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Home > Sunglasses > Polo > PH3093 (91198F)
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PH3093/91198F Ophthalmic Glasses
PH3093 is a fashion statement, for which sunshine is not necessarily required, because these sunglasses enhance your natural radiance turning night into day. The PH3093 is available in the Edel-Optics online shop in other styles from Polo collections 2016 and 2017.
The frame is specially designed for men. Sporting clear lines, New School Cool meets traditional quality. Wearing full rim eyewear, you make it unmistakably clear that you are going the whole hog. If you have a more round or oval face, the rectangular shape creates a contrast, showing yourself in a new light. The metal frame is very light and comfortable to wear. It is both robust and classy. The bold colour blue is the perfect choice for self-confident personalities. With this colour you quickly become the centre of attention. Blue coloured lenses look very fashionable, but also distort the colour impression and influence the field of view. They are, therefore, suitable as a cool party accessory but less as a protection from the sun while driving. You can rely on the guaranteed UV400 protection, for all the sunglasses in our shop.
The next shipment is on its way, so we will have your Polo back in stock very soon. We hope the unbelievably low price will be a consolation for the short wait. In our online shop we have consistently low prices. You won't get PH3093 at such a low price, not even in the sale.
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ATLANTA — The State Transportation Board will decide next month if it should send a letter to Congress urging that the Federal Aviation Administration not close control towers at Athens-Ben Epps Airport and four other airports across the state.
FAA officials picked the Georgia towers and more than 100 others across the country to close as a means of trimming $657 million from the agency's budget as required by the federal budget sequestration.
After announcing earlier dates, the FAA has most recently set June 15 as the closure date.
Each tower has two air-traffic controllers during 10-12 hours of daily operation at a cost of about $500,000 yearly. If the state or a local government wanted to continue operations, it should also expect to have to rent the equipment from the FAA at an additional cost, according to Carol Comer, intermodal programs director for the Georgia Department of Transportation. No one suggested state taxpayers should come up with the funds.
Despite closure of the control towers, the airports must continue operation, Comer said, although some corporations will stop landing at the affected airports for insurance reasons.
"You're certainly going to see a shift in certain activity levels, and that affects their revenue," she told the board.
Members of the board's Intermodal Committee that oversees airport issues expressed frustration.
Board member Rudy Bowen said he is concerned about the dent it will make in economic development for those communities, which in addition to Athens include the cities of Albany and Macon, along with Cobb and Gwinnett counties. But Bowen also worried about the risk to pilots and passengers.
"It appears to me we should consider ... the safety issues here," he said.
The committee voted discuss at next month's meeting of the full board whether to write Congress.
• Follow Walter Jones on Twitter @MorrisNews and Facebook or contact him at firstname.lastname@example.com and (404) 589-8424.

subset: commoncrawl


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BIKINI's - 170th AHC - DRY DOCK - Vietnam War - PATCH
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170th Assault Helicopter Company - AHCBIKINI'S DRY DOCK - Service Platoon One Only Available First time offered for sale 170th Assault Helicopter Company - Bikini's The 170th Assault Helicopter Company was formed for Vietnam Service at Fort Benning in September 1965 and arrived in Vietnam on the 22 December, just three months later. With two platoons (Gunships named the Buccaneers) the Unit's 1st Platoon was named 'Bikini Blue' and the 2nd Platoon, 'Bikini Red'. Taking the name BIKINI on early in 1966 this patch design not used until mid 1967 when the unit had already joined the 52nd Aviation Battalion. The patch depicts the 'Flying Dragon' mascot of the 52nd and 'Little Annie Fannie' a famous Playboy cartoon strip of the time wearing a Blue and Red Bikini in recognition of the Flight Platoons. Bikini's, Dry Dock Service Platoon - Serice and Maintenance, Combat. The Unit was based variously at Qui Nhon, Camp Holloway, Pleiku and Tay Ninh. For the latter period of their time in Vietnam the BIKINI's were responsible for the transport of MACV-SOG Recon Teams into and out of combat mission areas and during their period of service with the US Special Forces the Company awarded 2 Unit Presidential Citations. The Unit was deactivated on the 16th of ... read more


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Gaithersburg Emergency Restoration Services
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The Al Qaeda Reader
by Raymond Ibrahim
New York: Doubleday, 2007. 352 pp. $9.06, paperback
August 7, 2007
Tristan Abbey, The Stanford Review • Gary H. Johnson, Jr., American Thinker • Steven Simon, The Washington Post • Brandace Simmons, Roll Call • James Buchan, The New York Observer • Janet Levy, FrontPageMagazine.com • Jonathan Schanzer, Middle East Quarterly • Rob Eshman, Jewish Journal • Geoffrey Alderman, The Jewish Chronicle (London) • Zack Beauchamp, The Brown Daily Herald • Bruce Thornton, Private Papers
"The Al Qaeda Reader is an essential text for those interested in understanding the Al-Qaeda phenomenon through Raymond Ibrahim's elegant translations."
— Peter Berger, author of Holy War, Inc and The Osama Bin Laden I Know
If Osama bin Laden is dead, his ideas and arguments—like al-Qaeda itself—live on and continue to resonate with like-minded Muslims.
Now, for the first time, The Al Qaeda Reader gathers together the essential documents of the movement's founders: Osama bin Laden and Ayman Zawahiri—with a special emphasis on Zawahiri, now al-Qaeda's undisputed leader.
This extraordinary collection of al-Qaeda's core texts—including incendiary materials never before translated into English—lays bare the minds, motives, and ultimate goals of an enemy bent on total victory.
Divided into two sections—Theology and Propaganda—this is also the only book that exposes the doublespeak of al-Qaeda, which regularly says one thing to Muslims in its religious treatises ("We must hate and fight the West simply because Islam commands it") and another in its propaganda directed at the West ("You Americans are the aggressor and we are merely fighting back in self-defense").
Al-Qaeda's chilling ideology calls for a relentless jihad against non-Muslim "infidels," repudiates democracy in favor of Shari'a, stresses the importance of suicide-operations, and mocks the notion of "moderate" Islam.
Perhaps most disturbing is how al-Qaeda grounds its teachings in the core texts of Islam: the Koran and the words of the Prophet.
Westerners from across the political spectrum will be fascinated and enlightened by The Al Qaeda Reader.
RAYMOND IBRAHIM is a widely published author on radical Islam. He regularly talks to the media, lectures at universities, briefs governmental agencies, and has testified before Congress regarding the conceptual failures that dominate American discourse concerning Islam. He was educated at California State University, Fresno (B.A. and M.A. in history) and took graduate Arab studies at Georgetown University, Washington D.C., where he began his career as a reference assistant at the Library of Congress' Near East Section. It was there that he discovered al-Qaeda's never-before-translated Arabic documents which he translated into this book.
The Battle of Yarmuk
An Assessment of the Immediate Factors Behind the Islamic Conquests
by Raymond Ibrahim
May 2002
Few events have dramatically altered the course of world-history as have the dynamic Muslim conquests of the seventh century. Aside from the seizure of a large expanse of onetime Roman lands and the cultural Arabization of millions of people, great wars have been waged between Islam and the West–till the present. Yet ambiguity abounds as to how and why these conquests were first originally realized. This study seeks to ascertain the immediate factors behind the conquests in general by deconstructing the all-pivotal Battle of Yarmuk in particular. This paradigmatic battle is ideal for extrapolating the root cause(s) of the conquests; for it was primarily at Yarmuk that the Arabs suffered notable physical and practical disadvantages–and yet still emerged triumphant. Thus this engagement allows one to see well beyond the usual aspects of military history–the physical and practical–and better appreciate the more abstract factors that have fueled the events of world history.
Grounded in Arabic and Greek primary texts and originally written in 2002 as Raymond Ibrahim's M.A. thesis under the direction of renowned military historian Victor Davis Hanson, The Battle of Yarmuk is especially notable for successfully fusing doctrine and history on the battlefields of Yarmuk.


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Jan. 2, 2012WESTON, MO | By: Wayman
Weston area residents could benefit from first-ever national air standards for pollution from power plants.
Two of KCP&L's largest plants are located at Iatan, just north of Weston. The new rule comes from the US Environmental Protection Agency and will reduce emissions like mercury and arsenic. EPA regional administrator Karl Brooks in Kansas City says the health savings will far outweigh the cost of compliance.


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Just returned from a ride to find my Orange Sub 5's swingarm is cracked after 11 years faithful service :Sad:
Looking for a replacement swingarm. Not sure if they come in different sizes but the frame is 19". Not fussed about the colour (tthough there are limits, obviously!)
thanks for any leads!


