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That's it for our live news headlines for this morning. Check out all today's top stories on news.com.au.
The Chaser's Julian Morrow cracked a number of jokes about the missing Malaysian airliner on the Kyle and Jackie O Show this morning -- even leaving Kyle Sandilands shocked.
"I'm not saying she's solely responsible, but remember Lara Bingle?" Morrow said. "I know she normally does train wrecks or car crashes, but I think this could be a new twist by Tourism Australia as part of the 'Where the Bloody Hell Are You campaign' to encourage people not to go overseas."
A stunned Sandilands responded with, "Hang on, so this is a joke segment? I had all my serious facts here. I didn't have any jokes written down, I thought it's way too soon. We don't even know where this plane is."
But Morrow continued with the gags. Read more of this story from Andrew Bucklow here
Khloe Kardashian's public relations flaks apparently pulled the plug on an interview with Sunrise this morning after Samantha Armytage asked a question about baby North West.
Here's Sunrise executive producer Michael Pell:
What happened with @khloekardashian on the show is a good lesson for publicists everywhere. Don't try to censor natural conversation.
— Michael Pell (@MichaelPell) March 17, 2014
We thought it was a technical glitch but turns out @KhloEkardashian's people pulled the plug after @Sam_armytage asked about baby North
— Sunrise (@sunriseon7) March 17, 2014
Here's the full story on Warnie's threats to join Tinder from news.com.au's Sam Clench, who has humbly suggested some profile pictures for the one-time cricket star.
Did terrorists hijack MH370?
It's one of the reigning theories but here's what the Taliban think: If only.
"We wish we had an opportunity to hijack such a plane," a Pakistani Taliban commander told Reuters, adding he had no idea where the flight was.
In light of the MH370 crisis, pilots have explained why crew are able to turn off a plane's communication systems.
Authorities believe somebody on board the flight turned off the Malaysian Airlines jet's transponder and ACARS system.
The reason flight crews are allowed to turn off the systems is simple, according to airline pilot and author Patrick Smith.
"In the interest of safety — namely, fire and electrical system protection — it's important to have the ability to isolate a piece of equipment, either by a standard switch or, if need be, through a circuit breaker," Smith wrote on his blog.
Police are preparing to exhume multiple babies from secret graves hidden for more than a decade on a rural property near Bundaberg.
Forensic officers and cold case detectives swarmed the property on the outskirts of Gin Gin yesterday after a tip that the births of babies had been concealed in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
It is not known how many bodies police expected to find on the property.
A US man has turned himself in to police after Googling himself and finding he was on a 'Most Wanted' list, The New York Daily News reports.
Christopher Viatalfa, 27, was wanted for a shooting at a party last August.
He allegedly told police that he was searching his name online when he came face-to-face with his mug in a wanted poster.
The days of filling out a tax return may soon be over, The Advertiser's Tory Shepherd reports.
The Australian Tax Office has been working on technology that would process the information it already gets about taxpayers, produce a return, and send it to the taxpayer to sign off on.
Prime Minister Tony Abbott has left the door open to getting rid of individual tax returns. "At this stage, no, but watch this space," he said.
Texans have freaked out over local television stations' use of "haboob", the Arabic word for wind. These are some of their reactions, as the Daily Beast reports:
"Since when do we need to apply a Muslim vocabulary to a good ole AMERICAN dirt storm?? ...I take great offense to such terminology! GO BACK TO CALLING THEM DIRT STORMS!!"
"John Robinson [the station's meteorologist] wants to call it a Haboob, let him MOVE to where a SAND STORM is called that!!!!!!!!!!"
Here's the latest on the Oscar Pistorius trial via AFP.
Oscar Pistorius once said he mistook the sound of a washing machine for an intruder and went into "combat mode" in his house, a South African guns expert testified Monday at the athlete's murder trial.
Months later, Pistorius killed his girlfriend by shooting her through a closed toilet door.
Sean Rens also said the Olympian had a "great love and enthusiasm" for guns and wanted to buy seven more in 2012, to add to the 9 mm pistol he already owned
There's another big story out of the MH370 investigation this morning.
Malaysian police are now investigating a flight engineer who was among the passengers of the missing plane, Reuters reports.
The aviation engineer is Mohd Khairul Amri Selamat, a 29-year-old Malaysian who works for a private jet charter company.
Meanwhile, one-time rocker Courtney Love, who admittedly has little aviation knowledge, believes she may have found the missing plane.
Watch out, ladies. Shane Warne has threatened to join Tinder.
Was just sent some pictures, wow, some people move on quickly. Maybe now it's time to take up my single friends suggestions & join tinder !
— Shane Warne (@warne888) March 17, 2014
The last words heard from missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 were spoken by the plane's co-pilot, Malaysian officials said, providing a glimpse into the crucial period when the plane was deliberately diverted.
Clarification that the voice was most likely that of First Officer Fariq Abdul Hamid came during a press conference at which Malaysian officials hit back at "irresponsible" suggestions that they had misled the public -- and passengers' relatives -- over what happened to Malaysia Airlines Flight 370.
Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah and Fariq, his co-pilot, have become a primary focus of the investigation, with one of the key questions being who was in control of the aircraft when it veered off course about an hour into its flight to Beijing.
The nonchalant-sounding last message from the cockpit -- "All right, good night" -- came around the time that two of the plane's crucial signalling systems were manually disabled.
"Initial investigations indicate it was the co-pilot who basically spoke," said Malaysia Airlines CEO Ahmad Jauhari Yahya.
An Adelaide photographer was shocked to be evicted from a popular pub because of his neck tattoo.
Andrew Lester, 30, has the words "Love is Blind" tattooed on his neck as a poignant reminder to his young daughter Juno's health battles.
He was having a quiet meal at the popular Alma Tavern on Saturday night when security ordered him out of the hotel unless he covered up his ink.
"I was honestly absolutely shocked, I was just laughing and said 'you can't be serious, surely that can't be something that happens' and they said I had to cover it up with a band-aid," he said.
You can read more of this story here.
A man who was caught shoving lamb steaks down his pants in the meat aisle at a Northern Territory supermarket on Saturday has been charged by police.
NT Police duty superintendent Louise Jorgensen said the meat was removed from the man's trousers and "declared unfit for sale".
"The meat has been destroyed," Spt Jorgensen told reporters, adding that the 41-year-old man had been "causing a disturbance by begging for money" before attempting to steal the steaks.
The teenager at the centre of a social media storm over headgear handed out by footballer Johnathan Thurston says she didn't snatch it from nine-year-old Jack Ryan.
Ryan and his mum earlier said the headgear was snatched from the little boy at the footy by an unidentified woman, who then hid it under her shirt.
But the 18-year-old woman who ended up with the headgear now disputes the claim and says she has since been subject to bullying, The Courier-Mail reports.
The top news headlines this morning:
• Australia will coordinate the search for Flight MH370 in the southern Indian Ocean from daybreak today
• Scientists say they have found new evidence to support the Big Bang Theory, discovering the waves of gravity that rippled through space after the Big Bang for the first time
• Fashion designer L'Wren Scott, 49, who is also the partner of Mick Jagger, has been found dead in an apparent suicide
Good morning, and welcome to our "headlines in a hurry" morning news coverage. We will be bringing you the best of what's happening this morning, so you can get across the news quickly.


