text:
Shack Attack: Darby Dan is home to dam of Preakness winner
Oatsee, dam of Preakness winner Shackleford
2010 Johannesburg colt out of Oatsee
Darby Dan managers and staff smiled a bit more broadly after the 136th Preakness S. (G1), as the dam of victorious Shackleford resides at the famed nursery off Old Frankfort Pike.
My Meadowview LLC has boarded Oatsee at Darby Dan since her purchase for $1,550,000 from the 2008 Keeneland November Sale. At the time, Oatsee had produced Grade 1 winner Lady Joanne and multiple Graded stakes winner Baghdaria. Her 2008 weanling by Forestry was not yet named. But on Preakness Day, now known as Shackleford, he exemplified his family's courage and class, winning the $1 million Preakness and making his dam a Classic producer.
Shackleford now possesses a record of 7-3-1-0 with earnings of $1,471,666 after cashing in on a $500,000 bonus for winning the Preakness. The grand-looking chestnut colt was also notably a close runner-up in the Florida Derby (G1) and fourth in the Kentucky Derby (G1) after contesting the early pace in that race. His 104 Beyer earned in the Preakness marks the fastest by a 3-year-old in a graded stakes race in 2011.
A stakes-placed winner by Unbridled, Oatsee has a yearling colt by Johannesburg (pictured) that is also boarded at Darby Dan. My Meadowview plans to race the colt. Oatsee is currently in foal to Indian Charlie.


Natural disasters have always been a fact of this world, and it's not news that these disasters seem to be getting worse. When these disasters occur and affect people anywhere in the world, the United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR) is often the first group in to a disaster area and the last one out, ministering to people's needs -- body, mind, and soul.
UMCOR receives funding from other channels through the United Methodist connection for overhead and administrative costs, so 100% of any donations directly to UMCOR's Advance Special accounts are used directly in the relief effort.
For more information on UMCOR, visit their website here.
The General Board of Global Ministries (GBGM) is how we help strengthen the worldwide missional effort of the United Methodist Church. GBGM is present in Africa and Asia, Europe and Eurasia, Latin America and the Caribbean, the Middle East, and even in North America. Through GBGM, we help fund missionaries and help support those seeking justice, freedom, and peace, and to alleviate human suffering by following in the footsteps of Christ.
For more information on GBGM, visit their website here.


text:
Benzoin Gum
Styrax benzoin
Benzoin Tree
The plant known as the benzoin gum is a shrub like deciduous tree. The leaves of the benzoin gum are pointed and oval in shape and the herb also gives out clusters of fragrant and bell shaped white flowers when it blooms in the spring.
Benzoin gum has traditionally been used in India and other Asian countries. Vasco Da Gama, the Portuguese explorer was presented with a gift of benzoin, on his voyage in 1497-1498 around the Cape of Good Hope to India; the Portuguese navigator was presented this substance by the Indians who highly valued this substance. The benzoin gum has been used in incense burnt in Indian Temples for its appealing vanilla like aroma. The benzoin gum was also traditional used in Indian and other Asian countries to gain relief from shingles, to treat ringworm, and in treating a number of other skin problems. Benzoin gum was also used in many other parts of southern Asia, to alleviate sores on the feet and was a traditional remedy applied to heal the wounds following a circumcision.
The plant is a member of the storax family of plants. The S. benzoin similar to many related species is a fast growing tree that can reach heights ranging from about fifteen feet to an incredible one hundred fifteen feet in some cases. The tree bears fragrant clusters of silky white blossoms which are followed by the production of round, two inch fruits that contain one or two round seeds inside them. The valuable aromatic resin is found in the bark of the tree that is overlaid with a silky whitish down - the resin is extracted from the bark and used in many herbal applications.
The benzoin trees are fairly easy to cultivate in warm and tropical climates of the Far East according to commercial growers of the plant. The method of cultivation of this herb differs from region to region and in some regions of the world, the seedlings are planted just before a crop of upland rice so that as the grain grows and advances it can give some shade to the young growing trees. The resin is extracted from trees that are six or seven years old. Once such trees have been identified, workers slash the trees using a hatchet or make deep triangular holes into the bark using a knife, the resin is a yellowish white to reddish brown fluid which begins to flow out of these cuts and immediately hardens into teardrop shaped lumps on the bark - these are collected and used in the preparation of many herbal remedies. Benzoin trees give the greatest flow of resin during the first three years of tapping, and this flow can lasts another three years. Most benzoin trees will die before reaching seventeen years of age.
The bitter taste of the benzoin is not very pleasant to the taste, and it is rarely given for as an internal medication. However, the excellent expectorant properties of the benzoin makes it a good herbal remedy, the resin helps loosen phlegm accumulated in the mucous membranes lining the respiratory passages, and the resin is often prescribed for treating acute obstructive laryngitis - better known as croup in young children. Benzoin resin is given to croup affected children as a stem inhalant remedy; affected children can inhale the vapors from a bowl of boiled water in which a teaspoon of benzoin tincture is mixed. Some other useful remedies of the benzoin include an antiseptic and astringent effect; it is effective in healing small cuts and is used for minor external disorders. Many skin care products include the resin, and the resin is one of the most common herbal ingredients in such products. The benzoin added to the topical remedy helps in the healing of chapped or blistered skin affecting a person. The cosmetic industry also utilizes the benzoin in many products, the excellent preservative qualities of the herb ensures that it is always in great demand by the cosmetic industry where the resin is used as a fixative in the manufacture of all kinds of soaps, in various perfumes, and in creams and lotions. Benzoin is also used in the food industry as a flavoring agent, where small amounts are added to many processed foods, and these products range from different kinds of beverages to all kinds of packaged baked goods.
The remedies made from the benzoin is sold in the market and comes in several different grades, this grading system is based on the amount of milky white resinous tears contained in the mass of the benzoin gum. The most valuable is a grade called the Siam gum, this benzoin tends to contain lesser foreign impurities than the Sumatra variety, the grades that are considered inferior grades sometimes contain a lot of bark but little resin and are not as valuable.
The product known as Siam benzoin is sold in the form of square blocks that contain opaque and milky tears; these masses are often an inch or two in length and are loosely bound to each other within the blocks. However, tears tend to be much smaller in size, and the mass tends to be much more compact and uniform, the tears are normally embedded in an amber colored or brown, resiniform material within the block. The block specimens which contain these translucent resinous matter and the very small tears are said to resemble Scotch granite in appearance. Internally, the tears show a semi-translucent and lamellated structure which is unique in appearance. When aged, the opaque tears can become discolored and translucent. Mastication can soften the otherwise brittle resin, and the resin possesses a very pleasant fragrance which resembles the fragrance of vanilla bean. Benzoic acid is the synthetic product obtained when the benzoin gum is subjected to heat treatment.
The other type of Asian benzoin called the Sumatra benzoin is also sold in rectangular blocks. These usually have the milky tears embedded in a grayish brown resinous mass that also contains a lot of foreign particles. Compared to the Siam benzoin, the odor of the Sumatran benzoin is not strong and is not as pleasant to smell. There is still another variety of the Sumatra benzoin, called the Penang benzoin, or the Storax smelling benzoin, this product possesses a much more agreeable fragrance compared to the Siam benzoin, comparing favorably with storax. The Penang benzoin frequently has large tears, which are all agglutinated together in a grayish resinous mass. The addition of water to the tincture made from the various benzoins is the best way to compare the fragrance in the different kinds of benzoin found in the market. A reddish tincture is made from the best variety - the Siam, while the tinctures made from the other grades tend to have a yellow brown or brown coloration.
The feel of the benzoin is firm and brittle; it is easy to pulverize and has an agreeable, balsamic odor when it is rubbed by the hand. Benzoin also has a sweetish, balsamic and mildly acrid flavor. Pure benzoin is completely soluble in alcohol or ether. Benzoin on heating, gives off a discharge of dense and irritating, white colored smoke, this smoke consists of benzoic acid and fragrant empyreumatic oil. When benzoin is pulverized by hand, it can irritate the membranes lining the nostrils of the person, bringing on sternutation in the person. When a little water is mixed into the alcoholic solution made using benzoin, it precipitates out and forms a white liquid - this white liquid was formerly used as a cosmetic and sold under the name of "virgin's milk". The benzoin gum has a specific gravity of approximately 1.068 and is used in a wide range of applications as well as in the manufacture of herbal medications.
The primary use of the benzoin gum in herbal remedies is connected to the potent antiseptic and astringent action it possesses. Remedies made from the benzoin gum can be used for the treatment of external wounds and in the treatment of ulcers - the remedy is especially beneficial for tightening and disinfecting affected tissues on the body. Remedies made from the benzoin gum when consumed help to settle muscular cramps and stimulate coughing. The remedy also helps in disinfecting the urinary tract in case of urinogenital disorders. The herbal remedy called Friar's Balsam, which is an antiseptic and expectorant steam inhalation used in treating sore throats, problems such as head and chest colds, asthma, and bronchitis also has benzoin gum as one of the ingredients.
The physical effects induced in the human body by the benzoin gum are similar to the effects induced by benzoic acid. This is not surprising as the benzoic acid is one of the principal constituents of benzoin gum, the benzoin acid is modified by the resin and the essential oils present in the herb. Benzoin gum in the body is eliminated from the body mainly through the mucous membranes.
The mucous tissues in the body are stimulated by benzoin and the remedy is normally employed to induce an expectorant action in case of chronic diseases affecting the air passages of the respiratory system. The benzoin gum remedies are also said to stimulate the functioning of the sexual organs. The benzoin gum is an additive in the synthesis of elixir of paregoric, it is also used as a base in the production of Turlington's balsam and many other kinds of balsams - these remedies all exert a salutary effect and aid in the healing of wounds on the body. Benzoin gum tincture is also used as a coating over a very well known adhesive preparation called Court Plaster. Benzoin remedies also include its use in steam inhalation, the fumes or the vapor of the benzoin gum inhaled into the lungs, is one of the recommended treatments in case of chronic pulmonary catarrhs, and the same treatment is also one of the suggested remedies in the treatment of chronic laryngeal inflammations. Benzoin gum tincture has a protective and stimulating effect, and is used in the early stage of coryza. It is also used as a lotion in dressing for fresh wounds and skin problems. The benzoin gum is the primary base for the synthesis of benzoic acid. Benzoic acid is used as a flavoring to improve the taste and odor of other medications, it also finds extensive use in perfumery and the cosmetic industry. The volume of benzoic acid used in many of these preparations, may be about 10 to 40 grains, though higher amounts are also used in some products.
The benzoin tree is a native species of Southeast Asian forests. The benzoin tree grows only in the tropical rainforests straddling much of southern Asia. The tree is cultivated in many forest plantations for its valuable gum. This precious resin flows out from the incisions cut into the bark of seven year old trees; the resin is collected and processed on year round.
The resin obtained from the benzoin tree belongs to a class of chemical substances called balsam resins; these are a group of resinous substances commonly found in plants. The composition of benzoin gum includes some volatile oil and seventy five per cent of it is made up of amorphous resins, while benzoic acid itself forms eighteen per cent of the total. Benzoic acid is found in lesser quantities in the white tears, compared to the resiniform matter in which the white tears is embedded - this matrix resin contains much more benzoic acid. When benzoin gum is subjected to dry distillation, one of the empyreumatic products is a very fragrant and oily substance, a compound called styrol. Dry distillation of different types of benzoin also yields other kinds of compounds, the compound called cinnamic acid is found on distilling Siam and Penang benzoin gums. In some benzoin gums, there is a total absence of benzoic acid and only cinnamic acid can be found. In one sample of Sumatra benzoin, only cinnamic acid was found, while in the amygdaloid Penang and Siam benzoin varieties, benzoic acid was the only acid present. There are at least four resins of benzoin, and all of these are soluble in alcohol or caustic potash, however, each behaves in a different way with other known solvents - ether in particular. During one distillation of Siam benzoin in 1878, the compound vanillin, which is a chemical substance found mainly in vanilla, was obtained as a byproduct. In this event, benzoin was first treated using some caustic lime, then the benzoic acid was precipitated out using chlorhydric acid, and supernatant liquid was further agitated using ether and then subjected to evaporated, the process resulted in a mixture of vanillin and benzoic acid - this is the only known case where vanillin was obtained from benzoin resin.
Sage astringent
This herbal skin care preparation may possibly be particularly revitalizing provided it is stored in a refrigerator and applied to the skin while it is still cold. A preservative available with the druggists called tincture of benzoin is meant solely for topical use and it should never be taken internally.
The ingredients needed to prepare this herbal skin care product include the following;
1/2 cup of dehydrated sage
4 to 5 drops tincture of benzoin
1/2 cup of vodka
To prepare this herbal skin care product at home, you need to place half of the required sage into a jar and pour the vodka on top of it. Seal the jar firmly and allow the sage to suffuse in the vodka for about a week and, subsequently, filter the liquid. While you preserve the liquid, do away with the sage after you have squeezed out all the liquid from it. Now, place the remaining sage in the jar, pour the liquid over it and allow it to steep for about one more week. By this time, the liquid will acquire a potent herbal scent and if you wish to make it more potent, continue with the process using another one-fourth cup of sage. Next, you filter the sage astringent into a sanitized bottle with the help of a fine filter like a coffee filter. Finally, add the tincture of benzoin to the astringent, seal the bottle and shake the mixture thoroughly.
It may be noted here that you are able to prepare a better astringent provided you use fresh sage instead of the dried herb. You should use approximately half a cup of the astringent, slackly packed, every time you fill the jar.
A milder sage astringent: To prepare a diluted sage astringent, add distilled water to the preparation. Alternately, you may also use a lesser astringent herb like chamomile instead of sage.
Additionally stimulating astringent: In order to prepare an astringent that is more invigorating, you may add anything between two and four tablespoonful of the herb called witch hazel. Alternately, you may use a more potently astringent herb like yarrow.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


