A night of looking for something to watch on Netflix took me down some weird rabbit holes on the internet that I couldn’t not share. Scrolling through my app looking for something to cast onto my television it recommended that I would like a show called “Happy!” The preview image grabbed me and the synopsis was bizarre enough to peak my interests – “A boozy ex-cop turned hit man thinks he’s losing his marbles when a cartoon unicorn only he can see urges him to rescue a girl kidnapped by Santa.” So I looked up a trailer and it said it was based on a graphic novel, so I looked that graphic novel up and two words sold me on it: “Grant Morrison.” Needless to say that I binged the show pretty quickly.
The Syfy/Netflix show ‘Happy!’ has a surreal bizarreness that you adapt to quickly. It’s sort of like if you took Sin City, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, and My Little Pony and put them into a blender. It’s extremely graphically violent, hilarious at points, and surprisingly charmingly sweet. Plus, aside from what is discussed in this article it also has a Strega character and there are hints at themes of necromancy and spirit possession.
I’m going to try hard to not spoil the story too much for those who haven’t watched the show yet or read the graphic novel that it’s based upon. Essentially, Happy is the self-identified imaginary friend of a little girl named Hailey who seeks out Nick Sax to rescue her. Despite seeming like a hallucination of Nick’s mind, it soon becomes evident that this is something more than a hallucination. Happy can do things like check to see how many people are coming, reveal the cards others are holding during poker to Nick, and other surprising traits that rule out the idea that it’s a figment of Nick’s imagination – as Happy can know things that Nick doesn’t. Furthermore, children and a crack-smoking nutcase dressed as Santa can also perceive Happy. We see something else very interesting when Happy begins losing his hair, dulling in color, and slowly falling apart when Hailey begins losing hope that Happy is going to help save her.
While watching the show I quickly concluded that Happy was an artificial servitor spirit. An artificial servitor spirit (sometimes referred to classically as a ‘thought-form’) in occultism was first popularized in Theosophy and embraced in occultism, though it can vary from being sentient and having a form to sort of energy blobs that affect a person. Essentially, a thought-form in the sense of an “artificial servitor spirit”, is a form that is sculpted using mental, emotional, and astral energies of the occultist which then begin to take on an autonomous personality of its own. Artificial servitor spirits are often used to perform certain tasks, fetch things, or protect. They can usually be perceived by psychics outside of the creator. The idea is similar but different to concepts of egregores (or godforms), which are created and maintained by groups which become a sort of vessel into which a spirit or deity can enter into and empower.
I assumed that the similarities between this “imaginary friend” and the characteristics portrayed by Happy must be intentional since it’s Grant Morrison who wrote it. Grant Morrison is completely out of his mind in the best way possible. Grant Morrison is not only well-known in comic circles but also occult circles. As a practicing chaos magician, Grant Morrison often weaves in occult and metaphysical ideas into his works.
I decided to check out the graphic novel and was struck by what appears to be concept art for Happy, where he looks exactly like a pony from My Little Pony. I randomly searched the internet for My Little Pony and thought-forms and discovered that there’s a whole subculture marriage of people who are creating thought-forms based off of My Little Pony. The first group of people are called “tulpamancers” who perform “tulpamancy” and refer to their thoughtforms as “tulpas”, which is a misunderstanding of the term as we’ll see later on. As of today there are over 22 thousand members of the r/Tulpas subreddit forum.
The second subculture are “bronies.” Bronies are adult male fans of My Little Pony. Somehow the two subcultures cross-pollinated and we now have a whole area of the internet where people are discussing their pony tulpas they’ve created. While not all brony tulpamancers are into it, a large portion seem to be creating their brony tulpas for sexual or romantic purposes. Whether Grant Morrison was conscious of this or not, it’s interesting to see that there’s also a sort of furry kink underground in ‘Happy!’ too, though they’re insects. Furries are people who dress up or identify as cartoon anthropomorphic animals and just like the brony tulpamancers, there’s a large portion that of the subculture that use it as a kink. We also see the parallel of a little girl’s imaginary friend and an adult male pairing up, just as My Little Pony was and is meant for little girls as their demographic yet has an unexpected adult male following.
While I’m not inherently against bronies, I am a little bit concerned about this. I mean, if they’re not harming anyone they can be fans of whatever they want – and I say more power to them. Different strokes for different folks. But as someone who teaches workshops on artificial servitors, I am a bit troubled by this tulpa phenomenon. The reason being is that the directions often provided in these groups to create the tulpa are not wise. That isn’t to say that they’re incorrect or that people shouldn’t or can’t make My Little Pony thoughtforms. But how they’re going about it is a bit unwise.
If an artificial servitor spirit is successfully created, it can be hard to control and even turn against the creator if made shoddily. Like any form of magick, one wants to ensure that they have every base covered. When making an artificial servitor spirit, one should have a fair amount of magickal will and training before attempting the task and more importantly clear and concise directions should be programmed into the servitor spirit – including a self-destruct or dismantling command. Most occultists who’ve worked with artificial servitor spirits have stories about their experiments getting out of hand before getting the hang on creation.
Despite the use of the word “tulpa” I know from other occultists who are more familiar with Tibetan Buddhism and Tibetan Sorcery that a tulpa isn’t equivalent to a thought-form. So I reached out to author and occultist Jason Miller, whom I know is trained in these areas and has spent time in Nepal to ask him what a tulpa actually was.
“”Mystiques et Magiciens du Tibet” was the name of the book that Alexandria David Neel wrote in 1928, published in 1931 as “With Mystics and Magicians in Tibet” in English. In that book Neel details her experiment making what we call today a servitor, and what she called a “Tulpa”. Because she did not want to be influenced by the “forms of the Lamaist Deities” which she saw around her in paintings and images she decided to create a short fat jolly monk. She shut herself up for several months and formed the phantom monk, which supposedly did the things normal travelers did and was occasionally seen by members of their traveling party.
Eventually, though the Monk became gaunt and mean. In her words, the experience turned into a “daynightmare”. She decided to dissolve the Tulpa before making her trip to Lhasa, but the creature fought back. According to her book, it took her six months of hard struggle to dissolve the Tulpa.
It is this story, now 85 years old, that gets referred to time and time again in any book that mentions Tulpas. When I started my study of Tibetan Buddhism, with an emphasis on sorcerous practices, of course, I found it quite odd that occultists keep going back to this story from the 1920s. At the time it was written Tibet was closed to outsiders and there was very little information available, but today it is 50 years after the Chinese invasion of Tibet and there are Lamas, monasteries, dharma centers, and teachers all over the western world. There are thousands of books by actual Tibetan detailing the once-secret practices of Tibetan magic and mysticism – so why then are we relying upon an 85-year-old account from a foreigner as the primary source for information on Tulpas?
All of those books are wrong.
Now before you e-mail me the Wikipedia page showing that Tulpa is a real word, let me assure you that certainly, the word Tulpa is a real word. It even translates as “mind emanation” so the confusion is understandable. In Tibetan Buddhism this mind emanation is not a created spirit though, it gets used in other ways.
In some cases, the term is used for when a great Siddha emanates a body that his own consciousness would inhabit. In terms of western occultism, this is more like an astral body than a servitor. Such was the case when Garab Dorje’s mother thought he was a Nirmita (Tulpa) because his body was indestructible. This body, however, is visible to the naked eye, not an invisible astral projection, and certainly not a made up construction brought to consciousness through magic.
In the Dzogchen classic, Nang Jang, the author uses the example of a Tulpa for pointing out how reality arises from the base of being in the same way that a phantom appears from nothing but has no essential substance or reality of its own. This would be more like the casting of an illusion or mirage than the creation of a servitor.
“In 1928 Alexandria David Neel misapplied a Tibetan term to her own thought form experiment – what we would now call a Tulpa. She was an amazing explorer and Tibetologist who made a mistake as all ground-breakers do.
Because so much of modern western occultism is rooted in the era of Crowley, Theosophy, and other early 20th century movements – Western Occultists naturally latched on to this term.
Unfortunately, even though Tibetan Lamas have been coming to the west for over 50 years now, offering secret teachings, translations, and empowerment – Occultists and Magicians have mostly ignored them.


Fox News will sponsor two more Republican presidential debates, the network said Thursday, one each before the Iowa caucuses and South Carolina primary.
The network will join with the Republican Party of Iowa for a debate on Dec. 15 in Sioux City. That debate will be just over two weeks before the state’s Jan. 3 caucuses.
Fox will also partner with the Republican Party of South Carolina to hold a debate in Myrtle Beach on Jan. 16. South Carolina is scheduled to hold its primary on Jan. 21.
The candidates have already debated eight times since May, including five times in the last seven weeks. Their next debate is scheduled for Nov. 9 in Michigan.


As Mohamed Morsi makes his first visit to the United States and the United Nations as Egypt’s president, few in his country have much praise for Barack Obama’s handling of the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians.
Just 11% of Egyptians say Obama has been fair in his dealings with the Israelis and the Palestinians, according to a Pew Global Attitudes Project survey this spring. The percentages saying this in other predominantly Muslim nations are similar – 9% in Turkey, 11% in Jordan and 18% in Lebanon, for example.
As Obama came into office in 2009, 24% in Egypt said they thought he would be fair in his dealings with the Israelis and the Palestinians, 13 points more than the number that now says he has.


