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Girl of My Dreams
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Girl of My Dreams
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"ELIZABETH GWEN 27.4.70" in Chit-Chat.
Girl of My Dreams
« on: January 27, 2013, 04:56 PM »
When Jill got pregnant by her boyfriend, she was horrified. She was a married woman and a Sunday School Superintendent. She had a reputation to live up to, but now she was carrying an adulterine. If her friends and family were to find out, they would be appalled but how could she hide it?
She wouldn't be able to tell her husband the baby was his, because he would know that it wasn't, because she hadn't let him have sex for two and a half years.
There was only one thing she could do: beg her husband's forgiveness and ask him to let her stay and bring the baby up as his, and then once she'd got his name on the baby's birth certificate she would be able to leave him and go off with her boyfriend, without anybody ever knowing the truth, and her clever, little scheme might have worked quite well, had there not been one or two rather important points she completely overlooked.
Sunday October 5th. 1969.
34 Brunswick Road, Fair Oak, Eastleigh, Hampshire.
After washing up the lunch things, I left the kitchen, and crossed the hall into the lounge. The autumn sun was streaming in through the large front-room window filling the room with a rich golden glow. It was my favourite sort of day. The golden glow filled me with a sense of peace and well-being.
I stopped in the doorway. Something was wrong. My wife Jill was standing by the white-stone log-burning fireplace, which I'd built across the north wall from one side of the room to the other, with oak panelled seats in alcoves on either side, her left arm outstretched, her hand resting lightly on the mantelpiece.
She stood tall, slim and elegant in her county-style, green and brown tweed suit, cream silk blouse, tan tights and crocodile leather, high-heeled shoes. Her shining, auburn hair framed her fair, oval face and blue eyes, glamorously enhanced with cosmetics by Lancôme.
She looked every inch the lady, as she was wont to do, but why was she standing? Jill was never standing, when I entered the lounge on a Sunday afternoon. She was usually sitting on the sofa, talking to her old school-friend, Vic, or reading her novel.
And where was Vic? He was usually here by now to keep Jill company whilst I went sailing for the afternoon. I was grateful to him for his visits because it meant that I could go off on my sailing trips without having to feel guilty at leaving Jill on her own so much. I seemed to have become obsessed. As soon as the sun shone and the wind blew, I was off. I couldn't resist. I even went out in a Force 6 in the winter. My seventeen-foot Kestrel dinghy was difficult to sail single-handed, and I couldn't stand being beaten.
And why was Jill leaning on the mantelpiece? Jill didn't ever lean. She was too upright to lean: too upright physically and too upright morally. She was particularly upright, morally, about sex. She didn't believe in it. She didn't believe in married women engaging in it, much, and she didn't believe in unmarried women engaging in it, at all, and if they did and became accidentally pregnant, then, that was very much worse. That was the depths of depravity. Jill hated unmarried mothers with a vengeance, as she was quick to say, given the chance, which I didn't quite understand. It didn't seem very Christian.
We met after Sung Eucharist, one Sunday morning in February 1960, at All Saints Church Eastleigh, where I'd attended since the age of five, firstly as a Sunday School pupil with the Sunday-School teachers, Miss Taylor and Miss Gale, and then at 10, as a choir-boy, with the choirmaster, Mr. Lowton, and then at 12 as a boy scout, with the Scout-Master, Dennis Prior, and then at 15, as a Youth Club member, with the Youth Leader, Mr. Horton, and then at 18 as a communicant with Canon Lambert, the vicar, and then at 21, as an ordinand, with the curate, my friend Roger Atkins.
She was walking up the aisle as I was walking down. We met halfway. I stopped and asked her if there was anything I could do to help, and she bestowed upon me the most dazzling smile I'd ever seen. I basked in its glow. It filled the highly vaulted and deeply shadowed church with sunlight. It was like a benediction. I was completely captivated.
She told me that she was the new Sunday School Superintendent coming back from the morning session to report to the curate. She seemed like a gift from God sent to join me as my devoted partner, in my Divine calling of lifelong service to God and the Church.
I asked her if she would like a lift home after she'd finished talking to Roger, and she said yes, and so I waited for her and drove her back to her Auntie's house, where she was staying, and as we sat together outside of her Auntie's newspaper shop, at 1, Hamilton Road Bishopstoke, in my car, talking animatedly together, she told me, how she'd grown up in a house where she'd been deprived of affection by her father, and how her mother had tragically died of thrombosis, two years earlier, and how her father had thrown her out of the house, for staying out too late with her boyfriend, just a few months before, and how she'd had to move in and live with her Aunty Lily, where it was really cramped and uncomfortable, and I hadn't been able to help feeling sorry for her, and wanting to take her under my wing, like a waif from the storm and shower her with love and affection to make it up to her for the love and affection she'd been deprived of, as a child, which deprivation I realised, must have damaged her psychologically, and had been staggered to think what a coincidence it was, that with my psychological expertise, obtained from reading "Psychology, Religion and Healing" by Dr. Leslie Weatherhead, the moderator of the Methodist Church, I'd met somebody who needed psychological help, and couldn't help thinking that God must have sent her to me, because He wanted me to devote my life to looking after her, and felt overwhelmingly privileged to think that He had honoured me with such a profound and important calling and couldn't help thinking what a weighty responsibility it was and three months later, under the infallible direction of the Almighty's guiding hand, I asked her to marry me, and, to my great relief and joy she accepted and three months later, we were married on the 27th August 1960, and now, after nine years of devoted married life together, here was my sweet and pure young lady of class and distinction standing before me, by the fireplace, in the lounge of our own home, waiting to tell me something extremely important it seemed by the way she was standing there, with her hand resting on the mantelpiece, like a teacher about to deliver a lecture.
But why was she leaning?
I didn't know. I'd never seen Jill leaning before, and it didn't occur to me that she wasn't so much leaning, as, propping herself up, for fear of falling down from feeling weak with trepidation, at the shocking news she had to impart: news so shocking that she feared she would never be able to impart it.
I studied her expression to see if I could work out what she was thinking. She wasn't looking very happy. That wasn't a good sign. Things weren't going very well for us at the moment. Relations had become rather strained. My marriage seemed to be heading straight for the rocks. I couldn't do anything right, and so I wondered what I'd done wrong now, and, as I waited patiently for her to tell me, I was surprised to see how long it was taking her to start. Why was that? She wasn't usually backward in coming forward if she had something important to say, she usually came out with it straightaway, sometimes with a vengeance, so why wasn't she now? I didn't know and studied her expression a bit more closely to see if I'd got things right.
She was looking unhappy wasn't she? Yes she was.
And she was looking annoyed, wasn't she?
Well, I wasn't quite so sure about that. Perhaps she wasn't looking annoyed, but if she wasn't looking annoyed, what was she looking?
And I couldn't believe what I was seeing. She was looking something I'd never expected to see her looking again.
She was looking worried, which meant she was coming to me with her problems again, and I couldn't help feeling overwhelmed with nostalgia. It was going to be like old times. I'd felt really privileged at being able to help her solve her problems in the past and so perhaps I was going to be able to feel really privileged at being able to help her solve them again and wondered what her problem was.
I guessed that it couldn't be much. Everything was going swimmingly for us. We'd managed to save up enough money to buy our own house two years earlier and I had a good job as a teacher and she'd been able to give up working full-time at Lloyds Bank to work part-time.
Whatever her problem was, I'd probably have it all sorted out in no time. I was even better at solving problems now, than I'd ever been. I'd got a degree in Sociology and Psychology at Exeter in 1965, the better to achieve it, and now I was studying for a master's degree in Educational Psychology, at Southampton which I was finding even more helpful, but why was she taking so long to tell me what her problem was? She seemed to be too frightened to speak, and decided that I should give her a bit of encouragement and said sympathetically.
'Is there anything wrong?'
'Yes,' she said meekly, with a brave, little smile, and I couldn't believe how deflated she looked. She looked as if she had all the troubles of the world on her shoulders, which she thought were beyond help from anybody, which I found most confusing. Why would she think that? I had no idea. It was quite ridiculous. She must be aware that she couldn't possibly have a problem that I wouldn't be able to sort out in five minutes, and I guessed that she was panicking for nothing, as she did sometimes, and asked her, consolingly.
'Do you want to tell me about it?'
'Yes.' She said bravely, and I became even more confused. Why was I getting only one word answers? When was I actually going to hear what her problem was?
'What's the problem then?' I asked, caringly.
'I'm pregnant.', she said, concisely, 'It's Vic's.'
And all sorts of strange things started to happen, the likes of which I'd never heard.
The first thing was that her words didn't register, but just kept going round and round inside my head, like a recurring echo, with my struggling to make sense of them in an endless debate with myself.
