text:
There's a load of crap on the TV again(Anti-Media stories part 4).
anti-media continued….
Some other memories of the Anti-Media films. They took lots of footage at Wapping where there were protests by printers at job losses due to computerisation . I think I may be getting some of my years mixed up…apologies for that ,Wapping was in 1986 but I am talking about involvement with Anti-Media events for a period of a couple of years so when I have written 1983 it could have been 1985! I will write more about this in other blogs connected to Club Dog and Alice in Wonderland's Magical Mystery Trip.
They also had films of shop dummies in windows, it was a bit eerie.
I remember attempting to do stand-up "alien" comedy jokes at our events at Pentameters. My jokes died live on stage. I realised telling jokes was not my forte but throwing jelly at the audience saying it was my ex-husband who suddenly disintergrated was making them laugh, as was playing my silver fake electric guitar, getting out of my silver cardboard box spaceship, emerging from being covered in a mass of newspaper like a mummy shedding it's bandages, singing love songs to Mr.Spock ( not Dr. Spock) and general anarchy.
I performed as Astragone Arglegargle in many different contexts but performing at the Anti-media events at Pentameters gave me a space to experiment with my act ,write and record new materials, in front of a small supportive audience before doing bigger events or performing to hostile audiences!
I also had an act of performing "Opera Classics". At that time there were some awful albums of "Rock Classics" i.e. orchestras playing perfectly harmonic arranged and orchestrated versions of famous rock songs and in one fell swoop missing the point of rock music altogether. So I dressed up in a beautiful pink and yellow long dress , wore some kind of fake pearls and sang songs in a suprano fake operatic voice with appropriate posh body language, facial expressions and gestures. I sang Arias including
" Hey Fattie Bum-bum", (Sweet sugar dumpling) by Carl Malcolm, "War Pigs " ( Black Sabbath), " Assault and Battery" ( of the human anatomy) by Hawkwind, and of course " Anarchy in the UK" by the Sex Pistols and other songs I can no longer remember.
Although this kind of thing has been done since then it was a first at the time.
I gave Christmas cards at one event but had tippexed out all the messages and instead gave the audience cards with unusual messages such as " Throw away your TV" or random symbolic messages from the I Ching or vague affirmations on self-realisation. This was also before the concept of " affirmations" tore its way into popular psychology books and made us feel guilty for not being able to achieve our perfect goals for ever more.
There was also performance poetry, from a poet with a club in Barnet, it was as I recall stream of consciousness stuff. There were a lot of masks and balaclava helmets, there was spontaneous political anti-corporate/anti-media ranting, jazz piano playing, live graffitti, more films slash edited and experimental in the style of Jean-Luc Godard , strange trousers and costumes, always deliberately wearing the most unfashionable types of clothing, more interviews with people in hair, fashion and maybe even TV executives, Jud Suss, ( a band of multi-instrumentalists mostly of Jewish families pretending to be Hasidic Jews with much melodramatic wailing naming themselves after an anti-semitic nazi film ..more in another blog), more films, more poets, more crazy music and acts of nonsense .
Leonie was always there in the background like a benevolent force smiling on.
I wish I could remember more but because I had to memorise my own bits and pieces and was often cowering with stage nerves at the side of the stage during the other films and random acts I didn't always take in what was going on.
However one day we went too far for Pentameters and for the world.
Unbeknown to me there were plans afoot in Hogan and Richard's mind of which I knew nothing , on this occasion and others. They seemed like such sweet young polite lads too!
After an evening of performances, I finished the show or so I thought with a bit of Astragone Arglegargle alien Music-Hall type stuff.
Then Hogan and Richard put a large TV on the stage. Both of them looked really serious and were in the wings. I just knew something bad was about to happen.
Hogan went on stage and faced the television set, he looked like he was doing some kind of ritualistic silent prayer with the TV set as an altar and made ritual gestures. Then he unzipped his trousers and pissed on the TV. I remember being worried in case he electrocuted himself.
Now forgive me for forgetting who exactly performed the next bit but I had my head turned away and left pretty promptly around this time. So I cannot remember if it was Hogan or Richard , but someone then made the most enormous sausage of poo on top of the TV set.
I heard later that they had been saving it up for 5 days to be sure it would work.
The punchline was " Look ! There's a load of crap on the tele as usual!" ( boom,boom,)
A lot of the audience left but about 3 remained and Clive ( Treatment) then grabbed a bagel which was on a table put a bit of shit in the middle and went up to individual members of the audience saying:" Would anyone like a shit sandwich?"
I left. I was slightly peeved that they hadn't warned me that a show I was taking part in was about to make such a coup.
The place cleared easily with some heckling and later we regrouped at Bob's place up the road where I seem to remember Clive removed the banister from the staircase by accident of drunkenness. The first time I met Clive a few years before, he was crawling down a staircase head first and there have been a few Clive staircase related incidents since..odd.
Leonie was not at all happy she ordered Hogan and Richard to have the place fumigated and disinfected and I believe Pentameters had to close down and cancel shows as a result. I think the shit sandwich had been passed around a bit too much.
That was the last Pentameters Anti-Media event sadly…but Anti-Media was not dead. If you think that was extreme forget it!
Next time I write you'll understand why names were changed.
(I so wish blogs were not written with the last one at the top…it would be better the other way around. Thanks for reading.)
What happens when a good idea degrades into chaos and insanity(Anti-Media stories part 5)
Categories: 80s, anti-media, cabaret, counterculture, fashion, film, fringe theatre, London, music, performance poetry, police, politics, psychedelic, punk, sandwiches, society, Treatment . Tags: 80s, aliens, anti-media, cabaret, counterculture, fashion, film, fringe theatre, London, music, police, politics, punk, sandwiches, society, Treatment, Wapping . Author: born2rant . Comments: Leave a comment
Modern Life is Rubbish and Harpers and Queen, glossy fashion magazine!(Anti-Media stories part 3)
Now…..Back to the Anti-Media Events
Some further memories of our Anti-Media events at Pentameters.
I remember another film Hogan made which was shown at their events but also at our psychedelic gigs at Club Dog/ Alice in Wonderlands and various venues.
There were 3 bored looking teenage Teddy Boys sitting in a bus shelter. One of the Anti-Media crew had a stencil and a spray can and went up in front of them and started to spray anti-media graffitti. The 3 sullen looking Teds looked on almost interested but then something extraordinary happens. You have to understand that the Anti-media films were of real life nothing was set up. I can't remember if it was Hogan or Richard doing the graffitti but a police car stopped and he was arrested.
The film continues outside Paddington Green Police station where they hold high security terrorists he walks out released after hours of questioning. He is smiling and looking bemused. It was a great unplanned little story.
Fame through Graffitti
I used to smile each time I came across some Anti-Media graffitti in London , I knew my friends had been there. They had a couple of slogans.
One of them was " Modern Life is Rubbish" and like" Anti-Media" or "Sierra Scum" ( they had something against people driving new Ford Sierras!) could be found sprayed in numerous locations. One of the last places I saw it was on the outside wall of a big hotel on the Bayswater Road close to Marble Arch. That must have been up there for 15 years at least.
I once heard in an interview I think with Alex James or another member of Blur that they had seen some "hippie" graffitti saying "Modern Life is Rubbish" around London and decided to name their album after it.
We were surprised and a bit gutted that our slogan had been used by Blur and gone into mass production and the mass media.
I just looked up on Wikipedia this snippet according to them:
"When the album was released, Albarn was rumoured to graffiti the album name with a spray paint can to reproduce the title in public places such as toilets in public houses and on walls to raise the profile of the new album.[5] Bassist Alex James said of the graffiti in a 2007 interview, "We got fined by Colchester Council for spraying the title on a wall. There's probably a frame around it now"."
Well you can't trust Wikipedia or the media for accuracy. Although so many people do.
I don't know about Colchester but it was definitely the Anti-media people who had graffitied "Modern Life is Rubbish" throughout central London in 1983 onwards, I never saw one that looked like it was from a different stencil to ours.There are more links between Anti-Media and Blur but you will have to be patient.
In the meantime I encourage bored teenagers to find places to do political graffitti. Not tags, that's like dogs peeing to mark their territory, come on if you're a teenager be a rebel what's wrong with young people today? Their minds are enslaved! Come on do something political away from CCTV cameras. In fact all of us should get the spray cans out and decorate our cities with witty political slogans. Make them works of art or like me just write a blog and hope the right people find it.
( It's legal still, just about!)
