Articles for applying color on a surface comprise a sheet of dry color component and an adhesive on one surface of the sheet of dry color component. The article further includes a releasable liner, and the sheet of dry color component is arranged between the releasable liner and the adhesive. Methods for providing a substantially permanent color effect on an architectural surface comprise delivering such an article to the architectural surface.
This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application No. 60/343,146, filed Dec. 20, 2001; U.S. Provisional Application No. 60/380,225, filed May 13, 2002; and U.S. Provisional Application No. 60/380,205, filed May 13, 2002.
In one aspect, the invention is directed to articles for applying color on a surface. In a first embodiment, the invention is directed to an article for applying color on a surface, which article comprises a sheet of dry architectural surface color component, an adhesive on one surface of the sheet of dry color component, and a releasable liner, wherein the sheet of dry color component is arranged between the releasable liner and the adhesive, wherein the adhesive is adapted to adhere the article to a surface at room temperature and upon application of a pressure of less than about 50 lb/in 2, and wherein the article exhibits an elongation of less than 50%.
In a further embodiment, the invention is directed to articles for applying color on a surface, comprising a sheet of dry color component and an adhesive on one surface of the sheet of dry color component. The sheet of dry color component and the adhesive are adapted to provide a surface covering having a water vapor transmission rate of at least 1 g/μm/cm 2/24 hrs.
The articles and methods of the invention are advantageous in that color may be applied on a surface without requiring the use of wet tools such as brushes, sprayers and rollers for delivery of the articles or application of the dry color component, mess protection, or color component cleaning materials, and the dry color component is substantially free of volatile organic components. The articles and methods are further advantageous in that color may be applied on a surface in a less time-consuming manner as compared with typical wet painting and/or wall papering products and methods. These and additional objects and advantages will be more fully apparent in view of the following detailed description.
FIG. 4 sets forth a schematic diagram of one process for producing an article for applying color on a surface according to the present invention.
The articles and methods may be employed to provide a porous surface covering which allows air to escape as the article is applied to a surface, thereby avoiding bubbles and/or wrinkles from appearing on a covered surface. In certain embodiments, the surface covering which is provided is microporous and therefore allows moisture to escape rather than accumulating between the applied article and a surface to which it is applied. For example, the surface coverings provided by the articles and methods according to the present invention may exhibit a water vapor transmission rate (WVTR) of greater than about 1 g-μm/cm 2/24 hrs, more specifically, greater than about 4 g-μm /cm2/24 hrs, at 100% relative humidity and 40° C., as measured according to ASTM F1249-90. The desired WVTR may be provided through the use of materials which inherently allow water vapor transmission and/or by providing pores, perforations, orifices or the like in the articles, either on a micro or macro scale. These and additional advantageous properties provided by the articles and methods of the invention will be further described hereafter.
FIG. 1 sets forth a schematic diagram of one embodiment of the articles according to the present invention. With reference to FIG. 1, the article  10 for applying color on a surface comprises a sheet 12 of dry color component and an adhesive 14 on one surface 16 of the sheet 12 of dry color component. The sheet 12 is shown as a single layer of dry color component. While the schematic diagram of FIG. 1 shows relative thicknesses of the sheet 12 and the adhesive 14, the illustrated thicknesses provide no representation or limitation of actual thicknesses of the respective components in the embodiment of FIG. 1 or in any of the embodiments of the remaining Figures. Additionally, while the interface between the components is shown as a clearly defined line, the actual interface between components may comprise other, different configurations.
The articles provide good opacity and coverage by application of a single sheet of dry color component, providing consumers with cost and time benefits. Preferably the articles exhibit an opacity index of at least about 0.95 as measured according to ASTM D2805. Typically, in such measurements, the article is carefully applied on a test surface, for example the surface of a color contrast card such as a Leneta opacity form  2A, avoiding bubbles and wrinkles. In more specific embodiments, the articles exhibit an opacity index of at least about 0.98, and more specifically at least about 0.995 as measured according to ASTM D2805. Substantially complete coverage, i.e., full hide, may be obtained even over dark surfaces, stained surfaces and the like. If desired, one or more layers or components of the article may include an additional opacifying agent, for example one or more metals, metal oxides, minerals, or the like, or a combination thereof, to improve the opacity of the article. Examples of such opacifying agents include, but are not limited to, titanium dioxide, carbon black, and the like. Suitable opacifying agents may be provided as clusters, powders, flakes, particles, or groupings of particles such as aggregates or agglomerates, or the like. Flakes having a minimum dimension of at least 0.02 microns and an aspect ratio of about 100 to 1000 are desirable. Particles, for example, titanium dioxide particles, that impart good opacification preferably have a dimension in the range of about 0.15 to 150 microns and more preferably from about 0.20 to 50 microns. While the opacifying agent may be provided in the sheet of dry color component, in alternative embodiments, the opacifying agent, if employed, may be included in the adhesive or a backing layer, or in one or more other layers as desired. While not wishing to be bound by theory, it is believed that many household stains, particularly oil-based stains, exhibit reduced surface energy and tend to repel wet paint, particularly water-based wet paints, thereby making stains difficult to cover and often requiring additional pretreatment steps. Wet water-based paints can also cause flash rusting when water migrates from the paint to nail heads and the like. However, the dry color component sheets of the present invention are substantially free of a liquid carrier, whereby the aforementioned problems associated with liquid carriers are avoided. Advantageously, stains can often be covered without pretreatment of the stained surface.
In the embodiment shown in FIG. 1, the article  10 for applying color on a surface is free of a releasable liner and is free of a carrier sheet. As used herein, the term "releasable liner" is generally used to refer to a sheet which is removable and is intended and adapted for removal shortly before or upon application of the sheet of dry color component to the desired surface. On the other hand, as used herein, carrier sheet is used to refer to a sheet which is intended and adapted for application to a surface, typically between the surface and a layer providing a decorative effect, to provide structural support. A common carrier comprises, for example, a wallpaper backing sheet. Carrier layers are typically significantly greater than 3 mils (0.08 mm) in thickness and therefore are significantly distinguishable from the sheet of dry color component and the articles of the present invention. Thus, in the embodiment of FIG. 1, neither a carrier sheet nor a releasable liner is employed. In a further embodiment, the article is free of cellulosic materials, particularly cellulosic substrates commonly employed in wallpaper carrier layers. In a more specific embodiment, the article 10 consists essentially of the sheet 12 of dry color component and the adhesive 14 on the surface 16 of the sheet 12 and does not include any other component which would materially affect the use or properties of the article.
In another embodiment, the sheet  12 of dry color component comprises a reinforcing component. The reinforcing component may be used to provide strength or structural integrity to the sheet material and/or to provide the sheet material with increased thickness or body to facilitate handling and/or use of the article. Other advantages resulting from the use of a reinforcing component will be apparent in view of the present disclosure. The reinforcing component may comprise any additive which achieves one or more of the intended reinforcing benefits. Preferably, the reinforcing component does not disadvantageously alter the rheology of the sheet of dry color component, whereby the sheet exhibits sufficient elasticity to allow bending, rolling and the like without causing cracking or other damage to the dry color component sheet. Examples of suitable reinforcing components include, but are not limited to, filaments, fibers, films, nonwovens, scrim, threads, sheets and the like, or a combination thereof, and may be formed of any suitable material, including polymers, metals, cellulosic materials, glass, ceramics, and the like. The reinforcing component is distinguishable from a carrier sheet or layer as the reinforcing component is provided within the sheet of dry colorant and is not adapted or intended for arrangement between the sheet of dry colorant and a wall surface. In contrast, a carrier sheet, as noted above, is intended and adapted for application to a surface between the surface and a layer providing a color effect, such as in wall paper.
The reinforcing component may be provided in the sheet  12 in a patterned manner, for example, as a thinly woven structure, or in a non-patterned, non-woven manner, using any desirable technique, for example casting, mixing, coating or spraying. In one embodiment, the reinforcing component will be of a sufficiently small dimension so as to not provide an undesirable irregular surface when the sheet of dry color component is applied to the surface for which a color benefit is desired. For example, in such embodiments, suitable reinforcing components should have a thickness dimension not greater than about 75% of the thickness of the sheet of dry color component. In alternate embodiments, the reinforcing component may be of sufficient thickness to provide surface texturing of the sheet of dry color component. FIG. 1A shows an article 10A comprising a sheet 12A of dry color component and an adhesive 14A. The sheet 12A comprises a reinforcing component 11 and layers 13 of dry color component.
Adhesive, as used herein, refers to a substance which is adapted to adhere the article of the invention to a surface at room temperature which, as used herein, generally refers to temperatures less than about 100° F. (38° C.). Typically, for use on architectural surfaces, the adhesive will exhibit the required adhering effect at temperatures in a range of from about 40° F. (4° C.) to about 95° F. (35° C.). Additionally, the adhesive exhibits its adhering effect at low application pressures, thereby allowing application and adherence of the articles of the invention to a surface to be colored by hand or with simple tools. In one embodiment, the adhesive is adapted to adhere the article to a surface to be colored by application of a pressure of less than about 50 lb/in 2 (3.5 kg/m2) more specifically less than about 30 lb/in2 (2.1 kg/m2), and even more specifically less than about 20 lb/in2 (1.4 kg/m2). In a further embodiment, the adhesive is adapted to adhere the article to a surface to be colored by application of a pressure of from about 3 lb/in2 (0.21 kg/m2) to about 10 lb/in2 (0.7 kg/m2).
In FIG. 1, the adhesive  14 is illustrated as a layer on the surface 16 of the sheet 12. The adhesive may be provided in layer form as illustrated, or may be provided in any continuous or non-continuous configuration as desired. The adhesive serves to adhere the sheet of dry color component to the surface to be colored. Preferably, the adhesive is of a character and is provided in an amount to allow repositioning of the article when the article is initially applied to a surface, such that the sheet of dry color component may be temporarily adhered to a surface to be colored and, if improperly positioned, may be repositioned or even removed from the surface and reapplied for proper positioning, and such that once proper positioning of the sheet of dry color component has been obtained, the sheet of dry color component may be permanently adhered to the surface. Thus, in one embodiment, the adhesive is adapted to exhibit an initial tack in response to a first condition and a subsequent tack greater than the initial tack in response to a second condition.
In one embodiment, the blocking agent may comprise compositions containing repositionable microspheres. Such compositions may be provided in one or more layers as described in the Parrotta U.S. Pat. No. 4,376,151. Examples of additional blocking agents include, but are not limited to, those disclosed in the Ochi U.S. Pat. No. 4,556,595, clusters, powders or particles of, for example, starch, including but not limited to potato starch or corn starch, talc, silicon dioxide, titanium dioxide, zeolite, or other minerals, polymers or polymer prills, glass or ceramic beads, or the like. The amount and size of such materials will depend on the type and tack of individual adhesives. In one example, talc particles having an average particle size of about 0.1 mm are applied in an amount of about 2 to about 6 g/m 2 to sufficiently reduce initial tack to allow repositioning without a proportionate decrease in final tack. In another example, silicon dioxide particles having an average particle size of about 25 nm are applied in an amount of from about 1 to about 3 g/m2. In yet another example, titanium dioxide particles having an average particle size of about 50 nm and are applied in an amount of from about 1 to about 3 g/m 2. The blocking agent may be applied in a uniform or nonuniform pattern as desired.