"Pregnant? But she can't be pregnant. You have to have sex to get pregnant and she doesn't like sex, and so she can't be pregnant. And even if she did like sex she wouldn't have had it with Vic, because that would have been adultery, and she wouldn't have dreamt of committing adultery, because it's a sin, and she's a devout Christian and a paragon of virtue who abhors sin and depravity, and denounces it, whenever she gets the chance, and so she can't be pregnant, but she says that she is, and that the baby is Vic's, so she must be, and it must be his, and it certainly can't be mine because she hasn't let me make love to her for two and a half years."
And with her looking so unhappy, I couldn't help feeling relieved to think it wasn't mine, for realising that whoever had made her look this unhappy was in deep trouble.
And then something even more strange started to happen. Everything became surreal. The light faded and the scene in front of me started to take on a sepia appearance as if I was looking through a brown mist.
And then something even more strange started to happen. A strong wind started to blow into my face, and I felt as if I were standing in the teeth of a gale, which felt so real that it made me fear that I was going to be blown over backwards, only to discover to my relief that something even more weird was starting to happen: my feet seemed to be becoming stuck to the floor to keep me upright so that I could defy the wind.
And then something even more strange started to happen. My body seemed to become perforated as if I was made of straw, and instead of blowing against me the wind started to blow through me.
And then something even more strange started to happen. My life started to flash before my eyes, as if I were drowning, but not in the way you would have expected with the scenes appearing as they actually occurred, but as if I was seeing them take place inside the illuminated compartments of an express train as it thundered past in the darkness at a level crossing, and so it went on for what seemed to be hours, until the meaning of her words finally sank in, and enlightenment started to dawn and my heart sank into my boots, as I finally realised what I was dealing with.
Jill was telling me what I'd been waiting for her to tell me for months.
She was telling me that she was going to leave me and go off with Vic but why was it making me feel sad? I shouldn't be feeling sad if she thought she was going to find greater happiness with Vic. I should be feeling happy for her, but then the awful truth sank in.
If the look on her face was anything to go by, she wasn't thinking that she was going to find greater happiness with Vic. She was thinking that she was going to find utter misery with him, and I couldn't help feeling sick with guilt.
When we'd met I'd thought that God had wanted me to devote my life to looking after her, and had felt overwhelmingly privileged to think that He had honoured me with such a profound and important calling but I'd failed. I'd allowed her to become utterly miserable, and then my heart sank even further as I realised how imminent that failure was.
Vic was, probably, already on his way round to pick her up, and she had, probably, already packed her bags and left them upstairs, and she was, probably, just waiting for me to offer to help her bring them downstairs and put them out on the doorstep, and so struggling to overcome my nausea, I said.
'Is there anything I can do to help?', expecting to hear her say: "Yes. You can help me bring my bags downstairs. Vic is on his way round to pick me up.", and expecting to see her walk past me out of the room, and up the stairs, inviting me to follow her, but to my utter astonishment, she didn't move but remained exactly where she was and said succinctly.
'Yes. I would like to stay with you, and I would like you to bring the baby up as yours.' And I couldn't believe it.
What did she want to stay with me for? I had no idea, and how could I bring the baby up as mine if it was Vic's? I couldn't.
'What do you want to stay with me for?' I asked in bewilderment. 'And how can I bring the baby up as mine if it's Vic's? He'll go mad.'
And to my amazement, the Jill, I knew and loved, returned, as she drew herself up to her full height, and asserted venomously.
'No it's not Vic's! It's mine! And it's got nothing to do with him at all!' And added, vindictively. 'It's all his fault I'm in this mess. I hate him, and I never want to see him again.'
And I felt quite encouraged to think that she hated him, but doubted that she never wanted to see him again for knowing how matey they were, and doubted that everything was his fault for knowing that he lived in awe of her and wouldn't dare do anything without her explicit permission, and started to consider her request more seriously.
On the one hand I felt relieved to think that my marriage hadn't ended in total failure, after all, and on the other realized that with Jill being pregnant, the only thing that mattered now was the baby's welfare, for being only too well aware how dependant its welfare was its mother's state of mind for having studied child-rearing as part of my psychology course at university and knowing that if a pregnant woman suffers stress it causes an excess of cortisol to be produced in her blood, which is transferred through the placenta into the foetus which weakens its system, causing it to become vulnerable to disease, chronic-stress and depression after birth, and for thinking that to be responsible for causing a child to suffer in this way, is the most heinous sin a person can commit, and one I had no intention of committing.
'OK,' I said, 'if you're sure Vic won't mind.'
'It doesn't matter whether Vic minds or not,' she re-asserted venomously, 'it's got nothing to do with him. It's my baby, not his!'
'OK,' I said, 'if you're sure,' and went to bed that night feeling rather confused. Although I felt relieved to think that my marriage hadn't ended in failure, and although I felt delighted to think that Jill and I were going to have a baby, I found it difficult to believe that we were going to be allowed to keep it. Was I really going to be allowed to rob Vic of his child? It didn't seem likely, but when I woke up the next morning, I was surprised to find that I felt quite the opposite.
Jill was right. It wasn't my fault if Vic had sown his seeds into a woman who didn't want him. It was his. If he'd wanted the baby then he should have made sure that he had the mother first.
[ Last edit by George183 January 28, 2013, 09:39 PM ]
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"ELIZABETH GWEN 27.4.70" in Chit-Chat.
Re: Girl of My Dreams
« on: January 29, 2013, 08:51 PM »
I'd always hoped that my baby would get the best possible start in life by being conceived under ideal circumstances, with parents who were totally devoted, but it hadn't, and I couldn't help feeling guilty for being largely to blame for having encouraged Jill to become involved with Vic, because I'd made the mistake of thinking it was what she wanted.
When I'd crossed the hall and entered the lounge, after Sunday lunch, a year earlier, I'd caught her and Vic sitting together on the sofa, kissing: their heads turned towards each other and their lips just touching.
Jill had leapt up off the sofa, as soon as she saw me, and shot off across the room like a rocket, laughing her head off, as if it was all a huge joke, but Vic hadn't. He'd remained sitting exactly where he was, with his head down between his knees, too frightened to move: the picture of guilt. I couldn't believe it. I would never have thought he would ever have allowed himself to be so shown up. He looked totally humiliated and debased. I felt sick with disgust. I'd always thought he was the model of honour and decency, as I had Jill, but it seemed I was wrong. They weren't honourable or decent. They were extremely dishonourable and indecent. They'd not only carried on behind my back, but had done it in my own house, with me in it, knowing I could walk in on them at any time, and catch them at it, and not caring if I did. They'd treated me with complete contempt, but why? What had I done to deserve it? I didn't know.
I'd always made Vic feel welcome as Jill's friend when he'd visited the house, and treated him with consideration and respect and had thought that he would have been grateful to me for my hospitality and have treated me with consideration and respect too, but he hadn't. And I'd always treated Jill with consideration and respect, and put her happiness first, and told her quite selflessly that if she were ever to meet somebody else she preferred, then she shouldn't feel guilty about it, but should tell me about it straightaway, and leave on a friendly and amicable basis with my blessing, and had thought that she would have been grateful to me for my thoughtfulness and have treated me with consideration and respect too, but she hadn't. Why not?
I didn't know. It was all very confusing and I couldn't work out if she was seriously interested in Vic, or not, and wondered what I could do to find out, and realized that there was only one thing I could do.
I would have to leave her on her own with him as much as possible, in the hope that if she was interested in him, then, in the fullness of time, her interest would grow to the point where she would be happy to tell me about it, and leave me and go off with him, but was surprised to find, after five months, that she still hadn't told me anything and hadn't shown much sign of being interested in him, either, until we went to a Ouija Board session at a friend's house, in March, when, to my amazement she showed every sign.
I'd never been to a Ouija Board session before and only went out of curiosity, but after fifteen minutes, I wished I hadn't bothered. It was a complete waste of time.
There were seven of us sat around a large, circular, polished, mahogany table: the host, Brian Sims and his wife, Jill and Vic, Jill's brother David and his wife Sandra, and myself. Everybody had their index finger placed lightly on the rim of the bottom of an upturned wine glass placed in the middle of the table, with the letters of the alphabet placed around the edge, and the words "YES" and "NO" placed on opposite sides: the "YES" card in front of Jill and the "NO" card in front of me. Vic was sitting to Jill's immediate right. The glass was supposed to spell out answers by sliding across the table, under the influence of the so-called spirit, which was supposed to work through our fingers to make the glass stop at letters, to spell out words, or move directly to the "YES" and "NO" cards to provide a quick answer, but it had gone nowhere.