text: I got my hands on a 1996 Ibanez SR500, made in Korea. It's a P/J one. {} The previous owner replaced one of the tuners but used a "top" side rather than a "bottom". I need to find a fitting replacement, I don't like the way the string is sitting. Help? Will a Gotoh GB7 (14mm / 9/16") fit? {}

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" Anxiety is a debilitating mood condition that affects many people globally. Share your experiences and success stories. "
It all started when I was a teenager for me. It took nothing to make me snap, I would just start shouting and getting angry for apparently no reason, and I would be awake all night worrying over nothing at all...I just couldn't switch off from life sometimes. When I went out, I would worry that I hadn't turned off the oven...and although many people have these simple thoughts, they will quickly dispense, but for me I would worry all day, or all week if I was going on holiday. Sometimes the shakes set in and when I got really stressed out I couldn't breath, it felt like the life was sucked out of me...I later realised these were panic attacks.
It took me until I was 22 to actually do something about my problems. I had gotten married 2 years earlier, and my marriage was very happy, but when we did have a little argument, I would spin it out of control, the amount of glasses and plates that had gone flying through the rooms in my house was ridiculous. It only took the birth of my daughter to give me the much needed kick up the backside to go and get myself some help.
Finding I was getting stressed out with a baby crying, I was shouting at her, even at a few weeks old if she was crying, and I was worrying that if I didn't get help, I might end up hurting her albeit by accident.
So off I went to my lovely Doctor, who listened to my symptoms and told me it sounded like I had stress and anxiety disorder- my mum has depression, and my dad used to be on pills for stress and anxiety himself, so it does "run in the family", and she prescribed me with a medication called Citalopram 20mg and sent me away for 6 weeks to try them, see how I dealt with them. I was anxious about taking pills, worried that I would become addicted to them and not be able to come off them, but as my doctor said, if I had diabetes, would I not take the much needed insulin incase I became addicted...anxiety and depression are illnesses just like diabetes, although not as physical as some illnesses, which makes many people disregard mental disorders, it IS an illness and so I was a little happier about taking the medication.
6 weeks passed, and though the medication had helped me, I still found I was just a tad worried still and still got stressed, though nowhere near as much, and my Doctor upped my dosage to 40mg...and finally I was happy.
I would not class myself as depressed, and the questionnaire which I was given by my Doctor also showed that I didn't have depressed tendancies, but the medication I was given is actually an anti depressant. My mood has really improved with the help of my medication, and although I of course still get stressed out and annoyed at things, it is much much more in control and a more "normal" stress level like the majority of people get when things happen to them which are stressful!
So what is anxiety then?
Anxiety is psychological, meaning that it is to do with the brain, the word anxiety basically means "to worry", and this is what anxiety does to a person, makes them worry unnecessaily whether there is a reason to or not. Anxiety can make a person feel worried and stressed. Anxiety in itself is a natural reaction to stresses in life, for example a worry of losing your house if you lose your job...and almost everybody in the world gets anxiety on a weekly if not daily basis.
But, when anxiety becomes excessive, a person is diagnosed with anxiety disorder. Anxiety disorder can provoke panic attacks (hyperventillating), tension in a physical sense, symptoms such as sweating; raised blood pressure; feeling hot, and worry. Although this one phrase is used, there are lots of sub categories of anxiety disorders- panic attacks, phobias (such as agoraphobia) and other disorders such as obsessive compulsive disorder. Each "type" of anxiety disorder will be treated differently. The type I am explaining in this "review" is a general anxiety disorder where the person gets stressed and general feelings of worry on an extreme basis- this is called "Generalized anxiety disorder" and "panic disorder" can also fall under this too, where a person allso experiences panic attacks with their anxiety.
Anxiety disorders are complex and can be confusing for somebody who is diagnosed, but you will usually be told which anxiety disorder you have whether it is a panic disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder etc.
What causes Anxiety Disorders?
If we are completely honest, Doctors are still not 100% sure exactly WHAT causes anxiety disorders, the brain is still relatively an unknown organ, which is why treating these types of disorders can sometimes be hit and miss and a case of trail and error.
In some cases, but by no means all (and certainly not in my case!) the anxiety disorder may be induced by drug or alcohol abuse, so if you are diagnosed with anxiety, you must tell your doctor if you use an excessive amount of drugs or alcohol- and these will be the first things to "cut out" to stop your anxiety before the use of drug intervention will be used.
Something called Gamma Aminobutyric Acid (or GABA for short!) a neurotransmitter which is there to reduce activity in the central nervous system of the body can be produced in low levels, meaning that there is too much activity going on in the central nervous system, this can contribute towards anxiety disorders.
There are parts of the brain, situated in the temporal lobes (in the middle of your brain!) called amygldala- this part of the brain is essential in stress and anxiety and processes it. In an anxiety disorder, the function of the amygldala may be the cause or caused by anxiety disorders, though it isn't sure which causes which, does the function of this part of the brain cause anxiety disorder or does the anxiety cause the reduced function of the amygldala.
Sorry if this is quite brief but the reasoning behind anxiety disorders is relatively unknown, we do not know if it is caused by a natural thing (i.e. something in the body and possibly genetic) or is it something to do with life (i.e. life stresses bring on extreme stress which bring on anxiety and then eventually a disorder!)- so for now, I cannot really give an exact reason behind anxiety disorders sadly.
Diagnosing Anxiety Disorders
Anxiety disorders can be present from a very young age (though it is natural for children to have anxiety as everything is so new to them), or they can come about later in life when something triggers it (this may be a divorce, loss of job, death close to home etc).
As there are lots of physical symptoms to anxiety disorders, these can be used to diagnose these disorders: these include headaches, excessive sweating, muscle spasms, palpitations of the heart, high blood pressure and tiredness. But on top of this, a Doctor will listen to your own experiences, will ask you questions and will usually ask you to complete a questionnaire which will give you a "score" between 0 and 20 (as far as I know, all of these tests are different so yours may vary from this one, but they all have the same end result!), 0 means there are no signs of depression or anxiety, whilst 20 may indicate a serious mental disorder such as scizophrenia, a person with an anxiety disorder will usually get a score between 3 and 7 (unless there is a depressive tendancy too). Many people diagnosed with depression are also diagnosed with an anxiety disorder, and these will be treated simultaneously.
There are no "tests" to say "you have panic disorder", or "you have obsessive compulsive disorder", so the diagnosis of these illnesses can be difficult, and it all depends on your doctor- so when you call your doctor for an appointment, you may be best asking for a doctor who has specialised in mental health as these doctors will know more about the conditions and will be better qualified to diagnose your condition and treat it correctly.
Treating Anxiety Disorders
As I mentioned earlier, all anxiety disorders will be treated differently. With a Generalized anxiety disorder, your doctor may begin by trying to treat you with counselling-if you do not want this, you can request medical help rather than therapy- though you may want to try the two hand in hand.
A doctor will try starting off low- they don't want to over prescribe you with high medication which you may not need, so they will always start lower than you need- as most anti anxiety medication can take up to a month to start to work, you will be given usually 6 weeks worth of the medication and will be told to come back in a month to see if they are helping at all. If they are working you will be given a repeat prescription usually, and given a date for a medical review, usually 3 months or so down the line- at this review you will again be asked if they are working, and if not you will be put onto a higher dose, or a different medication. Like I have said before, it is a case of trail and error and sometimes it can take a couple of tries before you find a medication which works for you. There is no quick fix for anxiety disorders, and it can take even a year or so before you find something which helps you.
I was told that after 6 months of been on a medication which works for you, the doctors will try to get you "off the meds", and see if you have learned to cope with the feelings of anxiety with the help of the medication, if this hasn't worked, the medication will be continued to be used, but in some cases, the body learns to "cope" with the excess anxiety with the help of the medication. For some people, they will need the medication for longer than 6 months, and some may need it for life. Though this is usually rare.
