MammaFotogramma Studio develops the interaction design for Cassina 9.0, the installation designed by Patricia Urquiola to celebrate the 90th anniversary of Cassina, during the 2017 Fuorisalone, from 4 to 9 April at the Giangiacomo Feltrinelli Foundation in Milan.
As part of the 2017 Fuorisalone, the 90th anniversary of Cassina is celebrated with a manifesto for the future: Cassina 9.0. Designed by Patricia Urquiola, the site-specific installation is a playful exploration targeting progress and evolution, like computer language, as a necessary resource to refresh the company’s historical legacy.
The interaction design has been developed by MammaFotogramma, creative multimedia studio who combines innovation with a wide a range of artistic expressions. For this multimedia project the studio's artistic direction was orchestrated together with Ilaria Vergani Bassi.
In dialogue with the architecture of the Giangiacomo Feltrinelli Foundation, the installation is a free interpretation of the monograph "This Will Be The Place" (Rizzoli), edited by Felix Burrichter. The book, published to celebrate the 90th anniversary of Cassina, explores contemporary social behaviors and their possible impact on the future of the interior.
In the first part, dominated by pink hues, virtual reality is embedded into real life. Within familiar domestic environments, the visitor can relate to the Cassina objects through unexpected interactive and ironic experiences that constantly change. The presence of the works from the Cassina Archives emphasises the concept of the past as the main foundation for thinking the future.
In addition, three artworks by Ettore Tripodi, also author of the visuals sketches for the multimedia interactions. A work on paper and a ceramic head coming from “Journal of a shipwrecked” along with a big painting “Grande Grotta”, all coming from the “Museum of the civilization who forgets”, inspired by some researches led by the artist himself over the concepts of History, Memory and Drift.
The walk continues in a parallel reality of green color, where visitors wearing the viewers can immerse themselves in a journey into the history of a hypothetical exoplanet of our galaxy. The virtual landscapes of VR movie by visual artist Ilaria Vergani Bassi, "MetaSpace Hybridization", turn into a continuous loop.
At the end, the chroma key room leads to a surreal dimension through Martti Kalliala collages while going up at the top of the building, people can visit the futuristic Refuge Tonneau.
Berwin Leighton has appointed its first non-lawyer as head of department. Ian Beith replaces partner Bernard Bartlett as head of finance. Bartlett will now concentrate on fee-earning work. Beith was formerly the managing director of structured finance at Charterhouse Bank.
Silverbeck Rymer has agreed to end a £1.5m negligence claim with a £200,000 payout. The decision last week came nearly a fortnight into the High Court damages hearing brought by 28 members of a self-build scheme. The Liverpool firm will also pay costs.There was no admission of liability.
Updated | Luke Foley attacked for promise to divert F6 funding into public transport including Illawarra rail line | St George & Sutherland Shire Leader
Updated | Luke Foley attacked for promise to divert F6 funding into public transport including Illawarra rail line
Labor has pledged to scrap the proposed F6 motorway between Arncliffe and Kogarah. Picture: JOHN VEAGE
The budgeted funding of $2.4 – $2.6 billion will be diverted into improving public transport in Sydney’s South, including rail services on the Illawarra and South Coast.
Mr Foley said a Labor government would complete the WestConnex by building stage three, linking the extended M4 and New M5, and would also establish a task force to “actually get the Gateway to Port Botany as was always intended, but the government failed to deliver”.
”Government is about choices and priorities and Labor’s transport plans will give voters a clear choice come next March [when the election will be held],” he said.
Cronulla MP and Attorney-General Mark Speakman said Labor’s announcement was “a betrayal of southern Sydney”.
“They’ll cancel yet another major project and haven’t committed to any specific public transport upgrade for southern Sydney,” he said.
“When they were last in government, Labor announced and failed to deliver at least 10 Sydney train lines.
“The Liberals are getting on with starting the F6 and increasing T4 train line capacity by 30% by the early 2020s.”
State Labor will head to the March election promising “public transport over toll roads,” while also saying it will prioritise the needs of southern and western Sydney commuters over those in eastern and northern Sydney.
Labor leader Luke Foley will on Thursday announce his party’s transport action plan, with one immediate difference from the government’s policies being Labor’s pledge to scrap the proposed F6 motorway between Arncliffe and Kogarah.
It is understood the transport plan will include significant funding for the Illawarra and South Coast train lines.