It had just meandered around in the middle of the table with no sense of direction at all, and some people had become really upset at having received no answers to the grave questions they'd asked about their dead relatives, until finally I got so sick with boredom at having to watch the glass do nothing, and so frustrated at having to watch people suffer disappointment from failing to get the answers they wanted, that I decided to help them out, by answering their questions myself, and was surprised to see how easy it was for me to push the glass where I wanted it to go, until to my amazement, I found myself being confronted with Jill asking me a question about Vic, which I didn't understand, at all.
'Is Vic going to emigrate?' she asked, with a merry little laugh, and I couldn't believe it. Why was she asking the Ouija Board a question about Vic? Did she want everybody to think she was seriously interested in him? I wouldn't have thought so. And why was she asking the Ouija Board a question about him at all, when he was sitting right next to her? Why not ask him?
And why was she laughing? Asking the Ouija Board questions wasn't supposed to be funny. It was supposed to be serious.
And why was she asking a question about the living? You weren't supposed to ask questions about the living. You were supposed to ask questions about the dead, and my heart sank. Was it a trap?
Were Vic and she scheming together to catch me out? Was she asking me a question about Vic, to which she knew I didn't know the answer so that Vic could look up and contradict me if I got the answer wrong, and I started to feel sick and wish I'd never got started on answering the questions. You couldn't get caught out giving wrong answers about the dead, because the dead can't speak, but not the same could be said of the living. They could.
Now it looked as if I was going to end up looking completely stupid, and I studied Vic's face to see if I could work out what he was going to do. If he was glaring at me accusingly, I would know I was in trouble, otherwise not, and was relieved to see that he wasn't looking at me at all, but had dropped his head and was staring resolutely at a spot on the table in front of him.
So how should I answer Jill's question? Should I say "yes" or should I say "no"?
I had no idea. Jill hadn't said anything to me about Vic wanting to emigrate. Why not? She would have, if he had been, wouldn't she? It was a serious matter, and I would definitely have wanted to know about it, and suddenly realized that the answer to her question was obvious.
Vic must be thinking about emigrating or Jill wouldn't be bothering to ask a question about it, and my heart sank. That meant she was having secret conversations with him behind my back. Why was that? I didn't know, but I couldn't help feeling sick at her disloyalty, and I couldn't believe what a weird situation I was in.
Here I was at a Ouija Board Session, at a friend's house, trying to help people out by giving them the answers they wanted, only to discover that my dearly beloved wife was having secret conversations with another man behind my back. It was totally weird!
So how should I answer her question? Should I say "yes" or should I say "no", and suddenly realized that the answer was obvious. Obviously I should say "yes", and then I might be able to keep the conversation going, and discover even more secrets, and proceeded to push the glass slowly and steadily towards her and the "YES" card, expecting to see her laughing as merrily at my reply, as she'd laughed at her question, but was surprised to see that she wasn't laughing at all, but was looking rather worried, instead.
Why was that? I didn't know, but assumed it to be of no importance as she quickly recovered, and, with another merry little laugh, almost as merry as the first, asked.
'Is Vic going to Canada?'.
"Is Vic going to Canada?" I repeated to myself in absolute disbelief. What on earth did Canada have to do with anything? Why would Vic want to go to Canada? Did he know somebody there? Not as far as I knew. Did he like Canada? He'd never said so. So why would he want to go there? He wouldn't.
So how should I answer this question, and, to my great relief, I suddenly remembered the helpful conclusion I'd come to about the first question. How could I have forgotten it? Vic must be thinking about emigrating to Canada, or Jill wouldn't be bothering to ask a question about it, which meant that I'd now discovered two secrets she was keeping from me, and realized that if I were to say "yes" in answer to this question, I might be able to keep the conversation going and discover even more, and so, once again, pushed the glass, slowly and steadily to the "YES" card, expecting once again, to see her laughing as merrily at my answer, as she'd laughed at her question, only to find to my surprise that she was looking even more worried. Why was that? What was wrong with her? I didn't know. It was most confusing, and then, a very irritating thing happened.
Just as I was starting to feel really pleased with myself, at being able to induce my dearly beloved wife into revealing secrets she was keeping from me about conversations she was having with another man behind my back, and was looking forward to being able to induce her to reveal even more, Vic turned in his seat towards her, and whispered in her ear, loudly enough for everybody to hear.
'Stop asking questions!', which I couldn't believe.
Why was he poking his five eggs in? Who the hell did he think he was? What did my wife asking questions at a Ouija Board session have to do with him? Nothing, so he could keep his nose out of it, and I hoped she would ignore him, and tell him to get stuffed, and was relieved to see that she ignored him altogether, as with another merry little laugh she asked.
'Is Vic going to get married?', and I was even more stunned.
"Is Vic going to get married?" I repeated to myself in total disbelief. What did Vic's getting married have to do with anything? One minute we were talking about emigration and the next we were talking about marriage. What was the connection? There wasn't one as far as I could see, but then, the penny suddenly dropped and I understood everything.
I'd seen it all before. Jill was engaging in one of her favourite pastimes: taking the Mickey out of Vic. Now I knew exactly where she was coming from and why she was laughing when she asked her questions. She thought taking the Mickey out of Vic was hilarious, and I guessed she was harking back to an earlier session, when he'd unwisely related a conversation he'd had with a female colleague at work, and, had made the mistake of referring to her by name, as "Marianne", and she'd been down on him like a ton of bricks.
Jill saw Vic as her adoring, besotted, doting slave. He had, in fact, been professing undying love to her for twenty years, ever since they'd met as pupils at Barton Peveril Grammar School in Eastleigh, in 1949, aged 11, when he'd fallen madly in love with her at first sight, to be followed, ten years later by his asking her to marry him, unsuccessfully, the year before she met me, and so, for him, to have mentioned another woman, by name, in front of her, in company, had, in her eyes, been the ultimate treachery, and so she'd derided him about it, mercilessly, in front of her cousin Brenda and me, claiming that if he couldn't stop talking about Marianne in front of everybody, then it was obvious that he must be secretly obsessed with her, and, must be harbouring a secret desire to marry her, ignoring all his plaintive protests to the contrary, and reducing him to a squirming, writhing heap of embarrassment, and now, apparently, she was going to do it again, in front of everybody, which meant I now knew exactly how to answer her questions, and entered into the spirit of things by pushing the glass back across the table towards her and the "Yes" card with added enthusiasm, and was amused to see the shocked look on her face, as it shot towards her like a rocket, to come to a sudden halt in front of her, with all the fingers and arms attached, pointing at her, almost like an accusation.
She jumped back in fright and stared at it, in total fascination, as if it was a living thing, and then, once she'd got over the shock, said, with another merry little laugh,
'Is Vic going to marry somebody older than he?' the significance of which I understood immediately. It was a set-up. She was older than he, and Marianne was younger, which meant that if I were to say "no", it would rule her out and Marianne in, and realized that, in that case, I had a problem.
The "NO" card was on my side of the table, which meant that I couldn't push the glass towards it, and I couldn't pull it either, because I couldn't get enough purchase, and wondered what I could do to make it move towards me, and realized that the only thing I could do was press down on the rim to stop it moving away from me, and then, wait patiently for it to come back, and watched and waited, until eventually, it started to move slowly and falteringly, in my direction to stop at the "NO" card, and looked up at Jill, expecting once again, to see her laughing as merrily at my reply as she'd laughed at her question, only to find to my astonishment, that she was looking even more worried. What was wrong with her now? I was helping her to take the Mickey out of Vic as she wished, wasn't I, so, why wasn't she looking pleased about it? I had no idea, but assumed that she would start looking pleased soon, and watched and waited as she tried to recover herself before asking her next question, but was surprised to see that she couldn't.
Her merry little laugh fell flat and sounded hollow, as she said in a falteringly tone of voice.
'Is Vic going to get married in Canada?', and I couldn't believe it.
For her laugh to have fallen flat and sound hollow meant that it was false, but Jill wasn't capable of doing anything false. She was a paragon of virtue and a devout Christian. At least I'd always thought she was, but now I wasn't so sure, and then I got an even bigger shock.
Instead of her starting to look pleased at my replies, as I'd expected, she started to look even more worried: firing questions at me desperately, in rapid succession, so fast that I found it hard to keep up with her, and started to wonder if there was some sort of a duel going on between us to see who could wear the other out first, as she questioned me endlessly, about how many children Vic would have, and, what sex they would be, and, what their names would be, and, finally, what the name of his future wife would be, requiring me to have to spell out the name "M-A-R-I-A-N-N-E", at length, letter by letter, with some difficulty, only to find, to my utter astonishment, that upon seeing my reply, she ground to a halt, on the verge of tears, unable to speak, looking a total wreck, covered in sweat, like the victim of a virulent fever, as did Vic, whose head had dropped further and further, as Jill's distress had deepened, leaving me to wonder what on earth was wrong with them. What had got them so upset?