There are hundreds of different drugs used to help treat anxiety disorders, and to go into these would take me years- but usually the treatment will be SSRI's (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors) which are used to treat depression and these tend to be the first port of call. Also Beta Blockers may be used to treat panic attacks and heart palpitations and the raised blood pressure.
Living and Coping with anxiety disorders
It used to be (and I am talking not even a decade ago) that people with anxiety disorders and depression were seen as "weird", people wanted to stay away from them, they didn't want anything to do with them, and even in the medical profession, mental disorders were not considered a "real" illness. But in recent years more has come to light about these disorders, we understand them more, and we can treat them better. No more electo therapy for depression and disorders such as aggoraphobia! So I think I am actually lucky that I was diagnosed with my anxiety disorder in 2011 and not 1999...so much has changed in these recent years!
Living with an anxiety disorder without treatment is hard, very hard. For me I felt like I was always on a knifes edge, my husband was walking on eggshells incase I snapped and started shouting, and when my daughter was born I was more worried for her safety, the last thing I wanted was to snap when she was here, for one thing I don't want my little girl seeing her mummy screaming at daddy, throwing plates etc, but I also didn't want to end up smacking her, and taking out my stress on my little girl. Gladly I had support from my husband who said he thought I should see a doctor, and I finally took his advice.
Now living with my anxiety disorder is much easier, I just take one pill in the morning and I am fine, I haven't snapped, thrown anything...since I started taking the pills, and I am slowly learning to deal with daily stresses. I have a long way to go, I only got diagnosed a couple of months ago, so I am still early on in my treatment, and I still think I need something to help with the heart palpitations and blood pressure whcih I can sometimes still feel when there is stress around me even though I no longer get angry! It makes my life so much easier.
As for getting jobs etc, it is sadly still a requirement to tell your employers about which medications you take, and what they are for- and for this reason my husband has found it hard getting jobs (he has depression and has for a few years now), and though you may think "take them to court then!", it isn't that easy as they simply reply with "you were not suitable for the job nothing to do with your depression". It is apparantly coming into law soon that employers cannot ask about medical issues you may have unless of course it is going to affect your job (you couldn't work in a nightclub if you have light sensitive epilepsy for example...!). And I think when this is passed it will be much easier for people to get jobs who have these disorders, of course there are people who don't see anxiety disorders as an issue, and these people tend to be those who actually understand them and know it isn't anything bad!
Anxiety disorders are not something to be ashamed about, between 7 and 10% of people have these disorders, so they are not as uncommon as you may think- and these are only those who have been diagnosed. You may find yourself needing to change your lifestyle to get used to your disorder, sleep is very important- as lack of sleep can cause stress to get worse, and more stress makes anxiety disorders much worse. Try to take the stress out of your life- this isn't always possible, but if you have something very stressful happening at the moment, try to take yourself away from the situation if it is at all possible. Talk to someone, even if it is a friend or relative, you wouldn't believe how nice it feels to get things off your chest...open a blog if you have nobody to talk to and vent to the world! Keeping a pad next to your bed is good, if you get worries in the night write them on the pad, and just leave them til the morning, just remember there is nothing you can do at 3am about that bill which needs paying, or about that phone call which you forgot about, or about the letter which needs posting, so just write it down you don't forget tomorrow, and this may help you be able to get back to sleep and stop worrying about it.
Do not worry about getting medical help- I was concerned my daughter would be taken off me, a silly thought!!- nothing bad will happen, a doctor will happily help you, it is what they are there for at the end of the day. Your children won't be taken away, you are getting help before you can snap, and this is always a good thing.
Anxiety disorders are complex and confusing, even to those of us who have the disorders they are confusing. There are so many different disorders under the heading of anxiety disorders, so many different treatements and causes, but once you have the help you need, you are on the right track, and though it can be a long process to getting on the right track, it is well worth it when you start to feel better, I know I do. There were days when I felt I couldn't cope. I don't know how long my marriage would have lasted if I hadn't got help, but now me and my husband couldn't be happier!!!
I really hope I have helped shed some light on what anxiety disorders are and how they are treated etc. I know that when I was diagnosed with my anxiety disorders, all I wanted was some advice, what it meant, what the heck an anxiety disorder was and what it meant for me, was I mad? Was I sick? Did it make me weird! And sadly I didn't find much information to help me out or explain anything to me apart from medical jargon nonsense which just didn't mean anything to me so I do hope I have helped at least one person!!!
I have experienced anxiety to varying levels over the years but for this review I have decided to write superficially about my experience about agoraphobia.
What is agoraphobia?
Agoraphobia is deified by mind disorders encyclopaedia as "an anxiety disorder characterized by intense fear related to being in situations from which escape might be difficult or embarrassing (i.e., being on a bus or train), or in which help might not be available in the event of a panic attack or panic symptoms. " It is now recognized that agoraphobia is part of panic disorders.
My Experiences
I found my agoraphobia firstly started growing in 1999 when for reasons unknown to me. I was struggling with coming to terms with a resident I had cared for who had died of a heart attack but didn't relate the two events. I found the whole experience to be very isolating. I lived on my own and so my social life became very limited and while I did continue to work my only social outlet was a website chat room that was based in America which meant I wasn't sleeping at night. My diet was all over the place as sometimes if I was unable to park next to the supermarket I would come home as it was too stressful trying to get from the car park to the shop. I however didn't realize how bad it was until I had all the wheels on my car stolen and I waited two weeks for new wheels I was a virtual prisoner in my house. I was referred to a psychologist through work and worked with her on baby steps at coping with more. It was as simple as parking three steps away from the post box and if the car park was too full I would go home but return later.
Unfortunately while this was working very slowly my mental health was detoiorating in many ways .I was admitted to a psychiatric hospital in January 2000 and eventually transferred to a therapeutic community which was a unit that used various methods of therapy to help with issues. This is some ways was very helpful but in others it meant I didn't have to leave the building and would often stay in for weeks on end.
When I was finally discharged in February 2002 I found I was still not further forward with my agoraphobia. I moved in with my boyfriend who I had met in the therapeutic community and this was great company but meant I was still able to stay in the house. My Anxiety grew so big I would cry if my partner was out and it was raining as I had no way of getting the washing in and would feel extremely stressed about this. I was unable to take the rubbish out all these things made life almost impossible.
I once again saw a psychologist who helped with many issues and me up with a psychologist assistant who worked with me. She set up ten steps in terms of fear and we started with the easiest and built up to the hardest. This included going into small local shop and actually walking into a pub. This was quite rushed as I was in the process of completely moving areas. While I did get through this I found that it didn't really get to the bottom of the problem and the level of my fear of going out still fluctuated.
After a few years I set to deal with my agoraphobia again. This time rather than using a cognitive approach I set at looking at the whole issue of my anxiety. We did discuss whether I had evidence that walking down the street was dangerous and as I had been attacked twice in the street initially I felt that actually I had a justified reason for my agoraphobia and felt as it had happened twice I was actually sending signals that I was a good target. I thought everyone was staring at me and on one session my psychologist asked me to describe one person I had seen on the way to see him. I was unable to and he explained that this was due to everyone not actually been interested in other people everyone is busy with their own lives. He also explained that I was linking the anxiety to going outside as the brain tries to find a reason and as anxiety peaks and troughs as I come home the panic subsides so I associate the panic with been outside. We set up that I would go out and when a panic attack happened I would not return home until it happened. I found my panic attacks did increase and the severity at times I had to sit down as I was convinced I would pass out. This technique did actually work quite well but I did continue to get stressed about going out.