I remember I was performing at a cabaret night in the Finchley Road one night and got drunk, some of my Anti-media allies came to the night and on the way back home me still in my green slime, I seem to remember climbing up on a roof and spraying "Modern Life is Rubbish" . But that doesn't seem to be the kind of thing I would do normally…maybe I imagined it while a bit inebriated.
back to some more recollections of our Pentameters events…
(apologies in advance to my son who will read this)
Our son Ben was about 2 and a half or 3 at this time. We decided to do an improvised play (most things were improvised at our shows) with him. We told our son that he had to pretend to be our parent and tell us off if we did anything wrong and that we would pretend to be the babies. Ben thought this was a great idea and though very young he was extremely eloquent and comfortable with groups of adults. So Michael and I and Ben took to the stage with no rehearsal .Ben was the star of the show. Michael was squatting bouncing up and down with a dummy in his mouth and I was doing something, I think I was pretending to cry and teasing Michael.
Ben was a fantastic improv artist alternating in comforting us , talking to us gently and patting us if we were crying and when we were hitting each other or being naughty he was warning us in an authoritative but kind voice, then if we were really naughty he was pointing at us telling us off angrily and spanking us…. I don't know where he learnt his parenting skills from!
Of course it was fun being the two naughty children but mainly I was stunned at how well our young son could role play.
The audience loved it and so did our son who felt at last he got his rightful place in charge of us parents ( mind you no great change there! Sorry Ben! But everyone thought you were fantastic and it's the one Anti-Media scene people still remember now).
A photographer took pictures of Ben with one of us in a Nazi helmet ( I think) and these were published in that stylish glossy fashion magazine "Harpers and Queen". How on earth "Harpers and Queen" got to find out about us is a mystery to me but I was asked along to an interview in Pimlico at the time and since the group wanted to remain anonymous and they had all these political ideas of what we should or should not say I just kept out of it. I was too scared of blabbering on as usual in my uncensored way and upsetting someone.
I have the article somewhere and if I ever find it I might quote bits in a subsequent blog.
I have just found out that Harpers and Queen is now called Harpers Bazaar, isn't that bizarre?
I suppose it's like Jif and Cif or Marathon and Snickers.
Next Time more terrible tales of Anti-Media…
Categories: 80s, anti-media, Blur, cabaret, counterculture, film, fringe theatre, London, music, police, politics, society . Tags: 80s, anti-media, Blur, cabaret, counterculture, film, fringe theatre, London, music, police, politics, society . Author: born2rant . Comments: 2 Comments
Goings on in Pentameters Theatre:Anti-Media event, rantings on TV, fashion slavery and incompetent policemen(Anti-Media stories part 2)
I was told to go to a fringe theatre in Hampstead called "Pentameters" above a pub called "The Three Horseshoes" opposite Hampstead tube station.
A lovely smiling woman called Leonie was running this theatre and had allowed the mysterious anti-media people to run an event there. She had no idea what she had taken on. In an interview with the Camden New Journal about her theatre she later said
"…I was doing some amazing shows. We did anti-media shows. And they were as radical as you can get."
Considering that before us she recently had Rik Mayall , Jennifer Saunders plus some of the Young Ones and the Comedy Strip performing there you have to take this as a compliment.
I was quite nervous when I arrived at their first gig to perform my alien act complete with green slime and cling film. I was also there to do others things in the show but I had no idea what. We were backstage and a fairly manic tall young man was on roller blades wearing a pig's head mask , he shook hands with me and introduced himself as Andy.
Hogan and Richard looked nervous and then said "Let's go on".
I said " What? What do you want me to do?"
They said it didn't matter we all just had to go on stage and improvise something,anything that came to our heads and be spontaneous.
So we went on stage. Me in my glistening glowing costume, Andy on his roller blades and pig's head, then there was this quiet guy simply called "OM" who never said anything but was a cool gentle hippie who had cut his hair and now wore a Nazi uniform with a silver polished Nazi helmet and then Hogan and Richard in their untrendy attire.
That was my first experience of Anti-Media.
We walked around the stage area in interweaving circles mumbling things to ourselves and occasionally to one another to a fairly packed room.
Later I performed as Astragone, I had written an extra song called "The Television's on Everywhere"
I can still remember the opening lyrics
" The television's on everywhere,
If I want to know nothing all I have to do
is switch on to TV A.M. ,
I really must stay in to wash my brain tonight,
because Quincy is dissecting in my living room,
I hope the sofa don't stain."
and here is an Interlude….cue a potter throwing a pot…..an Interlude of ranting about TV:
You have to understand some of the reasons for our rebellion against TV. We were the first generation of children brought up with TV. Our parents didn't watch it as much or if they did it was with some background of life without TV in their lives.
My mother used to say TV was a great babysitter.She told me how she could place me in front of it all day long propped up with a pillow when I was a little baby and leave me in front of the Test-Card with music playing while she worked . I reckon at least I had a pretty great early music education thanks to hours in front of the Test-Card and I remember from an early age imitating the sound of the TV going "ooooh" in perfect unison with the high pitched tone it would blast out once all the music was played and there were no more broadcasts. I used to sing to it. But don't pity me I was a sixties baby and millions were like me, plonked in front of the TV from birth and through all the stages of childhood.
I used to have nightmares about advertisements for fairy liquid .The perfect woman/mother/housewife in it was coming to murder me and I had bad dreams about other advertisements too.
I used to have sleepless nights after watching horror films late at night from an early age with images of scenes from Hammer Horror films like flashbacks that stayed with me for years.
I heard debates of how important it was for women to have "sex appeal" and what was "sex appeal" and how we all had to be stick thin. I grew up with the messages that if you are not stick thin and do not have sex appeal that you are worthless and no one will love you.
Any psychologists who dare to say we are not brainwashed by TV and that our children are not affected by it are plain stupid, crazy or blind or trying to protect advertising / TV/ Film companies. Or maybe it's like smokers in charge of telling us smoking is bad for us .They'll tell us it's OK for years until they get found out. Maybe they are simply in denial themselves.
TV is a passive addiction that induces a semi-hypnotic state. That is why advertisers use it. If TV was not the best vehicle to brainwash people with then why on earth would they spend billions on their 20 second slots to sell millions of products. Anyone with a logical brain or business sense can see TV is a brainwashing device even if it wasn't designed to be like that.
At the time of the Anti-Media events we had a new channel, channel 4 .We suddenly had 25% more TV to watch in the UK and we now had just invented breakfast TV where you could still be half awake and watch TV. I remember when I first saw adverts in the morning, I couldn't cope as there were times I thought I might be still dreaming and any tune from early morning ads would stay in my head for the rest of the day echoing round my brain like a tape loop.
I guess I've acclimatised to it now. I do love watching films and programmes, often the most shallow ones but at least I am an adult.At least I know that what I am watching is bad for my mental health in large doses just like I know smoking ten fags a day is bad for my physical health but I can make a choice. I try to limit my TV/film viewing to a maximum of 2 hours a day now and although I frequently fail ,I certainly feel emotionally and mentally better off from my TV diets. I think watching TV with other people if you are discussing and sharing the programmes is different you can question it but watching TV alone for hours on end should definitely carry a mental health warning.
End of ranting Interlude and back to recollections of first Anti-Media event:
After my alien act, I remember seeing Andy roller-blading in his pig's head for a bit and possibly OM playing the guitar dressed as a Nazi.
Then of course there were the films made by Hogan and Richard. They liked to film people and scenes in the street :homeless alcoholics dressed in layers of rags , a dog wearing a big plastic collar to help heal some wound, footage of police riots at Wapping and the miner's strikes. Their films were not staged but often interesting things happened on these and created more of a story. One film taken I think at Wapping showed a load of aggressive policemen standing in line taunting members of the public, one looked directly at the camera and suddenly blew his nose from a great distance deliberately expelling a bogey onto the camera lens and completely obscuring the picture. It kind of reflected their maturity in dealing with the public at that time.
An ad break to make a cup of tea or to rant about police in the 80s…..
We lived at a time of riots in Brixton ,Liverpool , Bristol and near revolution. National Front Skinheads and protesters from the Socialist Workers and The Communist Revolutionary Party were clashing and rioting in the streets.