Mr Foley will commit to an analysis of public transport options for the F6 corridor running through Banksia, Rockdale and Kogarah, parts of which have been preserved from development.
The plan is likely to create a sharper contrast with the Coalition than that presented at the 2015 election.
During the 2015 campaign, Labor said it would not build projects proposed to be funded from the privatisation of electricity assets – such as a new rail line through the city and the final stage of WestConnex – but Mr Foley otherwise quibbled little with the Coalition’s transport priorities.
One source said Mr Foley would announce on Thursday a “multibillion-dollar transport fund” for growth areas of Sydney, particularly west and southern Sydney. A theme of the announcement will be prioritising public transport over tolled motorways.
Under Premier Gladys Berejiklian, the state government has emphasised the record funding it is directing to new road and rail infrastructure.
As well as the 33-kilometre WestConnex motorway, it has promised tolled motorway extensions to the south along the F6 corridor, and north through the so-called Western Harbour Tunnel and Beaches Link motorways.
The government has almost completed construction of a metro rail line to Sydney’s north west, which it will connect through the city to Sydenham on another new line under construction.
And it has started planning a separate Westmead to CBD via Parramatta “Sydney Metro West” line. Under Mr Foley, Labor says this line is its highest priority.
Labor says it would scrap the $2.2-$2.6 billion first stage of the F6 extension between Arncliffe and Kogarah, as well as the Beaches Link motorway.
In announcing its transport action plan on Thursday, Labor will outline where it will spend the money saved from not proceeding with these projects.
The opposition will not commit on Thursday to a new heavy rail line running along the F6 corridor in southern Sydney. But the logic of the party’s other transport policies may compel such a commitment.
The opposition is proposing to scrap the government’s “conversion” of the existing Sydenham to Bankstown line to running metro-style trains.
On the government’s plans, metro trains would run on a new rail line from Chatswood to Sydenham, and onto Bankstown using the existing line.
Labor’s plan would terminate that new line at Sydenham, saving about a billion dollars in conversion works on the Bankstown existing line.
But this plan would create the eccentric and wasteful scenario of high-frequency and largely empty metro trains terminating and arriving at Sydenham Station, in addition to regular Sydney Trains services.
One option, therefore, would be to extend the Chatswood to Sydenham metro line south via the F6 corridor.
South Korea is the latest country to report a birth rate so low that it says it won’t be able to sustain its population. It’s a trend that’s affecting a number of European and Asian countries like Italy, Germany, Spain, Japan, Hong Kong and Singapore. Various countries have tried to offer incentives to encourage single people to date, get married and bera children, with mixed results.
Now South Korea is trying to reverse the country’s dispiriting trend of low marriage and birth rates with a class.
The BBC looked at one of the classes, what it taught and how it approached the concept of finding your soulmate. Many activities in Seoul’s Dongguk University class are done in pairs, which the students call “mandatory dating.”
“The couples are required to undertake tasks that they might face later in a real relationship such as going on affordable dates, planning a theoretical wedding and making a marriage contract covering everything from the division of household chores and styles of parenting to whose parents to visit first on holiday,” the BBC reports.
Through these exercises, couples learn to negotiate and work with different personalities and priorities. There’s even a sexual education component to help inform less experienced students. At the head of the class is Eun-Joo Lee, who as the professor also attempts to break down gender norms to challenge old cultural attitudes towards femininity and masculinity.
As Lee summed up, her goal for her students is “not to find a perfect person, but to find what kind of person suits them best.”
The class does not get at some of the systemic issues facing potential couples, like insufficient support for working mothers.
And like many places around the world, the cost of living has become so astronomical, couples fear marriage and childbearing will only put a strain on their tenuous finances. A slow economy has hindered many young adults from starting their careers and families. NPR reported last year that unemployment among those ages 15 to 29 is nearly three times the overall rate.
There’s no amount of tests, classes or personality quizzes that can help young adults more than achieving financial stability.
Awesome opportunity to own al 2 bedroom 2 bath ocean view condo in Shipwatch Point I. This unit is located directly across the street from the ocean. Relax on the large balcony and enjoy pool and ocean views. The HVAC was replaced 9/18. Shipwatch Pointe I is located in the very popular resort destination known as Shore Drive, in the Arcadian section of Myrtle Beach. Located close to all Shore Drive has to offer. Ocean Annie's, River City Caf', Tanger Outlets, Myrtle Beach Mall, Barefoot Landing, Broadway at the Beach, Coastal Grand Mall and The Market Common. Enjoy family entertainment like the Carolina Opry, Alabama Theater and Pirates Voyage. If your looking for a spacious beach condo or investment opportunity, this is a must see!