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November 13–November 15, 2017, Boston - User Interface 22, A conference tailored to raise your design practice to new heights. Gain the super powers to tackle today's most challenging design problems. Full-day workshops reveal the nuance and insight necessary to deliver great designs.
Approximately every 3 weeks we're adding a new seminar recording to UIE's All You Can Learn Library. This resource gives you the latest perspectives in the world of design from the field's premier experts. Your team can learn the skills pertaining to relevant and timely design topics right from your office or conference room. Are you a subscriber? Join us for the live broadcast.
Want 310 UX presentations at your fingertips? Watch, listen, & learn from the world's best instructors. Subscribe for just $23/month, or $249 for the entire year. Explore UIE's All You Can Learn Library.
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Tassal Tasmanian Salmon, an Australian salmon farming company, backed away from plans to dump treated wastewater from salmon pens into...
Safety Scan Technology, Inc., a portfolio company of HydroFlo, Inc., announced the assistance of NASA-funded Space Alliance Technology Outreach Program (SATOP) to help streamline their revolutionary technology, the Aquacorder. The challenge is to make the device compact in order to scan and analyze contaminants in water systems.
The technology, Swept Frequency Acoustic Interferometry (SFAI), was originally created by Dipen N. Sinha with Los Alamos National Laboratories. It utilizes high frequency sound waves to analyze and detect pre-programmed contaminants in water systems through metal, glass, ceramic, and plastic barriers. SFAI has been in use for several years by the federal government as well as for the internal purposes at LANL.
"This technology will allow our customers the ability to analyze their water supply immediately and without opening the container," said Mike Doss, Safety Scan Technology's chief operating officer. Potential clients for SFAI and the advanced scanner include desalinization plants, beverage bottling processes, and semiconductor and pharmaceutical manufacturers, which need to verify incoming water purity.
SSTI approached SATOP for assistance in consolidating the electronics associated with SFAI into a smaller, potentially hand-held sized unit, in contrast to the bulkier equipment currently in use. This new technology is light-years ahead of anything else on the market right now and should revolutionize the way water is controlled and analyzed," said Christophe Gilfriche, SATOP Florida senior program engineer.
Dan Kovach reviewed the technology and once he had a thorough grasp of the concept, he was able to identify circuit configurations that could be implemented, confirm that the device could indeed be miniaturized, and provide suggestions on how to achieve the miniaturization.
"My research concluded that the SFAI device can be miniaturized to the size of a commercially available handheld device using commercially available components," Kovach said.
In addition, Kovach suggested rearranging the components and provided a list of options for consideration, such as a wireless system or separate monitor. He also advised that SSTI avoid components that contain lead due to potential bans on such components in various markets throughout the world. Lastly, Kovach provided suggestions for alternative methods for design and different graphical display options.
"Dan's advice will help us bring our product to the prototype stage faster, and we will be able to move more quickly to make the device smaller," Doss said. Development of a working prototype is under way, and once completed the company will perform extensive field testing.
"We were looking for guidance about our micro circuitry, with the goal of saving a step or two in development down the road," Doss said. "We certainly received that and more from Dan, not to mention the opportunity to be associated with a great program like SATOP."


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|15 Aug 2011
Increasing the gdi objects available
I'm always getting some graphical glitches when I minimize vmware workstation in full screen mode when running mac os x 10.6.6
And I think it's because of gdi objects always running out
So how do I increase the gdi objects in windows 7?
|My System Specs
|15 Aug 2011
Windows 7 x64 Ultimate
Well... you can increase the limit in the registry here:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Windows\GDIProcessHandleQuota
This value can be set to a number between 256 and 65,536.
However It is currently set to 10,000 (Thats per process) and if it's running out then there is something seriously wrong with what VMWare is doing. Increaseing to 20k may just delay the enevitable.
Also, don't set to 65k as I believe that may still be a system wide limit and you do NOT want to let VMWare use up ALL GDI objects or... POW! (that's the technical term)
|My System Specs
|15 Aug 2011
Well actually it only seems to happen now when itunes and vmware are open
|My System Specs
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permissions to child Objects
Hi! I have a windows 7 pc. I am using it as a media server to stream to my HTPC (windows XP Pro) in my living room. My problem is that I'm having problems with permissions of my folders. All of my media is on a seperate hard drive (F:) and everything I am sharing is in folders inside a...
|Network & Sharing
Colored dots and objects at top of screen...
Hey guys, When my computer finishes starting up, it ends with what looks like blobs of colored pixels in a line at the top of my screen. This happened for the first time tonight and I have no clue what happened. I took out my video card and plugged my monitor into the mother boards vga slot....
|General Discussion
push objects out of screen?
How can I make it so I can push a window out side of the screens top? When I try windows pushes it back down and is flush with the edge of the top of my monitor.
|Graphic Cards
Colors of objects on the taskbar. Changeable?
Hey guys, is there anyway to change which colors are used in the objects on the taskbar? Not important or anything, just curious. Heres a picture to show you what I'm talking about. http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4056/4264991462_0ae0eb2f8c.jpg
Pin/move objects to the taskbars right side next to sys
Is it possible to pin/move pinned objects on the taskbar to stay on the right side of it, where teh clock and system tray is.
Objects in Taskbar resize dynamically.
The objects in my taskbar take up the full space of it, is there a way for me 2 have it the way it used to be. The objects used 2 take only a predetermined amount of space in the taskbar. It randomly started doing this after my explorer froze, i restarted my computer but the problem persists. ...
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Control your Online B&B Marketing in Realtime
With Innkeeper's Advantage® Web visitors have a unique, seamless and secure online reservation experience without leaving your Website. You get control of your real time Web content and professional, courteous support services when you need it. Our software suite offers these features to help you market your property online.
Online Reservation
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Measure how your marketing efforts influence guest bookings.


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main(713) 222-2273
Schedule an appointment online with ScheduleNow
Imaging & Diagnostic Services
Care Services
Appointments & Doctors
Your Visit
Online Patient Services
Patient Support
Healthcare Professionals
To search Houston doctors, please select a specialty & submit your Zip Code below.
To schedule an appointment online, select provider type, service and submit your ZIP code below.
Welcome to PhysicianLINK, a convenient, secure, confidential and easy to use Web-based tool. The information available through this anytime, anywhere application is designed to improve the workflow in your clinic by:
By logging onto www.newphysicianlink.org, you will be notified when your patients are admitted, transferred or discharged at any Memorial Hermann facility. You will be able to access practice guidelines, medical resource materials, CME credits, a comprehensive drug database, and many other helpful applications and informational resources. PhysicianLINK also gives you and your staff access to Care4 - Memorial Hermann's core clinical application. Most importantly, it gives your clinic more time to spend providing the best possible patient care.
To obtain more information regarding PhysicianLINK benefits or features please contact us at firstname.lastname@example.com. For registration information, please call 713-448-LINK or log on to PhysicianLINK.org and register online for access.
PhysicianLINK is made available to you by Memorial Hermann Health Network Providers and Memorial Hermann.
To benefit from the full suite of resources available through PhysicianLINK, please be sure that your computer meets the Minimum System Requirements necessary to successfully operate Care4 and PhysicianLINK. The requirements are as follows:
If your computer does not meet the Minimum System Requirements outlined above, please contact your office's computer support personnel for assistance with upgrading your PC's. Additionally, not using your PhysicianLINK account for several weeks will result in your account to become deactivated. Be sure to log in regularly to maintain account activity.
PhysicianLINK offers FREE access to many functions and resources that can improve the workflow in your clinic for you and your staff. Some of the key PhysicianLINK features include access to:


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About Ambelin Kwaymullina…
Just the Facts:
Ambelin Kwaymullina is an Aboriginal writer and illustrator from the Palyku people. The homeland of her people is located in the dry, vivid beauty of the Pilbara region of Western Australia. Ambelin has written and illustrated a number of award winning picture books as well as writing a dystopian series – 'the Tribe' – for Young Adults. When not writing or illustrating, Ambelin teaches law and spends time with her family and her dogs.
About Ambelin Kwaymullina…
The Extended Version:
My story does not begin with me. It begins with all the people in my family bloodline who were born Palyku, long before I came into the world.
The many Aboriginal nations of Australia call our homelands our Countries. Country is heart and home, made by the Ancestor beings during what is sometimes called the Dreaming. In the Dreaming, the Ancestors danced and sang and travelled and gave life to all that exists today. They formed a reality where life sustains and supports each other – and where everything lives.
This is my heritage. Aboriginal people have been storytellers for generations, and we will be storytellers for generations to come. I am far from the first, and I can never hope to be the best. The greatest of our storytellers are the old people who have gone before us, and the Countries that give heart and hope to us all.
I know that the path I walk now was formed by the passage of many feet, including those who lived through the hardest of times for Aboriginal people in Australia, the storytellers born into the trauma of colonialism. And I understand that it is because of their courage and their strength of will that my path exists at all.
I think of those brave generations as I look out, in my mind's eye, at the children and teenagers of the different races and cultures of this planet. They will need courage too, and strength, because for so many of them – for too many – their future is fraught with fear and uncertainty. I cannot speak to them all, except, perhaps, by telling my stories. And through my stories I speak about the things that generations of my people have taught me: Stay strong. Be proud of who you are. Stand tall inside your own head, even when this world forces you to bow down on the outside. And never ever forget how to laugh.
A Message from Ashala Wolf
What happens to us is wrong.
A lot of you know it, even if you won't admit it. You know we shouldn't be shut away, collared and helpless, You know we're as much a part of this world, a part of the Balance, as anyone else. Being able to start fires, or make it rain, or fly – it doesn't make us unnatural. Just different.
I won't be caged by you. None of my Tribe will be. We'll live free, and we'll defend our freedom. And among us are Runners, Firestarters, Boomers, Waterbabies – and many, many more. So if you come after us, if you try to hurt us or our forest….just remember.
I warned you.
About The Tribe Series
About the Tribe series
For more, go to: www.thefirstwood.com.au
The Tribe is a three book dystopian series set on a future earth where the world was ripped apart by an environmental cataclysm known as 'the Reckoning'. The survivors of the Reckoning live in an ecotopia where they strive to protect the Balance of the world, the inherent harmony between all life. But anyone born with an ability – Firestarters who control fire, Rumblers who can cause quakes, Boomers who make things explode – is viewed as a threat to the Balance. Any child or teenager found to have such a power is labeled an 'Illegal' and locked away in detention centres by the government.
Except for the ones who run.
Sixteen year old Ashala Wolf leads a band of rebels who she names her Tribe. Sheltered by the mighty tuart trees of the Firstwood and the legendary saurs who inhabit the grasslands at the forest's edge, the Tribe has been left alone – until now. A new detention centre is being built near the forest, and when The Interrogation of Ashala Wolf begins, Ashala has been captured by the government and is on her way to interrogation.
What follows is a story filled with action, drama, danger, a touch of romance, and a lot of twists.
The Interrogation of Ashala Wolf was published in July 2012 and its sequel, The Disappearance of Ember Crow, in November 2013. The Foretelling of Georgie Spider was published in August 2015.
What Animal Are You?
In the ancient Firstwood each member of the Tribe bonds with
a forest animal - and it changes them...
A Message from Ember Crow
So you've come searching for your animal.
You must understand, we don't choose them. They choose us. For me it was the clever crows, with their smug eyes and their shiny treasures. I cannot tell which animal it will be for you. But you should know that it will change you. Your animal will give you your name, and teach you about what it is to experience this world as something other than a human being. If you are not ready to enter a larger and more complex reality, if you are not ready to be part of the connections that bind us to each other and this living earth – then stop searching.
But if you are, continue on. And when you return you will be able to answer me when I say: I am Ember Crow. Who are you?
Find out what animal would you be linked with below...
I Am A . . .
Your animal is a: Wolf
The Wolves of the Firstwood have golden eyes and fur of a red- or orangey-brown colour. They live in packs of between ten to fifteen members and make their homes in underground dens. Wolves are clever hunters, and will work cooperatively to catch their prey.
People bonded with Wolves tend to have a strong sense of right and wrong. They value connections with others, preferring to exist as part of a group than in solitude, and will put the welfare of their friends or family above their own. Wolf people are true friends – they are unwaveringly loyal and unflinchingly honest. They will fiercely defend anyone who they regard as a member of their 'pack', but they also won't hesitate say something if they think a pack member has behaved badly.
Wolf people have been known to develop an enhanced sense of smell and increased agility.
Your animal is a: Treecat
The Treecats of the Firstwood are carnivorous marsupials that can grow up to two metres (6 ft) long, measured from nose to tail. They have dark brown fur, small round ears, pink noses and black eyes. Treecats are nocturnal, and use their powerful hind legs and long tail to cling to trees as they climb. They can leap enormous distances, and their sharp claws, night vision and ability to drop from great heights make them excellent hunters. Treecats mate for life and will choose a single tuart to use as their home base, defending their tree against any perceived threat.
People bonded with Treecats tend to be wary of strangers but form strong and enduring attachments to those that they love. It can be hard to win their trust but once a treecat person accepts someone as a friend, they will be friends for life. Treecat people feel things very deeply and while they can easily shrug off criticism if it comes from a stranger, they are highly sensitive to the opinions of people they care about.
Treecat people have been known to develop night vision and increased dexterity.
Your animal is a: Perentie
Perenties are lizards that bear a resemblance to the vastly larger saurs. They grow up to three metres (9 ft) in length and can move at great speed either on all fours or on their hind legs. Perenties live in burrows and have patterned black and green skin that allows them to blend in with the surrounding forest. They use their razor sharp claws and long tails as weapons, and are capable of defending themselves against far larger animals. While Perentie are generally shy they will not hesitate to attack if cornered, and they fight so fiercely that even the Firstwood wolves will not hunt a Perentie.
People bonded with Perenties tend to prefer to leave others alone and to be left alone themselves. However, if they feel threatened a Perentie person will become a fearsome warrior. Perentie people refuse to be intimidated by anyone or anything, and if they witness an injustice they will fight to make things right, no matter who or what stands in their way.
Perentie people have been known to develop fast reflexes.
Your animal is a: Hawk
The Hawks of the Firstwood have grey heads and bodies, with brown and white stripes across their chests and the underside of their wings. Their eyes are orange and they use their powerful curved claws to grip hold of their prey. Hawks make their nests at the very tops of tuart trees. They have excellent eyesight and can adjust their focus, so that they never lose sight of prey even when they are swooping towards it.
People bonded with Hawks tend to notice all the tiny details of everything happening around them. They are keen observers of the world and have a deep understanding of events and of other people. Because of this, Hawk people are good at influencing others and predicting behavior. They are often able to stop trouble before it eventuates or to see danger where no one else does.
Hawk people have been known to develop acute eyesight.
Your animal is a: Silver Bat
Silver Bats have pale grey fur and their wings are made of a thin membrane which is almost transparent. This makes these bats appear to be a ghostly silver colour as they glide through the skies at night. Their eyes are black and they have huge ears and a strange, leaf-shaped nose. Silver Bats live in small groups in rock crevasses and hunt in pairs. They prey on small birds and lizards and use their powerful jaws to kill with a single bite to the neck. Silver Bats hunt using bio-sonar, emitting an eerie screech and listening to the echo of the sound to work out the location of prey.
People bonded with Silver Bats tend to value harmonious relationships and familiar surroundings. They enjoy being with the people they love and will fiercely defend their family, friends and home from anyone or anything they view as a threat. While they prefer to work with others rather than doing things alone, they will go after something they want with single-minded determination and rarely fail to get it.
Silver Bat people have been known to develop acute hearing.
Your animal is a: Redwing
Redwings are a type of wasp that feeds on caterpillars. They have distinctive, crimson coloured wings and striped blue and black bodies. Redwings build nests out of a paper-like material that they create themselves by chewing up wood fibres. Their nests, which can be up a metre in length, are attached to the high branches of trees. Redwing stings are highly toxic, however, they will only attack in response to a direct threat to themselves or to their home. Redwings communicate through a complex series of signs and gestures, making it seem as though they are dancing in air.
People bonded with Redwings tend to be highly organised. They dislike chaos and are never happier than when they are making sure that their life – and the lives of everyone around them – runs smoothly. They are also very good at motivating others, and this makes them dangerous enemies. If a Redwing person feels threatened, they will quickly assemble everyone around them into small army to protect the security of their family, friends and homes.
Redwing people have been known to develop enhanced coordination and grace.
Your animal is a: Spider
The Spiders that live in the Firstwood caves have grey, furry bodies. They mature slowly, living for up to ten years, and old Spiders can grow to be the size of a dinner plate. The Spiders build communal webs that stretch across the ceilings of the cave system, and the bite of an adult Spider will kill a human being in seconds. The cave Spiders are a new species which emerged after the Reckoning, and they guard a section of the cave system that contains caverns reaching down into the earth.
People bonded with Spiders tend to be deep thinkers and are adept at seeing the ways in which everything connects together. They are capable of linking seemingly unrelated events and pieces of information and of finding patterns where others see only chaos. To be a Spider person is to be one of the rare few whom the spiders believe are worthy of entering the heart of the earth.
Spider people have been known to be able to climb with great quickness and agility.
Your animal is a: Hopper
Hoppers are a type of bandicoot. They have black eyes, pink clawed feet, small round ears, a long nose and a short tail. Their fur is brown and when fully grown they are about 40 cm in length (approx. 15 inches), measured from nose to tail. Their hind legs are larger than their front legs, and they move with a distinctive hopping motion. Hoppers eat worms and insects as well as underground fungus, and dig up the forest floor in search of food. By turning over the soil, Hoppers allow water to flow into the earth so that new seedlings can grow. Without Hoppers, the health of the entire Firstwood would suffer.