As for my friends ,we weren't interested in riots , we were listening to music and playing music and having a good time with our friends but we were constantly stopped and searched by the police .Myself and my partner used to get searched whenever we went anywhere in our van ( a 1960's VW camper van…not a very good disguise for hippies). Eventually we twigged that our number plate was on the Special Branch computer probably because we had gone to the Stonehenge festival while it was still reasonably legal . Once we moved house and got another vehicle life was a lot easier, getting searched once or twice a day at times was extremely stressful and gave us a healthy disrespect for the law which came out in our creativity.But other "normal" friends of mine also got searched constantly. Some looked completely law abiding and respectable, one of our normal looking friends got searched four times on the same day in Finchley by different groups of policemen. They never found anything yet we felt nervous whenever we saw police walking down the street. There's no denying the police really harassed alternative non-violent young people . They searched us hoping to find large quantities of drugs but they'd seen the "French Connection" ( not the designer label..the films!) far too many times and they had no idea how to find any drugs. In fact their search methods were hilarious except they were constantly humiliating us by strip searching all the guys in public, as a woman I was fairly safe as legally they needed a woman to strip search me and it was always men who stopped us . However I got frisked with my clothes on by male policemen which was pretty awful at times for a young woman. The only people I knew who got busted successfully by the police were the ones with dogs, they were far more talented at this. But to me drugs were not important , they are still not important to me and to the Anti-Media group drugs were not used or needed.
"And Now…..Back to the Anti-Media event…"
Our evening ended with a kind of open chat show. Hogan and Richard had invited a fashion clothes designer to interview him in a kind of open Terry Wogan chat show with questions from the floor.
The designer looked happy enough to start with sitting back in his chair, all debonair ready to answer questions on his new collection and how successful and great he was. Unfortunately for him though ….they had also invited someone who I think was from Oxfam, in any case they only wore charity shop clothes or ones from jumble sales. The designer talked about his work but then was challenged on clothes made by child slaves in sweat shops and how we didn't need a constant supply of new clothes and how it made more sense ecologically to recycle all our clothes by buying second-hand. At that time charity shops were dirt cheap, much much much cheaper than Primark in case you were wondering. Also people from the audience joined in who shopped at Camden and bought second-hand clothes. They were commenting how we didn't need designers to tell us or guide us on what to wear that fashion and style could be created by the wearer in an ethical way by sewing old clothes together to make new creations.
There were no set questions and no set beginning or ending or cute jokes like on a TV chat show. I know that now the ideas in this interview are pretty well-worn ( pardon the pun) but 23 years ago it was the very first time I had ever thought of fashion as being unethical and questioned who had made my beautiful Indian Hippie clothes. As an indirect result of that evening I then bought second-hand clothes for years and worked for a couple of years in an Oxfam shop where I made some fantastic friends. While writing this I have to say that although Primark has been my friend these past 2 or 3 years I think I'll go back to making my own clothes or buying second-hand in less expensive charity shops. In fact even charities have been brainwashed and operate so much like businesses that there is hardly any difference. Some charities pay their employees such high revenues that people who only care about their bank balances are working for them.
After the Anti-media event we all went back to Bob's who had recently moved to a flat a few doors down from Pentameters. Michael had come to see what I was doing although it was good for me to be involved in performance independently from our gigs and him . My alien act enabled me to do this subsequently in many different types of venue away from our psychedelic gigs. Some members of Treatment were also there and attended the subsequent Anti-Media events.
That was the first Anti-Media event I can recall but it got wilder as time went on…..
to see an interview with the lovely Leonie Scott-Matthews who was not part of Anti-Media but let us use her theatre see:www.camdennewjournal.co.uk/archive/f041203_3.htm
Categories: 80s, advertising, anti-consumerism, Anti-Materialism, anti-media, astragone arglegargle, counterculture, experimental film, experimental music, experimental theatre, fashion, film, fringe theatre, Hippie, London, music, Notting Hill, police, politics, society, television . Tags: 80s, advertising, anarchy, anti-consumerism, Anti-Materialism, anti-media, astragone arglegargle, counterculture, fashion, film, fringe theatre, Hampstead, London, music, politics, slavery, society, television . Author: born2rant . Comments: Leave a comment
Anti-media, aliens, hippies and the 80s subculture in North London(Anti-Media Stories part 1).
"Anti-Media"= a very small bunch of radical loonies including me. We need them now!
Names of some of my Anti-Media associates have been changed to protect them.
How I was recruited …. Back in the early eighties……
The Anti-Media people had seen my alien act at "The Chainsaw Party" a crazy spoof heavy metal gig we put on (more of that in another blog) and because the main song I did referred to TV personalities and programmes from the sixties and eighties they felt I was right enough for them.
The song I did called "She just desperately wants hippies" was co-written one evening a couple of months before between myself ,Richard, Michael and Bob at a house in Finchley just after Bob and I had had an argument . It was originally about a girl we knew who came from outside London to the gigs we organised to look for hippies to go out with. I suggested I got dressed as an alien who had come from another planet coming to earth looking for hippies and turned this into an act for our forthcoming "The Chainsaw Party".
My alien character having seen earth TV through satellite television broadcasts , thought it was 1969 not 1984 as the TV signals had taken 15 years to reach my planet. So my character had come from Planet Foam to Planet Earth looking for hippies and found none because it was the eighties when young people wore suits and were yuppies in wine bars, with mobile phones the size of house bricks and wore smug glasses. In my imagination my alien character chose to come to our psychedelic gigs where the second generation hippies gathered to see "Treatment" and other psychedelic/punk bands. My character was a pop star on Planet Foam and so was touring the Universe with her hits. I suffer from horrendous stage nerves /lack of confidence and having a character to hide behind meant I could unleash whatever I wanted. The song " She just desperately wants hippies" had absurd TV references . Some of the words were quite rude ( a certain "Mastermind" quizmaster having carrots stuck up his bottom…Bob's line not mine!).
Bob dared me to sing it dressed as an alien and that's how Astragone Arglegargle was born.
( I hope no one from Magnus Magnusson's family ever reads or hears about it! If so…it was nothing personal he just had great aliteration in his name)
During my first performance at The Chainsaw Party I was pelted with mud from the mud-wrestling pit by some skinheads but I continued and won the audience over and as soon as I got off stage four people booked me for gigs including Hogan and Richard of Anti-Media .
Hogan had just started working with us by projecting his experimental super 8 films at our gigs and Richard I had met before at Bob's place where he was staying, I think they had gone to the same school together.
Hogan was wearing a cream coloured polyester 70s suit and geeky glasses and slightly long hair. In London in 2007 this might be considered a fashionable or interesting "retro" look but in 1984 it was very uncool. Even in our anarchic gathering you had to have a uniform to identify you as a hippie or a biker or a punk or a goth or even a pratt new romantic , but this identified him as someone who defied fashion and labels. Richard looked like a cross between Norman Bates in Psycho ( sorry Richard) and Mike Nesbitt from the Monkees but without a woolly hat. He was dressed in drainpipe trousers and neat shirt with short hair and so he also stuck out from our crowd of crazily dressed hippies, punks and bikers. At subsequent gigs I remember Richard with his "normal look" but if you looked down on his feet he wore cloven hooves a bit of a give-away that all was not quite conforming to normality.
When I asked Hogan and Richard what kind of gig they wanted to book me for they were evasive and said it was an "Anti-Media Event" and they gave me flyers which were abstract and said virtually nothing . When I asked them if it was like an art event in the 60s where art students went through a town at night and would paint all the street furniture and anything they could lay their hands with red paint they looked at me and said "Maybe". I found it hard to take them seriously at first but they took themselves very seriously they were such nice people and clearly brave crazy intellectuals. Although I was part of Anti-Media I kept to the sidelines to a certain extent as I was busy with my son and the gigs Michael and I were running plus I was recording and performing and at that time I started a charity with a friend too so I was very busy. My stories therefore about Anti-media are only the tip of the iceberg. In the end it got too extreme for me and I had to quit.In order to keep this fairly chronological ….."In the next thrilling episode of my blograma…..my first Anti-Media Event and more ranting "
Categories: 80s, anti-media, counterculture, film, fringe theatre, Hippie, London, music, politics, psychedelic, punk, society . Tags: 80s, aliens, anti-media, counterculture, film, fringe theatre, Hippie, London, music, politics, psychedelic, punk, society . Author: born2rant . Comments: 1 Comment
For my son..starting in Notting Hill
Yesterday evening I received this e-mail from my son:
"set up a blog under some random name and PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE write down some of the things we talked about, the histories of British psychedelic 80s culture, the way we've all been brainwashed, what is different in mass or youth culture now compared to the 80s, what people need to fight against, what needs to be changed – do it for me if not for anyone else PLEASE!
Now I can be very lazy but I used to be a good mum when my son was younger and so now I HAVE to write this blog.