In one embodiment, the sheet  12 of dry color component may further include a release agent coating at its outer surface 15, i.e., on the surface of the sheet 12 which is opposite, i.e., not adjacent, the adhesive 14 as shown in FIG. 1. Suitable release agents are discussed in detail below. Alternatively, or in addition, the sheet 12 of dry color component may include a top or outer, exposed film or coating at its surface, hereinafter a "topcoat." The topcoat may comprise a transparent, translucent, pearlescent, opaque or other formulation as necessary to provide a desired optical effect, and/or to provide the sheet of dry color component with increased protection, stiffness and/or structural support. For example, the topcoat may be employed to provide a desired sheen to the dry color component, i.e., flat, satin, eggshell, semi-gloss or gloss, to increase the opacity, diffusion or reflectance of the dry color component upon application to a surface, or the like. In further embodiments, the topcoat may include one or more additional components which provide the sheet of dry color component with improved durability, chip resistance, washability, stain repellence, fade resistance, including ultraviolet light fade resistance, fluorescence, phosphorescence, bactericidal properties, fragrance, odor removal, non-permanent writability (allowing erasure or washing to remove), noise and/or heat insulation, conductivity, static dissipation, and/or environmental interaction, for example allowing shade or color change based on temperature or the like.
The topcoat is provided at the outer surface of the sheet  12 and may be permanently or temporarily adhered to the underlying layer. FIG. 1B shows an article 10B comprising a sheet 12B of dry color component and an adhesive 14B. The sheet 12B includes a layer 13B of dry color component and a topcoat 17. The topcoat 17 may similarly be provided with a release agent coating at its outer surface 19. The topcoat may be formed of any suitable material, examples of which include polymers, for example polyurethanes, polyvinyl chlorides, polyvinylidine fluorides, polyacrylates, cellulosic materials and the like, as well as blends thereof, and optionally various particles for altering optical effects or texture of the surface of the dry color component sheet. Specific examples of topcoats include polyurethane and blends of polyacrylate and polyvinylidine chloride. The topcoat can be transparent. In other embodiments, the topcoat can be translucent, or at least partially opaque. Other topcoat materials suitable for use herein will be apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art.
In one embodiment, the topcoat is configured, either microscopically or macroscopically, to allow the sheet of dry color component and adhesive to provide a surface covering with a desired WVTR, for example greater than 1 g-μm/cm 2/24 hrs, at 100% relative humidity and 40° C., as measured according to ASTM F1249-90. The topcoat may, for example, be provided with perforations, pores, orifices or the like, or may be formed of a material exhibiting such WVTR. In one embodiment, the topcoat is formed of a polymeric coating such as, but not limited to, polyurethane coating, having a sufficiently small thickness, for example, of about 0.5 mils (0.013 mm) or less, and in a further embodiment, of about 0.25 mils (0.007 mm) or less, to allow the desired WVTR.
FIG. 2 sets forth a schematic diagram of another embodiment of an article for applying color on a surface according to the invention. The article  20 includes a sheet 22 of dry color component, an adhesive 24 on the surface 26 of the sheet of dry color component and a releasable liner 28. The sheet 22 of dry color component is arranged between the releasable liner 28 and the adhesive 24. The releasable liner 28 may be included in order to provide structural support and/or strength to the sheet 22 of dry color component, for example when the releasable liner is in film form, and/or to facilitate handling of the article during manufacture, storage and use. The releasable liner is adapted for removal from the sheet of dry color component prior to or upon application of the sheet of dry color component to a surface to be colored. Typically, the releasable liner will be removed from the sheet of dry paint by peeling therefrom. As shown in FIG. 2, the releasable liner may be provided with a tab 32 which extends beyond the sheet of dry color component to assist peeling of the liner 28 from the sheet 22 of dry color component. Alternatively, the release liner may be removed using an adhesive tape that may be applied to the corner (or other edge) of the release liner and then pulled off, for example, after the sheet of dry colorant has been applied to a surface. The adhesive tape pulls the release liner off the sheet of dry colorant, leaving the sheet of dry colorant attached to the surface. The adhesive tape does not damage the surface of the sheet of dry colorant or adjacent sheets of dry colorant. An example of a suitable adhesive tape is Temp RL™ tape commercially available from Saint Gobain. In a further embodiment, the articles may be adapted for use with a simple separator tool which facilitates separation of the releasable liner from the sheet of dry colorant. Such a tool may be provided with at least one straight edge which acts to separate the releasable liner at an edge of the article.
In one embodiment, the articles of the invention include a releasable liner adjacent the sheet of dry color component and, in the planar configuration of the articles as shown in FIG. 2, are free of a releasable liner on the adhesive. Thus, in the embodiment of FIG. 2, the upper surface of the adhesive  24 is free of a releasable liner when the article is in a planar, nonrolled configuration. When an article as shown in FIG. 2 is in a roll form, the releasable liner 28 will be positioned adjacent, and possibly contacting, the exposed adhesive 24 and therefore may provide a release surface to allow unrolling of the article without interference of the adhesive, as is described in greater detail below.
In further embodiments, the articles may comprise two or more releasable liners. For example, the article  20A of FIG. 2A comprises a sheet 22A of dry color component, including layer 23 of dry color component and topcoat layer 27, and an adhesive 24A, in combination with a releasable liner 28A on the surface of the sheet 22A of dry color component which is opposite that of the adhesive 24A, and a releasable liner 36 on the adhesive 24A. The topcoat layer 27 on the sheet 22A of dry color component may provide the color component with additional properties as discussed above, between the sheet 22A and the releasable liner 28A.
Alternatively, or in addition, a release agent may be provided between the releasable liner and the sheet of dry color component in order to assist removal of the releasable liner from the sheet of dry color component. For example, in the article of FIG. 2, the release agent is provided at interface  30 between the sheet 22 of dry color component and the releasable liner 28. The release agent may be provided as a coating or as a separate film layer in the article. In a specific embodiment, the release agent is provided as a coating on one or both of the interface surfaces between the sheet of dry color component and the releasable liner. Various release agents are known in the art and are suitable for use herein and include, but are not limited to, silicone oil, silicone surfactant, silicone homopolymer or copolymer, fluorocarbon oil, fluorocarbon surfactant, fluorocarbon homopolymer or copolymer, for example fluoro-acrylate homopolymers and copolymers, and mixtures thereof. The release agent may be provided as a coating on the surface of the dry sheet of color component at the interface 30 adjacent the releasable liner, as a coating on the releasable liner surface of at the interface 30 adjacent sheet of dry color component, as a layer between the sheet of dry color component and the releasable liner, or any combination thereof. Such coatings may be continuous or non-continuous as is necessary in order for the liner to be releasable from the sheet of dry color component without damage to the surface of the sheet of dry color component. In one embodiment, the release agent comprises a polymeric material, for example a polysilicone, which is applied as a continuous or non-continuous coating on the surface of the releasable liner 28 at the interface 30.
In one embodiment, the releasable liner may further include a release agent at its outer surface  34, i.e., on the surface of the liner which is opposite, i.e., not adjacent, the sheet of dry color component. In the embodiment of the article of FIG. 2 wherein the releasable liner 28 is provided with a release agent on the surface 34 which is opposite to the sheet of dry color component, the release agent on surface 34 prevents the surface 34 from adhering to the adhesive 24 during storage, handling and use of the article. For example, the provision of a release agent on surface 34 facilitates storage of the article in a rolled manner. Similarly, in the embodiment of FIG. 1, the surface 15 of the sheet 12 of dry color component may be provided with a release agent to prevent adhesion of the surface 15 with adhesive 14 during storage, handling and use of the article 10. Release agents of the type discussed above are suitable for application to surface 15 or surface 34.
In the embodiment of FIG. 2, the adhesive  14 may include a blocking agent of the type discussed above, wherein the blocking agent renders the adhesive pressure activatable, whereby the adhesive tack is reduced at low application pressures to allow initial repositioning of the article on a surface to be colored, while upon application of higher pressure, the adhesive permanently bonds the sheet of dry color component to the surface.
In an alternate embodiment, the releasable liner  28 is arranged on the surface of the sheet 22 of dry color component at interface 30 without any additional layer, coating or component therebetween. In this embodiment, the releasable liner 28 is preferably formed of a material which inherently releases from the surface of the sheet 22 of dry color component at the interface 30. This embodiment eliminates any residue of release agent on the surface of the sheet 22 of dry color component once the releasable liner 28 is removed therefrom.
FIG. 3 sets forth a schematic diagram of yet another embodiment of an article for applying color on a surface according to the invention. The article  40 includes a sheet 42 of dry color component, including a layer 43 of dry color component and a backing layer 45 on one surface 46 of the layer 43 of dry color component. An adhesive 44 is provided on the surface 47 of the backing layer 45. The article comprising the sheet 42 and the adhesive 44 has a thickness of about 3 mils (0.08 mm) or less, more specifically about 2 mils (0.05 mm) or less, and even more specifically about 1 mil (0.3 mm) or less. Thus, the article of this embodiment is significantly thinner than conventional wallpaper products which typically have significantly thicker carrier substrates. The backing layer 45 may be included, for example, in order to provide structural support and/or strength to the sheet 42 of dry color component, to provide additional opacifying, whitening or color strengthening effects, and/or to facilitate handling of the article during storage and use. The backing layer may be formed of any suitable thin material, examples of which include, but are not limited to, paper and other cellulosic materials, polymer films and woven or nonwoven fabrics, textile fabrics, glass or ceramic fabrics, metallized layer(s), and the like. In one embodiment, the backing layer may provide increased opacity to the article upon application to a surface to be colored. For example, the backing layer may include titanium dioxide, metal filler or the like to provide increased opacity. Preferably, the backing layer will exhibit sufficient flexibility to allow bending, rolling and other similar manipulations of the article.
In one embodiment, the backing layer comprises a metallized film, i.e., a laminate of two or more polymer films having a metallized layer or coating between two internal surfaces thereof. As shown in FIG. 3, the backing layer  45 may comprise a laminate of two polymer films 50, 52, for example formed of polyethylene terephthalate, having a metallized coating 54, for example formed of silver ink, a metal oxide, aluminum, stainless steel or the like, therebetween. One example of an aluminum ink is Metalure®, commercially available from Eckart America Division (Painesville, Ohio, USA) of Eckart Werke GmbH and Company (manufactured by Avery Dennison Corp.). The metallized coating may be continuous or discontinuous, and patterned or nonpatterned as desired. Preferably, polymer film 52 is very thin and may comprise a tie layer or coating to the sheet of dry color component. The polymer film 50 may provide a surface for the metallized coating 54 and may provide structural support to the article. In one embodiment, the sheet 42 of dry color component may further include a release agent coating at its outer surface, i.e., on the surface of the sheet 42 which is opposite, i.e., not adjacent to, the surface including the backing layer 45. In yet another embodiment, one of the layers of polymer film 50 or 52 may be eliminated providing an article that is even thinner, yet remains opaque.
In a preferred embodiment of the present methods, the dry color component is delivered to the surface in the form of a sheet of dry color component as discussed above. Preferably, the sheet of dry color component has an adhesive on one surface thereof. The methods according to the invention may further comprise the step of initially adhering the delivered dry color component to the surface, for example by exerting light pressure on the sheet of dry color component to temporarily bond the sheet of dry color component to the surface to be colored, optionally adjusting the position or alignment of the sheet, and exerting increased pressure on the sheet of dry color component to permanently bond the sheet of dry color component to the surface to be colored. For example, when the sheet of dry color component is provided in an article  10 as described in FIG. 1, pressure may be applied to surface 15 of the article to adhere the adhesive 14 to a surface to be colored. In the article 20 of FIG. 2, pressure is applied to surface 34 as adhesive 24 contacts the surface to be colored in order to adhere the article 20 including the sheet 22 of dry color component to a surface to be colored.