ULTRA Worldwide recently announced the massive expansion of the globally renowned festival to two cities across the Australian continent. The expansion of the event to two full-scale festivals will return to Melbourne with world-class talent on: Saturday 23rd February at Flemington Racecourse and will head to Sydney the following day for the first time on: Sunday 24th February at Parramatta Park.
Tickets for Ultra Australia 2019 will go on sale: Thursday 9th August 10am AEST!
"After the thrilling debut of 'Road to Ultra' in Melbourne this year, we are beyond excited to welcome the full scale 'Ultra' experience to both Melbourne and Sydney in February 2019 for 'Ultra Australia.' After watching the success of the event in Miami over the last 20 years and across the globe, it's time we experienced this fantastic festival down under! Showcasing 'Ultra Australia' at two of the nation's premiere venues in: Flemington Racecourse, Melbourne & Parramatta Park, Sydney, we are counting down the days til Summer." – Event Organisers.
About Flemington: Flemington Racecourse has established itself as one of the most versatile venues in Australia. Flemington offers a multipurpose greenfield event space, surrounded by landscaped gardens, with grandstands and internal roadways as well as being close to public transport & to the city, making it the perfect location for 'Ultra Australia' Melbourne 2019.
About Parramatta Park: Historic Parramatta Park has been a venue used for entertainment for more than 150 years. With hectares of parklands, trees, river frontage & close to amenities and public transport, it's one of Sydney's premier event spaces and is excited to host 'Ultra Australia' Sydney 2019.
Stay tuned for the Ultra Australia 2019 Line-Up, coming soon..


text:
Jerry Seinfeld, Sen. Charles Schumer call for support for live venues
Emma McIntyre/Getty Images for Netflix
(NEW YORK) — Jerry Seinfeld and U.S. Senator Charles Schumer are banding together in support of live venues.
WABC reports that the legendary comedian and New York senator took the stage at Gotham Comedy Club in Manhattan last night, both wearing masks, to call for federal relief for live venues impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Schumer stood in support of the Save Our Stages Act, a piece of legislation he's co-signed that was introduced by U.S. Senators Amy Klobuchar and John Cornyn that, if passed through Congress, could provide grants of up to $12 million to the operators, producers, promoters and talent reps of live venues.
"It makes the city exciting to walk down the street and know right inside that door some people are on stage and doing things," Seinfeld professed on stage. "It gives the city energy and and electricity and it's more than just a business, it is the spark of our culture."
The comedian's statement follows an op-ed he penned for The New York Times last month called "So You Think New York is 'Dead.' (It's not)" speaking to the city's resilience.
The Save Our Stages Act is also supported by the National Independent Venue Association, which generated a letter to Congress in June asking for support for independent venues across the country, with a range of prominent figures singing the letter including Seinfeld, Amy Schumer, Lady Gaga, Whoopi Goldberg, Carol Burnett, Billy Joel and many others.


The bank symbolizes the trust of the customers through its urge to serve them at each step of their financial journey. To gain and retain the trust, banks are increasingly rolling out the products and giving each other in the hard-fought banking space a good run for their money. Axis Bank, a name you must have heard and seen while walking on the roads, is a master class while offering a customized suite of products and services to customers across different segments, be it a top-notch corporate or a normal retail client. The bank aspires to give its each set of customer the best product for the fulfillment of their needs. The vast presence of the bank with over 3,000 branches and 13,000 ATMs is a big plus for Axis Bank. These touch points of the bank are spread far and wide across the country.
Bengaluru, the IT capital, also sees a large number of Axis Bank branches, which could be around 30-40 in the count. The need for Axis Bank to have a wide presence in Bengaluru becomes important due to the presence of IT behemoths like Infosys and Wipro, along with other IT firms that are located in the city. The city is also famous for the top-notch educational institutions including the likes of Indian Institute of Management, National Institute of Fashion Technology, Indian Institute of Science (IIS), National Law School of India University, among others.
Do you have that amount required to buy a home in the luxurious city of Bengaluru? No is your answer, then you should apply for a home loan at Axis Bank, which has suitable offers to fulfill your dream home. If you have searched out a property in your city Bengaluru, come to Axis Bank with the home loan application and get the gift of lower interest rates, longer tenure above all pleasant services from the lender at each moment of your stay in a dream home in Bengaluru.
Get an idea of the home loan eligibility criteria below for a smooth approval of the application at Axis Bank in Bengaluru.


text:
Q: To calculate the average of Latest 12 weeks I figured out how to calculate the average of latest 12 weeks volume in my data. But lets say the current year does not have 12 weeks, it only has 8 weeks then I want to take the remaining 4 weeks from the previous year to make it 12?
This is how my avg mdx query looks like:
Avg(
   LastPeriods(
      12,
      Tail(
         NonEmpty(
            [Time].[Week].[Week].Members,
            [Measures].[Vol ( Cases)]
         ),
         1
      ).Item(0)
   ),
   [Measures].[Vol ( Cases)]
)

A: I'm wondering if you could simplify and use the following within your measure?:
 ...
 ...
 Tail(
     NonEmpty(
        [Time].[Week].[Week].Members,
        [Measures].[Vol ( Cases)]
     ),
     12
 )
 ...
 ...

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


You are applying in advance of your project starting. Applications are discussed by the panel at the start of each month; we are unable to fund projects that have already taken place.
You have a bank account with two unrelated signatories.
You can provide us with two named contacts for your project.
Before completing the Group Grant application form, please read our short list of terms and conditions in detail by clicking the link below and then returning to complete the application form.
How many people will benefit.
I agree to complete the believe housing community grant evaluation form following the project.
Groups with successful grant applications will be required to consent to any publicity and marketing that believe housing may require. This may include, but is not limited to, press and online activities of both funds being awarded and the outcomes of approved projects. Should you carry out future promotion of the outcomes of your grant application, you must reference believe housing (using relevant brand guidelines and logo(s) where required), with approval via the group's Funding Officer.