Yesterday i no I ( I like capital I) I was talking to my son on the phone for over two hours. He was in Germany I am in London in Notting Hill. God what a horrible place it's become!
It's beautiful and privileged but if you don't happen to also be beautiful and very rich don't bother living here, no one will talk to you unless you go to church.
I remember Notting Hill how it used to be in the late seventies and eighties.
I'll grant you now it's cleaner, it's a lot safer, I don't get constantly stopped and searched by the police anymore and all the facilities are good but its soul and community have been torn out and deported to some place far from London and far from our times.
Notting Hill used to be a fantastic place for me, all my friends used to live in squats round here, I used to run a stall with my partner Michael and we saw wonderful gigs at Meanwhile Gardens near Trellick Tower. All of them free.
Notting Hill is a good place to live in a material sense but not if you want to set anything up with a community feel or do anything that is not about lots of money, success or celebrity. But I'll stay here for the moment because it is beautiful round here.
Yes I probably sound spoilt to people who'd love to live here but maybe you don't understand how amazingly creative, exciting , innovative and friendly Notting Hill used to be or how people like myself felt we belonged and were valued for being who we were.
I now live perched in my ivory tower alienated from all the people and the values that used to be my life.
All I need to do to feel totally alienated is to put on the television set. Alienated is a good word as for a while I was known as an alien.
I don't know how to start. My son wants a political rant comparing now and back then and trying to get me to explain to everyone how we are all brainwashed, because I do rant sometimes to friends and my dear son and sometimes to his friends and to my surprise they often find it interesting.
We are all brainwashed. Even I am brainwashed.
The most powerful entity in our lives is the media and we have been brainwashed for so long now that money, success, a perfect youthful body and fame are all so important that it ticks away in our subconscious thoughts. But if I'd pick just one thing we are brainwashed to think then it's all about money, money, money. We cannot start anything new without money in our brains.
Even in writing this blog there is a tiny little voice I can barely hear in the background saying
" Ooh maybe someone will read this and find it interesting and then maybe my blog will be important and they will publish a bit in a newspaper and then there will be a book made of it and I 'll be rich and then I'll be successful just like J.K.Rowling and everyone will know me as this trendy cool middle-aged woman who wrote about cool things she experienced that no one else knew about and I'll get teenagers thinking I'm cool and I'll make more money and be on TV chat shows and be more successful and then I'll have plastic surgery or expensive beauty therapies and stylists to make me look better on TV and record companies will finally listen to my music and I'll tour the world and be more famous and sell lots of CD's and have cheap downloads on the internet and I'll still make money….
SHIT! That is SHITE! that is superstinky shite.
But to anyone who writes a blog can you honestly hand on heart say there wasn't a little voice in the back of your head thinking
" ooh I can promote myself this way and maybe make some money and be cool"?
I'm telling you this is shite and it's in all of our brains. We have been contaminated by the concepts of marketting and having to turn everything we do into a profit.
They wonder why young people stab eachother or shoot eachother to obtain some trinket. They wonder why people go on reality TV shows to be given such a hard time, but it's for "money" and "fame". The ends justify the means even if you have a place to live, all the food you can eat and all the clothes you can wear we are brainwashed to think we need more and more and more.
I bet you that since the success of the Harry Potter books every writer of children's fiction has had that little voice in their head saying ( Ooh! I could be infinitely rich and famous just like J.K. then everyone will be respect me and I'll be someone.")
This is shite and it is endemic.
Nearly every musician I know , and I know 100s of them, has the voice inside each time they write a piece of music.
" Maybe I can make money out of this. I'd better make it catchy or better make it sound a little like that other band/artist that sold so much last year. I'd better make sure my lyrics don't say anything people wouldn't like. Who am I writing for? Which angle should I take in the lyrics , what am I aiming for? Maybe it's easier to just not have lyrics then there's no one to upset and I don't have to stand by anything I say. "
It isn't downloading or home taping or computer games that have ruined music…it's obsession with making money even when there isn't any to be made.
Just thinking that downloading, or home taping or the sale of computer games is responsible for crap music shows you are only thinking of the financial aspect. Every musician has to categorise themselves in a style for others. Why? because shops started to sell music by category, radio shows started to play music by category. It's all marketting.
But when good original music is being made it doesn't know yet what it is.
It might go in any direction. If you label it you might just kill any possibility of doing something creative and new and with some genius or thought in it.
If you really have to label it , then do it twenty years later.
If you have to think of the marketting aspect as you are creating something, your creativity is more or less screwed.
It's not just the media than brainwashes us, it's also endemic in the education system which is geared to everything making a profit.
Maybe soon we will have G.Ps. and other health professionals wearing T-shirts advertising Glaxo to sponsor the purchase of an ultrasound machine for their surgery and what about parks and libraries maybe they should earn their keep too and charge entry….
Anyway I can rant but being ranted at is kind of assuming you don't know these things already. It's condescending.
I don't just want to shout and rant at you, an intelligent reader.
I'd like to entertain you with anecdotes of past events that take you to the spirit of challenging how we think about everything but which also demonstrates the shortcomings of anarchic movements.
If someone chose to make a mainstream film of these stories they'd choose the comical aspects and the shortcomings and ridicule it all and there IS comedy here but the message is actually quite serious and very powerful.
If we keep thinking just about marketting our whole society and our planet will collapse and we will have to start thinking again in non money- making terms to survive .
Naturally those still thinking in just material terms will simply stab or shoot one another to get what they want. The concept of pooling resources or working collaboratively for no money in order to survive just won't register to those brainwashed by years of image/fame/money obsession.
Recently this friendly guy in his thirties contacted me on myspace. He had made a fan site for a punk/psychedelic band called "Treatment" who were good friends of mine and a great influence on my music and my life so I was absolutely delighted to see a fan site of this little-known band. Out of my correspondence with him on myspace I started to tell him stories about my involvement, my creating and my witnessing of various aspects of the 80s music psychedelic counter-culture.
In those days we just loved what we did. We wanted to shout stuff from the rooftops. We weren't brainwashed yet, Thatcherism and eighties culture started it and the media continued with it not just in this country but many others have become also completely obsessed with marketting and business values…
The eighties was the start of the problems and although my son thought everyone was like us we were deeply untrendy hippies swimming against the current, fighting the system and challenging everything we heard and saw.
In the history of my life there are so many interwoven strands of different music subcultures and different kinds of alternative people I have been involved with but I will start by telling you some little mad stories about an anonymous group of loonies called
"ANTI-MEDIA" including myself. God knows we could do with them now. But if we did the same things now we'd probably get shot or arrested or both!
Categories: 80s, counterculture, Hippie, London, music, Notting Hill, politics, psychedelic . Tags: , 80s, anti-media, brainwashing, counterculture, hippies, music, Notting Hill, politics, psychedelic, society . Author: born2rant . Comments: 5 Comments


The LMUD Board went to War with Amedee Geothermal in Wendel, CA. Amedee Geothermal fought back and won [Lassen County Superior Court Case 59485]. This was one of many battles with this unethical public utility. The case was filed on June 25, 2015 and went to trial on April 11, 2017. The Jury returned a verdict for Amedee and LMUD was ordered to pay attorney fees.
LMUD reports to the public on December 17, 2013 that it is a "potential litigation" and gives the Case Number.
Where in the world did these Board members learn to lie with such stupidity?
No mention of new lawsuit in LMUD's 11/26/13 Agenda?
Why: Stewart has no idea what he is doing.
The Court granted Amedee (AGV I in Wendel) a Temporary Restraining Order against LMUD and ordered LMUD to reinstall the 1750 Power Recorder today. LMUD closed Amedee out of the Common Metering Faciliy (CMF) on March 7, 2012.
Stewart and an incompetent Board are costing ratepayers thousands of dollars.


"Addictions are not only drugs or alcohol, they are any activity that temporarily distracts us from, or relieves our pain…" says Dr Gabor Mate in this brilliant interview. It seems that basically everything our human race relies on these days could be considered addictive – including social media and "love and light' Spirituality, where we only focus on the positive in order to avoid facing our pain… (*hands up to being guilty of that one myself).
The question therefore should not be "why my addiction, but why my pain?" and why are the majority of the population addicted to something in what should be an evolved age?


Despite the rigid look, the atypical house is quite warm, generously spacious and welcoming on the inside. Playful and colourful objects embellish the interior, emphasising its dynamic and lively character. The entire living space is envisioned as a fluid, unitary space. Since the house appeared overnight, the neighbours were, of course, more than surprised, to admire a new structure made out of containers, placed strategically on a regular plot of land, being surrounded by cow fields, woods, and houses with saddle roofs. They soon got used to it and perceived it as something positive.