In September 2005 I decided to enroll in college on an interior design course which meant I had to be in another room with people but I certainly would not be the focus of the attention. When I started I would take Lorazepam but was still sick in the toilets a couple of times in the toiletdue to anxiety. I didn't go to break as that was too stressful and when a trip was planned to the ideal home exhibition I spoke to the tutor who was very supportive. I did however within that year manage to go and view a show home with the rest of the group which did feel like a huge achievement and as the year progressed I managed to start going to breaks. Another huge achievement I made that year was to swim the Aspire channel swim which meant I had ten weeks to swim the equivalent of the English Channel which meant I did have to start training. I had always loved swimming and the thought that I was helping someone with more problems than myself very motivating. I did find the high ceilings very daunting but also found the swimming relaxing which tended to counter balance the two.
My course finished and at the end of August I discovered I was pregnant. This for me was the motivation I needed to finally put the effort in and when it got too tough to keep going. I started walking to the local shop and then getting my husband to collect me when I had been shopping then would walk both ways. I started going for walks and would distract myself from my anxiety with thinking about my son. I started gardening and found this was something I really enjoyed.
As my anxiety decreased and my ability to get around increased I discovered my husband actually didn't like it. He did like the fact he could go where he wanted and I couldn't really object as I was unable to go out. If he went out for the day I would have a nice hot meal ready for him when he came home. I joined Aqua natal when I was about 18 weeks pregnant and after the class we would go and have a chat and I found this to be very liberating. All the people at aqua natal were interested in talking about pregnancy and this was my favourite topic. I found that I could do more but at the same time realised my husband had done nothing to encourage me to leave the house. Places I had wanted to visit we never visited it was always where he wanted to go.
I found that once my son was born actually taking him out was a joy. He loved been out in the fresh air and while I was out with him he was my focus and had less time for my head to be thinking about the possible consequences of going outside. I actually enjoyed filling my line with tiny baby's clothes: although the novelty of washing for him has worn off.
My son is now three and he loves been outside. I tend to look at rainy days when we are stuck inside with dread as my son will get fed up and has no way of running his access energy off.
What have I learnt along my road to recovery?
I have learnt that agoraphobia does not get cured sitting in the house it only reinforces that the world is an unsafe place.
I have learnt that I can only beat my fears by facing them
I did need to understand my anxiety to face it.
I discovered that not everyone I thought was supportive of me wanted me to get well and these people are no longer in my life.
But the biggest thing I learnt was that I had to find the motivation to face my fears.
Facing agoraphobia does take a lot of courage and I am thankful my son helped me find that courage because I didn't realise on how much I was missing out on until I conquered my agoraphobia.
I have suffered from anxiety for many years now, as this is the first review I thought I would tell you a little bit about the condition....
Anxiety is a psychological disorder, which can occur on its own or can be caused by medication or through another psychological disorder. Most individuals who suffer form anxiety will also suffer from panic attacks and stress. Each panic attack is unique, no panic attack is the same and affects individuals in different ways. To find out more about the condition visit http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/anxiety/Pages/Introduction.aspx or if you feel you may have the condition seek advice from your GP.
I always knew I had something different about me, my earliest recollection of having a panic attack was around the age of 5. Of course at that age no one knew what I was saying and the only way I could explain what it was I was feeling was as a "funny feeling". I would get a cold sweat and could feel the blood rushing around my body. I wouldn't say I feel scared when I have them, maybe because I am so used to them but I get a sense of dejavu, it makes me feel dazed and confused.
When I was at school I would try to explain these feelings to the teachers and they would just brush it off and thought I was having them on, which obviously made the attacks worse and they started occurring regularly at school.
The condition went untreated and over time the attacks became more serious and violent, I started to have black outs and seizures and it wasn't until I was 14 and suffering form sever depression that I actually knew that these "funny feelings" were in fact panic attacks. After seeing a psychiatrist for a while and being put on medication the panic attacks subsided. I started to feel like a nutter being on medication so after a year or so I stopped. I then fell pregnant, I had a few panic attacks during my pregnancy and one seizure but after the birth I haven't had any.
I started doing yoga and started to push myself into doing things, during the worst periods I wouldn't even go to school let alone the corner shop I had become a prisoner in my home. I am now back in education and am on my way to uni this year. I left school with no GCSEs and very little education, as teachers dismissed me as a problem child.
I hope that anyone especially a child who is suffering form any kind of mental disorder will now get the help and support that they need. If such conditions go untreated then the situation only worsens, I rebelled against everything because I though I was being controlled by something and thought that if people thought I was naughty then that is exactly how I would behave.
Anxiety, depression etc are illnesses but they do not control you, they may change you temporarily but the real you is still inside and when strong enough you will fight it and break free from the horrible thoughts you once had and realise you are just as important as anyone else. Focus on the good days they are what get you through it.
Psychological disorders need to be talked about more frequently, over time I think they are being more socially accepted but feel there is still a long way to go before we get the full benefits others seem to get. I hope this as help other suffers and those who are just well... curious. Tinkers x


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At the start of the last Congress, Rep. Sanford D. Bishop, Jr. (D-Ga.) and I came together in a bipartisan way to found the Congressional Military Family Caucus because we felt it was important to educate our fellow Members of Congress about the sacrifices our military families make to defend our country.
The goal of the Caucus is to bring together Members of Congress, Administration officials, and service members and their families in a common purpose to draw attention to the needs of military families and advocate legislative ideas on their behalf. Over the past two years, we've hosted several events to support military families, with a particular focus on mental health, Wounded Warrior support, homeless veterans, health care and education.
This month, we hosted our latest Caucus event, entitled "Ensuring Lifelong Support and Honor through Innovation and Partnership." It was attended by more than 200 members of America's military family community; Pentagon leaders such as Mr. Robert Gordon, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Military Community and Family Policy; and leaders from military service organizations, including VADM Norbert R. Ryan, Jr., President of the Military Officer Association of America (MOAA).
Throughout the day, we held panel discussions, roundtables, and breakout sessions that were insightful and engaging. The comments and ideas that came out of the summit will be extremely useful for developing better policy for military families across the country.
The Military Family Caucus is also working closely with the Obama Administration on how we can better support our military families. As part of that effort, we joined First Lady Michelle ObamaMichelle LeVaughn Robinson ObamaMichelle Obama: We raise men to feel 'entitled' Michelle Obama: 'Don't tweet every thought' Michelle Obama, Prince Harry visit public school in Chicago MORE and Dr. Jill Biden at the White House for the launch of "Joining Forces."
"Joining Forces" is a national initiative to educate, challenge, and spark action from all sectors of society to meet the needs of the full spectrum of our military families, Active Duty, Guard, and Reserve units, and veterans. Through "Joining Forces" and other initiatives, the Administration shares our commitment to making the Military Family Caucus a big success.
As President Obama said at a recent White House event, "While less than one percent of Americans may be fighting our wars, 100 percent of Americans should be supporting our troops and their families."
I wholeheartedly agree. And as Co-Chair of the Military Family Caucus, I will continue to do everything I can to make sure our troops, veterans and their families have all the support they need and deserve. America is a grateful nation, and as a grateful nation, we can do no less.
