into fighting recklessly?
"Neither," Tim answered. "I'm simpy stating a fact."
Team Pacquiao didn't entirely disagree with Bradley's thought. Trainer Freddie Roach acknowledged, "Recently, Manny has felt it was enough to just win his fights. He didn't want to hurt his opponent more than he had to. I've had a lot of talks with him about that and I'm sure it's not going to happen again. When Bradley told Manny that he'd lost the killer instinct, frankly, Manny got pissed off. He thought it was disrespectful."
"Sometimes I'm too nice to my opponent," Pacquiao added. "I have been happy winning on points because it is winning. But the fans want to see that hunger from me, and I'm always concerned about the fans and their satisfaction. So I'm going to fight this fight to show that I still have that hunger and that killer instinct."
But there were questions as to whether, intent aside, Pacquiao still had the strength and physical stamina to close the show against an elite opponent.
"To me, it's not about killer instinct," Joel Diaz noted. "I don't think Pacquiao is being compassionate. I don't think he can finish anymore. Look at what happened when he fought Marquez in their third fight. The judges scored it for Pacquiao, but a lot of people thought Marquez should have won. Everyone knew it was close. And Pacquiao couldn't come on strong late. Pacquiao is getting older. He's not the fighter he used to be in the second half of his fights."
Bradley understands that there are no sure things in boxing. "I may lose this fight," he said in a teleconference call. "You never know.Things happen in the ring when you least expect it.It only takes one punch to end the night."
But as Pacquiao-Bradley 2 approached, Tim was confident, saying, "I'm a more mature fighter now than I was two years ago. I'm better at getting in and out on guys and controlling the distance between us, which I showed in the Marquez fight. I'm a better fighter now than I was the first time Pacquiao and I fought. And Manny can't say that."
"This is the first time I've fought the same guy twice," Bradley continued. "And I think it's an advantage for me. The first time we fought, I didn't know how much intensity Manny brought to the ring. Omigod! He throws so many feints and closes the distance so fast and punches from all angles. He always keeps you guessing when he's going to come in and out. Now I know what to expect. I was able to make adjustments in the first fight, and Manny had problems with me when I was moving. I'm excited; I'm happy. On Saturday night, I'll get to show what I can do on the biggest stage possible. I know there are people who say I can't hurt him. If Manny feels that way, let him come in reckless and see what happens."
And there was another factor to consider. In his first fight against Pacquiao, Bradley had done something stupid. For the only time in his career, he'd entered the ring without socks because he'd once heard Mike Tyson say that going sockless helped him grip the canvas and increase the leverage on his punches. Bradley had trained sockless in the gym for that fight. But the canvas in the ring on fight night was different from the gym canvas. And the demands on fight night are different from the demands of sparring. In the early going against Pacquiao, Tim had suffered ligament damage in his left foot and sprained his right ankle.
"With two good feet, I'll be able to move quicker this time and set down harder on my punches," Bradley promised. "With two good feet, I can adjust my footwork to deal with whatever Pacquiao brings to the table. Pain-free is another dimension, and I'll be pain-free this time."
Indeed, the main concern in Bradley's camp was that the judges might overcompensate for the perceived injustice of the scoring in Pacquiao-Bradley I and, fearing ridicule, have a default setting on close rounds in favor of Manny.
"We know the judges will have a lot of weight on their backs," Joel Diaz noted. "The stage was set for Tim to lose the first fight, and it didn't happen. Now the stage is set for Tim to lose again. If the fight goes the distance and it's close, the judges will give it to Pacquiao. All I ask is for the judges to be fair. If Tim wins, give him the win. If Pacquiao wins, give him the win."
Meanwhile, as the clock to fight night ticked down, it seemed as though Bradley had more enthusiasm for the battle than Pacquiao did.
"I got something to prove," Tim declared. "I got something to prove to the media; I got something to prove to the fans; I got something to prove to everyone who says I didn't win the first fight. This fight is redemption for me. I feel deep in my heart that I won the first fight and I didn't get any credit. I'm going to beat Manny Pacquiao again. And this time, I want the credit for it."
Team Pacquiao, of course, had a different view.
"Bradley is a very good fighter," trainer Freddie Roach said. "He's tough and resilient. He takes good shots.He has a good chin. He has determination and a lot of heart. When you hit him, he fights back."