Numerous reports have questioned the ability of United States emergency departments to handle the increasing demand for emergency services. Emergency department (ED) overcrowding is widespread in US cities and has reportedly reached crisis proportions. The purpose of this review is to describe how ED overcrowding threatens patient safety and public health, and to explore the complex causes and potential solutions for the overcrowding crisis. A review of the literature from 1990 to 2002 identified by a search of the Medline database was performed. Additional sources were selected from the references of the articles identified. There were four key findings. (1) The ED is a vital component of America's health care "safety net". (2) Overcrowding in ED treatment areas threatens public health by compromising patient safety and jeopardising the reliability of the entire US emergency care system. (3) Although the causes of ED overcrowding are complex, the main cause is inadequate inpatient capacity for a patient population with an increasing severity of illness. (4) Potential solutions for ED overcrowding will require multidisciplinary system-wide support.
Numerous reports have questioned the ability of United States emergency departments to handle an increasing demand for emergency services.1–7 Emergency department (ED) overcrowding is widespread in US cities and has reportedly reached crisis proportions.2–9 The purpose of this review is to describe how ED overcrowding threatens patient safety and public health, and to explore the complex causes and potential solutions for the overcrowding crisis.
We performed a review of relevant articles from 1990–2002 identified by a Medline search combining the MeSH heading "emergency service, hospital" with the following keywords: crowding, overcrowding, bed occupancy, health services accessibility, hospital restructuring, and patient safety. The search produced a total of 177 potential articles that were reviewed for pertinence. Of these, we selected 32 articles for this review. Additional sources were selected from the references of the articles identified. The sources included original research as well as data from peer reviewed commentaries and consensus conference proceedings.
Therefore, the role of the ED is crucial for public health.10,13–15,20 Any threat to the EDs ability to provide quality emergency care constitutes a public health crisis. Currently the greatest threat to the viability of the US emergency care system is reported to be ED overcrowding.
ED overcrowding: an emerging threat to patient safety?
ED overcrowding could potentially affect anyone who suffers unexpected severe illness or injury requiring time sensitive emergency treatment. Manifestations of ED overcrowding include (1) "boarding" of patients in the ED, (2) increased risk of medical errors, (3) ambulance diversion, (4) threat to disaster preparedness, and (5) eroding reliability of the emergency care system.
Even critically ill patients have been reported to wait extraordinarily long periods of time in the ED until an inpatient critical care bed is available.2,9 For all hospitals in the US, the average waiting time for an inpatient acute or critical care bed is over three hours, but the average waiting time is 5.8 hours in hospitals with overcrowded EDs.2 Boarding in the ED could subject critically ill patients to treatment delays when time sensitive interventions are necessary. There is current evidence that in disease states such as severe sepsis, early specialised goal directed therapy within the first six hours can decrease mortality up to 16%.26 Therefore, boarding critically ill patients in a non-ICU setting could cause treatment delays at a pivotal point in the hospital course, potentially resulting in poor outcomes.
Boarding causes the ED to be filled beyond capacity with the highest acuity patients. The ED is neither designed nor equipped to provide longitudinal care, and patient safety may be compromised when there is not enough staffing in the ED to give a severely ill patient undivided attention over a long period of time. In addition, these patients may be so labour intensive that other ED patients cannot receive the necessary attention from ED staff.
The terrorist attacks of September 11 2001 have brought greater focus on US disaster preparedness. A key ingredient in the response to potential terrorism or bioterrorism disasters is the readiness of US EDs. Overcrowded EDs would be ill equipped to handle mass casualty victims in a disaster scenario.
Despite managed care initiatives to limit ED visits, US ED utilisation rose by more than 14% from 1992 to 1999, increasing to over 100 million annual patient visits.34 In the past, ED overcrowding was attributed to inappropriate use of the ED by a large volume of non-urgent patients.23 However, there has never been a consensus definition of "non-urgent", and opinions about the appropriateness of an ED visit have been widely divergent. High subsequent hospitalisation rates have been reported for patients who were initially denied ED care,19 and trying to prospectively determine the appropriateness of an ED visit has been considered a risky practice.
In addition to concerns over patient safety, the impetus to keep patients away from the ED has virtually disappeared for two reasons. Firstly, HCFA now strictly enforces EMTALA, which mandates that EDs at least provide a screening examination for all patients.18 Secondly, and most importantly, non-urgent visits are no longer believed to be the main cause of overcrowding.4,20,23 To understand this last concept, overcrowding of the triage area (that is, waiting room) must be differentiated from overcrowding of the patient treatment areas. Non-urgent visits cause extremely crowded waiting rooms but reportedly do not cause crowding in the ED treatment areas, because the highest acuity patients are always brought into the treatment areas first.20 In fact, the total number of ED visits has been reported to poorly correlate with ED overcrowding.35 The notion that non-urgent patients are the main cause of the ED overcrowding crisis has now been abandoned.4,20,23 We now realise that the true causes of ED overcrowding are much more complex,5,20 and include (1) inadeqate inpatient capacity, (2) higher severity of illness, and (3) hospital system restructuring.
ED overcrowding is not limited to the United States, and inpatient capacity has been cited as the most important factor in ED overcrowding in other countries as well.40 ED overcrowding has been linked to inadequate inpatient bed availability in the United Kingdom38,41 and Australia,42 and has been recognised as an "international symptom of health care system failure".43 Potential solutions for ED overcrowding may affect health care delivery to emergency department patients internationally.
We must fully recognise the unique role of the ED in the health care safety. Any threat to the integrity of the emergency care system constitutes a public health crisis. Special measures to strengthen ED infrastructure must be taken, including the allocation of state and federal resources to advance patient safety research.
One temporising measure to help alleviate the gridlock of patients awaiting admission in the ED is to provide an alternative place for them to go. ED short stay observation units have been shown to relieve ED overcrowding by giving the ED a way to control patient outflow to some extent.24,44 This is advantageous because solutions for patient outflow from the ED are expected to have the biggest impact on overcrowding.6,20,24 An ED managed observation unit has been shown to markedly decrease waiting times and cut the mean monthly hours of ambulance diversion by 40%.44 Observation units are essential in order to help EDs make room for incoming patients.
The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) has identified the importance of strategic planning in alleviating ED overcrowding. They recommend planning ahead for patients affected by ED overcrowding, in a similar way to planning ahead for elective surgery or elective hospital admissions. The recommendations include (1) planning for delivery of care to patients who must be placed in temporary bed locations, (2) coordination with long term health facilities and home health agencies to expedite hospital discharges, and (3) incorporating ED overcrowding initiatives into system-wide performance improvement goals.46 The strategic planning initiative is intended to help hospitals anticipate and prepare for ED overcrowding, rather than react to ED overcrowding after it has occurred.
Because the main causes of ED overcrowding seem to originate outside the ED, the only way to truly alleviate ED overcrowding is to focus our attention on system-wide reform. Based on 10 years of experience with ED overcrowding in Rochester, New York, Schneider et al reported that targeting internal ED efficiency had very little effect on overcrowding. ED overcrowding proved to be a complex problem deeply rooted in "issues of inpatient capacity, inadequacy of alternatives for hospitalization, and hospital resource shortages."24 Overcrowding was only alleviated after hospital administration and the local department of health realised that system reform was necessary. Hospital administration created a short-stay observation unit and a "transition team" to expedite the care of inpatients being boarded in the ED. The local department of health developed effective early warning systems and contingency plans. These interventions had a great impact on ED overcrowding and ambulance diversion.24 To alleviate overcrowding and better ensure the safety of ED patients, communities struggling with ED overcrowding must tackle the crisis with a similar multidisciplinary system-wide approach.
The ED is a vital component of the US health care safety net. ED overcrowding threatens public health by compromising patient safety and jeopardising the reliability of the entire US emergency care system. ED overcrowding is a symptom of health care system failure on multiple levels. The main cause of ED overcrowding is a failure to ensure adequate inpatient capacity for an ED population with an increasing severity of illness. Alleviating the overcrowding crisis will require a multidisciplinary system-wide approach.
Richardson LD, Hwang U. America's health care safety net: intact or unraveling? Acad Emerg Med2001;8:1056–63.