I didn't know. All I knew was that Jill was obviously a lot more interested in Vic, than she liked to make out, which came as no great surprise, and, that her laugh couldn't be trusted, which did, especially in the light of how often she'd used it in the past to convince me that the very idea of her being even remotely interested in him was laughable, which I now knew to be false. It was now perfectly obvious that she was extremely interested in him, which created an even more puzzling question.
Why, if Jill was so interested in Vic, was she still with me? Why hadn't she left? Was it because she loved me more? I would have liked to have thought so, but it didn't seem very likely, because she hadn't let me make love to her for two years, which didn't seem very loving, and then the answer suddenly hit me like a thunderbolt.
It was because she was like me. I didn't want the breakdown of my marriage to be my fault. I wouldn't be able to cope with the guilt. I wanted it to be hers, and she was the same.
She didn't want the breakdown of her marriage to be her fault. She wanted it to be mine. She didn't want to be the guilty party, who'd got caught out being unfaithful with another man, behind my back. She wanted me to be the guilty party who'd got caught out being unfaithful with another woman behind hers, so what could I do about that? There seemed to be only one thing I could do. I would have to pretend that I was being unfaithful with another woman behind her back, and that I was the guilty party and make sure that she found out, and then she would be able to blame me for the breakdown of her marriage, and leave me, and go off with Vic, without censure, as she wished.
The only snag was: how was I ever going to be able to find a woman, who was willing to help me pretend that I was being unfaithful with her behind my wife's back?
That wasn't going to be easy, but to my great surprise found, after only two weeks, the perfect opportunity arose.
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Jennifer Lawrence admits she would pretty much stalk John Stamos if she could get away with it.
Never mind the 49-year-old Stamos probably has socks older than 22-year-old Lawrence. While being interviewed by Conan O'Brien recently, Lawrence talked about what a mess she was while meeting Stamos at a party.
"He was at a party, and I turned into a perverted guy," Lawrence told Conan. "I was, like, following him into rooms and staring at his ass. I lost my mind. And I got so upset -- I didn't want to meet him because when I meet people, it's never good, and I was avoiding him, but then my friends brought him over because my friends are jerks, and I started really freaking out and he asked me if I was on mushrooms and I was like, 'No. I'm dead sober. This is just me.'"
Jennifer Lawrence is the greatest human being who has ever lived in Hollywood.
Of course, this all came as news to Stamos, according to MSN.com.
"For the first time I was totally oblivious," he tweeted. When a follower said he envied Stamos for having Jennifer Lawrence salivate over his rear end, he replied, "I envy myself!"
Good answer.
Contact Tony Hicks at firstname.lastname@example.com, on Facebook at www.facebook.com/BayAreaNewsGroup.TonyHicks, or on Twitter at twitter.com/insertfoot.

subset: commoncrawl


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Step Inside the SpaceX Dragon V2
This 45-foot long, 22-foot-diameter pill-shaped structure is a model of the BA-330, an inflatable space habitat designed by Bigelow Aerospace. The company plans to complete construction on two real modules by 2017. One day, governments, corporations, and even private citizens could link up multiple modules of the BA-330 to create research stations and space hotels.
Unlike the angular, metallic International Space Station, the BA-330 has a soft shell. That allows the module to fit into a small launch vehicle and then inflate in space. And the soft shell actually beats metal when it comes to deflecting dangerous space junk. "Think of it as a bulletproof vest that surrounds the vehicle," says Jay Ingham, Bigelow's program manager. Whereas the ISS is built to withstand a hit from a particle 5 millimeters in diameter, the BA-330's soft shell can deflect particles 13 millimeters or larger. "It will probably do better than that, but we can't find a gun to shoot particles that big," Ingham says.
The shell also provides better protection from radiation. "Metallic structures create a lot of secondary radiation," Ingham says. "As a high-energy particle hits something metallic, it almost sprays out the other end, so you get lower energy radiation, but a lot more of it. It's like a bullet hitting a piece of a glass windshield—you may not get hurt by the initial bullet, but it sprays little pieces of glass everywhere that can be just as dangerous." The BA330 absorbs the radiation rather than scattering it.
The mockup's interior has a generic design featuring some hypothetical research equipment. In reality, Ingham says, each BA-330's interior can be customized depending on what the customer wants to do with it.
And there's a lot of space to play with. ISS components had to fit inside a shuttle cargo bay that measured 15 feet in diameter and 45 feet long, putting a hard limit on their size. Once in space, the BA-330 can inflate to an interior volume of 300 cubic meters.
"Three or four of these would be bigger than the entire ISS, and that took 20-something launches to build," Ingham says. "We could build something similar probably in four or five trips." Bigelow is building a smaller habitat called the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module, or BEAM, that will dock with the International Space Station next year for manned testing.
8 New Ways to Search for Even More Planets


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Frederic Fekkai's Adir Abergel created the Twilight star's edgy do'. First, he applied Fekkai Full Blown Volume from roots to ends for some lift. Then, he dried Kristen's hair using only his hands. Adir curled the top section of her hair in various directions with a one-inch curling iron to create movement and applied Fekkai Beach Waves to texturize and loosen up the curls. He then pulled Kristen's hair into a high ponytail and wrapped hair from underneath around the base to secure it. As a finishing touch, Adir spritzed Fekkai Coiff Sheer Hold Hairspray.
It's a no-fuss style for Kristen's care-free attitude and I can't wait to try it! How about you?
Posted by Pia Bhattacharya


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Everything sold except the PS2
PS2 with about 10 games, 3 guitar hero games and 2 guitars 2 regular controllers and a logitech wireless controller. I think the network adapter on it is also something I had to add on at some point. Would like to sell this as a bundle...$75 +shipping?


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1927 Lincoln Highway Mystery At The Sutherland Station
Posted 12 May 2008 - 06:51 PM
Taking my tongue out of my cheek for a moment, if anyone has information to provide, I hope you will share it with us. I know Brian Butko featured this station in one of his Lincoln Highway newsletters. Based on a 1993 survey of historical buildings in Lincoln County, it is circa 1927. Nothing else is noted...
The cottage design was used by Phillips 66 and perhaps others, as suggested in photos on these and other sites:
The Hypotenuse Trail Chief Trail Blazer/ Pathfinder (me) stopped here at 1:13 PM CDT on April 24, 2008 as I pioneered the famed Slice Across America route. I photographed the interior of the building and the surrounding site, and collected an artifact that was on the pump island. So far as is known, these images are the only recent multi media photographic records of the site available to the public on line ..tell your friends you saw it here!
In the investigation process, a Mystery Pit was discovered. As an old time service station attendant, I cant identify a purpose for the pit. It is too shallow and narrow to have served as a service pit, it is not evidently designed to collect rain or water run off, and has no other evident utility. So what was it? Im thinking buried treasure.. ..no, I better not even joke about that or someone might take me seriously and dig up a historical site.
But what purpose did the pit serve? Someone out there has a post card or photo of this or a similar station. You can see this one in your minds eye .station building on the left, platform, perhaps with tires or other items for sale, and pump island, .probably with a post on its left side with sign, perhaps Phillips 66. But why the pit? And why a pump island so far from the cottage? Doesnt it rain and snow in Nebraska? Perhaps the cottage was moved? It is in the same place as a 1993 picture in the historical survey noted above.
Any ideas? See the Video! (Be patient on 5/11. If it hasn't been processed yet by Vimeo, try a couple of hours later)
Keep the Show on the Road!
Posted 21 July 2008 - 06:38 PM
Great pictures! I'd love to see more of them. The station is a Frontier -- a Colorado-based company. This is evidenced by the distinctive shape of the sign frame visible in your video. The mystery pit probably is a greasing pit. In the days of cars with tires like the one you pictured, greasing was done outside on racks -- typically at least. These racks were just 2 or 3 feet tall. In this case, it looks like a concrete platform was used, where the attendant would go under the car on the open, elevated end (by the tree). That's my guess, at least.
Do you have a link to additional pictures?
Posted 22 July 2008 - 06:33 PM
Great pictures! I'd love to see more of them. The station is a Frontier -- a Colorado-based company. This is evidenced by the distinctive shape of the sign frame visible in your video. The mystery pit probably is a greasing pit. In the days of cars with tires like the one you pictured, greasing was done outside on racks -- typically at least. These racks were just 2 or 3 feet tall. In this case, it looks like a concrete platform was used, where the attendant would go under the car on the open, elevated end (by the tree). That's my guess, at least.
Do you have a link to additional pictures?
Wow now we are talking, cooking with gas, and bringing the bacon home!!!! I think the station is a gem, but no one has been able to identify the pit, etc. until you did.
Ill see what other photos I took that might be of interest.
Keep the Show on the Road!
Posted 31 January 2013 - 07:19 PM
I saw this thread along time ago though I never posted because I procrastinated for about at least a few years before I join the forum.