Several hundred thousand vehicles that were submerged in floodwaters after Hurricane Harvey hit Texas are expected to wind up being resold to unsuspecting consumers.
NewsChannel 5 Investigates put shoppers to the test to see if they could spot the flood car next to two other cars.
Flooded cars can have all sorts of problems. But, they can be cleaned up, so you don't know what you're really getting.
Some half a million cars went through Hurricane Harvey filled with water, mud, even debris. But if you saw one of these flood cars today, you probably couldn't tell that what it had been through.
"It's extremely hard," Chris Basso with Carfax told NewsChannel 5 Investigates, adding, "Flood cars show little signs of physical damage usually which makes it easy for con men to clean them up, dry them out and resell them to people around the country."
Carfax got a 2013 Ford Focus from Houston.
Before pictures show a compact car covered in mud with puddles of water still in it.
Basso told us, "We know this car was flooded all of the way up to the roof line. It was completely submerged in Hurricane Harvey flood waters."
Carfax spent about a day and a thousand dollars cleaning it out. To the casual observer, it'd be hard to tell that it had survived the flood.
We then put that Focus next to two similar used vehicles that are not flood cars and asked shoppers to the pick the Harvey car.
Carfax's Basso described, "The water got into every nook and cranny of the car," adding that several hundred thousand cars like it from Hurricane Harvey will likely end up being sold to unsuspecting consumers.
"You're getting a ticking time bomb. Water rots these cars from the inside out. It breaks down the mechanical systems. It affects the electrical systems and even the safety systems like the airbags and your anti-lock brakes," Basso said.
The shoppers who looked at the cars for us went in the cars and all around the cars and most couldn't tell which was the flood car while the one woman who did pick the right car wasn't sure why.
There are some telltale signs of a flood car, but you have to look carefully for them, things like extensive rust, corrosion under the hood, and water in the taillight.
You can also go to www.carfax.com/flood and type in the car's 17 digit VIN and you get a free report telling you whether the vehicle has been flooded and where and when that was.
That's good information to know so you don't end up spending thousands of dollars on a car that's been through something as catastrophic as a massive hurricane or flood.
Something else to do before you buy the car is have it thoroughly checked out by a trusted mechanic. Don't just take the word of the person selling the car.


HONOLULU – The Coast Guard rescued a man and woman in the ocean off Hawaii on Friday, nearly a day after the plane they were in disappeared from radar.
"What a way to celebrate aloha Friday," Coast Guard spokeswoman Petty Officer 2nd Class Tara Molle said of the relief in finding the two alive. "We all had big smiles on our faces in the office when we heard the news."
A helicopter crew hoisted them out of the water about 11:30 a.m. Friday, Molle said. They were a mile and a half offshore near Kona, the Coast Guard said.
Paramedics met them at Kona airport and treated them for minor injuries, Molle said. They were identified as David McMahon, 26, and Sydnie Uemoto, in her 20s.
There was no immediate word on the plane. The plane's pilot radioed about an air emergency at 3:15 p.m. Thursday. After that, air traffic controllers lost contact with the pilot and the plane no longer appeared on radar, the Coast Guard said.
The pilot of the twin-engine Piper PA23 reported engine problems before ditching in the ocean about 27 miles northwest of Kona, the Federal Aviation Administration said.
The plane had departed from west Oahu and was headed for Kona, the FAA said.
On Friday morning, a visiting New Zealand air force P3 plane spotted debris about 50 miles northwest of Kona. The Coast Guard sent a ship to the scene to see if the debris was from the missing plane. The New Zealand plane is in Hawaii to participate in the Rim of the Pacific military exercises. The U.S. Navy and U.S. Air Force also joined in the search.
A tour helicopter later spotted wreckage about 9 miles north of Kona airport and reported it to the Coast Guard, Molle said. A Coast Guard helicopter went to the wreckage location and spotted two people in the water wearing life jackets, she said.
"They had been attempting to swim to shore through the night," Molle said.
It's not yet clear what happened to them.
"A lot of times these cases don't really end well," Molle said. "When we have a happy ending, what more could you ask for?"
McMahon's father, Richard McMahon, summed up his feelings: "Big-time relieved." He said he was on his way from Oahu to the Big Island on Friday to see his son, a Kailua, Oahu, resident and a commercial pilot for Mokulele Airlines. He said his son rented a plane for additional flying hours for his commercial pilot's license.


INDIANAPOLIS -- The Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department closed part of Pennsylvania Avenue after a large sinkhole opened up in the intersection of Ohio and Pennsylvania streets.
The intersection will be closed through the weekend, a spokesperson for Citizens Energy said.
It was caused by the failure of a sewer line that was more than 100 years old. Indianapolis fire officials say the sinkhole is 17 feet wide and more than 10 feet deep.
"It's actually a breach of the sewer system, so no water issues are expected," said Rita Reith of the Indianapolis Fire Department. "There's no other threat than it's just an unsafe place to be for foot traffic or vehicular traffic.
Pennsylvania traffic is being diverted onto eastbound New York Street.
Eastbound traffic on Ohio Street is restricted and is being diverted onto Meridian Street.
Westbound traffic on Ohio Street is restricted and is being diverted onto Northbound Delaware.
The Department of Public Works says if you regularly park in the Salesforce Tower, go to the Market Street entrance and you should be just fine.


Scientists found students born in September boast a higher yearly average score.
Being born in September puts children in the older end of the spectrum in the school year, giving them an advantage.
Being in this older spectrum also reduces the likelihood of a child's incarceration for juvenile crimes.
Being one of the older ones in the year group gives children an advantage in school, a new US study published in the National Bureau of Economic Research has found.
Scientists looked at the cognitive development of more than 1.2 million public school students in Florida between the ages of six and 15, all of whom were born in different months.
They found that students born in the month of September, putting them at the older end of the spectrum of kids in their school year, boasted a higher yearly score average than those born in August, who would be the youngest in their year group.
September-born children are more likely to get into good colleges.
Researchers noted that the increased scores could build over time and subsequently increase September-born students' likelihood of getting into a good college.
The study, titled "School Starting Age and Cognitive Development," also looked at other socioeconomic factors that might contribute to a child's progression in school, such as maternal education, ethnicity and affluence.
They also noted that low-performing students from varying backgrounds can catch up before formal testing begins at a later age.
For example, some parents may choose to hold their children back a year, whereas others might enrol them in special programmes which support students who are struggling academically.
The study's authors also analysed data from youth detention centres in a large Florida school district.
Not only did they find that being one of the older children in a year group boosts college attainment, but they also found that it reduces the likelihood of a child's incarceration for juvenile crimes.
Older, wiser and less likely to become a criminal?
September-born kids for the win.


Long ago, Korean department stores perfected the art of the all-in-one-stop.
Upper floors catered to the shopaholic with a bevy of clothes, accessories and beauty products. Top floors boasted restaurants, and basement floors a food court and supermarket.
It looked like that set-up was the only way to do premium dining and grocery shopping in one-go. Then, the gourmet food hall arrived.
Starting May, a revamped version of prominent French fine food brand, Fauchon, rolled out in Lotte department stores throughout the country.
Then, in late July, food and media giant CJ Group launched its take on the slow food shopping experience with CJ Foodworld in northern Seoul.
Next up is Dean and DeLuca.
According to Hwang Kyung-sun, 31, the director for Dean and DeLuca’s Korean business, last October Shinsegae signed a contract to bring in the famous American gourmet food store chain.
The first store is slated to open in Shinsegae Gangnam this September.
Once that happens, it will be interesting, indeed, to see how consumers respond.
If Fauchon and CJ Foodworld are any indication of local demand for well-branded, all-in-one food stops, then it looks like Seoul is all for it.
On a weekday morning, Sogong-dong Lotte’s Fauchon is teeming with customers selecting bread, lining up to order coffee and drinks, and taking up seats on the stools in the shop.
On a weekday afternoon at CJ Foodworld, which spans two whole floors, shoppers populate the 19 restaurants, cafes and shops scattered throughout the area.
CJ brand communication lab executive director Noh Hee-young, 48, attributes this trend to a movement towards increased transparency in the food-making process.
“People want to see how it is made,” she explained.
CJ Foodworld reflects this philosophy.
The first floor has a farm where soybeans and rice plants are grown. Specially-equipped rooms will hold cooking classes for both children and adults. Restaurants feature open kitchens, and groceries, cheese, charcuteries and wine are sold on the basement floor.
If CJ Foodworld interprets the food hall as a sort-of open community where people can purchase ingredients, cook and dine together, then Fauchon seems to view it as a cafe-bakery-retail combo.
At Sogong-dong Lotte, Fauchon is divided into two areas.
A sleek black space is devoted to a beautifully-packaged line-up of jams, teas, oils, chocolates, wine and other condiments, all emblazoned with the Fauchon label. A golden space boasts an array of pastries, bread and cakes, along with a bar where coffee, juices, hot chocolate and Fauchon’s teas can be ordered. Stools offer minimal seating for patrons.
“Plans are to have a larger cafe space in the Jamsil Lotte Fauchon,” said Jang Seung-ho, 37, PR director for Bliss ― Fauchon’s Korean licensee.
According to Jang, there are no immediate plans to bring in a large-scale model.
For now, Fauchon is a micro-food hall, combining the eating, drinking, product purchasing experience into a small-scale space.
On the flipside, CJ Foodworld takes the hall to mammoth proportions, recreating the European market vibe on the first floor with high ceilings and an intertwined mish-mash of sandwiches, ice cream, cakes, bread and hand-drip coffee. The basement floor is a veritable arcade of restaurants and a smattering of small shops and specialty corners.
Do not mistake this set-up for a posh, over-the-top endeavor. According to CJ’s Noh, Foodworld is not high-end, and the pricing targets the masses.
Yet there is no shaking the gourmet vibe pervading the space. Beautifully fondant-iced cakes can be reserved at least a week in advance. Coffee beans are roasted on the premises. Noodles are made fresh from dough that has been aged for 26 hours.
The cheese section sells everything from beurre d’Isigny to high-grade Iberico ham and tubs of ricotta.
While Foodworld dabbles in Western cuisine and products, there is a distinctly homegrown aura to the place, something that Noh takes pride in. Noh emphasized CJ’s ability to tailor the food hall concept to Koreans.
“We are not worried about Dean and DeLuca,” said Noh, who believes that these days consumers subscribe to many brands and therefore will go to both places.
Noh also stressed that Dean and DeLuca boasts a Western aesthetic in contrast to CJ’s Korean roots.
Indeed, Dean and DeLuca does hail from America.
Dean and DeLuca’s Hwang, however, revealed that Korean palates and preferences are being taken into account, just not to the point where it would compromise the authenticity of the gourmet food retailer.
Fauchon is located in 12 Lotte department stores throughout Korea.
CJ Foodworld is located near Dongdaemun History and Culture Park Station Line 2, 4, 5, Exit 5. For more information visit www.cjfoodworld.co.kr or call 1577-9622.


