Unless you live under a rock on the planet of Mars, I am sure you have noticed a lot of media attention focusing on the extreme way in which law enforcement, and other white male vigilantes kill black people whenever they feel it's needed. With the power of social media many of these cases that would probably be ignored by mainstream media are being heard by the public.
In Staten Island New York, Eric Garner choked to death by a police officer, and can clearly be heard saying he couldn't breath. It was all caught on cell phone video and went viral on Facebook. Mike Brown, and 18 year old young man was gunned down in Ferguson, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis. That was brought to mainstream media attention due to many people posting tweets, also many people posting Vine and Instagram Videos. Sadly there are many others, both men and women who have experienced excessive force at the hand of law enforcement that range from physical assault to death. It's a common problem that needs to be ratified. The abuse against people of color in this country is horrible. We live always having to prove to the world that we are humans, deserving of inalienable rights and its sickening.
Thursday I went to show my support and marched in solidarity with people who shared these same ideas with me. It was great, we started in Union Square Park in NYC, just people voicing their experiences about their interactions with police officers, another group was having a moment of silence for victims of these crimes. One group of about 75 people decided to take to the streets, I joined and we begin marching uptown. As we marched the crowd grew larger, as people from the sidewalks begin to join in. We stopped traffic as we walked up the streets of 5th avenue, and I saw people getting out of cabs and join the march. We shouted chants such as "I can't breath!" holding up our hands and shouting, "don't shoot!" both Eric Garner and Mike Browns last words. My favorite chant was "No justice, no peace, no racist Police!"
A man who appeared to be middle eastern asked me why we were marching and I told him, "We are marching to protest against police excessive force and vigilante violence against people of color." His eyes lit up and he replied in a very thick and aggressive accent "I march too!", then he look to his friend and said, "We march too!" Threw his hands up and begin shouting "Don't Shoot! Don't Shoot!" When we got to Times Square, we had grown to a couple of thousand people, and we shut on off the biggest Streets in the world down!
I have participated in many protest before, but this one was different for me for many reason, I now fully understand the power of protest. It is a teaching tool, it spreads awareness to those that may have no idea what is going on socially, as well as let elected officials know that the public disagrees with the the current status society is in. Big or small let your voice be heard when you feel injustice is happening around you! I hope all the people who have experienced unnecessary excessive force by law enforcement or a crazy vigilante will receive justice that is due to them.


text:
Cyclist threatened with a knife by gang of youths in Gosport
A CYCLIST was threatened by a gang of youths who 'came out from bushes' in an attack at the weekend.
According to Hampshire Constabulary, a 27-year-old man was cycling over the Millennium Bridge towards the Explosion Museum at 1.30am on Saturday, July 6, when he was approached by a youngster, who demanded his money and mobile phone.
Millennium Bridge, Gosport. Picture: Neil Harris
When the cyclist refused, he was punched in the face by the attacker – before two more youths came out from the bushes, one of whom was carrying a knife.
Fortunately, the cyclist was able to make a getaway.
A spokeswoman from Hampshire Constabulary said: 'All three youths were described as white and about 15-19 years old.
'Additionally, one of the youths was skinny, with short blond hair and was wearing a white T-shirt and dark shorts – another was described as medium build, short brown hair and wearing a blue / black top and blue jeans.'
Anyone with information on the incident is asked to call 101, quoting the crime reference number 44190233842.
For all the latest news, traffic and travel, what's on, Pompey, sport and breaking stories visit The News's website.
We will be bringing you all of the latest stories from across Portsmouth and surrounding area throughout the day.
If there is a story you think we should know about, you can contact us via our email newsdesk@thenews.co.uk or via our social media channels – Facebook or Twitter.
Sign up for our WhatsApp service to get the latest news direct to your phone.
Neighbours 'petrified' as blaze rips through Southsea home sparking police investigation

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Q: Trying to recast data to float from a .csv I am pulling in data from a .csv file to a pandas dataframe. I have already tried fixing the source data. There is nothing I can do there.
I did read.csv and a few columns are coming through as objects. I tried the below strategy but I am getting errors. Can somebody please help me solve this problem? I need get the strings to numbers. Thank you
target_cols =  ['A','B','C']
df_full = pd.read_csv('file.csv')
for col in target_cols:
    df_full[col]  = df_full[col].astype(float)

I am getting errors. The output is

df_full[col]  = df_full[col].astype(float)

File "C:\Users\ED397JT\Anaconda3\lib\site-packages\pandas\core\generic.py", line 5815, in astype
new_data = self._mgr.astype(dtype=dtype, copy=copy, errors=errors)
File "C:\Users\ED397JT\Anaconda3\lib\site-packages\pandas\core\internals\managers.py", line 418, in astype
return self.apply("astype", dtype=dtype, copy=copy, errors=errors)
File "C:\Users\ED397JT\Anaconda3\lib\site-packages\pandas\core\internals\managers.py", line 327, in apply
applied = getattr(b, f)(**kwargs)
File "C:\Users\ED397JT\Anaconda3\lib\site-packages\pandas\core\internals\blocks.py", line 592, in astype
new_values = astype_array_safe(values, dtype, copy=copy, errors=errors)
File "C:\Users\ED397JT\Anaconda3\lib\site-packages\pandas\core\dtypes\cast.py", line 1309, in astype_array_safe
new_values = astype_array(values, dtype, copy=copy)
File "C:\Users\ED397JT\Anaconda3\lib\site-packages\pandas\core\dtypes\cast.py", line 1257, in astype_array
values = astype_nansafe(values, dtype, copy=copy)
File "C:\Users\ED397JT\Anaconda3\lib\site-packages\pandas\core\dtypes\cast.py", line 1201, in astype_nansafe
return arr.astype(dtype, copy=True)
ValueError: could not convert string to float: ' 4,992,227,200 '

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Over the weekend, Devon's summer arts festival Arts on the Move gathered a large audience to the gorgeous and derelict Poltimore House to soak up some culture in the sunshine. Not least among the large range of exhibitors and performers were up-and-coming Exeter youth company, The Young Pretenders. In their adaption of Dennis Kelly's 'DNA', the group, directed by Exeter University graduate Lucy Hirst, were an energetic and original addition to the festival, drawing a huge crowd into the trees to watch the drama unfold.
With an unusual and quirky stage – an ancient oak in the heart of Poltimore's grounds – the young actors clambered around with ease. The detritus littered around the tree complemented the wholesome surroundings of the forest, with an accumulation of the kid's belongings discarded at random or placed lovingly in a cubby-hole, giving the wonderful impression of a nest, the gang's homely rendezvous.
Under the masterly direction of Hirst and assistant director Harry Kingscott, each actor delivered intensely believable and nuanced performances. Kiri Ley shines as the neurotic Leah, and Daniel Sved impresses as the brooding leader, Phil, both of them older characters who take on parental roles in this adolescent gang, but find themselves lacking.
Other strong performances include Gabriel Drake as the lovable Brian, Ruth Plumer as Jessica, and Anneka Thearle as Cathy, but really this ensemble gels together so well that it is unfair to single out individuals. Roles and relationships within the clique are confident and well-articulated without ever descending into stereotypes. The growing unease within the play creeps up on an unsuspecting audience, and there are clever and slick transitions which really build the tension towards the final, dark, twist.
With riotous applause at the end of both of their performances at the festival, it is clear that this young company are already a bestseller. With a summer course set to take place in late August, I can't wait to see what these youngsters get up to next. Be sure to find them on Facebook or at http://theatredevon.net/the-young-pretenders-theatre-company for more information.
Tagged as: Arts on the Move Festival, DNA
The Candidate at Theatre Delicatessen – 3 stars