In view of the above, it will be apparent that the articles according to the present invention may be formed by a variety of methods and techniques. One such method is disclosed herein for illustrative purposes only. More particularly, with reference to FIG. 4, a small, laboratory scale, semi-automated process is shown. A releasable liner  100 is provided in roll form and is unrolled to travel through assembly 102 via rollers 104, 106, 108, 110, 112 and 114 to form a completed article 116 which is wound on roll 118. As will be described in further detail below, trimmed portions 120 are directed to roll 122. The releasable liner 100 is pulled as a web 101 through the assembly by a combination of the rolls 118 and 122 and a conveyer 124, for example a vacuum conveyor. A suitable vacuum conveyor may comprise a continuous conveyor belt with two pulleys having an array of spaced holes that are exposed to the vacuum chamber immediately below. Negative pressure (vacuum) is created by a forced air blower. As the belt passes over the chamber, a negative pressure is created at each hole such that the releasable liner 100 is securely held to the belt as it passes over the belt. This effect assists in preventing wrinkles in the releasable liner 100 as the applied color component dries. The vacuum conveyor belt speed may be matched to that of the drive rolls 118 and 122 driven by a drive 119. The shaft of a roller 126 from which the releasable liner 100 is supplied is connected with a friction clutch 128 which may be adjusted to obtain sufficient tension in the web 101 for smooth travel through the process. A Fife guiding unit 130 may be provided to track the web travel through the assembly.
A color component such as wet paint is applied to the web  101 of the releasable liner adjacent roller 106 using an applicator 132. The paint or other color component may be water-based or solvent-based as desired. In one embodiment, the applicator 132 comprises a #50 wire wound rod which may be held against the roller 106 by spring tension or the like such that the web 101 passes between the roller 106 and the applicator 132. The color component such as paint is introduced at the upstream side of the wire wound rod applicator 132 by a manifold 134. The manifold is fed by tubing 136 from a peristaltic pump 138 which draws the wet paint from a reservoir 140. To form the sheet of dry color component, the paint is dried on the web 101, for example as it passes over the vacuum conveyor 124 by the use of dryers. In the embodiment of FIG. 4, the dryers comprise two infrared heaters 142 which are aided by a forced ambient air duct 144. The air duct 144 may conveniently blow the exhaust from the vacuum conveyor 124. One skilled in the art will readily appreciated that solvent or other carrier removed during the drying process may be captured and recycled as desired. A sheet of dry color component is thus formed on the releasable liner web.
An adhesive is then applied to the sheet of dry color component on the surface opposite the releasable liner. For example, in the assembly  102 of FIG. 4, adhesive is applied to the surface of the sheet of dry color component on the web 101 at roller 108 by an applicator 148 which may comprise, for example, a #20 wire wound rod. The wire wound rod applicator 148 may be held against the roller 108 by spring tension or the like such that the web 101 passes between the roller and the applicator. Liquid adhesive is introduced at the upstream side of the wire wound rod applicator 148 by a manifold 146. The manifold 146 is fed by tubing 150 from a peristaltic pump 152 which draws the liquid adhesive from a reservoir 154. The liquid adhesive in a reservoir 154 is continuously stirred by a mixer 156. With the adhesive applied thereon, the web 101 travels to an oscillating fabric covered roller 158 which traverses back and forth in the machine direction above a slider plate 160 to impart a texture to the liquid adhesive applied to the sheet of dry color component on the web 101. A textured adhesive may allow the article to be more easily repositioned prior to permanent bonding. The adhesive is then dried, for example, by passing the web 101 under an infrared heater 162 at roller 110.
In an alternate embodiment, the articles according to the invention as set forth, for example, in FIG. 2A may be formed using a modified version of the process as described above wherein two releasable liner webs are employed. For example, with reference to FIG. 2A, a topcoat composition for forming topcoat layer  27 may be applied to a releasable liner web by reverse roll, extrusion coating or the like techniques, and dried thereon, for example with heat. A color component may then be applied to the dried topcoat layer, for example by reverse roll, gravure coating, printing, or the like techniques, and dried with heat. The adhesive may then be applied to a second releasable liner web, followed by laminating the releasable liner-topcoat-dry color component member with the adhesive-releasable liner member, with the dry color component and adhesive in facing relationship. Heat may be provided throughout this process by any suitable means including convection or radiation, for example infrared, ultraviolet or the like. One of ordinary skill in the art will also appreciate that this method may be used to provide an article including a single releasable liner, for example as set forth in FIG. 2, by merely removing the second releasable liner from the adhesive once the releasable liner-topcoat-dry color component member and the adhesive-releasable liner member have been assembled.
1. An article for applying color on a surface, comprising a sheet of dry architectural surface color component, an adhesive on one surface of the sheet of dry color component, and a releasable liner, wherein the sheet of dry color component is arranged between the releasable liner and the adhesive; optionally wherein the adhesive is adapted to adhere the article to a surface upon application of a pressure of less than about 50 lbs/in2; optionally wherein the article exhibits an elongation of less than about 50%; and optionally wherein said color is removable.
2. The article according to claim 1, further comprising an opacifying agent; optionally wherein said opacifying agent is in the adhesive.
3. The article according to claim 1, wherein a release agent is provided between the releasable liner and the sheet of dry color component.
4. The article according to claim 1, wherein the releasable liner comprises a polymer film; optionally wherein said polymer film comprises a release constituent selected from the group consisting of: release agents, release additives and combinations thereof.
5. The article according to claim 1, wherein said sheet of dry color component comprises a dry color component layer comprising (i) pigment, dye and combinations thereof, and (ii) binder.
6. The article according to claim 1, wherein a polymeric release agent is provided between the releasable liner and the sheet of dry color component.
7. The article according to claim 1, wherein a surface of the releasable liner opposite the sheet of dry color component has a release agent thereon.
8. The article according to claim 1, wherein, when the article is in a planar, non-rolled configuration, said article is free of a releasable liner on the adhesive.
9. An article for applying color on a surface, comprising a sheet of dry color component, an adhesive on one surface of the sheet of dry color component, and a releasable liner, wherein the sheet of dry color component is arranged between the releasable liner and the adhesive, optionally wherein the adhesive is adapted to exhibit an initial tack in response to a first condition and a subsequent tack greater than the initial tack in response to a second condition, wherein the subsequent tack is adapted to provide a substantially permanent bond of the sheet of dry color component to a surface; optionally wherein the adhesive is adapted to adhere the article to a surface at room temperature and upon application of a pressure of less than about 50 lb/in2; and optionally wherein the article exhibits an elongation of less than about 50%.
10. The article according to claim 9, wherein a surface of the releasable liner opposite the sheet of dry color component has a release agent thereon.
11. The article according to claim 9 wherein the adhesive is adapted to exhibit the initial tack upon application of a first pressure and the subsequent tack upon application of a second pressure; wherein said second pressure is greater than said first pressure.
12. The article according to claim 11 wherein the adhesive comprises a pressure sensitive adhesive.
13 The article according to claim 11 wherein the adhesive is provided with a blocking agent at a surface thereof; optionally wherein said blocking agent is selected from the group consisting of: starch, talc, silicon dioxide, titanium dioxide, zeolite, polymers, glass, ceramic and mixtures thereof.
14 The article according to claim 9 wherein the first condition comprises a first period of time after application of the article to a surface, and the second condition occurs after the first period of time.
15 The article according to claim 14 wherein the first period commences following the application of said article to said surface and optionally wherein said first period ends less than about 24 hours after commencement of said first period.
16. The article according to claim 9, further comprising an opacifying agent; optionally wherein the opacifying agent is in the adhesive.
17. The article according to claim 9, wherein a release agent is provided between the releasable liner and the sheet of dry color component.
18. The article according to claim 9, wherein the sheet of dry color component comprises an opacifying layer; optionally wherein the opacifying layer is a film having a layer on at least one of its surfaces; optionally wherein said film is selected from the group consisting of: polymeric films, metallic films, fibrous films and combinations thereof.
19. The article according to claim 9, wherein the sheet of dry color component comprises a reinforcing component therein; optionally wherein said reinforcing component comprises filaments, fibers, scrims, threads, a sheet and combinations thereof.
20. The article according to claim 9, wherein the sheet of dry color component comprises a topcoat on a surface opposite the adhesive; optionally wherein said topcoat comprises a protective film layer.
21. An article for applying color on a surface, comprising a sheet of dry color component and an adhesive on one surface of the sheet of dry color component, optionally wherein the sheet of dry color component and the adhesive are adapted to provide a surface covering having a water vapor transmission rate of at least 1 g/μm/cm2/24 hrs.
22. The article according to claim 21, wherein said article includes a releasable liner and wherein the sheet of dry color component is arranged between the releasable liner and the adhesive.
23. The article according to claim 22, wherein said article is free of a releasable liner on the adhesive.
24. The article according to claim 21, wherein the sheet of dry color component comprises a topcoat layer.
25. An article for applying color on a surface, comprising a sheet of dry color component and an adhesive on one surface of the sheet of dry color component, optionally wherein the sheet of dry color component exhibits a specular reflectance of less than about 60 gloss units at 60°.
26. The article according to claim 25, further comprising a releasable liner; optionally wherein said sheet of dry color component is arranged between the releasable liner and the adhesive.
27. The article according to claim 26, wherein the article is free of a releasable liner on the adhesive.
28. A method for providing a substantially permanent color effect on an architectural surface, comprising the step of delivering an article according to claim 1 to the architectural surface; optionally wherein the sheet of dry color component is applied to the architectural surface by application of pressure to a surface of the releasable liner opposite the sheet of dry color component and without the use of wet tools for delivering the article or applying the color component, mess protection, or color component cleaning materials; optionally wherein the dry color component is substantially free of volatile organic components; and optionally wherein said wet tools are selected from the group consisting of wet brushes, wet sprayers, wet rollers and combinations thereof.
29. A method for providing a substantially permanent color effect on an architectural surface, comprising the step of delivering an article according to claim 9 to the architectural surface; optionally wherein the sheet of dry color component is applied to the architectural surface by application of pressure to a surface of the releasable liner opposite the sheet of dry color component and without the use of wet tools for delivering the article or applying the color component, mess protection, or color component cleaning materials; optionally wherein the dry color component is substantially free of volatile organic components; and optionally wherein said wet tools are selected from the group consisting of wet brushes, wet sprayers, wet rollers and combinations thereof.
30. A method for providing a substantially permanent color effect on an architectural surface, comprising the step of delivering an article according to claim 21 to the architectural surface; optionally wherein the sheet of dry color component is applied to the architectural surface by application of pressure to a surface of the releasable liner opposite the sheet of dry color component and without the use of wet tools for delivering the article or applying the color component, mess protection, or color component cleaning materials; optionally wherein the dry color component is substantially free of volatile organic components; and optionally wherein said wet tools are selected from the group consisting of wet brushes, wet sprayers, wet rollers and combinations thereof.
31. A method for providing a substantially permanent color effect on an architectural surface, comprising the step of delivering an article according to claim 25 to the architectural surface; optionally wherein the sheet of dry color component is applied to the architectural surface by application of pressure to a surface of the releasable liner opposite the sheet of dry color component and without the use of wet tools for delivering the article or applying the color component, mess protection, or color component cleaning materials; optionally wherein the dry color component is substantially free of volatile organic components; and optionally wherein said wet tools are selected from the group consisting of wet brushes, wet sprayers, wet rollers and combinations thereof.
32. The method according to claim 28, wherein the dry color component comprises a dry color component layer comprising (i) pigment, dye and combinations thereof, and (ii) a binder.
33. The method according to claim 29, wherein said adhesive is adapted to exhibit an initial tack in response to a first condition and a subsequent tack greater than the initial tack in response to a second condition.
NL2004360C (en) * 2010-03-08 2011-09-09 Grafityp Selfadhesive Products N V An assembly for improving the visibility in the dark, and a method for manufacturing such an assembly.