Some previously sealed documents and evidence from the sexual assault case against Kobe Bryant will be released Friday, the Eagle County, Colo., sheriff's office said Thursday.
The records could include a transcript of the NBA star's interview with investigators, statements from some witnesses, an arrest affidavit and investigators' reports. They also could include phone records and other documents.
LOAN LOOPHOLE TARGETED: Congress is trying to end a practice that gives lenders a guaranteed return of 9.5 percent on student loans financed by tax-exempt bonds. The government must pay lenders the interest that is not covered by students. A bill introduced Thursday shifts the spending to teachers, giving them $17,500 in loan forgiveness.
MT. ST. HELENS TO ERUPT?: The flurry of earthquakes at Mt. St. Helens in southwest Washington intensified further Thursday, and one scientist put the chance of a small eruption happening in the next few days at 70 percent.
RIGHT-TO-DIE LAWYER QUITS: The lead attorney for the parents of a woman at the center of a right-to-die dispute announced his withdrawal from the case Thursday in St. Petersburg, Fla. Pat Anderson is quitting after more than three years representing Bob and Mary Schindler, Terri Schiavo's parents.
ARTHRITIS DRUG RECALLED: Vioxx, the blockbuster arthritis drug heavily promoted on TV and taken by tens of millions of people, was pulled from the market by New Jersey-based Merck on Thursday after a study found it doubled the risk of heart attacks and strokes. Experts advised patients to immediately stop taking Vioxx and talk to their doctors about alternatives.


Sevilla sports director Joaquin Caparros has confirmed they have targeted wantaway Celtic defender Dedryck Boyata as one of their main summer targets.
The Belgian World Cup star’s future is up in the air after he reportedly refused to play in Celtic’s Champions League exit in Greece to AEK Athens - a claim denied by the player, who insisted he was injured.
He’s now back in training with the Champions and could be brought back into the team by manager Brendan Rodgers.
Boyata has been linked with a £10 million move to La Liga heavyweights Sevilla since his World Cup performances in Russia, where Belgium finished third.
And now Sevilla have broken their silence on their interest on the 27-year-old, who is in the last year of his contract.
Sevilla have already snapped up eight new signings for Pablo Machin’s squad and they opened their La Liga campaign last weekend with an impressive 4-1 win at Rayo Vallecano.
And they have made it clear they see Boyata as a priority.
Caparros said: “Boyata is one of those players that we have been following for a long time. Defence is an area we need to reinforce.
“We must proceed calmly because there are many factors with a transfer that doesn’t just depend on ourselves.


PhysioSonics, the Bellevue, WA-based developer of ultrasound technology for monitoring blood flow in the brain for patients with stroke or traumatic brain injury, has raised $2 million in equity out of a $4 million offering, according to a regulatory filing. The company, a University of Washington spinout, is led by CEO Brad Harlow. It raised $4 million last June from Johnson & Johnson Development Corporation. It lists Harlow, Robert Frederickson, Lauren Pflugrath, and Scott Moonly as directors.


Real Housewives Of Miami star Herman Echevarria has been found dead in his hotel room.
The 61-year-old Miami businessman's body was discovered inside Miami's Epic Hotel on Monday morning.
His family and employees contacted police after he failed to show up for work. Miami police are now investigating the cause of death.
Sources told E Online he may have died in his sleep after suffering a heart attack.
Herman starred on RHOM with ex-wife Alexia, 49, with whom he founded Venue magazine.
They separated last year and finalized their divorce in May.
She said in a statement: 'The Echevarria family is heartbroken over the sudden passing of our patriarch Herman Echevarria this morning.
'He was a family man, a hardworking businessman, dedicated to helping others and a pillar of his community that was loved by everyone who's life he touched.
Despite their split, the couple continued to work together on Venue magazine and remained friends.
Herman raised Alexia's two sons from her first marriage, Peter and Frankie.
Their biological father was drug felon Pedro Luis Rosello, who was sentenced to 24 years in federal prison after being part of one of the largest cocaine smuggling operations in the 1980s.


A group of green-fingered members of the community have come together to create new allotments in Burbage. The Blackways Meadow Allotment Society have formed together to create new pitches around the existing council allotment at Blackways Meadow, between Brookside and the railway track.
The group formed after hearing of the rising number of people on the waiting list for the council allotments and bought five areas of land on 10 year leases to turn into allotments that could be used by the community.
Secretary of the society, Bob Evans, said: “We have already started work on turning the land into allotments and even have some pitches ready to use.
The pitches can be used for £35 per anum which equates to less than £1 per week. To join the society cost £15 and new gardeners will have to pay a £50 fee which they will get back when they vacate the allotment if it is left in a good state.
To enquire about a pitch call 07816 898115.


Economists call them the "Bric" countries. Hiding behind the obscure title are some of the world's fastest growing and potentially largest economies - Brazil, Russia, India and China. Now the leaders of these countries are meeting in Brazil's capital Brasilia for the second Bric summit.
The inventor of the acronym Bric is Goldman Sachs chief economist Jim O'Neill. In 2001 he argued that "over the next 10 years, the weight of the Brics and especially China in world GDP will grow" and as a result "world policy making forums should be reorganised" in favour of the Bric countries.
Since then this economic grouping has taken on greater significance, culminating in a summit last year in Russia where the four nations talked about how they could best tackle the economic crisis.
The location of the first summit was poignant, because some critics say that Russia's economy is not strong enough to justify its presence in the group.
Others question whether the Bric states have a common agenda at all.
But Russian President Dimity Medvedev stresses the grouping's importance: "In recent years Bric contribution to the growth of the world economy exceeded 50%", adding that the four countries accounted for 14.6% of the world's economy.
He went on: "By strengthening the economic base of a multi-polar world, the Bric countries are objectively helping to create conditions for the strengthening of global security."
So while the original concept was an economic one, some think that Russia is trying to turn the Bric group into a political alliance.
Russian foreign ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko last week called Bric "a reliable pillar in the formation of polycentric, fair and democratic world order".
And Arkady Dvorkovich, the Russian president's top economic adviser, said that Russia wanted these summits to become a regular event.
The strength of Russia's economy depends heavily on commodities like oil, and was hit hard by the global financial crisis. Last year it shrank almost 8%, unlike the other Bric countries, which continued to grow.
Some experts described Russia as "an outsider in Bric" and said its economic expansion had "been brought to a screeching halt".
Mr O'Neill, however, defends his decision to group Russia with the other top emerging economies. He told the Financial Times that although Russia had "disappointed", it would "deserve its Bric status" if its economy bounced back soundly in 2010 and 2011.
While Russia's official GDP growth forecast currently stays at 3.1% for this year, the International Monetary Fund thinks that the country's economy will grow by 3.6% in 2010, compared with China's 10%, India's 7.7% and Brazil's 4.7%.
If these forecasts are correct, the Russian economy could pretty much return to its pre-crisis state, beating the developed economies' growth rates despite experiencing a huge fall just a year ago.
It might give Moscow a chance to silence those critics who have been saying that Russia was using the Bric platform to promote and push its own agenda at the first Bric summit, while not even deserving its place in the bloc.
Though for years Brazil, Russia, India and China have often been talked about as a group, experts note that the countries' agendas are not exactly the same.
"What brings them together is that they are at the frontier of capitalism," says Christian Lohbauer, an international relations expert at the University of Sao Paulo.
"But it's obvious they don't have a common agenda and their interests diverge and are [at] many times conflicting."
For example, Russia and Brazil benefit from rising commodity prices, while for China and India it is a completely different story.
Also, a top official at Russia's economic development ministry has said that China and India are among the 23 countries that limit free access to their markets for Russian companies.
This week China introduced a duty on imports of US and Russian electrical steel, accusing the two countries of selling the product at abnormally low prices.
For his part, Brazilian finance minister Guido Mantega said his country's manufacturers were being "harmed" by Beijing's currency policy, despite China being "an important trade partner".
However such differences don't mean the bloc can be written off.
Vladimir Portyakov, deputy director of the Institute of Far Eastern Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, says the Bric countries have already managed to come up with "some elements of the common position".
First of all, he says, they agree that emerging economies should increase their role in international financial institutions.
Mr Portyakov told the BBC Russian Service that there was an idea to use the Bric countries' national currencies in mutual trade and potentially turning them into global reserve currencies in the future.
At the first Bric summit, the group discussed the US dollar's status as the world's main trading currency, and the topic has made it back on the agenda.
Presidential adviser Arkady Dvorkovich confirmed the Bric summit participants would discuss the possibility of using the International Monetary Fund's own currency - called special depository receipts (SDRs) - as a global currency instead.
"I do not think we may expect any detailed decision on this currency at this year's meetings, though," he added.
Brazil's foreign ministry official Roberto Jaguaribe also said, "Bric members agree that it is in their advantage to abandon the dollar in mutual transactions in the future.
"However, they also understand that haste in this process will result in losses."
Evgeny Yasin, head of research at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow, told Russian daily Nezavisimaya Gazeta that plans to discuss the possibility of abandoning the US dollar at the summit were an attempt to put pressure on the world's leading powers.
He points out that any dollar instability would be potentially harming to China as it could hit Chinese exports.
Mr Jaguaribe's comments seem to support this view.
"None of the Bric countries is interested in rocking the boat too much, everybody is interested in the dollar and depends on it," he said.
Another topic that was raised last year and will be discussed again this time is the role of developing countries in the world.
Brazil's President Lula da Silva expects the Bric summit to call for reforms of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
"We call for sweeping reforms for developing countries to have an active voice in defining their own future," Chinese news agency Xinhua quoted him as saying.
"Brazil did not become a creditor of these bodies for things to remain as before," he warned.
Jim O'Neill told the Times after the first Bric summit: "Today it's embarrassing that they [the Bric countries] are not involved in an improved version of G7 and G8, and, of course, the IMF and World Bank need to have their governance structure changed dramatically to reflect this.
"The advent of the G20 is a step in the right direction."
Experts agree that so far the Bric group has been much more about words rather than actions.
But if forecasts about the four countries overtaking the six largest western economies over the next two to three decades are correct, actions will undoubtedly follow.
"I suppose that the potential of the [Bric] cooperation should not be exaggerated and we should not expect fast results, but this potential definitely exists," said Mr Portyakov.


