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hmel78 · 4 years

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In conversation with Raphael Doyle ...

A few weeks ago my attention was drawn to a video in which Tom Robinson [Tom Robinson Band / presenter on BBC radio] spoke about a project he’s working on with his old friend, Raphael Doyle. Now, Crowd Funding has become the ‘in thing’ and many people pay it no mind, but this pledge was different. And why? Because there’s real a story behind it - This is not just about a band expecting their fans to donate money in return for a signed photo, or a cheesy ringtone, thus ensuring the next album is made. From what I’ve heard, the album is going to be something special musically - but not only that, this album is a genuine work of LOVE; not for profit. but for the sake of creativity, for the music ; it’s about old friends, and new, coming together to be a part of Raphael’s album - And they’re against the clock (for more than one reason) which makes it all the more compelling. I was, of course, interested to know more about Raphael, who along with Tom Robinson and Hereward Kaye in the late 1960’s, formed the trio ‘Cafe Society’.

I should imagine you’re already familiar with Tom, and perhaps Hereward too [from his days with The Flying Pickets], but Raphael has clearly managed to remain off the radar - until now! Born in Northern Ireland, Raphael absconded to England when he was 15 - An unconventional teenager, but a keen songwriter and poet - he found himself at Finchden Manor in Kent, before carving a career, one way or another, in music. ‘Cafe Society’ enjoyed a relative amount of success but it was short lived, and following the break up of the band in 1976, Raphael’s biography states that he was, at that time “Painfully short on confidence and increasingly dependent on drink”. By the time he was 19 Raphael had already married Rose. Over 40 years later, through thick and thin, and with a clan of four children, they’re still going strong! When I first spoke to him he was telling me about his return to living in the North East of England, having been lucky enough to buy back the very same house he and Rose had lived in as a young couple ; add to that his return to making music, and it would seem that there are many aspects of his life that are coming ‘full circle’. “Never Closer” is the title of the album - Raphael sings us through a number of extraordinary tracks inspired by “a messy life encompassing darkness and recovery pain and love”, but at the end of it all, quite contentedly concludes - “The whole journey has definitely been worth it” ... You can keep up with Raphael’s story, and the pledge campaign, as it unfolds via his website and social media, but in the meantime, we thought we’d attempt to extract some more of his memories about those early days as a musician.

HR : If you’re open to talking about it Raphael, I’d like to go back to 1968 - to Finchden Manor**, where you met up with Tom Robinson - what was life like there?

Raphael Doyle : Well, I was 15 when I arrived at Finchden. I'd come from Northern Ireland where I'd had unhappy fallings out with a couple of schools. I was clashing with the conservative, Catholic environment of my upbringing, and I was a fledgling hippy in the world that didn't like that. Finchden was like another world entirely - suddenly you found yourself somewhere where you weren't in the wrong all the time - where you could be yourself. It was very unstructured. Your time was your own.

HR : Were you encouraged to be creative?

RD : It wasn't so much that you were encouraged to be creative, but more that you were given the space to be yourself. So some people got into making things, some got into gardening, lots of us spent a lot of time talking. And there was a great spilling out of creativity, whether music, art, pottery, poetry. Whatever people had in them. Just in the time that I was there, there was Matthew Collings scribbling away amazing cartoon-like drawings, who has gone on to become a very highly regarded artist and art critic. There was Mike Medora who was playing searing blues guitar and he went on to do the festival circuit with Global Village Trucking company. There was Danny Kustow, still a much loved guitarist, who became famous beside Tom Robinson in TRB. There was the amazing and eccentric Robert Godfrey who went off to form the Enid, a legendary prog rock band, and he took with him a bunch of other boys, notably Francis Lickerish, another brilliant guitarist and multi-instrumentalist. And there was Tom and me, writing songs, putting groups together- and I guess we were encouraged, yes. We used to be brought out to play to visitors… I remember us being taken off on long journeys in George Lyward- the founder -in his old car to visit Lord and Lady somebody or other in a mansion, and he would give a fundraising talk, and Tom and I would sing a couple songs, and then wander outside where we chanced upon this old guy in ancient corduroys tending a rhubarb patch, who turned out to be the Lord himself. Very PG Wodehouse!

HR : Actually it sounds like fun, despite being a difficult time ... There’s a great quote from Hereward [Kaye] about your songwriting, he says “The lyrics were all his own and smelt of trouble. How I longed to be deeply troubled like him!” What was it about music, and songwriting that engaged you? Is it fair to say that without music, you may have strayed onto a very different path?

RD : Well, Hereward was right. I was a troubled young man. We all were at Finchden. But even before I went there, back in Northern Ireland, music and writing had become my escape valve. I came from a little seaside town, and a Scottish wild card called Colvin Hamilton took over the swimming pool cafe and turned it into a venue - The Scene - and he would bring down bands from Belfast. This was at the height of the early 60s R&B boom. ‘Van Morrison’ and ‘Them’ were the big name. I was too young to be let in but I'd spend the weekend nights with my ear pressed to the blacked out plate glass window, listening to that raw, rough earthy music. And at home, and in friends’ houses, I was listening to Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Nina Simone, Ray Charles, Buddy Guy, Robert Johnson, John Mayalls blues breakers ... So Music was already my landscape. It didn't stop me getting into trouble though! So it was arriving at Finchden, having a place of respite , the chance to heal and grow, and there to get together with Tom and start honing my musical instincts - that's where my direction became set. I became a musician at Finchden.

HR : It was Tom who introduced you to Hereward, in Middlesborough - what happened in the interim before you eventually moved to London and formed ‘Cafe Society’?

RD : Tom's family were living in the north-east and I went up there with him for a holiday. A neighbour of his decided to introduce us to some other arty young folk she knew of from Middlesbrough, and that's where Hereward came in. We just clicked - it wasn't so usual then to meet others passionately into writing and making music. Hereward in Teesside and Tom and I in Kent would make reel to reel revox recordings of each new song and post them to each other, then when we'd meet 2 or 3 times a year and we'd have long sessions playing the songs to each other and trying out harmonies. So then when we finally got together in London it was natural to get into a bedroom or a cellar and just spend hours playing and arranging and practicing.... We were buzzing on it.

HR : From what I’ve read, many people were buzzing about it, including Alexis Korner. You had a really strong connection to him - how did that come about?

RD : Alexis had been at Finchden in his youth - he was an 'old boy'. While we were there his daughter Sappho stayed for a while ... I remember Alexis and Sappho singing the country blues song “Trouble In Mind” together. This was when Tom and I would be wheeled out to play for visitors and there were some powerful times when Alexis and us would play in a packed Oak Room to visitors and wild eyed disturbed adolescents ... So Alexis got to know us and became something of a mentor. HR : Alexis was really big on the music scene, especially with ‘Blues Incorporated’ - how connected were you to all of that?

RD : I remember staying at his place in Queensway and meeting John Mayall - I was a bit dumbstruck. It wasn't that long before that I'd been standing in the dark in a blues club in Belfast watching the ‘Blues Breakers’ with John Mayall and the new guitarist Peter Green playing stunning music, and here was the man standing before me. I don't know what I mumbled but I think it was embarrassing. Another time I was sitting in Alexis' front room with Andy Fraser who was someone Tom and I both loved very much. We'd been to see ‘Free’ at the Redcar Jazz club - the place of been jampacked and heaving and the band were incredible. And here was Andy talking to Alexis about what to do now Free had broken up. He put together a band called Toby. A little while later Hereward and I nicked his drummer Stan Speake, for the band we were putting together while we were waiting for Tom to come to London.

HR : So when Tom arrived, and ‘Cafe Society’ formed properly, what attracted you to the folk scene above any of the others?

RD : We didn't really choose the folk scene. It was just that we were three guys with acoustic guitars, a focus on harmonies, writing our own songs. In those days you either put together a band and played places like the hundred club, or you went to the booming folk circuit. So we began there ...

HR : You landed a residency, as a 3 piece, at The Troubadour coffee house - what do you remember about those first performances?

