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slow2theparty
Creative lifestyle blog on books, film & photography
Childhood favourites – Top Ten Tuesday
Hello all, and a belated happy new month!
It's Top Ten Tuesday again – it happens every week! Today, it's Childhood Favourites. Here are mine:
Tim and the Hidden People
by Sheila K McCullagh. Tim finds a magic key which enables him to see the Hidden People. I came across this ancient class reader series in some dusty attic. So began my love of dark fantasy.
The Secret Island
by Enid Blyton. With my first book token I picked this – The Secret Stories – which were a forerunner to the more famous Famous Five series. Three siblings escape cruel relatives to live on a secret island, which is the start of their adventures with Prince Paul (!) of Baronia. I would go on to read a lot of Blyton, but this stayed with me the most.
Mrs Frisby and the Rats of NIMH
by Robert C. O'Brien. Talking animals didn't interest me. I never liked Beatrix Potter or Wind in the Willows. OK, I liked The Animals of Farthing Wood by Colin Dann, but the mystery of the secretive colony of rats at the centre of O'Brien's Newbury medal-winner captivated me.
Moondial
by Helen Cresswell. When you think of stately homes, what comes to mind? TIME TRAVEL, that's what. I'd mention A Traveller in Time by Alison Uttley, and Tom's Midnight Garden by Philippa Pearce here too.
Five Children and It
by E. Nesbit. The first in a trilogy. Five kids staying at their uncle's mansion discover a grumpy sand fairy who can grant wishes. Wishes go wrong! I also loved Nesbit's The Treasure Seekers, featuring the adventurous Bastable children.
The Chrestomanci Series 'Witch Week'
by Diana Wynne Jones – author of Howl's Moving Castle. Part of the Chrestomanci series, Witch Week is set in a parallel world, similar to ours, where magic is common! Off the top of my head, Jones' Archer's Goon, A Tale of Time City, and The Dalemark Quartet brightened my childhood.
by C.S Lewis. I don't recall loving Lewis' writing. Despite that, and my 'talking animals' prejudice, there's no denying the pull that Narnia had on me.
Midnight is a Place
by Joan Aiken. This historical melodrama lays it on a bit thick: wronged orphans, awful guardians, old mansions…I loved it, and also Aiken's alternate history The Wolves of Willoughby Chase.
The Children of the New Forest
by Frederick Marryat. This was my maternal grandfather's favourite, which he gave to me as a present. Set in Civil War England, the Beverley orphans hide in the forest to escape Cromwell and the Roundheads. Other classics I loved included Louisa May Alcott's Little Women, The Prince and the Pauper by Twain, and the slightly later The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett.
When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit
by Judith Kerr. WWII historical fiction dominated heavily in my reading. Pink Rabbit was probably my favourite, but I also loved Carrie's War by Nina Bawden, The Silver Sword by Ian Serraillier, The Cay, by Theodore Taylor, and I am David by Anne Holm, which was set a little later.
Soon I moved on to paranormal romance, but also Brontë, George Elliot, and Rebecca by Daphne de Maurier.
So that's my 10…OK I cheated a bit! xLx
This entry was posted in tags/awards and tagged bibliophile, book blog, book blogger, bookish, Books, characters, Fantasy, literature, Writing on July 2, 2019 by Lindsay Acland.
Fantastic Beasts The Crimes of Grindelwald – film review
You'd imagine J.K. Rowling had earned enough goodwill that people might give her the benefit of the doubt.
But even before her Fantastic Beasts sequel started filming, there was controversy. Firstly it centered on her support for tabloid-stricken star Johnny Depp, prompting director David Yates to release a statement via his agents Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs…
"Duh, he's literally playing Wizarding Hitler, like literally," shrugged Yates. "Let's hope nobody takes a pop at Eddie Redmayne and accuses him of drop-kicking a Niffler. Now that'd be a real PR nightmare!" he laughed.
Then a scene in the trailer supposedly broke canon, before the release of the official cast list drew fury for messing with timelines established in books/minds.
But J.K writes great mysteries and she doesn't make it up as she goes along, right?
OK, there are some potential canonical problems here, but it's only the second film of five. What's worse is the critical consensus that it's the worst Potter ever – that it has too many characters and confusing subplots,no clear protagonist, and exists only to set up later chapters.
To be clear, the first Beasts wasn't fantabulous – my review was basically, "Wow how hot is Colin Farrell?!" However, I could see it was the start of a story that promised to tap into the richer HP mythology.
Crimes opens with an impressive action scene, even if the criminal was actually already free, and just wanted his escape to have a certain degree of flair.
Depp's take on the character is more Black Mass than Captain Jack, but dark magic must take a toll, as Jamie Campbell Bower's blond, handsome, spindly young wizard is just a mirage in the Mirror of Erised.
Grindelwald's crimes include cruelty to cute critters (justice for Antonio!), murder, and nearly destroying Paris. He's also guilty of making hot Dumbledore lovesick and mopey…after they spent a summer together in their teens, to put this in perspective.
The benignly manipulative Dumbledore has twisted Newt's arm into protecting Credence – who is trying to discover his origins. And what a persuasive way Dumbledore has – "Hey Newt, you're not popular, funny, or charming, but you do what's right!"
So did Rowling have this new sibling twist planned, or did she come up with it between script revisions, à la George Lucas with Luke and Leia?
Well, there was a distinct lack of buildup. Audiences didn't really finish the first movie speculating about a particular character's parentage.
Of course Dumbledore always knows more than he lets on. "For the Greater Good" and all that – old ways die hard. Personally, I've always suspected he broke his dad out of Azkaban.
🧙🧙1/2
It's fantastic Rowling is adding to the mythology of her world. I hope she stays true to her vision. Shame she didn't leave this new franchise simmering in the cauldron for a bit longer.
This entry was posted in reviews and tagged Books, characters, cinema, fantastic beasts, Fantasy, fiction, Film, jk rowling, movie review, movies, Review, Writing on April 2, 2019 by Lindsay Acland.
Mini movie reviews for the weekend!
I live on an island, and I have to get a boat to see most of the cooler stuff on at cinemas. But with movies coming out so fast on digital platforms and DVD, why spend all that money on choppy trips to the multiplex?
How did the Oscars miss this little gem about five medical students stopping their hearts to experience the afterlife?
It starts out strong thanks to a talented cast including Ellen Page and Diego Luna. Keifer Sutherland cameos but he's not reprising his role from the original and imparting any wisdom like "Don't stop your hearts!" so it seems pointless.
With such a great cast, I'd have loved a dark psychological drama about ambitious, cutthroat young medics playing God. Sub-par horror.
Aubrey Plaza gains your sympathy and alarm as a woman with an unspecified mental disorder whose only meaningful connection comes via Instagram. With inheritance money she heads to California to trick her way into insta-star Taylor Sloane's seemingly perfect life.
But where Instagram is just a career tool for blandly commercial Taylor, for needy Ingrid it's toxic. After a suspenseful and sun bleached hour of social media satire, the final act becomes more of a "psycho" thriller, and possibly sends confused messages about mental health.
The late Alan Rickman was set to lead this lurid, Ripper-style mystery, until his illness meant Bill Nighy took over as the elegant Inspector Kildare, investigating the grisly Limehouse murders.
Music-hall star Lizzie Cree is on trial for killing her husband – who Kildare suspects may have been the infamous Golem. Hoping to save the angelic-looking accused from the gallows, he dashes around an atmospheric Victorian London (it's a treat to see Karl Marx pop up as a suspect).
An entertaining spin on the never-subtle dead prostitute genre. Nighy is softly restrained, but Olivia Cooke – who looks like a cross between Carey Mulligan and Jenna Coleman – is the standout.
Victoria & Abdul
Queen Victoria had her summer home, Osborne House, on the Isle of Wight. She holidayed here with her family, and it's where she retreated during her long mourning for Prince Albert.
The widowed Queen's relationship with John Brown was dramatized with Judi Dench and Billy Connolly in 1997. Dench returns opposite Ali Fazal as Indian manservant Abdul, who incited jealousy and panic among her household and the imperialist government, including son Bertie (Eddie Izzard).
Dench's frail old lady might be Empress of India, but she's outlived her loved ones, and feels trapped and lonely. It's a devastating depiction of old age. I think it's meant as a feelgood, comedy-drama like The King's Speech, but the larky tone and silent comedy jar with the classism and racism of the British Raj.
Viceroy's House
Following WWII, the British Empire was dying, and Victoria's great-grandson Louis Mountbatten was dispatched to the Indian subcontinent to bury the Raj with dignity.
The 1947 partition of India triggered one of the bloodiest upheavals in history. Here it gets the Downton Abbey treatment, with a fictional 'upstairs, downstairs' romance between two servants in the Viceroy's palace. It's a stately, well-lit costume drama. Not my cup of tea.
Jennifer Lawrence is in an unpleasant relationship as dutiful wife to selfish creative Javier Bardem. When her quiet home is invaded by uninvited guests Ed Harris and Michelle Pfeiffer, Bardem won't tell them to shove it, much to Lawrence's dismay.
mother! feels like a bad M. Night Shyamalan, before it becomes an unmistakable Darren Aronofsky fever dream. An ambitious climate change allegory which draws incoherently on the Bible, it's messy and chaotic, but JL is a force of nature.
This is where they recast Kevin Spacey with Christopher Plummer so that audiences and Oscar voters wouldn't be distracted by the misconduct allegations against the former. It's based on the 1973 kidnapping ordeal of tragic John Paul Getty III in Italy, and how the boy's tight-fisted billionaire grandpa had to have his arm twisted to pay the ransom.
Of all the movies I've just reviewed, this is the one with the most general appeal. It's watchable, but there's something airless about it. It's strongest point is Michelle Williams and her chemistry with negotiator Mark Wahlberg.
This entry was posted in mini reviews and tagged anxiety, biography, characters, cinema, Depression, Fantasy, lonely, mental illness, movies, reviews, true story, Writing on July 26, 2018 by Lindsay Acland.
Tomb Raider's Terrible Reboot. (OK it was more 'meh' than terrible.)
London has never looked like a better location for a twee romantic comedy than it does at the start of the rebooted Tomb Raider, a capable origin story and actioner with no sense of humour or wonder.
Kickboxing at a local gym and bantering with her bicycle courier co-workers, Lara Croft is slumming it harder than most; all she has to do is sign some documents declaring her missing father (Dominic West) dead, and she inherits a fortune.
Although he's been gone for seven years, Lara (Alicia Vikander) adamantly refuses to accept that Richard Croft – superrich business man, adventurer and aristocrat – is no more. Flashbacks show the Crofts in sappier times, where West keeps calling Lara by the nickname "Sprout", and declaring "Daddy loves you".
Swede Alicia Vikander is a good actress, whatever those three crazy Michael Fassbender stans say. She makes a tomboyish Lara, whose defining characteristic is bullheaded stubbornness. Having beaten the likes of Daisy Ridley for the role, she's convincingly English enough to be to the (Croft) manor born.
While participating in an illegal and reckless bike chase through our capital's streets, Lara crashes into a police patrol car. Ana Miller (Kristin Scott Thomas), an associate at Croft's company, pops up to post bail and warn Lara that if she doesn't claim her inheritance, her father's estate will be sold off.
I must check and see if Scott Thomas did any interviews to promote this artistic endeavour, because I just live for her rants about life as an ageing actress. The still beautiful KST grits her teeth at the sight of Vikander's dewy prettiness, and wishes the fool had been crunched under those car wheels.
Oblivious to the KST death rays, Lara stumps into swanky Croft HQ to meet lawyer Derek Jacobi. She finds her father's secret office, and his message detailing his research into Himiko, the mythical Japanese queen known as "the mother of death" or something. Richard warns Lara to destroy his work, in case it ends up in the wrong hands.
Hot on the trail of her father's final destination, Lara heads east but gets captured by mercenaries funded by a shadowy organisation called Trinity, who definitely qualify as the wrong hands. They'd been failing at locating Himiko's resting place when Lara turned up with Croft's map, which pinpoints the exact spot the tomb is hidden.
Earlier in the movie we saw a waifish Ruby Rose lookalike easily put Lara in a headlock, but her survival instinct really kicks in, as she overpowers the hired toughs in hand-to-hand combat, before discovering Richard Croft living as a Tom Hanks castaway. He mutters, "Ignore it, it's not real, it'll go away, it always does," when Lara appears, which is what my dad always says when he sees me.
Seconds later Lara's dear old pa is back to normal. So did Sprout go to Oxford, or Cambridge? Look, Lord Sprout, this girl keeps landing on her thick skull, and the only reason there's no damage is because she's so dense.
Sigh. Croft performs amateur surgery on an injured Lara/Sprout and finally – it's time to raid some tombs! Or rather, stop other people from raiding them in the case of the Trinity morons versus Himiko.
In what could be the start of an exciting-sounding premise (shame it comes at the end), Lara discovers that Trinity is actually a subsidiary of Croft Holdings, and a front for a secret organisation hunting for mysterious artifacts to control humanity. If Scott Thomas is in on it, believe me, they'll be looking for the elixir of eternal youth 24/7. I know how she ticks.