Though being I always liked seeing things from the past. Into automotive history. My dad worked as a mechanic from before the war. As Archie Bunker said: you know the Big One, W W 2. So it always makes me happy to find an old gas station when on the road.
So time to respond that trench was a service pit. In the early days autos were serviced out doors. This is why many gas stations were able to be small in size because they did not have service bays.
Now that pit was not very wide. Though in that video you can see as if the sides have shifted inward a bit making the pit look narrower then it originally was.
There were some big cars made in the 1920's though many cars then were a lot narrower then cars of the post war years. So to have a car straddle the service pit safely best to make the pit on the narrow side.
The pit only had to be wide enough for the mechanic to get in there with an oil drain pan and use a grease gun.
Also that pit after 90 years could of filled in with a lot of wind blown dirt and debris so one can no longer see the true depth. (Reminds me of the ARM post where some one showed photos of a narrow mountain gap from say 1920's and now, think the location was in Calif. Boy did time change that road grade.)
Also money could of been tight when the pit was built and the mechanic sat on a short stool that was on casters as he would do a LOF.
Also pretty much all auto's in the 1920's used at least 20" wheels which made those automobiles sit a lot higher then we realize.
Posted 01 February 2013 - 12:00 AM
I didn't think it was a service pit at the time because the open end was never deep enough to allow a standing person. But your comment that cars were serviced outside made me think. Is it reasonable that it was a service pit that you rolled into on a service trolley?
I worked in a service station in my late high school and early college years, and serviced cars up on a rack. It never was a great position for many operations because you had to always reach over your head. It is actually more comfortable on your back. In fact the owner preferred to get under cars on a flat four wheel trolley rather than use the rack.
That would allow for a shallower pit, less expense, and a more comfortable working position. What do you think about that possibility?
Keep the Show on the Road!
Posted 01 February 2013 - 08:05 PM
I know that early gas station buildings having no service bay areas went from service pits to out side in the ground hydraulic lifts. For as we all know that lifts are better then working in pits. Safer too.
I can see a shallow pit being another way to save on contruction costs.
I have not seen any other use for a pit at a gas station that was not a service pit. So my vote is that is a service pit.
The early pits only had one entrance, as the pit in your photo. As more work related deaths happened because of the auto going on fire. Where the fire was between the mechanic and the entrance to the pit blocking the mechanics escape out of the pit.
This caused service pits to then be made with entrances at both ends to prevent mechanics from getting trapped.
Now do you remember the then and now photos that was posted here that showed a tree covered hill that had a narrow single lane dirt road that ran through the mountain gap?
Posted 01 February 2013 - 10:01 PM
Are you referring to Beales Pass? That post is at:
http://www.americanr...l=+beales +pass
Keep the Show on the Road!
Posted 02 February 2013 - 09:16 AM
Yes Dave, Beals Pass was the place. Thanks for reconnecting me back to that place.
Who does not like looking at old road scenes and then comparing them to what we see there today.
Thanks, Jeffrey
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From NBA.com:
"Artest originally was supposed to sit out with a sore right knee. But after the pregame shootaround, he decided to play and came through with 31 points and nine rebounds."
I didn't even know he was hurt.
Bender, however, did seem to do pretty well when he was in. Gave us a quick surge, really. Then we didn't see him again. I'm assuming because of the injury, but don't really know for sure.


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Updated to reflect Gimmie Credit analyst comments NEW YORK ( TheStreet) - For investors, the near 5% dividend yields of telecom giants AT&T ( T) and Verizon ( VZ) proved a safe trade in 2012, amid continued Federal Reserve easing and an uncertain economic backdrop. Now, as both carriers prepare for fourth-quarter earnings, the Fed's low interest rates are proving a 'double edged sword.' While low interest rates continue to make AT&T and Verizon a safe yield trade for flighty stock market investors, the Fed's support of cheap money is also wreaking havoc on their balance sheets. Notably, AT&T and Verizon now face multi-billion dollar fourth-quarter charges as they adjust unfunded pension liabilities to reflect lower projected interest-based earnings. Meanwhile, low rates are also increasing the present value of pension liability. On Thursday, AT&T said it will take a $10 billion charge as it adjusts the value of pension liabilities to reflect lower interest rates. In two simultaneous balance sheet adjustments, AT&T will record an actuarial loss of roughly $12 billion as it lowers its return estimates on assets to cover pension plan liabilities from 8.25% to 7.75%. AT&T is also lowering the discount rate on its unfunded pension liability from 4.3%, increasing the net present value of those costs. AT&T's $12 billion actuarial loss is offset by roughly $2 billion in asset gains, putting the telecom giant's fourth quarter earnings hit at $10 billion. In the fourth quarter, Verizon will record a similar sized charge to reflect the impact of low interest rates. In an 8-K filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission earlier in January, Verizon said it expects to record a pre-tax charge of between $7 billion and $7.5 billion in the fourth quarter due to a reappraisal of pension and postretirement liabilities. Verizon also said it will record between $1 billion and $1.5 billion in charges as it calls in debts early and books restructuring costs. For AT&T and Verizon, the pension losses don't impact operating results or margins, which will be closely followed by investors and analysts as they try to quantify the impact of Apple ( AAPL) iPhone 5 subsidy costs on wireless earnings. Still, for some watchers of telecom stocks, the earnings-wrecking fourth-quarter charges highlight a hitch in the logic that makes both dividend-yielding telecom carriers attractive investments in a low rate environment. A year ago, telecom sector analyst Craig Moffett of Bernstein Research highlighted a troubling interplay between low interest rates and pension liabilities as one reason to hold a negative view of both carriers. "Last year, we downgraded AT&T in the wake of declining interest rates, noting that low prevailing interest rates are a double-edged sword," wrote Moffett, in an Friday note to clients. "Low interest rates make AT&T's and Verizon's dividend yields enticing for investors. But it's precisely these low rates that wreak havoc on the Telcos' massive unfunded pension and OPEB liabilities," the analyst added.
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Matthew Kendall
Title: Instructor
Office: The Main Campus H 114
Phone: 309-345-8502
E-mail: firstname.lastname@example.com
Personal Information
Degrees Earned
B.A.S Biology from South Dakota State University
A.A.S. Mortuary Science from Mt. Hood Community College
M.S. in Education from Western Illinois University
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Friday, 21 December 2007
The Great Christmas Ale Hunt
The food and drink supps of all major newspapers are, like every year, suggesting treats for the Christmas table. Observer Food Monthly had a page of festive wines and a selection of whiskies, but no mention of beer.
This must be a bit galling if you're a brewer. You create a recipe specifically for the season, often using seasonal ingredients, and succeed in getting major retail distribution. Here are magazines with pages to fill, with writers and readers who are interested in more seasonal, natural food. And they recommend wines that are no different than those available all year round.
You could say people like me should be the ones writing, but I was away last week, and anyway, when I've tried before they don't even return calls or e-mails.
Why do the press try so hard to pretend beer doesn't exist? Have we done something to upset them? Maybe I'm wrong.
If you're in the UK, and you have seen any Christmas or winter brews reviewed anywhere, please let me know!
A blog entry and words
The "Baby Betjeman" is a fenced off area in the corner of the station and provides an interesting snapshot of what's happening to British pubs. It's by no means shit, but it's a curious combination of things to both love and loathe that leaves you unsure of what kind of mood you're in as you sup your pint.
The first thing you notice is that it's not a pub. No, you see, mere pubs are naff. Too English, too old-fashioned, too working class for our modern, aspirational, solutions-oriented society. The Baby Betjeman is a "pub and kitchen".
I'm confused by this trend in naming establishments - you see quite a lot of it in North London now. I'm confused because I always thought a kitchen was an integral part of a pub, so why is it now a separate addendum? Because it sounds posher. I've tried to adopt this to see if I can make my own like sound a bit classier and I'm not sure it's working. It feels strange talking about 'my body and arms'. When I leave my house and bedrooms to travel somewhere by car and engine, then come home to write this blog entry and words, I can't help worrying that I sound like I'm talking out of my arse and rectum.
The BB has waiter service at its tables so it really isn't a pub at all. (Pubs also have walls and ceilings in my experience). There are wine lists pushing champagne heavily on each of the tables.
And yet...
The draught lagers are Budvar and Amstel - an excellent choice of premium and standard strength brands. And even though they don't mention them anywhere, behind the bar are two casks of real ale on stillage - London Pride and a guest ale - Sharp's Doom Bar, which was excellent. There are further bottled ales behind the bar and an interesting-looking food menu, if you're the kind of person who can splash out seven quid on a cheese sandwich. (The Doom Bar had the honour of being the first pint of real ale I've ever paid three quid for.)