People bonded with Hoppers tend to be highly curious. They are easily bored, and are always in search of a new place to explore or a new idea to ponder. Hopper people are very good at uncovering hidden things and digging out secrets.
Hopper people have been known to sometimes be able to sense when someone is lying to them.
Your animal is a: Star Frog
Star Frogs are small, black frogs with a distinctive yellow, star-like pattern on their backs. They live beside shallow ponds and creeks, and hibernate during the winter. Star Frogs reflect the health of their surrounding environment. If the ecosystems they inhabit become damaged and polluted, the frogs grow sick and the star pattern slowly fades from their backs. In the thriving Firstwood, the frogs are healthy and their stars shine bright and strong.
People bonded with Star Frogs tend to be deeply attuned to everything happening around them. They notice small changes in their environments and are particularly sensitive to other people's feelings. They are often peacemakers, able to prevent disputes and solve problems when no one else can.
Star Frog people have been known to be able to sense the emotions of others.
Your animal is a: Cobalt Bee
Cobalt Bees have distinctive blue and black stripes. They are solitary bees that do not live in large hives. Female Cobalt Bees make their nest beneath the earth, building tunnels under the ground. They will often make a nest close to another Cobalt Bee, so that some parts of the Firstwood are riddled with bee 'villages'. The Cobalt Bees pollinate the plants of the Firstwood allowing seeds and fruit to grow, and the Firstwood ecosystem could not function without them.
People bonded to Cobalt Bees tend to be energetic and industrious. They involve themselves in many different projects at once, and expend enormous amounts of energy until everything is completed. For this reason, they are capable of achieving a great deal in a short amount of time, and quickly become an essential part of any group they belong to.
Cobalt Bee people have been known to be able to detect changes in electrical energy, including being able to sense approaching storms.
Your animal is a: Glider
A Glider is a type of possum. Gliders have a pink nose, large dark eyes and a long tail. Their soft fur is mostly grey with a black stripe running down their backs. They have a thin membrane that runs from their wrists to their ankles. When all their limbs are outstretched, this membrane allows them to glide through the air. Gliders spend their lives in trees, leaping from one to the next, and rarely descend to the ground. They nest in hollows in groups of up to six, and eat insects as well as nectar and sap. Gliders protect the Firstwood by feasting on insects that would damage the trees if their numbers grew out of control.
People bonded with Gliders tend to be highly social. They love to spend time with their friends, and will often be sought out because of their bright, lively personalities. Glider people are very generous, always willing to share anything they have with those close to them.
Glider people have been known to be able to leap long distances.
Your animal is a: Yellowcrest
Yellowcrests are a type of cockatoo. They have black eyes and beaks, snowy white feathers, and bright yellow crests on their heads. They eat nuts, seeds and berries and make their nests in hollows in trees. When Yellowcrests are feeding on the ground, a member of the flock will stand guard over the others, keeping watch from a nearby tree. If danger approaches, the Yellowcrest will let out a screeching cry and the flock will fly to safety.
People bonded with Yellowcrests tend to be talkative and confident. They will usually the loudest in any group and are often the centre of attention as other people are drawn to their natural exuberance. A Yellowcrest person hates to see anyone being excluded and will always make sure everyone is included in a conversation or activity.
Yellowcrest people have been known to be able to project their voices so that they can be heard from a long way away.
Your animal is a: Pebble Mouse
A Pebble Mouse has brown fur, a pink nose and tail, round ears and large black eyes. Their bellies are white and they live in burrows beneath the ground. Pebble Mice build mounds of stones around their burrows, carrying stones in their mouths and moving them around with their legs. Mounds are built up over centuries by different generations of mice, and some burrows are surrounded by ancient structures of pebbles.
People bonded with a Pebble Mouse tend to be intelligent and patient. They dream of grand and beautiful constructions, and will tirelessly devote themselves to a particular project to ensure every detail is perfect.
This is the secret that Pebble Mouse people know: We each inherit something from those who have gone before, and leave something behind for those who will come after. What we build in this life is part of a greater pattern that surrounds us in the dreams and aspirations of generations.
Pebble Mouse people have been known to develop increased manual dexterity.
Your animal is a: Walker
A Walker is a sleek, elegant fish that lives deep in the Firstwood lakes. They grow to up to 30 cm long and have black scales that glitter in the light. Although Walkers do not have legs, they can move on land by using their fins and tail, and are able to survive out of water for lengthy periods.
People bonded with Walkers tend to be very insightful, and reflect deeply upon the world. They are also capable of assessing situations quickly and are highly flexible, able to adapt to new roles and environments.
This is the secret that Walker people know: this world is a diverse and bewildering place, but that which is strange to us should not be feared. To walk among unfamiliar places or people is to have an opportunity to learn, grow – and become something greater than we are.
Walker people have been known to be able to hold their breath for extended periods of time.
Your animal is a: Blackshell
Blackshells are small tortoises that live in ponds in the Firstwood. As their name suggests, they have black shells, and grow up to 15 cm long (approx. 5 in). Blackshells have brown heads, legs and tails, as well as a distinctive orange and black pattern on their undersides. They feed on insects and crustaceans and are extremely long lived. Many Blackshells reach an age of one hundred years or older.
People bonded with Blackshells tend to be very calm and extraordinarily capable, so much so that other people find the mere presence of a Blackshell person to be soothing. Blackshell people will remain level-headed through any crisis and are often asked to step in to resolve difficult situations.
This is the secret Blackshell people know: life has its rhythms and seasons, its sleepy summer days and stormy winter nights. Whatever troubles befall us in this world will eventually pass. We will - you will - we each will be all right, in the end.
Blackshell people have been known to become excellent swimmers and divers.
Your animal is a: Crow
The Firstwood crows are large black birds that can measure up to a metre and a half (4 ft) in length when fully grown. The males have red eyes, and the females white. Crows make a distinctive 'kawing' sound and build big, messy nests which they decorate with shiny things.
People bonded with crows tend to be clever and independent. They will always try to work things out for themselves rather than asking for help. Crow people enjoy collecting pieces of information and solving puzzles.
This is the secret that Crow people know: we can sometimes face troubles so terrible that they threaten to overwhelm us. But is it the great tests of this life that show us our own great strength - and there is no one and nothing that a Crow cannot outwit, outsmart or out-manoeuvre.
Crow people have been known to develop increased mental acuity.
Your animal is a: Frogmouth
Frogmouths are birds that resemble owls. They have large yellow eyes with a black iris, and a flat grey beak. Their feathers are silver grey streaked with black, and they grow up to 50 cm (approx. 19 in) in length. Frogmouths are nocturnal and spend their days sleeping on branches of trees. Their feathers allow them to blend in with their surroundings, making them appear as if they are part of the branches they perch on.
People bonded with Frogmouths tend to be loyal and self-contained. They prefer to avoid trouble but are quick to defend themselves against anyone who tries to take advantage of their easy-going nature. Their quiet way of watching everything around them means they often spot things other people miss.
This is the secret that Frogmouth people know: Always look twice, always look again. Can you see the bird in the branch, the spirit in the tree, the life in the earth around you? There are layers and layers to this world.
Frogmouth people have been known to be able to blend in with their surroundings.
Your animal is a: Swallowtail
Swallowtails are a type of butterfly. When they are caterpillars they are squat and brown; as butterflies Swallowtails have black bodies and shimmering, coppery wings. They are very large, with a wingspan of up to 30 cm (approx. 11 in), and it is possible to spot them from a distance by the orange flash of their wings. Swallowtails seem to be in constant motion, resting for no more than a few moments before fluttering on again.
People bonded with Swallowtails tend to be adventurous and changeable. They rarely become locked into particular habits or patterns of behavior, and are always willing to try something new.
This is the secret that Swallowtail people know: while we may sometimes feel small and unimportant, we are each of us capable of great transformations. We all carry out wings within us, and there is nothing we cannot become if only we believe in our ability to fly.
Swallowtail people have been known to become very light on their feet, so at times they almost seem to be floating along the ground.
Picture Books
Most of my picture books are a type of story that Aboriginal people call 'teaching stories'. These are tales with a message about how to live in the world. For example, the crow from Crow and the Waterhole tells of the importance of valuing yourself, and the numbat from The Two-Hearted Numbat speaks of embracing all sides of who you are.
To find out more about my picture books, including reading reviews and accessing teacher's notes, click on the book title.
Contact Details
For publicity, media enquiries and bookings, please contact
me through my publishers:
Walker Books Australia
Postal Address: Locked Bag 22, Newtown NSW 2042
Tel: +61 2 9517 9577
Email: firstname.lastname@example.com
Fremantle Press
Postal Address: PO Box 158, North Fremantle WA 6159
Tel: +61 (0)8 9430 6331
Enquiry Form: http://www.fremantlepress.com.au/contact
RepresentationI am represented by Tara Wynne of Curtis Brown Australia
Postal Address: PO Box 19, Paddington NSW 2021, Australia
Email: email@example.com
Where To Buy
You can buy my books in your local bookstore or online at: Booktopia, Fishpond, Dymocks, Bookworld, QBD and many others.
The Interrogation of Ashala Wolf and The Disappearance of Ember Crow are available as ebooks at iTunes, JB Hifi Now, and Bookworld.
The UK edition of The Interrogation of Ashala Wolf (published by Walker Books UK) will be available on www.amazon.co.uk from 2 January 2014 and the US edition of The Interrogation of Ashala Wolf (published by Candlewick Press) will be available from www.amazon.com from 8 April 2014. An audio edition of The Interrogation of Ashala Wolf will also be available on amazon.com from 8 April 2014.
Collected Thoughts
Click on the topics below for my thoughts on various things…
Race, reviews and children's literature: some reflections on recent developments in the US
Reflecting on Indigenous superheroes, Indigenous Futurisms, and the future of diversity in literature
Some thoughts on editing YA and kids books containing Indigenous content
Indigenous stories and non-Indigenous writers: some reflections on respect and process
Privilege and literature: three myths created by misdiagnosing a lack of Indigenous voices (and other diverse voices) as a 'diversity problem'
Writing While Black/Writing While Indigenous: Two Voices Speak on Literature, Representation and Justice
Posts on what publishers, teachers, festivals, literary journals, and bloggers can do to support Indigenous books
Let the stories in: on power, privilege and being an Indigenous writer
We Need Diverse Books Because: An Indigenous perspective on young adult and children's literature in Australia
Colonialism, Land and Speculative Fiction: An Indigenous Perspective
Reflections on 'Rituals': An Indigenous Perspective on Process as Transformation
On Aboriginal storytelling, diversity in fiction and writing for the young
A video of me talking about stories – the friends that I carry with me
Guest Post On Whitewashing of Covers in YA Fiction
Interview on the need for diversity in YA Fiction
Ambelin Kwaymullina, Writer and Illustrator