"But I don't think Bradley has all the abilities that Manny has," Roach continued. "He's not as fast. He doesn't punch as hard. When Manny is on his toes and uses his footspeed, he closes the distance better than any fighter in the world. Once you put Bradley on the ropes, his chin goes up in the air, he opens up, and he punches wild. When that happens, Manny can beat him down the middle. Once the scores have been announced and you've lost a fight, there's nothing you can do about it except say, 'We'll get him next time.' I think Manny beat this guy once, and I think he'll beat him again."
Pacquiao agreed with his mentor.
"I am impressed with what Bradley has done since our fight," Manny acknowledged. "His style is hard to explain. He is not easy to beat. But I am still faster than Bradley and I still punch harder than Bradley. He says that he wants to see my killer instinct, so he will see it."
Part Two of "Behind the Scenes at Pacquiao-Bradley 2" takes readers into Tim Bradley's dressing room in the dramatic hours before and after the fight. It will be posted on The Sweet Science tomorrow.
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Although it wasn't a world title fight, the match between Joe Joyce and Daniel Dubois which took place in London on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, attracted a lot of buzz. Only one heavyweight bout in 2020 was more eagerly anticipated, that being the rematch in February between Tyson Fury and Deontay Wilder.
Joyce vs. Dubois was that rare pairing of two undefeated heavyweights who were roughly at the same stage of their career. Dubois was 15-0 (14 KOs) heading in; Joyce was 11-0 (10).
And that brings us to the crossroads fight on Jan. 30 at the LA Shrine Expo between Darmani Rock (17-0, 12 KOs) and Michael Coffie (11-0, 8 KOs). Unlike Joyce vs. Dubois, this is not a well-marinated showdown, but yet there are some parallels, most notably it's a match between unbeaten heavyweights in which the victor will undoubtedly make a big jump in public esteem and the loser, more than likely, will be pushed back into the shadows.
There was a big age gap in the Joyce-Dubois fight. The 35-year-old Joyce was the older man by 12 years. Likewise, Rock vs. Coffie features a young old-timer vs. an opponent who is merely young.
Michael Coffie, 34, came to boxing late after serving eight years in the Marine Corps. He entered the New York City Golden Gloves tournament on a whim and with virtually no formal training and yet he succeeded in reaching the finals.
When Coffie (pictured) turned pro, his manager was none other than Randy Gordon, the former chairman of the New York State Athletic Commission who has kept his hand in boxing as a journalist and radio personality, co-hosting a boxing-themed talk show on Sirius FM with Gerry Cooney. Gordon knows more than a little about heavyweights, having been involved with Bonecrusher Smith who was briefly (very briefly) the WBA world heavyweight champion.
"(Bonecrusher) was not anywhere near the fighter that Mike is," Gordon told Hall of Fame boxing writer Bernard Fernandez on the occasion of Coffie's pro debut in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. On that night, Coffie needed only 61 seconds to dismiss his opponent, ending the contest with a short right hand. The sacrificial lamb, wrote Fernandez, "went down like an anvil dropped in the ocean."
In his most recent fight, on Nov. 7, Coffie was matched against Minnesota veteran Joey Abell, a noted spoiler. Abell would have been a good measuring rod for assessing Coffie's progress, but unfortunately the bout was over almost before it started. Early in the second round, Abell suffered a biceps injury while throwing a punch and couldn't continue.
The "A" side in this fight, however, isn't Coffie but the other guy. Darmani Rock, 24, had an outstanding amateur career, winning several important tournaments including the 2014 Youth World Championships in Sofia, Bulgaria. Rock was upset in the finals of the 2016 Olympic Trials and then turned pro, signing with Roc Nation, the deep pockets sports management company founded by Jay-Z.
Darmani Rock on the right
Questions have been raised, however, about Rock's dedication. He weighed 278 pounds in his last fight, 30 pounds more than in his pro debut. (Coffie's fighting weight also hovers around 270 and he is the same approximate height – both are listed at 6'5" — but Coffie has always been big.) Moreover, Rock has been inactive for 15 months and may have trouble shaking off the rust.
Darmani Rock hails from Philadelphia; Michael Coffie from Brooklyn, more fodder for the tub-thumpers. Philadelphia was the stomping grounds of Smokin' Joe Frazier. The City of Brotherly Love has arguably produced more good prizefighters per capita than any city in the country. Brooklyn spawned Mike Tyson, Riddick Bowe, and Shannon Briggs, all of whom bubbled out of gritty Brownsville which also happens to be the neighborhood where Michael Coffie spent much of his youth until he was spirited away to a less threatening environment by foster parents.