One in three pets will be lost in their lifetime. Be prepared.
To date, Home Again has reunited over 400,000 pets with their owners!
A microchip is a tiny computer chip, about the size of a grain of rice, programmed with an identification number. The chip is enclosed in glass and is injected under the skin between the shoulder blades with a needle (just a little larger than the one used for vaccinations). Once an animal is microchipped (as early as 6 to 8 weeks of age), the pet can be identified throughout his or her life with this one-of-a-kind number. Microchips are permanent. Once injected, the microchip is anchored in place by tissues that form around it. It requires no care and will not move about the body. Pet owners have been reunited with chipped pets that have been missing for years or that have traveled thousands of miles. If your pet is ever lost and is brought to a veterinarian, humane society, or animal control, a special scanner will be used to send a radio signal to the chip to read the identification number. Your pet feels nothing when the scanner reads the chip. The number is displayed on the scanner, and the person reading the scanner can contact a national registry to find out to whom the pet belongs. After you have your pet chipped, we will register you with the national listing so that if your pet is ever lost, they can contact you right away.
We use a special microchip here called the Home Again Microchip. This company provides a comprehensive pet recovery service which includes an instant email alert (with a picture of your pet) sent to shelters, vet clinics and other pet rescuers in the surrounding area, on-call support by trained counselors to assist in your pet's recovery, a "lost pet poster" tool to create a poster with your pet's picture to begin the search for your pet, a 24/7 network of veterinarians to help by phone in case of a medical emergency, complimentary lost pet medical insurance (see site for details), 24/7 help and advice through the ASPCA Animal Poison Control Center hotline, and pet ID cards with your pet's name, microchip number, photo, vet information and emergency clinic contact information to carry in your wallet.


text:
Home > Resources > News > E-Resourcing is delighted to be ranked in 10th place in the 50 fastest growing private recruitment businesses in the UK
E-Resourcing is delighted to be ranked in 10th place in the 50 fastest growing private recruitment businesses in the UK
20th January 2010 E-Resourcing is delighted to be ranked in 10th place in the 50 fastest growing private recruitment businesses in the UK.
According to Tim Evans, head of recruitment M&A at Catalyst, and co-author of the Fast 50 there are some "very clear common denominators" that set the Fast 50 apart from the rest. "It's about good leadership, high quality consultants and robust systems rather than being about size, geographical location or sector."
E-Resourcing achieved a compound annual growth rate from 2006/7 accounting year to 2008/9 accounting year of 62.7%, placing it 10th in the UK fastest growing privately owned or PE backed unquoted recruitment businesses and 5th fastest amongst those specialising in the IT sector.
E-Resourcing believes this position is a testament to the professionalism of its staff and the ethos of the company to always place the needs of the client and applicant first, trusting that, inevitably, success will follow in the long term with long term loyal partnerships.
E-Resourcing is a recruitment company specialising in the provision of mainly IT contract and permanent staff at all levels across the UK and Europe. It puts its success down to, amongst other factors, the employment of recruitment consultants with an average of 15 years recruitment experience and a desire by all to work as true partners with both customers and candidates alike; always striving to achieve what is best for them in the long term and trusting that success for E-Resourcing will naturally follow.
Click here to download the Recruiter Fast 50 listing for 2010.
Please do contact us by emailing info@e-resourcing.co.uk or ringing 01372 748444 if you also wish to enjoy success with us. For more information see www.e-resourcing.co.uk
E-Resourcing Ltd
Oaks House
KT18 7RG
info@e-resourcing.co.uk
© 2019 E-Resourcing Ltd


text:
Nigel Holmes
Book Review: National Geographic Infographics
Book Review: National Geographic Infographics – Back in the days when the information age was a distant dream and the world a more mysterious place, National Geographic began its mission to reveal the wonders of history, popular science, and culture to eager audiences around the globe. Since that 1888 launch, the world has changed; empires have risen and crumbled and a galaxy of information is today only a click away. But National Geographic endures; its calm, authoritative voice is as respected as ever amid the surfeit of data in our daily lives. In this new anthology, TASCHEN and National Geographic gather the magazine's best infographics of the past 128 years. Through seven sections—History, The Planet, Being Human, Animal World, World of Plants, Science & Technology, and Space—we encounter the rise and fall of the Roman Empire, the mysterious origins of the Easter Island statues, Cleopatra's Alexandria, and the anatomy behind a cheetah's extraordinary speed. See also: Free eBook: 100 Wall Mirrors for Modern Home Interiors We discover how our genetic patterns have been pieced together over the years and how birds make music; we get to grips with global warming and explore our ever-expanding study of an ever-expanding universe. See also:…


Recently, Chemkimia showcased our signature products, CHEMCHLOR SCM E & EX series at IFAT 2018 in Munich, Germany. This exhibition is the world's leading trade fair for environmental technologies and we are proud to represent Malaysia on world stage.
It is designed to compliment our specialty chemical, CHEMCHLOR ACH. The project brought the teams of chemists and engineers together, enabling them to approach the development of SCM in an even more multi-faceted way.
Engineered in Malaysia, the SCM (Streaming Current Monitor) is designed to identify the changes of water characteristics such as colour and turbidity. Measurement of charge that converted into A.C. signal or Streaming Current, proportional to charge density, is electronically processed and displayed. The E and EX series can be connected to existing dosing system to enable automatic dosing control. Dosage of coagulant will adjust automatically according to changes of water characteristic.
The implementation of the automated dosing of coagulant is designed to give sustainable, reliable and cost effective solution to its users. Automation of the process reduces wastage on chemicals consumption. The ultimate goal of this collaboration is offer greener water treatment solutions, to protect and preserve the environment.


text:
About the Victorian Defence Alliances
Victorian Defence Alliances – developing, promoting and showcasing Victoria's highly capable and innovative defence industry supply chain.
The Role of the Victorian Defence Alliances
The Victorian Defence Alliances have been established through a partnership between the Australian Defence Alliance – Victoria and the State Government of Victoria. Membership of the Alliances is open to all Victorian companies seeking to supply products and services to the national and international defence industry market.
The Alliances bring focus, cohesion and unity to the actions and initiatives of companies with a shared and common purpose in specific domains of Victoria's defence industry sector. They allow member companies to act together to deliver timely, cost effective, innovative and reliable solutions to meet Defence needs.
The Alliances support member companies through advocacy, networking, collaboration, mentoring and capability building to assist member companies to bid for work in national and international defence industry supply chains. Importantly, the Alliances provide effective arrangements for connecting Alliance members with industry primes and key Government stakeholders.
Meet the VDA Alliances
The Victorian Defence Alliances are made up of five separate groups each representing major Defence market domains.
VDA - Aerospace
The VDA – Aerospace assists member companies to win work in the domestic and international defence and commercial aerospace industry supply chains. It promotes the capabilities of the sector and supports collaboration, partnering and teaming to build a highly capable aerospace supply chain in Victoria.
VDA - Digital
The VDA – Digital assists member companies to win work in the Defence digital domain and adjacent commercial markets. It promotes the defence digital capabilities of Victorian companies and advocates for business opportunities for local industry. For the Alliance the digital market space is defined as one that covers products, systems and services in: ICT infrastructure, software development and related activities; Modeling and simulation; Cyber security; Electronic warfare; Command and Control; Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance systems.
VDA - Land Systems
The VDA-Land Systems assists member companies to win work in the domestic and international land systems market by achieving rapid, sustainable and long term growth in that sector. It promotes the capabilities of the sector and supports collaboration, partnering and teaming to build a highly capable land systems sector in Victoria.
VDA - Maritime
The VDA – Maritime assists member companies to win work in the domestic and international submarine industry supply chains. It promotes the capabilities of the sector and supports collaboration, partnering and teaming to build a highly capable maritime industry supply chain in Victoria.
VDA - Submarines
The VDA – Submarines assists member companies to win work in the domestic and international submarine industry supply chains. It promotes the capabilities of the sector and supports collaboration, partnering and teaming to build a highly capable submarine industry sector in Victoria.


text:
Kidnapped: In the Line of Duty (1995)
Action, Drama, Thriller, TV Movie
Bobby Roth
Dabney Coleman, Timothy Busfield, Lauren Tom, Tracey Walter, Barbara Williams, Carmen Argenziano, Henry G. Sanders
An FBI Crime Comedy
When the son of a wealthy business man is kidnapped FBI agents Pete Honeycutt (Timothy Busfield - Striking Distance) and Lily Yee (Lauren Tom) are put on the case. Pete believes he is the best man for the case as he doesn't stop till he gets his man, something which means he is constantly letting down his son and wife. But Pete finds cracking this kidnapping case harder than he expects as the man is he after is Arthur Milo (Dabney Coleman - Dragnet) an IRS officer who uses the information he has on people's finances to work out who to kidnap children from to hold them to ransom.
"Kidnapped: In the Line of Duty" is another movie from the generally entertaining "In the Line of Duty" series which takes true crime stories and dramatize them. Now I have watched quite a few of these movies and generally they are serious affairs as we follow the cops and FBI as they try and solve a specific crime but "Kidnapped: In the Line of Duty" is different as it has a lighter tone which often throws in moments of humour. That does two things; firstly it makes this weak as a drama based on a true crime but secondly it makes it entertaining because of those moments of humour.
Now that does leave me conflicted because as a crime story "Kidnapped: In the Line of Duty" ended up by the book, there is a crime, there if the FBI, there is an agent who is so dedicated to work he is never there for his wife or child. You almost get a sense that rather trying to dramatize the true story they took the basic facts and then squeezed them in to that familiar set up which in fairness has some twists now and then which help lift the basic story a bit. But the humour of it all be it Agent Milo talking to the parents of the kidnapped child and getting his name wrong to his sarcastic tone around others including telling a very tall agent to hide in the trunk is fun.
The thing is that whilst the numerous moments of humour end up softening the actual drama they work because of the cast. Dabney Coleman as Arthur Milo is this mix of offbeat and caring which makes him this strange mix of bad guy but a nice guy, well what kidnapper do you know who sings a child a lullaby to help them sleep. And then Timothy Busfield brings plenty of sarcasm to the role of Pete Honeycutt dropping wise cracks in almost every scene whilst also ramping up the stereotypical aspect of his work obsessed father.
What this all boils down to is that "Kidnapped: In the Line of Duty" whilst not the best movie in the series it is still entertaining thanks to the moments of humour which make it very different to those other movies.
Dead and Alive: The Race for Gus Farace (1991)
On the 28th February 1989 undercover DEA agent Everett Hatcher met with drug dealer Gus Farace as part of a sting operation. Things go tragically wrong when first Hatcher's surveillance team lost contact with him and shortly after t ...
In the Line of Duty: A Cop for the Killing (1990)
Lieutenant Ray Wiltern (James Farentino - Ride to Hangman's Tree) is the boss of a narcotics team, a close knit family, bringing in drug dealers on the info of snitches. During what seems like a routine drugs bust one of the team ge ...
In the Line of Duty: The Price of Vengeance (1994)
When a cinema owner is robbed and shot at he is able to take down the licence plate of the getaway car leading to det. Tom Williams (Michael Gross - Tremors) to arrest Johnnie Moore (Brent Jennings - Child's Cry) who heads up a ruth ...
In the Line of Duty: Blaze of Glory (1997)
Former marine Jeff Erickson (Bruce Campbell - Escape from L.A.) and his chemist wife Jill (Lori Loughlin - Empty Cradle) have turned to a life of crime as a modern day Bonnie & Clyde, getting off on the excitement of robbing banks, ...
Gang in Blue (1996)
Michael Rhoades (Mario Van Peebles - Gunmen) is one of only a few black police officers in his precinct and he is pretty sure that within the precinct is a sect of extremist cops dishing out violence on racial minorities when ever t ...
TOP TEN BRAT PACK MOVIES
1) The Breakfast Club (1985)
2) St. Elmo's Fire (1985)
3) About Last Night... (1986)
4) Sixteen Candles (1984)
5) Oxford Blues (1984)
6) Class (1983)
7) Pretty in Pink (1986)
8) Mannequin (1987)
9) Weird Science (1985)
10) Youngblood (1986)
Doc Hollywood (1991)