text:
Iran: the profound past becomes a volcanic present
Submitted by Rabbi Arthur Waskow on 12/29/2009
What is happening in Iran today is the coming to life on an enormous landscape of an historical event of the past that has become legendary in Muslim – especially Shia – memory.
I have a small taste of what that means from my own experience of Passover in 1968, shortly after the murder of Martin Luther King, when Black Washington rose in rebellion and the US Army occupied the city. My experience of that upheaval was that Passover had risen from the ancient past into the volcanic present. I was not alone in that generation of questing, questioning Jews to sense that coalescence of past / present / future. Out of it came the Freedom Seder and the liberation of the haggadah to deal with many aspects of liberation, not only the ancient Israelite deliverance from Pharaoh..
Or think about Passover of 1943 in the Warsaw Ghetto, when on April 19, the eve of Passover, the Nazi forces tried to smash the Ghetto and were met with fierce resistance. Again, the ancient past and the volcanic present met.
When this happens, both "politics" and "religion" are apt to melt into a new shape, either far more repressive or far freer. If we pay wise attention, we may get a deeper sense of what both those realms really are at their most intense. Those of every faith might wisely reexamine the deepest meanings of "ritual" in our own traditions.
The same thing is happening now in Iran in relation to the holy day of Ashura.
(The word means "tenth," as its cognate "Aseret" does in Hebrew. It is the tenth day of the lunar month of Muharram.)
Muslims consider Muharam, the lunar month in which we are now living, the "New Year" month, connected with the renewal of the mission of the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, as he left Mecca under pressure from its power elite and resettled in Medina, where his teachings flourished into the success of Islam.
Accordig to hadith (reports of Muhammad's life), he learned from some of the Jews of Arabia that the tenth day of the Jewish "new year" month, Yom Kippur, was a day of fasting –- some said, instituted by Musa Nebi (the Prophet Moses) as a celebration of liberation from slavery to Pharaoh. Muhammad is said to have remarked that he too could affirm this day.
So in accord with Muhammad's decision, many Sunni Muslims have fasted on Ashura, in celebration of the liberation of the people of Moses .
For the Shia community, Ashura became a formative and central sacred time, imbued with deep grief rather than celebration. On and around that day, in and after the battle of Karbala (in what is now Iraq), the caliph Yazid ordered the deaths of Muhammad's grandson, Hussein ibn Ali, and a little later the surviving members of Muhammad's family. The Shia Muslim community grew from and into an intense belief that Ali, Muhammad's son, and then Hussein had been Muhammad's legitimate heirs, destroyed by a tyrant. The desire for social justice, held by all Muslims to be part of Islam's central teaching, became a burning passion for the Shia.
Ashura itself became a day of grief-stricken pilgrimages to Hussein's grave in Karbala. And the whole month of Muharam became a time for refraining from violence –- even suspending military operations in time of war. This tradition became so strong that even the last Shah of Iran, facing revolutionary street demonstrations, restrained his security forces during Muharam.
And now we come to the volcano of this past week. One of the great religious teachers of Shia islam, Grand Ayatollah Montazeri, died just in time to fit ionto the legendry of Ashura. Montazeri was originally expected to succeed Ayatollah Khomeini as Supreme Leader of Iran; but he became more and more critical of the overbearing behavior and power of the clergy as against what he saw as a decent balance of democratic and clerical decision-making. So he had been treated by the prenet Iranian leadership as an outcast. so his role as well as his death fit into Ashura.
Demonstrations against the government that probably would have been Ashura-intensified anyway took on even greater passion in mourning for Montazeri. And now the government has violated the holiness of the day by killing demonstrators, thereby angering even some traditional religious folk.
When a society is heated to this high temperature both politically and religiously, I would expect profound change in both realms. I expect that for this generation of Shia Muslims, and perhaps for many Sunnis as well, Ashura will never be the same again.
And just as the Exodus story has spoken powerfully to many communities that are not Jewish, perhaps Ashura will begin to speak to non-Muslims as well.
Franz Kafka once wrote a very short story, approximately thus: "One day a leopard came stalking into the synagogue, roaring and lashing its tail. Three weeks later, it had been made part of the liturgy."
The leopard of the Karbala massacre that had been ritualized and tamed into Ashura is out of the cage again. God is out of the cage. Expect volcanoes.
A final note on US policy: The push for sanctions against Iran that will bear most heavily on the public rather than the rulers –- like the bill now before Congress to try to prevent sales of gasoline to Iran and thereby raise its price there enormously – seems to me likely, if they work, to blunt the anti-governmental anger of the opposition and redefine the US as the enemy. Some policy-makers keep thinking that if a powerful state imposes sanctions on a weaker one, the people of the weaker society, as their suffering increases, will turn against their leaders as the cause. But almost always, they unite around their leaders against foreign intervention.
Expect volcanoes.
Jewish and Interfaith Topics:


text:
Something uncomfortable….
We all know about the 'freedom' of the internet and I suspect that we have all rejoiced from time to time in the fact that the truly global nature of the Web prevents anyone from controlling it. Two cheers for the international conspiracy and long may it stay that way.
As Robert Frost has cynically noted, a liberal is someone too broadminded to take their own side in a quarrel. Thus it is that – for me – one of the downsides of the Web is that if I demand/expect/hope for some kind of freedom of expression for myself and those who share my views, I also have to give elbow room to those whose views and sentiments do not equate with my own, no matter how noxious I find their standpoint.
Anyway, what happened today is that I got a comment here on the blog from what I can only describe as a politically extreme right-wing website – which I obviously won't name. The comment didn't really make any sense, so I clicked on the link to the site from which it originated and found some fairly high-level white supremacist bullshit. I say 'high-level' because although I didn't spend too much time poking around, it was clear from what I did see that these weren't the hysterical ravings of a bunch of stereotypical good ol' boys holed up in a bunker in Montana with a few hunting rifles, a hundred cases of Jack Daniels and another hundred of freeze-dried ration packs.
Let's just say that these people had developed some kind of intellectually cute rationale for their views and seemed to be buying into the whole noble white warrior schtick with overtones of Nazism but none of that untidy stuff about genocide or over-running most of the civilised world.
Not nice, but particularly unpleasant when it marches up your front pathway and takes a dump in your inbox. Worse still, the Stormtroopers have linked to an article about T.E. Lawrence on this site, so I might have to take that down if I get any more mail from them. Apologies for that, but I do object to having the Fourth Reich making a beeline for this blog. Leaves a nasty stink around the place.
Listening to Bruce Springsteen's 'The Promise'
Whatever happened to The Boss & I? There was a time – the summer of 1981, if memory serves – when my whole life seemed to revolve around the bloke. 'The River' and 'You can trust your car to the man who wears the star' and 'Born to Run' hardly ever seemed to be off my turntable and I spent a lot of time and money that year travelling around the UK to see Springsteen & the E Street Band ripping up a succession of theatres and arenas. I even queued up all night, sleeping on the pavement along Hyde Rd to get tickets for his two Manchester Apollo gigs….
And then, there was a lengthy hiatus until 'Nebraska' appeared the following year. By that time, I'd relocated to the north-east and a lot of things had changed. 'Nebraska' came as a huge shock and even the revisionism of the passing years hasn't changed my opinions about it. Too sparse, too bleak, a lot of so-so songs – just not what I'd hoped for. And where was the band? For Springsteen it must have seemed like a bold statement; I just thought it was a severe error of judgement. By the time he returned with 'Born in the USA' two years further down the line, it had all become very manicured….the videos, the stadium anthems…….what a let-down.
'Born in the USA' ..the album, the video, errr…….the shoe
Some years later – about 1988 at a guess – I had a moment of epiphany whilst stranded on a train on my way home from where I was working in north Birmingham. Springsteen was playing a gig at Villa Park and my train went right past the stadium. Somewhere between Witton and Aston stations, the train ground to a halt and sat there ticking in the heat right next to Villa Park. We were all cooking gently with the train windows open, when suddenly, the opening fanfare of 'Born in the USA' came blatting out of the stadium with an accompanying roar from the crowd. A couple of girls laughingly got to their feet and started pretending to dance in the aisle of the carriage to general mirth, but my overall feeling was one of sadness. The train suddenly lurched on and it came to me in a flash that I had, too. All that romantic stuff, all those Mancunian serenades and burning down the M62 at 3a.m. with a head full of pharmaceuticals and 'Jungleland' blaring out of the cassette player – it was all gone – I felt like a wage-slave for probably the only time in my life.
Early days….
Springsteen had moved on, too. The Columbia Records machine enfolded him in its grasp and he was recreated as America's official bona-fide blue-collar rock & roll hero. What had previously seemed like glorious chaos, a genuine grassroots phenomenon bursting out of the Jersey badlands with monstrous intensity now seemed like a shrewd and calculated play for megastar status. It was as though, the music, the albums, the shows weren't gripping enough on their own – and from 1975 to 1981 they certainly had been. The video for 'I'm on fire' made Springsteen , his blue jeans and white workshirt, sleeves carefully rolled to the elbow, look like an airbrushed fake or a Tussaud's waxwork. Before, they had been songs, albums, shows – now it was just product.
I pretty much gave up on the guy at that point. Through the years, the Columbia hype machine churned out endless schtick about his integrity and his place in the great rock songwriting tradition, but for me, 1984 onwards was the period where Springsteen went from being a surefire Hall-of-Famer, up there with just about everyone except Dylan, to being a guy who 'coulda been a contender' but blew it by allowing the Columbia suits to groom and photoshop his career.
Even the very 'worthy' Pete Seeger project of a few years back smacked of a slight degree of desperation. Bruce the folksinger? I don't think so, folks. This guy was born to rock and roll.
Which brings me to 'The Promise', the first instalment in a glut of Springsteen 'product' coming your way just in time for Christmas.
Briefly, the 3-year hiatus between 1975's 'Born to Run' and 1978's 'Darkness on the edge of town' was a time of massive creativity for Springsteen, but although he and the E Street Band criss-crossed the States building a reputation as a formidable live act, he was unable to release any records due to a dispute with a former manager. The band was certainly recording, however, and it's those 1976–7 recordings that form the bulk of this 2-cd set. Some of the songs ('Breakaway', 'Candy's Boy', 'Rendezvous') are familiar from bootlegs, whilst other songs – notably 'Fire' and 'Because the night' – were farmed out to other performers.
Stylistically, there's a sizeable gulf between the Phil Spector – inspired romance of 'Born to Run' and the lean, edgy gloom of 'Darkness on the edge of town'. It might be convenient to see 'The Promise' as the missing link between these two albums and in a way, it is. Nonetheless, 'The Promise' seems to me to have far more kinship with 'Born to Run' than 'Darkness'. Whilst there is no defining mood to the collection, it definitely leans more to the widescreen romanticism of 1975 than it does to the watchful wisdom of 1978. The excellent black & white cover shot would tend to support such a view; a moody Bruce slouches on the bonnet of his retro-looking motor on a long straight track through the desert.
Given that the post-punk landscape of 1978 must have looked substantially different to Springsteen at the end of his 'gardening leave', it's possible to understand why this stuff wasn't released once he was free to do so. It's all a bit too head-in-the-air romantic and by '78, Springsteen had taken a fair pummelling from the slings & arrows of the press and the courts. 'Darkness' was a better fit for 1978's cynicism and in itself probably carried the seeds that eventually produced the bleak minimalism of 'Nebraska'
Anyway, for anyone like me who feels that 1975-1981 represents the key period of Springsteen's career, 'The Promise' is just fine, despite odd bits of 2010 're-touching' here & there. Of course, the passing years have rendered it a good deal less 'important' or 'crucial' than it probably would have seemed had it been released in 1976. Even so, there are some really good songs here, very much in the tradition of blue-collar romanticism that characterises songs like 'Meeting across the river' or 'New York City Serenade'. It's an Apocrypha, of course, but no less enjoyable for all that. One thing that emerges very strongly from the collection is the range of influences on Springsteen at the time. Many of his heroes are in here; Buddy Holly, Jackie Wilson, Motown, Stax….the glockenspiels tinkle and the castanets clatter; all that had long gone by the time 'Darkness' emerged a couple of years later. The stylistic changes of these 'lost years' are perhaps best summarised by the early version of 'Racing in the Streets' which starts the album; this take has an amended melody and the bleakness of the lyric is pretty much drowned by the operatic nature of the production. When the definitive version emerged a couple of years later on 'Darkness', the message was less cluttered, but the romanticism was also more tarnished and tempered with reality
'Darkness' is going to be subject to its own dose of revisionism, as it's being re-released in a deluxe package with assorted DVD's of live performances from the 1978 era which should be well worth a view. There's also a documentary floating around called 'Wings for Wheels' about the making of 'Born to Run', so we're virtually awash with Springsteen product right now. Make of that what you will.
Posted in Music - Rock
Listening to Prefab Sprout
Posted on November 8, 2010 | 5 comments
Writing about Prefab Sprout is a bit like trying to grab armfuls of fog once you get beyond the band's years as alternative pop icons in the mid -1980's. The Sprouts have continued in some shape or form without regular releases or tours and had probably dropped off most people's radar by the 1990's. Yet 2009 saw the release of 'Let's change the world with music', the first album to be released under their imprimatur since 2001's 'The Gunman and Other Stories'.
For all that, and despite the fact that bandleader Paddy McAloon has become more eccentric and idiosyncratic with the passing years, Prefab Sprout have a place in many people's hearts for the wit and intelligence of their songs and their absolute refusal to conform to any trends other than the ones they set themselves. They were – and remain – one of the most easily identifiable bands of their era and, if anything, are hugely underrated in their own homeland.
Of course, for all the solid contributions of Paddy's brother, Martin, not forgetting Wendy Smith, Neil Conti and long-time collaborator and producer Thomas Dolby, Prefab Sprout really stand or fall by the quality of Paddy McAloon's songs – and right from the get-go, many of those songs were special.
The Sprouts were part of the early 80's post-punk explosion where new bands seemed to be coming out the woodwork every week. Aside from all the bands that we all know, there were many other hugely promising bands that never quite made it – Silent Running, The Lucy Show, Personal Column, Blue in Heaven… there were just so many of them competing to get up there with the likes of Simple Minds, U2, The Bunnymen, The Smiths, New Order et al.
The first self-released Prefab Sprout single from 1982 was called 'Lions in my own garden, exit someone', which struck me as being an insanely clumsy title until it was explained to me by someone who claimed to be 'in the know' that Paddy's girlfriend had left him to go and live in the French city of Limoges….well, you can figure the rest of it out, I'm sure. After that, the Sprouts signed to the new Newcastle-based Kitchenware Records, who were swallowed up by Columbia (neé CBS) Records in fairly short order. The North-East was hip for the first time in a dog's age and the Sprouts and the Kane Gang were flying the flag for the area. The band's first major break came when they were filmed for Channel 4's 'The Tube' in a gale on a clifftop, as I recall, miming to 'Don't sing' , one of the songs from their inaugural LP, 'Swoon', released to considerable acclaim in 1984. It was a pretty short album, but there was enough there to suggest that here was a band with something special, something different.
Early Sprouts in Hamburg
I was living in Newcastle at the time, and Prefab Sprout were adopted as local heroes by many. A dead giveaway was that a lot of girls liked the Sprouts. Musically, there was none of that male rage or fret-bending nonsense, but instead a series of romantic songs framed in semi-acoustic settings that showed off Paddy's lyrics to their best advantage. I didn't love the album unequivocally; there were some misfires, but equally, the best songs – 'Don't sing', 'Cruel' and (in particular) the marvellous 'Elegance' were like nothing else around, despite the attempts of the press to bracket Prefab Sprout with the likes of Glasgow's Orange Juice and the other Postcard bands, not to mention Lloyd Cole. I could see the connection, but McAloon 's songwriting alone took Prefab Sprout to a whole new level; the voguish 'sensitive' stance adopted by some of these new troubadours seemed like a flag of convenience for many, but not for the Sprouts; they meant it, maaaan.
'Cruel' was probably the song that made so many of us sit up and take notice, quite simply because the lyrics completely bypassed the conventions of traditional romantic songwriting in favour of an approach that reflected the new post-modern, post-feminist world we were all growing up in….and struggling with.
"Should a love be tender, and bleed out loud?
Or be tougher than tough, and prouder than proud.
If I'm troubled by every folding of your skirt,
Am I guilty of every male inflicted hurt?
But I don't know how to describe the modern rose,
When I can't refer to her shape against her clothes.
With the fever of purple prose."
('Cruel' © EMI BLACKWOOD MUSIC INC.)
Musically, 'Cruel' tapped into older traditions. There was just a hint of bossa nova in there, evidence that the band and Paddy Mc. in particular were drawing their inspiration from further afield than most. Wendy Smith's high soprano descants only fuelled the air of vulnerability and romance in the songs.
'Swoon' was a promising start, but also in some ways a difficult album to get to grips with in terms of the internal dynamics of the songs. There were traces of pure gold, but overall, it was a patchy album. Even at this stage, there was a feeling that maybe Prefab Sprout needed someone who could embellish and tweak the band's sound to provide the best framework for McAloon's lyrics.
It was at this point that Thomas Dolby enters the picture. He had already had some chart success on his own and was perceived and promoted as a kind of techno-geek who was more comfortable with machinery than with human beings. When Kitchenware put out 'Don't sing' as a single, Dolby was on a panel of 'critics' on a BBC radio show where guests were invited to pass comment on the new single releases from that particular week. As Dolby tells it, he hated everything he heard until -about two-thirds of the way through the show- the DJ played 'Don't sing'. For Dolby, it was love at first listen and he enthused wildly about the song on air. Unbeknownst to him, assorted Sprouts were tuned into the show and it wasn't long afterwards that he got a call from the band's management asking him if he was interested in producing them.
A trip up to the McAloon retreat in rural County Durham soon followed, where Paddy allegedly sat on a bed with a guitar and played Dolby song after song that he was pulling out of a huge pile stashed under his bed. Paddy has since described 'Steve McQueen' as 'Thomas' album' because Dolby effectively chose the tracks that he liked, which McAloon duly demo-ed with an acoustic guitar, this becoming the 'pot' of songs from which the final tracklist for 'Steve McQueen' was selected.
This was a marriage made in musical heaven. 'Steve McQueen' is the Sprouts' finest hour and right up there as one of the best albums released in the 1980's. Dolby's understanding of how best to frame McAloon's tales of thwarted romance immediately gives the album a kind of continuity and overall feel which 'Swoon' lacked. The (sometimes) lush arrangements also help to make clear for the first time McAloon's true antecedents – forget about Lloyd Cole and Edwyn Collins – Paddy's real inspirations came from a far older school – Jimmy Webb, Burt Bacharach, Smokey Robinson, Brian Wilson, George Gershwin.
A few years back, Dolby was invited to remix/remaster the album for a Columbia Legacy edition and the label threw in a second disc of recently re-recorded solo versions of the 'Steve McQueen' songs featuring just McAloon with his acoustic guitar, so we can hear what Dolby heard back in 1984, albeit filtered through Paddy's years of subsequent experience. 1980's productions tend to have a pretty bad rep these days and whilst it's true that the cavernous drum sound popularised by Phil Collins destroyed many a promising recording, that really isn't an issue here; the production is perfect for the songs and whilst there are many who shudder at the thought of Fairlights and synthesisers, the arrangements are never allowed to dominate the performances or obscure the lyrical intent. If the re-recorded versions are McAloon's way of apologising for Dolby's 80's production, then he is doing both Dolby and himself an injustice because the original version of 'Steve McQueen' still sounds fine to this day.
Kitchenware/CBS obviously thought so as well because they made massive attempts to turn the first single from the album – 'When love breaks down' – into a hit. This tale of lovelorn angst, with Wendy Smith's wordless vocal evoking 10cc's 'I'm not in love', went through multiple releases and re-releases in 12″, double 7″ , cassette and heaven knows what other formats before it finally limped into the lower end of the singles charts in 1985.
There were more singles as well and a UK tour, with the Reading University gig being preserved for posterity and bootleggers by the BBC. In the USA, the estate of the late Steve McQueen took a dim view of the Sprouts use of the man's name, so over there it became 'Two wheels good', a reference to the cover shot of McAloon and Smith astride an old Triumph or BSA (sorry, not a bike aficionado).
The 'Steve McQueen' cover shot
The belated success of 'When love breaks down' had one unexpected side-effect, inasmuch as it deprived us of a new Prefab Sprout album. The album – called 'Protest Songs' – was slated for a 1986 release, but with the band finally hitting the singles charts, Kitchenware decided that it made more sense to re-promote 'Steve McQueen' as the album featuring the hit single.
This established what has by 2010 become a well-established McAloon tradition – the unreleased album. 'Protest Songs' did finally get released in 1989, but it was issued without any real fanfare, no singles and a slightly apologetic tone that did it no favours in a cut-throat marketplace. Since then, the unreleased Sprout projects have been stacking up; 2009's 'Let's change the world with music' was actually recorded in the early 90's and the McAloon archives allegedly contain complete unreleased albums based on the 'Zorro' stories originated by Johnstone McCulley and another album based on the life and times of Michael Jackson. There are probably more that we don't know about. Go figure.