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Q: Hyperthread consumes more CPU for same work compared to CPU consumed while hyperthread is disabled I have 2 core machine with hyperthreading enabled, so I have 4vCPUs(0,1,2,3). There are several threads running which are pinned to vCPU 1 and 3. So that hyperthreads are not used. Now  I have this one thread which when pinned to 0,1,2,3 runs at 40% CPU and when it is pinned to 1,3 then it runs at 35% CPU.
I am not able to understand why it takes more CPU when hyperthreads are used. Not able to get stats to prove this. I am using Ubuntu and tried using perf stat command.
Perf stat with no hyperthread(i.e. thread pinned to 1,3)
perf stat -e task-clock,cycles,instructions,cache-references,cache-misses --tid=26269 sleep 10
Performance counter stats for thread id '26269':
   3341.549477      task-clock (msec)         #    0.334 CPUs utilized
   10836409509      cycles                    #    3.243 GHz
   11797254268      instructions              #    1.09  insn per cycle
      68052778      cache-references          #   20.366 M/sec
      23498429      cache-misses              #   34.530 % of all cache refs

perf stat -B --tid=26269 sleep 10
Performance counter stats for thread id '26269':
   3112.732648      task-clock (msec)         #    0.311 CPUs utilized
         17296      context-switches          #    0.006 M/sec
           290      cpu-migrations            #    0.093 K/sec
          2683      page-faults               #    0.862 K/sec
   10043236414      cycles                    #    3.227 GHz
   11821047920      instructions              #    1.18  insn per cycle
    2596058193      branches                  #  834.013 M/sec
      30134052      branch-misses             #    1.16% of all branches