text:
The end of all things
The home of The End of All Things podcast
A Canadian in New Basford
Category Archives: published
The Goose Fair
I hereby announce the retirement of the word 'chav' from CINB. In an effort to be a better person – don't laugh – I am going to try to stop saying it, and to certainly stop writing it down. It may be a lazy word and borderline racist, but that won't stop me from missing it terribly; I defy anyone to find a better accompaniment to the word 'bastard'.
'Chav' does need to go out with a bang, however, and what better subject to give it a proper send-off with than an account of my first visit to Goose Fair? LeftLion had been bugging me to do a Goose Fair piece for years, but I could never bring myself to go. Goose Fair? Are you nuts? That's the belly of the beast, man! Chav HQ. Trackie Central, Hoodie Ground Zero.
Here's the thing; in my home town, we have a little thing called the Calgary Stampede. Maybe you've heard of it? The Greatest Outdoor Show On Earth, dahling. We know our fairgrounds, yeah? And ours are almost completely chav-free. OK, so the redneck count is a tad high, but what are you gonna do? It's a giant rodeo. In comparison to that, Goose Fair was bound to be awful. Hordes of little chavlettes, tweaking their tits off on mini-doughnuts and smacking the crap out of each other with plastic LED swords. Fat mom-chavs using their eighteen-kid prams as battering rams. Young hoodies knifing each other over 50p candy apples.
Bottom line: Goose Fair was going to make me hate fairgrounds, and I didn't want that to happen. I love the Calgary Stampede; I didn't want anything to tarnish the warm memories of scoffing watered-down beer and puking through the metal cage of the Sizzler. But it was time. I'd managed to wiggle my way out of it for four years, and I could wiggle no longer. I was to come face-to-face with my biggest Nottingham nightmare whether I liked it or not.
Sure enough, I encountered my first chav family as soon as I stepped foot off the bus. There were about twenty of them, pushing each other and dropping c-bombs like it was going out of style. Six teeth between the lot of them. After a few minutes of playing Guess The Dad, I leaned across to my longsuffering CINB excursion mate, Owen, and said;
'Christ, here we go.' In fact, that should be Goose Fair's slogan. Goose Fair: Christ, Here We Go.
The first thing to greet us at the gate was the freakshow. Dead animals with two heads,
a half crow-half rabbit and, naturally, Mr Big Mouth from Hull. I scoffed at Owen. 'Oh yeah, we used have these back home. Like in 1926. HA. HA. HA.' each 'ha' followed by a sarcastic clap. For those of you who've never had the pleasure, the freak trailer is a basically a line of things in glass boxes so blanketed in dust as to render them unrecognisable. And it stinks. Cost to view the freakshow: £1.50. Admission to Nottingham Contemporary: £0. This is the world in which we live. One could also point out that the real freakshow was the Chavpocalypse happening in the men's toilets, but that would be mean.
We walked a bit further and saw an enormous sign advertising 'COCKS ON STICKS'. "HA. HA. HA. Bra-vo!" I scoffed again (more sarcastic clapping). "You see that, Owen? Do you see that? What else would a chav buy? A candy rooster on a stick so they can say 'Suck my cock' and not get in trouble. So typical. So utterly predictable". But that's where the food predictability ended. Mushy peas with mint sauce? On its own? The noodle bar seemed about as rational at a fairground as a Megadeth poster at Anne Frank's house, but even bowls of Yaki Udon made more sense than the whole coconuts for sale. I'm sorry, Nottingham, but there only three states of fairground food: 1) deep fried 2) candied or 3) flossed. You can't argue with that, it's science. A couple of goes on the Crazy Shake and it will be moving in the reverse direction anyway. If you can't throw a wooden ball at it, a coconut has no business at a fairground. Health Schmelth – it's the one day of the year it's OK to be bulimic, you may as well go for it. Spend the other 364 days of the year worrying about your BMI.
(And I'm sorry to go on, but how in God's name are you supposed to eat a coconut, anyway? I picked one up thinking it must be some sort of trick – like maybe it was a chocolate coconut filled with nougat dipped in batter. Nope, it was real. A real, whole coconut. It wasn't even cracked – you were somehow expected to open it yourself. The coconut proprietor and I stared at each other for a few awkward moments before I put it back on the pile and walked on without a word.)
I will give Goose Fair one thing: health and safety is happily lacking. The Calgary Stampede has always prided itself on being lawless, unhinged and non-PC. Cowboy hats, animal abuse, Wrangler ball-huggers… this is the Wild West we're talking about! Two things you will not see at the Calgary Stampede fairground, however, are children barely old enough to walk brandishing full-sized bow and arrows, and grown men throwing baseballs at beer bottles. The guy manning the beer bottle smash game looked positively bored as shards of broken glass rained down on him. I've never seen a man face a sliced jugular so calmly; he should be in MI6. He looked entirely capable of yawning his way through a waterboarding session.
Not only that, but once you made your way into Goose Fair proper, you could see that it had some serious rides. Stargate, The Turbo Booster, the inverted bungee jump…and the fact that the bungee looked like it could snap at any minute only added to the appeal. And I know that moaning about the prices of rides at Goose Fair is the national pastime of Nottingham, but believe it or not, they're actually cheap. The inverted bungee at the Calgary Stampede costs fifty dollars to ride. Fifty bucks!
Goose Fair wasn't the chav hellhole I expected. Don't get me wrong, they were there in numbers, but there were also other people there. Non-chavs. Kids dressed head-to-toe in Baby Gap with balloons and some sort of (hopefully) food-based substance on their faces, their mothers sipping cappuccinos. And they seemed to be having fun. 'What the hell is this?' I asked Owen. 'What do you mean?' he replied. 'This!' I said, pointing. "Middle class people! What the hell are they doing here?'
But it wasn't just the middle class people and the chavs; everyone was there. St Ann's thugs, West Bridgford preps, Games Workshop dorks, townie drunks, Market Square goths. What I assumed would be a big outdoor borstal was actually nothing short of the perfect cross-section of the Nottingham populace, all getting along with each other. By 'getting along' I mean 'giving each other as wide a berth as possible while being wedged into a field', but still.
All I need to do now is work out the 'Goose' element. I imagine, like everything else in this country, it's some sort of horrifying myth that has to do with the Plague; some evil, diseased goose waddled from house to house infecting the town's residents by crapping into their sleeping mouths, and the only way to appease it was to have a fair in its honour. Who knows? Whatever it is, it seems to unite the residents of Nottingham in a way nothing else in this town does, and that can only be a good thing. So this year, don't ignore it – embrace it. Just don't embrace anyone while you're there – they're probably covered in sticky chunks of candied cock, broken glass and coconut milk.
This entry was posted in A Canadian in New Basford, column, nottingham, published on November 4, 2011 by Robert Cutforth.
Limey journos
I am officially bored of news. When I turn on the TV, news. On the radio, more news. It's around the corner, it's under my bed, it's in my ice cube trays and in between my toes.
When I started writing this column on the phone-hacking scandal, it was just going to be a little piss-take about how the sight of Rupert Murdoch in the back of a limo in short pants, legs akimbo made me physically choke on my left lung and how Rebekah Brooks looks a bit like a pasty, pissed-off ginger she-squirrel. But news just kept on happening. They're hacking dead soldiers phones! They're hacking 9/11 families phones! They're paying off cops! Whistleblowers are dying! They hacked a dead girl's phone? I mean…come on. It stopped being funny pretty quick. This is not a political column; my articles are puff pieces, cutesy pie pokes at British life through the eyes of a whinging expat. How am I supposed to write with all this news hanging about?
I always knew news in this country was nuts. One of my very first experiences with British "newspapers" happened just before my first visit to ol' Blighty. I was working my last day before setting off to visit my English girlfriend (now wife) when a co-worker said, "Dude, make sure you pick up a copy of the Daily Sport while you're over there." He didn't say "Make sure you see Big Ben" or "Westminster Abbey is pretty cool" – no, his one piece of British travel advice was to pick up a newspaper on British sport. We'd known each other for years and he knew I cared as much about British sport as I do about the eating habits of the Australian brush-turkey (I care about sport slightly more now, but even as a half-Brit, the thought of thumbing through an entire paper devoted to cricket and snooker literally makes my balls whimper, but anyway). He answered my perplexed look with a laugh. "Just buy one. It's amazing".
Wandering around Nottingham in a haze of jet-lag and culture shock (their potatoes wear jackets over here?), my girlfriend (now wife) and I passed a newsagents and I told her that I had to pick up some sports magazine thing for my buddy back home. Scanning the racks full of news, the first thing I noticed was the tits. Tits everywhere. Tits on the front covers, tits on the back covers, tits in the middle, tits, tits, tits. And that was just the newspapers. There was another shelf above it with magazines (more tits) and another shelf above that with magazines wrapped in foil so you couldn't see the covers. If they were displaying all these tits so frivolously on the fronts of newspapers, how freaky did something have to be to get wrapped in foil? Llamas in bondage peeing on each other? Who knows.
Moving past the tits, I spotted the sport magazine section. Ah yes, it must be over here; the covers of these ones have football guys on; FourFourTwo, When Saturday Comes, World Soccer…ah yes, here it is! The Daily Sport. I picked it up triumphantly and declared to my girlfriend (now wife), Aha! This is the one!
Guess what? Tits on the front cover, tits on the back cover, tits in the middle and tits on every page. Tits, tits, tits. I think there were some footy scores in there somewhere near the back, but I could be mistaken. This can't be it, I said nervously, my buddy's laughter ringing in my ears. This is just full of tits. Flick flick, look here, more tits. And here! Flick flick. My girlfriend watched me with a look that one would give a dog who'd just dragged his shitting dog-bum across the carpet; one part disappointment and two parts pity.
My second clue that perhaps the British media wasn't brilliant was in the last election when The Sun declared its support for the Tories on its front page. I thought, "Hang on – can they actually do that?" All newspapers have their political slant, but I'd never seen one declare its party affiliation so blatantly. It wasn't just the crazy papers like the Sun and the Mail, either; the Guardian, The Times and the Telegraph all unabashedly declared their party support. I'd never seen anything like it. Even Murdoch's deranged tabloid news channel on the other side of the pond pretends it's impartial.
Having said that, I still didn't think British news was as low-rent as Fox News. Fox News darlings Bill O'Reilly and Glenn Beck have made gaybashing xenophobia the must-have personality trait for the discerning American conservative. No amount of tits or celebrity goss would out-evil that. But then the News of the World/Milly Dowler thing was revealed. Not even wacky old Bill O'Reilly would hack a dead girl's phone. The dead girl could have been a lesbian, Obama-supporting Greenpeace hippy and Bill would've probably left her alone for the most part. Andy Coulson makes Bill O'Reilly look like a little fluffy bunny who blows candy kisses and farts rainbows.
What exactly is Rupert Murdoch's modus operandi? What goes on in a News Corp meeting? Is "Destroying Every Living Human Being's Life On Planet Earth" part of the agenda? I've never been to a News Corp meeting, but I think I can say with certainty that it involves beating children to death with bats and drowning kittens.
Now anyone with half a brain already hated News of the World because, frankly, it was crap. I don't like to judge, but if you were a regular News of the World reader, you are a moron. I hate to break it to you, but your parents are brother and sister. Or at least first cousins. The only people who miss the News of the World are the ones who you see around town in velour tracksuits eating chips for breakfast and chewing gum with open mouths. I'm surprised these people could turn the pages without taking their eye out.
But it's not just the crap Murdoch papers that have screwed up royally; no, the lefty papers are junk as well. The Guardian, drunk on the blood of its now defunct rivals, published a story stating that the NOTW had obtained information that Gordon Brown's kid had cystic fibrosis illegally when in fact it didn't. Even my favourite paper The Independent was proved to be bent when it was discovered that their preachy little doughball columnist Johann Hari was madly plagiarising quotes in his interviews. But that kind of just went away, didn't it? I bet little Johann is sitting in a quiet London suburb somewhere drinking milkshakes and thanking his dark lord Satan that the whole NOTW schmozzle happened when it did.
The British media are like a pack of hyperactive goldfish Jimmy Swaggarts (Google him, youngsters). Zero short term memory, banging their heads against the bowl, pointing their fins angrily one minute, crying and asking for forgiveness the next. I didn't mean it baby, really I didn't. Hey look over there! Someone else is doing something dodgy, and THEY'VE GOT THEIR TITS OUT.