Andre Agassi will lead the United States team against the Russians in the first-round of the Davis Cup in Stone Mountain, Ga.
Yevgeny Kafelnikov, ranked No. 6 in the world, is scheduled to meet Jim Courier in the first singles match today, and he will join with Andrei Olhovskiy for tomorrow's doubles and take on Agassi in the reverse singles on Sunday.
The Americans have won the Davis Cup 31 times, more than any other country, but they haven't triumphed since their 1995 victory over Russia.
Last year, the U.S. team was humiliated in the final by Sweden, 5-0.
Elsewhere, Sweden will be without three of its top players as the Davis Cup champions open defense of the title in Slovakia. Jonas Bjorkman is ill, Thomas Enqvist ailing, and doubles specialist Nicklas Kulti at home with his wife -- who just gave birth.


Welcome to Midweek Madness, our Wednesday self-hating celebacchanal ritual. In which we "read" the weekly tabloid magazines. So you don't "have" to.
Okay, first off, this is not the actual epic Midweek Madness post; it's simply a preview, because we are still going through the magazines and hating ourselves more and more because of it. But a cursory glance at this week's US, Star, InTouch, et. al. reminds us what true mirth feels like, thanks to an overabundance of celeb weight loss news about Angelina, Kelly Clarkson, and Jessica Simpson. Because, you see, the only thing more boring than news about a celebrity who isn't drinking because she might be pregnant with a baby is news about a celebrity who isn't drinking because she actually has a baby; and the only thing more boring than that is news about a celebrity wedding; and the only thing that ever pulled us through the drudgery of that is the delicious morsel known as the dramatic celebrity weight loss or gain. Done correctly, and not a glorified ad for some personal trainer's dumb diet book (today's US cover) or focused on some career calorie-restrictor (ahem, Anaston) the celeb weight fluctuation story is at once the reason the celebrity media exists and the only thing absurd enough to neatly encapsulate our overconsumption of it. No, seriously, humor us.
The celebrity media exists to cover what we call "First World Problems" because we feel powerless and guilty reading about real problems and we need to focus on people who are like us but shallow enough to make us feel better about ourselves. But celebrities are not, you know, so much really like us. Their babies are more spoiled and precocious and smart in that spooky, worldly way child actors are smart. Their pregnancies are more leisurely and their pregnancy wardrobes much hotter. And their violent outbursts and reckless driving are more bizarre and disturbing for the protective layers of bodyguards and flaks and assistants and agents that come along with being a famous person. But their eating disorders are a First World Problem we all share! After all, anyone who has ever considered ketchup a meal, or faked a gluten allergy, or swallowed dipping tobacco in hopes of puking after downing a box of SnackWells (we date ourselves, our ED happened in the Olestra Era) (also: the tobacco? not so effective!) knows just how effective an Eating Disorder is at making the epic, sweeping tragedy that is millennial American society so totally personal. It's like, here we are, nothing to complain about, and this is our problem. And this week, it's Kelly's and Jessica's and Angelina's problem too. Dig in, guys!


The food maker readjusted after putting profits ahead of sales growth for a few years.
After a disappointing winter, General Mills righted the ship this spring with better-than-expected profit and a third consecutive quarter of sales growth.
The Golden Valley-based company closed the book Wednesday on another turbulent year — the new norm for packaged-food companies — as it strives to balance sales and profit growth amid big shifts in what people eat.
General Mills is beginning to see revenue growth following several years of deep cost-cutting that boosted its profit and profit margins sharply. Executives last year said they had cut too far and needed to spend more on product innovation and marketing to stimulate sales.
The plan appears to be working as sales improved 2 percent to $3.89 billion in the three months ended May 27, the fourth quarter of its fiscal year. Organic net sales — or those that don’t include the impact of acquisitions — rose about 1 percent.
Its profit amounted to $354.4 million, down 13 percent from a year ago but better than analysts predicted and a positive note for investors.
In April, General Mills announced the $8-billion acquisition of Blue Buffalo, a high-growth pet food maker. Many on Wall Street were initially skeptical of the deal, for both its high price tag and its divergence from General Mills’ core food business, but Harmening said those skeptics have largely been calmed after hearing his rationale.
Blue Buffalo is expected to help bolster the company’s sales by 9 to 10 percent in its new fiscal year, which is now almost a month old. Given the accounting costs of the deal, General Mills Chief Financial Officer Don Mulligan expects full-year adjusted earnings per share will be flat or down 3 percent.
Yogurt is showing signs of improvement — thanks to successful new products — but remains the biggest drag on the company’s North American sales, posting a 5 percent decline last quarter. The segment started the year with a 22 percent loss in sales during the first quarter, followed by 11 percent and 8 percent in the following two quarters.
Looking ahead, the company will continue its work on lifting sales while seeking greater efficiencies to keep profits up.
“The declines we had on profitability have lessened,” Harmening said.


BAYOG, Zamboanga del Sur, Jan 13 (PIA) -– As the new year starts and to give emphasis on its peace and order situation, Municipal Peace and Order Council (MPOC) of Bayog, this province convened on Wednesday, January 11 at Glupa Gulian Agro-Tourism Park, Sitio Quibranza, Barangay Kahayagan, this municipality.
Mayor Leonardo Babasa, Jr. gave his welcome message to some 73 participants composed of the council’s regular members, local government employees and some invited local residents. Also present are Col. Gerardo Barrientos, Brigade Commander, 53rd IB, Philippine Army and Lt.Col. Nasser Pendatun, Battalion Commander 53rd IB,PA and men.
After his presentation, he urged the participants to work hand in hand to attain real peace in the locality and in our country as well.
During the meeting, the most significant concern brought out to the council members is the reported citings of New People’s Army (NPA) in some barangays of the municipality. The barangay chairmen concern expressed fears of infiltration by these elements in their respective areas.


According to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, Brooklyn-based artist Paul Ingrisano was granted a registered trademark on the 3,000 year old mathematical constant (and sixteenth letter of the Greek alphabet) near the end of January.
He had originally filed for a trademark on the Pi symbol in November of 2012 on the grounds that his company "Pi Productions Corp" produced t-shirts featuring the symbol, followed by a period.
Wired reports that when Ingrisano discovered a wide array of apparel containing the Pi symbol on Zazzle.com, a massive online retailer that allows users to create their own merchandise, he contacted his lawyer.
"It has been brought to our client's attention that your business, Zazzle Com/AKA Zazzle Inc., has been using the mathematical symbol 'pi,' referred to herein as the 'PI trademark,' in association with the marketing or sale of your products or of products offered through your services," wrote Ingrisano's lawyer, Ronald Millet, in a cease-and-desist letter sent to the company on May 16.
"We have evidence of your unlawful products to preserve as evidence. Accordingly, you are hereby directed to CEASE AND DESIST ALL COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT," the letter continued, citing U.S. registered trademark number 4473631.
Zazzle responded by immediately removing all garments including any form of the symbol, which is popular among math geeks and often used as fodder for jokes.
"This impacted thousands of products," said Zazzle spokeswoman Diana Adair to Wired. "How many actually sold would be a much smaller number of course."
Zazzle sent a formal notice to its sellers informing them of the ban and removal, but many were unimpressed with the news.
Outraged by the idea that someone had trademarked a mathematical symbol, Lartigue, like many around the web, argued that the U.S Patent office had made a mistake.
"Pi is an irrational constant in mathematics. It's the name given to the ratio of a circle's diameter to its circumference. It's denoted by the Greek letter 'pi'. This symbol is used in every mathematical text and paper involving this ratio, and has been since at least 1706," he wrote "And now someone's claiming they've trademarked it and no one else can use it? That's like trademarking the number three, or hell, the e in the design, which is another mathematical concept. It's clearly absurd to anyone except, I guess, Zazzle."
Jez Kemp, another blogger and Zazzle seller who has several Pi designs for sale, argued similarly on his blog that "this would be like McDonalds claiming the letter M as a trademark. The trademark is in the combination of style and symbol, not the symbol itself."
Both bloggers responded to Zazzle, informing the company that Ingrisano's trademark specifically protects the Pi symbol with a period after it -- something neither of their designs included.
In a reply to Kemp, published on an active Zazzle forum called "Mathematical 'Pi' symbol is trademarked?" Zazzle's content management team defended its ban.
"You are correct in the description of the registered trademark as having a period," wrote Zazzle. "However, representatives of PI Productions Corp. is exercising their rights to protect their mark by not only restricting the use of their trademark, but also any similar marks that is likely to result in consumer confusion as part of the Lanham Act."
Similar replies were sent to other Zazzle users, resulting in an outpouring of rage and frustration online.
After much outcry, Zazzle decided to restore all products that had been removed for making use of Pi on Friday.
"After reviewing the take-down request more closely, Zazzle has decided to restore 'Pi' products as of today," wrote the company in a Zazzle forum. "Zazzle is a marketplace for a community of artists, and we want to continue to support artists who are creating original artwork."
By Monday, 5,338 different products were being returned under the search term "Pi" on Zazzle.
Custom Pi 3.14 Math Geek Tie from Zazzle.com24 Hour Shipping on most orders. Custom Pi 3.14 Math Geek Tie created by bellamandu. Customize this design with your own text and pictures or order as shown.
While many were pleased by Zazzle's decision to ignore the cease and desist letter from Ingrisano's lawyer, the design community is now keeping a close eye on the artist.
Several Zazzle forum users have made note of the fact that Ingrisano also has a pending trademark registration for the use of "I<3" -- which means "I love" in netspeak.
"OH MY GOD! From the same guy????" wrote a user named ArtsmakersWorlds. "Is he going to register every number and symbol possible?"
In a lengthy post about the I<3 filing, Ben Davis summed up what much of the web was feeling on artnet news, writing "The Internet definitely does not <3 Paul Ingrisano right now."
What are your thoughts on trademarking symbols? Should the U.S. Patent Office be less lenient in the trademarks it registers, or is all fair in love and design? Weigh in below.