Perf stat with hyperthread(i.e. thread pinned to 0,1,2,3)
perf stat -e task-clock,cycles,instructions,cache-references,cache-misses --tid=26269 sleep 10
Performance counter stats for thread id '26269':
   3878.410557      task-clock (msec)         #    0.388 CPUs utilized
   12921569032      cycles                    #    3.332 GHz
   11787482531      instructions              #    0.91  insn per cycle
      72454684      cache-references          #   18.682 M/sec
      19096660      cache-misses              #   26.357 % of all cache refs

perf stat -B --tid=26269 sleep 10
Performance counter stats for thread id '26269':
   3777.149613      task-clock (msec)         #    0.378 CPUs utilized
         12162      context-switches          #    0.003 M/sec
          1166      cpu-migrations            #    0.309 K/sec
             0      page-faults               #    0.000 K/sec
   12764333134      cycles                    #    3.379 GHz
   11796018618      instructions              #    0.92  insn per cycle
    2588826495      branches                  #  685.392 M/sec
      32417514      branch-misses             #    1.25% of all branches

A: When pinned to CPU:s 0,1,2,3 the thread has more free cores to work with, and instead of waiting for the other threads that are pinned to CPU:s 1,3 to finish their work it can run immediately and will thus utilize more CPU% in total.
As you can see the cache misses are also reduced since the thread cache is more localized and interferes less with the other threads when it is able to run on additional cores. This can further increase the CPU load since the thread will spend less time idling when it is waiting for RAM access.
Addendum: The processor may also be less efficient when hyperthreading, as seen in the reduced value for "insn per cycle" (instructions per cycle) also known as IPC. This could be due to CPU internal mechanisms such as pipelining, out-of-order execution and superscalar operations. This makes the thread consume more cycles in total, thus increasing the total load.