This entry was posted in reviews and tagged action, Alicia Vikander, daisy ridley, Fantasy, fashion, Film, games, humor, movie review, movie reviews, movies, reviews on April 9, 2018 by Lindsay Acland.
FILM REVIEW: Black Panther
The Hollywood Reporter recently pointed out the obvious; even Jennifer Lawrence can't open a movie. Studios don't look to big star names any longer, but to brands like Marvel.
I've always thought superhero, or comic book blockbusters, were empty calories. Unpopular I know, but Marvel makes me feel like I overindulged on Haribo candy (and the DCEU feels like toothache).
My most charitable reading of Black Panther – a Marvel product – is that it's a self-contained story about family, duty and honour.
Set in the fictional African country of Wakanda, the War of the Panthers is a kind of kid-friendly Game of Thrones, with warring cousins and tribes, and where the future of the kingdom hinges on revelations about an individual character's parentage. (I'm not alone in spotting the GoT parallels; Panther star Daniel Kaluuya made the link a year ago.)
Wakanda's language, artwork, and costumes are meant to be grounded in real-world African traditions, while its secret high-tech infrastructure is powered by magical sources of an alien element called Vibranium.
New king T'Challa isn't a flashy show-off à la Tony Stark, even if his royal duties include dressing up like a panther. A noble character haunted by his father's death, he's trying to protect his people at the same time as overcoming his nation's isolationism.
It's to Chadwick Boseman's credit that he doesn't get blasted off the screen by Michael B. Jordan's swaggering, vicious Killmonger, who wants to swipe the throne and the panther suit, planning to lead the country in a more hawkish direction.
Killmonger might even claw his way into the Top Ten Movie Villains of All Time. Because the superhero is king, the superhero is the brand, but the performances should be key. If Hollywood is committed to saving the endangered species of the mega-movie star, it won't find a better candidate.
This entry was posted in reviews and tagged Blogging, disney, Fantasy, films, Game of Thrones, marvel, movie, movie reviews, movies, reflections, writer on March 31, 2018 by Lindsay Acland.
The Last Jedi: Luke what you made me do
There was lots of red in The Last Jedi, from the blood-coloured soil of Crait, to Snoke's crimson throne room. And while critics were in raptures – Rian Johnson is an auteur after all – a lot of hardcore fans were left, well, seeing red.
After watching the film on preview night, I came soaring home like Princess Leia through space. But, then, depression set in.
It wasn't disappointment over Rey's parentage. Frankly, certain fans needed to get their heads out of their half-cocked theories. Sure, after the first trailer for The Force Awakens, I thought Padmé-lookalike Rey was Han and Leia's kid, while Kylo was a Vader-obsessed loser (true) wanting to continue the bloodline with Rey.
But then I actually saw the film. Just half an hour in, a guileless Rey turns to Finn and says: "Luke Skywalker! I thought he was a myth."
When Rey told BB-8 her parents would be back, 'one day', you could tell from Daisy's delivery that Rey was in denial. As Maz said: she already knew the truth.
Kylo sticks his throbbing red lightsaber past Rey's trembling open mouth. "Why, Kylo, it's HUGE."
But there were people who thought Palpatine wasn't Darth Sidious right up until Revenge of the Sith. Fans insisted Rey was either Kylo's twin (despite the age gap), or Luke's child with an unknown woman – perhaps Obi-Wan's daughter!
Considering Luke looked like he last took a bath on Endor, he probably didn't have any children to carry on the family name. Unless 'Broom kid' (Tamiri Blagg) is Luke's long-lost son. No, I'm joking, please.
This brings me to the biggest of my problems with Rian Johnson's movie. His bizarre vision of Luke no longer resembled the son of Skywalker, but his step-uncle Owen Lars. Festering away on an island, the only way he could have been more revolting would have been if he'd hit on Rey.
Chucking the lightsaber over his shoulder might have got a cheap laugh (a very nervous one, in my theatre), but the Luke that millions loved would never have been so weak, skulking off to let Leia deal with everything on her own.
OK, he was never the coolest member of the gang – even after maturing into the calm, lethal Luke of Return of the Jedi, Han still laughed in his face. Luke wasn't necessarily the obvious tough guy type, but he was resourceful, and he never gave up.
We got one glimpse of that Luke when he Force-beamed himself across the galaxy, wearing an outfit that would have made Padmé Amidala proud. Poor old Mark Hamill gave a great send-off performance, even if he didn't agree with the director's 'vision'.
It's not Luke's story now. This is a franchise hoping to pick up new fans, and I can imagine committees overseeing the new global franchise want to lob most of the original trilogy off the edge of Skellig Michael, along with that lightsaber.
On that note, I wish you all,
xx —-Merry Christmas!—- xx
This entry was posted in star wars and tagged Entertainment, Fantasy, Film, Luke Skywalker, movie reviews, movies, star wars, the last jedi on December 24, 2017 by Lindsay Acland.
What is the Personal Shopper movie about? Explanation
It's 2007, before teen audiences would learn that Kristen Stewart was to be their Bella Swan. There's such outsize acclaim for her tiny role in Sean Penn's Into the Wild, you'd be forgiven for thinking the former child actress was being prepped for major stardom.
While Twilight made Stewart an object of fascination, it also made her a fixture on Hollywood's Most Hated lists. Now, she's the 'Best of her Generation' — as Olivier Assayas described her after directing her to a César (the first American to win the French Oscar) for her role as an assistant to a neurotic actress in Clouds of Sils Maria.
Assayas would write Personal Shopper with Stewart in mind to star as Maureen, a young expat in Paris. Once again, she's cast as a celeb flunky, running around upscale boutiques for her spoiled supermodel employer, Kyra.
But Maureen is more than an underling. She's a psychic medium, in limbo in the French capital mourning her twin brother, who died from a heart defect she shares. The film opens with her alone at night in his eerie mansion, trying to reach him on the other side.
The angry spirits that appear to Maureen, scratching out her artwork, appear terrifyingly real to her.
Stewart is so believable when she mumbles about the challenges of finding portals to the other side, she'd make a decent living as a psychic if she left showbiz. From that truthful base, she even makes the name 'Maureen' plausible on a twentysomething.
When she's harassed by text messages, we question whether she's at the mercy of something more sinister than a fashionista; have ghosts made the jump-scare to the digital era, or has she got a stalker? Is this all in her head?
Viewers have come up with some overly-intricate theories, confused by the way the script decides to glide from supernatural psychological horror to whodunnit.
In the final scene, Maureen encounters a ghost who begins trying to communicate with her – one knock for yes, two for no. She asks the ghost if it's Lewis, and it seems to say it is. She asks if it's at peace, and the answer is ambiguous. Then she asks if it's in her head. It knocks for yes.
Perhaps the best way to interpret it would be through this J.K. Rowling gem: "Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?"
This entry was posted in reviews and tagged Entertainment, Fantasy, fashion, Film, ghost stories, Halloween, kristen stewart, movies, paris, Review, style on October 30, 2017 by Lindsay Acland.
Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets – film review
The search for a male star who can replace Harrison Ford continues. As the eponymous Valerian, Dane DeHaan is supposed to be a happy-go-lucky, square-jawed hero and roguish galactic agent.
Instead he looks like he should be playing a space cadet in some sort of academy somewhere with fellow cast member Clive Owen as the bullying principal.
Unfamiliar with the comics, I briefly and mistakenly thought Valerian and his partner Laureline (Cara Delevingne) were siblings, like a Luke and Leia crime-fighting duo.
In fact, the French-Belgian Valerian et Laureline comics were a suspected early influence on George Lucas.
But Valerian drools over Cara (more than Luke did Leia) and it quickly gets annoying to watch the little twerp sexually harassing model Delevingne. "He's got no chance!" I thought.
The romance is pure Attack of the Clones level space crash, complete with stilted dialogue.
There are hints of Avatar's Na'vi in the humanoids from the destroyed planet of Mül, who stow away in the bowels of a giant free-floating metropolis called Alpha (the City of a Thousand Planets). There, different alien species all pool their knowledge in brilliant harmony. Or not.
There's a plot involving the annihilated planet, Alpha's Commander Clive Owen, plus a kidnapping and a little MacGuffin creature everybody is trying to get their hands on.
Agents Valerian and Laureline both get captured and have to save each other. Laureline puts a giant mind-reading jellyfish on her head to find Valerian, who later has to swoop in with a shapeshifting Rihanna to stop Laureline from getting her brains eaten by a race of master chefs on Alpha. (So much for harmony!)
The largely teenage audience were probably there for RiRi, but it's just a cameo really. There's a rushed immigration subtext involving her character, and the film has a message of love conquering all.
Director Luc Besson has an established reputation for style over substance. Valerian – his passion project – is a zany, hot mess, with the characters slaloming and sloshing around his crazy pinball machine universe. I tried to enjoy it – I loved the score and the soundtrack – I just would have liked better dialogue too.
Verdict: Valerian is like spending two and a quarter hours(!) on the now-defunct Bubbleworks ride at Chessington. Isn't it amazing the childhood nightmares that can be dredged up years later?
This entry was posted in reviews and tagged blogger, Fantasy, fashion, Film, movie review, movie reviews, movies, Review, sci-fi, star wars on August 17, 2017 by Lindsay Acland.
Game of Thrones season 7 is short and full of terrors
At the start of season seven I wrote a grumpy post about how much I didn't love Game of Thrones. Once they used up Grim's good books (the first three!) from the Ice and Fire series, and then outpaced the novels entirely, the HBO show went downhill.
Of course, I carried on watching for the sheer spectacle. It's fun to read the theories and get into the post-episode breakdowns. Plus (with a few glaring exceptions) it's a fine cast, and easy to invest in the characters (knowing full well they'll get killed off when you do).
I like to muse over which character I'd be if Westeros were real, although I'd probably be stone cold dead. I'd try to live by the sea, eking out my days and avoiding trouble – basically the same as my life here on Earth really.
The Red Priestess gig looks good. They never seem to feel the cold, and Stannis' erstwhile sorceress possesses the hocus-pocus to look fab at 400 years old.
I'd love to be that arch and dramatic, but I'm more of a Gilly, the girl who thought being a Wildling made her "sound a bit dangerous." She's currently in the Citadel with Sam, who has turned out to be a total wildcard.
Knocking spots off that Targaryen girl: Hannah Murray as the absent Gilly. Credit HBO
Jon, meanwhile, is busy stomping around Dragonstone for his precious obsidian. (He got Davos to make those cave drawings, right?)
I hope Tyrion gets behind Jon, and I hope Jon & Dany don't happen. Kit needs something to act opposite, and Jon, like Robb, needs to avoid exotic bimbos and marry a nice Westerosi girl. Meera Reed is available…
Because Bran is the Three Eyed Raven now, and people are gunning for Sansa to claim the North. Really? So far, Sansa has excelled at two things: being brutalized and running a castle. She was born to be a good highborn wife and run the domestic sphere – not command men or be a politician.
High on my Thrones wish list is seeing Jaime get together with Brienne, assuming she'll still have him after he got sucker-punched by an old lady. I suppose the Kingslayer is a catch, although I wouldn't want Cersei's cast-offs. Ugh.
I think in the books he was well shot of her by now. Maybe the Drogon near-miss and the dip in a lake will bring him to his senses, finally.
It's winter for our heroes, but summer for us fans. Years of trudging through the seasons have led to this payoff – dragons over Westeros, Stark reunions and the unveiling of secret Targaryens.
And yup, we've already hit this season's halfway point, for it is short and full of terrors…(Come back Melisandre!)
This entry was posted in TV & Netflix and tagged blogger, Books, Fantasy, Game of Thrones, HBO, journal, lifestyle, lifestyle blog, Review, reviews on August 9, 2017 by Lindsay Acland.
Game of Thrones is back…
Are you glad it's back? And by 'it' I mean the TV phenomenon that's as big as Star Wars, Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings?
I'm not a constant admirer of the Game of Thrones juggernaut anymore. Characters get arranged into starting positions for epic showdowns, rinse and repeat. This season has seven episodes, and "Dragonstone" probably won't be the only hour devoted to groundwork and prepping the set pieces.
We had Sam in the library, and Sam emptying bedpans. We had Emilia "I Can. And I Will" Clarke strutting around her ancestral home like a dumpy 12-year-old emulating a haughty catwalk queen. (And I'm not sure the show has enough time to explore the attraction dangling between her eunuch warrior and her handmaiden…)
Like Dany, Sansa is coming into her own, as the Lady of Winterfell. Soft-hearted Sansa now feeds her husbands to hungry hounds, and while I'm all for character growth, not every female character has to be a Strong Woman, and Strong Women don't have to commit grisly murders to be powerful.
Perhaps they don't know what to do with Sansa – the whole rushed, overripe Ramsay plot was not her book story – and Sophie isn't a believable enough actress to play a ruthless killer AKA junior Cersei. Thanks to her dreary line readings and whiny nasal voice, I use Sansa scenes for any unpleasant chores, like putting the recycling out.