Max Schrems, an Austrian law student announced on Friday a class-action law suit based in Austria, against Facebook.	
As a class-action suit, anyone outside of the USA and Canada can participate. So far, more than 25,000 people have signed up. Previously, Schrems had invoked European data protection laws in 2011, by writing to Facebook in Ireland - the legal entity for all Facebook users outside of the USA and Canada - demanding a copy of all of his Facebook data held by the company.
In accordance with European data protection legislation, every EU citizen has the right to receive a copy of all the personal information that a company has collected on them. The result was a 1,200 page PDF, containing complete transcriptions of all his chats, as well as records of rejected friend requests.
Another law suit helped to restrict the amount of facial recognition functionality, as a potential privacy breach.
Schrem's new law suit is now based in Austria, and will look at its alleged participation in the NSA PRISM program, as well as its privacy policy, and the fact that it tracks anyone who visits a web page - outside Facebook - if there's a 'Like' button on the page. It will focus special scrutiny on "the absence of effective consent to many types of data use", as well as its general non-compliance with data-access requests submitted by customers.
According to GigaOm, the suit also covers the “unlawful introduction” of the arguably creepy Graph Search feature, the passing of user information to third-party applications, and the “monitoring of users by means of Big Data analytics.”
Schrems also states that the Irish data protection commissioner has been too lenient with Facebook's lack of compliance - possibly due to political pressure that all of Facebook's international operations are run out of Ireland.
“In the beginning we made great progress in Ireland. As a result of our complaints, Facebook had to delete data and deactivate its facial recognition all over the world. However, over time it became clear that the Irish authorities had no interest in enforcing substantial changes. The proceedings will soon reach the end of their third year and we are still being promised a decision ‘in the near future’. Many voices in Ireland are saying that this is due to political pressure not to drive away the IT industry, which is very important in Ireland. We shouldn’t have that problem in Austria. We are therefore transferring the focus of our activities here.”
Under EU law, a verdict by the Commercial Court in Vienna will apply to Facebook’s Irish headquarters as well.
Joining the suit is free – it’s being bankrolled by German litigation funder Roland ProzessFinanz, which will get a fifth of the payout if it’s successful. According to the FAQs, Austria doesn’t allow U.S.-style class actions as such, but there is precedent for getting a group of people to assign their claims to one person who then sues on their behalf. In this case, that person is Schrems.
“We are suing Facebook for €500 [$669] in damages and unjust enrichment,” the FAQs read, referring to the amount sought per individual claim. “This is intentionally low because our main aim is to enforce our fundamental rights. In similar cases courts have always awarded higher amounts (at least €750 for minor violations, up to a couple of €1,000 in other cases).”
Ironically but necessarily, of course, those wishing to sign up for the suit need to use the Facebook login button to do so. Those who have already deactivated their Facebook accounts in disgust at the trampling of their rights et cetera will need to fill out a separate form or temporarily reactivate their accounts.
Facebook, which has declined comment on the campaign, has come under fire before for allegedly violating data-protection laws. Most recently, Britain's data watchdog began investigating whether a 2012 experiment on unwitting users, in which it tried to alter their emotional state to see if their postings turned more positive or negative.
The world's biggest social network, Facebook now has 1.32 billion users. It posted a 61 percent increase in sales in the second quarter buoyed by mobile advertising, sending its shares to a record high and valuing the company at almost €150 billion.
The Roman Catholic charity Caritas is going into the hotel business. The Vienna branch will open a budget hotel in January, close to the Prater, and will provide apprenticeships to around 30 young people with a refugee background, the head of Caritas Vienna Klaus Schwertner said.	
The building in Laufbergergasse, in the Leopoldstadt district, is being renovated at a cost of around €1.5 million and will have around 95 rooms. It will be called Hotel Magda, and will cost around €70 a night for a double room.
In the years after 1956 the building served as accommodation for students who had fled Hungary after the revolution. In the mid-1970s it became a retirement and nursing home, but all the residents have now moved to a new facility in Stadlau.