RD : As far as I remember we had a residency at Bunjies first. We were playing around a lot of clubs- The Rising Sun in Tottenham Court road was a good one. But the Troubadour had the cachet; it had a more serious reputation. We used to go down there and do floor spots on other people's nights and gradually we were building up a following. So then we got a night of our own-Tuesday nights. It was a wonderful time, a very atmospheric place to try out new songs, to practice our harmonies. We had a captive audience in a little space and it became a shared experience. I think we had a very distinctive blend. Tom was serious about the nuts and bolts of arrangements and song structure. Hereward was a showman, flamboyant in his songs and performance, and I would escape into the music and let my soul pour out. It made for a dynamic blend. And we were all fans, we all loved music, for us the people we listened to were our heroes and we wanted to join them. HR : And it wasn’t long before you did, was it? RD : No - By now we were trying to get a deal. That was the big Next step in those days. First you build up a bit of a following, then you got management, then you got a deal. We got a manager. Hereward knew John McCoy who ran music venues in and around Middlesbrough where he came from. John went on to become Chris Rea's manager and got him signed and started on his career. We used to go up and play at the Kirk, the most happening club on Teesside at the time, which John owned and ran. He listened to our stuff and wasn't quite sure what to make of it but he agreed to manage us, and one thing led to another and it resulted in Ray Davies of ‘The Kinks’ coming down to the troubadour to check us out. It was the same night Alexis was headlining for us so there was a real buzz in the air. Ray did a bit of a floor spot with us standing alongside not quite able to believe what was happening. Ray saw something in us, I think, that chimed with his own sense of song. He signed us up to his new indie label Konk -the first one in the country-and he himself produced our first album.

HR : Presumably that opened a few doors?

RD : Sure. From playing the London folk clubs, suddenly we were getting support act slots on national tours. We supported ‘The Kinks’ a whole bunch of times, which was a bit odd because we were this very well mannered acoustic trio in the middle of the stage set up for this raucous pop rock band and the audiences were kind of looking for a good time. But we went down surprisingly well on those tours. HR : Didn’t you also open for Barclay James Harvest? RD : Yes -That was a bit weird because they were a full blown prog rock band with colours and smoke and atmospherics and everyone took the whole thing very seriously! I think for some of them a support band was just a necessary evil so we felt a bit sidelined. But luckily a lot of their audiences were the listening kind and enjoyed what we did. Also I have to say that Woolly Wolstenholme was a really sweet guy and he was always very encouraging and would make time for us. We learned a great deal on all of those shows. Sometimes it's when you're not doing your own show, but having to make your mark in someone else's, that you can learn most about holding true to yourself and standing firm as a performer. Then I remember we did the Alan Hull solo album tour. Alan was big at that point as the singer songwriter of Lindisfarne so it was a much better match for us as an acoustic trio. He did the whole tour solo and the audiences were great for us. Mind you the dressing room was a place to be .... A parade of beautiful people hobnobbing with the latest thing ... Eh, that'd be him, not us!

HR : So as things progressed, and you were having this amount of success as a trio, what prompted you to add more members and form a ‘proper’ band, changing the dynamic, and presumably the sound?

RD : Well, as I said, we weren't really a folk group. We did love people like Neil Young, Paul Simon, Dylan... We used to finish with a James Taylor song “Lo and behold” . Tom always really liked Richard Thompson. I remember at The Troubadour we used to sing the Fairport song 'Meet on the Ledge'. But really our folk credentials were accidental. We always saw ourselves as a band. Hereward and I had both been in blues bands, and played the raunchier end of R&B pop. Tom's musical interests ranged really widely. He was a big fan of early ‘Manfred Mann’. He and I were besotted with ‘The Band’, “Music from Big Pink”. So really we were just waiting for the chance to expand and go electric - unfortunately it happened just as Ray Davies was making the first album with us. He signed an acoustic trio, but while Ray was supervising recording us at Konk, a process in which we didn't feel we had much say, we were off down the road when not needed in the studio, doing our own demos in a little place in Holloway with a drummer and a bass player and a keyboard player. We abandoned the folk circuit and started to play the pub scene. The Golden Lion in Fulham, The Three Kings in North End Road where the unknown Elvis Costello was forcing himself on the attentions of a bemused audience! Upstairs at Ronnie Scott's. There was a new buzz around and we wanted to spread our wings. So with one thing and another the Konk relationship fizzled out.

HR : ‘Cafe Society’ were dubbed band of the year by Sounds magazine in 1976, but the same year saw the arrival of ‘The Sex Pistols’ and a whole new scene - what impact did Punk have on you and the rest of the band?

RD : We had built up an expanded following as a band and it felt like we had lots to do. But Ray Davies brought in a production team to work on our second album, who were nice guys but they were not about new music. We were trying to make a go of it with them, and Hereward and I were both newly married and putting a lot of time into that side of things - so the impact of punk, for me at least, Was Tom turning up one night to visit me and sitting down in the front room and telling me how he had been going to the hundred club and seeing this group - ‘The Sex Pistols’ - and that everything was changing. Tom was going out nights and seeing them and ‘The Clash’, the new bands, and he knew that the album we were recording was redundant. And he did the right thing. He went off and he dived into the deep end of this new wave. A few short months later Hereward and I were standing at the back of the Lyceum on the Strand looking in disbelief at this mass of thousands of people all with their backs to us, Facing forwards, arms raised and yelling to the rafters for TRB. We didn't know whether to laugh or cry. I think we did both, but very proudly.

HR : It seems at that point, Tom was destined to go a different route - did you and Hereward plan to continue?

RD : When Tom announced he was leaving I didn't want, for myself, to carry on. But Hereward really wanted us to finish the album, which was looking more of a Hereward album anyway. So we continued. But it was without any real sense of ownership or involvement or hope. Really, it was over when Tom left.

HR : What direction did you take musically after the band broke up for good?

RD : I put together a band doing mostly my songs and some of my favourites. There was still a healthy pub rock circuit in London and we were playing places like the golden lion in Fulham and the Stapleton near Crouch end where the Jam were making their mark. There was a buzz - EMI were interested. Robert Plant came down to check us out. But the truth is my confidence was in bits ... I would be sick and need a drink before going on. I couldn't handle the business side - promoters, A&R men. Aargh. It freaks me out just remembering it. You either have the balls to be a good self promoter or you don't. I didn't. I carried on writing songs and playing in many different settings - clubs, in pubs, in schools, and made a couple of albums with a gospel rock band in England and in the states. Later I returned to the blues with an old friend Paul Davey on guitar. I always loved Paul's playing and he has a quality to him which is very authentic. He is not flashy, he's like The early Peter Green I saw all those years ago in Belfast. But essentially I think I'm still what you might call a soul/folk singer. I love to make contemporary music that is now on the surface, but plunging deep into the timeless in the feel

HR : Some 40 years later there seem to be a lot of things that are coming full circle in your life ... in music particularly ...

RD : Yeah - Really when I look back my life has been about life, but music is a thread that runs through it either in the actual doing of it or in the yearning for it. I absolutely love making music. And that special magical thing of making music with really good musicians, where an unspoken understanding happens and creates a platform on which something even better then you know how to make, actually suddenly happens. A moment outside time. I remember seeing an interview with a very respectable English poet John Betjeman - he was old and in failing health and he was asked rather respectfully if he had any regrets. And he said "yes. I wish I'd had more sex ". That's how I feel about that level of music making. And that's why am so blown away with what's been happening. Everything I've hungered for has come to me this year. Making a new album, working with great people, and a really special night at the Troubadour. HR : Oh yes - the show at The Troubadour - how did it feel to perform there again? Was the atmosphere the same?

RD : Actually, the atmosphere was even better than before! I've just been listening to a recording of the opening song, “Give Us A Break”. It's a song of Tom's he and I used to do back at Finchden and we did it acoustically to start the night and it was magic. Then a series of great artists doing floor spots, then me with a spot-on young band, and Tom and Hereward getting up to join in. It was a 10 course meal by candle light! And the audience .... They might as well have been on stage, we were all so involved together.

HR : You remained friends with Tom, and Hereward - as you say they played with you recently, and have teamed in for your Solo album “Never Closer” - how does it feel to be back in their company on a creative level?

RD : Well you know we haven't been strangers to each other.