Rep. Cathy McMorris RodgersCathy McMorris RodgersDemocrats expand House map after election victories The Hill's Whip List: Where Republicans stand on tax-reform bill Overnight Regulation: Trump pick for USDA job withdraws amid Mueller scrutiny | Powell tapped for Fed | Female GOP lawmakers offer paid leave plan | Feds launch program for drone deliveries MORE serves eastern Washington and is Co-Chair of the Congressional Military Family Caucus.


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A tally of hiring released earlier this week showed that the private sector added more than 230,000 jobs. Most of the hiring was done at small businesses. To get some perspective, we called up small business owner, Olalah Njenga. Njenga runs YellowWood Group, a strategic marketing firm in Raleigh, North Carolina. She says 2014 is off to a great starr.
"Business is going well...there's a lot of enthusiasm. Things are going well and we're hiring right now."
On why she felt now was the right time to start hiring:
"2013, especially going into Q4, I was just really reluctant to hire. The optimism was there, but I just didn't feel like there was enough lift in other areas that were really driving the economy from a business perspective. So I delayed two positions until I felt a little bit better about it. Alot of that is driven by the fact that when I make the decision to hire for our company, we do that based on new revenue. So, I really needed to see that there were some opportunities coming in the door for 2014 to mitigate some of the risk of making the decision to hire, and that did happen."
On what things she's worried about in 2014:
"Well I think as any business owner, I always worried about new revenue coming in the door, whether you're looking for existing clients to spend more with you or you're absorbing the cost of new clients. The biggest worry for me is around new revenue and new talent. It's shortening that learning curve, identifying people who actually want to work."


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It's time for your daily dose of NCAA tournament coverage. The first night of the first round saw huge rallies by both Western Kentucky and BYU who lived to fight another day.
Syracuse, the No. 1 seed in East Region (which features the Longhorns), will be without one of their best with Fab Melo being ruled ineligible.
Dana O'Neil takes a look at each team's fortunes and what will determine their tourney fate.
Here's what she had to say about Texas:
Write 'em in: This team goes as J'Covan Brown goes. The best returning player for coach Rick Barnes, Brown has basically carried a young Longhorns team to an unexpected berth, averaging 20 points per game. Point guard Myck Kabongo has been good, if at times erratic, like most young players are. Brown needs to be sensational, and Kabongo controlled for Texas to win.
Write 'em out: This team isn't terribly complicated -- take Brown out of the offense and you've essentially taken the offense out of Texas. Other guys can score, but the Longhorns absolutely need Brown to be in double digits to win.
Write it down: Since 1956, Tom Anderson, the university's carillonneur, plays songs at 12:50 p.m., using the 56-bell chimes in the Tower. Since he takes requests, may we suggest "It's a Miracle" to emphasize the Longhorns' unexpected run to the tourney?
Jason King takes a look at Thursday and Friday's games and what to watch.
Finally, President Obama has submitted his bracket. Andy Katz visited the White House. The President has picked Kansas to win it all the last two seasons only to see the Jayhawks fail. This year, the Commander-in-Chief is taking the Tar Heels.


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A slab avalanche of hard, dense snow.
Hard slabs are stiff, cohesive slabs, usually deposited by strong wind drifting or the slabs may be old, hardened layers of snow. Think of them like a pane of glass on top of potato chips. The good news is that hard slabs are more difficult to trigger than soft slabs, but the bad news is that they tend to propagate farther and make a much larger and more deadly avalanche. Also, the stiffer the slab, the farther above you the fracture line will usually form, and the harder it will be to escape. The reason for this is that stiff slabs tend to spread a person's weight over a larger area. Even with very poor weak-layer bonding directly beneath the person, a stiff slab can bridge outward to places where the slab might be better bonded to the bed surface, like a drunkard stumbling along supported on the shoulders of two sober friends.
Hard slabs are especially tricky because the stiffness and/or thickness of slabs can vary a lot from place to place, so just because you may not be able to trigger a slab in a thick spot, as soon as you get to the edge of the slab–for instance where it may thin near a ridgeline–you may be able to trigger the whole slope.


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Abstract and Applied Analysis
Volume 2014 (2014), Article ID 491326, 8 pages
Geometric Singularities of the Stokes Problem
Department of Mathematics, College of Science, King Saud University, P.O. Box 2455, Riyadh 11451, Saudi Arabia
Received 11 November 2013; Accepted 12 December 2013; Published 6 January 2014
Academic Editor: Bessem Samet
Copyright © 2014 Nejmeddine Chorfi. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
When the domain is a polygon of , the solution of a partial differential equation is written as a sum of a regular part and a linear combination of singular functions. The purpose of this paper is to present explicitly the singular functions of Stokes problem. We prove the Kondratiev method in the case of the crack. We finish by giving some regularity results.
1. Introduction
The regularity of the solution of a partial differential equation depends on the geometry of the domain even when the data is smooth. Indeed, for each corner of the polygonal domain a countable family of singular functions can be defined, which depends only on the geometry of the domain. Then the solution of the equation can be written as the sum of a finite number of singular functions multiplied by appropriate coefficients and of a much more regular part. We refer to Kondratiev [1] and Grisvard [2] for their description.
The purpose of our work is to study the singularities of the Stokes equation and the behavior of the solution in the neighborhood of a corner of a polygonal domain of . We are interested to nonconvex domains; we assume that there exists an angle equal either to or to (case of the crack). Handling the singular function is local process, so that there is no restriction to suppose that the nonconvex corner is unique; see Dauge [3]. We deduce the singular function of the velocity from those of the bilaplacian problem with a homogenous boundary conditions by applying the curl operator. We prove the Kondratiev method in the case of the crack. The singularities of the pressure are done by integration from the singular functions of the velocity near the corner.
To approach these problems by a numerical method, we need to take into account the singular functions. Several numeric methods have been proposed in this context; see [4–9]. Since the singular functions are developed for the Stokes problem in this paper, we intend in future work to implement Strang and Fix algorithm, see [10], by the mortar spectral element method. It will be an extension of a work done on an elliptic operator [11, 12].
An outline of this paper is as follows. In Section 2, we present the geometry of the domain and the continuous problem. In Section 3, we give the singular functions and some regularity results. The Kondratiev method is described in Section 4. Section 5 is devoted to the conclusion.
2. The Continuous Problem
We suppose that is a polygonal domain of simply connected and has a connected boundary . is the union of vertex for ; is positive integer. Let be the corner of between and ; is the measure of the angle on . We consider the velocity-pressure formulation of the Stokes problem on the domain .
Find the velocity and the pressure such that where is the viscosity of the fluid that we suppose a positif constant and is the data which represent a density of body forces. Then for in , the functional spaces are for the velocity and for the pressure where The problem (1) is equivalent to the following variational formulation.
For in , find in and in such that for all in and for all in . where where the denotes the duality pairing between and . The bilinear form is continuous on the space and elliptic on ; also the bilinear form is continuous and verifies the following inf-sup condition (see [13, 14]): there exists a nonnull positive constant such that Then we conclude [15] that, for all in the space , the problem (3) has a unique solution in . This solution verifies the following stability condition: where is a positive constant.
We refer to the work of Pironneau [16] for the mathematical modeling of problems resulting from fluids mechanics and Girault and Raviart [17] for the mathematical analysis of the Navier-Stokes equations.
3. Singular Functions and Regularity Results
We recall that, in an open simply connected of , the condition of incompressibility induces the existence of a stream function in the space such that It thus brings to study the regularity of the function , solution of Dirichlet problem for bilaplacian: The regularity of the solution of the problem is related to the geometry of the domain and its behavior is local. Let . We know, see Cattabriga [18] and Ladyzhenskaya [14], the following theorem.