Schwertner has said it will be a hotel with “social value”. “We also want to flag up the fact that asylum seekers are locked out of the job market,” he said. A recent change to the law means that asylum seekers under the age of 25 may be taken on as apprentices.
Schwertner said that young asylum seekers will work alongside people who have refugee status. In its first year the Hotel Magda will also provide some accommodation for unaccompanied refugees who are under 18.
Tourists will be able to book a room at the Hotel Magda via travel sites. Caritas has asked students from the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts to design the exterior of the hotel, and will also make some of the rooms available for artists in residence to stay in. A bar, lounge, and restaurant will be open to the public.
Refugees and socially disadvantaged people are currently working to restore old furniture for the hotel.
The Hotel Magda will not be supported by any government subsidies but will have to pay for itself. If it turns out to be a success, Schwertner said that Caritas may follow up with similar projects.
An Austrian law graduate spearheading a class action suit against Facebook for alleged privacy breaches said ahead of the first hearing Thursday he hopes the case will eventually lead to an overhaul of a "Wild West" approach to data protection.	
Max Schrems and 25,000 other Facebook users are suing the social network for various rights violations, ranging from the "illegal" tracking of their data under EU law to Facebook's involvement in the PRISM surveillance programme of the US National Security Agency (NSA).
"Basically we are asking Facebook to stop mass surveillance, to (have) a proper privacy policy that people can understand, but also to stop collecting data of people that are not even Facebook users," 27-year-old Schrems told AFP in an interview.
"There is a wide number of issues in the lawsuit and we hope to kind of win all of them and to get a landmark case against US data-gathering companies."
The case has been brought against Facebook's European headquarters in Dublin, which registers all accounts outside the United States and Canada -- making up some 80 percent of Facebook's 1.35 billion users.
Schrems was able to file his action against the Irish subsidiary at a civil court in Vienna because under EU law, all member states have to enforce court rulings from any other member state.
Among other issues, judges will have to rule on Facebook's objection that the class action is inadmissible under Austrian law -- an objection dismissed by Schrems' lawyer as lacking "any substance".
Interest in the case has been overwhelming. Within days of launching the suit in August last year, thousands of people -- mostly based in Europe but also in Asia, Latin America and Australia -- had signed up.
In the end, Schrems limited the number of participants to 25,000 but a further 55,000 have already registered to join the proceedings at a later stage.
Schrems said the case is not about getting rich, but "about the principle that fundamental rights have to be applied".
"The core issue is: do online companies have to stick to the rules or do they live somewhere in the Wild West where they can do whatever they want to do?"
The battle began nearly four years ago, after Schrems had spent a semester at Santa Clara University in Silicon Valley.
The Austrian said he was startled by the general lackadaisical attitude towards European privacy laws.
"The general approach in Silicon Valley is that you can do anything you want in Europe" without facing any major consequences, Schrems said.
As a result, he set up the Europe-v-Facebook advocacy group, which in particular campaigns for the overhaul of the so-called Safe Harbour agreement, a data exchange pact signed in 2000 between the United States and the European Union.
"That would also be interesting", mused the activist, because it would beg the question "why you can't win if there are privacy laws" and they have been broken.
In 2014, 12% of the UK’s population were bereaved by cancer. Taking all types of losses into account, 20% of people in the workplace are bereaved. So, every two in ten people you interact with at work today are grieving. Grief is normal human experience, but up to 25% of people grieving may experience prolonged and distressing symptoms that affect their productivity and require more support. Support goes beyond providing the legal requirements for compassionate leave.
Research has consistently shown that lack of support in the workplace when grieving can have many negative effects for companies. Productivity can be lowered following a loss, with difficulties in concentration and judgment, stress, depression, lack of motivation and substance abuse.Lack of concern, compassion and support can have drastic effects for the employee, employers and wider organisation. This can include absenteeism, errors and even financial consequences. Our charity’s work has shown that having a proactive approach to managing grief in the workplace benefits the bereaved employees, those managing them and others in the team.
At the Loss Foundation we are committed to changing the way society thinks about death and bereavement. We know how hard it can be to know the “right” thing to say when someone is bereaved. The fear of saying something “wrong” and upsetting the person often causes many of us to avoid the subject, or even the grieving person altogether.
We are offering a package of expert guidance for companies to learn from so they can handle delicate situations with the highest standard of care in the workplace. The package of resources is designed to be shared with your managers and staff to ensure that they feel supported during their grief.