Anyway, after 'Protest Songs' was shelved, the next Sprout album to emerge was 'From Langley Park to Memphis' in 1988. This was the album which saw the band at their commercial zenith, with the Thomas Dolby-produced 'The King of Rock & Roll' reaching #7 in the UK singles charts. Langley Park was actually a village (close to the McAloon home in northwest Durham) whose other claim to fame is that it was the childhood home of the late Sir Bobby Robson.
With the benefit of hindsight, we can probably see that 'The King of Rock & Roll' did the band no favours, though its success probably kept the CBS accountants happy for a while. The remainder of 'Langley Park' was notable for 'Cars & Girls' , a witty song about Bruce Springsteen's obsessions and the gorgeous 'Nightingales', which featured lush orchestration and a beautiful harmonica cameo from Stevie Wonder. Generally, the album saw the growing expansion of the widescreen McAloon vision and style of writing and arranging that revealed an older school of writers as his inspiration. What it lacked was the homogeneity that had made 'Steve McQueen' so effective. Dolby was retained for only a handful of tracks, McAloon produced or co-produced much of the rest of the album and the overall effect was of a solid, but not stellar effort.
After 'Protest Songs', we didn't have to wait long for the next Sprout album. 1990 saw the release of the Dolby-produced 'Jordan: The Comeback'. Again, this brought the band a lot of success, though there were no real hit singles. A lot of people were bemused by the album's content – was it religious? Was it about Elvis? Or Jesse James? The answers would seem to be fairly equivocal – yes, God, Elvis & Jesse are all in there, but it's about much more than that as well. The problem was that it was probably too ambitious for anyone new to the band and was a challenge, even for confirmed Sprouties. The problem for me (and I appreciate that many will disagree) is that among this 19-track, 62-minute selection, there is nothing that has the spark of the songs on 'Steve McQueen' or even the stronger cuts on 'Langley Park'. 'Jordan's' songs were erudite; yes, witty; possibly, but memorable? Not really. Believe me, I have tried intermittently over the years to see 'Jordan' as others see it, but for me it remains a too-clever-by-half collection where the individual songs are often bogged down and devalued by conceptual issues. Certainly, it lacks the simple effectiveness of so much of the band's earlier output – like a meal that's too rich, it just leaves you with indigestion.
After a 1992 collection 'A Life of Surprises', it was to be another 5 years before 'Andromeda Heights' appeared. This was to be Prefab Sprout's last album of original material for Columbia/CBS and it established a pattern that has persisted ever since; a few standout songs with the rest a little underwhelming. The most effective songs on 'Andromeda Heights' are the title track and 'Prisoner of the Past'. Best of all, however, is the hugely witty 'Electric Guitars', which sees McAloon back to his best – it's a wonderful song. Another noticeable aspect of 'Andromeda Heights' was that it was made without long-time drummer Neil Conti and Wendy Smith left to start a family not long after its release.
To all intents and purposes, Prefab Sprout was now the McAloon brothers, but they kept the Prefab Sprout name alive by touring in 2000 (with Neil Conti) and producing a new album for the revived EMI offshoot, Liberty Records. ' The Gunman and other stories' came out to muted sales and critical reviews in 2001. It was essentially a collection of songs that McAloon had written for others, notably Jimmy Nail and Cher. Produced by Tony Visconti, it was not a commercial success, but nonetheless features some strong material – 'Cowboy Dreams', and the sentimental but effective ballad 'Love will find someone for you', as well as the country-tinged 'Blue Roses' are all better than much of McAloon's output since 'Langley Park' .
However, Paddy's career was now interrupted by serious bouts of ill-health that have afflicted him on and off ever since and have certainly made touring an impossibility. First, he began to lose his vision due to a degenerative eye condition which causes the retina in the eye to detach spontaneously, leading to blindness unless the retinas can be secured to the rest of the eye with a kind of silicon buckle – an operation that has been carried out effectively with McAloon. During this era, he produced an album inspired by the hours he spent listening to the radio (as visually impaired people often do). 'I Trawl the Megahertz' is a spoken word /orchestral album featuring only one track where McAloon sings and was released in 2003.
Modern Day Paddy McAloon – the Z Z Top influences are showing!
As if this wasn't enough, he then developed a severe case of tinnitus, which leaves him unable to hear bass frequencies and – just for good luck – he also suffers from eczema.
The 2009 release of 'Let's change the world with music' saw a return to Sony (neé CBS, neé Columbia) and an encouraging critical response. In truth, it's an album of rather sentimental songs which hint at religious issues just below the surface , but the best of it – 'Sweet Gospel Music' and 'Ride' – is very listenable without being Grade 'A' Sprout.
Whilst age, infirmity and domestic necessities (wife & 3 kids) will probably preclude a return to the rock and roll barricades for the increasingly hirsute Paddy McAloon, he continues to sit on piles of unreleased projects which may appear in the coming years – and that's encouraging. One of them – 'Knights in Armour' – already circulates in bootleg format, as does 'Chrysalis Cognosci' (apparently considered as name for the band in their formative stages) which is a collection of other people's versions of McAloon songs. It also features Paddy's solo version of Jimmy Webb's classic 'Wichita Lineman' as well as a duet with Webb on another of his classics, 'The Highwayman'. I suspect that Paddy McAloon never thought he'd get to work with Stevie Wonder and Jimmy Webb when Prefab Sprout were a scruffy post-punk outfit from the wilds of north-west Durham – a 'Life of Surprises' indeed.
Watching 'The Sopranos'
In some respects, writing a review of 'The Sopranos' in 2010 is a bit like turning out a contemporary review of the Woodstock Festival of 1969 – that train left the station quite some time ago. God knows how many millions of words have already been blasted into the ether about the Season 6 finale alone, but the great thing about bloggers is that we stumble inexorably onwards; as Rowan Atkinson once memorably remarked, "Like the blind man searching in a darkened room on a foggy night for the black cat…..which isn't there"…or words to that effect.
I've written here before about my problems with committing to long-running TV series. I'm currently struggling to keep up with Season 4 of 'Mad Men' and relying heavily on the BBC's iPlayer in order to do so. It's not that I'm out partying all the time, either…no, it's more perverse and insidious. We even (finally) have a shiny new widescreen LG monster on which to watch all these shows, but I think I have become accustomed to being able to watch what I want when I want – the epitome of viewer-centred TV. iPlayer, Virgin Catch-Up TV, box sets and internet streaming or downloads are all grist to my mill in this respect, so I rarely regard anything other than live United games as 'must-watch-now' events. Everything else comes under the heading of 'must-watch-sometime'.
Another problem is that more choice has generally meant more crap on TV and the major networks have responded by lowering the bar with ordure like 'The X Factor' and 'Strictly Come Dancing'…… cheap TV that has gradually been tarted up as its audience has grown. Mutton dressed as lamb, however you choose to interpret it. Yeah, I know, a million flies can't be wrong…..
Currently, the ITV networks are in particularly poor shape; having already had to deal with a diminished advertising share due to the proliferation of channels, they now have a recession to cope with as well. Blithe talk about 'quality programming' seems to have been superseded by survival strategies these days. Their response has (largely) been to produce a range of lowest common denominator 'light entertainment' programmes that shriek and bray and howl for us to sit down and watch them RIGHT NOW! Advertisers are loath to settle for anything less.
Thankfully, due to the archaic safety net of the licence fee, the BBC are insulated from all this to some extent, but they get constantly outflanked by companies like Sky – 'Mad Men' Series 5, assuming they make it, will be screened first in this country on Sky, who pinched 'Lost' from Channel 4 in the same way and have, of course, previously been responsible for removing live Premiership football from the 'free-to-air' landscape.
However, to see non-network TV companies as leeches who simply outbid the broadcasting establishment is no longer valid, if indeed it ever was. 'The Sopranos' is a case in point. Made by HBO, 'The Sopranos' is just one of several hugely successful shows originated by HBO in recent years. 'Sex & the City' and 'Six Feet Under' are other examples. HBO started as a Manhattan-based cable TV company in the late 1960's, but is now part of the Time Warner conglomerate. Clearly, their philosophies about originating rather than simply buying in programmes has changed as their status (and their budget) has grown.
As a subscription service, HBO was liberated from the usual problems with advertisers and 'Moral Majority' crazies about sexual content, violence and profanity that afflict the mainstream networks. This enabled the makers of 'The Sopranos' to go for a far more realistic approach to their scripts; the message was classic American entrepreneurialism – 'If you don't like it, don't buy it'. Whilst this hasn't kept them off the radar of the right-wing media, the makers of the show have to some extent headed their critics off at the pass by selling a sanitised 'no sex/no violence/no profanity' version of the show (in 2007) to A&E Televison ( a combine involving Disney, NBC and the Hearst Corporation) for $2.5 million per squeaky-clean episode. Strikes me as a bit like trying to cook a spice-free curry, but to each their own.
Anyway, my pathetically belated attempt to 'catch up' with the whole 'Sopranos' saga began during the summer. I know a guy who had systematically downloaded all six seasons of the programme from a torrent site and burned them all to DVD. Thus I began, a season at a time and watched the last three episodes in a colossal Bada Bing-e last night.
Condensing 8 years of Soprano family history into about 4 months is a strange sensation. Physically, the adults don't change much, but the Soprano kids, A.J. and Meadow start out as high school kids and are to all intents and purposes adults by the time it ends. It will be interesting to see how their career paths fare from here on. I suspect that it doesn't matter what Jamie Lynn Sigler (Meadow) and Robert Iler (A.J.) do from now on, to most of us, they will always be the characters they portrayed so faithfully through all those years. Then again, will James Gandolfini ever be able to really escape from Tony?
James Gandolfini as Tony Soprano
Inevitably, like many people, I came to The Sopranos via The Godfather and Goodfellas. Whilst The Sopranos is quite clear about its New Jersey roots – as is apparent from the title sequence – it nonetheless taps into that whole East Coast wiseguy schtick. The Sopranos, it should be noted immediately, is a lot more Goodfellas than Godfather. There is much Goodfellas-type banter in The Sopranos; the guys are forever 'busting each other's balls' over one topic or another. It's a little piece of American/Italian machismo that sometimes has a serious intent – testing out a potential enemy's weak spots – and occasionally has murderous consequences – the deterioration of relations between Tony and John Sacramoni could be said to stem from Ralph Cifaretto's off-colour joke about Sacramoni's wife – something which has fatal and near-fatal resonances throughout the rest of the saga.
If Coppola's epic saga of one Cosa Nostra 'family' was Shakespearean in tone, The Sopranos was, for all its portrayal of violence and corruption, far less sombre – at least until the final season. The original, amusing conceit of a 'made man' going into therapy was picked up on and turned into 2 hit movies ('Analyse This' / 'Analyse That') and characters like Silvio and Paulie were often gently lampooned for their attitudes and behaviour, as were Tony and Carmella themselves.
Dinner chez Soprano
One thing that 'The Sopranos' does share with 'The Godfather' is a preoccupation with family life and the rituals of eating, drinking and socialising. Carmella & Tony are, one would assume, third generation Italian/Americans and they retain enough of that racial memory of their Ellis Island roots to want to live in a house that looks like an MFI version of the Doge's Palazzo in Venice. They (like Vito Corleone) also want to keep their kids out of the 'family business'. Like Vito, then Michael Corleone, Tony Soprano has to somehow reconcile acts of monstrous violence with the humdrum realities of family life. Tony is not apparently as unhinged by all of this as Michael; at the end of Season 6, he remains what he has been throughout – essentially, a cunning , but good-natured slob with a depressive streak and a violent temper that only kicks in when things don't go his way. There is none of the chilly, almost demonic sang-froid that characterises Michael Corleone's behaviour in the closing half-hour of Godfather 2.
Of course, over the course of six seasons, we get to know Tony Soprano from every conceivable angle – we see Tony the family man and father, Tony the gambler, Tony the serial philanderer, Tony the cold-blooded killer, Tony the Boss, Tony the bully, Tony the therapy junkie and numerous other facets of this complex man The question that should, I suppose, be asked is whether his journey has made him wiser as well as older.
The answer to that question would suggest that his shooting and near death at the start of Season 6 abruptly makes him aware of his own mortality and changes his attitude to many things. 'Every day is a blessing' would seem to be the mantra and Tony's hunger for a quieter life manifests itself in the way in which he tries to reach out to the Lupertazzi family in an effort to resolve their disputes. He even feels some kinship with Phil Leotardo when he suffers a heart attack and is obviously reflecting on the passage of the years.
Tony may be longing for a peaceful life, but he's too enmeshed in 'the life' to escape now. Despite his attempts to defuse problems with the Lupertazzis, events are moving rapidly towards a violent and bloody confrontation. His two male 'heirs' – A.J. at home and Chris Moltisanti at work – are both proving to be letdowns for one reason or another. A car crash in which Moltisanti is seriously injured gives Tony (who isn't) the chance to finish him off and eradicate one source of worry, but problems with A.J. remain, as he will clearly never follow in his father's footsteps.
By the end of Season 6, Tony appears to have survived his showdown with Leotardo, though at some cost to his organisation, with Bobby Baccalieri dead and Silvio Dante comatose in hospital. Still, a measure of sanity appears to be returning with A.J. seemingly over his abortive suicide attempt and Meadow planning a wedding. Peace is brokered with the Lupertazzis and Leotardo 'whacked', so Tony feels free to resume his normal routine – aside from his visits to his therapist; she discontinues their sessions after reading research which suggests that therapy makes sociopaths more sociopathic.
Steve van Zandt as Sil; probably my favourite character
The diner scene at the end of the series left things hanging in the air – it was by no means a straightforward ending. Does Tony get 'whacked' as he has dinner with his family or is it just that he will always be watching the door to see who might be coming in? Technically, the final scenes are extremely carefully constructed and everything (including a possible hommage to The Godfather) points to the fact that Tony is indeed about to get his come-uppance. The 10 seconds of blank screen at the end of the episode before the credits silently roll, perhaps reference an earlier conversation that Tony has with Bobby Baccalieri where they speculate that when you get 'whacked' it's all over so quickly that you see, hear & feel nothing… there's just blackness.
In any case, why should we care? This is a man who has used verbal and physical violence towards his family, has betrayed his wife on numerous occasions with multiple partners, has himself committed 8 murders that we know about and sanctioned numerous others, has serially endorsed widespread corruption and law-breaking, is homophobic and racist. It might be asked why we should shed metaphorical tears for such a man. And yet , we have all sat there through six seasons of his nefarious, callous and murderous behaviour, fascinated by a man who like most of us is a mixture of good, bad and ugly – except with Tony, it's just more so. Series originator David Chase was apparently horrified by the apparent clamour to see Tony with his brains spattered across the wall, thus we are left to ponder the fate of Tony Soprano and his two families, with no clear answers available to us.
Tony lays down the law to Chris Moltisanti with Sil and Bobby looking on
It's often said that comparisons are invidious, but before I close I feel the need to comment on the fact that 'The Sopranos' was recently voted the best ever TV series by readers of The Guardian. Good as it was, I would have to demur. For me, the subtexts of the show are too narrow and predictable – we know there will be crime, we know there will be violence, we know there will be betrayals, we know that there will be scenes of family life as Tony struggles to reconcile the conflicting polarities of his complex existence. In other words, if you make a series about 'The Mob', the landscapes – both external and internal – are almost as inevitable as they would be in a Western. To their credit, Chase, Weiner et al make much of flying in the face of such conventions, especially when it generates moments of genuine humour among all the drama and blood-letting. Thus we get Tony with the ducks in his pool, Tony pouring out his thoughts to Dr Melfi, Tony dogged by his appalling Mother in the early seasons and so on.
For me, however, 'The West Wing' is a more impressive and resonant piece of television. Here, all the world is President Bartlett's stage and whilst any White House drama will also have its own conventions, they are generally less oppressive than is the case in The Sopranos. The writers and directors of 'The West Wing' make better use of the ensemble cast (particularly the female characters) and the potential of the overall narrative is far wider and far less predictable. These are two high-water marks in the chequered history of television, so it's a bit like choosing between foie gras and caviar. Even so, and much as I enjoyed the saga of 8 years out of Tony Soprano's life, for me 'The West Wing' wins by a short head. Then again, best not mention horses' heads….
Posted in Television