Hereward and I are brothers in law as well as friends so there's always been opportunities for us to get the guitars out and play together. My song “Feet on the Floor”, on the new album, wouldn't be the same without Herry's harmonies. And he's put a lovely, subtle keyboard part on “Kiltermon”, one of the most important songs for me. Tom though, his part in this has been crucial. He says he sees himself as executive producer, just making sure it happens but leaving the music up to me. The truth is he is much more than that. Looking back to the beginning, I wouldn't even be a serious musician but for Tom. And so to be doing this album in partnership with him is just fantastic.

The sense of coming full circle, of completion, of fulfilment is really strong in my life this year. This album is a big example of that, and Tom and Hereward and myself getting up on stage together at the troubadour, and being in the studio together looking into each others eyes, listening to each other, singing together, is deeply wonderful for me.

HR : You’ve said recently, that the recording process took the magic out of the music in the early days, so what has changed for you with this solo record?

RD : The heart went out of the music in the recording process in the 70s for us because it was an artificial environment and a rather autocratic structure. Music is about musicians sharing from their souls together, and that sharing combining, meeting in the air and combining into something extra. That just can't happen in a compartmentalised and splintered and structured and often rather heartless recording process. It's not always like that of course, but too often it has been. We need to get back to the magic of creativity. With this album it's very different. I suppose it's not too strong to say that this album is an act of love. And everybody involved in it is acting with creative integrity and with mutual regard. It's a great thing to be part of.

HR : What was your inspiration for putting these songs together, now?

RD : Back in the spring I noticed that I couldn't grip the plectrum when I was playing the guitar. That led me to check some things out, and I was diagnosed with motor neuron disease in April. I've had a good long summer since my diagnosis, holding the condition at arms length, and it's been great - But it is increasingly something that I am living with day by day so it is a big part of the reality of this stage of my life, and will only continue to be so, and more so ... So it's true to say that all this has come about in response to my diagnosis: Tom and my son Louis started looking at the songs that had never really seen the light of day, and talking about making an album - they were both very much spurred on to bring this about with me because time is an issue. I wasn't sure ... I certainly didn't want to make an album just for the sake of it. I wanted it to exist primarily as a piece of work in its own right, and have not wanted my health issue to be a dominant factor in what I've been doing - but the reality and beauty and urgency of this project has come about in trying to get these tracks down while it is still possible. Every stage of this process, of building this album, has been full of surprises. It's incredibly alive. It's the story of a life. And it's a great collaboration between creative artists - not just me, but Louis, the brilliant Gerry Diver, Tom and everyone who's contributed..

HR : As you say there, the album also features your son Louis - what does it mean to you to be able to have this creative relationship with him, and your other children?

RD : It's been brilliant doing this with Louis. I always say he outstripped me musically a long time ago. The work he's done, from his early band the Cadets, to Slides, and now the Spare Room is often amazing. When he and I started looking at the songs for this album we started to get some of those shivery moments, like I used to get rehearsing in the cellar in Clapham with cafe society. I remember the rehearsal before the troubadour, we got the band together at the Music Room in New Cross and I had Louis on one side of me and my other son Jess on bass guitar on the other side, and we were all blasting out harmonies and it was like something in me just took off and flew up into the air. To be doing this together, at The Troubadour, and in the studio, and at such a wonderful high standard, is something that it's hard to explain. It's just beautiful.

HR : When are you hoping for it to be released?

RD : We are making the album with crowd funding - pledge music - so people are pre-ordering their copies and that helps pay for the cost of making it. The aim is to release it in January - hopefully on the 6th, my birthday - when I'm 64!

HR : And what can listeners expect? RD : Well, the answer to that changes every week and every time we go back in the studio. It was going to be a good album, but there is all kinds of magic brewing in the cauldron. What can I say. I'm blown away by some of the things we've done. Gerry Diver is doing some extraordinary work on arrangements and production. Louis has written some great music, played brilliant guitar and found lovely musicians and I, I promise you, am singing my heart out. I tell you, I'm a happy man. But there's lots of previews on the PledgeMusic page, with some videos of different songs from the album or the Troubadour - keep watching. It's at http://www.pledgemusic.com/projects/raphael-doyle-never-closer , and my Facebook page raphaeldoylemusic

https://www.facebook.com/raphaeldoylemusic/?fref=ts

“I Come From Ireland” - a spoken word track is currently claiming worldwide acclaim, having made it to a feature in the Huffington Post!

The album - Songs Of Experience - can be found here http://www.raphaeldoyle.co.uk/

[Sadly Raphael passed away in March 2018. It is with huge thanks to my friend Ian Donald Crockett, that I had the pleasure of knowing Raphael for that short time].

#tom robinson #bbcradio #pledge music #motor neurone disease #hereward kaye #raphael doyle #cafe society #finchden #alexis korner #london

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t-bonebunton · 4 years

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Hello and welcome to “Beowulf Has Left the Building!” The purpose of this blog is really for me to share moments in my life that have been seemingly insignificant or slight at first glance, but turn out to send me in directions I never expected. I am almost 44 years old and for some reason, I think I should share some of these things and at least leave some sort of record. For me personally, it’s the small experiences that take place in the moment, that permeate and grow into greater understandings as time marches on. Oh yeah.... there will be poetry as well!

I didn’t grow up loving soccer. Where I am from, it was played by the more affluent kids from in town. I grew up in the rural county and we played basketball, baseball, and of course.... American football. No soccer loving socialist here! Or so I thought.... I’m pretty liberal, so I would laugh at that if someone said that to me!

Back to the oratory....

If I knew of anyone that played that strange sport called soccer, I made fun of them and would comment about how “I would rather watch paint dry!” Self-righteous to the core.

This went on for years and years and then early in January 2012, I was home sick on a Sunday afternoon and soccer was the only thing that was on that I hadn’t already seen. I was bored with marathon style police and home improvement shows, and the Dallas Cowboys were not on TV that day.

But that Sunday, something caught my attention....

It was the crowd....the chanting and the singing in unison was the thing I didn’t hear in American football...or the traditional “American” sports in general. The fans were also way closer to the field (“pitch” I’d later learn)...As I was laying there with a 100 + temp and trying not to cough up both lungs simultaniously, I perked up just a bit. I didn’t even know who was playing at first...Arsenal and Fulham, I found out after a few minutes. Ironically, Arsenal was playing in the first match I ever paid attention to, but would eventually become a hated rival! I refer to them as just “Arse” now, because who would pull for Arsenal? Ugggh.

I was 36 years old in 2012 and had never given soccer or football a second thought, other than the obligatory glance on ESPN during World Cup. Brazil and Holland seemed cool because of their uniforms (I would later know are called kits), but that’s about it. My friend Wellington had told me a story about visiting his home in Brazil, once during a World Cup qualifier, and hearing a collective roar through the hillside when they scored a goal that would send them on to the next round. Apparently, the folks in the village had pulled their tv sets out into the streets to watch the match communally. I always enjoyed that story, but didn’t really understand what that meant...The collective power of community and sport. In the poorest of areas, the hope of a nation can rest on one simple goal. I’ve grown to understand and appreciate so many things about the healing power of football over the past eight years.

But on that day in January, something awoke from inside me and I had an epiphany.... 36 years in the making. Every sport or sports team I followed has been assigned to me, or I liked them because of a family member or friend. This was like discovering this obscure band that no one else you knew had ever heard of.... but they were yours.... Finding “real” football...was like this.

I was entranced and mesmerized by the beauty, aggression, skill, balance, speed, and lack of scoring! I thought of this as a brilliant chess match...In later years, I love that the lack of scoring is a real problem for “Arse”, but I found it interesting that in traditional American sports, scoring is always the focus. In soccer, a 0-0 draw or a 1-0 (nil) win is just as enthralling because of the flow and strategic patterns of the game. I truly can’t explain that realization any better...it just came to me and with that observation, epiphany, the crowd chanting and singing, I knew I was hooked.... My 100+ temp seemed to break and I was sweating by the end of this prolific 1-1 draw.

Thank God for the internet and Wikipedia....that afternoon, I knew that I had to find a team....and by the grace of God, it was not going to be Arsenal! Their manager Arsene (accent mark somewhere hahaha) Wenger, looked like the old man, Mr. Burns, from the Simpsons. Probably a nice guy, but there was something about him I didn’t like.