All of the content is developed by Clinical Psychologists who specialise in bereavement support and involves sharing psychological models of grief so that you can better understand your employees’ experiences and difficulties.
All support is based on the feedback and needs evidenced by the wider public. We’ve been at the front line and we’re here to share what we’ve learned!
As part of our corporate scheme you will receive beautiful, compassionate leaflets for your staff on how to cope with grief, as well as practical guides for managers supporting grieving employees. All of our materials provide accessible summaries of the latest guidance and research around grief support.
“The information regarding differing responses for differing states of grief and how everyone grieves in an individual way was extremely useful.”
“The most helpful part of the workshop was learning the immediate things to consider when speaking with an employee who has had a bereavement.”
The firm reaffirmed its underweight rating on Tesla shares, saying different automakers may value their electric autos forcefully.
Tesla has an "exceptionally separated plan of action, engaging item portfolio, and driving edge innovation, which we accept are more than balance by better than expected execution hazard and valuation that is by all accounts estimating in a great deal," expert Ryan Brinkman said in a note to customers Friday. "We have featured more concerns with respect to expanded rivalry, including from automakers hoping to utilize the offer of battery electric vehicles to sponsor their more lucrative inward burning motor portfolio vehicles from a lawful, administrative, and consistence point of view, as opposed to endeavoring to create benefit on the offer of these battery electric vehicles all by themselves."
Tesla's stock fell 2.1 percent Friday. Its offers are up 3 percent so far this year through Thursday versus the S&P 500's 5 percent pick up.
Brinkman reaffirmed his $180 December 2018 value focus for Tesla shares, speaking to 44 percent drawback from Thursday's nearby.
The expert is wary on the organization's second-quarter money related numbers. It is slated to report its June quarter income comes about on Aug. 1, as indicated by its site. Tesla said on July 2 that it achieved its one-week generation objective of 5,000 Model 3 autos amid the most recent seven day stretch of the June quarter.
"We keep on being worried that free income can possibly be a bigger surge, given the way that the much proclaimed creation rate change," he said. "Moreover, we stress over edge, given the potential for extra time, premium cargo, and different costs utilized to slope generation in an apparently wasteful way."
We are here offering our extended support and gratitude as you continue to navigate the many shifts and changes that are taking place on your planet. You are in the midst of another evolutional upgrade which is taking place within your consciousness. This upgrade of consciousness is often reflected in your physical body.
You EXPERIENCE NEW Earth as YOU change, as you implement and apply new everything to how you live your life, how you act/re-act, how you treat others, how you contribute/show up, how you share, how/what you support with your energy (and things)...
We are now in a time of transfiguring and preparing for the embodiment of our Multi-D selves and being fully present. Everyone has their own timing and we need to cleanse and purify our imbalances, which gets subtler and subtler. We need to nurture ourselves with rest, sleep, be in nature and eat healthy food, in an environment that supports us.
When people open their hearts to unselfish, unconditional love, a whole new world of possibilities opens. Rather than spending effort avoiding the selfishness of others, they spend time making sure that the way they choose to serve society is done in the best way possible. When people can trust others to treat each other with love and respect rather than as competitors, then everyone gains.
Historically we’ve had it all wrong when it comes to what the Ego is. It turns out it’s nothing like we thought. The Ego is actually a separate entity, an independent aspect of the self, that exists inside of us. It is a real being – and the reason I know that is because I can communicate with it.
The music at My Angel Cafe alters your brainwaves, almost like hypnosis, so that you can receive new ideas and ways of being. Yet the music never tells you what to do or what to think or what to change in your life. Rather, the music brings about change organically – like the seed in the perfect soil conditions growing to its own blueprint and in its own sweet time. The music and your outcome are always directed from your own source, your soul.
Happy Solstice! It’s hard to believe but here we are at the very end of an intense, but extremely transformational year in which we are being (re)born into Higher Light. We are still deep in preparation for what awaits us in the new year and, while tumultuous and unruly in parts, what surrounds us both personally and collectively is also supremely confirming that we are at the true end of the lower self…and consequently the world we created around that (false) self.
It has been an intense year with many sudden changes, transformations and awakenings. Truth is coming at us from all sides; some of it liberating and empowering and some painful and confusing. There is purpose in choosing to be on the planet during this powerful time as it offers the opportunity to awaken, heal and embark on an epic journey of soul evolution and co-creation.