But Sansa, like sister Arya (who couldn't look less like Sophie Turner), are a) fan favourites, and/or b) are part of George R.R. Martin's endgame, and can't be bumped off.
Maisie is a good little actress, but she seems super-aware that there's a huge audience who love Arya and who think a bloodthirsty (female) child assassin is cool, and maybe this awareness is sometimes ever so slightly to the detriment of her performance.
She's on her way to King's Landing, where Bad Uncle Euron is trying to woo Evil Queen Cersei and come between her and Jaime, who have reached that stage where they're more brother/sister, than red hot lovebirds…oh yeah.
There were things I liked, I promise, I'm not as grumpy as Sandor Clegane, who is still with the Brotherhood and in delightfully surly form, shaming Thoros' topknot hairdo. (He'll be coming for Jon's man bun next.) The Hound is seeing visions in the flame, and it sounds like those screeching ice men are going to overcome the Wall by just….walking around it?
Really? Give fans their answers already!
(OK maybe I am as grumpy as the Hound after all.) 😉
This entry was posted in TV & Netflix and tagged Emilia Clarke, Fantasy, Game of Thrones, HBO, ramblings, Review, TV, TV & Netflix on July 20, 2017 by Lindsay Acland.
Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children – film review
Ransom Rigg's YA fantasy Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children sold millions and has been translated into 40 languages. Now Tim Burton's adaptation has found a perch at the top of the US and international box offices.
On the advice of his shrink, the story's hero Jake has left his Florida home for rainy Wales, hoping to unravel his Grandpa's tales of growing up in an orphanage for "Peculiars" with extraordinary abilities – ranging from super strength and invisibility, to a girl with teeth at the back of her skull, and a lad who likes to belch up a swarm of bees.
Count me out of school dinners at this place.
20th Century Fox. (Halloween costumes sorted!)
Jake finds a gateway to the 1940s orphanage, which exists on a one-day time-loop. He bonds with Emma Bloom (rising star Ella Purnell), a Burtonesque blonde ingénue who'd float away without her platform shoes. Poor Jake – she's blooming beautiful, but she's also an octogenarian who used to fancy his granddad.
Headmistress Miss Peregrine (Eva Green) is a "Ymbryne", who can a) manipulate time and b) transform into a falcon – a mother bird hiding her young from Samuel L. Jackson's mad scientist and the monstrous, eyeball-chomping Hollowgasts.
The most haunting moment comes when she gathers her pupils to reset the day, and she plays the popular WWII era song Run Rabbit Run on the gramophone. We know Grandpa witnessed the horrors of the Holocaust (Hollowgast?), but the movie does not engage further with the historical context.
The movie has some scary imagery, but it wasn't the dark fantasy elements that I found most unnerving. As if being cursed with a set of teeth at the back of your skull and dodging evil creatures that want to eat you isn't bad enough, imagine being trapped for an eternity at school.
It's driven at least one Peculiar mad; seer Horace (Hayden Keeler-Stone) – among stiff competition – is the creepiest inhabitant of this child prison world, with his old-fashioned manners and weird fixation with tailoring.
There's something skin-creeping about the movie, like a Victorian era freak show. It's like one of those nursery rhymes with a sinister meaning – and as someone who spent their childhood secretly hoping they'd fall through a wardrobe into Narnia, it's a fictional fantasy world I would not want to visit.
This entry was posted in reviews and tagged Books, Eva Green, Fantasy, film review, Halloween, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, movie reviews, movies, young adult on October 18, 2016 by Lindsay Acland.
Miss Peregrine's Eva Green talks social media & roles for women with The Edit
As soon as I started writing about Eva Green, I find myself changing the font to 'Century Gothic'.
The otherworldly Miss Eva covers the latest issue of The Edit, Net-A-Porter's online magazine. She is promoting her new movie, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, directed by Tim Burton. She will be leading a strong cast, including Samuel L. Jackson and Judi Dench.
Review: Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children – There's something skin-creeping about it, akin to the Victorian era "freak show".
The film is based on Ransom Riggs' bestseller about a boy who discovers an abandoned orphanage, run by the mysterious Miss Peregrine. Eva told The Edit how much she loved playing a character defined by her devotion to her students, instead of being the "love interest".
Just don't expect her to Instagram her red carpet looks; Eva shared that she hates social media and selfies! It seems we will just have to content ourselves with the photo shoot she did for The Edit instead.
LIFE'S RICH TAPESTRY: Velvet, brocade, sequins and embroidery, actress #EvaGreen models the season's irresistible decadent pieces and talks about ambition, the red-carpet and who shouldn't be the next #Bond in #THEEDIT. Read the issue at #NETAPORTER now. #SeeitBuyitLoveit Photographed by @SofiaandMauro. Styled by #SamuelFrancois
A post shared by NET-A-PORTER (@netaporter) on Sep 8, 2016 at 4:32am PDT
Eva has worked with Burton before, in 2012's Dark Shadows. The French actress certainly fits the strong, beautiful imagery and the cool/creepy vibe of the director's movies.
Although Dark Shadows paled in comparison to Burton's earlier classics like Beetlejuice, I'm looking forward to Miss Peregrine. I haven't read the book, but it sounds similar to the Lemony Snicket novels, which led to an underrated movie starring Jim Carrey. (A Netflix series is now in production with Neil Patrick Harris.)
For anyone mourning the end of Penny Dreadful, you can catch Eva in Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, out September 30 in the UK and USA.
This entry was posted in news/opinion and tagged Books, Entertainment, Eva Green, Fantasy, Film, movies, Review, reviews, Thoughts on September 14, 2016 by Lindsay Acland.
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child – script review
Passionate fans aren't happy with Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, the new play that (we're promised) concludes the story of The Boy Who Lived.
The script is a collaboration between J.K. Rowling, playwright Jack Thorne, and Cursed Child's director John Tiffany, with the magic being brought to life at the Palace Theatre in London's West End. The script's release was timed to coincide with the play's opening, and naturally it has become a publishing sensation.
Unfortunately, some Muggles didn't realize that Cursed Child is not a new novel, or a novelization of the play, but a play. Oops.
The action is set 19 years after Harry and pals defeated Lord Voldemort. It revolves around Albus Potter and Scorpius Malfoy's quest to go back in time to save Cedric Diggory. Why? Because the teenage Albus doesn't get along with dad Harry, that's why.
This immediately throws up problems, because time travel in Rowling's universe has previously been a closed casual loop that can't affect future events.
It's surprising that Harry and Albus don't see eye to eye – in the epilogue to Deathly Hallows Harry seemed very attuned to his son. Other students harassing the boy because of his famous dad is pretty believable, but again, I'm left wondering: does Hogwarts have any anti-bullying policies at all?!
Albus has been sorted into Slytherin with Scorpius, who has his own troubles. It is rumoured that his dad, Draco is firing squibs, so his frail mother Astoria time-traveled to get knocked up by Lord Voldemort instead.
Harry doesn't approve of the the boys' friendship, which feels slightly unHarry, and more Ron – who is of course married to Hermione, now Minister for Magic.
Albus and Scorpius get their hands on a time turner. Thanks to some encouragement from Cedric Diggory's cousin Delphi Diggory, the pair go back to the Triwizard Tournament to stop Cedric from getting killed by Voldemort.
They succeed, only to discover that changing events means the future they return to is altered. Albus is now in Gryffindor and Hermione is a bitter, unmarried Hogwarts teacher.
The boys go back again to put things right, but only make things worse. They usher in a future where Voldy won and Umbridge is headteacher at Hogwarts. Harry Potter is dead, thus no Albus. Scorpius is in this mess all on his own.
This is the second act of the play, which sees the return of Snape, still teaching potions and still undercover. He is joined by Ron and Hermione, who are hiding as fugitives. Thanks to their help, Scorpius is able to put things right and go home.
This is where the play's biggest twist occurs: Delphi is Voldemort's daughter with Bellatrix Lestrange. She wanted the boys to change history so that she wouldn't have to be an orphan. Only now does she realize that entrusting her plan to two confused adolescents wasn't the best idea.
A lot of fans balk at the thought of Voldemort and Bellatrix having a relationship, but seriously – Voldemort got rid of his nose, not his….er, other appendages. As for Bellatrix's husband, I guess he would have had to be OK with it really, unless he wanted to die in a duel with his evil overlord.
I'm not completely against a Voldebaby, but it feels awkwardly conceived. And just maybe that child didn't need to go bad. Poor Delphi feels shortchanged. Like her father she grew up orphaned, unloved – and is irredeemable.
As if poor Harry hasn't suffered enough, the play has him and the gang (plus Draco) save the day again, forcing Harry to relive his parents' deaths. Meanwhile, the memory of noble Cedric is corrupted – could humiliation really make him angry enough at the Wizarding World that he would become a Death Eater?
Cursed Child is as funny as Rowling's novels, but a script-book is no compensation for the magic glow of a new novel. At least in its current form, it can easily be ignored by fans who don't consider the storyline canon. Seeing Harry, Ron and Hermione portrayed by a trio of real actors is worth the hassle and the cost of a ticket.
This entry was posted in Books and tagged Book review, Books, Fantasy, Harry Potter, stage, theater on August 5, 2016 by Lindsay Acland.
The Force Awakens: The ballad of Ren and Rey?
Star Wars: The Force Awakens has broken records, received stellar reviews and revitalized a much-loved franchise.
More importantly it gifted us Kylo Ren, formerly Ben Solo, son of Leia and Han, Master of the Knights of Ren and Creep of the First Order. He has become an internet sensation thanks to his tantrums and his rejection of his former identity.
Before the movie's release we learned that Kylo idolized Darth Vader, which is why he stomps around in a black mask. Yet when Rey taunts him and refers to him as a "creature" he pops his mask off and tosses his hair. "Don't be afraid, I feel it too," he smirks.
Rey has to pick her jaw up off the ground and re-assume her own mask – a mask of defiance.
Who is she? There are plenty of theories.
Rey and Ren are siblings
Some people imagine Han unburdened his fatherly guilt to Maz Kanata off-camera at her castle. But the reason we cut away in that scene is because the audience didn't need to hear Han explain Rey's backstory.
It's possible Leia secretly had baby Rey before stashing her for safe-keeping. But as the novel Before the Awakening makes clear, Rey suffers an agonizing life, waking up every day starving.
Hardly safe-keeping.
They're cousins
As Rey reached out to Luke, he looked like he was going to chuck himself off the cliff, a bit like that time he jumped off that ledge in Cloud City in Empire.
Vader begged him to join the dark side; Rey reaches out to him to rejoin the fight for the light. Episode VIII may reveal that Luke is her father, making her Kylo's cousin.
Sure, although I'm not sure cousin-rivalry will have the pathos of the father-son duel in Return of the Jedi.
Kenobi kin?
A lot of fans are sold on this one; Rey is the granddaughter of old Obi-Wan "Ben" Kenobi.
Kylo fighting the granddaughter of his namesake? It's not really the "deeply and profoundly satisfying" ending Colin Trevorrow teased.
She's the Force, reborn…
Rey picked up piloting and force skills so quickly both Han and then Kylo looked at her with amazement. Perhaps this isn't Rey's first rodeo. Yup, she's the Rey-incarnation of Anakin/Vader.
Maybe after Anakin brought balance to the force, he saw his grandson fall to the dark side. He made the sacrifice to return and redeem him, the way Luke saved Vader.
Hmm. Fans can accept space wizards, telekinesis and ghosts, but reincarnation is getting a bit silly, right?
Rey's relationship with Kylo may be central to his redemption, and her lineage has certainly become one of the big mysteries of The Force Awakens. Please share your own theories below!
This entry was posted in star wars and tagged Entertainment, Fantasy, Film, Kylo Ren, Luke Skywalker, movies, reviews, star wars on January 19, 2016 by Lindsay Acland.
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Brook Street are proud to be working with the UK's Leading material provider. Our client are currently recruiting for a Yard Assistant to join the well run team in Christchurch. The Company have been open for over 175 year and have 13 branches in the south coast.
Knowledge of Building Materials, Especially Timber would be an Advantage, but Training can be provided.
Due to the nature of the role the successful candidate will need to be flexible and be able to work 40 hours per week, which will be comprised of 8 hour shifts between 8am - 5pm Monday - Friday, Plus Saturday Mornings on a rota. Candidates must be flexible for start/ finish time to cover branch opening hours.
In return for your hard work our client offers a competitive Salary of £18,000 per year. In addition you will receive 22 days holiday, +8 Bank Holidays. Other great benefits are also in the employment package.
This role is available for a start as soon as possible. This will involve an initial phone call followed by a face to face interview if successful.
If you are interested in the role and looking for work it would speed up your application process if you completed an online registration with Brook Street as soon as possible via the following link: https://www.brookstreet.co.uk/account/registration.aspx. This registration will need to be completed to progress your application for this role or any future roles you apply for.