As quickly as the Platt football team’s season was on the rise, it appeared to be over.
After starting the season 6-1, the Panthers lost to Bristol Central, 21-20. They then lost again the following week to Middletown, 21-18.
“Just coming off the loss, it was a heartbreaker,” coach Jason Bruenn said of the Bristol Central game.
The 6-3 record in Class L would make it an upward climb to get into the playoffs. Last year, not a single three-loss team made the tournament in Class L. If Platt had any hopes of playing late into November, everything had to roll the Panthers’ way.
Then, Bruenn got the call from Bristol Central coach Jeff Papazian. The Rams had an ineligible player on their roster, who started the season playing soccer and switched sports halfway through the fall. Bristol Central reported it to the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference and was forced to forfeit two games — one of which being the win over Platt.
Suddenly, the Panthers had life.
The Panthers were back, and at 7-2, were back in the playoff picture.
Platt faced a win-and-you’re-in game against crosstown rival Maloney in the annual Stoddard Bowl on Thanksgiving Eve. The Stoddard Bowl dates to 1958, with plenty of bad blood and intertwining storylines between the teams. As Bruenn said, winning the Stoddard Bowl just once can give you bragging rights for 50 years.
On top of the usual stakes that come with the Meriden showdown, the Panthers had a shot at the playoffs with a win.
Maloney took a 12-8 lead heading into halftime, but an inspired rushing attack led by Roberto Salas (144 yards, two touchdowns) and Jake Baker (49 yards, two touchdowns) led to a 22-0 run, and eventually a 36-20 win.
The Panthers did it. They beat the Spartans, won the CCC Division II conference outright and clinched the sixth seed in the Class L tournament.
Platt made good on its last shot and second chance, and will travel to Nauagtuck on Tuesday for the Class L quarterfinals.
At 9-1, Naugatuck presents a challenge, but it’s nothing the Panthers haven’t seen, or had to conquer to get to this stage.
All of this came after losing starting running back E.J Dudley to a torn ACL in August.


BOCA RATON — Becoming the next Tua Tagovailoa is one of the few things keeping Florida Atlantic reserve quarterback Rafe Peavey motivated.
BOCA RATON — Though a talented Florida Atlantic offense has underwhelmed so far, Lane Kiffin is standing by young offensive coordinator Charlie Weis Jr.
BOCA RATON — Florida Atlantic quarterback Chris Robison’s leash is getting tighter after three subpar starts in a row. In fact, there may not be much of a leash going forward.
BOCA RATON — Losses like this weren’t supposed to be part of the Lane Kiffin era at Florida Atlantic.
BOCA RATON — The rumor mill involving Florida Atlantic and another high-profile transfer is swirling once again.
BOCA RATON — Saturday will be 283 days since veteran Florida Atlantic pass rusher Hunter Snyder last recorded a sack.


The Piggybank screensaver populates your desktop with walking pigs, or rather, walking piggy banks. You can set the number of pigs, toggle the sound, have your desktop or a black screen as a background, and choose to add dropshadows. Version 1.3 has improved performance and increased speed.


Mike Wallace is back to doing his thing, running fly patterns for the Miami Dolphins.
The Miami Dolphins’ $60 million wide receiver returned to practice today after missing almost two weeks with a groin injury and caught a long touchdown pass in single coverage against cornerback Nolan Carroll.
Wallace is hoping to play Friday night against the Jacksonville Jaguars, according to the Associated Press.
It didn’t take long for Wallace to show his body was feeling right. He beat Nolan Carroll for a 40-yard touchdown reception during practice.
The Dolphins have made a significant investment in Wallace, and need to get plenty of mileage out of him this season as he’s their prize offseason acquisition.


Robert Anglen investigates consumer issues for The Arizona Republic, where he has worked since 2003. From 2011-2015, Anglen worked with Call 12 for Action at 12 News as part of a joint broadcast and publishing project. He co-led the team through some of its most successful years. In 2014, Call 12 for Action recovered more than $2 million for consumers, something no television station in the country had achieved. His award-winning investigations have exposed fraud, crime and corruption. He has written about abuses within the probate court system, questionable charities tied to a worldwide televangelism ministry and was named reporter-of-the year in 2005 by the Arizona Press Club for stories linking Taser stun guns to deaths across the country. On Sept. 11, 2001, he was only blocks away from the World Trade Center collapse and wrote first-person accounts from Ground Zero. Born in Los Angeles, he has worked as a skip tracer, bill collector, cab driver and process server.


¨ The Authority did not have a disaster contingency plan to promote recovery of its computer systems. In addition, a recovery test had not been performed and an alternative power source to safeguard against data loss in the event of a power failure did not exist.
(1) Excludes contractual employees: ’07 - 3; ’06 - 4; ’05 - 8.
The Authority did not have a disaster contingency plan to promote recovery of its computer system. In addition, a recovery test has not been performed and an alternative power source to safeguard against data loss in the event of a power failure did not exist.
The primary mission of the Authority is to improve the administration of justice by enhancing the information tools available to State and local criminal justice agencies and administrators. To accomplish this, the Authority maintains several essential computer systems. The loss of computer services will make these services to State and local law enforcement agencies unavailable. This finding has been repeated since 1987.
We recommended the Authority develop a comprehensive disaster contingency plan to address issues relevant to the continuance of services to users.
The other finding pertains to the failure to perform employee performance evaluations on a timely basis. We will review progress toward the implementation of our recommendations in our next examination.
We conducted a compliance attestation examination of the Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority for the two years ended June 30, 2007 as required by the Illinois State Auditing Act. We have not audited any financial statements of the Authority for the purpose of expressing an opinion because the Authority does not, nor is it required to, prepare financial statements.
Our special assistant auditors were Duffner & Company, P.C.
2005: “The Authority accepts this finding. The two main components to an appropriate disaster recovery site are sufficient funding and proper location. Many large government agencies build their disaster recovery in another State. The Authority is not considering this type of plan. A complete disaster recovery location can be very expensive to build and then maintain. The majority of our past requests for funding of disaster recovery have not been approved. In spite of the lack of funding, we are exploring two possible options, one at a remote location approximately 100 miles from Chicago, the other being the newly planned Central Management Services disaster recovery center which is scheduled to be 250 miles from Springfield. Both would necessitate large start-up costs. Either potential site would necessitate funding approval.


MUMBAI: A chapter on space missions has been included in Class X science textbooks of Maharashtra board. The Pune-based Maharashtra Bureau of Textbook Production and Curriculum Research in a note said: "Permission is granted for enforcing this text book from the academic year 2018-19 in the meeting held on the date 29.12.2017."
The space mission chapter, number 10, will be found from pages 135 to 144 in the book named Science and Technology. The text has a brief note on Rakesh Sharma, the first Indian to fly into space and Nasa's Indian-American astronauts Kalpana Chawla and Sunita Williams. The chapter also mentions names of Isro's rockets and satellites, and on page 140 there are details of the space agency's workhorse-the four-stage Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (Pslv). However, teachers said that two other Indian rockets, Geo-Synchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (Gslv) and its advanced version Gslv Mark 3, have not been highlighted. "Instead, they have found a place for Nasa's space shuttle which was phased out July 2011. Even the book cover has an image of the space shuttle. Instead, a picture of the Gslv Mark 3 could have been used," said a teacher requesting anonymity. Gslv Mark 3 will be used for Isro's human space flight programme.
The chapter also contains details about the hazards posed by space debris. Co-founder of Space Geeks Mumbai, Chintamani Pai, told TOI: "It is a significant step."


the power, a key requirement in future wireless Internet appliances.
designer for Sun Microsystems and AT&T’s Bell Laboratories.
Crusoe can become a major player quickly.
power, high performance and full PC compatibility."
these will run on,” he said.
users don’t have to be plugged into a wall to use the system.


The chipmaker is collaborating with other companies to create inexpensive "host-based" cable modems that rely on a PC's main processor and memory.
High-speed cable modems may become cheaper in the near future as a result of an Intel initiative now coming to light.
Intel is working with Libit Signal Processing and possibly other partners to produce a futuristic breed of devices called "host-based" cable modems.
The devices would use the computer's main microprocessor and memory for some functions, rather than requiring the separate processor, memory, and operating system normally needed by a stand-alone modem. Because fewer chips are needed, they are potentially less expensive and easier to upgrade than traditional hardware modems.
The effort comes at a propitious time for the cable movement: After a long and arduous process, cable modems based on industry-approved standards should be available by the end of the quarter. As a result, the long hoped-for move to sell cable modems in a retail market may finally start to develop in 1999.
Cable companies are moving to provide high-speed Internet access with lower service and equipment costs. As such, compatible products based on the DOCSIS (Data Over Cable Service Interface Specifications) standard are needed so that the devices can "talk" to equipment from a variety of vendors.
Last week at the CableLabs Financial Analyst briefing in Denver, Colorado, representatives from Motorola, Samsung, Thomson Consumer Electronics, and other organizations were on hand to say that they expect cable modems will be certified as interoperable by March or early April, with large orders from cable companies coming soon thereafter.
According to industry research, about 520,000 households now subscribe to a cable modem service. Leading cable Net access providers include @Home and RoadRunner.
"There have been some delays [in the certification process], but it's self-evident that things are moving quickly now," said an optimistic Mark Stubbe, vice president of Samsung's networking division.
In fact, with the availability of certified modems around the corner, some in the industry are worrying about the next step: signing on retailers. Many retailers are angling for a slice of the monthly subscriber fees the cable companies would garner in return for helping advocate cable modems. Cable operators, who are not yet making profits on the service, are balking at the idea, creating a potential roadblock for wider interest in the service.
Patti Reali, a telecommunications analyst with the Gartner Group consultancy, said the cable operators should avoid that battle and focus on signing deals with PC manufacturers, since they are most able to offer service to those most likely to be interested. Dell Computer, in fact, has already signed a deal with @Home to pre-install cable modems in some systems.
The Intel-Libit effort is an effort to at least get the ball rolling.
"A focus for us is to get the cable world engaged in thinking about host-based modems. That's what will get the cost and the market moving," said Jacob Tanz, vice president of worldwide sales for Libit.
The companies are exploring ways to use the main processor to control networking and security functions, while the modem itself would still need chips to interpret signals from the network.
An Intel spokesperson declined to elaborate further, except to say that Intel "wants to see broadband deployed" and confirm that the company's research labs are working on reference designs for host-based cable modems, meaning the company is not signaling an interest in actually selling modems itself.
Technical documents describing how such a modem would work is reportedly expected to be submitted to CableLabs by March. A prototype modem is slated to be shown at an industry show in June.
As usual, Intel's interest in so-called "software" cable modems lies mainly in driving sales of its chips: With higher bandwidth connections, users would presumably download more processor-intensive multimedia content.
The company is involved in a number of similar efforts to migrate formerly discrete functions into the main processor. For instance, the company has demonstrated Pentium processors playing back DVD movie titles without the need for a separate MPEG-2 playback chip, and is investigating a host-based DSL modem as well.