Forget it, I've had it with the lot of em. I'm throwing my TV in the bin, chucking my radio in a skip and burning down my local CostCutter. From now on, I'm getting my news strictly from twitter. It's so free and untainted. It helped wikileaks break their stories and was first to show us Wayne Rooney's hair plugs. That's all I need really, why, according to the twitter news today #whitepeoplehobbies include "Falling down running in horror movies" and "Walking they kids with leashes". Hahaha, it's so true.
This entry was posted in A Canadian in New Basford, column, nottingham, published on August 15, 2011 by Robert Cutforth.
Shit British barbecues
Ah, it's that time of year again, British Summertime. Or as people in other countries call it, 'spring'.
British summertime is the three weeks or so in this country when short pants, patios and white beer suddenly make sense. You never see a convertible all year, and then April comes around and they're everywhere – usually driven by some penis in a pair of aviators with his collar up. Yeah mate, you're super-cool with your top down (to show everyone you like to party) and windows up (because it's still nippy, and you need to protect your pretty bouffant – you don't want to look like you're having too much fun).
Summer – like everything else in this country – is all about being careful. You drive your convertible with its windows up to the beach, then you erect a weird little canvas fort to keep the sand away. Then you put out some sandwiches on a picnic table (no open flames to cook on, of course), and play a game of 'spin the family around the table so the sun isn't on anyone's neck for too long'. Preparation for the outdoors in the British summertime is an afternoon's activity in itself; it usually entails a two-hour conversation on what to bring. "Shorts? Check. Jeans? Check. Hat? Check. Fleece? Check. Should we take a bottle of wine? Have you seen my Mac? Should I make an egg salad? Sun cream? Have we got enough sun cream? It's only factor 15? Are you crazy? We'll be killed! Oh, what's the point?"
And then there is the British barbecue. I'm actually surprised that barbecues are even allowed over here, to be honest. Fire and coal? Outside? You could burn someone's face off! It's only a matter of time before the health and safety people force a luminescent vest on the barbecuer and have the grill itself surrounded by traffic cones and police tape.
Because it only happens once or twice a year, you Brits don't know what to do; you get all giddy and throw just about anything on there. Sausages. Chicken. Courgettes? Cheese? Sliced courgette on a barbecue is bad enough, but cheese has as much place on a barbecue as chocolate does on a harmonica. It's not even nice cheese you put on there either, like maybe a slice of Stilton on top of a burger; no, it's that horrible halloumi stuff, and you put it right on the grill. That horrible squeaking it does on your teeth – yargh! I'm rubbing my own teeth right now just thinking about it. It's like eating salty styrofoam.
I know the cheese is on there to appease the veggies in the crowd, but seriously: what is a veggie doing at a barbecue in the first place? Can't they have their own, I dunno… casserole party or something? My wife is one of these veggies. She's not a real veggie, thank God; she at least eats fish. Fake veggies like her annoy the proper ones even more than us animal murderers do. At a barbecue once, a Real Veggie gave my wife grief for eating fish and calling herself a vegetarian, "People who eat fish and call themselves vegetarians make it hard for us proper vegetarians when we eat out!" I was going to remind her that she was at a freakin' BARBECUE and not an Animal Liberation Front rally, but I resisted. I'm too passive-aggressive for that sort of thing. So I just squeezed some sausage juice on her halloumi kebab when she wasn't looking.
I didn't realise barbecuing was a big Canadian stereotype until I moved over here. There aren't many proper Canadian stereotypes that apply to me; I've never chopped a tree down, I've never met Michael Bublé and there are few things I despise more than maple syrup. Maybe it's because people here assume that Canadians don't actually have kitchens in their log cabins, but no matter; they think I know what I'm talking about (unless an Aussie is around, of course; then I'm pretty much ignored). I've been to a few British barbecues and been given a pre-emptive apology that it will not be up to 'Canadian standards'. I have absolutely no idea what 'Canadian standards' are, but Leonard Cohen wouldn't tolerate frigging squeaky cheese on his grill, I can tell you that.
British barbecue activities are interesting as well. This is the only country where I've seen outdoor badminton played with a racquet in one hand and an umbrella in the other. Not for the rain of course, but for the sun. Sunbrellas! Jesus. When I was a kid in Canada, we played lawn darts. 'Dart' is a tad misleading; 'mini-javelin' would be more apt. It's basically a foot-long, heavy metal projectile that you toss into the air (underhand) toward a circle in the grass about twenty feet away. Of course, Grandma would want a go after a couple sherries and take the dog's eye out, but that's the price you pay for a little Canadian fun. At the last British barbecue I was at, people rolled some balls on the grass and played a game called 'Pulse' which basically consisted of sitting down quietly and holding hands. How you people won all those wars, I will never know.
So, in conclusion, it's safe to say the sun makes you people a bit like me when the cricket's on – all smiley, yet massively confused. Roll on July, I say, so we can all go back to hiding in pubs out of the drizzle, eating heavy Sunday lunches and drinking even heavier beers. After all, that's what the British summer is really all about.
This entry was posted in A Canadian in New Basford, column, nottingham, published on July 18, 2011 by Robert Cutforth.
Have you got your Kate and Wills party planned? Ooh, what are you going to do to celebrate it? I've bought bunting and streamers and some "Let them eat cake" cake toppers! Get it? It's just so exciting isn't it? We're finally going to get a new Diana! I could just burst!
I am having a dilly of a time trying to decide what I'm going to do for my party; it's so difficult to decide how to celebrate such an important event. I've got my party plan ideas narrowed down (from literally thousands) to the following three: 1) A Henry VIII themed one man show inviting a random woman on stage to be impregnated. Then, if she fails to produce a male heir from my defective seed, she is beheaded. Or 2) Burn some protestants in homage to Mary I or 3) Just wander the town centre bored and drunk on sherry shouting profanities at brown people, you know, just like… well… take your pick really.
I know it's cliché for an unkempt colonial commoner such as me to have a go at the royal family, but gee whiz, they just make it so darn easy! I mean just look at them, I could do a whole column on the size of their teeth.
I suppose I have a very Canadian view of the whole royalty thing. I'll bemoan the fact that they're privileged and have done absolutely nothing to deserve that privilege, but if one of them parades down my street, I'll probably stick my head out and have a look, and if I'm completely honest, if I was invited to the wedding I'd be there in a shot. If for no other reason than to catch a glimpse of a coked out and frothing 300lb Sarah Ferguson clinging to the gates, an army of Queen's Guard soldiers lying dazed in her wake, stomped half to death, their stupid bearskin hats ripped to shreds; "The tasers! They do nothing!"
Just imagine the potential for schadenfreude. Watching the backseat royals close up squirming and grinning through their teeth while the proper royals are fawned over would be delicious. Especially Prince Harry. Seriously, how bad will it suck to be Harry to have to sit through that whole thing? I know what it is like to have successful brothers, I have two of them; one of them travels all over the world with the oil industry making more money in a few months than I do in a year and the other is annoyingly bright with an engineering degree, an MBA and prospects out the ying yang. When your brothers kick your ass at life, it's a right pain in the ass, but at least my own family will be there to remind me of my own tiny successes. "You're just as good as your brothers! Sure, they're minted and important, but you wrote that thing in Grade 11 social studies that got an A, remember?" Oh yeah! In your face bro!
You can't really blame Harry for getting doped up and dressing like a Nazi. You'd do the same thing if your family constantly reminded you that no matter what you do, you'll never be as good as your older sibling. "But Daddy, I went to Afghanistan and killed many undesirables… I'm a tank commander and everything!" "Oh, that's very nice, Son, too bad you weren't born first eh? Hahahaha." God, if I was Harry, I'd be hopped up on Vicodin and nail polish remover every day, covered in hookers, my own spew and unicorn tatts.
But at least Harry is young and third in line to the throne; all he's got to do is kill his brother and eventually he'll be the big boss. Andrew and Edward missed their chance, which is why they hang out with paedos and make rubbish TV game shows to get attention. Whenever I feel like I've done something stupid, I just play Edward's "What'd you think?" moment to the press after his Royal Knockout quiz show and I feel better about myself. The YouTube version mixing the moment his dreams are shattered with keyboard cat is particularly good.
You just know that every time news of the Queen prolonging her reign comes out, Andrew and Edward share a quiet high five at their brother's expense. Probably over the back of one of their cousins while in the midst of a royal threeway.
William has picked the perfect time to marry. It is only a matter of time before the royal ugly gene takes over completely. The Hot Diana gene put up a valiant fight, William was almost good looking there for awhile, but hotness is recessive—the butt-ugly gene is dominant, especially where the royal family is concerned. Royal family men are like the Emperor from Star Wars; the older and more powerful they get, the more they look like the lovechildren of Sloth from The Goonies and Mr Ed. As the years pass, they grow paler and sicklier and their hair just sort of melts away. Like a fog. And the jowls… dear god the jowls.
I suppose it's at this point I should explain that most of the stuff above is unfounded rubbish. I'm sure the royals do good work and earn all that money we give to them. I bet Prince Andrew pumps tons of money out of his paedo mates for the country (yes, I know I already did that joke) and Charles… well, you know… sorry, what does he do again? Oh well, at least I got through the entire column on the royal family without calling Prince Philip a racist.
As much as I take pot shots at the royal family, it is quite difficult to be peed off at someone who gives you a day off work. And to be totally fair, they've chosen a wonderful time of year to do it. They could've been real dicks and done it in February. Frankly, it's hard for me to imagine anything better than a beer on a sunny, spring patio on a workday; hell, I might even watch a bit of the wedding on TV. Oh, that's right, no I won't.
This entry was posted in A Canadian in New Basford, nottingham, published and tagged andrew, charles, harry, kate, philip, prince, racist, royal, wedding, wills on April 20, 2011 by Robert Cutforth.
I hate Nick Clegg
I hate Nick Clegg.
I hate his stupid side parting and his beady eyes. I hate his over-elaborate hand gestures and that horrible voice – you know, the one that sounds like a geography teacher talking through a trumpet mute. I hate his guts. I hate Nick Clegg more than I hate David Cameron. Turning the Tory logo into a happy little tree and spouting that buildingstrong-communities BS didn't fool anyone; we knew before the election that he'd send thousands of people to the breadline and leave grannies out in the cold, because that's what his people do. No-one was surprised when David Cameron proved to be an out-of-touch, banker-loving, public schoolboy dickhead. The man wears his out-of-touch banker-loving, public schoolboy dickheadedness on his sleeve.
Nick Clegg, on the other hand, was supposed to be different. He was new and exciting; he was saying new and exciting things! He'll vote against tuition rises! He'll make taxes fair! He'll break up the banks and make sure that they pay for the damages they caused! He'll keep his promises!
Since he's become Deputy Prime Minister, he's tripled the tuition cap, he's let Vodafone and a number of other corporations get away with avoiding paying billions in tax, and he's allowed the banks (including the ones now part-owned by us) to pay their executives millions of pounds in bonuses.
Most politicians are liars and all are guilty of straying from election promises, but it takes a special kind of prick to do the exact opposite of what you said you'd do. I'd almost be impressed at his cojones if it wasn't so tragic. OK, I suppose I'm being a bit unfair, there is one promise he did keep, the promise that he'd make 'Real Changes'. We just didn't realise he was talking about his own policies. In a few short months, the coalition has managed to turn the nation into a giant human centipede with the bankers and CEOs at the front, then Cameron, then Clegg, then the rest of us, only somehow our mouths are stitched to everyone's backsides.
There are many reasons to hate Nick Clegg, but I suppose the raising of the tuition cap winds me up the most. If there is one thing I've always loved about Britain, it's the way people are educated in this country. Indulge me for a moment, while I tell you why I don't have a university degree, because this is a little peek into the future for many kids in this country.
University in Canada is expensive and has been for ages – although not as expensive as it is in the UK now, mind – and most Canadian students need to get loans to pay for it. When I was accepted into uni, the government had pawned off their student loan services to the banks and they doled out money based on 'financial need'. Despite the fact that my family didn't have much money, the bank decided that they would only provide about half the money it would take to cover my tuition and books.
This meant my father had to pay for a large chunk (more than he could afford) and I had to work while I took classes. Not to mention the fact that I was now on my way to acquiring a massive amount of debt; debt that I would have to start paying back the minute I graduated.