Lewin Group (for the American Hospital Association). Emergency department overload: a growing crisis. The results of the American Hospital Association Survey of Emergency Department (ED) and Hospital Capacity. Falls Church, VA: American Hospital Association, 2002.
Derlet RW. Overcrowding in emergency departments: increased demand and decreased capacity. Ann Emerg Med2002;39:430–2.
Derlet RW, Richards JR, Kravitz R. Frequent overcrowding in US emergency departments. Acad Emerg Med2001;8:151–5.
Derlet RW, Richards JR. Overcrowding in the nation's emergency departments: complex causes and disturbing effects. Ann Emerg Med2000;35:63–8.
Derlet RW, Richards JR. Emergency department overcrowding in Florida, New York, and Texas. South Med J2002;95:846–9.
Taylor TB. Threats to the health care safety net. Acad Emerg Med2001;8:1080–7.
Lambe S, Washington DL, Fink A, et al. Trends in the use and capacity of California's emergency departments, 1990–1999. Ann Emerg Med2002;39:389–96.
Andrulis DP, Kellermann A, Hintz EA, et al. Emergency departments and crowding in United States teaching hospitals. Ann Emerg Med1991;20:980–6.
Fields WE. Defending America's safety net. Report of the American College of Emergency Physicians 1998–99 safety net task force. Dallas, TX: American College of Emergency Physicians, 1999.
US Department of Health and Human Services. Office of the Inspector General. Use of emergency rooms by Medicaid recipients. Washington, DC: US Department of Health and Human Services, 1992.
McCaig LF. National hospital ambulatory medical care survey: 1998 emergency department summary. Hyattsville, MD: National Center for Health Statistics, 2000.
Gordon JA. Emergency care as safety net. Health Aff (Millwood)2000;19:277.
Gordon JA. The hospital emergency department as a social welfare institution. Ann Emerg Med1999;33:321–5.
Asplin BR. Tying a knot in the unraveling health care safety net. Acad Emerg Med2001;8:1075–9.
Lewin ME, Altman SH (for the Institute of Medicine). Committee on the Changing Market Managed Care and the Future Viability of Safety Net Providers. America's health care safety net: intact but endangered. Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 2000:xviii, 281.
Altman SH. Statement from the chair. Committee on the changing market, managed care, and the future viability of safety net providers, 2000. http://www.iom.edu (accessed 1 Oct 2002).
The Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act, as established under the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (COBRA) of 1985 (42 USC 1395 dd). 1194. Federal Register, 59:32086–127.
Lowe RA, Bindman AB, Ulrich SK, et al. Refusing care to emergency department of patients: evaluation of published triage guidelines. Ann Emerg Med1994;23:286–93.
Gordon JA, Billings J, Asplin BR, et al. Safety net research in emergency medicine: proceedings of the Academic Emergency Medicine Consensus Conference on "The Unraveling Safety Net". Acad Emerg Med2001;8:1024–9.
Richards JR, Navarro ML, Derlet RW. Survey of directors of emergency departments in California on overcrowding. West J Med2000;172:385–8.
Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO). Sentinel event alert, June 17, 2002. http://www.jcaho.org/about+us/news+letters/sentinel+event+alert/sea_26.html (accessed 21 Sep 2002).
Kellermann AL. Deja vu. Ann Emerg Med2000;35:83–5.
Schneider S, Zwemer F, Doniger A, et al. New York: a decade of emergency department overcrowding. Acad Emerg Med2001;8:1044–50.
Lynn SG, Kellermann AL. Critical decision-making: managing the emergency department in an overcrowded hospital. Ann Emerg Med1991;20:287–92.
Rivers E, Nguyen B, Havstad S, et al. Early goal-directed therapy in the treatment of severe sepsis and septic shock. N Engl J Med2001;345:1368–77.
McNutt RA, Abrams R, Arons DC. Patient safety efforts should focus on medical errors. JAMA2002;287:1997–2001.
Litvak E, Long MC, Cooper AB, et al. Emergency department diversion: causes and solutions. Acad Emerg Med2001;8:1108–10.
Taylor TB. Emergency services crisis of 2000—the Arizona experience. Acad Emerg Med2001;8:1107–8.
Redelmeier DA, Blair PJ, Collins WE. No place to unload: a preliminary analysis of the prevalence, risk factors, and consequences of ambulance diversion. Ann Emerg Med1994;23:43–7.
Brewster L, Rudell L, Lesser C. Emergency room diversions: a symptom of hospitals under stress. Issue brief: findings form the HSC. Washington, DC: Center for Studying Health System Change, 2001.
McCaig LF, Stussman BJ. National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey: 1996 emergency department summary. Adv Data1997;293:1–20.
Taylor TB. Position statement on the critical state of emergency care in Arizona. Arizona emergency care crisis meeting summary. Phoenix, AZ: Governor's administrative offices conference, 2000.
Burt CW, McCaig LF. Trends in hospital emergency department utilization: United States, 1992–99. Vital Health Stat2001;13:1–34.
Schull MJ, Szalai JP, Schwartz B, et al. Emergency department overcrowding following systematic hospital restructuring: trends at twenty hospitals over ten years. Acad Emerg Med2001;8:1037–43.
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Graff L. Overcrowding in the ED: an international symptom of health care system failure. Am J Emerg Med1999;17:208–9.
Kelen GD, Scheulen JJ, Hill PM. Effect of an emergency department (ED) managed acute care unit on ED overcrowding and emergency medical services diversion. Acad Emerg Med2001;8:1095–100.
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A first-half goal from Dean Bowditch gave MK Dons victory over managerless strugglers Charlton Athletic.
The Addicks nearly took an early lead but Dons goalkeeper David Martin saved brilliantly from Jordan Cousins.
Bowditch put the hosts ahead with their first goal in more than five hours with a neat finish after linking up well with Samir Carruthers.
Nicky Maynard was twice denied by away keeper Stephen Henderson and Bowditch hit the post as the Dons dominated.
The three points were a welcome boost for Karl Robinson's men, who are now four points clear of the bottom three in the Championship.
In contrast, the Addicks remain second from bottom and have failed to score since 4 October, losing their last five matches.
After Cousins had gone close to ending that search for a goal, the home team got on top and Henderson had to scramble away a Matt Upson effort before Bowditch scored his second goal of the season.
Maynard, without a goal since August 2014, should have put the home side 2-0 up but lacked conviction when played through on goal and Henderson then denied him for a second time when he saved his curling effort.
Bowditch hit a post with a powerful shot from a tight angle before Charlton defender Patrick Bauer had a late header blocked.
"I thought we were outstanding. It's just a bit disappointing as we should have had a convincing victory.
"The boys have done well to create as many chances as they did and we need to take them.
"There was a little bit of nervous energy around the place, but it takes us four points clear of the drop zone, which is a nice cushion to have."
"I'm concerned with the lack of chances we created, but the Dons only created their chances after we took a lot of risks and we gave them a lot of space.
"We need to get a win as soon as possible to turn this bad run around.
"It's not about me, my concern is the team and I think there are other concerns at this moment."
Match ends, MK Dons 1, Charlton Athletic 0.
Second Half ends, MK Dons 1, Charlton Athletic 0.
Offside, MK Dons. Darren Potter tries a through ball, but Simon Church is caught offside.
Foul by Simon Church (MK Dons).
Alou Diarra (Charlton Athletic) wins a free kick in the defensive half.
Diego Poyet (MK Dons) wins a free kick in the defensive half.
Foul by Chris Solly (Charlton Athletic).
Offside, Charlton Athletic. Johnnie Jackson tries a through ball, but Tony Watt is caught offside.
Attempt missed. Josh Murphy (MK Dons) right footed shot from outside the box is just a bit too high. Assisted by Jordan Spence with a headed pass.
Foul by Tony Watt (Charlton Athletic).
Jordan Spence (MK Dons) wins a free kick in the defensive half.
Foul by Simon Makienok (Charlton Athletic).
Attempt missed. Simon Church (MK Dons) right footed shot from the right side of the box misses to the left. Assisted by Carl Baker with a through ball.
Johann Berg Gudmundsson went off injured after Charlton Athletic had used all subs.
Attempt missed. Diego Poyet (MK Dons) left footed shot from the centre of the box misses to the right. Assisted by Josh Murphy.
Antony Kay (MK Dons) is shown the yellow card.
Corner, MK Dons. Conceded by Alou Diarra.
Carl Baker (MK Dons) wins a free kick in the defensive half.
Delay in match Johann Berg Gudmundsson (Charlton Athletic) because of an injury.
Delay in match Carl Baker (MK Dons) because of an injury.