Paul Wittgenstein was an Austrian-born concert pianist who became famous for his ability to play with just his left hand, after losing his right arm during the First World War. He devised unusual pedal and hand-movement techniques that allowed him to perform in ways previously regarded as impossible for a one-handed artist.
But Wittgenstein’s greatest accomplishment was to commission a series of works for orchestra and left-handed pianist by Richard Strauss, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Sergei Prokofiev, Maurice Ravel and Benjamin Britten.
In this hour, the pianist’s incredible story, and selections from some of the works written for him.


But China is looking to strengthen its economic ties with the kingdom, as Beijing pursues its ambitious Belt and Road trade infrastructure initiative, while Riyadh rolls out Saudi Vision 2030 -- the crown prince’s major programme to diversify the national economy away from oil.
Beijing: Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman met Friday with China’s President Xi Jinping and bagged a $10 billion oil deal, pressing on with his diplomatic charm offensive in Asia following a global outcry over the Khashoggi killing.
"Is the crown prince’s tour symbolic of Saudi Arabia’s pivot to the East? Yes," Najah al-Otaibi, a senior analyst at the pro-Saudi think-tank Arabia Foundation, told AFP.
"Riyadh wants to strengthen alliances in Asia -- especially now with the continuing fallout with the United States over Khashoggi’s murder and other issues and attempts by the EU to put Riyadh on a black list over money laundering allegations," she said.
But China is looking to strengthen its economic ties with the kingdom, as Beijing pursues its ambitious Belt and Road trade infrastructure initiative, while Riyadh rolls out "Saudi Vision 2030" -- the crown prince’s major programme to diversify the national economy away from oil.
Riyadh’s national oil giant Saudi Aramco said it had signed an agreement to form a Saudi-Chinese joint venture -- worth more than $10 billion -- to develop a refining and petrochemical complex in northeastern Liaoning province.
The Saudis said it "firmly supported" Beijing’s efforts to keep the country secure, and opposed "interference by external forces in China’s internal affairs", said Xinhua, paraphrasing remarks from the crown prince.


Is Aphria Inc. a Bad News Buy Right Now?
Here's what bargain shoppers sniffing around this former high-flying marijuana stock need to know.
Aphria Inc. (NYSE:APHA) isn't the only marijuana stock that's tumbled since adult sales began in Canada, but a 63% loss since Oct. 17 seems a bit extreme. Aphria will soon be capable of producing enough cannabis to fill stadiums, or at least enough to gain a large share of a global market for legal cannabis expected to reach $57 billion by 2027.
A recently depressed stock price has attracted some bargain shoppers and investors who missed out on this stock's tremendous run-up earlier this year. Has bad news pressured Aphria shares down to a lower price than they deserve right now? Let's measure reasons for and against adding this former highflier to your portfolio to find out.
Aphria's market cap peaked at $3.3 billion on Oct. 17 and has since fallen to just $1.2 billion. That means you can scoop up the shares at around 29 times trailing sales. That's a high multiple, but not entirely unreasonable considering the company's place within Canada's recently legalized adult-use program.
Recreational marijuana sales are expected to approach 6.5 billion Canadian dollars in 2020. Aphria had supply agreements with official distributors in all 10 provinces ahead of the rollout, including an agreement to supply 175,000 kg of cannabis to Emblem Corp. over a five-year period that begins next May.
Although Canadian consumers have experienced shortages during the early days of Canada's adult-use program, oversupply issues similar to those we've already seen in U.S. states could make it hard for most producers to turn a profit. Compared to its peers, Aphria appears well-poised to avoid losses after reporting an impressive CA$1.83 per gram all-in cost of production for cannabis it sold at CA$8.99 per gram during the three months ended August.
Aphria expects its licensed production space to expand from 300,000 square feet in October to over 1.1 million square feet in January. Once the company's flagship Aphria One greenhouse is able to run regular crop rotations, the company's production costs could fall again significantly.
Canada isn't the only country where cannabis is legal. Uruguay began allowing all its adult citizens to purchase marijuana in pharmacies last summer, and neighboring countries have burgeoning medical marijuana programs.
To get a head start on the action heating up down south, Aphria has been expanding aggressively. Most notably, the company acquired LATAM Holdings earlier this year by issuing 15.7 million new shares. This collection of cannabis-related businesses spread throughout the Caribbean and South America could give the company a foothold in several important markets.
Aphria shares recently crashed after a short-seller accused the company of double-dealing. In a nutshell, investors betting against Aphria claim company insiders purchased dubious Latin American assets that Aphria acquired at a huge markup as part of its LATAM Holdings acquisition.
This isn't the first time Aphria used hard-earned money provided by investors to acquire businesses at least part-owned by company insiders, and the expenses are taking a toll. Whether recent accusations of rampant, undisclosed double-dealings are true or not, stock dilution is reason enough to be nervous about buying this stock right now. Aphria's outstanding share count has risen 77% in just two years, which means that investors who held the stock that long have seen the company's market cap soar 174%, while the price of their shares rose just 39%.
Aphria's operations actually lost CA$10 million during the three months ended this August, and staffing dozens of businesses that it now owns around the globe could expand those losses. Also, oversupply issues are almost certainly going to pinch profits in the years ahead, which means investors buying the stock now could end up facing another round of dilution.
Aphria recently appointed a special committee to review the questionable LATAM Holdings acquisition. Even if we assume the committee confirms the company's beliefs that it did nothing wrong, bargain shoppers would be much better off waiting for some good news on a fundamental level.
Now that Aphria's market cap has fallen to just $1.1 billion, gaining a large share of the Canadian market could allow the stock to outperform over the long run -- but only if marijuana prices hold up through an oncoming supply glut and the company stops using its own shares like Monopoly money. Right now, those just don't seem like risks worth taking.


Roseate House in New Delhi has also revamped itself as an airport hotel.
A few years ago, producer Christina Wayne decided to close out a trip to Rome by spending a night at La Posta Vecchia, a Renaissance villa once owned by John Paul Getty that features marble staircases, stone fireplaces, and silk drapes that frame views of the Tyrrhenian Sea.
Airport hotels—those properties in or next to an airport that cater specifically to people in transit—have upped their game in recent years. The Fairmont Vancouver Airport, which sits directly above the U.S. departures terminal, has a soundproofed spa and serves afternoon tea. Adjacent to the Denver International Airport’s Jeppesen Terminal is a Westin that offers mountain views and a rooftop pool. Next year, the TWA Hotel will debut in the Eero Saarinen-designed terminal at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport to provide retro-styled relief to tired travelers.
But for the most part, airport hotels feel like utilitarian sleep boxes; even the best have a you-could-be-anywhere vibe. They’re great if you have a four-hour layover and just need a shower and some shuteye, but if you’re staying longer, they’re not the only option.
Some savvy travelers are booking five-star retreats that are almost as convenient. They’re located close enough to the airport to work for long layovers, early departures, brief business meetings, and international rendezvous, but because they’re designed as destinations rather than stopgap lodging, they offer distinctive design, memorable meals, and even some serious leisure activities.
At the new Solis Two Porsche Drive near Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in Atlanta, guests can learn to drive sports cars. The Westdrift Manhattan Beach, 10 minutes from Los Angeles International Airport, has a nine-hole golf course. Farther afield, at the Roseate House New Delhi, a five-minute drive from Indira Gandhi International Airport, you can wander in acres of gardens or take a dip in the 100-meter swimming pool.
While these hotels may not be within walking distance from the luggage carousels, they don’t require a trek downtown. Since many airports are located in outlying areas, an open-minded traveler can find a country property with lots of character. In the U.K. are grand estates-turned-resorts; in France, it’s manors and country inns.
In less cosmopolitan areas, the options can be even more rewarding: Consider the Umstead Hotel and Spa, just a seven-minute drive from Raleigh-Durham International Airport, where you can get 24-hour room service instead of a bowl of bagels. At the seven properties below, all fewer than 20 minutes from a terminal, you’ll be praying for a flight delay.
Distance: A 10-minute taxi from Los Angeles International Airport (LAX)Instead of battling the city’s notoriously tangled downtown traffic, head toward the beach. Though it’s not directly on the ocean, the Westdrift has a laid-back, modern feel—like West Elm, in a good way. Amenities include an outdoor swimming pool, a nine-hole golf course, a crossfit-inspired gym, and an indoor-outdoor restaurant. From $185 a night.
Distance: Ten minutes from Dallas Fort Worth International Airport (DFW)True to Texas stereotype, this resort does it big. Spread over 400 acres, it has three swimming pools, two golf courses, indoor and outdoor running tracks, and a sandy beach—all just minutes from the airport. If you get in late, there’s 24-hour room service. And if you haven’t had enough time in the air, you can sign up for an aerial yoga lesson. From $455 a night.
Distance: A 15-minute trip from Dulles International Airport (IAD)You don’t have to choose between a chain hotel or a 45-minute slog to downtown Washington. At Lansdowne, which overlooks the Potomac River, you can book a treatment in the 12,000-square-foot spa or hike one of the trails winding through the 476-acre property. Deluxe suites from $569 a night.
Distance: Five minutes from Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL)Go from the airport to the racetrack in 300 seconds flat. The year-old Solis overlooks the Porsche Experience Center at the carmaker’s North America’s headquarters. Guests can watch the action from the rooftop or partake in it, choosing from a fleet of dozens of vehicles and learning from an expert “drive coach.” There’s also an indoor swimming pool, a 24-hour fitness center, and an airport shuttle every 30 minutes. From $179 a night.
Distance: Five to 10 minutes from New Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport (DEL)Delhi’s airport has not one but several five-star hotels nearby—including a JW Marriott, an Andaz, and the distinctive Roseate House. The 1.8-acre property has a striking contemporary design, a rooftop infinity pool, a full-service spa, four drinking and dining venues, and its own theater. From about $105 a night.