Twenty years from now many of you will hold parts of your own lightbodies and be able to work in them in conjunction with the physical body. That will open doors for many to see the possibilities and opportunities to create a new expression of humanity.
12:12 to 12:21 Passageway: We had a day of "holding" New Codes and Observing Anything Unable to Fully Align & Now Gateways Open Further as Waves of Light Flood More Love Through
Remember... WE are all in a Massive Passageway that is focused on bring all into much higher timelines, which in turn shows us all that is unable to fully align, any old programs WE had running still, but maybe were not fully visible and providing the opportUNITY for each one of us to CHOOSE what we are going to continue to believe, allow or try to keep out of some old limited/distorted perception/story/illusion that we had going on.
Although the things we experience at the moment seem to be apocalyptic and can trigger hopelessness and great fear, energetically speaking this is a very normal process. The collective energy needs to go into this great split, using the extreme polarity to build up momentum for a quantum leap into the new earth realities collectively. The bigger the polarity, the greater the energetic potential available that is necessary to get things into motion.
Refugee Week takes place every year across the UK, and is a nationwide programme of arts, cultural and educational events that celebrate the contribution of refugees to the UK, and encourage a better understanding between communities. This year on it’s 20th anniversary it ran from 18 to 24 June, yet over this same 20 years we have seen a massive expansion of the UK’s system of immigration detention. It is now one of the largest in Europe.
As a North West campaigner with These Walls Must Fall, a grassroots campaign to challenge immigration detention, I am glad that the attention is being drawn to the opening of a facility by Manchester Airport called the Manchester Residential Short Term Holding Facility, operated by troubled outsourcing company Mitie, under a £25 million , ten year contract. It is important that the local community knows that people are being held under immigration powers within our city.
Coverage has rightly highlighted that 80% of people fleeing to Europe are seeking safety from war-torn countries such as Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, yet frequently in the UK they find themselves in immigration detention, where many are subsequently deported. These people in immigration detention often have mental health issues such as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, caused by violent events in their own country and the hellish journey over to the UK. But staff are poorly equipped and under resourced to deal with these health issues, resulting in obscenely high suicide rates amongst detainees.
In the recent publicity around the holding facility near Manchester Airport those detained under immigration powers at the centre have been described as “failed asylum seekers, visa over-stayers, sham husbands and brides, and people caught clinging to lorries”. But anyone without a British passport, or extensive documentation to prove they are UK citizens, are potentially liable to be detained.
As we have heard so clearly through the Windrush scandal, the Home Office’s ‘hostile environment’ has led to the detention of many long-term British residents. There has also been a sixfold increase in the detention of European nationals since 2010 when the Conservatives gained power. These are not just ‘foreign offenders’, but many people from the European Economic Area who are targeted and detained for being homeless, a Home Office policy only ruled unlawful by the High Court last year. Asylum seekers, too, may find themselves detained at any stage of the asylum process – and for those fleeing persecution, being locked up in prison-like facilities often triggers and exacerbates mental health issue such as PTSD.
Readour previous story: ‘The Truth About Fake News’ – the portrayal of refugees and asylum seekers in the media
At Immigration Removal Centres, people can be held without time limit, and this may be for days, weeks, months or even years . A report by the HM Inspectorate of Prisons on the Harmondsworth Immigration Removal Centre, near Heathrow Airport, found that from the 552 detained during the time of the report, 23 had been held for more than a year and one man had been held for four years. The UK is the only country in Europe with no time limit on immigration detention. People are often transferred from short-term holding facilities such as the Manchester Airport centre to long-term centres such as Yarl’s Wood, where they may be held indefinitely.
The government-commissioned Shaw Report ,‘Review into the welfare in detention of vulnerable persons’ was published in 2016, and concluded:
“There is too much detention; detention is not a particularly effective means of ensuring that those with no right to remain do in fact leave the UK; and many practices and processes associated with detention are in urgent need of reform”
The following year, 2017, was the deadliest on record in UK immigration detention, with six deaths in detention including at least three suicides. In 2017 we also saw the Panorama documentary revealing appalling abuse by officers at Brook House detention centre. Welfare provision in detention remains a shambles – and locking people up in prison-like conditions without time limit produces vulnerability. As one female asylum seeking Manchester resident with experience of detention said to me, “Everyone in detention is vulnerable.”