text:
Charisma News – LGBTQ – Overcomer Series
Overcomer Series: Leaving LGBT with Jeffrey McCall
Jeffrey McCall was living as "Scarlett" but secretly listening to Jentezen Franklin. McCall was ready to go through gender-reassignment surgery when he had a supernatural moment. Now, he leads two ministries, including the Freedom March. Listen as McCall talks about spiritual warfare, speaking with truth and grace, and how to pray for your LGBTQ friends.
Length 24:52
https://spiritualrealitybooks.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/CN_E1494_Overcome_1.mp3
Overcomer Series: Leaving LGBT With Kimberly Zember
As a Catholic charismatic, Kimberly Zember knew her desires were wrong. But still, she followed her heart. She hooked up with women, cheated on her husband and refused to make God her top priority. Yet God persisted. He sought her out. He led her to Ethiopia and beyond. Listen to how Kimberly came to a point of surrender and chose God above everything and everyone else.
Overcomer Series: Leaving LGBT With Jonathan Hacker
How did a pastor's kid become a gay adult film star and "meth addict"?
What happened when the prodigal returned home? Jonathan Hacker's breakthrough testimony will blow your mind.
Overcomer Series: Leaving LGBT With Joshua Reyes
When his best friend revealed he was HIV-positive, Joshua Reyes knew if something didn't change, he would be next. That same night, he overdosed on pills. In the hospital, he had a supernatural encounter in which he saw the presence of God stop a demon from claiming his life. In this interview, Joshua reveals how he went from go-go dancing to the pastorate and everything in between.
Overcomer Series: Leaving LGBT With Ronald McCray
Ronald McCray was drunk, dancing in a club when he felt the Lord speak to him. But the homosexual life he embraced was not his real identity. Through a series of supernatural encounters, McCray found his way back to church and was baptized in the Holy Spirit. When he met his wife, he was shocked to learn just how much the two had in common. Now, they share their testimonies so others can experience freedom. Listen to hear this story.
Overcomer Series: Leaving LGBT with Janet Boynes
You never know what happens in a person's home when you start judging their outside. Janet Boynes was raised in a family of seven children with various fathers and a home full of strife. She was molested as a child living with this secret for years. It was rare for her to hear she had the potential to succeed. When she was engaged to be married to a man, she met a woman who became more than friendship. Listen to Janet's story and how God healed her from the inside out.
Overcomer Series: Leaving LGBT with Wanda Barrios Ruiz
Shortly before one of the deadliest modern massacres in U.S. history, Wanda Barrios Ruiz was sick to her stomach. She felt like someone had died, and her soul was in mourning. Then, Wanda discovered her brother, Luis Javier Ruiz, had been shot at Pulse Nightclub. Acting on faith, Wanda flew to Orlando to nurse her brother back to health, eventually moving her family with her. Listen to her interview, where she talks about loving without limits.
https://spiritualrealitybooks.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/CN_E1511_Overcomer.mp3
Overcomer Series: Leaving LGBT with Luis Javier Ruiz
You would never think a night out with friends would change a life through the forgiveness of Christ. Luis Javier Ruiz found himself in the middle of a terrorist attack at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida. Listen as Luis shares his story from preacher's kid to living the LGBT lifestyle, and surviving one of the worst shootings in U.S. history. Find out how his life has changed for Christ.
https://spiritualrealitybooks.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/LuisJavierRuiz-1.mp3
Overcomer Series: Leaving LGBT with Edward Byrd and Joshua Buchanan
Edward Byrd and Joshua Buchanan emanate light and joy. They laugh easily, encourage freely and share what God has done for them without hesitation. They're friends now, bonded over how Christ set them free from homosexuality. In the last episode of Overcomer's: Leaving LGBT, the duo joined Charisma News to share their testimonies.
"From the time I was 13, I got physically abused by a close family member," Byrd says. "And I will always wonder, like, why was I the target of his anger, like, he would lash out on me? … All those things just created this, like sadness, this brokenness, this emptiness, this abandonment. And so I totally started to create a whole other person. I changed my name, I lost a lot of weight, I started dressing more feminine or becoming more gender fluid. My name was Remy at the time. I started wearing makeup, my hair was long eyelashes, I was doing the whole thing. And I was just out here having this whole persona, being very promiscuous in the clubs, like going to the club like Sunday to Sunday, like partying."
But God has a way of shining High light into the darkest places.
"While I was in this club, and this lady had comes in the club and she touched me, prophesies to me while I'm in the club. And she says, 'You know that there's a light inside of you. And God has a purpose and a plan for you,'" Byrd recalls.
Buchanan's story started out a little bit differently.
"When I was 10 years old, my parents ended up splitting up and getting a divorce," Buchanan says. "And coming from a broken home, it really takes a toll on you, even at a young age. Because I felt like I couldn't do anything. There was nothing that I could do, and was just a part of life. And it kind of hit me really quick. And so in the process of all of this, not growing up in church, and not having a relationship with God, and not really knowing who He was, I turned to so many things to try to find love.
"So my journey kind of started out with experimenting with drugs," he continues. "At that point in time in my house. I grew up with my dad and I was exposed to marijuana at a young age. And so I kind of saw that, and there was something inside of me that wanted to try it. And so I ended up starting with, you know, smoking marijuana and taking pills and snorting pills. And just getting into this whole place of trying to fill these voids in my life."
Buchanan was diagnosed with HIV in his early 20s, which led him to the altar and an incredible experience with the One who made him.
Listen to the pod cast to hear what God did next for each of these men.
https://spiritualrealitybooks.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/CN_E1525_Overcome.mp3
Love is Fearless
Close Encounter of the Third Kind
Eternal Revenue Service
Faith, Substance and Evidence
Spirit School
Copyright 2019 Designed by Curtis Crews