What this does is change the question "What do I want to do with my life?" to "Which degree is going to give me the best chance of getting a job after I graduate?" The two things I was remotely good at (Fine Art and English) don't pay very well, so I chose Commerce. Of course I'll make money with a Commerce degree, it's got money right in the name.
Unfortunately for me, I have the maths skills of a laboratory chimp and promptly started failing all my courses. Did you know that they sneak maths into every course in the first year of a Commerce degree? I knew Math 210 was going to have some maths in it, and I thought maybe Micro Economics 101 would have a touch, but even a course called Policy and Environment was crammed to the gills with maths. That's false advertising, that is.
But it was too late to change – we'd already started paying all this money. I worked my night job, sat in lectures that might as well have been in Chinese, and took courses without the books I needed, because I was waiting for payday to get the money for them. I watched my savings disappear and my debt skyrocket.
I maxed out a credit card so I didn't have to ask my parents for more money. I hid my grades from them. I spent most of my time feeling guilty and ashamed that they were wasting all of their money on their idiot son. It was the most depressing time of my life. When I finally did flunk out, it came as a relief for me and for them.
After that, I worked for a number of years on an assembly line, went to night school and ended up with a couple of college diplomas, but it's not the same. No matter what Clegg tells you, there is nothing like a university degree. Not having one has been a hindrance to me my whole life; I will always wonder what it would've been like to have a degree and to do something that I truly loved rather than simply working to pay the bills.
Would I have a degree now had money not been a part of the equation at the start like it used to be in this country? Who knows. One thing's for sure, I would have had a much better shot at it if I'd enrolled in something I enjoyed and wasn't always worried about money. Post-secondary education is one of the few things left that the UK does better than anywhere else on the planet. Why would anyone want to mess with that?
This entry was posted in A Canadian in New Basford, column, published on February 9, 2011 by Robert Cutforth.
I have been in exactly three proper fights in my life. I know that probably sounds like a lot to you, the average Nottinghamian, but I'm from a small Southern Alberta town and there's not a lot to do out there. Caving each others faces in is outranked only by 'designing beer bongs' and 'burning stuff' in the list of top ten prairie pastimes. Growing up in Brooks and only being involved in three fights makes me a bit of a pantywaist by Albertan standards
My first fight was a result of a junior high intramural floor hockey kerfuffle with a kid named Mike. This is exactly how the fight went:
Mike put me in a headlock, threw me to the ground, sat on top of me and asked; "Do you give up?"
I said; "No!"
He punched me in the face
I said; "Yes!"
He got off me and went back to his floor hockey game while I had a bit of a cry.
I learned a valuable lesson that day: I am truly crap at fighting. I swore I would never put myself through that again. It took a little thing called 'New Year's Eve' to make me break that promise. Twice. I've never been much of a scrapper, even when I've had a few. On a normal night out when my body has decided I've had too much to drink, my stomach sends a signal to my brain that says, "Screw being social – fried chicken and bed are now more important than breathing."
Thirty minutes later, I am tucked up in bed covered head-to-toe in the Colonel's spices while my mates (and often my wife) are back at the bar wondering where I've gotten to. People who know me back home have long gotten used to my disappearing act and dubbed the phenomenon my 'Robbie Auto-pilot'. Robbie Auto-pilot usually kicks in sometime around the fourth or fifth pint, which has saved me from making a dickhead of myself many times. I love Robbie Auto-pilot.
New Year's Eve is Robbie Auto-pilot poison. Robbie Auto-pilot doesn't understand why it's so important to drink J-Bombs and champagne at midnight, or why no one will let him go home. What these people don't understand is that if Robbie Auto-pilot is stopped from leaving and forced to carry on drinking past his limit, he becomes Robbie-Asshole. And the only way to get Robbie-Asshole back into his box is to punch him back in.
My second fight started at the end of the night on New Year's Eve 1999. Robbie Auto-pilot had a foot out the door, but was stopped by my best mate, who turned him back in and bought him a bottle of champagne. Robbie-Asshole repaid him for his generosity by calling his girlfriend a whore. I have no recollection of what happened next; I do know that I woke up the next morning with a sore face and a distinct absence of fried chicken. My third fight happened two New Year's Eve's later; different guy, same insult, same result. (Who even says 'whore' anyway? It's a ridiculous word. I don't know where Robbie-asshole has picked this up; only 70s porn stars and saloon owners in spaghetti westerns say 'whore').
It goes without saying that NYE – like most things which involve copious amounts of alcohol – is taken more serious over here than it is back in Canada. For starters, my pals back home have learned that if Robbie Auto-pilot wants to go home – even if it's ten to midnight on New Year's Eve – it's best to let him go. My English mates aren't quite as enlightened; previous attempts to at that time were met with utter contempt. Also, you people have this horrible ritual called 'rounds', and on 31 December, these rounds are expensive. If I've bought a round of champagne for everyone, I can't leave before I get my own back, because while Robbie Autopilot has my personal safety at heart, he's not an idiot.
New Year's Eve is celebrated in this city the same cack-handed way that every other holiday outside of Christmas is celebrated. It always starts with good intentions; Bands are booked, tickets are printed, champagne is chilled, party poppers are bought. But by half ten the champagne's been quaffed, the poppers popped and the bar is a sweaty, steaming mass of shouting, slobbering faces, gyrating arms and legs and flying sparkly bits; Frankly, you're lucky to get out alive. In my first New Year's Eve over here, I was rugby-tackled by a massive guy dressed as Dennis the Menace. I escaped a severe humping by said man, but only just.
My second limey New Year's Eve started with tequila shots and ended in me dislocating my shoulder wrestling a mate on the sidewalk. We actually counted down to 1am that night; everyone was so paralytic that no one noticed that midnight had passed. Oh, and last year my brother-in-law pulled me away from the bar before Robbie-Asshole got my face pounded in for calling a woman at the bar a, quote, "Whoring she-chav".
This year, the idea of going to a New Years party in fancy dress is being bandied about. Ordinarily, I despise fancy dress, but it might be a good idea for my own protection. I've decided to go either as Pudsey Bear or as George Osborne, the thinking being that no one can get angry at a giant Pudsey bear, no matter how sweary it gets, while if I go dressed as George Osborne, people would half expect me to call them 'whores'. I could walk the streets kicking pensioners and disabled people in the balls with boots made from gold bullion and people would think it was part of the act. Oh, look at that crazy George Osborne; he's set that guy in the wheelchair on fire, what a nut!
I will try to make sure Robbie Auto-pilot remains intact this year, but if you do happen to see a
bloodied Pudsey on the street this New Year's Eve walking around aimlessly, don't speak to him – just point him into the nearest SFC. He'll take it from there.
This entry was posted in A Canadian in New Basford, column, nottingham, published on December 21, 2010 by Robert Cutforth.
The lovely British summer
Writers note: This column was written last July in preparation for the August issue of LeftLion. Obviously, the beautiful hosepipe-ban-inducing weather we were having had (in true British fashion) gone to shit shortly after this article was written. Some day I will learn that writing about current events in a column that comes out bi-monthly is a stupid idea. Just pretend you're reading this last July. In fact, I'd recommend closing the curtains and reading it in front of a 1000 watt bulb.
Ah, Summertime. Jumping fish, high cotton, rich daddies and good-looking mommas. It's been wonderful, hasn't it? This summer has been so good that I can hardly believe I'm in England. Isn't that cause to celebrate? Of course not, dummy – that just gives Brits more to moan about.
Just this minute, I have had a British woman complain to me about the heat. It is 25 degrees outside. Twenty five. How have you people survived this long? In other countries, if the temperature dips below fifteen, people put on a jacket. If it rises above 23, they wear shorts. In England, if the temperature rises or falls out of that range, people die.
A discussion on which factor sunscreen one should wear is a twenty-minute conversation in this country. Balancing 'acquiring a tan' with 'not dying of skin cancer' is a tricky business when you're born with that pale blue British skin. It wouldn't be so difficult to choose the right sunscreen if the weather forecasters could actually predict the weather more than fifteen minutes in advance.
I don't know why they bother with a three-day forecast; they'd be more accurate if, from March to August, they said "sunny breaks, low to mid twenties with a chance of showers" every single day. They'd get it right more often than they do now with all their fancy weather-detecting equipment. Cameron should forget canning thousands of public sector workers to save some cash; he could just sell off a couple of BBC Doppler radars.
This summer has also changed my mind about chavs. They aren't a pinheaded menace at all. They're actually more evolved than the rest of us; higher beings who've developed a gene that makes them impervious to the heat. In June when we had that really hot spell (it actually got to twenty eight one day), I saw a chav standing at the train station dressed in heavy grey sweatpants, a massive grey hoodie and a black nylon jacket. He didn't seem bothered at all – he just stood, cool as a cucumber, poking at his stolen mobile. I was in a t-shirt and shorts and was sweating like I had just ingested the Sun.
But it's not just the young chavs; the old, tubby, bald-headed chavs who walk around town wearing nothing but pimp shades, England shorts and a pint of Carlsberg don't feel the heat either. They don't bother with sunscreen at all, and yet their bald heads and man-tits are both perfectly bronzed, without a hint of sunburn or melanoma. Aside from the slight leathery-ness of the man-tits and the beach ball paunches, you'd almost say they look healthy. Glowing, even.
Unfortunately for me, I seem to have adopted the (non-chav) British sensitivity to the heat. I actually caught myself on a particularly hot day saying to my wife; "Man, it's hot outside, I think I prefer cycling in the rain than in this bloody heat". Yes, I moaned about having to cycle on a sunny day. How good is my life that cycling on a sunny day is my biggest worry? It could have only been a more British move if I did it sporting a mitt full of sovs and scoffing a chip cob. After I said it, my wife and I stared at each other in silence for a few awkward moments before turning and walking away, pretending it had never happened.
The most important thing about Summer, however, it that it absolutely sucks if you're a British sports fan. It's not brilliant at any time of the year, really, but it's especially crap between June and August. I'm not even going to get into the football – my God that was awful, but at least that pain is only inflicted on us every four years – but Wimbledon does it to us every year.
Watching Wimbledon is like having a delicious steak dangled high over your head that's lowered slightly every time Murray advances. At first the steak is so high that you can barely see it. You say to yourself; "Sure, steak would be fantastic, but there's no point in even dreaming about it, just look how high it is; I'll just have river trout and runner beans instead." But then Murray beats some shmo in straight sets, the steak is lowered a bit and you think; "Hmm, I still don't think I'm going to get that steak, but it does look pretty good". Murray then beats someone you've actually heard of and the steak is lowered again. It wasn't Federer he beat, mind, but it was someone with a number beside his name.
Murray wins a couple more times and the steak is lowered again and again until it's at a level where you can smell it, and – if you stand on your tiptoes – you can just about touch it with your fingertips. The peppercorn sauce drips down onto your face, and it drives you mad. "Yes! I'm going to get that steak this time, and oh my God, just look at it, it's more beautiful and succulent than I could have ever imagined!" And then, just as you're about to bathe yourself in its delicious steaky goodness, it morphs into a giant turd and falls directly into your salivating, gaping mouth.
If that's not horrible enough, there actually was a good sports story in this country over the summer – but because it happened at the same time as the World Cup, no one cared. England smoked the Aussies in their one day series, beating them in three straight matches. You just know that next summer when the Ashes have the British viewing public all to themselves, Kevin Pietersen and Paul Collingwood will double team Andrew Strauss's missus the night before the First test, Shane Warne will come out of retirement six stones lighter with a new bionic arm and he'll bowl the greatest match in the history of cricket knocking out the entire English side in the first over.
But there I'll be, mouth agape, ready for another massive turd to be shovelled in, for by then I will be like the rest of you losers and have developed a taste for it.
Watching the World Cup in Engerland
When I worked at a petrol station in high school back home, we had a number of Maple Leaf flags dotted all around the forecourt. One day, an old fella came in, pointed at one of the flags and sneered, "That flag is a disgrace!"