I don't want to get carried away with the Joyce-Dubois analogy. Joe Joyce had a stronger amateur pedigree than Darmani Rock. Daniel Dubois had a spectacular run leading up to his match with Joyce including a one-sided triumph over well-regarded Nathan Gorman. Moreover, neither Joyce nor Dubois had ever fought an opponent with a losing record. The same can't be said of Coffie and Rock who have built their records on the backs of the usual suspects. Darmani Rock's last two opponents were both 42 years old.
Moreover, Coffie vs. Rock isn't the main attraction on the PBC card. Top billing goes to Caleb Plant's 168-pound title defense against Caleb Truax.
As we recall, the Joyce-Dubois fight produced a major upset. Dubois was understood to be faster on his feet and more heavy-handed – considered more likely to turn the tide with a single punch – but youth was not served on that night at the historic Church House in Westminster. Joyce methodically peppered Dubois with his jab which caused a big lump to develop over Dubois's left eye. The eye eventually shut completely and the fight ended in the 10th round with Dubois taking a knee and allowing himself to be counted out. Joyce's victory elevated him to #2 in the WBO rankings, a notch below Oleksandr Usyk who is potentially his next opponent.
One doesn't know what will transpire when Coffie fights Rock, but as Michael Buffer would say, "someone's 'O' will have to go." Fights of this nature are inherently intriguing and that goes double when the combatants are heavyweights.
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On February 25, 1964, Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr. defeated Charles "Sonny" Liston in Miami Beach over the course of six remarkable rounds to claim the heavyweight championship of the world. Late that night, the new champion found himself in a room at Hampton House (a black hotel in segregated Miami) with Malcolm X, several other followers of Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad, and football great Jim Brown. Soul singer Sam Cooke (a friend of Clay's) had been at the fight, but there's no historical record of his being in the hotel room with the others at that time.
One Night in Miami is built around imagining what transpired in that room amongst Malcolm X, Cassius Clay, Jim Brown, and Sam Cooke. Directed by Regina King from a screenplay by Kemp Powers, it's available on Amazon Prime.
The film fits into the genre known as historical fiction. Dramatic license was taken. Viewers should understand that, at times, it's allegorical rather than an accurate factual recounting. The larger question is whether the film is impressionistically honest. The answer is "yes."
One Night in Miami begins with the 1963 fight between Clay and Henry Cooper in London. It then segues to Cooke being treated rudely by an all-white audience at the Copacabana, followed by Jim Brown (the greatest running back in National Football League history) being reminded by a patronizing southern gentleman that he's just a "n—–." Next, we see Malcolm as the Nation of Islam's most charismatic spokesman, after which the scene shifts to Liston-Clay I.
Thirty-four minutes into the film, the drama moves to Hampton House.
Malcolm X, Cassius Clay, Jim Brown, and Sam Cooke were prominent in different ways. Each was young, black, and famous. But Malcolm was a social and religious figure of considerable intellect while the other three were known as entertainers.
The dialogue between the four men is light at first and then turns serious.
Malcolm is played by Kingsley Ben-Adir. On what should have been one of the greatest nights of his life, his world is slipping away. His deadly rupture with Elijah Muhammad is almost complete. Soon, Clay will abandon him. Ben-Adir comes across as a bit weaker and more tentative than one might expect, although Malcolm's intellect is evident in his performance.
It's hard to imagine anyone playing Cassius Clay well except the young Muhammad Ali. But Eli Goree bears a resemblance to Clay and is pretty good in the role.
Jim Brown was an intimidating physical presence. Aldis Hodge lacks this physicality but his performance is solid.
Leslie Odom Jr, who plays Sam Cooke, has star quality. He's the only one of the four major actors who has the charisma and presence of the man he's portraying. But as a result, Cooke has a stronger on-screen persona than Malcolm. That's a problem as tensions between the two men boil over.
Toward the end of the film, Malcolm reveals that he intends to leave the Nation of Islam because of differences with Elijah Muhammad and will found a new organization.
"Who's gonna be in this new organization?" Clay asks.
"I think lots of people will follow me over," Malcolm answers. "Especially if you come with me."
Clay, of course, didn't follow Malcolm. He sided with Elijah Muhammad. One year later, he and Jim Brown were the only participants from the hotel room gathering as portrayed in the film who were still alive. Sam Cooke was shot to death in a California motel on December 11, 1964. On February 21, 1965, Malcolm was assassinated at the Audubon Ballroom in Harlem.
One Night in Miami cautions us that our icons are flesh and blood human beings with strengths and flaws. In its best moments, the film is a powerful reminder that the issues of self-respect, black empowerment, and racial equality are timeless.