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Like most actresses, Eva Mendes was thin … then she lost another 15 pounds.
And don't think she didn't hear about it from at least one of the three most important women in her life: her mother and two older sisters.
"I'll do anything for a role," Mendes tells Lucky magazine. "For 'A Place Beyond the Pines,' I exercised a lot. I wanted my character to feel really depleted. But my mom didn't understand why I would want to look that way. She's constantly telling me I'm too skinny!"
Weight aside, the 39-year-old Mendes — who doesn't eat red meat or chicken, but professes a soft spot for meringue cake at a Cuban bakery, Porto's, in L.A. — listens to the Mendes ladies on most matters.
Read More of Lucky's Interview With Eva Mendes
Her sisters were the ones who convinced her to design a collection when the moderately-priced clothing store New York & Company came calling. The looks hit racks on September 19.
"I never thought I would be a designer, if that's what I am," Mendes explains. "And at first, I wasn't sure I could do it … They were like, 'Evie, you have to do this!'"
Mendes says her pieces, which include a black shift dress with lace detail and a bodysuit with snaps at the crotch, are for women of all sizes, although they're not for those who enjoy a certain popular kind of fashion feature.
"My customer is not a fan of the way tabloids cover celebrity style: 'Who wore it best,'" she notes. "It's disastrous for women's self-esteem. With fashion, there is no right or wrong."
Great clothes can, however, change the way a woman feels about herself, the "Hitch" star shares.
"Of course, to feel beautiful, you have to have healthy self-esteem and work on yourself, and that can be hard," she explains. "And there are days when I don't feel great, but I put on my favorite dress and throw a scarf in my hair, and it makes all the difference. Hopefully my line can do that for women. Even if you're not feeling your best, let's admit it, the right outfit — it helps."
Nine Outfits We'll Probably See at New York Fashion Week
Actually, it would be pretty impossible for most people to feel bad about themselves if Ryan Gosling was waiting at home! Mendes and the actor, who co-stars with her in "Pines" and also directs her in next year's thriller "How to Catch a Monster," have dated for two years. Mendes was tight-lipped as usual about that, though.
"You can ask about my boyfriend. I just won't answer," she says with a wink.
The 40 Best Drugstore Beauty Products
But we shouldn't feel too bad about her relationship secrets. As close as Mendes is with her mom, it sounds like her famous daughter keeps even her in the dark about some things!
"The way my mother keeps track of me is looking me up," the L.A.-raised Mendes shares. "I say, 'Please, Mother, don't Google me!'"
Read the full interview with Mendes in the October issue of Lucky, on newsstands September 10.
More Celebrity Features on Yahoo!:


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"Today is the tomorrow you were worried about yesterday. Now you know why," quipped Peter Wyman PwC's global leader of public policy and regulation at the CCH conference this week.
In what the conference organisers billed as a swansong in his distinguished career as a driving force within the world's largest accountancy firm and its oldest professional body, the former ICAEW president speculated on the future of accountancy by looking back at the changes that had happened since he was an articled clerk 40 years ago.
"Frankly self-regulation is over. And it's not been replaced by something that is without its problems," he said. "Forty years ago we lived in a world of self regulation, but that wasn't such a bad thing. People setting rules had some understanding – it was all about substance. Today it's around form and the rules are set by people who can't understand what drives the professional mind. The rules are set by civil servants who have never been in practice."
The forces affecting accountancy are the same as those that are shaping the global economy, he said: globalisation, industrial consolidation and technology. New systems, for example, will pave the way for organisations to report their performance in real time, and create an infrastructure that will let accountants outsource more and more of their compliance work to lower cost countries, he predicted.
"Regulation has not globalised and that's still a problem. It's national and set by quite a lot of people without breadth. Starting with Sarbanes Oxley, it's running out of control. Regulation is duplicative. We've got to move to a world of proper mutual recognition, so if you are regulated by one location that will be recognised by other countries. It may be different, but will be accepted. Until that happens we'll have massive duplicative, non-productive regulation."
According to Wyman, "most people I talk to think auditors have had a good financial crisis". With few significant problems around financial reporting, there haven't been any problems with audit. Yet investors, politicians and regulators in Whitehall and Brussels continue to ask why auditors didn't warn of the impending crisis before it happened.
"They're now saying that maybe there isn't the right set of obligations," he noted.
"We're in the political spotlight. Forty years ago, as portrayed in the Monty Python sketch, accountants were perceived as boring. I now realise that boring is good."
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About John Stokdyk
John Stokdyk is the global editor of AccountingWEB UK and AccountingWEB.com.


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First of all I have to say that I am absolutely loving this season's more level playing field; it's the first time in ages that we really have a horse race, and there will be changes at the top of the leaderboard that are organic and not producer or judge induced.
I couldn't understand the rationale for the dance assignments pre-show, and why they gave so many couples the rumba, but I'm sure it's because the celebs each selected their music first, and then a dance was chosen by the producers to go with it, and since most of the "stories" were sad and about loss, almost everyone chose ballads, which mostly only lend themselves to rumbas. Although it was a nice idea, and gave us more personal insight into each celeb, I don't think some of the music choices fit the dance (or any ballroom or latin dance) that well. I personally want to see a sexier rumba, and with the exception of Kendra, none of the other four songs were appropriate for that IMO.
The most enjoyable performances for me were the two highest scored ones. I agree with Len that Petra's was breathtaking, and I hope it gets the encore. I suspect that she is not long for this competition, so I'm glad she got a chance to really shine. I think Hines became the front runner last night because I think he will excel at both latin and ballroom, whereas I sense that Ralph will kill at ballroom, but will struggle with "sexy", ie cha cha and samba specifically, and possibly paso. I thought his rumba was appropriately scored, because he looked no better than Chris, and there was virtually no hip action, which that dance is all about. Compared to his 2 prior performances, it was a letdown for me. OTOH, Kirstie was a trouper and better than I expected at rumba and she looked lovely in that costume; I think she would have gotten at least all 8's and maybe a 9 if not for the fall.
I feel bad for SR, and was glad the judges were kind to him; he's an icon who is not used to losing, and this experience must be humbling for him. He also seems to be a nice guy and not at all arrogant, but he just isn't on the level of most of the others. He deserves to outlast Wendy however, and I really hope he does. I am just ready for her to go; her improvement is minimal, her dancing is a snoozefest, and even her personality is coming across as either aloof or subdued at best. Not fun.


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The greatest quality that Australian middle-order batsman Callum Ferguson possesses is not his vision or footwork but that he does not believe his own publicity.
The South Australian is the clear candidate to fill the boots of Michael Hussey when the 34-year-old calls it quits.
Ferguson, 10 years Hussey's junior, has been marked by some of cricket's finest judges as Australia's next batting wonder and has emphatically underscored his potential by averaging 56 after 15 one-day international innings.
He barely twitches at the crease, but Ferguson is a bashful character off the field, praised by team-mates and coaches.
Australian captain Ricky Ponting said the moment he saw the right-hander he knew Ferguson was a Test player in the making.
''That's very nice of him to say that. Obviously, coming from such a fantastic legend of Australian cricket, it's fantastic of him to say that and very kind. I'd love to get there at some stage, but time will tell," The Age quoted Ferguson, as saying.
''That's something that is a goal of mine and when that comes, if it comes at all, is not in my hands, it's for the selectors.
"It's something I'd love to do at some stage but whether that ever comes, who knows, but I'd love to be there at some stage,'' he added.


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Conservatives on Monday offered a vision of a nation without ObamaCare, Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, and with the federal government offloading authority over a broad swath of policy to the states.
That was the overriding message during a daylong Heritage Action policy summit. The respected 40-year-old right-leaning think tank has recently come under fire from GOP leaders for its political arm's aggressive tactics, which some say are sullying the group's reputation.
In speeches and panel discussions at the foundation's Capitol Hill headquarters, conservative lawmakers in the House and Senate pushed party leaders to begin laying the groundwork in 2014 for a policy agenda that Republicans could enact if they win control of the Senate and the White House over the next three years.
Conservatives presented proposals across a range of policy areas: healthcare, welfare reform, energy, financial regulation, surveillance reform and education among them. But with few exceptions, they sought to line up with the reality of a Republican Party out of power and distrusting of comprehensive legislative proposals.
"These are not just pie in the sky ideas we're talking about," Heritage's president, former Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), said in kicking off the summit.
"These are not huge things like tax reform and entitlement reform that we know we can't get done this year."
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), a former chairman of the Republican Study Committee in the House, touted proposals to overhaul federal welfare programs by increasing work requirements and returning more power to the states.
Rep. Matt SalmonMatt SalmonMcSally tells GOP colleagues she'll run for Arizona Senate GOP Senate hopeful Kelli Ward leads challengers in internal poll Paul says he still supports McConnell after endorsing anti-McConnell candidate MORE (R-Ariz.), talked up plans to rein in the National Security Agency's surveillance program and Sen. Ted CruzRafael (Ted) Edward CruzOvernight Finance: GOP criticism of tax bill grows, but few no votes | Highlights from day two of markup | House votes to overturn joint-employer rule | Senate panel approves North Korean banking sanctions GOP criticism of tax bill grows, but few ready to vote against it Anti-gay marriage county clerk Kim Davis to seek reelection in Kentucky MORE (R-Texas) pushed Republicans to reach for increased energy production, particularly fracking, that goes far beyond construction of the Keystone XL pipeline.
The chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas), discussed his bill to overhaul the federal housing programs and shutter Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
And physician Reps. Tom Price (R-Ga.) and Phil Roe (R-Tenn.) promoted their ideas for tackling a long-running conservative priority: replacing President Obama's healthcare law with a system that allows people to buy health insurance across state lines and take it from job to job, that reduces "defensive medicine" through tort reform, and that expands health savings accounts.
Underlying the proposals was a desire, embraced by the House Republican leadership last week, for the GOP to put forward an alternative vision for the country, even if it stands little to no chance of enactment until 2017 at the earliest, when the GOP could theoretically control both houses of Congress and the White House.
Their rhetoric is a clear move away from the party's strategy in the 2012 presidential campaign, when Republicans by and large tried to make the election a referendum on Obama's policies. Now, Republicans say they have to offer their own vision as an alternative.
"The American people have the right to be presented with a choice," Heritage Action CEO Michael Needham said.
On healthcare, conservatives have cheered a pledge by House Majority Leader Eric CantorEric CantorTop Lobbyists 2017: Hired Guns GOP Rep. Jeb Hensarling to retire after end of current term A tyranny of the minority is raising your health care costs MORE (R-Va.) to vote on a replacement for ObamaCare in 2014.
But Price cautioned the new system he envisioned was, practically speaking, years away.
Obama, he said, is "not going to sign a bill to repeal his signature legislation."
"What will happen, I believe firmly, is that in three to five years, we won't be living under this law," Price added.
With many Republicans favoring a piecemeal legislative approaches over larger, harder-to-explain bills like ObamaCare, Hensarling was one of the few conservatives to talk up a comprehensive proposal. But he acknowledged that his PATH Act overhauling housing laws faced long odds, even to pass the GOP-controlled House in 2014.
"If this doesn't get done in the next several months," Hensarling said, "the window will probably pass."
The conference also was notable for the topics that did not come up. Immigration reform drew only a passing reference from DeMint, who said he favored action on immigration but not in 2014.
"Frankly, this is just not a good time to do it," he said.
And there was little early discussion of the debt ceiling ahead of a Monday afternoon meeting of House Republicans, and after years in which conservatives made spending reductions a top priority.
While Heritage has drawn the ire of Speaker John BoehnerJohn Andrew BoehnerThe two-party system is dying — let's put it out of its misery One year later, neither party can get past last year's election White House strikes back at Bushes over legacy MORE (R-Ohio) for its frequent opposition to leadership proposals, the presenters largely ignored the party leaders.
Instead, the lawmakers who took the stage on Monday went out of their way to align themselves with the increasingly controversial organization.
"When you're working with the Heritage Foundation, I'll bet on that team every time," Jordan said, calling it "the greatest policy think tank in the whole wide world."
— This story was updated on Feb. 11 to reflect that the summit was held by Heritage Action.