Foul by Carl Baker (MK Dons).
Johnnie Jackson (Charlton Athletic) wins a free kick in the defensive half.
Foul by Lee Hodson (MK Dons).
Karlan Ahearne-Grant (Charlton Athletic) wins a free kick on the left wing.
Substitution, MK Dons. Simon Church replaces Nicky Maynard.
Attempt blocked. Patrick Bauer (Charlton Athletic) header from the centre of the box is blocked. Assisted by Johann Berg Gudmundsson with a cross.
Corner, Charlton Athletic. Conceded by Dean Lewington.
Offside, Charlton Athletic. Tony Watt tries a through ball, but Simon Makienok is caught offside.
Nicky Maynard (MK Dons) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.
Foul by Nicky Maynard (MK Dons).
Patrick Bauer (Charlton Athletic) wins a free kick in the defensive half.
Substitution, MK Dons. Carl Baker replaces Dean Bowditch because of an injury.
Delay in match Dean Bowditch (MK Dons) because of an injury.


text:
Best Apps for Getting Over Your Ex
5 Apps That'll Help You Get Over That Painful Breakup
Ian Stobber
In a modern era highly focused around technology, it only makes sense that we have digital solutions to life problems. Dealing with a breakup is no different.
Sure, you can get over an ex using only analog means — disappear to a cabin in the woods without wi-fi; read print books and chop wood to get your frustrations out — but it's worth considering what more modern inventions have to offer when it comes to your healing process.
RELATED: What to Do Right After a Breakup
First things first, you should probably technologically unhook from your ex. Whether it's mute, block, unfriend, or delete, do what you need to do to ensure they won't be popping up on your phone or computer unexpectedly when you're trying to unwind. There are a handful of apps designed to help with this kind of thing, but the functionalities available within most social media apps are really all you need.
Next, here are five apps to help you get over your ex in a way that allows for growth, processing and self-improvement.
Downloading every single one won't guarantee you a smooth path to getting over your breakup. And depending on what you're struggling with the most, maybe you'll only use one of them (or others might appear more useful at different stages of dealing with the breakup.
As long as you're conscious that you need help, these will help get you on the right track.
5 Best Apps That'll Help Heal Your Broken Heart
For Motivation: Habitica
Details: Available for iOS and Android/free with in-app purchases
How it'll help: Turning the boring day-to-day crap in your life into a game
In the wake of a difficult breakup, it can be hard to feel excited about things. You're essentially going through a period of grief, mourning for the loss of not just another person but a version of yourself and the future you'd have together. Lots of guys don't take that grief seriously, and then are surprised when they feel listless and unmotivated after a relationship ends.
The best motivation is internal, but when you're lacking that jump, external sources of motivation can be a godsend. That might be encouragement from a close friend or family member, or it could be an app — like Habitica, which uses the psychological principles of operant conditioning to make getting your daily tasks done a game rather than a chore, assigning you rewards for getting stuff done and dinging you for missing stuff.
For Workouts: Strava
Details: Available for iOS (iPhone and Apple Watch)/free with in-app purchases or optional $5/month premium membership
How it'll help: Giving you a positive goal to keep yourself occupied
It's a bit of a cliché by now, but turning your frustrated feelings into workout energy is a useful post-breakup approach that can yield both mental and physical health benefits. Of course, people like to talk about a "revenge body" — getting into wicked shape right after a breakup in order to make your ex regret dumping you — but regular workouts are pretty much never a bad idea, and that much less so when you're newly single, as you'll need something productive to fill the time you used to spend with your ex.
RELATED: Why You Should Work Out After a Breakup
Strava is a great option here — it's a GPS tracker to keep track of your running, jogging and cycling routes, but it has a social component, which, sort of like Habitica, can work to push you to work out more. Boasting a stunning 4.8 rating on the app store, it allows you to compete on leaderboards with friends, and try to set streaks of as many weeks of workouts in a row you can manage.
For Journaling: Diarium
Details: Available for iOS and Android & Mac and Windows/free with premium option ($4.99)
How it'll help: Giving you an easy place to put your feelings down in words
Two of the best things to do after a breakup are creating and talking about your feelings, and journaling provides a means of hitting both of those birds with one stone, more or less. Of course, writing your feelings down can't entirely replace talking about them — because you never get a response. But if you're not ready for opening up to other people, pouring your heart out to a journal is a fantastic first step that can grant you very real catharsis.
RELATED: Post-Breakup Rules
One of the best journaling apps out there today is Diarium. Not only does it allow you to safely and conveniently type down your thoughts, you can also take advantage of the app's speech-to-text functionality to talk about your feelings if you don't feel like using your fingers. It can send you prompt notifications if you want to be reminded to write regularly, and you can add photos and other media to fill out your entries.
For Therapy: BetterHelp
Details: Free to download on iOS and Android/cost ranges between $35 to $80 per week, but financial assistance is available (paid monthly)
How it'll help: Giving you a trained professional to talk you through your difficult period
The pandemic led to an absolute explosion in the popularity of digital means of therapy, and thank goodness. While there's something to be said for making the trip to a therapist's office, it's not always feasible or convenient to do so, and e-therapy apps like BetterHelp allow you to derive the benefits of therapy without all of the obstacles or drawbacks.
RELATED: 10 Things Men Do Online After A Breakup
The lower barrier to entry is also great if you, like many guys, don't have a ton of therapy experience or were taught growing up that it's for 'crazy people' rather than a useful tool for lots of different people, including ones going through difficult emotional periods.
For Getting Back Out There: Tinder
Details: Available for iOS and Android/free to download with in-app purchases and premium versions
How it'll help: Reminding you that there are other fish in the sea waiting for you to meet
To be clear, throwing yourself immediately back into the dating pool long before you've processed your breakup is a move that's likely to end badly. So maybe wait at least a few weeks for this one, if not a few months, depending on the length of the relationship in question.
But Tinder is a hookup app, and most people don't download it expecting to find long-term commitment. If a little no-strings-attached action will help break you out of your funk, this is the place to find it. Or maybe just swiping mindlessly through all the people on the app alone will help you come to terms with the fact that your ex wasn't the only person for you, after all.
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Home :: Military :: Library :: News :: 2003 :: September ::
U.N. Has "Vital Role" in U.S. Foreign Policy, Holmes Says
U.S. will promote six priority issues in General Assembly
The United Nations plays a vital role in U.S. foreign policy, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs Kim R. Holmes says.
"Ever since the president went to the U.N. General Assembly (UNGA) a year ago and challenged the United Nations on Iraq to generally live up to its founding principles, we have seen the United Nations at the center of almost every major U.S. foreign policy issue," Dr. Holmes said in a recent interview on U.S. plans for the 58th General Assembly session with Washington File United Nations Correspondent Judy Aita.
"The General Assembly ... is a critically important part of the U.N. system," the assistant secretary said. "For that reason, we do take it very seriously."
"With the eyes of the world on it, the General Assembly can be a forum to highlight important issues that might otherwise be overlooked. ... It can generate a lot of political support around the world," he said.
Holmes outlined six priorities that the United States will pursue during the current three-month session of the General Assembly, which began the bulk of its work September 23. HIV/AIDS, economic issues, cyber-security, cloning, the protection of women's political rights, and budget restraint will form the centerpiece of U.S. efforts, he said.
Holmes was sworn in as assistant secretary in November 2002. He previously served as vice president and director of the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for International Studies at the Heritage Foundation. He was also the Heritage Foundation's chief spokesman on foreign and defense policy issues, and senior editor of Heritage foreign policy publications.
The Bureau of International Organization Affairs develops and implements U.S. policy in the United Nations, its specialized and voluntary agencies, and certain other international organizations.
Following is the transcript of the interview:
(begin transcript)
QUESTION: Many people still seem unsure about how the United States views the United Nations. Where would you say the United Nations system fits in U.S. foreign policy?
HOLMES: The president and the secretary of state have made very clear that the United Nations certainly plays, in many cases, a vital role in foreign policy issues. That's certainly the case in Iraq.
Ever since the president went to the General Assembly a year ago and challenged the United Nations on Iraq to generally live up to its founding principles, we have seen the United Nations at the center of almost every major U.S. foreign policy issue. Whether it's the Middle East, the Quartet, Iraq, the Security Council, the issue of proliferation, North Korea, or the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency), the U.N. and international organizations have played a role.
So we take it very seriously. And we look forward to working with our colleagues in the General Assembly.
Q: On the General Assembly, what are the main objectives of the United States during the session?