I didn’t have a smart phone then and I was teaching English at a local high school. Before school every morning for two weeks, I read the Wikipedia of every team that was in the Premier League in 2012. I started with some criteria:

A. I wanted a team that wasn’t (to my knowledge) a household name in America. I learned later my team was VERY popular and hated! So, no Manchester United or Liverpool off the top. They are both American owned. My team is Russian Billionaire owned, it turns out, and very well supported globally.

B. They had to have a winning tradition (yep...no losers for me)

C. No red teams (my Knicks, Cowboys, Yankees, Duke Blue Devils are all blue)

D. Need to be in the southern or southeastern part of England (where my mom’s side of the family are from)

E. Must have a crazy intense fan base (I knew a little about hooliganism...Unfortunately my team had a past history with that ugly aspect in the 1980’s and more than I knew at the time.)

So with that criteria in place I narrowed it down to five teams...I have forgotten all five sadly, but three of them were Chelsea, Tottenham Hotspur (who I fortunately didn’t pick), and Queen’s Park Rangers (who were relegated shortly thereafter). Look up relegation and what it means, if you are mildly bored. I did initially!

I wrote them down and had my 5-year-old son, Rowan, pick them one at a time out of my sweat-stained Yankees hat!

Then on that glorious and beautiful day in January 2012, with his last pick, Rowan picked the mighty Chelsea Blues out of that hat!

It was all over from that point forward...I watched “real” football obsessively from that moment on. I had 5 cable channels devoted to football and European sports, and I learned the chants and songs sung from the terraces at Stamford Bridge (Chelsea’s sacred fortress). I learned the rules by reading all I could (offsides was a struggle to understand), and the points system for the many leagues and tiers associated with global football. I will say, however, that the only way to really learn about football, is to watch a lot of football. I studied the history of Chelsea FC and became educated about the legends and current superstars associated with the club...countless Facebook and YouTube clips of Chelsea’s greatest moments.

This amazing trip I’ve been on, ever since that sick and near-death day in January 2012, has given me so many great moments...Ironically in the first year of my fandom, Chelsea raised the Champions League trophy (look it up) and became the first London based club to ever win it. It’s the quintessential competition to win...It’s like winning 5 Super Bowls at once!

There is so much more that I want to say about this, or about the major moment’s I’ve had watching football with my closest Chelsea loving mate, Andrew Barlow, my 4 Chelsea FC related tattoos, my Chelsea FC adorned office, but blogs are supposed to be short, I know. I’ll close by saying that no matter how old you think you are, you are never too old to change your mind-set about something and, yes, people won’t understand it, and people like “the old me” will make fun of you, but so what?! Your internal passion about something you love intuitively will always be greater than their fear of things they don’t understand!

Next week....Meeting Herbie Hancock in a gas station! Stay riveted!

#chelseafans

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daniellesophie93 · 6 years

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Wow, this is deep ❤️ . #london #tottenhamcourtroad #tcr #underground #poetry #poetrycommunity #poetryofinstagram #undergroundpoetry #refuge #deep #readbackwards #reading #travel #trains #londonunderground #oxfordstreet #christmaseve #mum #dad #family #refugees (at Underground-Tottenham Court Road) https://www.instagram.com/p/BsK0NjWFG6b/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=w32n2bchb5h7

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sustainhealthmagazine · 5 years

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Nike’s Black History Month UK Jersey Celebrates Influential Black British Athletes

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Designed as a symbol of solidarity and shared identity, Nike will launch a Black History Month UK jersey in celebration of the most influential black British athletes. The jersey is being worn by the England senior men’s national team — including Raheem Sterling, Tammy Abraham, Marcus Rashford, Callum Wilson, Harry Kane, Jadon Sancho and Jordan Henderson — during the international camp this October and is available October 11 for Nike Members and October 15 on nike.com in the UK.

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The jersey aligns with Nike’s belief that sport has the power to unite and that all athletes should be treated equally. This October, Nike celebrates black British athletes and their contribution to sport across an array of avenues that include providing pathways to success, celebrating the community through sport and integrating solidarity as a symbol through the Nike brand.

PROVIDING PATHWAYS TO SUCCESS Nike is committed to creating the next generation of future leaders by investing in training for underserved minority youth in London, providing development opportunities and pathways to create positive change. Nike is partnering with Sported – one of the leading Sport for Development charities in the UK – over the next 12 months to mentor 12 entrepreneurial young Londoners who are inspiring and enabling the next generation to play more sport in their local communities. Visit www.sported.org.uk for more information on how to apply beginning October 15.

In addition to increasing equity in the community, Nike is working with the National Council for the Training of Journalists and PA Learning to elevate opportunity for women in sport by amplifying the visibility of women’s sports coverage in the UK. In tandem and through free courses, the three organizations are investing in the future generation of sports journalists by arming up-and-coming sports journalists with the skills and knowledge to better integrate the women’s sport conversation.

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REACHING THE COMMUNITY THROUGH SPORT Nike is working alongside its partners at Chelsea FC, Tottenham Hotspur, The FA, The Premier League and more to level the playing field for all black British athletes. This month, Nike is linking with Chelsea FC on an initiative delivered across more than 50 primary schools to pupils aged 5-11 to take part in a Black History Month poetry competition. Throughout October, Tottenham Hotspur is celebrating Black History Month as part of their commitment to promoting equality and diversity for all, in partnership with Nike.

A celebration of black British athletic performance and contribution to sport will be showcased through a photography exhibition at NikeTown London. A partnership with Black In The Day will invite the community to share their stories through the company’s 1948 space in Shoreditch.

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#health #fitness #lifestyle #good health #brits

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adambstingus · 5 years

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Londons Always Been Violent But Now Its Surpassed New York

The first punch snapped my head back with such force I thought my skull had become dislodged from my spine. And then more skinheads, sweaty after their exertions on the dance floor, streamed out of the pub, encircling me so that their odor mingled with their snarling rage. A couple more punches gave way to a fusillade of blows that knocked me to the filthy, gum encrusted sidewalk. And then the real brutality began.

Precision punches gave way to kicks as highly polished steel-toe-capped Dr Marten boots sought out my face and the back of my head. Suddenly, as my front teeth audibly snapped, I tasted blood mingled with Guinness, my half empty glass still on the bar before trouble started.

I still can’t be sure what started the melee, but I think it was when a young skinhead bounced into me off the dance floor and I reflexively put my arm up to protect my beer from being spilled, an act that was seen as an act of aggression against a pack of skinheads who had taken over the pub and the dance floor at the Laurel Tree in Camden Town, north London, a familiar after hours spot.

I’d run outside to avoid “a glassing”—a common act in London pubs of the late ’90s whereby a pint glass is smashed in half and the base and its jagged edges are ground into the unfortunate victim’s face. I avoided that fate, but I was kicked into unconsciousness before the skinheads withdrew.

A few minutes later, a buddy, also attacked but not as badly, dragged my limp form to its feet, my face a mask of blood, as I struggled to regain consciousness. A routine police van driving past slowed to a crawl as one of the cops, with the sliding door wide open, shouted out cheerily, “Is your mate all right?” My buddy struggling to hold me up replied, “Yup, he’ll be fine!” And with that the cops gave a friendly salute and drove off. I made it to the hospital at around 3 a.m.

This was my London in 1995. So the April 1 news from London—that for the first time the city has a higher murder rate than New York, with a rash of gang-related stabbings and drive-by shootings over crack-cocaine and petty sleights on social media largely occurring in my old neighborhood of Hackney—was no surprise to me. Violence has always bubbled under London’s seemingly genteel surface.

In the ’90s, pub and street violence were a daily part of our lives if you were a male between 16 and 29, with half of the country’s assaults taking place in and around pubs on men in that age group. The perpetrators were proud of the violence, a fact I discovered after some brain scans and reconstructive dental work when I found a small piece of paper that had been stuffed into the top pocket of my leather jacket: “You just met the West Ham Inter City Firm.” The skinheads were aligned with the east London football club West Ham.