Avenoir clientele are managed and treated like one of our own family members, where their own ideas, opinions, and concepts are woven into the fabric of what we work on together. The end game is to produce a well-rounded artist that is ahead of the curve yet current and marketable in an ever changing industry.
When working with younger clients we encourage their schooling and education and a positive mental attitude towards the industry they want to work in. This means explaining the business side of the industry and preparing them for the highs and lows of one of the most competitive industries in the world.
We also encourage artists to give back to their respective communities they live in as well. We help to provide them with the necessary tools to perform at various venues and events that cater for less privileged. Avenoir are committed to working with various charities in the UK.
Avenoirs A&R has been instrumental in Artist Development for young aspiring stars as well as the more established musicians who have been in the industry for thirty plus years.
Avenoirs team would look to book TV appearances and interviews for our clients raising their profile into the national and regional media.


text:
Port Jefferson would score two more times and control the ball for most of the game.
"We were able to reset the balls to our defenders really well. We also did a great job of getting the ball out wide," Port Jefferson Coach Michele Aponte said. "We have a lot of seniors on our team and I'm excited that they get to go back to States."
For seven Haldane seniors, today was their last game, and Asselt couldn't hide his pride.
"We were not outclassed today, they were just able to do too many things that they wanted," Asselt said. "I couldn't ask for more from our seniors. Missy (Lisikatos) is going to have a great college career at Malone. Hannah (Monteleone) is going to play in college, she just hasn't decided where yet. I'm proud of our girls. We played a really good team, we have nothing to be ashamed of. "
Player of the game: Forward Jillian Colucci scored one goal today, and was a vital part of Port Jefferson's attack. She dribbled past defenders seemingly at will.
Turning point: Port Jefferson's Grace Swords dribbled past the Haldane defense and scored 20 seconds into the second half. This made the score 3-0 and squashed any thoughts of a Haldane comeback.
Stats: One goal apiece for Port Jefferson's Brittany Fazen, Jillian Colucci, and Grace Swords. Five saves for Port Jefferson's Brianna Scarda. Ten saves for Haldane's Amelia Hall.
Quotable: "Haldane played really great today," Aponte said. "They were all over us from the start of the game. We had to work hard to beat them."


text:
Dow Jones Industrial Average Enjoys Record Highs, Weekly Win
Apple's Billion-Dollar Barrier
Celeste Taylor
The DJIA, SPX, and COMP all managed to hit new all-time highs for the second day in a row
The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) spent the day trading at record highs, with traders still digesting yesterday's tax plan comments from U.S. President Donald Trump. In addition, Trump met with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, and promised a continuation of the U.S. and Japan's "very, very deep" friendship and trade ties. Elsewhere, the S&P 500 Index (SPX) and Nasdaq Composite (COMP) also notched new intraday highs, with energy stocks once again getting a lift from rebounding oil prices.
Continue reading for more on today's market, including:
Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) and 4 other stocks facing billion-dollar barriers.
The pharmaceutical stock getting pounded by put players ahead of earnings.
How Trump could help these 2 auto stocks pad their pockets.
Plus, one semiconductor stock looking at potential headwinds, the video game stock on the rise, and an Apple supplier in short sellers' crosshairs.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA - 20,269.37) notched yet another new all-time high of 20,298.21, and finished the day 0.5% higher, adding 98 points. Caterpillar Inc. (NYSE:CAT) led the 20 Dow leaders, with a gain of 2.5%, while The Coca-Cola Co (NYSE:KO) led the 10 losers, shedding 1.6%. For the week, the Dow gained 1%.
The S&P 500 Index (SPX - 2,316.10) also notched a new all-time high of 2,319.23. The SPX added 0.4%, or 8.2 points, for the day, and 0.8% for the week. The Nasdaq Composite (COMP - 5,734.13) also hit its own all-time best of 5,743.43, and finished up 19 points, or 0.3%, for the day, and up 1.2% for the week.
The CBOE Volatility Index (VIX - 10.85) fell fractionally, dropping 0.3% to end the week down 1.2%.
5 Items on Our Radar Today
Ford Motor Company (NYSE:F) announced that it will be investing $1 billion over the next five years into a tech startup that aims to develop self-driving technology. The startup, Argo AI, was founded by a former members of Alphabet Inc's (NASDAQ:GOOGL) and Uber's self-driving divisions, and hopes to have vehicles on the road by 2021. (CNBC)
Fed Governor Daniel Tarullo announced he will retire in April, ahead of the anticipated 2022 expiration of his term. Tarullo, who began his post in 2009, helped craft the Dodd-Frank banking regulations. (Reuters)
Could Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ:AMD) be looking at oncoming headwinds?
Analyst: This video game stock is "becoming a story of multiple strong franchises."
Why this outperforming Apple supplier is being targeted by short sellers.
Data courtesy of Trade-Alert
March-dated crude futures rose 86 cents, or 1.6%, to finish at $53.86 per barrel, after the International Energy Agency (IEA) reported that the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) members' crude output cuts were at 90% of the agreed volumes. For the week, oil prices eked out a 0.1% gain.
April-dated gold futures slipped for the second day in a row, dropping 90 cents, or 0.1%, to end at $1,235.90 per ounce. Expectations for President Trump's tax plan reveal, and chatter of a potential Fed interest rate hike, weighed on the precious metal. Despite today's drop, gold prices rose 1.2% for the week. Copper, meanwhile, skyrocketed to their highest point since May 2015, thanks to a mine strike in Chile and strong Chinese trade data.
Get your daily dose of Dow futures, stock news, and more with Schaeffer's Opening View.


Two adorable birds chatter in a papier mache tree. The captivating Sarah Lamp is one of our all time best sellers.A metal body is layered, adorned and sculpted with paper by artisans in Mexico and finished to order with 2 coats of non toxic paint and a water based varnish. The adorable papier mache bird finial is also handmade in our workshop, as is the paper shade. Comes with an acrylic foot.