text:
This course focuses on the administrative review of government decisions by courts and tribunals at both the federal and state level. Particular emphasis will be placed on the judicial review of statutory powers pursuant to judicial review legislation and in accordance with common law principles.
The course content will include:
Principles and theories of administrative law, highlighting accountability, transparency, legality, the rule of law, separation of powers, and constitutionalism.
Public power and administration – statutory, prerogative and common law powers.
The role of policy and discretion in administrative decision-making.
Mechanisms for the review of administrative decision-making, with an emphasis on merits review and judicial review.
Grounds of judicial review and remedies.
The importance of constitutional review under s 75(v) in the development of administrative law principles.
Creyke et al. 2018, Control of government action: text, cases and commentary , 5th ed, LexisNexis Butterworths, Chatswood, N.S.W.
LAWS 2008 Constitutional Law
Test N/A 15% 30 minutes
Advocacy exercise 1000 word equivalent 25% N/A
Examination N/A 60% 2 hours and 20 minutes
Dr Sarah Moulds arrow-small-right

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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text:
IPM Innovation Lab
Integrated Pest Management Innovation Lab
IPM Innovation Lab Projects
Long-Term Training
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Benefitting people worldwide
IPM In the News
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IPM Innovation Lab Portal
Halting crop destruction in India saves up to $309 million
Miriam Rich January 22, 2014 June 2, 2014 General
Virginia Tech researchers who first discovered a devastating pest in India and devised a natural way to combat it have now put an economic value on their counterattack: up to $309 million the first year and more than $1 billion over five years.
That's the amount of damage the papaya mealybug would have wreaked on farmers and consumers in India without scientists' intervention.
These parasitic wasps imported from Mexico proved effective against the papaya mealybug in India.
The papaya mealybug ripped through crops including papaya, eggplant, and tomato in southern India – causing mold and stunted growth – before Rangaswamy "Muni" Muniappan of Virginia Tech identified the pest and spearheaded the natural control program. For a relatively modest cost of $200,000 during the first year of the intervention, devastation that would have totaled from $524 million to $1.34 billion over five years was prevented, Muniappan and other scientists report in the February issue of the journal Crop Protection.
"India's first efforts to eradicate the papaya mealybug failed," says Muniappan, who heads up Virginia Tech's federally funded Integrated Pest Management Innovation Lab program, a venture that works in developing countries to minimize crop losses, increase farmer income, and decrease pesticide use. "The government and farmers tried spraying pesticides, but crop losses kept getting larger. It was clear to us that this was a case not for poisons but for natural, biological controls."
The winning intervention centered on three natural enemies of the mealybug that the U.S. government first employed in Florida after the pest spread there in the late 1990s, three parasitic wasps from Mexico. The wasp lays its eggs inside the mealybug larvae, and when the eggs hatch, the young wasps eat the larvae.
Virginia Tech's work to stop the papaya mealybug is "an important contribution" to protecting U.S. crops, says Marjorie A. Hoy, a University of Florida entomologist not associated with the Virginia Tech study who was instrumental in controlling a Florida infestation. "It's impossible for regulatory agencies at the borders to inspect and remove any infested material – they try, but it's impossible to do it all. I'm happy to hear that [Virginia Tech scientists] conducted an economic analysis. That is so often missing in biological-control projects."
Scientists first identified the papaya mealybug in Mexico, where natural enemies kept it under control, according to the research paper. It was found on St. Martin Island in 1995, and by 2000 it had spread to Florida, the Caribbean, and Central and South America. The pest's march continued, taking it to Guam in 2002 and the Hawaiian Islands in 2004. India's problem began in 2006.
Read more in the Virginia Tech Press Release: Go to Page >
← University-led workshop in Ethiopia combats tomato leafminer
Video: Scientists work to stop moth from destroying world's tomato crop →
This website is made possible by the generous support of the American people through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) under Agreement No. AID-OAA-L-15-00001.
The contents are the responsibility of the IPM Innovation Lab and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of the U.S. Agency for International Development or the U.S. Government.
© 2014-2019 IPM Innovation Lab, Virginia Tech. All rights reserved.