Often the violence was centered around football teams and could erupt in any part of London, rich or poor. I got used to leaving my flat in Finsbury Park on Sunday morning to get the newspapers to find the landlord of the pub next door hosing broken glass and blood into the gutter after Arsenal fans had a “tear up” with Chelsea.

In 2002 I moved to a walk-up apartment in the East Village, New York City some three thousand miles from my flat in North London, despite the protestations of some family members who had been raised on American cop shows and movies like The Warriors who thought I was going to live in one of the most dangerous cities in the world.

Instead, I found Manhattan startling in its peacefulness and civility. New Yorkers sipping vodka martinis were astonished when I told them of my daily experiences in London pubs, where we formed a scrum at the bar, fighting for the bartenders’ attention and violence could explode at any second. New Yorkers in contrast said please and thank you and excuse me when they bumped into you on the street, which caused me to do a double-take. And I never felt threatened walking the streets of Manhattan at 3 a.m., unlike London where I was once robbed at knifepoint doing exactly that.

“There is no doubt that the brutal history of the crack-cocaine epidemic in New York will also be visited on London.”

In fact, the only trace of hostility I experienced in New York was when my girlfriend dragged me to an improv poetry performance in a warehouse in Chelsea which comprised a woman dressed all in black reading a few stanzas of poorly written slam-poetry before ululating and screeching into a microphone for ten minutes at a time, before returning to two more badly-written lines of verse. When an urbane hipster asked me excitedly what I thought, pushing his oversize plastic-rimmed glasses up his nose, I demurred, saying I failed to see the artistic merit. “Oh-mi-god,” he snorted, crossing his legs fussily. “You Brits are so goddamn literal.”

I felt like a barbarian from a strange land, but I fell in love with New York City and its refinement, decorum, and elegance.

For years I set out on journalistic assignments like illegal gold-mining encampments in Africa, or weeks with a bounty hunter in south Central Los Angeles, and returned from the fray and the craziness of the outside world, to the sophistication and pacific calm of Manhattan where I felt safe.

But I was living in a bubble. When I embarked on my book, Sex Money Murder: A Story of Crack, Blood and Betrayal, about one of the Bronx’s most dangerous gangs and the deadly hold they had in the housing projects in the ’80s and ’90s, I was totally shocked to discover a racially segregated world and a level of poverty that rivaled much of what I had seen in the favelas of Brazil or the garrisons of Kingston, Jamaica but right in the city I loved. The island of Manhattan where I had been living was quite unlike the world I experienced across the Harlem River in the Bronx. Crack cocaine and a growing army of young men flocking to the Bloods was a stark contrast to the wealthy elite I had mingled with on the upper east side.

Of course, it could be that I moved from one of London’s poorest boroughs to one of New York’s most gentrified on the edges of Alphabet City. But as London faces significant challenges in the months ahead, there is no doubt that the brutal history of the crack-cocaine epidemic in New York will also be visited on London. Just like the Big Apple, London has densely populated government-funded public housing complexes that have become incubators for violent crime, the same as the ones in the Bronx that were so badly affected in the ’90s and continue to struggle to this day.

Now when I return to London, I see a city that has been hollowed out, with the affluent central areas around Paddington or Chelsea and Kensington taken over by wealthy Russian oligarchs who have bought all the expensive real estate, sending rents through the roof, while the local pubs and restaurants close due to a lack of customers.

London increasingly resembles New York, as disaffected youngsters form street gangs on the tough housing estates of Tottenham, north London, and begin the familiar retributive cycle of murder that denotes gang life in New York. Globalization and the growing rift between the rich and the poor, and the acute alienation and disenfranchisement of our inner-city youth, now fashions London, New York, and the world’s big cities into an eerie simulacrum of one another.

from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/londons-always-been-violent-but-now-its-surpassed-new-york/ from All of Beer https://allofbeercom.tumblr.com/post/184170088477

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samanthasroberts · 5 years

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Londons Always Been Violent But Now Its Surpassed New York

“There is no doubt that the brutal history of the crack-cocaine epidemic in New York will also be visited on London.”

I felt like a barbarian from a strange land, but I fell in love with New York City and its refinement, decorum, and elegance.

Source: http://allofbeer.com/londons-always-been-violent-but-now-its-surpassed-new-york/

from All of Beer https://allofbeer.wordpress.com/2019/04/14/londons-always-been-violent-but-now-its-surpassed-new-york/

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allofbeercom · 5 years

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Londons Always Been Violent But Now Its Surpassed New York

“There is no doubt that the brutal history of the crack-cocaine epidemic in New York will also be visited on London.”

I felt like a barbarian from a strange land, but I fell in love with New York City and its refinement, decorum, and elegance.

from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/londons-always-been-violent-but-now-its-surpassed-new-york/

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limejuicer1862 · 6 years

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Wombwell Rainbow Interviews

I am honoured and privileged that the following poets, local, national and international have agreed to be interviewed by me. I gave the writers two options: an emailed list of questions or a more fluid interview via messenger. The usual ground is covered about motivation, daily routines and work ethic, but some surprises too. Some of these poets you may know, others may be new to you. I hope you enjoy the experience as much as I do.

Matt Duggan

Matt was born in 1971 and lives in Bristol in the U.K. with his partner Kelly his poems have appeared in many journals across the world such as Osiris Poetry Journal, Ink, Sweat, and Tears, The Blue Nib, Into the Void, The Journal, The Dawntreader, Midnight Lane Boutique, Anti—Heroin Chic Journal, The High Window, A Restricted View from Under the Hedge, Ghost City Review, Laldy Literary Journal, L’ Ephemere Review, Carillion, Lakeview International Literary Journal, Levure Litteraire, erbacce journal, The Stray Branch, Prole, Black Light Engine Room, Militant Thistles, Matt won the Erbacce Prize for Poetry in 2015 with his first full collection of poems Dystopia 38.10 and became one of five core members at Erbacce-Press. In 2017 Matt won the Into the Void Poetry Prize with his poem Elegy for Magdalene, and read his work across the east – coast of the U.S.A. with readings at the prestigious Cambridge Public Library Poetry Series in Boston, a guest poet appearance at The Parkside Lounge and Sip This in New York, and also read at his first U.S. book launch in Philadelphia. Matt has two new chapbooks available One Million Tiny Cuts (Clare Song Birds Publishing House) and A Season in Another World (Thirty West Publishing House) plus a small limited edition booklet The Feeding ( Rum Do Press) Venice and London. He has also read his work at Poetry on the Lake Festival in Orta, Italy, the Poetry Café in London, in Paxos in Greece, and at various venues across the U.K. he runs and hosts his own poetry events and was highly commended in the Road to Clevedon Pier Poetry Anthology Competition, his second full collection Woodworm (Hedgehog Poetry Press) is due in Spring 2019.

The Interview

1. What were the circumstances under which you began to write poetry?

I started writing poetry and prose when I was a young boy, the first poem I wrote won the best poem in my class at the age of twelve, I also remembered the time that we’d have to read a play in class and I’d end up reading four or five of the main characters from the play. I suppose the first real poems were written for the affections of young girls, from then it just progressed, almost like an obsession that I had to keep writing. I then started becoming political and writing about Thatcherism and neo-politics and I never really wanted to be put myself into a category as a political poet that solely writes about protest and politics, but I think today and what surrounds us it’s necessary.

2. Who introduced you to poetry?

Who introduced me, well, that would be a good teacher at my local school called Mr Ford who used different ways to teach us about poetry, I became fascinated with the world of poetry and poets and he would tell us stories about Dylan Thomas, Thomas Chatterton, Verlaine, and many others, he brought the poems and the poet’s life into his teachings and had most classes absolutely transfixed, I just wish I could go back and thank him. It was around this time that I started writing a lot of material and sending them out to journals, of which 80% were rejected, but I do remember getting my first hand written acceptance in 94 / 96 from a lovely editor by the name of Jenne Conne who edited a magazine called ‘Connections’ based in London. I still have that very letter which I do look at from time to time, she inspired me to continue writing and I just wish I could of thanked her.

3. How aware were you of the dominating presence of older poets?

Very aware, over the years I devoured large collections of Ted Hughes, Shelley, Auden, Keats, Homer, Coleridge, Ashberry, Ginsberg, but I never really involved myself in the local scene at that time it was much later when I felt that I gained enough confidence to read in front of an audience, and sometimes, I do wish I took the plunge earlier.