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6 Points of Interest in This Behind-The-Scenes Photo from 'The Expendables 3'
By JJ Duncan -
(From facebook.com/JasonStatham)Jason Statham posted a behind-the-scenes cast photo from The Expendables 3 to Facebook over the weekend, and as expected, it's a picture of a bunch of tough guys making tough guy faces. But wait, is that Wesley Snipes? Why, yes it is. The until-recently incarcerated actor will make his return to the big screen when the movie opens in August, but that's not the only thing that went through our minds while looking at this photo. Here are a few of the bullet points.
1. The Tough-Guy Faces
It feels like half the reason the Expendables franchise exists is to serve as a scowling beefcake contest for its cast of heavyweights. Here's a closer look at each of their rugged mugs.
2. Wesley Snipes' Presence
Snipes was a major theatrical draw in the '90s, but nearly ended his acting career in the 2000s during a protracted fight with the IRS as they tried to make him pay millions in back taxes. Of course, it didn't help that he had reportedly grown tremendously difficult to work with. Well, if he plays his cards right, maybe that can all be water under the bridge. This will mark the former action star's return to the big screen after doing a stint in federal prison from December 9, 2010, to April 2, 2013.
3. Jason Statham Really Is a Tough Guy
If anyone deserves to put on a tough-guy face, it's Statham. According to Terry Crews, Statham proved he was the real deal when a stunt went wrong, ending with him trapped under water in a truck. The former Olympic-level diver was able to escape from the truck and swim to the surface to the huge relief of his co-stars who were stuck watching from dry land.
4. Dolph Lundgren Is Smart, Too
He may look like a muscle-bound heavy, but the Swedish actor has a brain, too. He studied chemistry for years, eventually earning his Master's in Chemical Engineering from the University of Sydney in 1982.
5. Why We're Really Seeing the Movie
Terry Crews has built up a serious fan following after showing off his funny side in Brooklyn Nine-Nine, but we still think of him as a consummate action star. So, why's he wearing a tank top in this picture that seems better suited to a Brooklyn hipster? Maybe that's just the maximum amount of clothing his contract stipulates he can wear at any time.
6. And What We're Really Thinking When We See Terry Crews
In case any explanation is needed.
View Jason Statham Pictures »
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De Nederlandse kampioenschappen indooratletiek 2009 werden, na bij gebrek aan een geschikte accommodatie gedurende negen jaar in het Belgische Gent te zijn gehouden, voor het eerst weer in eigen land georganiseerd, en wel op zaterdag 14 en zondag 15 februari 2009. Plaats van handeling was het gloednieuwe, op 14 november 2008 officieel geopende sportcentrum Omnisport Apeldoorn.

Uitslagen

60 m

400 m

800 m

1500 m

3000 m

60 m horden

verspringen

hink-stap-springen

hoogspringen

polsstokhoogspringen

kogelstoten

Externe link
 Officiële website van het NK indoor

Atletiek in 2009
Nederlandse kampioenschappen atletiek

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Home Tidbits & Kudos Kudos Valenza Chocolatier Achieves Highest Honors From The International Chocolate Salon
Valenza Chocolatier Achieves Highest Honors From The International Chocolate Salon
Valenza Chocolatieris deeply honored to announce the achievement of receiving the Six Star Grand Master Award for Best Chocolatiers & Confectioners in America by The International Chocolate Salon and TasteTV. The 2015 awards were formally announced at the San Francisco International Chocolate Salon amongst many of the states' most talented chocolatiers and artisans. Many of these businesses have existed for several decades; for Valenza Chocolatierit has been just shy of two years since they launched in Orange County. The Six Star Grand Master Award is the highest level of recognition and was awarded to just 18 Chocolatiers this year. Owner and Certified Master Chocolatier Amy Jo (Valenza) Pedone explained that it has been a humbling experience to achieve this level of prestige among a peer group she shares such tremendous respect for.
"This award has simply been the 'icing on the cake' to a whirlwind adventure of taking a risk to pursue my passion. Several years ago, I could have never imagined the level of support I have received from the community and beyond, I am excited for what the future holds, while perfectly content knowing that I can live without regret, doing what I love".
In 2008 Amy Jo (Valenza) Pedone made the courageous decision to leave behind her successful corporate career to pursue a passion in which she had no previous professional experience. The passing of her cousin Sheri at a young age led her to realize that life is too short to look back on life with the question of 'what if?' In 2011 she completed her Professional Chocolatier Certification through Ecole Chocolat Professional School of Chocolate Arts in Vancouver, Canada; at the 2015 International Chocolate Salon Awards alone, 11 of the award winners (including Amy Jo) were alumni of Ecole Chocolat. From there she completed an internship at CocoaNymph, trained with Chef Chocolatier Patrick Peeters and finally traveled back to her homeland of Italy, to complete the Ecole Chocolat Master Chocolatier Certification in 2013.
May 9th will mark the official two-year anniversary since Valenza Chocolatier launched to the Orange County public at the Hood Kitchen Space in Costa Mesa. Earlier this month, Amy Jo (Valenza) Pedone was nominated by the Orange County Business Journal for the Excellence in Entrepreneurship Awards. In addition to receiving the 2015 Six Star Grand Master Award, past awards have included Gold Award for Best Salon at the 2014 Los Angeles Chocolate Salon as well as 2014 Five Star Award for Best Chocolatiers & Confectioners in America by The International Chocolate Salon and TasteTV.
Two years and many accomplishments later, Amy Jo encourages others to pursue their dreams, "Regardless of age or where you're at in life, never give up on something you are truly passionate about; the possibilities are too great to miss out on".
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Valenza Chocolatier at Hood Kitchen – Costa Mesa


Congratulations to Year 13 pupil Hannah Furey who won two gold medals in the British National Ju Jitsu championships in Birmingham over the Easter holidays.
Hannah celebrated her 18th birthday the day before the competition and so had even more of a challenge on her hands as she had to move up to the senior category which is significantly more difficult.
After winning her first two fights, she was in the final against the defending champion who was unbeaten in the last few years. The fight was so close that after three minutes the judges could not declare a winner and the fight went into extra time. After a further one minute of ground fighting, Hannah managed to get her opponent into an arm lock she could not escape from and was announced the winner of the gold medal.
Hannah entered four disciplines and her second gold medal came in the weapons Kata where she performed a routine with mini swords. And just to keep it in the family, Hannah's 10 year old brother competed for the first time and also won a gold and a silver medal.
Hannah will now go to Germany in August this year to compete in the United Nations World Championships to defend her titles.