The approximate half-hour guided tour is free to the general public. The tour includes an overview of the history, purpose and general facts about the Lake Placid Olympic Training Center. Tours are given on a walk-in basis with a maximum of 50 people. If you have more than 10 people in your group, please call the Olympic Training Center at least two weeks in advance to reserve a weekday tour for your group.


It's time to take beach camping to the next level.
From Sept. 23 through Nov. 6, the National Park Service will host Camp Rockaway at historic Fort Tilden in the Rockaways.
New York City-based designer Kent Johnson first conceived the idea of Camp Rockaway in 2014. After raising $50,000 through Kickstarter to explore the viability of the idea, Johnson partnered with the National Parks Service, who granted the camp a six-week pilot.
As a part of the Gateway National Recreation Area, Camp Rockaway will bring the comforts of home with the romance of beach camping. Campers can choose to spend the night in a spacious safari-style tent with wooden floors and canvas sides.
The structures will be fully furnished and supplied with solar lights and deck chairs. There will also be two pre-pitched tents with cots as well as three open sites that campers can reserve to pitch their own tents.
On the grounds, guests can find horseshoes and other games, a community kitchen, dining area and a camp store selling additional food and supplies. Nearby the campgrounds are decommissioned military structures and reclaimed natural areas that are waiting to be explored.
The fixed tents will be available to rent from $115 to $195 per night, while the open sites will be priced at $65 per night. To reserve your spot, visit www.camprockaway.com.