Theorem 1. For in the space , where , then where is the union of neighborhoods of for .
To study the function in the neighborhood of a fixed vertex , , it is convenient to introduce the polar coordinates , centered at . We start by enunciating the characteristic equation of bilaplacian: Then we stated the following theorem. We refer to ([17], Chapter 7 Theorem ) and Kondratiev [1] for the proof.
Theorem 2. Let in . For all in , , the solution of the problem (8) is written as
where is in the space .
We set is given by where and are real constants, , , and belong to the vectorial space of finite dimension, and are, respectively, the simple and double roots of (10) in the band , excepting if , without exception if .
We called the unique solution of equation , in the (). We prove, see ([19], chapter 3, 3.3), that is a double root of (10) if and only if or . Hence the sufficient condition on the angle for a double root is Then, if is not a solution of (14), (10) takes the following simplified form:
In the following we suppose that has a unique vertex where is equal to or and the other angles are . We introduce as a neighborhood of . All these angles are different of .
In the case where and , (10) has two real simple roots in the band . We apply the Newton method to approximate those roots and . The functions and are written as follows: with
Proposition 3. For all , the functions , in , are belonging to the space and are solutions of the problem: where is the boundary of .
Proof. Since is in , we find such that Then we find in , , and such that: From the Sobolev injection theorem, we have . If , then . Since , we can take only the value (). Consequently, for . And by construction, we obtain that , for , is the solution of problem (18).
Corollary 4. For all in , the velocity is written as where is in and there exists a constant such that: where . The functions belong to the space , in , for all .
4. Kondratiev's Method Case of the Crack
In the case of the crack there are no known results; we recall the method of kondratiev. We extend this method to the case of crack. We consider the polar coordinates and a truncation function with compact support that does not intersect with the boundary . We define Let ; then, is in the space ; with a compact support included in , then is the solution of the problem:
Definition 5. For , one defines the weight Sobolev space:
Remark 6. We remark that and .
In the following, we suppose that is in the space , for in . The solution of the problem: is with a compact support; then, there exists a real number such that The Kondratiev's method consists to change the variable ; then we replace the domain by the domain , and the weight Sobolev space by the ordinary one. We apply the Fourier transformation relative to the first variable of the problem (26).
Proposition 7. If is in the space , the function belongs to .
For , if belongs to , and let , then the function is in the space .
Proof. Let .
Since , then with , and in .
We denote We have and if then we conclude since et , then, for . So We end the proof.
As is the solution of the problem (26), then for the function is a solution of the problem: We have for .
The Fourier's transformation on the variable of the function is is a complex variable; we denote: The function becomes a solution of the problem: For all such that , the operator has as a characteristic polynomial. This polynomial function has two roots and .(i)If and , then the fundamental solutions of the fourth order partial differential equation are (ii)If , the solutions have the form (iii)If , the solutions have the form Then, let the following homogeneous problem We note , solution of the problem (41)}.
Proposition 8. The set satisfies the following properties:(1)if and where , then,(2)if , then,(3)if , and , which implies that is equal to where and , then,
Proof. If and ,
is solution of the problem (41). Since , we obtain the following system:
its determinant is equal to . Then, if , . Otherwise, the system has the following complexes roots: for and , . The space of solutions of the homogeneous equation is of dimension 2. Indeed, for , we obtain
We check that are two independent solutions of the problem (41); then This ends the proof of 1 and 3.
Now we prove property 2.
If , is solution of the problem (41), which gives the following system: The determinant of this system is zero; then the dimension of is equal to 1. Indeed, This completed the proof.
Remark 9. If
is the set of nonregular values. Since is analytic for , then analytically extends across .
Is then We verify that and . Hence the multiplicity of is 2 for and . , then, are simple solutions.
Theorem 10. (1) The solution of the problem (36) can be written in the neighborhood of :
where is the solution of problem (41) with and is an analytic function in the neighborhood of with values in .
(2) The solution of the problem (36) is written in the neighborhood of , or , as where and satisfy the same properties as above and satisfies:
Proof. We verified that any solution to the problem (41) is a linear combination of
In fact, if for or , we have
Therefore, any solution of the problem (41) is linear combination of and . We also verified that and are whole solutions with respect to the variable and if we set
we note that . This implies that is analytical in the neighborhood of for in . is a single root of ; then, admits a simple pole at . On the other side and are roots of multiplicity two of , and poles of multiplicity two of .
In the neighborhood of , , and, for all , Then, for , we have Then and even and even for: Thus, is a solution of the problem (41) at .
The expression of in the neighborhood of for and is Then, for in the neighborhood of For , we obtain that and we verify that is solution of the problem (41). And we have: And if tends to and verifies the boundary conditions, which completes the proof.
Remark 11. We remark that the operator is self-adjoint:
This implies that ; thus
where is solution of problem (41).
Let be in such that . We note We prove by Cauchy's theorem that is an analytic function on ; is its residue on the poles . Then,(i)for (ii)for where are solutions of the problem (36).
Notation. Using the variables , we introduce the following notations.
For , we define the two singular functions: For , we define four singular functions:
Proposition 12. For , and belong to the space , and belong to the space and They are solutions to the problem: where is the boundary of .
Proof. It is the same prove that in the case .
For the Stokes problem we handle the case ; thus belongs to the space .
Corollary 13. For in , the velocity is written in the form where is in and there exist two real constants and such that with and belong to the , for all positive.
For handling the singularities of the pressure we define Indeed for , using the Newton method, we can obtain a good approximation of roots of (10). See [20] for the approximation of . Thus To find the pressure, we note that belongs to , where Then, see [15], there exists a unique function in defined such that: From this equality we determine the singularities of the pressure from the singularities of the velocity.
Then from a regular data where is first singular coefficient. The linearity of (85) gives us and since we explicitly know the singularities of the velocity we can deduce, by simple integration, the singularities of the pressure.
Consider in the case of crack in the case of and .
Proposition 14. For , belongs to when and belongs to when .
Proof. It is the same proof that in the case of Proposition 3.
5. Conclusion
We summarize below the regularity results for the Stokes problem previously obtained.
(1) If belongs to , where , then belongs to the space , if . This means satisfies the following stability condition:
(2) We know, from Corollaries 4 and 13 and formula (86), that if , is written and if If belongs to , belongs to for , where is the second real solution of (10), in the band ; hence We have the following stability condition:
(3) If belongs to , we can further decompose the regular part of the solution as follows: for where is the third reel solution of (10), in the band ; then is the singular coefficient associated to the second singular function ; then In general we can decompose as where is an integer number.
If belongs to , belongs to for where , -ème reel solution of (10), in the band .
Conflict of Interests
The author declares that there is no conflict of interests regarding the publication of this paper.
This project was supported by King Saud University, Deanship of Scientific Research, College of Science Research Center.
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Revealed through the PlayStation Blog, Zombie Tycoon 2: Brainhov's Revenge picks up right where the first game left off. Orville Tycoon and his slow moving zombies are on the brink of bringing down Finkleville's last human stronghold when, out of nowhere, a bunch of sprinting undead start attacking Tycoon's zombie hordes. It turns out Orville's former mentor, Professor Brainhov, is on a quest for vengeance against his old student and has created his own brand of zombie to do his bidding.
Now it's up to the player to choose a side and dig into some strategy action gameplay to determine which zombie army will reign supreme.