4. What is your daily writing routine?

I don’t really have one but I have stuck to a few rules that I can’t break. I only write with a pencil and notepad and I never use any mobile devices apart from writing up the final drafts of poems onto a computer. I always write from the hours 3am to 6am and have around five notepads full of lines, themes, and half written poems that I work through when I have the time.

5. What motivates you to write?

Lots of reasons what motivates me from highlighting certain aspects of life that people generally don’t know about, such as media, history, politics, right wing propaganda, for me it’s about telling the truth about experience to the more day to day mundane. I also write to overcome feelings, and to face truths. I try to operate on an open canvas and I suppose most things that I encounter on a daily basis can motivate me in some way to write, it could be a snippet from a conversation, a scene in a street, or a more imaginative image to conjure with, for me, poetry is everywhere.

6. What is your work ethic?

I have a very strong work ethic that I need to be constantly busy from reading submissions, reading competition entries, doing interviews for the erbacce journal, organising events to support and promote other poets in my hometown of Bristol, and my own writing which I’m concentrating more on these days. I do try to immerse myself in too much work which feeds me even more, it’s a little like getting rejections from journals I seem to feed on this, and hit back with something that they will in the end accept, I enjoy this a bit too much at times to be honest.

7. How do the writers you read when you were young influence you today?

The writers that I read when I was growing up were writing about social equality, rise of fascism, corporate takeovers, so I suppose it never really never went away and in that way they have influenced me to keep at it, to keep telling the truth, to challenge and to be honest with yourself , so I would say they have had a huge influence on my progress into the poetry world, there were also several writers who just didn’t do it for me and I remember reading all the Liverpool poets as I’d always liked Brian Patten work it just spoke to me as an adolescent, yet others in that same group did nothing for me then, and they still don’t.

8. Who of today’s writers do you admire the most and why?

This is a hard one as I read a lot of collections and it can change from month to month, but I would say Tony Harrison especially for his poem V and A Cold Coming I remember watching V on Channel 4 which had such a huge effect on me as a young boy, this was someone who was saying what I was thinking, and it was on T.V. plus a favourite of mine of his is The Gaze of the Gorgon I still pick up that collection and can never put it down, I suppose because of the truth behind the poems, poetry for me is about telling the truth and being honest, a poem should make you think and should make you re – read the poem. The last Harrison book I picked up was Laureate’s Block and the title poem is simply sublime, I’d advise anyone thinking of entering into the poetry world to read this collection, other writers I admire are Andre Naffis- Sahely his debut collection The Promised Land for its themes on travel, displacement and disposable cities, his control of a poem is a delight to read as is Maria Castra Dominguez collection A Face in the Crowd, which is such a magical and beautiful experience. I’d also say Thomas McColl, Penny Rimbaud’s collection America, and How! (1973-2012) which I read while travelling across the U.S. recently I loved the poems and the bio which states ‘ He did not study at Oxford, he does not have a dog, a wife, a flat in North London or a house in Buckinghamshire. He has been a writer throughout his life.’ Brilliant! Also Simon Darragh, and I’ve also just started re-reading John Tottenham’s The Inertia Variations it’s the best collection of poems written on the themes of sloth, inertia, and laziness, you’ll ever likely to find.

9. Why do you write?

I can’t remember a time when I didn’t write I suppose there are many reasons why I write sometimes it’s just for a little fun with silly puns and quirky poems of which I’ll never read out or would add to any collection, also, when I feel emotionally charged about a certain theme or subject it almost takes over my life, mind, and body, and becomes like an addiction until its finally finished, and then I get grumpy and very moody when I’m not writing.

10. What would you say to someone who asked you “How do you become a writer?”

Firstly I’d advise them to live life and maybe travel the world, live on a mountain, swim with dolphins, take notes, live with different cultures and experience as much of life as possible before putting pen to paper and especially read as many poetry collections as possible before finding a voice and then submit, submit, submit, and don’t be put off by bullies and editors who think that they know best, always be firm and believe in what you write and don’t take any shit from anyone.

11. Tell me about the writing projects you have on at the moment.

I’ve just finished two articles about my recent readings in the U.S.A which will be published in A Restricted View from Under the Hedge, and The Journal. I had two new chapbooks published this year One Million Tiny Cuts

http://www.claresongbirdspub.com/shop/poetry/

and A Season in Another World

http://www.thirtywestph.com/shop/aseasoninanotherworld

also involved with the upcoming 70th NHS anthology for erbacce-press. I’m also working on two new commissions with publishers, and editing the final draft of ‘Brexit and Bandages’ journal, also, my second full collection of poems Woodworm (Hedgehog Poetry Press) which I’m so excited about will be published in Spring 2019. And I’ve also been asked to judge a new poetry competition called Songs of Lenin and McCarthy, based on protest poems in the form of songs by Lennon and McCartney.

Wombwell Rainbow Interviews: Matt Duggan Wombwell Rainbow Interviews I am honoured and privileged that the following poets, local, national and international have agreed to be interviewed by me.

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speedilyunadulterateddreaml-blog · 6 years

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AP Literature Please help! Ap Literature help, Yahoo Answers

Ap Literature help. In literary works you've read, you've probably noticed that literature often deals with aspects of the human experience. Authors often write about relationships between characters, about characters' interactions with the rest of society, or about their unique relationships with nature—either fighting against it or. In literary works you've read, you've probably noticed that literature often deals with aspects of the human experience. Authors often write about relationships between characters, about characters' interactions with the rest of society, or about their unique relationships with nature—either fighting against it or living in harmony with it. It's important to reflect on and understand what a piece of literature is trying to reveal about a particular human experience. For this essay, select a literary work you've read (poetry, fiction, or drama). Write about what the work revealed to you about the relationships between human beings or the interactions between human beings and the natural world. You may find it helpful to think about what the main point of the story was. Does the GPS positioning system actually operate using Cell-Phone towers? Is there any such thing as gravity? Was there ever a ‘Big Bang?’ Does the Earth rotate? Did Hitler kill six-million Jews? Did the Soviet Union really crumble away? Do the Bolsheviks control the European Union? Why do Atheists ‘believe’ in Evolution’? Are the Jews in the Tottenham Hotspur White-Heart Lane stadium, Semitic? Why are satellite television transmitters never overhead?... View more ...

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anthonymhowellblog · 7 months

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TOTTENHAM TREES POETRY READING AT THE ROOM

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#Hilary Davies #Open Mike #Poetry of Trees #The Room Tottenham #Wangari Maathai

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gessvhowarth · 7 years

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Free And Cheap London Events: 6-12 February 2017