"What do you mean?" I asked, thinking he must be some flag-hating, anti-government nut.
"What I mean is that young men died for that flag and you don't have the decency to fly it properly. Just look at the state of it!"
You would've thought we'd lit the flag on fire and put it out by projectile vomiting on it. If you lowered the Hubble Telescope to gas pump level and pointed it straight at that flag, you'd only just make out the three threads flapping awry at the corner.
No matter how many times we replaced them, we always got complaints about the state of our flags. So I can only imagine what one of those geriatric Canuckian flag-spotters would say if we'd ever written 'World Cup Special! Fish, Chips & Mushy Peas for £2.99!' in scratchy black felt tip across the flag, like they do at my local chippy.
No true patriotic English footy fan is happy with the national flag as it is. It needs additions; accompaniments, if you will. The English flag is the tapas of national flags; the more added bits, the better. 'Nottingham Forest Football Club' is four words and there are four white rectangles on the English flag. Frankly, it would be an insult to maths not to fill them in.
Along with vandalising flags, people who love England grow potbellies and shave their heads. I assume this is homage to Churchill; He was morbidly obese, bald as a bean, and he really loved England, I hear. Obviously, tall, skinny, hairy people must hate England, like, say, Russell Brand. Just look at him – I bet he doesn't even own a top hat. Kate Moss is obviously another rabid Blighty-despiser – not once have I ever seen her work a monocle into her ensemble. Osama Bin Laden, Jesus, Shaggy from Scooby Doo…the list of skinny, hairy anti-Anglos goes on and on.
Personally, I find most blatant displays of patriotism gag-inducing, especially during the World Cup, but it can be a good thing in small measures. The people I really don't understand are the ones who don't care about the England team at all. People who avoid watching the World Cup and who actually whinge about it taking up so much TV time – What is wrong with you? I don't care if you're depressed that England lose every time, or hooliganism makes you cringe, or if you hate Frank Lampard (who doesn't?) – there is simply no excuse for not supporting your national side. Forget this community-volunteering BS Cameron keeps parping on about; watching England play in the World Cup with your mates should be required by law.
I actually had a mate of mine, a Manchester United fan, say to me, "I hope England lose." He was more concerned about Rooney getting injured than England winning the biggest trophy on earth. Colonials will never understand this. You will never hear an American say; "Daggummit, what dang fool put all this dang track and field on my ding-dang picture box?" If the US had a decent Jai Alai team, Jai Alai fever would sweep the nation. Have you ever heard an Aussie sniveling about all the swimming on TV during the Olympics?
Take me, for example; I am not what one would call sporty. I'm a stumpy Canadian geek with the athleticism of a Teletubby and the coordination of a three-toed sloth on meow meow. I avoid playing sport like the plague, but that doesn't stop me from watching Canada compete. In fact, when Canada won the ice hockey gold at the Winter games last February, I actually cried. Cried!
But perhaps it's not that you don't like watching England. Maybe you want to participate in the World Cup revelry and drunken pub conversations, but can't, simply because know nothing of the England team. Let me give you a few pre-World Cup tips that will help get you up to speed:
Peter Crouch is aptly named, as he's the only player who needs to crouch down to head balls in. He's the guy that disappears when he turns sideways, which is why he is able to sneak into the box without being seen by the defenders.
David Beckham is the guy attending the World Cup in place of the WAGs. To keep the players from missing their wives too much, David's going to orange his face up and stagger around the dressing room in high heels, pausing from his cocaine and G&T sessions just long enough to give John Terry a half-time hand-job.
Lampard and Gerrard go together like polar bears and armadillos. Lamps and Stevie G are two creatures that cannot exist together in the natural world. The only place they have any business being within 100 feet of each other is in an artificial environment like the zoo. Or Benidorm.
If you really do hate the England team and cannot watch them without booing, simply restrict your boos to whenever Ashley Cole touches the ball. No one will pay you any notice. In fact, it might get you laid.
Wayne Bridge is the idiot watching the World Cup from his couch because he traded his England career for a big, pink diamond tiara awarded every year to the biggest drama queen on earth.
It really is a lot of fun to be involved, from the absurd hope at the beginning of the competition all the way to the communal whinging when England go out on penalties. Singing songs, binge drinking and spouting borderline racist banter in the office – what's not to like? Sure, you will be doused in cheap lager at some point, you may be on the wrong end of a shouting match or two, you'll be embarrassed by other drunken English footy fans and, yes, your town centre will be transformed into a 24-hour townie-barf hell, but believe me, it could be worse:
You could be supporting the Canadian soccer team.
This entry was posted in A Canadian in New Basford, nottingham, published and tagged A Canadian in New Basford, cup, england, flag, football, world on June 10, 2010 by Robert Cutforth.
More hood would be good
The LeftLion version (including Al Needham's rebuttal can be found HERE
Oh God – an entire LeftLion dedicated to Robin Hood? I'm surprised you bothered to pick it up. I'm even more surprised LeftLion have done it in the first place, I didn't think Robin Hood was cool enough for this magazine. I wouldn't be surprised if this 'Robin Hood issue' is just an ironic piss-take. There's probably a nasty drawing of Robin Hood on the cover, strung out on heroin, selling Big Issues with his cock out.
I don't care; I'm pro-Robin Hood and proud of it. Yes, man-tights aren't cool and yes, there have been some truly crap Robin Hood-related tourist attractions in this town but does that mean Nottingham should shut out Robin Hood completely? Frankly, you'd be positively mad to say 'yes'.
Do you know what other cities would do to have Robin Hood? There is a Canadian town whose biggest draw is that it sounds like a planet from Star Trek and another that houses the world's largest perogy. Let me say that again; the world's largest perogy.
I'm sure it draws Ukrainians in by the truckload, but damn – how bad does Glendon, Alberta have to suck that a giant statue of a meat dumpling (on a fork!) is its main landmark? If the Mayor of Glendon found out that the guy who played Kevin Costner's butt double in Prince of Thieves once stopped there to have a dump, Glendon would now be known as Robinhoodland.
I'm not saying Nottingham needs to put every penny of arts spending into Robin Hood-related festivities, but how about changing the name of the Goose Fair to Robin Hood Fair and tacking on a medieval market and international archery competition? You would have little Korean kids peeing their pants in excitement at the prospect of coming to Nottingham.
Nottinghamian apathy towards Robin Hood has not just lost you a tourism buck or two, it's done something far worse—it's lost you Sherwood Forest—the desecration of which is a national disgrace. I remember how excited I was to see it and how disappointed I was when I got there. Whenever friends of mine from back home come to visit me, that's the first thing they want to see, and the first thing they whinge about when they go back home.
Nottingham is a very cool town; easily one of my favourite places in the UK even in its current Hood-less state. Does that mean adding Robin Hood back into the mix to attract tourism would be such a bad thing? Definitely not. The world loves Robin Hood – why not make a buck or ten off of those suckers? Maybe then the Sherwood Forest Trust wouldn't have to rely on donations and failed lottery bids to continue with the very good (and extremely important) work they are doing now to save Sherwood Forest. That can only be a good thing.
Listen up, Nottingham: you need to bring Robin Hood back into your massive immediately. The poor, neglected bastard is in the Thurland on his own and a dirty Yorkshireman has just roofied his drink…
This entry was posted in A Canadian in New Basford, nottingham, published and tagged A Canadian in New Basford, hood, nottingham, robin on April 23, 2010 by Robert Cutforth.
Why Omari Roberts should never have seen the inside of a courtroom.
Yesterday, the charges against Omari Roberts, the man who stabbed two teenagers who were burglarising his mother's home, have finally been dropped.
The charges were dropped not because the Crown had taken a second look at the case and decided that Omari had in fact acted lawfully; no, they were dropped because their entire case hinged on the lies of a teenaged burglar.
According to reports on the BBC news site and others, the second burglar changed his testimony by telling social workers three things that differed from his original statement:
He was, in fact, carrying a knife at the time of the burglary. He originally said he wasn't carrying a weapon.
He "would have killed" Omari if he had the chance
Omari did not chase him down the street as he had originally stated.
However, if you read the CPS's own definition of "reasonable force", Omari should not have been charged with murder, even if this boy's original statement was in fact true.
According to the CPS's joint public statement on reasonable force:
"Anyone can use reasonable force to protect themselves or others, or to carry out an arrest or to prevent crime. You are not expected to make fine judgements over the level of force you use in the heat of the moment. So long as you only do what you honestly and instinctively believe is necessary in the heat of the moment, that would be the strongest evidence of you acting lawfully and in self-defence. This is still the case if you use something to hand as a weapon.
[You do] not [have to wait to be attacked] if you are in your own home and in fear for yourself or others. In those circumstances the law does not require you to wait to be attacked before using defensive force yourself.
If you have acted in reasonable self-defence, as described above, and the intruder dies you will still have acted lawfully."
So even if the boy was telling the truth, and he wasn't carrying a knife, Omari could still lawfully use a weapon to defend his mother's home. But what if he had chased the boy out of the home?
"[Chasing a burglar] is different as you are no longer acting in self-defence and so the same degree of force may not be reasonable. However, you are still allowed to use reasonable force to recover your property and make a citizen's arrest. You should consider your own safety and, for example, whether the police have been called. A rugby tackle or a single blow would probably be reasonable. Acting out of malice and revenge with the intent of inflicting punishment through injury or death would not."
This is the bit the CPS used to bring a charge of murder on Omari. The boy's original statement said that Omari chased him down the street; The Crown's argument is that the time spent chasing the boy could've been used to call the police. But hang on, the boy he allegedly chased and attacked lived. The boy Omari killed never left the house, so how can the chasing of the second boy result in a murder charge? If the chasing of the second boy is the part the CPS used to bring charges, then surely the only charge that could be laid is GBH, is it not?
But this is not the biggest problem with this case. The biggest problem is that the prosecution's entire argument revolved around a teenaged burglar's testimony; a teenaged burglar with an Asbo and a number of previous convictions. Why is a burglar's testimony given more consideration by the prosecution than the victim's statement? With whom does the burden of proof lie?
It's just another case that illustrates what a grey area "reasonable force" is under UK law. This law needs to be strengthened so when a situation arises where it's one's word against another's, the victim's statement is considered to be at least on par with the attacker's statement. The word of a teenaged delinquent should simply not be enough to bring charges.
Life would be easier if all burglars told the truth and had the good sense to run away when confronted by a homeowner, but it doesn't work that way. Sometimes the bad guys lie and sometimes they have no intention of leaving without a fight. Sometimes they're just kids.
However, Burglary is not a petty crime even if it is perpetrated by kids. It's a very serious crime; one in which split-second decisions are required by the homeowner if he's going to get out of it alive. Omari Roberts made remarkable split-second decisions. He protected his home and his family by attacking two burglars, he ignored the urge to chase a burglar down the street and he even had the mental wherewithal to refrain from stabbing the boys in obviously lethal areas. He stabbed the boy twice in the knee and Juett once in the shoulder; if he really wanted to kill them, he could've gone for their necks or chests. Then, once both boys were incapacitated, he stopped attacking them and called the police. In short, he did absolutely nothing wrong.
The death of Tyler Juett is an unfortunate and a very sad thing, but if Omari Roberts had received a life sentence for murder, that would've been the real tragedy in this case. Frankly, it should never have seen the inside of a courtroom.
The CPS now need to step up and do the honourable thing. They need to compensate Omari for his court costs, apologise to him and his family for all the hurt and distress they've caused and above all, change the law so another innocent man does not get charged with murder for simply defending himself and his home.
This entry was posted in A Canadian in New Basford, news, nottingham, published and tagged cps, nottingham, omari, roberts on April 19, 2010 by Robert Cutforth.
SUBSCRIBE TO THE END OF ALL THINGS NEWSLETTER
Tweets by @endofallpodcast