Along with a single player campaign, Zombie Tycoon 2 features online competitive multiplayer. While no price point has been announced, the game will be a cross-buy, cross play title, meaning that you can purchase it for either the PS3 or Vita and download it on both consoles at no extra charge. Even better, you can continue your campaign from either device and play against online opponents using either the PS3 or Vita.
Frima is promising more details leading up to the game's release, which is currently scheduled for April 30.
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The Huffington Post UK:
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Jenson Button backs fiery Lewis Hamilton to respond
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" Genre: Fiction / Author: Richard Herley / ISBN: 0586070869 / Publication Date: 1988 / New Edition / Publisher: Harper Collins "
* Prices may differ from that shown
Having a Kindle (well, until very recently the Kindle iPad app) I've discovered lots of new books and authors that I wouldn't necessarily have chosen to read in paperback format, basically because you have to pay for those and obscure works are very often free from the Kindle Store. Which is why I ended up with The Penal Colony by Richard Herley, a book I didn't think I'd enjoy but actually loved from start to finish.
In a nutshell, England has become so lawless that the government has had to set up Penal Colonies - whole (small) islands taken over by the prison service and used for murderers, rapists and terrorists. Sert is located off the coast of Cornwall and is the new home of Anthony Routledge, a man convicted of the rape and murder of a young woman he met on the train home from work - early on we hear the (large amount of) circumstantial evidence against him, we also hear that he's innocent of the crime and that he has a wife and child back on the mainland.
The thing about Sert is that there are no guards or authoritarian figures of any type on the island. Every second Tuesday a prison helicopter arrives with (woefully inadequate) supplies for the prisoners, letters from home and usually a drugged and stretchered convict ready to start his new 'life' on Sert. This lack of authority means the men are free to do as they please; a village has sprung up, fenced off and patrolled by men with machetes to keep out other prisoners who were deemed unfit to enter the village. These 'outsiders' live in poverty on other parts of the island, they don't get their share from the helicopter drops and their years without women has created an 'epidemic' of homosexuality and male rape - in turn the AIDS and HVC viruses are running rife amongsts these outcasts, something the infinitely more civilised villagers want to keep out of their habitat.
I really enjoyed this book, much more than I thought I would actually given the subject matter. I struggled to comprehend some aspects of the story but in the main it all seemed to make sense, at first I was horrified that such a place as Sert existed but after debating the issue with my partner we came to the conclusion that this type of colony may well have a place in our future as we run out of prison space. Routledge is a fantastic character; it's pushed into our consciousness repeatedly that this man is innocent, to find yourself with a life sentence on a small island and absolutely no chance of release must be horrific for anyone but I almost cried for this guy whose biggest crime had been giving a pretty young woman his newspaper.
This is an extremely absorbing read, for the first time in months I found myself sitting awake at night to read 'just a few more pages'. The completely male cast of characters took a bit of getting used to, although the fact that on the island the men call one another by their surnames made it a bit easier for me to remember who was who. I felt Routledge, upon his eventual admittance into the village, slotted in just a little bit too easily for it to be entirely realistic and he also went too quickly from being a nervous panicking wreck to a confident member of Sert society. I suppose the author has shortened the fitting in experience to keep down dull everyday page numbers, but I felt something was lost from the story once Routledge lost his 'newbie' image - within five minutes of becoming a villager he'd worked out the system of hierarchy and status etiquette, it was just too speedily done.
The homosexuality aspect was more raw outside the village, this was an aspect that to me didn't make a whole lot of sense. Sert as a penal colony had been in existence for six years, yet this relatively short period of time without women was enough to 'turn' previously straight men gay - not just gay either but willing and excitable about raping other men. Six years? Men who had previously been married, men who outside of Sert would probably have detested homosexual rapists? It just made the story seem a bit farfetched and overly sensational. Obviously some of these men would have been homosexual before Sert, but these are the ones portrayed as being in semi-stable gay relationships on the island - watching the was-straight-now-gay contingent fighting over who was going to rape the 'new meat' made me feel physically sick and I feel that particular scene was added for shock purposes.
Life in the village was well portrayed; the men all had a role to play and reading about the way they fitted into daily life was interesting and well described. I thought it was fascinating how they rigged up labour saving devices and provided themselves with home comforts that the prison service would never have sanctioned, the author went to pains to explain (in an interesting way) how each device was created which helped the story sound more real than if he'd just made the reader take his word for how the villagers ended up with electric lights and crossbows!
Towards the end of the story Routledge becomes crucial in a plot by the villagers; again I felt he was pulled into the bosom of the family a bit too quickly but in this case I'm glad as his naivety (in relation to the longer serving prisoners) really helped to create an exciting and unsure atmosphere. I didn't find any of the other characters particularly noticeable, even though some of them are featured in-depth at certain points within the novel; the village 'Father' turned out to be far more likeable than I first thought, one of the outsiders was a well rounded religious nut bad-guy and the older triple-murderer Routledge was originally housed with is characterised exceptionally well - this man, King, in particular having a surprisingly sad backstory which softened me towards him despite the fact that one of his victims was a child.
Care was taken by the author to ensure that Routledge was completely the central character within The Penal Colony; it's strange as he is actually quite a dull and nondescript character, but the totally alien surroundings added weight to his personality and attitudes. Watching him interact with the other prisoners was a realistic mix of fascinating and tedious, he seemed to try too hard to ingratiate himself to begin with and this made for awkward encounters and (at times) a bit of a cringeworthy read. Actually now I think about it there's very little personal interaction at all in the book; conversations are kept to a minimum between the men, showing I think the bleakness and utter loneliness of the situation they find themselves in.
All in all I think The Penal Colony is a fantastic story, almost a lesson in how far our society can fall - and then the horrific consequence of having too few prison places for the men (and women) who deserve to lose their liberty. It's a kind of social experiment and although these were obviously fictional characters I felt a huge degree of sympathy for these men; to lose not only your basic human rights must be a hard cross to bear, to be shoved into the kind of environment where the authorities refuse to come and even recover your dead body is inhuman.
You don't need a strong stomach to read this, the violence and rape is kept threateningly close to the surface but not allowed to bubble over in a salacious way. In fact the only violent aspect that is truly 'in yer face' occurs early on in the novel when Routledge is still a newcomer and spending time outside the village, the latter part of the book being taken up more with threats of violence and the worry of what would happen if the numerous outsiders ever decided to pool their manpower and breach the walls of the village.
If you fancy reading this hard hitting tale of how badly people can be treated (the fact that they are murderous criminals notwithstanding) the Kindle version is still free to download, paperback copies can be found for around a fiver - and if you fancy it in hardback you're looking at paying a whopping £60 from the Amazon Marketplace.
The Penal Colony by Richard Herley has recently been available as a free download on Kindle, and from the synopsis given it sounded like it would be a reasonable read for a freebie. Although published in the late 1980s, I hadn't heard of it before, and I assumed it was written more recently.
The Penal Colony is about a man named Tony Routledge who is convicted of a crime he did not commit. Set in the late 1990s, so the near future for reads in 1987, prisons are now on islands offshore, where convicts are left to fend for themselves with weekly helicopter drops of supplies. Routledge is sent to Sert, where an organised and civilised community exists in the Village, but the island is also populated with groups of Outsiders, who want access to the supply drops controlled by the Village.
The first thing to note about reading The Penal Colony today is that, in general terms, it is not very dated. There are some small elements which show it is not new, and some attitudes which could date it, but the main theme of these offshore prison camps and prison overcrowding is one which is still very relevant today. I didn't realise the age of the book until Routledge mentions his year of birth and age, which pointed to the present of the novel being around 1998.