And here's a nice thing - as this pub has no walls and ceiling, it was bloody freezing. But over the backs of each of the chairs was a lovely thick blanket to drape over your knees. I've seen this before in Denmark, which has a thriving pavement cafe culture throughout the winter, and thought it was a lovely idea that would never catch on in the UK, so I'm delighted it has.
I'd say it's worth turning up half an hour early for your train - if you can find it.
London's Brightest New Shopping Mall
St. Pancras station reopened a few weeks ago to great fanfare, so after a stimulating afternoon reading tables of import and export figures into
For those who don't know
Maybe we could turn St Paul's into a huge Starbucks; Buckingham Palace into a Heat Magazine theme park, or County Hall, the magnificent former council facing Parliament on the south bank, into a lowest common denominator tourist trap. (Oh hang on, we already did that last one).
Shopping is the most important contribution any of us can make to our own and the world's happiness. It doesn't matter that you already have everything you need; doesn't matter that your credit cards are up to their limits, get out there and buy. You can now cross London without ever being out of sight of a Starbucks, Pret, M&S or Tesco Metro. The Onion magazine once ran a spoof story with the headline "Starbucks opens new branch of Starbucks in Starbucks rest room." That's what it feels like in St. Pancras now.
St. Pancras is of course the new Eurostar Terminal, and if you look hard enough, you can find the trains. When it was at Waterloo I always thought it was a bit mean making the French arrive at a station that reminded them of their greatest ever military defeat. But St. Pancras has gone the other way. I'm not a Europhobe or Little Englander - that's why I go to France and Belgium as often as I can to soak up the culture, food and drink. I just don't understand why everything British has to be regarded as shit compared to anything non-British.
St Pancras has the biggest branch of "Le Pain Quotidien" (French baguettes) I've ever seen. The world's longest champagne bar dominates the central concourse. If you look really hard you can find what just about passes for a pub tucked in the corner, far away from the main mall. I feel dispossessed. St Pancras makes me feel like we've been robbed.
But as shopping malls go, it is a very, very beautiful one.
Monday, 17 December 2007
The other journey - the journey through time
I didn't see much of Kolkata - not its present day incarnation, anyway. But during my brief time in the city, I found something much more thrilling. And I believe there may be as many as a dozen people in the world who will agree with me when I tell you what it is.
In my previous books, where I've dug into history I've relied on the same secondary sources as most other writers. Maybe I've read around the subject a little more than most beer writers do, trying to put beer into its proper context, but I'm no historian, and I didn't push back any boundaries of knowledge. For that, I always direct people to Martin Cornell's book, which had the misfortune to be released two months after my first. Martin made a point of not including anything he couldn't check from an original source. And while this means maybe some things that were probably true were not included because they weren't definitely true, his book remains the most factually accurate history of beer there is.
Inspired partly by Martin, and encouraged by the fact that I had a tight niche compared to the whole history of beer, I though a bit of original research using primary sources would not only be fitting , but fun. And I'm hooked - it's like being a time-travelling detective.
I spent my last day in Kolkata in the Indian National Library, persuading them to dig out their archived, worm-eaten copies of the Calcutta Gazette, the paper of record during the days of the East India Company's rule of Bengal. Advertising today tells you the story of a society - what its obsessions and values are - and it's no different in history. The ads in the Gazette from the 1780s to the 1840s tell the story of the evolution of India Pale Ale in a way it has never been told before. Added to what I've already found in the archives of the Museum of Brewing in Burton, and in the archives of the East India Company, I've managed to pull together a complete rewrite of the history of this wonderful beer style. The gist of the legend is correct, but some very important details of it are wrong - based on entirely reasonable suppositions, but different when you have all the facts.
Unfortunately, my book is now not due for release until early 2009 (publishing schedules being a mystery to any writer who is not the author of a celebrity kiss and tell), so I can't reveal the juicy details right now.
But the man thing that stays with me is nothing to do with beer itself, and may impart some of the thrill I felt - as I was looking for the notice of auctions for the ale and porter that had arrived in 1790, I noticed the front page headline of the paper I was holding. It talked about updating the Gazette's readers on "The Commotions in France." No, not an early tour by Lloyd Cole's criminally underrated band. I was holding the newspaper that was informing the British in India of the unfolding French Revolution.
I think that was the point where I fell in love with primary historical research.
The Beer Part Two
Thanks to an enormous stroke of good fortune, I was in India at the same time as the British Beer and Pub Association were attending a trade show. Janet Witheridge, whose job it is to promote exports of British beer, and her husband Robin, very kindly stayed on after the show - instead of going home, they came to Kolkata with me, roped in the British High Commission and organised a press reception for the opening of Kevin the Keg.
After yet another last minute hitch - the hotel where the reception was organised turned round at the last minute and demanded complicated things like papers proving I'd paid excise duties and stuff, whereas in fact I had paid $275 bribes for which, funnily enough, I hadn't been able to get a receipt - the reception happened at the Deputy British High Commission in India, and I was introduced by the Deputy High Commissioner himself.
Sadly the brewer of our beer, Steve Wellington, couldn't make it because sales of Worthington White Shield are up by an incredible 67% this year and he's brewing round the clock. So it was up to me to tap the keg. As the journos started to arrive, I attached the custom-built keg coupler and pushed down...
At this point I should probably mention that the function suite at the Deputy High Commission had just been extensively redecorated. The smell of fresh paint still filled the room. The suite wasn't officially reopened yet, and was open early especially as a huge favour to us. As the beer shot ten feet through the air, taking out the back row of seats and giving a comprehensive sticky sheen to the shining new marble floor, few people seemed interested in my explanation of live beer. residual yeast and the effects of the journey. The staff looked on in uncomprehending horror, and the Deputy High Commissioner had to call on every ounce of the incredible fund of tact and diplomacy needed to do a job like his.
The beer in the keg was different again to that in the jeroboam. Unlike the bottle it was dry-hopped, and that wonderful fresh hop aroma was the first thing that hit. The tropical fruit aroma behind it was similar to what I've already described. The taste was much more mellow and complex, with the malt reasserting itself now against the hop attack. As well as the rich summer fruit, there was a thin stream of caramel, not thick and obvious, but the golden, gloopy kind you get in Cadbury's Caramel bars, light and not too cloying. The elements of the beer ran into each other, finishing smooth and dry.
And when the catering staff finished mopping up spilt beer and started bring round the tandoori canapes, it cut through the heat and harmonised beautifully with the spices. In India, drinking a beer specially brewed for the climate, with food like that the boys of the Raj would have eaten while drinking the beer, I finally realised that, after a very wonky and jittery journey, I'd finally done it - here was a real IPA, back in its home for the first time in modern India. Words cannot describe the feeling.
It's a bloody wonderful beer. I hope we haven't seen the last of it - watch this space for news of any potential future brews.
Friday, 14 December 2007
Back Home
I don't mean it was quiet for London; I mean the typical noise level in London, the constant buzz of traffic on the Euston Road punctuated by sirens, seems to me now an agreeable, soft, ambient hum. Does this mean I actually went completely crazy in my cabin on a container ship? No. It just means I've been in Delhi and Kolkata for a couple of weeks.
London, which had always seemed a bit too loud and fast for me before I went on my voyage, is like a sleepy Sunday afternoon in India's major cities. The traffic in Kolkata is so bad cab drivers turn off their engines when they get into a queue at a junction, knowing they're going to be there for some time. In Delhi, the buses try to never stop, knowing that if they do they might not get going again, and passengers throw themselves towards the moving open doors and hope for the best. Autorickhsaws and mopeds outnumber four-wheeled traffic a hundred to one, even when you include four-footed traffic - the oxen with their brightly painted horns pulling carts - among the latter. And talking of horns - everyone drives with them! The gaily painted trucks have no rear view mirrors, so all have the words "horn please!" emblazoned across their bumpers.
India is relentless, an assault on all the senses that was only magnified by the fact that I came to it after months at sea. I love it, absolutely adore it, but you wouldn't go to urban India for a holiday. It's not restful. You need a holiday to recover from it.
I left London hoping to think my way through my antipathy towards the city I've called home for the last 16 years, sure that I'd find it unbearable when I returned, determined to sell up immediately and buy a cottage somewhere I could open the curtains and see the sea every morning. The cottage still seems like a nice idea, and the sea is simply something I now have to make more room for in my life, but after India, London feels manageable again, which is an unlooked for bonus. And when Liz and I reacquainted ourselves with each other over a couple of pints of Fuller's ESB at the pub in Paddington Station, I realised it's not quite time for people to start dragging out Dr Johnson's most oft-quoted phrase just yet. It's good to be home.
Tuesday, 11 December 2007
Jerry the Jeroboam
Jerry the Jeroboam didn't quite do the whole journey from the UK, having joined me in Rio, but he did do 10,000 miles by sea, braving storms and pirates, and did go round the Cape and through the Indian Ocean.