Pictured left to right: Aldis Hodge (Jim Brown), Kingsley Ben-Adir (Malcolm X) Leslie Odom Jr (Sam Cooke) Eli Goree (Cassius Clay)
Thomas Hauser's email address is thomashauserwriter@gmail.com. His most recent book – Staredown: Another Year Inside Boxing – was published by the University of Arkansas Press. In 2004, the Boxing Writers Association of America honored Hauser with the Nat Fleischer Award for career excellence in boxing journalism. In 2019, he was selected for induction into the International Boxing Hall of Fame.
Kelsey McCarson
She laughs about it now, but back then it wasn't all that funny.
Boxing champion Holly Holm was competing in her first professional MMA fight, and all her years of training inside the ropes as a world champion boxer had just taken over her entire body.
Holm had kicked her opponent down to the ground, so she did what any well-schooled boxer would do. She pivoted away from her fallen prey and headed over to the neutral corner.
All of that was wrong.
"What are you doing?" her coach yelled from cageside. "Finish her!"
It was Holm's first big mistake in moving over from boxing to MMA, but she was lucky that night. It turned out that Holm's opponent was finished whether she had run over there or not, so it was a lesson she could learn without much consequence.
But the instruction of that moment stands true today, so it's just one of the many things Holm has shared with 25-year-old boxing champion Claressa Shields as the two-time Olympic gold medalist attempts to follow in her footsteps.
"I was thinking yeah, that will definitely happen to me!" Shields said.
After Shields signed a three-year promotional deal in December with the Professional Fighters League (PFL), the first thing Shields needed to do was look for the right gym.
Shields found that place at Jackson Wink MMA Academy in Albuquerque, New Mexico, one of the most famous MMA gyms in the country, and the one most recognized among the masses as the home gym of former UFC women's bantamweight champion Holm and pound-for-pound king Jon Jones.
Holm remains the only fighter (male or female) to have won legit world championships in both boxing and MMA, and Shields said Holm welcomed her to Jackson Wink with open arms.
"She's been super great and very nice to me. We both come from the same background…and she actually turned out to be a world champion [in MMA], actually turned out to be really good," Shields said.
But Holm's funny story about her first MMA fight is something that points to just how large a hill Shields has decided to climb.
Whereas pop culture has just recently started to realize the power of habits through the work of writers such as Charles Duhigg and James Clear, it's something professional fighters have known for a long time now.
"Oh, you're going to have a habit of this because you used to box."
That's something Holm tells Shields almost every time they work together, and there are just so many examples.
In fact, just watching the 25-year-old boxing champion trying to learn to do all these new things in a different way is exhausting.
That Shields practically lives inside the gym for weeks at a time so she can train four or five times a day for all the kinds of things she never had to worry about before as a professional boxer is a testament to her seriousness and her courage.
But perhaps the most amazing part of the entire story is that Shields still plans on boxing.
While Holm won world championships in both sports, she achieved those things separately. Meanwhile, Shields said she wants to do the same thing Holm did but at the same time.
So, while I'm standing there with her inside an MMA cage in New Mexico, Shields is plotting fights in both sports. On one hand, she's talking to me about a title unification bout in boxing against Marie-Eve Dicaire. On the other, she's talking about future superfights in MMA against the likes of UFC champ Amanda Nunes.
"I'm trying to separate the two," Shields said specifically about her training that day but she might as well have been talking about her whole life right about now.
It's arguably the most amazing storyline right now in combat sports.
Shields started boxing when she was just 11 years old. She earned her first gold medal at the Olympics at 17 and her second four years later.
Today, Shields is a three-division world champion, and she says she's not nearly finished adding to her growing number of boxing belts.
But all those years and all those successes have built so many habits. Ducking and slipping is great for boxing, but both become considerable detriments to defense when you suddenly have to worry about things like knees and kicks.
And what about wrestling and jiu-jitsu?
But all that stuff together is exactly what makes Shields' epic decision to dare to be great at both sports at the same time so amazing in the first place.
Look, Shields might never accomplish the same amazing feat Holm did when she shocked Ronda Rousey in 2015 for the UFC women's bantamweight championship.
But she's aiming to eclipse that incredible mark anyway, and with Holm and many others offering Shields ideas about what she needs to think about as she climbs up the steepest hill she can find, she'll definitely have her best chance at doing it.
Kelsey McCarson covers combat sports for Bleacher Report and Heavy.


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HomeOctober 2018Former president, advocate for climate justice visiting Australia
Former president, advocate for climate justice visiting Australia
Photo supplied: Anote Tong with members of the Pacific Calling Partnership
Anote Tong, the former President of Kiribati and a prominent advocate for urgent global action on climate change, is visiting Australia this month as a guest of the Pacific Calling Partnership to speak at a number of public events about the challenges facing Kiribati, Australia's responsibility to tackle the climate crisis, and his vision for a more just and sustainable future.