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Part 1: A Strange Change
My eyes slowly opened, the feeling of exhaustion still weighing them down. When they finally opened, the place I saw was not C.H.'s house. It looked, smelled, and felt a lot different. It looked like I was in an office or study of some form. There was a large wooden work desk in the center of the room, surrounded on three sides by large bookcases that lined the walls. There were two windows on each wall with a bookcase, but they were so fogged up that it was impossible to see through them. Still trying to get my body to wake up, and rubbed my eyes and yawned. I pulled my hand away from my eyes and my yawn became a gasp of shock. My hand wasn't a hand; it was a white paw. The gasp I let out allowed the foul air in this place to enter my body, and I almost vomited because of it. It was a vile mixture of rotten fish, alcohol, sweat, and mildew. I had to lie down on the floor for a minute or two to let my body adjust to this rancid environment. Once it had adjusted enough to where I could stand without feeling nauseated, I took a look around the place. C.H. was nowhere to be seen. Noticing a rotary mirror on the desk, I took a look at my reflection and almost gasped again at how my appearance had changed. I was no longer a young man of almost twenty years, but a cat with black and white fur. My eyes had changed to an aqua blue color and, while I didn't notice it at first, my glasses had mysteriously vanished.
"This is very strange..." I said to myself. Upon hearing that my voice remained unchanged, I smiled contently. That was when the door shook violently as some brute pounded on it.
"Oi! Who's in there?" A masculine voice called out. "Ya'd best get outta there before the cap'n comes back! He don't like swabbies in 'is study!" I walked towards the door and tried to open it. It was locked tight and didn't budge.
"I'd like to get out of here, but the door's locked." I called through the door.
"Don't ya have a key or a lockpick or somethin'?" the voice asked.
"I wish." I replied.
"How'd ya get in there without a key or a lockpick, then?" The voice inquired.
"I don't know." I answered. "The last thing I remember, my friend and I were caught in a swirling mass of flying paper and I blacked out. The next thing I know, I wake up in this place." I could hear chuckling coming from the other side of the door.
"Really now?" The voice said mockingly, "What'd ya do? Piss off a witch or a voodoo priestess?"
"I seriously doubt magic did this." I retorted. "There has to be some logical explanation for why I'm here."
"Sounds like ya've been cursed to me, lad." The voice stated.
"I'm sure I can figure out what happened once I get out of here." I said impatiently. "That being said, would you be so kind as to help me get out of this place?"
"Yeah, sure." The voice replied. "Lemme get the cap'n for ya. He'll get ya out." The man walked off and left me waiting inside the study for a good ten minutes or so. When he came back, I heard the tell-tale sound of a key conquering a lock and the door swung open. Outside the door were two men: they were both average height and weight, but one had brown hair, blue eyes, and wore simple clothes with a large red overcoat while the other had dirty blonde hair, green eyes, and stylish clothes that were often associated with nobility. I could guess just by their appearances that the fancy-looking one was the "cap'n".
"So what you told me was true, Threebeard." The fancy man said.
"Aye, cap'n!" The one called Threebeard, who more than likely got that name from the way he shaved, exclaimed. "I told ya it wasn't the rum talkin'!" Looking at Threebeard, I saw how he had managed to separate his beard into three sections on his face. An even line of clean-shaven skin separated each one.
"And what about you, boy?" The man asked me. "Who are you, how did you get here, and why in God's name are you dressed like a cat?"
I took a deep breath to prepare my lungs for the explanation. "First off, sir, this isn't a costume. You can search my body for laces or strings, but you will find none. I looked like this when I woke up. Second, the last thing I remember before waking up here was my friend and I getting caught in a vortex of flying paper. As for my name, hmm..." I thought back to my deviantART page and decided that since I looked like my fursona, I might as well use his name. "My name is Ladston Vincent Felis, sir. You can call me Laddy for short."
"I see..." The man mused. "We don't want to be confusing the crew, so we'll just call you by your last name."
"That'll work." I stated.
The man extended his hand out towards me. "My name is Emanuel Kinn. I am the captain of Threebeard and his peers." I extended one of my paws out and we shook hands.
"So your shortened name and title would be Captain Manny Kinn?" I ask while trying to stifle laughter.
"Yes, I suppose it would be." Captain Kinn replied. "However, as captain I am to be addressed by my full moniker at all times by all crew members."
"My apologies, sir." I said while bowing slightly, "But I am not on your crew."
"You may as well now be, Felis." He said with a chuckle while slapping me playfully on the back. "That spell what got cast on you dropped you right on my ship. Any non-crew members either sit in the brig and act as ballast or get fed to the fish. You look like a capable young man, so I'll let you join. How old are you, sonny?"
"I am nineteen, sir." I stated.
"That's good. Our youngest crew member is fourteen. A small boy, but he's got good spirit." He said before turning to Threebeard. "Threebeard, please show Felis here where he can get some clothes."
"Aye aye, cap'n!" Threebeard exclaimed with a salute. I looked down at my body and noticed that I was completely bare. Thankfully the fur covering me from head to toe protected my modesty.
"Come with me, Felis." Threebeard said right as he grabbed my arm and dragged me along with him.
As Threebeard and I walked through the hold, I noticed that there was nobody else around. Figuring they were all above on the main deck, I thought nothing of it and continued along with Threebeard. We stopped in front of a small door at the far end of the hold, which just so happened to be the darkest part of the ship. Threebeard lit a lantern and opened the door with a small key.
"In ya go, lad. I can't have ya bringing this lamp in with ya, lest ya catch the wardrobe on fire. So I'll be giving ya light whilst ya pick yar outfit out." He explained with a friendly, yet unsettling smile.
"Thanks, Threebeard..." I said nervously as I walked into the small space and picked out some clothes. There was a wide selection, but I chose something simple. I went with a pair of faded blue pants that were asymmetrical in the legs and, conveniently enough, had a hole for my new tail to fit through, a blue vest for my upper body, a sea-green headband, and piece of dark purple cloth that would serve as a makeshift scarf. Once I picked out my clothing, I changed into them and struck up a conversation with Threebeard to divert his attention from the fact that I was changing clothes.
"Hey Threebeard." I said.
"Aye?" He replied.
"Are all these clothes used?" I asked.
"They are, actually." Threebeard answered. "All our clothes are used, and each article has been worn by at least one pirate within the last five years. Those pants ya be puttin' on actually belonged to a friend o' mine called McGutter. Aye... I miss the man..."
"What happened to him?" I inquired.
"Ya see that hole yar tail be goin' through?" He pointed out. "That hole was made during a ship raid gone wrong. Poor ol' McGutter got a rusty cutlass to his back, just above his backside. He couldn't move after the battle, and sickness took him shortly after. Poor man..."
I shuddered at the prospect that I was wearing a dead man's pants, but I didn't say anything to avoid potentially offending Threebeard. "Where is this ship sailing?" I asked.
"Cap'n Kinn has his sights set on a magical spring of water that is said to have mystical powers of longevity and clarity." Threebeard replied, "From what we've heard, the spring's water also tastes amazin'."
"So, the Fountain of Youth, huh?" I said quizzically.
"Not quite." Threebeard asserted, "The Fountain o' Youth is said to restore any who drink its waters to their former glorious selves. This spring is different. It increases the drinker's lifespan and supposedly gives 'em unimaginable wisdom."
"Interesting..." I mused. "Do you know what Captain Kinn's motives are for locating it?"
Threebeard just shrugged, "The Cap'n usually keeps that sort o' stuff to himself. He may keep some sort o' journal in 'is study, but he always keeps it locked up tight. I'd never laid eyes on its interior before ya came along." I had finished getting dressed at this point and stepped out of the small space.
Threebeard complimented me on my new appearance. "Ya look good in those, Felis."
"Thank you, Threebeard." I replied with a smile. "So, what's next?"
"Well... seein' how ya look real winded and it be the dead of night, I suggest ya go to one of the hammocks and get some sleep." He advised. "Just fall into any one ya want. It don't matter."
"Thank you again, Threebeard." I stated as I walked to a hammock and hopped in.
"See ya in the mornin', Felis." Threebeard said as he walked off.
I don't know how long I laid awake for, but during each passing second my mind was burdened by one urgent question: Was C.H. all right? Had he landed somewhere safe? I eventually fell into a restless sleep, still wondering about C.H.
[G] Free Reign, Part 1 by LaddytheOutcatWatch
©2014-2017 LaddytheOutcat
And it continues....
Wow, a surprising turn of events. I love the new turn the plot as taken—and now C.H. is missing and you're a cat?! Hmm…I think something magical is going on here. Keen job; everything about the pirates feels so realistic. And where has C.H. gone off to? I must know!
I tell you, I cracked up with "Manny Kinn". Seems it went right over the captain's head, however.