We opened him at IFE, a trade show where food and drink producers form around the world come to sell their wares to India. I did a presentation about my trip to an audience of press and curious delegates, and then we opened the bottle.
I was extremely nervous as I chipped away the wax seal, sending black shards and dust across the room, disturbing the pigeons in the roof of the conference centre. The cork didn't explode out of the bottle. That was a good sign. I had a short corkscrew on my Swiss Army Knife (Chris insisted I would need one and he was right). I pulled out the cork... and it broke half way. Gently now, I eased out the bottom half, hoping I wasn't going to get shrapnel in my beer, and it emerge with a satisfying pop and a whiff of vapour. As soon as I saw this silver tendril creeping up like cigarette smoke, I knew we were going to be OK - the beer was lively, but not too lively.
It poured a rich, deep copper colour, slightly hazy. It reminded me of American IPAs – you could almost see the weighty alcohol content. The nose was an absolute delight – an initial sharp citrus tang, followed by a deeper range of tropical fruit – I was reminded of mango and papaya. Later, after it had breathed for a while, it went a bit sherberty. On the tongue it simply exploded with rich, ripe fruit, a little bit of pepper, and a wonderfully clean bitter finish that left my tongue buzzing.
I'm a bit biased because before this, Brahma lager is by some measure the best beer I'd had in the last two and a half months - that's how bad it's been - so my palate was starved and desperate. But I'd say the journey has definitely matured it from what I can remember of when we sampled it in
And my God, it was drinkable for 7%. It's damn hoppy, and proves you can get a really big hop character on a par with the American IPAs without necessarily using West Coast American hops. But it was much more balanced than American IPAs. To my mind it's the best of both sides of the
Opening the keg tonight. The bottled beer was bright; the keg still has residual yeast, so we're expecting something different again. And then flying home! I'll fill in the results - plus many of the gaps from the last three months - once I'm over my jet lag.
Sunday, 2 December 2007
We made it!
12 weeks after leaving Burton, I find myself in Mumbai. After five weeks of monastic isolation on the container ship, going stir crazy and risking scurvy from the dire food, Mumbai has stunned me into a numb daze. I can't cope with all the people!
The beer survived. We find out how it tastes on Friday 7th December, at a trade show in Delhi.
So many tales to tell. If you ever decide to arrive in India by sea port, make sure you have plenty of US dollars with you. Cost me $275 to get off the ship and out of the port, and that's without them knowing about the beer. Of course, iot was all high;y illegal, but the alternative was staying on the ship unhtil Durban ands missing India altogether. Apart from missing the point of the whole exercise, I couldn't stand another portion of the cook's charred liver and soggy mash.
More updates soon. I am dying for a decent beer...


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FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. - A judge acquitted three Fort Lauderdale police officers accused of corruption after jurors were hung on some of the charges.
Sgt. Michael Florenco and Detectives Matthew Moceri and Geoffrey Shaffer were charged with official misconduct and falsifying reports. Jurors began deliberating the charges Tuesday afternoon.
"The court grants the motion for (judgment of acquittal) JOA on all counts," Judge Cynthia Imperato said Wednesday morning.
Jurors were hung on all counts Florenco faced and deadlocked on the charges of falsifying reports Moceri and Shaffer faced.
"The state cherry picked the evidence. They did not include any evidence that shed a good light on the officers," said Sgt. Jack Lokeinsky with the Fort Lauderdale Fraternal Order of Police.
The trial is the result of an incident in November 2009. Police responded to a call that a man was breaking into a locked liquor cabinet at the Hilton Fort Lauderdale marina.
The chase ended when they caught up with the suspect, Kenneth Post. The three officers filed reports saying that Post had slammed into the side of their undercover vehicle and deliberately rammed it head on.
An accident reconstruction expert found that damage to both vehicles contradicted the officers' accounts. Post pleaded guilty to four felonies on Monday.
Investigators alleged the officers beat Post, but no battery charges were filed.
"They beat the crap out of him," said prosecutor Tim Donnelly.
"Mr. Donnelly says they beat the crap out of him," said Imperato. "That makes me wonder what this case is really about. Is it about Mr. Post and whatever happened? Then these officers should have been charged, if that is what the state thought, with battery but they weren't charged with that."
The state argued a judgment of acquittal is appropriate only in circumstantial cases where there are no facts in which reasonable minds could differ.
"The fact that the jury was hung on 90 percent of the charges establishes that reasonable minds could differ," said prosecutor Stefani Newman.
"They should go back to their jobs," said defense attorney Bradford Cohen. "I don't know how it is going to work with their back pay. In terms of whether or not there are going to be any other repercussions, that is something the Fort Lauderdale Police Department would deal with, but it wouldn't be anything criminal."
The officers were part of the Northwest Raiders Street Unit. In November 2011, two other members of the unit were charged with kidnapping and shaking down drug suspects.
Copyright 2013 by Local10.com. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.


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Two retro futuristic things get mixed together in Jacob Borshard's Moog meets Tron Poster. Imagine this as one of those 70s felt glow in the dark posters you could get at Spencers. $25 for blue, $50 for the limited edition red ones.
"A survey of notable modular series types as well as a complete collection of every classic Moog all-in-one synthesizer, presented in chronological order. Two color screen print on heavyweight black paper with gloss varnish. Measuring 18×26, this artist printed art print is signed and numbered in an edition of 75. Also available in a 'BAD GUY' red edition of ONLY 6!" – nakatomiinc.com
For more info: nakatomiinc.com
via matrixsynth and synthtopia


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On this page you will find a list of all our projects. Due to the vast amount, scrolling is not advisable. Please use our convenient search options.
Current projects
RSS Feeds
The Parana Delta wetlands in Argentina are under pressure from the extraction of natural resources, infrastructure development, large-scale livestock farming and agriculture. This is threatening the wetlands ecosystem and traditional livelihoods that rely on island cattle-raising, bee-keeping and artisanal fishing. To overcome these challenges, we are working with strategic partners to develop sustainable solutions that rely on a scientific knowledge base and best management practices.
The rarely visited country of Brunei Darussalam is a green gem on the rapidly deforesting island of Borneo. Much of Brunei is still covered in peat swamp or mangrove forest, which is in stark contrast to the situation in other countries within the region. These forests are rich with species of plants and animals, but face threats due to development, peat drainage and fires.
The Niger Delta in Nigeria is the largest wetland in Africa and the third largest mangrove forest in the world. The region is known for its richness in biodiversity as well as its oil and gas resources. Wetland ecosystems play a critical role in supporting the livelihoods of millions of people in the delta. At the same time they are being degraded by unsustainable practices and a legacy of pollution and oil spills. In the delta we are bringing new perspectives to the fields of biodiversity conversation and sustainable development, putting the conservation and restoration of wetlands at the centre of achieving both livelihood and biodiversity improvements.
While this work happens under our partnership with Shell, we are not directly involved in the cleanup of oil pollution, but include the oil industry as an important stakeholder for our new ways of planning development, and improving the condition of wetlands and water resources to benefit both biodiversity and human well-being.
Report on Odonata Study done on a recent survey at Ayer Hitam Peatswamp Forest in the state of Johor, Malaysia.
Rehabilitation of Wetland Cell and Replanting of Wetland Plant at Tasik NAHRIM (National Hydraulic Research Institute of Malaysia)
The Ramsar Conference (6 - 13 July 2012 in Bucharest, Romania) offered an opportunity to strengthen and extend the reach of the Convention to achieve improved wetland conservation and management. We attended the conference with a team of experts from our global network and engaged Contracting Parties and partners to achieve these objectives.
The giant Majnoon Oil Field in Southern Iraq overlaps with the country's most important wetland area: the Mesopotamian Marshlands. These wetlands were severely damaged by past drainage and warfare. Water availability continues to be a constraint for both for marshland restoration and the oil industry in this dry country. Under our collaborative partnership, we are assisting Shell to minimise the negative impacts of oil and gas development on the biodiversity of the marshes and the ecosystem services they provide. This is an opportunity to restore these iconic wetlands and the livelihoods they support.
Canada's oil sands (also called tar sands) are one of the largest oil deposits on earth. Mining destroys the peat marshes covering these deposits, and alters the water flows within a much wider area. Oil sands oil is controversial due to these impacts and the fact that higher greenhouse gas emissions are produced from this form of extraction than from conventional sources of oil. Wetlands International is exploring activities with Shell to limit impacts and enable restoration once mining has ended.
The project required preparation of a comprehensive description of the ecological character of the Great Sandy Straits Ramsar site, south-east Queensland, using a recently-finalised national framework; also updating of the Ramsar Information Sheet and digital boundary map for the site.