He sat with them for an hour in prayer. Then he pulled his gun out and started shooting.
Roof’s roommate told ABC News the next day that he was “big into segregation and other stuff” and “he wanted to start a civil war.” And this is America, where we have the freedom to manifest our lethal fantasies.
But this is bigger than racism and the pathetic monster of white supremacy. Racism is a name for one of the currents of righteous hatred that coils through our collective unconscious, and over the decades and centuries it has motivated terrible crimes against humanity. But the “civil war” that Roof participated in is, I think, much larger and much more meaningless. And not all the participants are loners.
America, America, land of the mass murderer.
Mass murders have increased 14-fold in the United States since the 1960s, sociologist Peter Turchin wrote two and a half years ago, after the Sandy Hook killings. In his essay, called “Canaries in a Coal Mine,” Turchin made a disturbing comparison: Mass murderers kill the same way soldiers do, without personal hatred for their victims but to right some large social wrong. He called it the “principle of social substitutability” — substituting a particular group of people for a general wrong.
Dylann Roof had a toxic “cause” — to reclaim the Old South, to reclaim the country, from an unwelcome human subgroup — but the solidarity in which he acted wasn’t so much with his fellow racists as with the strategists and planners of war. Any war. Every war.
Perhaps this is why, when I hear Obama laud “the outpouring of unity and strength and fellowship and love” in the wake of the Charleston murders, I feel only despair as deep as a knife wound. War, not love, is structured into the nation’s economic and social fabric. We invest trillions of dollars into its perpetuation, across Central Asia and the Middle East and wherever else the strategists and planners see evil, which is to say, opportunity.
Every murderer believes the violence he is wielding is “good violence.” Think Timothy McVeigh, whose fertilizer bomb killed 168 people at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995. He called his victims “collateral damage,” co-opting the official language of the Gulf War in which he served. Mass murderers mimic and find their inspiration in the official wars we wage as a nation. Take away the massive public relations machinery that surrounds these wars and the deaths they cause are just as cruel, just as wrong. The abstract “enemy” dead, in every case, turn out to be human beings, who deserved to live.
And every war and every mass murder spreads fear and hatred — and inspiration — in their aftermath. We can’t go to war without spawning imitators. The next day, USA Today reported, the vigils at two South Carolina churches, in Charleston and Greenville, were disrupted by bomb threats and the churches had to be evacuated. So did Charleston’s county building.
Until we begin demilitarizing our relationship with the world, such words uttered by presidents are as empty as the words Dylann Roof uttered in prayer at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church that fateful night.
Robert Koehler is an award-winning Chicago journalist and editor.


A law that comes into effect in Russia on Friday will place tighter controls on the blogosphere, one of the few remaining places where people can freely criticise the government.
The federal mass media watchdog has said the law is meant to "de-anonymise popular websites". Prominent bloggers argue it is yet another step to crack down on free expression and will be wielded against critics of the regime.
Popularly known as the "law on bloggers," the legislation requires users of any website whose posts are read by more than 3,000 people each day to publish under their real name and register with the authorities if requested. It also holds popular bloggers to the same standards as the mass media, forbidding false information and foul language, although it doesn't guarantee them the same rights. Violators could incur fines of up to 50,000 rubles (£800) and be blacklisted.
Facebook, Twitter, LiveJournal and other social media sites regulated under the new law played an instrumental role in organising the protests against president Vladimir Putin in 2011-13 and have provided a vital platform for critical voices, since most nationwide television and print media is controlled by the government.
Already, the authorities enjoy sweeping powers under a 2013 law to close down websites for advocating "extremist activities" or "participation in public events held in breach of appropriate procedures." In March, the media watchdog blocked three opposition news portals and the LiveJournal blog of opposition leader and anti-corruption activist Alexei Navalny, who specialises in exposés on the luxurious real estate owned by prominent officials, replete with documents and photographs.
Popular blogger and media entrepreneur Anton Nosik called the law on bloggers unconstitutional and said it was meant to intimidate regime critics.
"It's about creating a situation where big brother is watching you," said Nosik. "You are part of a list, you are being watched, being observed, you are being served notices and could even serve a criminal sentence if you choose to speak out."
Another prominent blogger, Leonid Kaganov, told the magazine Afisha that the legislation was yet another attempt to transfer regulating power from the judicial system to unknown officials and "bring the authorities' relationship with its citizens into a shadow realm."
Bloggers have also complained that the law's terminology is too vague, and wondered how the media watchdog could possibly hope to regulate all site users and reliably count their readers. After parliament passed the law in April, LiveJournal stopped listing the exact number of followers for bloggers with more than 2,500.
The deputy head of the media watchdog, Maxim Ksenzov, recently suggested that the legislation would be applied selectively, telling the news site Lenta.ru that: "If you post kitten pics, speak in a civilized manner and publish no classified information, you may never be required [to register], even if you have a daily audience of 1 million visitors."


I have known Bob Stewart for more than 25 years and I have considerable knowledge of his background.
In the piece by Ranavio, Dr. Stewart's background and the basis for his compensation must have been either ignored, only superficially reviewed, or omitted on purpose in favor of a sensational opening to a story.
Bob is one of the most valuable assets that West Texas A&M University, and in fact the entire Texas A&M University System, has - and very probably ever will have. Bob was not hired as "teaching faculty," and his compensation does not come from that budget item. His compensation comes from research funded by the state through a special items appropriation.
Bob is one of approximately 70 scientists named to the USDA Agricultural Hall of Fame. He is one of the world's foremost soil scientists and hydrologists, and he is the co-author of what is considered the encyclopedia of hydrology. Bob was hired to design and lead the Dry Land Agriculture Institute, which is world- renowned. WT has one Ph.D. program, in the field of agriculture, and its existence at WT is due largely to research work led by Bob Stewart. This makes him an asset both to the community and to academia.
I cannot help believing that the basis for the author's article is the simple-minded suggestion from one of our legislators that professorial salaries should be tied to income derived from students enrolled in the programs they teach and from externally funded research aided and abetted by a report authored by Rick O'Donnell a former University of Texas advisor. Cost is not the only measure of the worth of a person or a program. It is time more people started thinking in terms of value, a term that considers, at the very least, how useful someone or something is and how rare it is.
Bob Stewart deserved better treatment and more respect than the Globe-News gave him.


Hema Malini says director Ramesh Sippy, with whom she has worked on Seeta Aur Geeta and is now working on Shimla Mirch, makes her do weird stuff in all his films. In the 1972 comedy, Hema sat on a ceiling fan.
Hema Malini is making a comeback to the big screen after a gap of three years — her last release was Bbuddah... Hoga Terra Baap (2011).
In her next, she will be working with film-maker Ramesh Sippy after 40 years. The duo has in the past collaborated on projects like Andaz (1971), Seeta Aur Geeta (1972) and Sholay (1975).
Talking about working with Sippy, Malini says, "When my brother Mohan told me that Rameshji wanted to meet me, I thought he wanted to discuss some issue relating to our film industry. And that he wanted me to take it up in the Parliament. So I agreed to meet him. It was only then that I realised that he wanted to meet me for a film."
The veteran actor adds that she was sold on the idea of working with Sippy after so many years. "Also, the role of a mischievous mother was something I haven’t done so far," she says.
As if on cue, Sippy sends kneepads for the actor. "Rameshji makes me do weird stuff in all his films. He made me sit on a ceiling fan in Seeta Aur Geeta, ride a horse-drawn carriage in Sholay and in this one, he wants me to climb a tree," she says.
Malini is a member of the Parliament. How did her husband Dharmendra, a former Rajya Sabha member, react to her decision to contest the elections? She says, "He was scared for me. When I first told him that I was going to contest the Lok Sabha elections, he was like why are you taking this ‘panga’? People will harass you. But, later on, he came around and supported me. I would talkto him every day, and he would arrange security for me when I would go campaigning."


TORONTO — It’s the end of a love story, not the beginning, that fascinates photographer Caitlin Cronenberg and set designer Jessica Ennis.
They wanted to detail the raw, messy, gut-wrenching emotions of a breakup in an elaborate new photo book, enlisting actresses including Julianne Moore, Keira Knightley, Tatiana Maslany and Imogen Poots.
Each of the 28 stories in “The Endings” could have been films themselves, acknowledges Cronenberg, who took a cinematic approach to crafting the book by drafting elaborate back stories and leaning on Ennis for detailed sets and props to build entire worlds for each scene.
It all began with the two Toronto friends sharing their own stories of heartbreak, and hearing the “universal” experiences of friends and colleagues who had similar accounts of being overwhelmed by emotion upon losing love.
“As Jess and I were exploring the topic we realized just how much it bonds people together. You can talk about your insane breakup and your ex and a person you just meet will say, ‘Oh my God, I just had a similar experience,’ and all of a sudden you’re bonded,” says Cronenberg.
In one collection, Patricia Clarkson plays a woman crouching in the shadows of a campus library book stack, waiting to meet her much younger lover for a clandestine rendezvous.
In another, Juno Temple appears as a heartbroken woman who spirals into risky behaviour in the wake of her loss, while elsewhere, a naked Alison Pill is smeared with blue paint and swoons in front of an art installation she dedicates to her unrequited love.
“Every person has an emotional response to love ending and it’s not always negative, it’s not always crying. (There’s) relief, exuberance, devastation — these are all the things you can experience with a relationship ending and we wanted to run the gamut on that and see if we could tell all of those stories, or a wide range,” says Cronenberg.
The intensely intimate shoots consisted largely of just Ennis, Cronenberg and their actress. Cronenberg says she encouraged each woman to move freely through the scene uninterrupted, and to embody whatever emotion that came to her as she immersed herself in the character.
“It was really hard to cut some of them. Noomi (Rapace) really comes to mind, because we had a playlist going of songs that were inspiring the mood and she was just going for it and she kept coming up with new things — she was putting rings on her toes, she was pulling pages out of books and making little castles and doing all this incredible stuff with the props,” she says of “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” star, who plays a jilted woman who insists on living alone.
It took seven years to co-ordinate the whole project, with the duo producing every element “from bottom to top” — from scouting locations to sourcing wardrobe to arranging craft services and transportation for all cast and crew.
“We were clearly in above our heads in a lot of ways,” says Ennis, chuckling.
“When we look back at the book we can’t believe that we pulled it off, basically,” agrees Cronenberg.
They shot in Toronto, New York and London, and captured anywhere from 1,200 to 4,000 stills for each story — even though some ended up whittled down to just one image for the book, says Cronenberg.
Despite Cronenberg’s auspicious movie lineage — her father is director David Cronenberg — she says she has no aspirations to make a feature film herself.
“I appreciate film and I love watching films and I enjoyed being part of film sets and doing stills on film sets but I just really love the feeling of capturing a moment,” she says.
However, she notes she and Ennis did make a short film inspired by the photography book to help promote it. The film premieres Sept. 10 at an event co-hosted by the Toronto International Film Festival.
The book launches with a party Tuesday at Toronto Fashion Week.