text:
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Like lambs to the slaughter
It resulted in the deaths of millions of animals; cost the Treasury £2bn; threatened the jobs of thousands of people and destroyed a centuries-old way of life... As the anniversary of the foot-and-mouth outbreak approaches, Tim Adams asks: cock-up or conspiracy?
Tim Adams
Driving up to Cumbria, almost a year after the foot-and-mouth epidemic officially began, I was listening to two stories on the local radio station. It sounded like somebody had asked the programme's editor what he wanted first: the good news or the bad news. The lead item stated the foot-and-mouth crisis had officially ended, that the international restrictions had been lifted and Britain could start exporting meat. The other item added simply that the figures for the numbers of stock slaughtered had been revised. For six months we'd been told it was 4m head of cattle and sheep. Now, it seemed, the total number was more like 11m. This statistic was presented as if it would not really come as a surprise to anyone. The motorway to the northern Lake District runs along a low escarpment called the Penrith spur. While I was wondering how these two pieces of information might square up, I was looking out, too, for a particular heart-shaped wood on the lower flank of this hillside. Hilary Wilson, whose family farm is here, had told me this landmark was the easiest way of finding her. After that, she said, you just drop down off the motorway, double back underneath, go through the viaduct, over the bridge, round a sharp bend, and the farm was down the tiny lane on the right.
This short journey, with a few wrong turnings, felt nevertheless a very long way from the sweeping certainties of the M6. I'd asked to talk to Hilary Wilson about how she'd survived this awful year. But when we sit down, it's clear that it's not quite as simple as that. 'Don't listen to what you hear on the radio,' she says. 'It's not really ended for the people in this valley. Not yet.'
When I ask her to explain, it's as if she doesn't quite know where to begin. She looks around her spare, neat kitchen. In one corner there are three bags full of wool. 'The way we farm,' she says, 'is the way people have always farmed here. We keep a family of sheep and they keep us. We have some cattle as well, but essentially to live this lifestyle you've got to be committed to that family of sheep. That's the key thing in what you are doing. It's quite biblical, isn't it? A vocation.'
She tells me a bit about her husband and son, who are out on the fells, shows me a photo of them with their Rough Fell sheep. 'What has happened with the legislation over the last few years is that there is no longer any value attached to our way of life. It means that as a mother you are saying to your son: "Do you want a job with no money, no time off and no respect?" For the generation of our age, in their fifties, it's too late to change. But the next generation won't take it on. And if that's threatened, then everything goes.
'I suppose,' she says, smiling sadly, 'we're just another dying breed. In the valley, I think there are three men under 30 in full-time farming, in about 14 miles. So the prospect is really watching the community die, anyway. And that was before foot and mouth.' She goes on to detail the particular horrors of the past 12 months, offers tales of incompetence on a grand scale, stories of intimidation of farmers pressured to co-operate in the 'voluntary cull' of their healthy, irreplaceable flock, and how it was impossible to get any clear information. 'You felt you'd complied with the destruction of your sheep, and betrayed that bond you had,' she says. 'It is a huge and massive betrayal, and it feels very wrong. And that won't ever go away.' Wilson then jokes a little about her day job as a nurse at the local hospital, about her efforts at keeping hens, her hopes for her orchard. And finally, as RAF fighters from the nearby airbase pass seemingly yards over the farmhouse, she talks of the new Animal Health Bill now going through a reading in the House of Lords, of how it enshrines in law the enormous powers assumed by Defra (the new Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) over the past few months: the power to come on to any farmer's land and slaughter his stock, with no obligation to full compensation. When she mentions this, she speaks not so much with anger but with fear. 'I think we are very frightened of the government,' she says. 'It would be possible to come to terms with the depravity and destruction of what went on if you could see a future. But really we just live with this gut-wrenching terror of what they might do next.'
When I came to leave Wilson's farm and drive out of the valley with its few remaining pockets of sheep, it struck me that it was a surprising, shocking thing for a woman like her - robust, cheerful, kind, industrious - to be so plainly frightened of the powers that be. But the more people I spoke to among the hill farmers of Cumbria, the more I had the sense that this sentiment was the overriding legacy of the past year. Before I came up here, I'd expected to be confronted by bitterness and anger and sadness, but not really by fear.
Hilary Wilson's was the first of many such stories I heard in the days that followed. Hill farmers are by nature isolated. When I called them on the phone there often seemed a mixture of wariness and unease as much at the technology as at my questions. But many said they were too scared to want to talk to me, that they didn't want to get involved. One man said he lived in fear of them coming for the rest of his flock if he spoke out about the mistakes that had been made in controlling the spread of the disease. Others believed that their phones were being tapped. It seemed they felt like they were still living in a state of siege.
In a way, this paranoia should not, perhaps, be so surprising. For many months over the past year, many of these farmers were stuck on their farms, effectively under house arrest to the epidemic. In the absence of any firm information about latest policy, and watching television broadcasts which often seemed to blame them for the spread of the disease, there was little to do but swap stories with friends and neighbours, try to discover which way the outbreaks were heading, keep a map in their heads of how that might affect them. BT, I am told, must have made a fortune from the epidemic, but no one else up here did, apart from the slaughtermen.
In the early weeks, when the authorities were seemingly refusing to recognise the scale of the problem in Cumbria and farmers were waiting to discover their fate (which in some cases depended on which way the wind was blowing), some people took it on themselves to give an outlet to some of these stories, to try to piece together an overall picture of what was happening in the remoter outposts. Caz Graham, a producer and presenter at BBC Radio Cumbria, was one. She ran a phone-in from 10pm till midnight every night, and was inundated with callers; a farmer's daughter herself, she'd sit in her booth, tears rolling down her cheeks.
Another who sought to find out what was really happening was Suzanne Greenhill. The Greenhills live in Cockermouth, Wordsworth's birthplace, and to reach them you drive past the beautiful snow-capped peaks of Skiddaw and Blencathra. Suzanne is part of a family that established the first livestock auction in the area, of which her husband Peter is now chairman. She got involved, she says, because she felt people weren't able to sift out fact from gossip.
'The hill farmers were used to coming to the market every fortnight and discussing what was going on. There were always rumours, but in the give and take of the auction floor, they could work out what was true and what not. When the market was closed in March, this forum was removed. And so, because they were so isolated from each other, they took a lot of what they heard as gospel.'
The Greenhills sought to separate some of the facts from the fiction. Suzanne made 800 calls to farms to establish how many of the native, 'hefted' sheep were being taken out from the fells. She wrote to anyone she could think of - Prince Charles, the farming minister Nick Brown, newspaper editors - to raise awareness of the situation. She also tried to source some of the more virulent horror stories about the way the cull was being conducted. Like many others, she found herself on the phone every day from dawn to dusk, and the more she investigated, the more she discovered that a lot of what they were hearing was true.
There was the story about how Maff (Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food) officials were using maps so old they did not have the main A66 marked; of how there were several reports of odd contingencies being made for an epidemic long before the outbreak began; of how farms were being taken out because officials had misread grid references; of how a man who lived in a terraced house in Newcastle received a letter saying that they were coming to kill his sheep; of how local vets were routinely replaced by 'imported' ones because they refused in some instances to comply with the killing; of how dirty vehicles carrying carcasses were moving through clean areas; of how some cows were 'hung' from JCBs and others were shot in the buttocks 'to bring them down'. She kept lists, too, of the more comical directives: the farmer who was asked by one helpline assistant what sex his bull was; another who was told that he could handle wool as long as it hadn't been near any sheep.
'What I was most worried about,' she says 'was that in all the incompetence, through the contiguous cull, there would be no sheep left anywhere on the fells. In the official figures, the only farms that were included were those that had infected animals. Around here, there was one infected farm, and 24 others were taken out as dangerous contacts.'
As she details these events, her husband produces the documentary evidence that supports many of them. They have charts comparing the response times during the 1967 outbreak to those of last year (to begin with, infinitely quicker); extensive research on why vaccination would have stopped the problem in its tracks; data that shows that of a sample of 720,000 culled animals, only 327 showed traces of the disease, a percentage of 0.045, as compared to the 15 per cent ratio claimed by Defra. They have scientific reports from all over the world about the inadequacy of a slaughter policy, files and floppy disks with case studies of bad practice. They've become self-taught experts in epidemiology, and they are not alone. 'Many people started collecting this information because they cared about what was happening,' Peter Greenhill says. 'And they could not get it from anywhere else. Through the internet, we could also share it. This must be the best-documented disaster this country has ever seen. All we want to do now is to hand it over to a proper independent public inquiry.'
The Greenhills are not alone in this demand. Without exception, everyone I spoke to in Cumbria - from brigadiers to ostrich farmers - suggested that until the full truth of what happened last year is in the open, it will be impossible to move on or learn from mistakes. Next week, a full year after the epidemic began, a great deal of the evidence assembled by the Greenhills and others will be presented before a judicial review in London to try to force the hand of the government.
Up until now, the public statements made by ministers about the most widespread epidemic of this disease the world has seen in modern times have been elliptical, to say the least. Alun Michael, the short-lived party placeman in the Welsh Assembly and now government spokesman on rural affairs, told the House of Commons in a remarkable speech on 4 July last year that it would be 'irresponsible to bandy about words such as "public inquiry" which have specific meanings. The use of such terminology is not casual and the worst possible outcome would be to end up with a long-delayed and bureaucratic inquiry.' Sceptics might have noted his own 'casual' use of the words 'long-delayed' and 'bureaucratic' here, and replaced them with, say, 'efficient' and 'open', and then considered to whom this would be the 'worst possible outcome'.
Margaret Beckett, in contemplating a crisis which even her own conservative estimates suggest cost the Treasury £2bn (the equivalent of a penny on the basic rate of income tax) and which some say cost five times more, which threatened the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of people, which delayed a general election, and which caused the abolition of a government department (Maff) and brought into being her own new empire (Defra), sought, in the spirit of the times, to accentuate the positive. In rejecting claims from The Guardian that a fully transparent inquiry was almost mandatory in these circumstances to restore public confidence, she said: 'What is important is not just to identify what we could and should do better next time, but also to highlight the many things that went well.'
Peter Allen, a 17th-generation farmer, has recently become the third member of his family to receive an OBE from this queen for services to hill farming. As NFU representative for the Cumbrian farmers he was often at the sharp end of policy making in the past year, and though he can point to the Herculean efforts of colleagues and friends, he can't really suggest too many things that 'went well', at least in those crucial first weeks.
'It was just so badly organised at the start. There seemed no contingency planning and the resources just were not there: human, mechanical, physical or financial. I would point the finger above all at a lack of leadership. There was no one throughout the entire civil service or government who the chief vet up here, or any of us, could turn to, and who would say, "If you need that I'll get it."'
After the Prime Minister got directly involved, he suggests, and appointed Brigadier Alex Birtwhistle to oversee the clean-up, things improved markedly, but by then the battle had already been lost. 'If we'd had those resources on 23 February, when there were still animals moving, and implemented a proper slaughter policy, we'd have won by the end of March,' he says. 'And those decisions should have been made automatically. I still can't understand how they were not.'
While Peter Allen sticks firmly to his cock-up theories, there are plenty of people in Cumbria who make the easy jump from there to conspiracy. Faced with the fact that the government seemed willing to lavish its billions on an inept slaughter policy which was enforced by the army and protected by the Official Secrets Act (which all Maff employees had to sign), and in the absence of any willingness to investigate what went wrong, there are many who will happily believe there were other motives at work.
Talk to many hill farmers in the region, and you will hear the figure 16m. That is the number, you will be told, that an EU debate in 1998 threw up in relation to British overstocking of sheep (this being a conspiracy theory, no one is quite sure which debate this was). Hugh and Liz Lowther, for example, who own 5,000 acres south of Penrith, farmed by tenants, both believe that the level of incompetence showed by Maff and Defra could not simply have been unwitting, that there must have been more pernicious forces involved. The epidemic was seized on, they believe, by a government under pressure from Europe and the Treasury to depopulate the fells of sheep; the slaughter policy was conceived and stubbornly held to with this end in mind, and in the knowledge that the sheep in large part could not be replaced.
The Lowthers' evidence to support this claim is an odd mixture of paranoia about global powerbroking - 'Seattle is the same argument' - and observation of what went on around them. 'The vets were all going from farm to farm to farm and back to Carlisle,' Liz says, 'no problem. The slaughter teams were making illegal movements all the time. But the farmers weren't allowed to move a muscle off their farms to defend their stock.'
'Take the example of a farm just up the road,' says her husband. 'The vets had been and tested his stock and all was well. And then the next day a Defra guy came to tell him that the vet who had tested him had just come from a dirty farm. So they had to shoot all his cattle and sheep outright. You're telling me that was just inefficiency? Everything was directed toward the idea that they wanted to remove every single sheep from these fells. There was no cull in the National Park, you notice, because they need those sheep for the tourists. But out here on the rough fells, the only farms that are left are the ones that resisted. And once the Animal Health Bill is in place, and they've got some flimsy evidence for a link between scrapie and CJD, they'll come again for those.'
While I'm in Cumbria, there is a conference at Penrith's new Rheged Discovery Centre, an odd Tolkienesque place which pretends it's been built into bare rock and waterfalls. The conference is about 'helping farmers to help themselves', and it begins with a man from the HSBC bank tapping a microphone and wondering if he can be heard in the Pennine Gallery. It turns out he can't. But then, of course, these farmers are used to problems with communication.
The keynote speaker at the conference is Lord Haskins, the multimillionaire maker of ready meals, former chairman of Northern Foods, and the co-ordinator of government task forces on farming, the NHS, rural regeneration, and likely pretty much everything else. Lord Haskins achieves the rare trick of managing to address his packed audience of Cumbrian farmers for 45 minutes without once mentioning the legacy of foot-and-mouth disease. He is instead, in common with Labour's rural-recovery team, looking to the future. And as he describes that future, I'm oddly struck by how closely it resembles some of the wilder fears and predictions of Viscount Lowther.
Cumbrian hill farming, Haskins suggests, needs to be ready to take its place in the global markets. He talks a good deal about 'agricommodities' and not at all about sheep and lambs. He talks of the 'problems' of Britain being a world leader in animal welfare. He explains how our livelihoods these days are in the hands of Alan Greenspan. He talks of a generation of consumers, who want perfect ovoid potatoes free of scabs, and who see supermarkets as their heroes. He despairs a little at the realities of the Common Agricultural Policy, the overstocked fells and the expansion of the EU, which will introduce 7m smallholders from Poland alone. And he demands his audience to face up to what they are going to do about all these new realities (by now, it has to be said, most of them look like they are not in a position to do very much). The peer then concludes, of course, by saying how optimistic he is for farming in this area - but he's fooling no one.
The question-and-answer session is a fairly low-key affair, as if the farmers are resigned to their fate. Towards the end one man near the back suggests, 'Whatever we do, let's not keep putting people down.' For a moment I wonder if Lord Haskins is going to venture a joke in reply about a voluntary cull of hill farmers, but perhaps he thinks better of it.
In the absence of an independent inquiry into the events of the last year, what the government has tried to get away with is a series of small-scale reports from their own appointees, which may or may not be for public consumption. The first of these, Sir Donald Curry's 'vision' for agriculture, published a fortnight ago, is very much in the spirit of Lord Haskins's overview: it gazes resolutely to a future that bears little resemblance to, say, much of the past. And it seeks to replace the idea of British hill farming with a series of abstract nouns.
One of these, of course, is diversification. In practice, as hill farmers desperate to make ends meet will tell you, for small family farms diversification is difficult to achieve. Not everyone would want to stay in a bed and breakfast under the M6, for example. And even in the more touristed parts of the Lake District only a rare few family farmers have managed a viable balance between tourism and stockrearing. One of these is the Peet family, who have taken to keeping ostriches alongside their cattle and sheep in the Eden Valley, east of Penrith. When I go to talk to Karen Peet, who runs the visitor attraction there, I'm struck by a couple of things: first, how keen the ostriches are to peck human hands and ears (you don't get that with sheep), and secondly how incongruous they look among the soft hills. This may be one future, but it doesn't look like the future.
The report also recommends that farmers join together to sell produce locally. (Hugh Lowther is trying to advocate this among his tenants, wants to establish a series of co-operative abattoirs, but that is blocked by legislation and mostly, he says, his farmers just want to return to the way things were, 'and wait for the next time, lambs to the slaughter.') Still, the main thrust of Curry's report does not concern farming at all: rather, it suggests removing subsidies based on head of livestock, and giving them instead for what is called 'custodianship of the environment'.
The conspiracy theorists see this as depopulation by other means. And even realists like Peter Allen find it sinister: 'We're not in the park-keeping business. If they want us to forget about the farming aspect of it I'm going to turn around and say, "Get yourself a bloody gardener; I'm going to get another job." We're not looking to make fortunes here - the average income for a hill farmer in the year before foot and mouth was £5,000, and you can earn that part-time stacking shelves in Sainsbury's - but we want to be allowed to do what we have always done, and that includes maintaining the environment for the tourist industry, but primarily it is working with our animals.'
Following Lord Haskins on to the stage at Rheged was a woman from the RSPB, which has been a key advisor to Curry. Hedgerow-bird populations are one of the indicators in Defra's Orwellian 'quality of life' targets, by which it sets great store, and the RSPB thus suddenly finds itself able to dictate one future to farmers. The woman explained this New World Order to her resolutely polite audience with the help of slides dotted with lapwings, and full of exhortations to look at farms 'in a holistic way' and to 'explore the concept of a National Envelope', which incorporated, well, I suppose pretty much everything.
One of the stumbling blocks to this glowing future she said, though, was 'culture'. This she glossed brightly as an unwillingness among local farming families to change the habits of a lifetime, or perhaps several lifetimes. As she explained this theory, I was reminded of something Hilary Wilson had said when I went out to her farm. It was her response to a question that many people asked her: why, in the face of all the difficulties of their life, did they stay there? 'I've thought about this a lot,' she said. 'And I suppose it's because we believe one of the most fulfilling things you can do with your life is to live in a relationship with the land, with the seasons, the plants, and the animals. If you do this properly you're not guardian of nature, as such, you are part of it.' Perhaps, it seemed, someone should explain to the Wilsons why, in 'agri-environmental' terms, that also means you are part of the problem, rather than part of the solution. firstname.lastname@example.com


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