The Manchester Airport detention facility opening this June, comes at a time when myself and many others in Manchester are saying, loudly and clearly, that we’ve had enough of people being taken from our communities and locked up in prison-like conditions, just because of their immigration status. Councillors, union activists, refugee and migrant groups and community organisations have been uniting to say ‘no’ to detention. Last November, Manchester City Council became the first local authority in the UK to pass a motion condemning indefinite detention. Local groups coordinated protests and rallies in solidarity with the Yarls Wood hunger strikers in March. Politicians including Afzal Khan MP and Julie Ward MEP have stood up and said that indefinite detention must end. Whether it’s short term holding facilities or immigration removal centres, they have no place in our city or our country. These Walls Must Fall!
This week sees an interview with Eamonn Griffin, a professional writer who has published two novels, as well as writing for other people. Eamonn Griffin’s third novel, Juggernaut – a sequel to Jekyll & Hyde, is due out in November this year.
I’ve been writing seriously for about 14 years. I’d always had the ambition to write someday, but up until a decade ago, I’d convinced myself that I didn’t have the time for it. The first thing I wrote with serious intent was a screenplay which I collaborated on with a work colleague. The central idea had some promise, and we had a great summer working on the project, and on sending it out and getting the first rejections back. One day, we’ll go back and finish it off in some way, to put the project to bed.
Then I started writing short stories, and things began to develop from there. The final impetus for writing fiction on my own was twofold: first was finishing an Open University course (an MA in film studies), which gave me the time, and then the opportunity, which came out of the screenplay work and the first stories, to teach a little creative writing.
I write for a living, though not all of that is creative work. About half of my work day is on freelance writing work for others, and the other half is on my own creative output.
I got into novel writing through academia. Another work colleague (I was at the time lecturing in a college which had a mix of degree and further education courses) had recently completed a PhD, and was enthusing about the experience. I reckoned that the discipline of a doctorate would support me in writing a novel, so I applied for a creative writing place at Lancaster University, and was successful. As part of the qualification, I was able to complete my first novel, The Prospect of This City.
Going full-time relied on an alignment of the planets. A freelance opportunity was offered to me, plus I was able to leave the college with some travelling money, as this coincided with a call for voluntary redundancies at my place of work. I took the redundancy, and started writing full-time.
I think I’ve always been good, though I’m sure there are those who’ve heard some of my terrible jokes and would disagree.
Yes. Not brilliant, but certainly solid enough. Plus I’ve always been a big reader. That, more than anything else, and more than any competence at English, is the most important thing for a writer. You have to love stories, and you have to love reading.
Lots of stuff: history, pop science non-fiction, easy philosophy stuff. Genre-wise in fiction, I love historical fiction, crime procedurals. Nature writing and travel accounts are always interesting too. I read a lot of cinema history material, being a bit of a movie buff. I’m interested in psychogeography too, so I read around the subjects of place and psychology.
Lately, I’ve been locking onto certain writers and reading their back catalogues, or whole series of their books, interspersed with others. This means that lately I’ve been reading a lot of Lawrence Block (the Matt Scudder novels particularly), Joe R Lansdale, and Michael Connelly‘s LA-set Bosch novels.
Next up for me to read as of September 2016 is He’s Gone by Alex Clare, the first in a fresh series of crime novels by a new British writer, and a biography of silent movie star Buster Keaton.
Do some writing. It’s cheap. You don’t need special equipment. Just an imagination and something to write with.
And do more reading. You’re not reading enough. I reckon that for every hour you write, you should read for an hour too.
A couple of how-to books can be useful as well. I prefer the nuts-and-bolts kind of instruction manuals rather than the more inspirational sorts of writing memoirs, but a mix of the two can be useful. Remember, though, that these are guides as to how the author writes, and not necessarily how you should write.
That said, pay attention to at least the basics of grammar, spelling and punctuation. These are your starting tools as a writer, so don’t abuse them.
Also, be familiar with your word-processing program. You only need to know the straightforward stuff, after all.
Finish what you start. Write, redraft, polish till it’s done. Then wait. And check the story again. And then find a place for it to go (a journal, a competition, a magazine). Finishing is key, though.
That I should pay a vanity press to have some work published. Never pay to have your work in print. Money flows to the writer, not away from them. The sole exception is in competition entry fees, but then again, be satisfied that the entry fee isn’t excessive.