Among his engagements, Mr Tong, who served as President of Kiribati from 2003 until 2016, will deliver a public address at the Good Samaritan Sisters' Congregational Centre in Glebe, Sydney, on October 25.
MC for the evening will be Good Samaritan Sister Geraldine Kearney, a founding member of the Pacific Calling Partnership, a collective of organisations and individuals concerned about the serious threat that climate change poses on low-lying island countries in the Pacific.
Geraldine has lived in Kiribati and spent the last several years educating people in Australia and throughout the world about the impacts of climate change on low-lying island nations. Through this work she has experienced first-hand Mr Tong's campaigning for climate justice for his people and the peoples of the Pacific.
Geraldine said the Pacific Calling Partnership was keen to bring Mr Tong to Australia now in an effort to change the terms of the climate change debate in Australia.
"Mr Tong is renowned for his role in building awareness of the impacts of climate change in the Pacific. Tong's visit will create greater awareness of the urgent need for stronger action from the international community, and notably Australia," she said.
Geraldine noted that Mr Tong's visit, soon after the release of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's special report on global warming, is timely.
"He has played a critical role in the United Nations' conferences on climate change, especially at COP 21 in Paris, and now, in the wake of the IPCC's findings, Tong's voice will resonate with and echo other Pacific island leaders who are on mission to challenge the Australian Government's response, or lack of response, to find a solution to combat rising sea levels," she said.
"The timing of Tong's visit is opportune. [The October 8] IPCC report, in which the world's top scientists recommended Australia and the rest of the world would need to give up coal within just 22 years to help avoid the worst effects of climate change, is a stark wake-up-and-act call to all of us.
"It predicts that even a half degree of extra warming will affect hundreds of millions of people – not least Australia's many low-lying Pacific neighbours."
Geraldine said the response to the Glebe event with Mr Tong had been "overwhelming". She said tickets for the free event had already booked out and those applying now would be placed on a waiting list.
"I am excited and confident that Anote's visit to Australia will raise greater awareness of the impact of climate change on these our neighbours, and our moral obligation to listen to their voices and act in solidarity with them and for them," she said.
"Tong will bring the human face of not only his people, but of the other low-lying nations… Hopefully this visit will have some impact on our leaders in government and open their eyes and hearts to the urgency to act now in a positive response to the IPCC's findings and set reasonable targets."
Mr Tong's public address on October 25 at Glebe is being organised by the Inter-Congregational Voice on Climate Change and hosted by the Good Samaritan Sisters.
An initiative of the Pacific Calling Partnership, the Inter-Congregational Voice on Climate Change is a group of Catholic religious congregations with historical and ongoing involvement among peoples in Pacific island nations in the areas of education, health, community development and climate justice.
The Good Samaritan Sisters are members of both these groups and have a strong commitment to the Pacific, especially in Kiribati, where they have been present for over 25 years. From small beginnings, with the arrival of just one sister in 1991, there are today two communities of Good Samaritan Sisters engaged in a variety of educational, pastoral and community development ministries in Kiribati.
Events with Anote Tong in Australia include:
FACEBOOK LIVE EVENT www.facebook.com/CaritasAU
Time: 1:00pm – 2:00pm (AEST)
In this Facebook Live Event, hear Anote Tong talk about the impacts of climate change in Kiribati and the Pacific, and the urgent need for stronger climate action. You can also ask him questions during the event by typing in the comments section.
Jointly hosted by: Caritas Australia, Pacific Calling Partnership and Catholic Earthcare
"Views from the climate frontline: An evening with Anote Tong"
Date: October 22, 2018, 6:00pm – 7:30pm
Venue: University of Melbourne, Basement Theatre, Melbourne School of Design Masson Road, Parkville
Jointly hosted by: The Climate Reality Project, Oxfam Australia, Pacific Calling Partnership and Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute
Bookings and more details here
"Why island nations' isolation on the climate change threat must end"
Venue: Charles Perkins Centre Auditorium, John Hopkins Drive, University of Sydney
Organised by: Sydney Environment Institute and Pacific Calling Partnership
Booking and more details here
"Rising seas: climate change and the Pacific"
Venue: Good Samaritan Sisters' Congregational Centre, Function Room, 2 Avenue Road Glebe
Organised by: Inter-Congregational Voice on Climate Change in the Pacific
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