A: We have a number of priorities that we will be pressing. I'll just go through them very briefly: We are going to be emphasizing the importance of protecting women's political rights. We plan to sponsor a resolution promoting the education and training of women in political processes. Women's political participation improves not only their lives, but also those of their families and communities. A country cannot become a true democracy if over half its population has little or no voice, particularly on issues like education, health, human rights, and development. The United Nations should send a clear message that this is wrong.
We also want to draw attention to HIV/AIDS. The president and the secretary of state have made HIV/AIDS a key issue for the United States. We would like to see a resolution reiterating the goals on HIV/AIDS established at the UNGA high-level plenary. And we want to ensure that the Global Fund (to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria) has adequate resources. We would like to draw the General Assembly's attention to it to ensure more resources go to protecting people from this terrible disease. We hope this attention will rally the world to increased action.
On economic issues, we need to bring the vision and commitments of the Millennium Summit, the Monterrey Consensus, and the World Summit on Sustainable Development, to the work of the Second Committee.
We would like the Second Committee to look at concrete steps that will focus the way the committee works on economic issues so that it can better organize itself to advance the agreed goals from the Monterrey principles and the World Summit on Sustainable Development to better produce and promote economic development.
Cyber-security is another priority. Certainly on this day of September 11, we are cognizant of how important it is to protect ourselves against terrorism. Protecting the Internet and the whole information infrastructure against terrorist attacks is something that the global community must cooperate on. It is a global problem. We plan to support a resolution on cyber-security. We hope this resolution would endorse the 11 principles adopted recently by the G-8 Justice and Interior Ministers. These principles build on previous international efforts to enhance the capability of governments and the private sector to prevent, investigate, and respond to attacks on information infrastructure.
We want the U.N. to affirm that all cloning of human embryos, regardless of the purpose, is wrong and should be banned. This could be achieved either through adoption of a declaration or by agreement on a mandate to begin negotiating a convention on banning all cloning of human embryos. Human cloning is an assault on human dignity. We believe banning cloning is an important and fundamental human rights issue. Cloning an embryo for the purpose of killing it for research or other uses is morally and ethically unacceptable. We are working with other countries such as Costa Rica on a resolution based on these principles.
And last, but not least, it is a traditional position for the United States to try to influence others to exercise budgetary restraint. We will continue to promote good stewardship of the U.N.'s resources and budget discipline as the cornerstone of U.N. reform. This year will be a test for the U.N. to translate its many reform initiatives into real savings. The budget is slated to top $3 billion for the first time. Programs should be prioritized and sunset provisions included in all U.N. mandates in order to foster a culture of accountability based on performance.
Q: You have been discussing cloning with Costa Rica. Have you been discussing all the issues with other governments? How are they being received?
A: Yes. We've had many meetings. As a matter of fact, yesterday at a luncheon with 20 ambassadors from around the world, I previewed the goals and we discussed all of them. We've also discussed a number of resolutions, such as the one on cloning, with a lot of countries at the bilateral level. We have generally gotten positive responses and interest. There's a lot of interest in the women's issues, women's rights. There's a lot of interest in HIV/AIDS. I think that on budget discipline, most countries understand the need for that.
I don't see any of them as creating any great controversy in the General Assembly. So far, we've been very pleased with the response that we've received.
Q: With 191 member states, the General Assembly is often criticized as large and unwieldy. Its achievements are usually hard to quantify. How does the United States view the General Assembly? Where does it work well? How can it be improved?
A: The General Assembly obviously, from the (U.N.) Charter, is a critically important part of the U.N. system. For that reason, we do take it very seriously, which is why President Bush addressed the General Assembly.
With the eyes of the world on it, the General Assembly can be a forum to highlight important issues that might otherwise be overlooked, particularly when there is a consensus emerging around some particular issue. It can generate a lot of political support around the world.
At the same time, it is a body that has near-universal membership. Its resolutions are not binding. Sometimes there's too much repetition of the resolutions. Sometimes there is too much emphasis on certain controversial issues. For example, the way Israel is often treated in the General Assembly reflects poorly on the U.N.
So, I think, there's a growing feeling among members of the General Assembly -- including some of the leadership in the U.N. -- that more could be done to streamline the agenda of the General Assembly, reducing the number of resolutions that are not absolutely necessary or that are repetitious or divisive, streamlining the agenda to try to make it more effective, in order to raise the credibility of the U.N. itself.
We would like to have a greater focus on resolutions that are truly representative of the consensus of the international community, rather than those which are intended to divide us.
You know, it's a daunting task to reform any body such as this, but I am sensing that a number of countries are interested in that.
Q: Much of the world's attention right now is being focused on Iraq, the Middle East, Afghanistan, North Korea, and Liberia. These are issues that are being dealt with actively in the Security Council, for the most part. Can the General Assembly play a constructive role in helping to reduce the tensions or assist the Security Council in some way in these issues?
A: Well, the founding fathers of the United Nations and the Charter very wisely made a distinction between the responsibilities of the General Assembly and the Security Council, because they knew that in the area of international peace and security you had to have a body that reflected the capacities and responsibilities of the major world players. There was a special role for the Permanent Five (members) of the Security Council at the time of the end of World War II and even now [they] bear the major responsibility of enforcing peace and security.
The division of labor between the assembly and the Security Council in the way it was originally envisioned is still a wise way to proceed.
Q: What about the resolutions in the General Assembly on the Middle East? The General Assembly adopts several resolutions on that issue each year.
A: They tend to be one-sided. They tend to be divisive. And I think it would be more constructive if they were more balanced and created a political environment that would be more conducive to supporting peace and reconciliation in the Middle East, rather than focusing on just one side of the argument.
Q: Two recent tragic events -- the bombing of the U.N. Headquarters in Baghdad and the violence in Israel and the Occupied Territories -- have dominated the headlines. Do you think that these tragedies in any way will affect the work of the General Assembly -- either detract from it or divert efforts that would go to other issues?
A: The General Assembly, since it's a member organization, will be focused on the agendas of all member states. They are certainly going to be affected by the recent events in Iraq. But I hope that it will not create a distraction or a preoccupation at the expense of the agenda items.
Many countries have been working on these agenda items for a long time, as we have, and so they will bring that (work) to the assembly and its committees, and through the normal course of the debate, hopefully things will balance out. Because, again, what the General Assembly will be voting on and representing is the consensus of the international community, as opposed to what the U.N. Secretariat or the peacekeeping division may or may not be getting involved in. I think that it won't necessarily be "business as usual." They always do respond to what's happening in the news and the international arena.
(end transcript)
(Distributed by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)


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Darling (Music review), Tamil – G V Prakash Kumar by Milliblog!
Barring the corny lyrics, Vandha mala has limited engaging power, using a simple, jaded tune. Unnale is a surprise because it is no sung by Saindhavi – seems tailor-made for her; still, nice enough waltz'y tune wandled well by Shankar Mahadevan and Shreya. Sattena idi mazhai fares even better, with its funky melody line and alluring sounds. Harini is fantastic in Un vizhigalil, another predictable, but likeable melody. GV Prakash's diction continues to be erratic, but he makes it up in Anbe anbe's tune fairly well. The theme is an eerie jumble. GV Prakash Kumar's spotty form continues with Darling.


Major Reuben H. Fleet welcomed his new responsibility as officer-in-charge of inaugurating the first U.S. airmail service the way a fledgling pilot welcomes a tail spin at 500 feet. As executive officer for pilot training in the U. S Air Service, Signal Corps Aviation Section, Fleet already had a full plate of duties. He was in charge of establishing America's pilot training program for all army aviators, an assignment that saw him overseeing 34 fields and as he said, "students crashing every hour of the day." On top of this, Col. H. "Hap" Arnold had given him the added task of training aerial observers.
For his story, flash back to May 03, 1918. That was the day the War Department issued an order to the Air Service to begin preparations for launching the airmail service. Oblivious to the pronouncement and the part he would eventually play in executing it, Fleet at the time was traveling between Washington and Dayton, Ohio, hurrying to inspect the crash of a American-produced British de Havilland bomber. This had been the first test flight of the DH bomber powered by the new American-produced 12-cylinder. water-cooled, 400 hp Liberty engine, and it had proved a disaster, ending the life of Col. Henry J. Damm and Maj. Oscar A. Brindley. After inspecting the wreck, Fleet determined the cause of the accident was not engine failure, but a rogue spark plug, wedged between the wing's trailing edge and the aileron and preventing the plane's ability to bank on landing.