By not thinking of them as reviews in the traditional sense. If it appears in print in the book pages of a newspaper, then it’s a review. If it’s in the Amazon comments box, then it’s just an opinion. Nothing more. If the opinion is fair, then even if you don’t like it, that’s OK. If the opinion is weird, wrong, mean-spirited, or otherwise strange, then that’s the opinionator’s problem, not mine.
A lot of the work I’ve done to date has either been historical fiction in some form, or else speculative. If place can be a genre, then I’ve worked on four London-set novels, even though I’ve never been a resident there.
For historical fiction, then I probably do too much research. I’m learning as I go with each book, and I do consequently less directed research each time; I’m getting better at blasting through a first draft, and only researching what I need at that point in time, while leaving notes to follow up later.
My favourite source is personal experience. I find it very useful to visit the locations of my work, and I try to do that wherever possible.
An awful lot of short stories, and fragments of two novels. There’s also another idea that I’m as yet not sure will be a screenplay or a novella.
1500 first draft words a day, which takes about two hours, if I’m in first-draft mode. Half my work day is on freelance writing, the other half on creative work, which usually means two hours writing and two hours admin, research and the other ancillaries that come with being a writer.
I can first-draft anywhere. If I’m at home, then I tend to sit at the kitchen table. I don’t have a dedicated study or writing shed. I’m good at working in libraries, and I find writing on long train journeys very easy.
One trick I use is to have two laptops. One is for writing only, the other is for everything else. That’s how I keep the creative work separate from everything else.
If I’m struggling, then I’ll use time-management methods like the Pomodoro technique to force me to concentrate. That’s writing against the clock in 25 minute bursts. Four repetitions of 25 mins, with a 5 minute breather between them, and that’s the two hours done.
I’m not very good at self-promotion, and as I find that other people relentlessly hawking their books gets a bit tiresome, I’d imagine that others would think the same of me. I use Twitter a lot, and mention my stuff there, though I try not to overburden folk with adverts. I’m in this for the long haul though. If it takes a few years, then that’s what it takes. Word of mouth remains the best way for a book to get promoted.
I like technical questions about particular aspects of writing. Problem solving, that sort of thing.
My novels The Prospect of This City (a thriller set in the immediate context of the 1666 Great Fire of London) and Torc (a YA timeslip novel set in Scotland at both the time of the building of the Antonine Wall, and the present) are available in paperback via Amazon. Both novels are available as ebooks via Amazon, Smashwords, and Kobo.
A new novel, Juggernaut, which is a sequel to Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, will be out in November 2016 from the same outlets.
I bought this after enjoying Eamonn Griffin’s earlier book, The Prospect of This City: Being a novel of the Great Fire. Thankfully, Torc did not disappoint. The same meticulous research, engaging plot and well-drawn, convincing characters feature in this story too.
The book is written from the points of view of two young girls, whose stories run in parallel. One is the present-day daughter of a hotelier on the west coast of Scotland; the other, daughter of a clan chief from two thousand years past. Chapters alternate between the girls’ two worlds and, as the story progresses, their lives become entangled through ‘an artefact that binds them together across the centuries.’
Often, in books where the story is told by different characters, I always end up favouring one voice, and rushing through the other. In this story however, both protagonists are equally engaging, and I was desperate to get back to each one to find out what was going on in their story.
I intended to give this to my 12-year-old, but ended up reading it myself. So although I would say the book is suitable for anyone from a 10-year-old good reader upwards, it is definitely not a children’s book per se.
“This is a compelling read; a new twist on the well worn tale of how a simple fire in the King’s bakery destroys the city. Set against the background of political intrigue, family unrest and the squalor and poverty of post plague London, Eamonn Griffin creates with words a visceral world, engaging at once the readers senses on each page.
Very much in the same vein as C.J. Sansom’s Shardlake books, one ends the book both sated but eager for more. Will we meet Challis again? Will Tom, who doesn’t seem exactly set to live the rest of his life as a mere baker of ships biscuits? Highly recommend this book and look forward to more by this author.”
Welcome once again to another edition of the Countdown to MSMS Application 2015 Deadline series. Today, Mr. Wade has a conversation with MSMS senior, Flannery from Starkville. They talk about what it's like being an MSMS student and talk about her experience applying to MSMS. Remember, the deadline for application to the Class of 2017 is LESS THAN TWO WEEKS AWAY! So get to work on those applications! If you have any questions about MSMS, the application process, or anything else, please get in touch with us! We are here to help!