I first met Amanda Vickery ten years ago - her book, 'The Gentleman's Daughter' had just been published, and she gave an interview to our local paper. Something about the interview made me think she would be good on the radio - her liveliness and her sense of fun came across, even in a print interview. I was right - when I called her, and we met for coffee, I realised that her warmth and her quick wit made her a radio natural. It took another ten years before we would work together - meanwhile, I was promoted to a job where I was no longer making radio programmes, and Amanda was winning prizes for her books, appearing as a regular contributor on programmes like 'Saturday Review', and becoming a Professor. When I went back to making radio programmes as a freelance producer, she was one of the first people I called.
I have always been fascinated by the history of domestic life. I often think of my grandmothers and great-grandmothers and their lives at home, the hard labour of it all, but also the real creative pleasure. On my study wall I have framed some of the beautiful miniature dolls' clothes my grandmother made me as a child: works of art. I'm pleased that our series includes a programme on sewing, and values the time and creativity of the many women who spent, and continue to spend, time on sewing, craftwork, decorating their homes. But the series goes much wider than that - it's as much about men as women, and the real pleasure husbands and fathers took in home. It's not fashionable to admit it, but for many men too, domestic life provides the greatest happiness.
The challenge of this big series was to make each afternoon programme a satisfying story in itself, but to join them together in a coherent week for the Friday night Omnibus (2100 on Friday). Each week has a theme, and over the six weeks we move from the 16th to the 20th century. The programmes are all very different: some are funny, some very dark - like the terrible diary of domestic violence from the early nineteenth century. Some have dozens of voices in them, some are just the story of one person, drawn from intimate letters and diaries. I thought of it like constructing a quilt - each piece very different, some plain, some embroidered, but sewn together, a pattern emerges.
As Amanda began to write the stories in the series, and we met every week for coffee to discuss the latest programme, I began to wonder about music. Were there songs which would illustrate our themes? My friend David Owen Norris, a brilliant concert pianist and Professor of Music, put me in touch with a young academic, Wiebke Thormahlen. She began to search libraries for songs about drunken husbands, burglars, housework. And it was extraordinary what she found - a protest song about women's servitude from the 18th century; a comic song about seducing a woman who never stops talking; and my favourite, 'The Housewife's Lament', in which an early nineteenth century housewife describes the unremitting toil of her life, cleaning, cooking, ironing, and imagines a never-ending tide of dirt coming towards her. When I showed this to a young man, he thought it was funny, and it does have a twist in the end; but for me it almost makes me cry (you can hear verses from it in week 1, week 2 and week 4 of the series).
Once Wiebke Thormahlen and David Owen Norris had gathered a pile of sheet music, we found some great singers to bring it to life - these are not songs which have been recorded before. Thomas Guthrie is a baritone and opera director - I'd seen him in Aldeburgh, singing an extraordinary 'Wintereisse' with puppets. Our other singer, Gwyneth Herbert, doesn't usually sing this kind of song at all - she's a singer-songwriter who writes her own material, and appears at venues like Ronnie Scott's. But I'd heard her interviewed on Radio 4, and started listening to her songs, and loved the way she brought such emotional power to her performances. It's a haunting voice.
We recorded the music in David Owen Norris's keyboard room at the University of Southampton one Saturday; it's a large space packed with a variety of instruments so we could move round the room from the harpsichord to the forte piano to the modern piano as the series moved through the centuries. David arranged the sig tune too - a take on the old song 'Dashing Away with the Smoothing Iron', played in the style of different periods. The first week starts with a simple harpsichord - by week 6, the song's moved into boogie-woogie jazz piano.
Any big series like this depends on having the right team. We were lucky enough to be able to book engineer Jon Calver to record the music; and to attract a team of first-class actors - among them Deborah Findlay, John Sessions and Madeleine Brolly - to read for us. The home team at Loftus - Jo Coombs, David Smith and Tobin Coombs - dealt with actors' agents, read scripts, suggested changes, and improvised sound effects. Loftus is a small and highly prestigious production company, who specialise in crafted features and documentaries - and it has been a pleasure working with them.
It's been such a big project - we've been working on it for a year now. You can probably tell what enormous fun it's been to bring the voices of the past to life in such a substantial series. I am really looking forward to hearing what you think of it!
A History of Private Life, a 30-part series presented by Amanda Vickery, begins on 28 September at 1545.
There are two lovely features about the series on the Radio 4 web site: one by Amanda Vickery about the programme's research methods and one by Wiebke Thormahlen about the music.
The picture is Home Sweet Home, from the Wikimedia commons: a work in the public domain.
I'm taken aback by the claim here and in the program that "these are not songs which have been recorded before". I've only listened to the first program so far, but The Housewife's Lament is a well-known song which has been recorded many times, as a trivial Google search shows. I know of recordings by Peggy Seeger, Frankie Armstrong, and Anne Hill and Cindy Mangsen for starters, and I'm sure there are more.
I don't know what other songs this claim is being made about, but I guess that Get Up And Bar The Door is another since it's on the 'Music from the Series' page. This is another very well known song with many versions, often recorded, though I don't know if this particular version has been recorded before.
"You`re right, I should have said, many of these songs have not been recorded. I`ve asked the online people if they can publish this correction because I would not want to undermine our excellent music researcher by making false claims.
Some of these songs are old folk songs which people might know - later in the series, for instance, we use 'Early One Morning' and clearly people know 'Home Sweet Home', but some have not been recorded before to my knowledge: for instance I do not think there are any recordings of the song 'A Lady's Case' which we used last week. 'How hard is the fortune of all woman kind, for ever subjected, for ever confined...' this is a song from the 1730s. Or 'Belinda', which we use in week 3.
Or the song we use this week about servants - 'Dame Durden'. What was interesting to me is that the young people who were around at the time of the making of the series did not know even the songs which I had thought were well-known - eg 'Early One Morning', or our sig tune 'Dashing Away with the Smoothing Iron'. I went to primary school in Scotland and we learnt a huge number of folk songs, both Scottish and English, but it seems these songs are not taught in most primary schools any more. That does seem a shame to me."
Are there plans to publish a book from the series? Would be wonderful!
I've really been enjoying this series. I love the details of everyday life, and it reminds me of a lovely book I read a couple of years back - "At day's close : a history of nighttime" by Roger Ekirch. This covered the history of customs and activities at the end of day, and again had a lot of personal social history in it.
I heard the omnibus on friday for the first time, I really enjoyed. I know my Mum would really like this series but is not very computer savvy. Is there an option to download to cd, or perhaps an intention to release it as an audio book?
I would just like to say how much I am enjoying A History of Private Life. I graduated from the University of Leeds in 2007 with a PhD on a handful of Yorkshire elite women and their households, and have always been deeply passionate about the interaction of people with their built environment. It seems that such a subject for historical research has been a long time in the making, but aside from my relentless chatter about some eighteenth-century household structures to my own family, it has also sparked a huge interest from my own circle of friends. It would be fantastic to see more of this type of study laid bare at houses and record offices on a regular basis, and this series should really be projected further than radio! There is some meaty material here which should be discussed and highlighted for a wider audience, since (and Amanda Vickery has stated this) history is more than ‘battles and legislation, of bishops and kings’.
I look forward to this more than I have anything on TV or radio for some time. When will it be available on CD? I'd love to get it for my mother for Christmas.
I love Amanda Vickery's History of Private Life.
I am a radio devotee, and I spend much more time listening to it than I ever spend watching television.
As a professor, I note the careful construction of the programme by the producer: Amanda is not the only voice, and her short talk is carefully followed by a song, a poem by a reader, then back to her etc; I played one of her programmes to students in a historiography class; as children of a visual age, brought up on 'sound bites', they were amazed that listening was not necessarily 'boring', on the contrary.
I have been listening to the History of Private Lives, and have also loved it. Being a history graduate, it returned to many of the themes I had studied, so was a great joy. I would also urge the BBC to release the programme on cd, and perhaps expand it to a series on BBC4. It would also be great if there was a book available, which I understand will not be happening.
Wondering if any bloggers can help. Monday 12th Oct 09 A History of Private Life was all about Tea. It featured a poem by Elizabeth Hands all about taking tea. I would like to read the whole poem. Can anyone suggest where I might find it. I did a google search but to no avail.
I would like to say how much I am enjoying your series. Since my dear wide died 4 years ago I have depended on the wireless for company and have loved listening to you every day and found the programmes so interesting. I shall miss you.
Is there or will there be a book ?
I have enjoyed the songs particularly The Housewife’s lament – I love the way that she sings it , particularly the short pause in the last line.
Just to clarify that it was my wife who sadly died and not my wide .
"the poem can be found in Eighteenth-Century Women Poets: An Oxford Anthology, ed. Roger Lonsdale"