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Reading Sheffield
All the books of our lives
'Even Edgar Wallace may be discovered…'
'Quite honest…and most carefully done' – A survey of children's reading in Sheffield (1937-38)
Reading Sheffield interview prompts
Running Up Eyre Street: Sheffield Reading and the Second World War
Sheffield Reading History: Unitarians, Book Societies and some Extraordinary Women
The Magic Story Book
The Tuesday Club Letter
Everyday Reading in Sheffield 1920-1960
Margaret H
Norman Adsetts
Jean A
Gillian Applegate
Peter B
Julia Banks
Edna B
Elsie Brownlee
Frank Burgin
Margaret C
Florence Cowood
Pat Cymbal
Madeleine Doherty
Shirley Ellins
Chris F
David Flather
Doreen Gill
Margaret G
Judith G
Barbara Green
Irene H
Josie Hall
Jean H
Dorothy H
Hazel H
Noel H
Adele J
Erica Jeremiah
Maureen Lambert
Dorothy Latham
Winnie Lincoln
Ted L
Christine M
Peter Mason
Kath and Ken M
Jean and Malcolm Mercer
Betty Newman
Dorothy Norbury
Betty R
Mary Robertson
Joan T
Bob and Carolyn W
Jocelyn Wilson
Jean Wolfendale
Margaret and John Young
Portraits of Readers
Flying off the Page (2014)
The Story Cloak (2014)
Ballad of the Spooky Books (2014)
Spooky Book Drawings
Celebration Event (2014)
Reading Sheffield's Website Launch (2015)
White Ink Stains: poetry reading (October 2016)
The Making of In Praise of Libraries (2017)
Sheffield's Historic Library Culture Uncovered (2018)
Tag Archives: Mazo de la Roche
Judith G's reading journey
Posted on April 19, 2016 by Val Hewson
The third of five children, Judith was born in May 1939. As a child, she lived off Ecclesall Road in Sheffield. Although she passed the 11 plus, her parents could not afford grammar school, and so she went to Greystones Secondary School and left after O Levels. Judith tells two stories in her interview: her own and her mother's. Judith's mother loved reading and shared this with her daughter. 'I just took to it because my mother read a lot.'
The first library in Judith's life was the private Red Circle at the bottom of the Moor. Her mum used to borrow 'what they called "bodice-rippers", romantic novels and stuff' every week. 'I think it cost tuppence a week, or every time you took a book out or fourpence – something like that.'* Then her mum joined the public library and Judith went along too, to the imposing Central Library in Surrey Street. 'I thought at first she wouldn't be allowed in that one, you know, and then of course once she got there, there were more books than she could … and it was free as well.' In those days, the public library service in Sheffield, under City Librarian Joseph Lamb, was rapidly becoming one of the best in the country, with a reputation for responding to the interests and needs of its members.
From before she left junior school, Judith was allowed to go alone to the central children's library. She recalls joining with her friend Sheila:
… she wanted to join the library and we ran up all the way up there after school and my mother played pop with me because she didn't know where we were. Her name was Sheila Thompson … and I said, "If you come with me, we can come and join." … They gave you a little round ticket which you kept and slotted the book's name in that, God, I remember that.
Judith spent a lot of time in the children's library. For her, it meant not only interesting books, but also warmth and peace 'until they closed at five o'clock':
I used to bring books home, but on a Saturday afternoon I'm afraid I spent a lot of time in that children's library because you could sit there with any book you liked, encyclopaedias, because at home it was, you know, hustle and bustle, we didn't have much because we had no money and there weren't a television in those days, this is the '50s, coming up to the '50s, and I just used to go to the library for a bit of peace on my own. Because there was four of us and my grandmother and father and mother all rattling round one house …
The children's librarian was Mrs Scott, who sounds formidable. Young borrowers' behaviour was expected to meet the standards of the day.
She was really nice, you know, because in those days you couldn't run around like they do nowadays, you had to sit reading quietly … she was quite stern, you know, you couldn't racket round – mind you, nobody did in those days.
Having joined, Judith 'read and read'.
I think it was my Aunty Marjorie, she used to say, "Doesn't that child do anything? She's always got her nose in a book." And "What's the matter with you, child, why don't you go out to play?"
A book which made a lasting impression was Joey and the Greenwings#, 'about this young boy and these things that came from outer space or something'. Almost 70 years later, the memory is strong:
Dear Lord, how your memory comes back! There was a little song in it about this little lost chick. What was it? Little lost chick sang cheep in the night, cheep in the night, and the moon stretched her arms out shiny and bright, to the little lost chick that sang cheep in the night!
In time Judith moved up to the adult library. ' … you'd go in there and think, you know, posh.' Books by popular authors of the day like Georgette Heyer, Mazo de la Roche, Rider Haggard, Mary Webb, Conan Doyle and John Buchan drew her in, although she got into trouble with Kathleen Winsor's Forever Amber. Her mum used to 'keep an eye on what I read' and 'made me take it back – she thought it was a bit racy! And it wasn't.' (Judith has less happy memories, as many of us do, of her set texts, like Charles Reade's The Cloister and the Hearth, 'the most dreary book I've ever read'.)
Over 60 years later, Judith remains a keen member of the public library. In this, she is like her mother, who in old age 'used to come in with four or five books' from Highfield Branch Library. In her turn, Judith has influenced her daughter, Lindsey, who works in a bookshop and has #enough books to start a library'. In fact, you can trace reading through four generations: from Lindsey, through Judith and her sister who talk together about books, to their mother and even their grandmother who was 'always on about books and that, she'd been well educated'.
Two readers – Judith and her mum
'It's interesting, isn't it, how libraries are places where people feel comfortable,' says our interviewer. Judith agrees. These days she goes to the Ecclesall branch, but still occasionally visits the Central Library:
It still is the biggest library, isn't it? And plus, the fact it has all the other things, you know, the reference library and the art gallery and whatnot. Because we used to go and have a cup of tea up there and look around the art things, and I used to think, "This is fantastic, it's free, it's a public library …" that was the whole point of going there. And … when they have an open day, and I've been down in the bowels where all the old books are – you might find my Joey and the Greenwings down in that bottom bit!
Sheffield Central Library, opened in 1934, not long after the establishment of SINTO
* Tuppence (2d) and fourpence (4d) are roughly equivalent to 1p and 2p, but worth about £1 to £2 today.
# Joey and the Greenwings (1943), by Augustus Muir
Posted in Sheffield Libraries, Sheffield readers	| Tagged Arthur Conan Doyle, Charles Reade, Ecclesall, Ecclesall Library, Georgette Heyer, Highfield Library, John Buchan, Kathleen Winsor, Mary Webb, Mazo de la Roche, public library closures, reading sheffield, Red Circle Library, Rider Haggard, Sheffield Central Library, Sheffield readers	| Leave a reply
Jean W's Reading Journey
Posted on February 26, 2016 by lizz
Jean was born in 1933 and grew up in Sheffield. After leaving High Storrs School she married and had a family. Later on she trained as a teacher of English and French.
Jean's recollection is that when she was small her parents were very busy and therefore didn't read to her much. However, she still became an enthusiastic reader.
I learnt to read when I was… I think five, almost as soon as I started school, and got very bored because there wasn't any stimulation in school.
So at the age of seven she joined the Children's Library in Sheffield and from then on made weekly trips in search of suitable books. In addition her parents bought her Arthur Mee's Children's Encyclopaedia, 'all twelve volumes which I devoured.'Also from that time Jean remembers Grimm's Fairy Tales and Hans Christian Anderson.
The library trip was very important. Jean and a friend would go into town for music lessons and then go to the library and also to Andrew's, a shop in Holly Street which had a lot of children's books. They saved their pocket money and bought books which they shared.
Jean Wolfendale at High Storrs School 1950
Once at High Storrs School she began to read classics like Walter Scott and Jane Austen as well as lighter books, such as The Forsyte Saga, Little Women, W.E Johns' Biggles books and Malcolm Saville. She remembers getting from the library all Mazo de la Roche's Jalna novels,
I absolutely loved them. I couldn't wait to find the next one in the series from the library.
She also read Hugh Walpole and some Dickens and began to move towards adult books. She recalls enjoying the novels of Frances Parkinson Keyes, 'very meaty, very long novels'. Also Dornford Yates whose books she found 'screamingly funny'.
I shouldn't find them funny now but I did then…I used to annoy my parents by sitting in the corner and laughing at the books and they couldn't understand why. They were fascinating.
Jean's parents always encouraged her reading and as she puts it
The only other thing to do in the evenings,apart from school work,was to listen to the radio, which obviously we did as a family, but, yes reading was very much encouraged.
The Red Circle Library on Snig Hill,which Jean's mother belonged to was another important source of books. This stocked popular fiction,such as crime fiction and westerns, not found in the public libraries. By contrast Jean described the latter as 'very much more erudite'. She read widely and was aware of reading both high- and low-brow books. School was a
very, very strong influence and it was very much, 'Children, girls, you must read uplifting books'..we were very much discouraged from having, for instance, comics or anything like that. I had something called Girl's Crystal which was quite a decent comic but you couldn't possibly have mentioned that in school because that wasn't the done thing as it were.
She remembers Geoffrey Thorne for light reading and John Buchan, who was seen as 'more approved of,much more literary'.She and her father shared a liking for Nevil Shute's books. He also liked Denis Wheatley's novels but didn't think they were suitable for Jean; however, she read them on the quiet.
She enjoyed historical fiction, for example, Anthony Hope's The Prisoner of Zenda, D.K.Broster and Anya Seton.She tried Georgette Heyer and Jean Plaidy but didn't particularly enjoy them.She has fond memories of A Traveller in Time by Alison Uttley, 'That was one that absolutely fascinated me as an early teenager.'
But she devoured all kinds of literature. She belongs now to a group of ex-teachers who swap and talk about books. Of the importance of reading to her, she says,
I can't imagine a life without it and in fact at the moment I'm beginning to have some trouble with my eyes and I can't read for long and that is a real hurt, you know.
Posted in Sheffield readers	| Tagged Alison Uttley, Andrew's Stationers, Biggles, Deni Wheatley, Dickens, Dornford Yates, Frances Parkinson Keyes, Grimm's Fairy Tales, H.C.Anderson, High Storrs School, historical fiction, Hugh Walpole, Jane Austen, John Buchan, Little Women, Malcolm Saville, Mazo de la Roche, Nevil Shute, Red Circle Library, Sheffield Children's Library, The Forsyte Saga	| Leave a reply
The Reading Journey of Alan B
Posted on January 12, 2016 by Mary Grover
Alan was born in Kimberworth, between Rotherham and Sheffield.
He was born in 1944.
Though never discouraged from reading, Alan says 'I kept my reading to myself'. His mother was a reader of Mills and Boon romances. She and Alan's aunt read to him: Rupert Bear annuals and fairy stories with scary drawings. He explored comics on his own, the Beano, Dandy, Roy of the Rovers but was never an Eagle fan. The family also had a complete set of Arthur Mee's Encyclopedia. Though initially Alan didn't find reading easy, when he got to junior school he found a teacher 'who bullied me, in a nice way, to read'.
Then, at secondary school,
I seemed to have this sort of explosion, you know, I'd sort of discovered reading and I'd got a lot of time to make up and everything. I was probably, looking back, I probably didn't understand them at all.
He thinks it may have been because he developed his reading confidence late that he felt that he had to make up for lost time, turning his back on what he regarded as childish:
Well I started reading classic books like Charles Dickens and I remember trying to read Paradise Lost and finding it absolutely totally beyond me … and I can remember going to Rotherham City Library and saying I'd like to join the library and them trying to direct me to the children's library. I wouldn't have that, no I wanted these other books.
Though Alan got huge pleasure from G A Henty's boys' adventure stories, he knew that there were other, 'important' books that he also wanted to explore. Identifying what were the important books took some doing and there were pitfalls in this voyage of discovery. When he was asked at secondary school to name a famous author, one of his mother's favourites came to mind and he answered 'Mazo de la Roche' (who wrote the hugely popular and romantic Jalna series). 'I was laughed at and … I perhaps realised that perhaps all our authors aren't equal!'
Alan still remembers the books he read in class, one of the earliest being John Ruskin's fable cum fairytale, The King of the Golden River or The Black Brothers: A Legend of Stiria.
I went to secondary modern school and there were very few books actually in school in those days. And the ones that were, I think they were trying to make us realise how good books were but they were so sort of reverential about books that, you know, I wouldn't have dared go to the library and borrow one.
The reverence for the book as object was shaken when the same teachers who instilled this attitude commanded their pupils to strike out the word 'King' in the National Anthem and insert the word 'Queen' in 1953. 'I remember being quite shocked that teachers were telling us to deface our hymn books'.
At about this time he was introduced in English lessons to Jack London's adventures of life in the Canadian forests: Call of the Wild and White Fang; and the great escape story, The Wooden Horse. This taste for adventure stories was satisfied by many different kinds of author: John Buchan, John Masters, C S Forester, John Wyndham, Nevil Shute and Graham Greene. Christopher Isherwood's Goodbye to Berlin he enjoyed 'in a sort of … disturbed way'. Alan bought many of these novels from the long-established Rotherham bookshop, Harpers, 'a rabbit warren of shelves'. The municipal library was his chief source of books. Relatives and friends of the family also regularly gave him books as presents. A particular friend was the chair of the local education committee in Rotherham. 'If I ever mentioned a book in his presence he would get it for me.'
As a teenager Alan found Bright Day by J B Priestley 'useful',
useful in the sense that as an adolescent you had certain uncertainties and that is what he talked about. And knowing that other people had the same uncertainties, it's not just you.
So reading allied Alan to these unseen people who might ask the same questions. He never felt he was part of a group that were all readers though his family did have books in the home. He felt that in Rotherham 'I was slightly unusual in that I was keen on reading and I did collect books.' He built his own bookshelves to house his collection.
Alan left school to go to technical college and then, like his father, worked in the metal industry. His father had worked in the rolling mills and Alan joined a research laboratory. Alan was soon doing night classes, gaining a Higher National Certificate in physics and an Open University degree, all this balanced with family life.
Alan feels he is 'fairly open to any genre as long as it is engaging, telling you something. So, I like a fast moving story and if you can get both together that's wonderful'. He reflects on why books have been so important to him:
I think I am a person who uses reading rather than for its own sake, as it were. I like to see what it can do for me sort of thing.
Access Alan's audio and transcript here.
Posted in Sheffield readers	| Tagged Arthur Mee, Beano, Bright Day, C S Forrester, Charles Dickens, Christopher Isherwood, Dandy, G.A.Henty, Goodbye to Berlin, Graham Greene, J B Priestley, Jack London, John Buchan, John Masters, John Milton, John Wyndham, Kimberworth, Mazo de la Roche, Mills and Boon, National Anthem, Nevil Shute, Open University, Rotherham City Library, Roy of the Rovers, Ruskin, The King of the Golden River	| Leave a reply
Jocelyn's Reading Journey
Posted on October 7, 2015 by Val Hewson
Jocelyn Wilson was born in Sheffield in 1926. She was educated, in wartime, at boarding school in Kent and was evacuated to Cornwall. In 1948 Jocelyn married and in time had children. In the 1970s and '80s she was a social worker.
'Did your parents ever say, "Don't waste your time reading a novel"?' 'Oh no, never. Nobody ever said that.'
How do we choose books? How do we decide what to read? And how do we judge our choices?
Looking at her interview, you feel that Jocelyn W, who read widely and had excellent recall, was confident in her opinions and happy to defend them. The quality of books, her own and others' perceptions and the value of reading all lie just beneath the surface of her story.
Jocelyn was born into a comfortable, middle-class family in Sheffield in 1926. Her first books were typical for that background and period – Alice in Wonderland, The Enchanted Forest, Cecily M Barker's Flower Fairies and other fairy stories. Predictably, they were chosen by her mother and a 'very dear nanny who was into reading herself'. Later, Jocelyn's older sister helped her find books too. Nanny and Jocelyn's parents all read aloud to the children. Jocelyn didn't say so directly, but her first books seemed to have all the impact any parent could have hoped for: Jocelyn described them as stories 'that made your imagination race' and remembered them clearly 80 years later. The Flower Fairies for example, she said, were 'part of one's history'.
After this promising start, things went less well. Books were in short supply in Jocelyn's life. At first this was because her family lived 'on the fringes' of Sheffield and 'it was quite a journey to go anywhere where there were books to be lent'. Then World War II intervened and Jocelyn, by now at boarding school, found herself being evacuated to remote Cornwall.
And I remember after a birthday having a book token and having great difficulty in going to a bookshop in Newquay, Cornwall, to find something to buy. And in the end The Heir of Redclyffe. I can't remember who wrote it but it was a pretty frantic book, I remember. But there was so little choice. And I think that's one of the things we forget now 'cos there are so many books of every kind, good and bad. And then there were very, very few.
This early experience seems to have had a lasting effect. Jocelyn said:
But of course it's difficult for people nowadays to realise how few books came out and they were rare beasts and you waited for your birthday to get a copy. Now there's so much; you go to a bookshop and I'm overwhelmed. I can hardly ever choose anything 'cos there's too much to choose from and it's difficult to find what you really want.
Another effect of this shortage was that Jocelyn ended up reading what was available – the books on the family bookshelves – just because they were there. She considered herself lucky. 'I think people forget now that it was like that. You could be in a situation where you hadn't anything new to read. It seems incredible now, doesn't it?'
Jocelyn's family continued to influence her choices and judgments. Her mother was 'interested in books. And so there was a good wide variety of classics'. Jocelyn remembered reading, for example, Precious Bane and Mary Webb's other novels. 'My mother was very sensible; she never said, 'Don't'. She was very good; she was highly intelligent and we valued what she thought.' (Jocelyn's father tried too, but was rather less successful: suggestions like G A Henty were rejected as 'boy's own stuff'.)
School was the next big influence on Jocelyn, and it was there that her own judgment began to emerge.
… I did a project on keeping a notebook of all the things I'd read … I know that it was criticised by the person who taught English at school, saying, 'I can't think why you read all this rubbish when you're capable of reading something so much better.' You see, it had gone through the whole range. But that was important in order to learn what was rubbish and what wasn't.
What was this 'whole range' that formed Jocelyn's taste? Over the years, there were:
classics like Jane Austen ('she writes with such a deft touch')
literary fiction, as we might say today, with authors like Marghanita Laski (Little Boy Lost 'tore everybody's heart to pieces') and Rumer Godden ('very delicate in her writing, sensitive and she touched one's heart')
popular, middlebrow authors of the day: Nevil Shute ('wonderfully good stories'); Daphne du Maurier ('anything she wrote was grist to the mill'); Queens of Crime like Dorothy L Sayers and adventure writers like John Buchan; Mazo de la Roche (whose Jalna books were the 'original soap opera')
'rubbish' like 'Oh Baroness Orczy and that sort of thing, The Scarlet Pimpernel. Oh good old rubbish, that'.
Rubbish was not, however, as clear-cut as it might seem. For one thing, Jocelyn was becoming confident enough to reject other people's opinions:
Oh yes, but I don't count [Georgette Heyer] as rubbish … Of course she was a great storyteller, wasn't she? And of course historically very accurate. There were things to praise about her. Even though the stories were romantic fiction in the very highest level.
And sometimes rubbish could be the thing: 'And if you're not feeling very well, rubbish is what you want!' If it was what you needed, could it be rubbish?
What Jocelyn would not accept was the badly or carelessly written.
I think that now I can only read things that aren't badly written. Sloppiness is what really gets me; and I think a lot of writers nowadays are very sloppy; they don't do their research properly.
So Jocelyn developed her approach: reading widely; making her own assessments but open to influence; seeking out high quality but understanding the worth and pleasure in lower quality. This seemed to stand Jocelyn in good stead throughout her life.
… I didn't read George Eliot until much later on; I came to 'Middlemarch' as a grown-up person. It's a wonderful book, isn't it? They're very raw, some of those books by George Eliot.
…I still can read Arthur Ransome books. When I was laid low with a back injury two years ago. the thing I chose to read was Winter Holiday and I loved it and it took me back. It's well-written and that's the key, isn't it?
I [chose Dracula for book group] and the men sort of withdrew in horror. A lot of them wouldn't read it. It was quite interesting. The women mostly did. But I think it's a marvelous book. I keep turning the pages to find out what's next. I can't believe it … It's not even particularly well-written; it's a most ridiculous story. So why are we fascinated with Dracula? I'm jolly glad I read it. [But the men] weren't going to waste their time reading 'rubbish' … I said, 'I know it's rubbish.'
by Val Hewson
Read or listen to Jocelyn's interview in full here.
Posted in Sheffield readers	| Tagged Arthur Ransome, Baroness Orczy, Daphne Du Maurier, Dorothy L Sayers, Dracula, fairy stories, George Eliot, Georgette Heyer, Jane Austen, John Buchan, Marghanita Laski, Mary Webb, Mazo de la Roche, Nevil Shute, Rumer Godden, Sheffield, Sheffield readers	| Leave a reply
Love on the Dole in Sheffield: a Unique Story (Part One)
The musical and reading adventures of the Hereford Street gang
Margaret C's reading journey
Johnny and the Plum Tree
City Librarian Speaks Out
Val Hewson on Tinsley's Carnegie Library
james newman gray on Tinsley's Carnegie Library
Favourite Books
Librarians' Voices
Reading Journeys from the RS Team
Sheffield Libraries
Sheffield readers
Memories of Fiction : An Oral History
Humanites Research Centre Sheffield Hallam University
Middlebrow Network
UK Red The Experience of Reading in Brtain from 1450-1945
A Vision of Sheffield through Time
Reading on Screen
The 7 Most Impressive Libraries from throughout History
Books in the Age of the iPad
The World's Smallest Library
Kenyan Camel Library
The Intinerant Poetry LIbrary
The Bolton/Worktown Corpus An Historical Spoken Corpus (1937-1940)
Spinning Pizza Arts
The North East Mining Institute
Sound and moving images from the British Library
Book Snob for discerning readers
Vintage Novels
Book Aid International
Sheffield Library Stories
Grenoside Reading Room
Reading Digital Fiction
Beautiful Book Covers
More Interesting Links
Australian Common Reader