The story of The Penal Colony is quite predictable, but still exciting. There is plenty of action as Routledge has to survive on his own before being allowed to join the Village. We also have sections from the Outsiders side of the story, so we learn more about them.
In general and on the surface, The Penal Colony is a good read with a relevant theme of the future of prisons. However, not long after Routledge arrived on the island I began to feel uneasy about a particular attitude or stance of the author - his treatment of homosexuality. The majority of the Outsiders are homosexual, while it is banned in the Village due to a fear of AIDS. However, the homosexuality of the Outsiders is seen as disgusting and something to fear - it is portrayed as synonymous with rape and orgies. Even the only mention in the novel of fully consensual sex, which appears to be within the bounds of a loving relationship, is described as "depraved".
Perhaps the author is using homosexuality as a tool to illustrate the differences between the Village and the Outsiders, which could then lead to the possibility of the island being an allegory for society as a whole, but quite frankly it left me feeling very uneasy. Herley's treatment of homosexuality cam across as homophobic, and I did not like it. It really let down an otherwise good book.
The Penal Colony has a good story, a good concept and a valid theme, but the author's use of homosexuality as something to be feared and reviled left me feeling uneasy about the whole novel. Perhaps I got the wrong end of the stick, but I would say to be prepared for this if you decide to read the novel.
I'm struggling with my star rating on this - it could be a really enjoyable and exciting book, but that attitude to homosexuality really lets it down, and is the one thing about the book which has stuck in my mind. Maybe 2 stars is a bit harsh but I don't think it deserves 3 stars.
I've discovered one of the great benefits of owning a Kindle is that there are lots of free books available at the Amazon Kindle Store offering a great opportunity to read previously undiscovered books. For me, one such book is The Penal Colony a futuristic thriller written by Richard Herley, an author I'd never come across before.
Anthony Routledge has been charged with a crime he didn't commit and sentenced to life in a penal colony set up on Sert, a small island off the Cornish coast. There are no cells and no prison guards. Instead the prisoners are landed by helicopter along with the monthly supplies and left to their own devices only monitored via satellite. In order to endure this brutal environment, Routledge has to forget his previous life and learn how to survive under this harsh regime to which he has been condemned and from which there is no escape. Or is there?
My opinion:
Quite frankly, I wasn't expecting great things from this book and my reasons for choosing it were largely based on the fact it was free from the Kindle Store. I'd never heard of Richard Herley before and although the book had received good ratings from people who'd read it, I always take those ratings with a pinch of salt. I've been suckered into buying books from Amazon before on the strength of other readers' recommendations and subsequently been disappointed. This certainly wasn't the case with this book, however, as it was a totally gripping read.
This book was originally published in 1987 and the reader must first overlook the fact that the futuristic date has come and gone. As yet we haven't any penal colonies along the lines of this one on Sert but given the current problems with prison overcrowding, it's possibly only a matter of time. To my mind, it certainly isn't beyond the bounds of credibility.
The story begins by dropping the reader straight into the action without any prologue to explain the events which have led up to Anthony Routledge being dropped on Sert but as the first few chapters unfold, his back story is covered sufficiently to let the reader know that he's an innocent man who finds himself plunged into this nightmare situation. This allows the reader to discover along with Anthony how the prisoners have organised themselves into two factions, The Village and The Outsiders, but initially it's unclear which group is to be trusted as Routledge is evicted from The Village and told to fend for himself for the following six days, after which he may return at a specified time if he chooses. It doesn't take Tony long to discover that being part of The Village is vastly preferable to being an Outsider.
This is an all male colony and there are certain members who regard the 'new meat' as fair game in every respect, if you get my meaning. Poor Routledge is captured by the Outsiders on his first day and held captive in the Town pending being auctioned to the highest bidder but despite having been a quantity surveyor in his former life so not the brawniest of men, he's an intelligent man who uses his brains to effect his escape. Reflecting on his situation, it doesn't take Routledge long to realise there were huge gaps in his formal education, none of which has prepared him for life on Sert. I found one particular sentence very prophetic. The words may have been written in 1987 but they seem very relevant in today's uncertain times.
"Instead of teaching him the dates of distant battles they would have done better to prepare him for this, for the new Dark Ages, for a Britain wallowing out of control."
Although he manages to escape from the Town, Routledge's problem then is to avoid recapture in the intervening five days, not easy on a tiny island, and make it back to the Village and a more organised society. Once in the Village, under the charismatic leadership of Franks, known as 'the Father', Routledge discovers that escape may not be just a pipe dream after all.
Although the story centres around Anthony Routledge, the narrative is written in the third person which allows plenty of opportunity to get into the minds of the other characters, both residents of the Village and the Outsiders. The men on Sert have all been placed into Category Z, having been found guilty of committing heinous crimes. There are some characters who are guilty of the crimes for which they were sentenced and who are truly horrendous people totally beyond redemption and others who may well have committed crimes but who are innately decent human beings nevertheless and there are those such as Routledge who have been committed to this living Hell on suspect evidence provided by a corrupt police force. The third person narrative works exceptionally well here, allowing this world to be viewed from all perspectives although this sometimes makes for quite uncomfortable reading.
I was amazed how much I enjoyed this book, especially as it really isn't my usual reading choice but after only a few pages, I was totally immersed in this violent and frightening world where men have been pared down to their absolute basic natures and there's little to separate them from animals and I felt that Routledge reacted to the situations he encountered in a very realistic manner, very much as someone would who'd been condemned to live forever in such a dreadful place and I was firmly in his corner right from the beginning.
This is a superbly written and tautly plotted futuristic thriller which pulls the reader right into the action and is peopled with well rounded and believable characters. If I have any criticism it's that some of the references, such as the bombing of Knightsbridge Barracks, may date the story somewhat but only for older readers who remember such events from the seventies and eighties. Despite this very minor niggle, I can't award this anything less than five stars. This is the tale of an ordinary man who discovers in this somewhat dystopian world that he is far more resourceful than he ever imagined. It was an absolutely riveting story.
The plot setting may be futuristic but it never strays into the realms of fantasy and it certainly doesn't prevent this story from being a thought provoking and somewhat frightening glimpse into what might be our tomorrow.
Book details:
Penal Colony is currently available from Amazon in paperback from about £1.50 plus postage or as a free download for Kindle. Ownership of a Kindle isn't necessary to read the book in this format as there is software available to download for free from Amazon which allows Kindle files to be read on a computer.
PS. All the time I was reading this story I kept thinking what a great film it would make and I've since discovered that it was, in fact, turned into a movie released in 1994, No Escape, starring Ray Liotta. I'm guessing the movie will have been given the Hollywood treatment and the action transposed to America with Routledge having been turned into a far more heroic figure than in the book.


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Cooper Type A-2 Leather Flight Jacket Cooper Sportswear
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COOPERA-2 This week an outstanding Cooper 50th anniversary A-2 flight jacket sized 42R, I really never got a chance to wear this jacket since I got it new as a gift... I am not 42R... This jacket was manufactured exclusively by the Cooper Defense Contract Division supplier to the U.S. Air Force. 2 deep pockets on the front with snap button closers (plenty of room for that cell phone and PDA). Cotton gathers around the waist and wrists to keep that cold air out, zipper closer and metal hook at the collar. Any and all questions welcome!! Ships worldwide, please email for rates. Domestic shipping $15.00 due to weight and size... I will not send this stuffed into a small box!!! I do offer combined shipping.