Some might wonder why the haunts are grouped this way or why a particular haunt is located in that spot on the DVD? Good question!
When Paul received the pix or video.
If it needed editing or sound added.
Paul broke each DVD into chapters or sections as it appears the farther from a menu a chapter was the more likely is was a problem in rendering. That's why you see things like Group One, Group Two, etc. He placed Fox Haunt into the wrong category so he placed it again on the last disk into the right category. It's a great haunt and we should all be happy to see it twice. He didn't receive the video from DC Cemetery until the day before the final disc was being created....but the haunt is so good he did not want to not include it just becasue it was 2 months late.


text:
class Quotefixformac < Cask
  url 'https://github.com/robertklep/quotefixformac/releases/download/v2.5.2/QuoteFix-v2.5.2.zip'
  homepage 'https://github.com/robertklep/quotefixformac'
  version '2.5.2'
  sha256 '8d914ae553b84fe5f246ab1eb030d25792ca8d626b3bbac57acee857135e85a9'
  caveats do
    <<-EOS.undent
    Follow these instructions to enable mail plugins and link QuoteFix:

      defaults write com.apple.mail EnableBundles -bool true
      defaults write com.apple.mail BundleCompatibilityVersion -string 3

      mkdir -p ~/Library/Mail/Bundles
      cp -R #{destination_path}/QuoteFix.mailbundle ~/Library/Mail/Bundles/
      killall Mail; open -a Mail

    EOS
  end
end

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


Minnesota Public Health Association - Scheduled Giving Opens for Give to the Max Day on November 1!
Scheduled Giving Opens for Give to the Max Day on November 1!
Give to the Max Day will be held on Thursday, November 17, 2016. Donors will be able to schedule their Give to the Max Day gifts during our Scheduled Giving period beginning Tuesday, November 1, 2016.


Lokkii® Firediscs are made from recycled material and are nitrate and petro-chemical free.
Each Lokkii® Firediscs will burn clean for up to 20 minutes, clean to handle and ignites easily with a match or butane lighter.
Lokkii® Firediscs are ideal for starting a camp fire, barbecue or your fireplace all the while maintaining its "green" status.
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Lokkii® Firediscs are made from recycle material.
Q2 Can I break Lokkii® Firediscs in half?
Lokkii® Firediscs may be broken in half and placed in more than 1 location in the fuel you wish to ignite. Note when breaking the disc the burn time of each half will be reduced to approx. 10 Min per piece.
Q3 How do I light the Lokkii® Firediscs?
Lokkii® Firediscs light with a regular match or butane lighter, the disc is safe to light and will not flare up but will burn with a clean hot flame.


War of the Rebellion: Serial 013 Page 0416 THE PENINSULAR CAMPAIGN, VA. Chapter XXIII.
us and pressing closely upon our rear. I posted Captain Holland with his company about 300 yards from the ford, directing him to obstruct the road and cover the retreat of our main body, and ordered Captain Wister to destroy the bridge at the mill hospital. These were difficult and hazardous duties, and were performed with the coolness of veterans, and probably saved us from entire destruction.
Our loss in this morning's fight and retreat was more than half what remained from the previous day's work. We could not bring off our dead and wounded, and every man who gave out in the double-quick was necessarily captured. My men are terribly exhausted, several having fainted in the heat of the sun while forming this line of battle.
I have here 6 officers and 125 men. Owing to our exposed positions our loss in prisoners will be largely out of proportion to the killed and wounded. I hope that many men will yet find their way to their command. I will forward a complete list of losses as soon as it can be made out.
Haxall's, on James River, July 1, 1862.
GENERAL: I have the honor to report that I went into action on the evening of the 27th with 150 men and 6 officers, all exhausted with the three battles and rapid marches of the preceding thirty hours. I could not have saved even this remnant of my command but for the protection afforded by the intrenchments, the construction of which your ordered and supervised. No troops or batteries could have held my position, which was the key to the whole line, without such protection.
My position on the field of Gaines' Hill was on the right of the First Brigade. The enemy were concealed by the woods in front, except their batteries, which I could see at a distance of 500 yards. I directed my fire chiefly upon these, compelling them frequently to change position, and finally silenced them entirely. The Fifth Regiment, on my left, the conduct of which afforded a constant example of courage and discipline, answered the enemy's infantry with the most terrific musketry firing of the day.
Our position was unchanged throughout the action, lasting nearly four hours. The battalions upon our right one after another disappeared, leaving an interval of 500 yards between us and a battalion of regular infantry, which, driven from the woods, where it had met the enemy, was reformed again and again to meet the attack, but finally retired also.