text:
Copyright © The Rambling Witch. All rights reserved. Created by ThemeShine
LIVING KINDLY
_LIFE UPDATES
_BODY POSITIVITY
_FEMINISM
_MENTAL HEALTH
_SUSTAINABILITY AND ZERO WASTE
_VEGANISM
_WORLDWIDE KINDNESS
_IN THE UK
_IN EUROPE
_OUTSIDE OF EUROPE
_VICTOR THE VAN
_BREXIT TOUR
Loneliness On The Road
In this last week, we have met more people (beyond the "meeting" necessary to buy petrol or food or museum tickets etc) than we have in the previous four months travelling in our van. We've had the pleasure of taking friends with us, meeting a few British couples also living in van conversions, and even some new lovely Portugese friends. In France we were lucky enough to make friends with a kind family who helped us through the van breaking down, but they were the only people we properly conversed with throughout our 2 months in France...We have put it down to the cold winter - no one in their right minds leaves in November to live in a van, apart from us...
But when I was mentally preparing to live in a van last year, it didn't even cross my mind that we might struggle to meet other people. Maybe it was silly of me, but I was thinking about wild showers, shitting against a tree and being cramped in a bed with Ross. I mean, those things still were not easy to adjust to but at least I saw them coming...
We have technically interacted with hundreds of people since leaving England, but they have all been people working at places we've been to - it's not an environment for making friends. Throw the language barrier into the mix (which can only be broken with a lot of effort and Google translate), and making friends becomes almost impossible.
I guess living in a van with a serious budget does not help. Most of our evenings are spent in remote locations, cleaning or cooking and watching TV shows on my laptop. We don't go out for food or drinks really (though we did in Madrid and Lisbon on 2 occasions). The fact is that living in a van is pretty solitary, even if you are in a couple.
Despite many people asking me, I am not "sick" of Ross' company yet, or vice versa (he's assured me), but we definitely started craving additional human company over the Winter. We became aware that together we were becoming pretty feral. Phone calls home were the extent of our real-voice communications to people other than each other.
In a way, the loneliness was also a positive experience. I've always believed myself to be a sociable person and thought I'd head back into depression without people to be around. But I proved to myself that I can be by myself, or just with Ross, and still be ok and happy.
Time away from others gives you a lot of time to think as well. I think about the future, how I live, self improvements. Everything basically, and I think it sometimes drives Ross mad because I share them all with him! But it is nice to have those quiet moments to fill with your own thoughts and ideas.
I do think that things will continue to change as the weather gets warmer though! More and more vanlifers and travellers will venture out and now we've started making more friends, I can't wait to meet even more people.
As the countries we travel through change, so do the people! As much as I love my fellow Brits (well, most of them), the goal is to meet many more international friends! We've met wonderful French and Portugese friends already, so I am crossing my fingers that we find more like them - kind, friendly and interested in Victor the Van!
One thing that has definitely helped is social media. I don't know where I would be without chatting to friends on Facebook or catching up with their activities on Instagram. The latter is also great for interacting with new people. We love making new friends and following other like minded people online so if you love travelling or live in a van then we'd love to connect (and maybe even meet up one day)! If you've travelled alone or lived somewhere remote, do you have any advice for making friends?
tags:feeling lonely,isolation,life updates,lonliness,mental health,Travel,van conversion,vanlife,victor,victor the van
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The Rambling Witch
The Rambling Witch is a travel and lifestyle blog, which focuses on living kindly, sustainability, human rights campaigning, feminism and positive attitudes to mental health.
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Ben Murray spends the day at ZU-UK's Economies of Experience conference in East London.
I step off the DLR at East India station, descend the stairs to the street below and am immediately hugged by a person wearing a gorilla suit. Further down the road is another gorilla, then another. Ten minutes later I find myself standing next to a car shaped like a pineapple.
Within half an hour, I am 'speed networking', sat opposite a total stranger discussing the myriad creative possibilities offered by the conjunction of art and digital technology.
I am at Economies of Experience, a conference put together by Anglo-Brazilian theatre company ZU-UK, which is being held at Trinity Buoy Wharf in Docklands, an industrial area overlooked by the 02 and Canary Wharf. The setting seems most appropriate given that one of the main themes of the event is how participatory digital art forms might work in privately owned public spaces.
A variety of sessions throughout the day will tackle this conundrum, but before I come to that I need to talk about zombies. One of the questions that the organisers have asked their speakers to consider is "what can zombies teach the arts?" What follows are some slightly nebulous interpretations of the brief, but they are nonetheless stimulating.
The undead, it turns out, provide a perfect metaphor for many things, from the arts establishment itself, to the audience, to the content – but in what is perhaps the best analysis, the zombies turn out to be, well, zombies.
James Wheale is a writer/director for Slingshot, a company that specialises in making and touring real world games. Their biggest success has been 2.8 Hours Later, an immersive street theatre experience in which participants must try and survive the zombie apocalypse. The rotting hordes are formed of volunteers who ruthlessly pursue the paying 'audience'.
With more than 1,200 signed up, and more than 60,000 players in three years, it can claim to be the world's largest street game. What's more, he explains, many of those taking part turn up with GoPro cameras and turn their experience into content to be shared online, so that the event derives the majority of its marketing from its users.
But it's not just about 'actual' zombies. Verity McIntosh, from the Pervasive Media Studio at Watershed in Bristol, sees the streets in a not dissimilar way to Wheale – as a canvas for the work, whatever its form. Playable City is a concept born of the desire to reconfigure public space and make it fun, surprising and exhilarating.
This year's winning commission was called Shadowing, a work created by Jonathan Chomko and Matthew Rosier that uses infrared devices placed on street lamps to capture and then project the shadows of people walking beneath them, bringing back what was a passing moment and reanimating the streets, as more people pass and interact with the replayed images. During the course of the project more than 100,000 shadows were recorded.
The challenge initiatives such as this might offer are to the purely utilitarian development of the 'smart city', which trades on data flows to make public and private space more functional, more allied with our role as consumers, as members of the 'zombified' body politic.
In this alternative conception of urban space, the city becomes a locus for play, a place to engage with art installations, with data channelled for cultural purposes, and with each other in a spirit of irreverence and community.
Perhaps no one at Economies of Experience embodies this spirit better that Roger Hartley, Artistic Director of the Bureau of Silly Ideas (he of the pineapple car), whose stated mission is to "create inspired madness and controlled chaos in the public realm". The Bureau has worked on a range of madcap projects over the years, my favourite of which involved a giant squid bursting out of a broken water pipe in Brighton's Jubilee Square.
But this fun-filled approach is accompanied by Hartley's far more serious reflections on the role of privately owned public space and how this is managed. He is somewhat sceptical regarding the corporate control of these areas, and expresses concern about what some perceive as a ceding of sovereignty by the Government to commercial interests through trade agreements and various legislative changes.
In fact, he has been asked to contribute to the Farrell Review, which was initiated by Ed Vaizey MP in 2014 and reported its findings earlier this year. It examines the current state of the built environment in the UK in relation to policy around architecture, design and cultural heritage. His specific task is to look at the role of the arts and artists in relation to the implementation of the review. Not bad for a man who turned up to the conference in a giant piece of tropical fruit.
This view is partly echoed by Jon Dovey from REACT, an organisation that funds collaborations between arts and humanities researchers and the creative industries. But for him, the argument over whether the arts should collaborate with corporate interests or offer subversive strategies against them is not a binary one.
This debate continues in round table sessions that follow the presentations. Dovey sees both approaches as possible. He talks passionately about 'ambient literature' and imagines a world where the data space is also populated by stories, poetry and drama; where people are able to have writers as guides to the urban environment; where narratives enrich the experience of moving about our towns and cities, spanning the full spectrum of private, public and private-public spaces.
A pioneering example of this is the Talking Statues project, which uses QR codes and near-field communication technology to allow people to hear statues in Leeds, London and Manchester talk to them on their mobile phone, with Prunella Scales voicing Queen Victoria, Russell Tovey as Alan Turing, or Simon Russell Beale as Sir Isaac Newton.
Emma Quinn from NESTA explains to us how the initiative is backed by a variety of public, private and municipal organisations, and demonstrates just how this kind of collaboration can work.
Similarly, a new venture from National Theatre Wales called Bordergame (winner of The Space Prize) sees participants travel from Bristol into Wales by train, and required permissions from Network Rail and the individual rail companies.
NTW Artistic Director John McGrath appears via mobile video from Temple Meads station to explain how this was achieved and what the production involves. Combining live action with input in real time from a secondary 'audience' online, Bordergame is stretching the boundaries of what immersive theatre can mean and how it can utilise digital technology to explore new creative territory.
This is just a small part of what went on down in Docklands today. Where Economies of Experience really triumphed was in combining serious discussion and debate with irreverence and levity. Because the delegates were at ease and enjoying themselves, the conversations and ideas flowed.
What transpired was a dialogue between practitioners, funding bodies, academics and commercial creative companies, unafraid to examine the future challenges those in the arts face. This was evident in terms of how practice develops in the digital world and how people engage with the owners of private-public space in order to keep producing new and innovative artworks to thrill and inspire the people that occupy them.
Ben Murray is a freelance writer. You can follow him on Twitter via @tracysface. The Economies of Experience conference was organised by ZU-UK and was held a Trinity Buoy Wharf in East London on 6 November 2014. This article was first published in February 2015.


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Former Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak sat in the dock Wednesday at the start of his corruption trial, with the chief prosecutor alleging he wielded "near absolute power" for nearly a decade during which he stands accused of pilfering millions of dollars from the 1MDB state investment fund.
Ten years ago this Wednesday, Najib became Malaysia's sixth prime minister but anger over the 1MDB scandal led to his spectacular electoral loss last May. U.S. investigators say more than $4.5 billion was stolen from 1MDB by associates of Najib between 2009 and 2014. They say the ill-gotten gains were laundered through layers of bank accounts in the U.S. and other countries to finance Hollywood films and buy hotels, a luxury yacht, artworks, jewelry and other extravagances.
Najib didn't speak to reporters as he left the courthouse. He later wrote on Facebook: "God willing, I am confident that a court that is fair will prove that I am not guilty. We will continue to fight."


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