All week Explore the work of Frank Brangwyn and his love of Japanese art. PHOTOGRAPHY: Get lost in a winter wonderland with Jessops #WINter photography exhibition. For one week only, enjoy a selection of images capturing the beauty of winter. Art Bermondsey Project Space, free, book ahead, until 12 February SHEER PLEASURE: There's a new exhibition of Japanese furniture, paintings, prints and ceramics at the William Morris Gallery. The items belonged to the gallery's founder, Frank Brangywn, and the exhibition marks 150 years since his birth. William Morris Gallery, free, just turn up, until 14 May [Wednesday-Sunday] THE LONDONERS: Whether it's wrestling, waitressing or politics, London has become a hub for job seekers. Explore 400 years of London living with The Londoners: Portraits of a Working City, an exhibition covering the period 1447-1980. London Metropolitan Archive, free, just turn up, until 4 July CURIOUS COLLECTIONS: Explore polymath Sir Thomas Browne's unusual approach to the world with his curious collections. The exhibition reveals a compelling and strange perspective of 17th century medicine. Royal College of Physicians, free, just turn up, until 27 July [9am-5pm] Monday 6 February Get creative at the newly revamped Drink, Shop & Do HISTORY OF SCIENCE: Cocaine and ether existed long before pioneers realised how they could be used for sedation and numbness. Explore the fascinating history of local anaesthesia in this lecture, where Dr Harrop-Griffiths puts a humorous spin on this element of medical history. Museum of London, free, just turn up, 1pm-2pm SOUND SALON: Discuss field recording, audio walks, soundscape composition, immersive performances and more with the Museum of Walking's Sound Salon. Share ideas, compositions and walks and discover how sound can contribute to walking experience. The Mitre, free, book ahead, 6pm-7.45pm MUGGY MONDAY: Get creative with your coffee and customise your own mug at Muggy Monday. You'll be given all the materials to espresso your creativity, so just bring your enthusiasm, buy a drink or two, and get stuck in. Drink, Shop & Do, £5, just turn up, from 7pm Tuesday 7 February OUTING THE PAST: Mark LGBT month with Outing the Past, a talk which aims to reframe some of the National Maritime Museum's collection from a queer perspective. National Maritime Museum, free, just turn up, 6pm-9pm POETRY REVIEW: Celebrate the launch the most recent issue of The Poetry Review over a glass of wine. Listen to readings from contributors of this well-respected literary magazine. Keats House, free, book ahead 7pm-8.30pm Wednesday 8 February Listen to the Big Friendly Neuroscientist - Professor Tom Solomon speak at the Royal College of Physicians ROALD DAHL: It's a little-known fact that author Roald Dahl had a deep fascination with medicine. Listen to his friend and doctor, Tom Solomon, speak about the author's interest in medicine. Royal College of Physicians, free, book ahead, from 6pm (lecture starts at 6.30pm) GET QUIZZICAL: Get ready to take a pub quiz like no other. With craft challenges, musical riddles and more, Let's Get Quizzical is a night of daftness and fun. Drink, Shop & Do, £5, book ahead, 7pm BOSS WOMAN: What does it take for a woman be dominant in her field of work? Can women reclaim the word 'bossy'? Celebrate working women with this selection of short films directed by women, and discover what it means to be a boss woman. 93 Feet East, £3/£4, book ahead, 7pm Thursday 9 February 20 YEARS: E.H. Carr's Twenty Years Crisis explained why the world went through political turmoil after the Treaty of Versailles, leading up to the second world war. Join a panel of international relations experts to see if the world is heading towards a similar crisis. LSE, free, just turn up, 6.30pm-8pm IMAGINARY FRIENDS: Taking inspiration from the toy industry and pop culture, Jasmin Anoschkin: Imaginary Friends takes colourful, funny-looking sculptures and turns them into facets of magic and fun. Southbank Centre, free, just turn up, until 19 February Friday 10 February Watch Other People at House of Vans. ANTI WINTER BLUES: Enjoy a free screening of uplifting film Other People, about the power of love and family in a time of loss. House of Vans, free, just turn up, 4pm/6pm LOVE: Pioneering African-American writer-director Kathleen Collins's groundbreaking work was often overlooked in her lifetime. Celebrate the publishing of her story collection, Whatever Happened to Interracial Love? with a night of her film and fiction. Waterstones Tottenham Court Road, £5, book ahead, 6.30pm CROSSRAIL: The Crossrail project has given archaeologists the chance to explore London's most historical sites. See the archaeological discoveries of the project as they are put on display to the public for the first time. Museum of London Docklands, free, just turn up, until 3 September Saturday 11 February CHINESE NEW YEAR: The Museum of Childhood in Bethnal Green is celebrating Chinese New Year with an afternoon of music and dance performances, plus costume and mask making workshops. Free, just turn up, 11.30am-4.30pm ROOF GARDEN: To celebrate the Crossrail Place Roof Garden, Museum of London Docklands hosts a family workshop where children can plant their own 'mini blossoming station' with real seeds. Free, just turn up, 12pm/2.30pm Sunday 12 February Keats House is hosting Afternoon Poems: Love is… on 11 February. VALENTINE'S: Get into the Valentine's Day festivities with Afternoon Poems. Listen to readings of poems by Keats, Byron and more in the romantic surroundings of Keats House. Keats House, free, book ahead, 2pm-3pm ROCK'N'ROLL BARBIE: Enjoy great food and and evening of live music from a range of bands. If you like rock n roll, beat or grunge music, Rock'N'Roll Barbie is the place to be. Red's True Barbecue Shoreditch, £3, just turn up, 6pm-10pm

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/londonist/sBMe/~3/CLdbImQC-40/free-and-cheap-london-events-6-12-february-2017

#London #Free & Cheap #FREE AND CHEAP LISTINGS #things to do in london #free and cheap listing #things to do

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bridgetabate123-blog · 7 years

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Free Florentines (Almond Shoelace Cookies)-- Oh She Glows

MLA (Modern Foreign language Association) style is actually most commonly made use of to write documents and also point out sources within the benevolent arts as well as liberal arts. There was actually a flurry of panic at the beginning of the year when the Xbox One directory faded away coming from the Xbox Asia internet site leading individuals to guess that the game would not be released on the system. DosBox is the best simulator for participating in vintage PC video games off the days just before Windows. Therefore this publication centers on Caraval, the purportedly terrific environment I have actually actually moped regarding for way too long. The trailer offered an understanding right into how the activity's combat will definitely work as well as a peek at exclusive capabilities and also the effect the game's atmosphere are going to have on fighting. 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I therefore appreciate that nothing, definitely nothing at all happened quick and easy to any person in this particular book. U.S. Artist Laureate Kay Ryan wraps up the Library of Our lawmakers 2008-2009 fictional season with a poetry reading in the famous Coolidge Reception hall, where previous consultants/laureates - like Robert Freeze, Elizabeth Diocesan as well as Robert Hayden - have read. If you beloved this short article and you would like to receive far more details pertaining to just click the next webpage kindly take a look at the web site. Computer game make it possible for students to place on their own in the shoes from a character or even immerse themselves in a place or society that they are actually learning more about in the class. That is actually all the info our company have on the game for currently, but you can easily have a look at the reveal trailer below. Those that enjoy the games playing and or witnessing them as their leisure activities can easily ill manage time to communicate the firm of unfavorable community. Certainly not everybody could go, yet the blessed ones are actually delivered tickets, and also as soon as they arrive they manage to decide on if they want to see the video game or actually play the game. Like the gamers, this surely really did not believe that an activity evaluating by quantity of your time my heart cost raised. A lot of the research study on violent computer game make use of relies on solutions to determine hostility that don't connect with real-world physical violence. This publication was a little bit odd for me. Both Bric and Quin appeared like totally various people. It is actually also pleasingly evocative other board games - particularly the outstandingly stepped T.I.M.E Stories. What both sides of this particular dispute settle on is that this is possible for moms and dads to have actions that limit the feasible bad effects from computer game. Desires is a little bit of intricate to detail, but if you're creative and also excelled in the Generate Method from LittleBigPlanet, then this is your ultimate game. Significant kudos to your for creating your blog site and also recipe book at the same time - I faced the very same problem in 2013 and also can fully associate - that's fun/exciting/exhilarating, yet may be quite nerve-racking and also make you feel like you're regularly in a work.

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hcsmca · 7 years

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The 21 Million

Written and submitted by Emtithal Mahmoud

This guest blog post is by Emtithal “Emi” Mahmoud, the reigning 2015 Individual World Poetry Slam Champion and 2016 Woman of the World Co-champion.

My grandmother, Nammah, never learned to read or write—where we came from, girls were forbidden from doing so. In May of 2016 I, her granddaughter, surrounded by friends and family, graduated from Yale University and closed the ceremony with something I, a woman, had written. But a number of factors had to fall in place before my family was able to reach that point.

Nearly 19 years before then, my mother, father, younger sister, and I had boarded a plane in Yemen, green cards in hand, after having left Sudan for safety well before. At the time, my father, a surgeon, and my mother, a medical lab technician, were exactly the kind of people history likes to laud as proof that immigrants are capable of incredible things—testaments to the triumph of humanity in the face of adversity. However, this valuing inherently comes at a cost, as if achievements represent human worth.

Today especially, with more than 65 million people displaced worldwide, 21 million of whom have become refugees, we often point to the attractive accomplishments of a select few as proof that refugees are worth saving and reduce the rest to a series of numbers.