text:
Home → Members → Richard English
Mental Health Law
Richard English
"He is highly experienced, he inspires confidence in every client and he deals with difficult issues and decisions sensitively but firmly."
"He is brilliant with clients with mental health issues." "His legal knowledge is outstanding." Chambers & Partners, 2022
"He does not leave any stone unturned and is careful in his preparation." Chambers & Partners, 2021
"An extremely thorough and personable advocate who has an excellent rapport with juries and clients.." The Legal 500 , 2021
"A notable practitioner with a significant reputation for his work in cases involving mentally disordered defendants. He primarily practices on the defence side, but he is also called upon to prosecute in complex multi-handed cases." Chambers & Partners, 2020
"An intelligent and astute advocate." "He excels at representing clients with mental health concerns." Chambers & Partners, 2020
"His preparation is first-class and his drafting of advice on complex issues is excellent." Legal 500, 2019
Richard is a skillful and persuasive advocate who prides himself on providing the best advice, and the most effective representation.
Richard is a native of Dublin. He studied History at Trinity College, Dublin University. He qualified as a solicitor in England in 1996, and in Ireland in 1997 where he practiced for two years. As a solicitor he was involved in a number of high-profile and complex cases amongst them – the London City Bond fraud and the Sally Clark appeal. He became a partner with Burton Copeland Solicitors in 2000.
He was called to the Bar in 2003 and practices at the Criminal Bar, appearing in courts in the North West and throughout the country. He has a predominately defence practice, but does prosecute in complex, document heavy, multi-handed cases.
He was a Law Society trainer on the Human Rights Acts and have been trained by Amicus in death row cases. He has advised the Irish Council for Prisoners Overseas and has written for their journal on mental health issues.
"With Richard controlling my case I felt reassured that everything will be dealt with professionally and without any drama" – Client Testimonial
Mental Health – Richard has a particular interest and expertise in offences involving mentally disordered defendants. He is instructed because of his skill, patience and understanding of those who are particularly vulnerable when faced with the ordeal of appearing in court.
He also appears in Mental Health Review Tribunals. He is a member of the Mental Health Lawyers Association, and in 2017 he was awarded a Post-Graduate Diploma in Mental Health Law from the University of Northumbria.
Sexual Offences – Richard is regularly instructed to represent those alleged to have committed the most serious sexual offences, which very often, are said to have happened many years before. Allegations of this type are invariably devastating to all involved; they require detailed preparation, patient, and when necessary robust advice, as well as thoughtful and sensitive consideration both in and out of court.
Offences Involving Children – Over the years Richard has been involved in many cases where the Police believe a child has been the victim of serious, often fatal violence. In the process he has developed an understanding of the complex medical and other evidential issues involved.
Richard English and Rachel Cooper, instructed by Mary Monson Solicitors, secure acquittal of young man accused of serious sexual offences
Following a trial at Bolton Crown Court that lasted over four weeks the jury unanimously acquitted H of nine…Read more
Success for Mark Ford QC, Richard English & Forbes Solicitors on a Murder Trial
Posted on 1st March 2021
Following an 8 week trial at the Preston Crown Court before Sir Peter Openshaw, Mark Ford QC and Richard…Read more
Lincoln House Chambers partner with BPP Law School as part of their BTC Employment Week.
Members of Lincoln House Chambers have been delighted to provide support to BPP Law School in their recent online BTC Employability week.…Read more
Lincoln House Chambers Criminal Update – Part 2
Posted on 6th October 2020
Lincoln House Chambers are pleased to provide the second instalment of a three part Criminal Update focusing on key…Read more
"He is brilliant with clients with mental health issues." "His legal knowledge is outstanding."
- Chambers & Partners, 2022
"He is highly experienced, he inspires confidence in every client and he deals with difficult issues and decisions sensitively but firmly."
"He does not leave any stone unturned and is careful in his preparation."
"An extremely thorough and personable advocate who has an excellent rapport with juries and clients.."
"His preparation is first-class and his drafting of advice on complex issues is excellent. "
"An intelligent and astute advocate." "He excels at representing clients with mental health concerns."
"A notable practitioner with a significant reputation for his work in cases involving mentally disordered defendants. He primarily practices on the defence side, but he is also called upon to prosecute in complex multi-handed cases."
"His preparation is first-class and his drafting of advice on complex issues is excellent."
"I have instructed Richard English to prosecute several of my highest profile and most complex cases. Mr English is always my "counsel of choice" to instruct as he is extremely competent, meticulous and has excellent communication skills. Mr English always provides a high degree of professionalism commanding respect not only from his opponents but also Judges and the police."
- A Solicitor - Senior Crown Prosecutor
"With Richard controlling my case I felt reassured that everything will be dealt with professionally and without any drama"


Devotees of the Audi R8 will love this particularly special Audi Sport version of the acclaimed supercar. Proof that performance isn't purely a function of power output will be delivered to dramatic effect through motorsport-proven enhancements. With significantly increased downforce and further weight savings give the 610PS V10 an even freer rein. Each right-hand drive example is priced at £176,560, featuring exceptional specification for the ultimate Audi racing car for the road.
An aero kit developed in the wind tunnel and made exclusively from CFRP gives a harder edge to the car. Most notably the rear where a large fixed rear wing and diffuser with red elements dominate. Side skirts incorporating the Audi Sport logo and special aerodynamic elements located behind the rear wheel arches focus airflow. At the front, the air inlets, splitter and sculpted canards reminiscent of those fitted to the Audi R8 GT. All aerodynamic elements contribute to an increase in downforce; at 205mph, the R8 generates 250kg. At 93mph the effect is more pronounced, with the CFRP aero kit doubling downforce to 52kg over the standard R8 V10 plus.


Low availability for October. 25th of October 2018 last diving day of the season.
Hurry up with your online bookings as there is low availability for some dates on October!
25th of October 2018 last diving day of the season!


My name is Ravi and I have completed my M.Sc.. I belong to a Middle Class, Nuclear Family with Orthodox Values.
I have completed my Diploma. I am currently Not Working and I live in Pataudi. I come from a Middle class, Joint family background with Orthodox values.
I am employed in government Sector as an officer with a Higher Secondary Education. I currently live in Gurgaon. I come from an upper middle class, joint family background with traditional values.


text:
Oklahoma Death Row Inmates Seek Firing Squad As Alternative
By Fred Cruz 01/11/2022 88 views
FILE - This Oct. 9, 2014, file photo shows the gurney in the the execution chamber at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester, Okla. Two Oklahoma death row inmates facing executions in the coming months offered firing squad as a less problematic alternative to the state's three-drug lethal injection, one of their attorneys told a federal judge on Monday, Jan. 10, 2022. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki, File)
(AP) — An attorney for two Oklahoma death row inmates facing executions in the coming months offered firing squad as a less problematic alternative to the state's three-drug lethal injection. Donald Grant and Gilbert Postelle are asking a federal judge to grant them a temporary delay to their upcoming executions. Grant is scheduled to be put to death on Jan. 27, while Postelle is set for execution on Feb. 17. Friot did not issue a decision Monday on the inmates' motion, but said he hoped to release an order by the end of the week. Friot has said in order for the two inmates to be added to a lawsuit challenging Oklahoma's three-drug method, they needed to select an alternative method.
Fred Cruz
Chicago Union Leaders OK Plan To Resume In-Person Class
Defense Leads Way In Big 12 Race With 5 AP Top 25 Teams


Another successful action was held on Saturday, March 19th. The weather did not keep the bidders away from this auction. The proceeds of this auction go to the FFA yearly. Bill Perkins volunteers his time every year as our guest auctioneer.
For more information you can visit the Wisconsin Auctioneers Association using the link below.


Everyday Tourist, challenges Calgary's major tourist attractions to have one free admission day per month.
For several years, I have been advocating the Glenbow should have at least one "free admission" day a month (as do most major museums and art galleries). Kudos to Servus Credit Union for stepping up to sponsor a free "First Thursday Night" program for 2016.
I did not see the cat in this painting until I over heard a young male asking his friends "do you see the cat?" These were young street kids hanging out at the Glenbow, enjoying the art! How great is that?
Yes, the Glenbow is now free from 5 to 9 pm the first Thursday of every month. From a marketing and branding perspective, this could be a stroke of genius for both Servus and the Glenbow.
Though I missed January's event, I attended February's and couldn't believe my eyes. The Glenbow was packed (people were lined up out the door) with Calgarians of all ages and all walks of life. It was great. The place was abuzz with a festival atmosphere, very different from the typical, rather subdued vibe at major exhibition openings.
Over 3,500 people visited during that four-hour period (while 3,000 took in January's First Thursday event). And they weren't just all there to see Paul Hardy's blockbuster exhibition "Kaleidoscopic Animalia." People flocked to exhibitions on all floors.
I am also betting these new Glenbow groupies will bring visiting family and friends to the Glenbow in the future, which they didn't do before.
Visiting "Family and Friends" represent 80% of Calgary's annual tourist market.
Hardy gives a passionate tour to group of very attentive Glenbow visitors on "Free First Thursday" night.
Whoever came up with the idea of having Calgary fashion designer Paul Hardy be the Glenbow's artist-in-residence and curate an exhibition using the Glenbow collection should get a big fat bonus check.
This figure from one of Hardy's installations comes straight out of a modern haute couture runway.
It makes connections with everything from Warhol's Soup Can to the Hudson Bay Company blanket; from nursery rhymes to beastly fetishes. There is surrealism to the exhibition that captured and held everyone's imagination.
Hardy's microscopic examination of the Glenbow's collection has indeed resulted in a wonder kaleidoscope of past and present images and relationships.
Close up of one of Hardy's installations that combines hundreds of art and artifacts from the Glenbow's massive collection into a themed installation.
Divided into a series of what looks like early 20th century department store windows (appropriate, given Hardy is a fashion designer), it resonated with me. I have been advocating for years that Calgary's downtown stores should make better use of their storefront windows as a marketing tool.
Look no further than the television series Mr. Selfridge, based on the life of Harry Selfridge, who in 1909 founded the London luxury department store Selfridges that still exists today. The importance placed on the window displays plays prominently in almost every episode. I believe early 20th Century department store windows were the precursor to contemporary installation art.
You gotta love it when there is a synergy in one's everyday experiences – like when television watching, museum/gallery visits and my interest in contemporary art and artifacts all connect. Bam!
An example of one of the massive department store-like window exhibitions.
Back in June 2014, I wrote about Glenbow President/CEO Donna Livingstone's plans to re-imagine the Glenbow with more flexible programming and a greater diversity of perspectives. By God, I think she has done it!
I also enjoyed the "Recent Acquisitions" exhibition, hung quasi-salon style - not quite floor to ceiling, but with several groupings. There was so much to see. Gone was the "one artwork per wall" approach where there is more blank space than art. And there were some fun surprises - like an early Ron Moppett painting that looked remarkably like a Maxwell Bates. I love it when I make new discoveries.
Ronald Moppett, "Father Thames II (study), 1983, oil on panel. Does anybody else see the bird-like figure in the painting that looks strangely similar to the one Hardy created in his exhibition (see photo above).
The "Historical Art from the Glenbow Collection" exhibition was also a treat, reminding me of Calgary's historic sense of place – something only art can do (for me, anyway). The same can be said for "Niitsitapiisinni: Our Way of Life, The Blackfoot Gallery." Both exhibitions were very relevant and timely given the recent Truth and Reconciliation Commission's Report.
And for me personally, having recently worked with two guest bloggers on how Calgary might better celebrate its history through better street and place names using First Nations' language, these exhibitions struck a chord.
If you haven't been to the Glenbow recently, you simply gotta go. There is no excuse. Mark the next Servus Credit Union's Free Thursday Night (March 3) on your calendar.
You will not only get to enjoy Hardy's exhibition, but the new "Embracing Canada: Landscapes from Krieghoff to the Group of Seven" (opening February 20) that promises to be very enlightening.
Livingstone is ecstatic by the response to the Free Thursday night program, saying that many people were returning again to see the exhibitions when it wasn't so busy.
I put out a challenge to TELUS Spark, Fort Calgary, Heritage Park and the Calgary Tower – how about designating a free day once a month. If not free, how about Toonie Thursdays or Tuesdays.