text:
Safe passage now… Stop the scapegoating, END THE 'HOSTILE ENVIRONMENT'
October 26, 2019 Kieran Crowe
A sombre, defiant and determined mood was the tone of a number of vigils across the country, including one in London on Thursday outside the Home Office, after the heart wrenching news of the deaths of 39 people who lost their lives in the back of a lorry tragically, in the hope of finding a better life.
The Stand Up To Racism vigils, in London called jointly with Safe Passage and Care4Calais, were demanding #SafePassageNow and saying #RefugeesWelcome #MigrantsWelcome and brought together hundreds resolving to also fight to #EndTheHostileEnvironment
Now more than ever we need to build the anti racist as broadly and widely as we can, so that a challenge to the ideas of division, hate and scapegoating is being raised in every community, in every workplace and in every college.
Join and share the UN Anti Racism Day demonstrations on 21 March 2020, taking place globally to send a clear message against the rise of racism, fascism, Islamophobia and Antisemitism via the Facebook event page for the #M21 #WorldAgainstRacism demonstrations here
At Stand Up To Racism, we are always looking for volunteers. If you would like to help as a volunteer for Stand Up To Racism please email us on info@standuptoracism.org.uk
And every day you can help build the anti racist movement by retweeting @AntiRacismDay – sharing posts from our Facebook page promoting events and initiatives, and of course by inviting friends on social media to get involved.
Vigil tomorrow: After 39 Tragic Deaths, Safe Passage Now
Today our thoughts and solidarity go to the 39 victims, found dead in a lorry in Essex and their families.
The 39 are the latest victims of Fortress Europe and this government's "hostile environment" for refugees and migrants that sees people forced to turn to traffickers to escape poverty and war.
Thousands have died attempting to reach Europe, and thousands remain stranded while being denied their right to seek asylum in Britain.
Tomorrow we are holding a vigil with refugee groups Care4Calais and Safe Passage to commemorate the victims, demand safe passage for those fleeing poverty and war, and that the racist hostile environment must end.
Join us to send solidarity to the loved ones of those who died and demand immediate change to ensure such a tragedy does not happen again.
AFTER 39 TRAGIC DEATHS:
VIGIL: SAFE PASSAGE NOW
Thursday 24th October 6pm
Home Office, 2 Marsham Street London SW1P 4DF
Click here to view the facebook event
Undercover POLICING & TRADE UNIONS
Saturday 16th of November 10:30 to 17:30
University of Greenwhich, Stephen Lawrence Building, Old Naval College, 30 Park Row, London SE10 9LS
Sessions on:
Impact of undercover policing on the trade union movement
Women against the State
Surveillance in the Workplace
Truth and Fiction: Representations of Spycops on screen
Undercover policing – inquiry or coverup
Tomorrow (17th October) – Protest/Letter Hand-In: Defend The Right To Protest – Defend XR
We are handing in a letter to Scotland Yard protesting the draconian police ban on all XR protests across London. Join us outside Scotland Yard to defend the right to protest at 17:30 tomorrow.
The text of the letter is below:
"The Metropolitan Police use of a Section 14 order to ban Extinction Rebellion's protests across London is arbitrary and unprecedented and represents a serious attack on the right to protest. This right is a basic civil liberty which must be respected at all times. As people who have organised and participated in a wide range of protests and demonstrations we call on the Metropolitan police to withdraw the ban immediately, and to respect the long held right to peaceful protest."
Supported by: Stop the War Coalition, CND, Stop Trump, Stand Up To Racism, People's Assembly, Stand Up To Trump, Palestine Solidarity Campaign UK, Muslim Association of Britain
Join the Facebook event here.
Electoral REFORM SOCIETY: NO TO VOTER ID
It is hard to believe: on top of an electoral system that is warped and discredited, over nine million people missing from the electoral roll, and elections open to the influence of unscrupulous donors and misinformation…the government is choosing to make it harder for us to vote.
Make no mistake: the government's voter ID plans – announced yesterday – are a clear threat to our democracy.
Despite only eight allegations of "personation" fraud (the crime of pretending to be someone else at the ballot box) in 2018 across the whole of the UK, the government is putting up new barriers to millions of legitimate voters. This is a gross electoral injustice in the making.
It will cost up to £20m per General Election – but the democratic cost will be much higher.
This 'show your papers' policy must be stopped. Will you sign our petition to say no to US-style voter suppression laws in the UK – and yes to real democratic reform?
Our campaign against mandatory ID has dominated headlines this week. The pressure is mounting.
Let's stand up for universal suffrage together. Sign our petition today.
16 November- Campaign Opposing Police Surveillance- Trade Union Conference
August 30, 2019 Kieran Crowe
10.30am – 17.30pm
University of Greenwich, Stephen Lawrence Building, Old Naval College, 30 Park Row, London SE10 9LS
Undercover policing & trade unions: the Political and the Personal
Including sessions on:
Privacy & Surveillance in the Workplace
Undercover policing – inquiry or cover up?
Education unions condemn arrest of Sudanese teachers' leader
The arrest and disappearance of Yassin Hassan Abdelkarim, president of the Sudanese Teachers' Committee on 28 June has drawn strong condemnation from the University and College Union (UCU) and International Solidarity Officers in the NEU teachers' union. Paul Cottrell, acting General Secretary of UCU wrote to the Sudanese ambassador calling for Yassin's immediate release after hearing that armed men stormed his house in the early hours of 28 June and took him away to an unknown location.
Sudanese activists are extremely concerned that he could face torture or death in detention at the hands of the brutal militias affiliated with the Transitional Military Council who have already killed over 100 protesters during attacks on peaceful sit-ins after 3 June. The Teachers Committee is an independent union which has played a key role organising teachers' strikes in recent years.
UCU calls for immediate release of Yassin Hassan Abdelkarim, president of the Sudanese Teachers' Committee #StandWithSudan https://t.co/DzJvmZVJaM
— UCU (@ucu) July 2, 2019
International Solidarity Officers in NEU adopted a resolution on 1 July also calling for Yassin's release alongside other political prisoners. Huge protests gripped on Sudan on Sunday, following a call by the Sudanese Professionals Association and the opposition Forces of Freedom and Change for further peaceful demonstrations and civil disobedience to demand the transfer of power to a civilian government from the ruling Military Council.
Statement by International Solidarity Officers, NEU
We, National Education Union International Solidarity Officers, condemn the arrest of our brother and colleague Yassin Hassan Abdulkarim President of the Teachers' Committee in Sudan.
We support the struggle for democratic rights and civilian government in Sudan. We support the demonstrations called by the Sudanese Professional Association and note protestors have exercised non-violent civil disobedience in pursuit of their aims.
We condemn any use of force, including that used on June 3rd in Khartoum, against these peaceful protests.
In addition, the arbitrary arrest of civilians exercising their right to organise cannot be tolerated. We call on our government, trade unions and human rights organisations to demand the immediate release of Yassin Hassan Abdulkarim.
Original post.
UK arms sales to Saudi Arabia declared unlawful
Last week, our friends at Campaign Against Arms Trade won a historic court case against the UK Government over arms sales to Saudi Arabia. The Court ruled that the Government's approval of arms sales to Saudi Arabia for use in Yemen was unlawful, and that it must halt exports until it reviews the permissions in light of evidence of Saudi violations of international law. The ruling is unprecedented, and really speaks to the collaborative work of grassroots campaigners, lawyers, academic experts, and many others who pitched in to make the case so strong.
But this is just one case. The UK still approves arms exports to dozens of other human rights abusing regimes that use military force to repress protests, to gain territory, and to commit dreadful and illegal violence against civilians. And it will undoubtedly try to resume its exports to Saudi Arabia at the earliest date possible. That's why we need grassroots pressure now to make this court victory stick, for the people of Yemen and millions of others around the world who are still at risk of being attacked using British made bombs and other weapons.
The UK sells weapons and military technology to States that commit sustained and grave human rights abuses, including Israel, Egypt, Turkey, Honduras, the Philippines, and dozens of other regimes.
The UK must stop arming repression. Will you email your MP, and ask them to pressure the government to end its trade in arms with human rights abusing regimes?
Activists plan day of action for Louisa Hanoune and political prisoners in Algeria on 20 June
Trade unionists and activists are mobilising for an international day of action on 20 June in solidarity with Louisa Hanoune, General Secretary of the radical left Workers' Party who was detained by a military court in Algeria on 9 May. Louisa is one of increasing numbers of activists to face detention and jail in recent weeks, as the Algerian regime has attempted to use repression against organisers and supporters of the mass popular protests and strikes which have gripped the country since February this year.
In a statement the organisers of the Free Louisa Hanoune campaign said:
Louisa Hanoune has been known in the world and for years for her stance and her uncompromising fight in defence of democracy, freedoms, women's rights and always on the side of the people and the oppressed"
Louisa is well-known for her campaigns against the Family Code, which discriminates against Algerian women, treating them essentially as minors, and for equal recognition of the Berber language alongside Arabic. In the leadership of the Workers Party, she has been active for many years supporting striking workers and fighting for social justice.
A statement in solidarity with Louisa has been launched by the international campaign and is gathering support among trade union activists in the UK, with endorsements from leading activists in UCU, the bakers' union BFAWU, NEU, Unite and PCS.
Join the protest at the Algerian embassy in London on 20 June – check the campaign Facebook page for details
Sign the statement in solidarity with Louisa here and download a list of some of the initial signatories here Louise Hanoune PDF
Use the hashtag #freelouisahanoune on social and media and follow the campaign here
Download Louisa's biography here Louisa Hanoune short biography
Pass a resolution in your trade union branch calling for the release of Louisa and all other political prisoners in Algeria
SOAS UNISON – Deportations 10th Anniversary Commemoration Events
June 6, 2019 Kieran Crowe
Wednesday 12 June 2019 marks the 10th anniversary of the arrest and subsequent deportation SOAS cleaners (and UNISON members).
The cleaners, working at the time for the outsourced company ISS, were called in for an early morning staff meeting in the G2 Lecture Theatre (now the DLT).
The meeting was actually a cover for a UK Border Agency raid.
9 SOAS cleaners were handcuffed in the lecture theatre and subsequently deported by UKBA.
The deportation of the SOAS 9 by the UK state was done at the behest of the private company with the full knowledge and complicity of the SOAS Management.
The real reason these workers were targeted like this was that they stood up and had begun to organise to improve their working lives.
Please join us in attending the annual commemoration events below on what will be the 10th anniversary of this crime and please take a few minutes to watch the attached trailer for the 'Limpiadores' documentary (the full film will be shown as part of the commemorative events organised by the SOAS Justice for Workers campaign)