Wetlands International Black Sea Office, Pestelia street 9, office 7, Kiev, Ukraine
Wetlands International Headquarters, P.O. Box 471, 6701 AL, Wageningen, The Netherlands
Ramsar Site Information Service
Critical Wetland Sites for Waterbirds Tool (CSN)


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Yesterday I took a trip to Ikea in Berlin. To get from Prenzlauer Berg to Spandau takes about thirty minutes on the S-Bahn. I had my camera with me which also takes decent video. However, it wasn't visual imagery I was after. I hit record but left the camera's lens cap on. I was only after audio recordings.
There are a myriad of hot flash recorders on the market but I used what I had with me and I think the recordings sound great. Another advantage of recording this way is people aren't really aware of what your doing. If I had a Sony PCM-D1 in my hand people may not speak naturally. I'm planning on using some of these recordings on my next album but your free to use them too. Remember it's not the sounds, it's how you use them!
The audio player will play each sample in succession:
You can download the 24bit Wavs by clicking here:
Berlin_S-Bahn by Oliver Chesler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. Based on a work at www.wiretotheear.com.
photo credit: leralle


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Researchers reviewed published and unpublished studies conducted from 1966 through 2005 and identified 12 clinically controlled trials involving 266 people that measured the effects of oral creatine supplements on those with hereditary muscle diseases. The minimum dosage in all the studies was 30 mg of creatine per kilogram of body weight or about 1,500 mg of creatine per day for a person weighing 110 pounds. Researchers found in trials involving 138 participants with muscular dystrophies, those who had taken a creatine supplement had a maximum voluntary muscle contraction 8.5% greater than those who had taken a placebo. Doctors also found that during the treatment period, those in the creatine groups gained an average of 1.4 pounds more lean body mass than did those who had taken a placebo. None of the trials reported any clinically relevant side effects.
The scientists noted in creatine trials including 33 participants with a certain class of muscular dystrophies (metabolic myopathies), there was no significant difference in strength between treatment and placebo groups. In one trial using a high dose of creatine (150 mg of creatine per kilogram of body weight), participants who—because of metabolic myopathies—were unable to convert stored energy (glycogen) into usable energy (glucose) reported a significant increase in muscle pain during the treatment period. The researchers concluded that short- and medium-term treatment with creatine improves muscle strength in people with muscular dystrophies without side effects.


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From college dorm rooms to busy airport runways to South Bay senior centers to East Bay preschools, it seems that nearly everybody in the Bay Area fears they'll be on the losing end of the looming federal sequester cuts.
On Friday, the federal government is set to slash $85 billion, including hundreds of millions of dollars in grants to California, to help balance the U.S. budget. After failing for 18 months to reach a deal to avert the cuts, President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats and Republicans will meet again Friday in hopes of finding a solution.
Many conservatives doubt the cuts will have any real impact. They say the White House's frightening scenarios are designed to put pressure on politicians to raise taxes. But if no deal is reached, administration officials contend, the cuts will force many Bay Area programs that receive federal funding to trim services by 5 to 10 percent over the coming months, except for a few exempted services such as Medicare.
"They're playing with a deck of cards, and it's everybody's lives at stake," said Chabot College student Jeramie Brown, whose dreams to enter a college work-study program would dim under the sequester cuts.
No one knows yet exactly who will bear the brunt of the cuts because the reductions will take weeks to reach local programs, biding politicians time to reach a compromise. But the Bay Area is bracing for the worst.
The seniors
For California's seniors, the sequester means $5.4 million in cuts to a popular nutritional lunch program, in which seniors on fixed incomes can socialize and receive free healthy meals at community centers.
"I hope the president understands we need this place," said Gloria Peña, 83, a retired Apple employee who had just finished a chicken alfredo lunch at the Eastside Neighborhood Center in San Jose's Alum Rock neighborhood. "We have no other place to go."
Rita Mora, 70, another San Jose resident who eats free meals at the center, said many of the seniors there take home what they can't eat.
"The nutritional program means a lot to me. I'm on a budget, as we all are," Mora said, adding that being able to socialize at lunch is the best part of many seniors' days. "They need places like this to come and feel like they're really worth something."
The airports
At San Francisco International Airport, the major hub's 26 air traffic controllers — who are federal employees — are preparing for one furlough day every two weeks.
"We're going to be probably on position longer, since we won't have as many people up on the tower," said Lisa Stephenson, 35, who works an already-stressful job guiding air traffic at the Bay Area's busiest airport. And "it's basically going to be a pay cut for us."
The number of flights in an out of SFO would drop from up to 120 an hour to 60 or 80, the controller's union said. Similar reductions are planned for the less-busy Mineta San Jose and Oakland international airports and regional air traffic centers, which will lead to delays and cancellations for passengers, officials warn.
The kids
In Richmond, mother Micaela Ramos worries about the sequester cuts for a different reason: About 8,200 kids in California, including 200 in Contra Costa County, would be kicked out of the Head Start program, which provides families with subsidized preschool. Ramos drops off her daughter at the local Head Start center every morning so she can work as a caretaker and train to become a clerical assistant.
"It makes me so sad," said Ramos, 45. "Every time the government wants to cut money, it's always in education."
Denisse Higuera, 32, a Bay Point mom, doesn't know how to tell her 3-year-old son that he might not be able to go see the teacher who taught him to speak English.
"If the people in the government were the poor people, how would they survive without this program?" said Reyna Flores, 34, a fellow housekeeper with a son in Head Start who noted that without the program, her son will be put on a path toward going to work at too young an age instead of getting an education.
The politics
Skeptics say the cuts won't be as severe as the White House has laid out. They say they're confident that government officials will find less-damaging ways to reduce spending. Republicans argue that it's time to pare down the massive national deficit by simply spending less.
But that argument doesn't fly too far in the liberal Bay Area, where affected residents just want their services intact.
At the Eastside Neighborhood Center, Peña, who recently underwent heart surgery, joked of staging a rally to get the president's attention. Ramos said maybe she'd write to members of Congress or collect petition signatures.
The students
Brown, at Chabot College in Hayward, said he might consider going to school in another state that's cheaper to live in. His current plan is to transfer to San Francisco State next year, but he's worried he'll be denied a work-study job there because the program is slated to cut slots for 3,690 students in California, while another 9,600 students could be rejected for federal financial aid.
"The cuts that they plan to do are going to hurt us in the long run. They should just come to an agreement," said Brown, a 32-year-old Walnut Creek resident, who got a boost for himself and his 6-year-old son by scoring a work-study job on campus last year. "Especially since now the economy is slowly getting back on its feet, it doesn't make sense for them to knock it back down again."
Contact Mike Rosenberg at 408-920-5705. Follow him at twitter.com/RosenbergMerc.


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Diasporian News of Sunday, 27 January 2013
Source: Kwakwaduam Association
for Members at their Annual Dinner Dance
The Kwakwaduam Association Inc of New York has announced the establishment of a $10,000 Credit Loan Facility for members. Announcing this at Annual Dinner Dance of the Organization, the President, Dr. Kwame Aniapam Boafo said the idea of the program is to help members access short term loan facility to meet exigencies and emergencies such as rent payment, job application fees, skill acquisition fees and other emergent family obligations. This is all in effort to help members assimilate into the American Dream. The end of year Dinner Dance was held at the Polish Center in Yonkers on the 19th of January.
Lawyer Essien is tasked with establishing the legal framework within which he fund will operate. It is anticipated that the fund will attract interest rates far more favorable than the traditional borrowing sources of the Banks and Credit cards. Members of the Public were encouraged to invest in the fund to broaden its capitalization base
The new Executive of the Organization was inducted into Office by a ceremony administered by Lawyer Essien. The incoming President, Mr. Mark Saforo pledged to carry his Office to uphold the vision and mission of the Organization and to continue to elevate the organization to higher heights. Other members of the new Executive are; Joyce Koranteng- Vice President, Mindy Asiedu – Financial Secretary, Paul Ansah – Secretary, Emilia Okoampah – Organizing Secretary, Lydia Apronti – Asst Organizing Secretary. Others are Kwabena Asamoah – Asst. Secretary, Nicole Atram – Treasurer, Emmanuel Fenning and Kwabena Asante are the Whips
The Chairman of the function, Dr. Norman Green an Assistant Professor at the Albert Einstein Medical School said he was impressed with the activities of Kwakwaduam and said Kwakwaduam stood apart in its organizational activities and pledged his support for its progress. Mr Ofori Anor The Executive Secretary of the Ghana Council in his remarks invited Kwakwaduam to join the Ghana Council and suggested a broader programming of activities to enhance the quality of life of Ghanaians in the New York Tri State Area
It was generally a beautiful, well organized Dinner Dance and a fun filled evening
Visit Kwakwaduam 0n the Web at www.AkropongKwakwaduam.Org