text:
Yimtubezinash Woldeamanuel Mulate is an Ethiopian physician and microbiologist researching infectious diseases, hospital-acquired infections, and antimicrobial resistance. She is an associate professor of medical microbiology at Addis Ababa University.

Life
Woldeamanuel completed a M.Sc. and Ph.D. in medical microbiology and a M.D. at the Addis Ababa University (AAU). Woldeamanuel joined the faculty of AAU in 1997. She is an associate professor of medical microbiology. She heads the department of microbiology, immunology, and parasitology in the school of medicine at AAU. Woldeamanuel researches infectious diseases, hospital-acquired infections, antimicrobial resistance and multiple drug resistance. She investigates pathogens including MRSA, ESBL, VRE, and MDR-TB. Woldeamanuel is a Fellow of the Ethiopian Academy of Sciences.

References

External links

Living people
Year of birth missing (living people)
Place of birth missing (living people)
Ethiopian microbiologists
20th-century women physicians
Ethiopian women scientists
20th-century women scientists
21st-century women physicians
21st-century women scientists
20th-century biologists
21st-century biologists
Women medical researchers
Women microbiologists
Addis Ababa University alumni
Academic staff of Addis Ababa University
Fellows of the Ethiopian Academy of Sciences

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Play Bingo at Flutters in Hinckley, Leicestershire. Contact venue on telephone number 01455 637097 for opening times, entrance costs, Bingo membership information and prize money.
Have you been to Flutters? Please rate this attraction to assist others.
How many thumbs for Flutters?