See to it that you do not refuse Him who speaks. If they did not escape when they refused Him who warned them on earth, how much less will we, if we turn away from him who warns us from heaven? At that time His voice shook the earth, but now He has promised, once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens, the words once more indicate the removing of what can be shaken-that is created things-so that what cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore, since we are recieving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, for our God is consuming fire.
What happens when the Church of our Lord Jesus Christ comes together like the churches did in the first Churches of the bible? I have been thinking that if we the Church of our Lord would put our hearts and minds and hands of God together we could figure out what to do about all the people in Old Mexico that are suffering. Why can't we just all get along and use God's resources to do something that is driven by the Holy Spirit. What is holding us back from being able to have the love of the Lord and do something. We are all as one in God's eyes. Everything and everyone are connected.


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Microsoft Orleans Brings Distributed Transactions to Cloud
Cloud Native Ecosystem / Data Science
Once of the fundamental database techniques comes to the cloud at last, simplifying development without compromising scaling and performance.
Mar 6th, 2019 11:52am by Mary Branscombe
Feature image via Pixabay. Other images courtesy of Microsoft.
Distributed actor frameworks like Orleans, Akka Cluster and Distributed Erlang aren't databases, but Orleans 2.1 adds the familiar database abstraction of transactions, complete with ACID guarantees — the atomicity, consistency, isolation and durability guarantees that ensure transactions will be valid no matter what happens.
Distributed applications used to be the domain of specialists building data warehouses; now any large company dealing with lots of customers online needs to have a cloud-scale distributed application. Early web development patterns were layered architectures that were still dependent on monolithic databases, complete with transactions and guarantees, to provide durable state but scaling those proved difficult and we needed ways to record and replay transactions to handle errors.
Moving to distributed cloud systems and NoSQL databases backing the stateless front end and stateless middle tier gave us scale, but those non-transactional systems caused problems of their own. Developers using cloud services have had to learn to work around the idiosyncrasies of eventually consistent data stores. Applications based on microservices are inherently distributed and often end up including ad hoc approaches that try to approximate transactions to get consistency, without any of the formal specifications to make that efficient or effective.
The usual view of transactions is that they're too slow for the cloud and can't scale to millions of users and thousands of transactions per second. "The industry gave up on transactions 15 years ago, but we believe we can make transactions work at scale with good performance," Microsoft Principal Software Engineering Lead Sergey Bykov from the Orleans team told the New Stack.
Transactions give you consistency and transactions work in the same sequential way that people think. Atomicity means that an update succeeds completely or fails completely, so you're not left with half a change; if you're transferring money or credits from one account to another, the value will leave the first account and show up in the second, or the transaction won't be applied. Isolation means you don't see partial results, so it never looks like the value has reached the second account without leaving the first account.
Event sourcing and approaches like Command Query Responsibility Segregation (CQRS) are durable but they only offer eventual consistency and they don't' have atomicity or isolation, Bykov points out.
"Eventual consistency and event sourcing are good patterns but sometimes you need to have guarantees. In gaming, say you want to trade a gold coin for a cannonball and do it at the scale of millions of users. If you run out of coins [because the trade went wrong], it's a bad experience," Bykov said. "The in-game economy is really financial transactions and people want guarantees with their commerce. Atomicity and isolation are what developers want. What we want as developers is for the system to just work and take care of it, and not have to build complex machinery to half-achieve the same result."
"If you're running an application on a cluster with ten or a hundred nodes and you have grains distributes across all the nodes that represent users or their entities like orders or game sessions, this functionality means that for the first time, you can have two or three or n items that can get updated together," Bykov said.
The programming model for transactions in Orleans is straightforward; you have to configure silos to use transactions and then put the transactional attribute on methods. When a method that's marked as being transactional gets called, the local state that's stored in memory is written into storage and locked, with details of any dependencies.
If there's a failure, Orleans can cleanly back out of the transaction and put everything back the way it was
The Orleans runtime sends the details of the state and any dependencies to the transaction manager, which allocates a transaction ID, waits for any dependencies to complete and then tries to commit the changes. If there's any failure, like the transactions this transaction is dependent on failing, "everything is unwound as if it didn't happen." That means that Orleans can give ACID guarantees when it's using stores like blob, table or key-value storage that don't support transactions.
A beta release of transactions was included in the 2.0 release of Orleans using a single transaction manager that coordinates all transactions. That required a separate server, which is a single point of failure and also an extra operational cost because you have to deploy and maintain it. Even read-only operations like getting a balance mean a round trip to the transaction manager to validate the transaction; "that adds to latency but it doesn't impact throughout," Bykov notes.
Holding locks until after the forced write of two-phase commit — which Google Spanner users for read-write transactions — is slow in cloud storage, which limits the number of transactions that can be completed in a given time. To get around that, Orleans accumulates transaction requests and sends them as a batch, so it gets back a batch of results; that means all the locks can be released during the first phase of the two-phase commit, which avoids blocking.
The chain of dependencies could cause cascading aborts where one transaction aborts and causes the whole chain of transactions to abort in turn, but that can only happen with physical failure like a server crashing, Bykov says, which should be rare.
With the single transaction manager, that scales to 50.000 or 100,000 transactions per second on a cluster; a traditional two-phase commit would limit scale to more like 25 transactions per second with cloud storage. Orleans 2.1 removes the scalability limits by switching to distributed transaction managers. "The grain that originates the transaction becomes the transaction manager, so every grain can be a transaction manager and this model shouldn't have any limits on scaling". That reduces raw performance but there's also no single bottleneck in the system and no need to deploy anything beyond the normal Orleans runtime.
In 2.1, distributed transactions are "release candidate quality"; there will be another point release with the final version of transactions. That will have the same API but will have gone through a higher level of testing and analysis; "we have internal teams [at Microsoft] validating and testing and building applications on top so we'll be comfortable to declare that it's ready," Bykov explains. One of those customers is a virtual commerce service for games that would have needed very complex code and now has a much simpler programming model because of transactions.
In Orleans 2.1 (and the future version with the final release of distributed transaction), the transaction manager is distributed to avoid bottlenecks and improve scaling
Distributed transactions at cloud scale bring together concepts that simply haven't worked together before; Bykov notes that it's "a daring proposition to say we can scale distributed transactions because people gave up on this a long time ago" but transactions might not be the only database abstraction to come to Orleans.
The idea came from Microsoft Distinguished Scientist Phil Bernstein — a pioneer of transaction processing and one of the designers of the SQL Azure database engine. As well as transactions, his research into what he calls 'actor-oriented database systems' covers indexing (which could be the next feature to come to Orleans) as well as query processing, streams, replication and geo-distribution.
And as Bykov notes, this is open source, not proprietary. "This is not tied to any database; it's a middle-level tier for distributed transactions," he points out and the Orleans community has already come up with a transactional storage provider for AWS DynamoDB. If you think of the actors in Orleans as distributed virtual objects, the concept is very like containerized microservices, and Bernstein's paper covers implementing the concepts in a JVM as well as in .NET, which Orleans uses. If the idea takes off, we might see distributed transactions as an option for a range of services and frameworks.
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