What this focus on value or inherent worth suggests: in today’s world, if I and my grandmother were both contemporaries seeking refuge, I would be deemed worth the humanity, and she, a woman ultimately responsible for my entire existence, would not. What’s more, with recent policies, my family and I—even with the credentials that once could save us—would have been turned away once for Sudan, the country we were born in, and again for Yemen, the country in which we initially sought refuge. Together, our entire family would be seen as another component of the 21 million.

Loss is deeply personal, and yet we see it on a global scale almost every day. When this happens we become desensitized. Reversing that process and putting people back in front of the numbers is incredibly difficult, but incredibly necessary. This is precisely why I and we must speak of the individuals entrenched in the conflicts front and center in our world and not of their future success or earning potential. The most valuable thing we will miss is human life. There’s still so much to be done for all my sisters who will not have the same opportunity to prosper, or on even the most basic level, to survive.

Emi spoke on the TEDMED stage in 2016, and you can watch her talk here.

I am often asked how it is that I stand by my identity and why I write and speak with conviction, despite the ramifications that may come with being a young, black, American, Afro-Arab, Muslim, woman. I often answer that it is because of my grandmother and the sacrifices that she and people like her have made and continue to make. I speak because my grandmother did not get the chance to and I am not alone. Earlier this year I joined the How to Do Good speaking tour with a series of incredible philanthropists and activists (including Fredi Kanouté, former West Ham United, Tottenham Hotspur and Sevilla striker and founder of Sakina Children’s Village, and Dr. Rouba Mhaissen, an economist and activist featured in Forbes 2017 30 Under 30, and the founder of SAWA) and we’ve made it our mission to inspire positive action. This initiative, and so many like it, is exactly what we need to reignite empathy in a world that seems to have lost it.

I believe that when we are spoken to politically, we are compelled to respond politically, when we are spoken to academically, we are compelled to respond academically, when we are spoken to with hate, we are compelled to respond with hate; but when we are spoken to as human beings, we are compelled to respond with our humanity. In this global moment with endless pressing questions and not many daring to answer them, my challenge to you is to respond with your own humanity.

Visit Emi on Facebook to learn more about her latest work.

The post The 21 Million appeared first on TEDMED Blog.

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gessvhowarth · 7 years

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Free And Cheap London Events: 23-29 January 2017

Canary Wharf Winter Lights festival is completely free. All week LIGHT FESTIVAL: See a giant glass egg, become an angel, and witness some trippy interactive art at Canary Wharf Winter Lights festival. Follow the trail among the skyscrapers (and warm up in the Crossrail Place shopping centre). Free, just turn up, dark-9pm, until 27 January EXHIBITION OF PAINTINGS: Despite being colourblind and having tunnel vision, William Lethorn has found success in the world of art. Working with oils, acrylics, charcoal — and taking inspiration from religion, history and landmarks — Lethorn's selected works are currently being displayed at Artsdepot in Exhibition of Paintings. Free, just turn up, until 8 February WORKING THE WALBROOK: Museum of London's latest display shows artefacts from the lost Walbrook valley and beyond, from over 170 years of excavation in London. Items include gardening tools dating back to Roman times. Free, just turn up, until 26 March ETHICAL TAXIDERMY: Jazmine Miles-Long challenges the ideas and perceptions of taxidermy with her exhibition, Memorial. A Tribute to Taxidermy, at the Horniman Museum. Miles-Long pays tribute to unknown craftsmen of the past, while also demonstrating that taxidermists not only preserve of animals but are masters of many skills. Free, just turn up, until 1 May BAUER BROTHERS: Franz and Ferdinand Bauer were incredibly talented botanical artists who dedicated their lives to studying and drawing nature. See their work, which, besides being beautiful, was also scientifically accurate, displayed at the Natural History Museum. Free, just turn up, until 26 February Memorial. A Tribute to Taxidermy Magpie Pica Pica, 2016 by Jazmine Miles-Long © Phil Sofer Monday 23 January FOREIGN POLICY: Explore the challenges and opportunities that foreign policy faces in the 21st century in this free lecture at LSE. Free, just turn up, 6.30pm-8pm BRITISH WITCHCRAFT: Head to Conway Hall to watch clips from films released at the height of the 1970s British witchcraft revival, and to discuss the cultural context of the films. £5, book in advance, 7.30pm-9pm Tuesday 24 January SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS: English lit enthusiasts and Shakespeare-lovers unite. Explore Shakespeare's poetry in a Gresham College lecture at Museum of London and learn about the Bard's use of personification in his sonnets. Free, just turn up, 6pm-7pm BOOKS SHOWOFF: Enjoy cocktails as you have a laugh at Waterstones on Tottenham Court Road's comedy open mic night about books. £5, book ahead, 6.30pm-10pm HEADS AND BODIES: Consider yourself a bit of an artist? Even if you don't Heads and Bodies should provide plenty of fun artistic competition at the Queen of Hoxton. Free, just turn up, 7pm-8.30pm Wednesday 25 January Go on a free walking tour of Soho & Covent Garden, the Wicked West End WICKED WEST END: Learn all of the secrets of Soho and Covent with a free walking tour. See where the Rolling Stones and the Beatles performed and explore the glamour of the West End. Free, book ahead, 2.30pm-4.30pm BURNS NIGHT: Don your best tartan, and enjoy whisky tastings, traditional music and food with Queen of Hoxton's Burns Night In The Wigwam. Oh, and there will, of course, be a reading of Address to a Haggis. Free entry, just turn up, 7pm - 10pm SCIENCE MUSEUM LATES: Go back in time with Science Museum's childhood-themed late night opening. Revisit your childhood at Wonderlab: The Statoil Gallery, enjoy a scientific see-saw and toy car racing, and dance like no one's watching at the silent disco. Free entry, just turn up, 6.45pm–10pm Thursday 26 January HEALTHY LIFE: Give your body a cleanse with your very own handmade herbal tea-bags and energy balls. With Make, Do & Mend Yourself at Lower Marsh Community Market in Waterloo, you will be working with natural materials, in an open-air environment. Free, just turn up, noon-3pm BATTLE OF THE BRONTËS: If you're a fan of the Brontës, get yourself to Waterstones on Gower Street for an evening of talks and trivia on their lives and work. Guests include authors Samantha Ellis and Sophia Tobin. £5, book in advance, 6.30pm Friday 27 January Grab a bite to eat at the Southbank Centre food market. Photo: Southbank Centre WAR ART: Perspectives of Destruction: Images of London, 1940-44 is a new exhibition at Museum of London exploring how artists and photographers reacted to the damage suffered in London during second world war bombing. Free, just turn up, until 8 May FOODIES: Enjoy an array of foods AT Southbank Centre's food market. Get your hands on all manner of street food as well as fresh produce. Free entry, just turn up, from 12pm [27-29 January] FRIDAY TONIC: Bring out your inner jazz star at Southbank Centre's Friday Tonic: Tomorrows Warriors Jam. Whether you bring along your own instruments and jam along with everyone else or just relax, it's a c hilled way to start the weekend. Free, just turn up, 5.30pm Saturday 28 January FARMER'S MARKET: Get your hands on some local fruit and veg, as well as organic meat and artisan bread at the Horniman Museum Farmers' Market. There's also hot food ready to eat — why not buy your lunch and tuck into it while enjoying that view over London? Free entry, just turn up, 9am-1.30pm FAMILY TIME: Celebrate Chinese New Year with the family at Museum of London Docklands. Take the little ones along for storytelling, paper-cutting, dragon dancing and more with this special family festival Free, just turn up, from 11am The Chinese New Year Parade takes place this Sunday. Photo: John Caribe Sunday 29 January A WORLD OF STORIES: Journey to far-off lands with Horniman Museum's A World of Stories. Inspired by the museum's exhibitions, festivals and nature, the event is run by some of London's best storytellers. Free, just turn up, 2pm-2.45pm/3.15pm-4pm CHINESE NEW YEAR: Head on down to Chinatown for the 2017 Chinese New Year Parade. Complete with puppeteers, costumes and music, it's the biggest Chinese New Year parade outside of Asia. Here's everything you need to know. Free, just turn up, from 10am

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#London #Free & Cheap #FREE AND CHEAP THINGS TO DO IN LONDON #FREE AND CHEAP LISTINGS #free and cheap listing #things to do

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