The RAV4 is a step above the rest. When getting to the adventure is part of the adventure, the RAV4 comes through. Whether you want to put-in at a secret spot in the woods, get the kids to the hockey tournament up north or arrive safely, on a dark and stormy night from your job at the hospital, the RAV4 has done it all. Holman Toyota in Mt Laurel, NJ is proud to offer vehicles with the reputation of the RAV4. Let Holman Toyota help you discover the RAV4 that fits your needs.


Shadowing the COO, the hire will be tasked with hands on, oversight & management of the finance and operations function. This will include team + infrastructure build out as the firm continue to expand. The hire should aim for progression in to the CFO role.
We are looking for either a current Head of Operations with an accounting qualification, or a senior hedge fund finance professional/fund accountant that is happy to pick up operations. Multi–asset class experience + strong IT skills are preferred.
Please submit your CV or contact us () for more information.


text:
Looking Glass Wars/Hatter M
By Sean Kleefeld | Saturday, September 26, 2009 Leave a Comment
In about two and a half weeks, you'll be able to pick up ArchEnemy and Hatter M: Mad with Wonder, both part of Frank Beddor's "Looking Glass Wars" story that will be released on October 15. ArchEnemy is the third prose novel of the series, while Mad with Wonder is the second graphic novel.
The overarching (pun intended) story is that the famous Alice (more correctly spelled "Alyss") of Alice in Wonderland was a princess of Wondertropolis, until her parents were murdered by her Aunt Redd, in an effort to seize power. Alyss was banished across dimensions to London, where she was eventually adopted by the Liddell family. Although she told many people of her plight, no one believed her. Her tutor, Lewis Carroll, even felt the story imaginative enough to pen it as a work of fiction, changing some of the details for the sake of storytelling. Royal bodyguard Hatter Madigan went to Earth to look for her and she eventually made it back to Wondertropolis. At the end of the second novel, Seeing Redd, Alyss had defeated Redd but the world's main source of power seemed depleted and an upstart Borderlander by the name of Arch was eying the throne.
ArchEnemy begins there and chronicles how Alyss attempts to fight off both Arch and her still-very-upset Aunt Redd, and get the world's power back online. All without her vast powers of imagination. It's generally a good read, as the previous books, and Beddor provides for some interesting twists and turns that keep things interesting. There's certainly enough exposition and characterization that I don't think newcomers to the series will feel at all lost, but Beddor wisely spreads those portions out, so a returning reader isn't inundated with what would be recaps for them. I did feel, though, that the ending came on rather abruptly in almost a deus ex machina manner, as if he suddenly realized that he had to wrap everything up in the next fifteen pages. It makes sense and doesn't come entirely out of left field or anything like that, but the previous books had better dénouements.
Mad with Wonder actually shoots back to when Alyss was still trapped on Earth with Madigan looking for her. The previous graphic novel was set in 1859, while this one begins in 1864. (Without checking, I believe Seeing Redd notes that Madigan ultimately spent seven years in his quest.) Like the first graphic novel, no foreknowledge of the prose works are necessary, and there is a several page graphic recap of the first volume to bring any new readers up to speed within the context of the comics. The main novels focus primarily on Alyss herself and her struggle with Redd; the comics focus almost exclusively on Madigan's search for Alyss on Earth and the adventures he encounters in that process.
Though still written by Beddor and Liz Cavalier, this volume is illustrated by Sami Makkonen who you might know from his work on Blue or Deadworld Slaughterhouse. Although distinctly different, Makkonen's work does have the tonal qualities as Ben Templesmith and Tyson Schroeder have used in the past, making for a comfortable visual continuity. The story itself is interesting in that we learn how Madigan is able to afford trekking around the world for as long as he did, and we also see how others react to Madigan's bizarre story about Alyss and Wondertropolis; he's paired up alternatively with a circus sideshow and the inhabitants of an insane asylum. (Which, if you're not familiar with your history, was an obscenely ghastly type of place in the late 1800s.) The story makes for some interesting character interactions and provides some insights to Madigan himself. Although a trained warrior, he does have a gentler side and shows some burgeoning, but still effectively latent, fatherly characteristics which then become note-worthy in ArchEnemy. The character of Elijah, too, is a particularly interesting one in light of his passing resemblance to DC's Joker.
I have to say that I've been impressed overall with Beddor's actualizing "Looking Glass Wars" via a transmedia approach. All of the components (prose work, graphic novels, webcomics, MMO and soundtrack) work very well independently but also tie numerous threads together to form a larger tapestry. The approach is more obvious in properties that have a larger marketing budget behind them (like, say, Star Wars) but this is the first attempt I've seen where the approach has been so deliberate and calculated. That might sound cynical, but it's not intended to be. Beddor has put some serious thought into the types of venues he's utilizing and tries to work with those outlets in a way that best serves a particular portion of the overall story. He could tell Madigan's story through prose alone, but the type of story it is suggests that comics are a better vehicle for it. Each component is designed with the specifics of the medium in mind, and they're developed in such a way as to be compelling on their own merits. That it's a good story overall and all of the individual elements are well done make it that much better in my mind.
I might point out a curious aside on the graphic novel. The back of Mad with Wonder contains a "Process Gallery" showing how a couple of pages of script become an illustrated page. While I was eager to look at that to get a better sense of how the breakdown of storytelling duties is delineated, I was actually left more confused than before. There's a clear progression of script to page layout sketch to page layout rough to final page, but it's unclear who is working on which portions and who the notes to Makkonen come from. Further complicating matters is an early page layout sketch from a "Miss Emily McGuiness" who is credited as "Civil War Raconteur." I did find a woman by that name who works as a storyboard artist but, whether or not it's the same person, that makes it that much less clear how credit for the book should be dispensed. A minor point, certainly, for most people but I do have a personal interest the development process.
The book also provides a five page preview of a third graphic novel, which appears to also be drawn by Makkonen.
ArchEnemy and Hatter M: Mad with Wonder will be available on October 15.
Related Items review upcoming wonderland
Coming Soon: Iron Man, Spiderman, Sgt. Fury, Joe S...
Really Missed It: Sara Mayhew, TED Fellow
Of Numbers & Meaning
Fan Spending
Slow Down Just A Minute There!
Torrents Status?
10 Movies You Didn't Know Were Comics
Jim Lee: Samurai Santa
Who Reads Webcomics?
Enjoying My Research
Long John Silver & The Pirates
Doonesbury, The Squirrel
FastPencil
Call For A Cover Artist!
Hitting Closer To Home
High Moon In Print
Reviews From The Archives!
The Revolution of Fan Culture
LogiComix Review
Comic Book Fanthropology
Hembeck's Video Dateline@!!?*
Jenkins' Comic Recommendations
Pop Quiz: Gaiman's Shelf Porn
TwoMorrows Sale
Why Flash Makes A Lousy Comic App
Webcomic-ish Updates
Happy Birthday, Krishna


Late work can be accepted from different levels of your gradebook including category, lesson, lesson section, week or date. You may accept late work for a single or several students and a single or several assignments in the Late Work area.
1. From the Late Work area, use the "View By" navigation menus to view late work by Lesson or by Due Date. You can opt to view work for "All" Lessons or Weeks, "All activities" in a lesson/week, or for a specific lesson section/due date. This late work may be set to view for All Categories or for a specific category.
3. After making selections in the Late Assignment table, click ACCEPT.


text:
High Littleton was probably settled by the Saxons in the late 7th or 8th century. They called it Lytel tun.
Hallatrow may have been much older than High Littleton. Joseph of Arimathea is supposed to have come to Glastonbury soon after Jesus' ascension. While resting at Wearyall hill, it is said that he stuck his staff into the earth and, although made of dry hawthorn, it grew and flowered each Christmas day thereafter. This could be the origin of Halig treow ( holy tree ) or Hallatrow.
By the time of the Domesday Survey in 1086, each village covered an area of about 600 acres and would have had a population of less than 100. In early times the villages would have been almost entirely farmed, mostly arable farming but with a mixture of dairy farming and sheep raising.
The parish would have some of the earliest of the Somerset coal mines because here the coal seams ran obliquely to the surface. The first documentary evidence of mining in the parish dates from 1633 and the first deep mine in the parish was Mearns Coalworks which began in 1783. The wealth and work generated by the mines attracted people in and by 1800 the population had grown to about 800. In fact, production at these pits did not last very long and by 1820 most of the miners who lived in the parish worked in neighbouring villages. The Greyfield Coal Company did not start until 1833 and was at that time outside the parish. It received a boost with the opening of the railway in 1873. Greyfield Colliery closed in 1911 and the railway in 1964.
The parish has several fine houses still existing: The Grange, Hallatrow is dated 1669 and mentioned by Sir Nikolaus Pevsner in The Buildings of England. It passed through the hands of many of the notable families of the parish – the Jones, the Skeys, the Scobells and the Moggs.
More information about the buildings, institutions and notable families of the parish, including the Purnell, Scobell, Brodribb, Skey, Rees-Mogg and Jones families, and some splendid pictures appear in "High Littleton and Hallatrow – a Pictorial History", published by the Parish Council in 1999 as a Millennium project.
Unfortunately there are no more copies available for purchase.
Link to Michael Browning's dedicated Parsh Records website is here.


Enjoy Regional Routes & Weekly Home Time!
If you live within 100 miles of Nashville TN, within one hour of I-35 in Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Iowa; or an hour radius out of Denver CO, we can get you home weekly! Join us as a CDL-A Regional OTR Truck Driver and experience the Hill Bros. hype!
Run 5 days inside of preferred freight lanes, get home 2 days.