#because my name is mud with the organisers of the main group now

[wild-at-mind]

Today's events and the past few months of bullshit have made me feel so rejected from my local LGBTQ community.

[ollyarchive]

Interview

Olly Alexander on success, sanity and It's a Sin: 'All those hot guys. I loved it!'

Simon Hattenstone

The Years & Years frontman is starring in Russell T Davies’ new drama about the Aids crisis. He talks about bulimia, his ‘dark’ clubbing days – and how he learned to enjoy filming sex scenes

Mon 11 Jan 2021 06.00 GMT

Olly Alexander was so certain he was destined for success that he saw a therapist to help him prepare for his future fame. It was 2014 and his band Years & Years had just signed to Polydor when he visited the shrink.

“I said: ‘The album’s coming out and I really want it to be successful,’ and he said: ‘What happens if it isn’t?’ I said: ‘Well, that’s not an option because I have planned it in my diary since I was a teenager.’”

That diary was less about chronicling the present than a series of promises he made to himself. “I planned my life till I was 25. I would be a famous musician ’cos musicians were the coolest people in the world. The biggest thing in the list was buying my mum a house, and I did that. That was the coolest thing to be able to do with my money.” He smiles. “That was the coolest thing ever.”

Now Alexander might well benefit from another visit to the shrink because he’s about to become a lot more famous. He stars in It’s a Sin, the brilliant new TV drama by Russell T Davies, about a group of young gay men living and dying through the Aids epidemic in the 1980s. The five-part series is funny, vibrant, sexy and heartbreaking.

This is by no means the first time Alexander has acted – he has appeared in the TV series Skins, films such as Bright Star (about Keats), Gulliver’s Travels and Great Expectations, and on stage in the West End alongside Judi Dench and Ben Whishaw in Peter and Alice; a pretty impressive CV. But with It’s a Sin, he knows he has struck gold. “Some actors would wait their entire careers and not get such a good role,” Alexander says, and he’s right. Davies has made a habit of creating groundbreaking TV series (Queer As Folk, Bob and Rose, Torchwood), and this is his best yet.

Alexander’s character, Ritchie Tozer, is an aspiring actor/singer who has just moved to London from the Isle of Wight in search of fame, fortune and a good shagging. He embraces his new freedoms with promiscuous abandon, while also struggling with his sexuality. Ritchie is equally cocky and vulnerable, lovable and insufferable.

Although It’s a Sin takes place in a time before Alexander was born, he says there are so many ways he relates to Ritchie’s life. There is one crucial difference – whereas Ritchie is secretive, Alexander is an open book. If there’s anything to tell you, he’ll tell you, even if he is embarrassed a second later about his indiscretions. It’s an endearing quality, and one that makes him great company.

We meet in his agent’s east London office in December, when Tier 4 restrictions are yet to kick in. Alexander is a boyish 30 – half punk, half catwalk model, with orange hair, earrings, multiple rings, stylish khaki trousers and a handful of inky tattoos. He is garrulous and giggly with a huge toothy grin.

Like Ritchie, Alexander was a stranger to city life when he came to London. He was born in North Yorkshire, went to primary school in Blackpool and Gloucestershire, and a comprehensive in Monmouth, south Wales. He was a natural performer who wrote his first song at the age of 10. “I performed it in my year six assembly.” Can he remember it? He squirms. “Yeah!” Let’s hear it then? “No!” Oh go on! “OK, OK. ‘The leaves are falling outside my window. I’m lay here all alone,” he sings quietly, in that delicate falsetto. He giggles, blushes and continues. “And now I’m a knowin’, the way it’s goin’, we won’t last for ever, for ever my love.’”

Wow, those lyrics are pretty sophisticated – and melancholy. He giggles again. “Oh thanks. It’s about unrequited love. Doomed love. I was getting in early on my themes. I had a bit of help from my dad.” He wrote it after experiencing his first pangs – for a boy in his class.

At secondary school Alexander was a victim of homophobic bullying. He responded with elan. “I would still come to non-uniform day in eyeliner.” Did he fight back? “Sometimes I would scream. I was not a good fighter. We did rugby a lot at my school – a Welsh school. The one time I scored a try, on the way back to the changing room the two popular boys from the year put their arms around me and said: ‘Well done, Olly,” and I was like: ‘I can’t believe it, this is it!’” He pauses long enough for me to get a glowing feeling. “Then they tripped me up and pushed my face into the mud. That was hard to live down.” After that he never went to another games lesson.

When he was 13, his parents separated, and from then he was brought up by his mother, events organiser Vicki Thornton (his real surname – Alexander is his middle name). His father had been a talented but disappointed singer-songwriter who made a living marketing theme parks. Although he gave young Olly a lifelong passion for adventure rides, there were tensions between the two of them. After his parents split up, he broke off contact with his father. When Alexander became successful, his father tried to rekindle their relationship via Twitter. Alexander wasn’t impressed.

With the sod-you eyeliner and supreme belief that he would make it, he sounds incredibly robust. So what else was in that teenage diary? “Pppprrrr.” He blows his lips as if feeling a sudden chill. “It’s a bit dark. I used to write that I really wanted to be skinny.” He exhales deeply. “My mantra was always: I’m not going to eat this again, I’m not going to eat cake again. I’m never going to eat pasta.” He was barely into his teens when he became bulimic and started to list the things he wouldn’t eat. Actually, he says it was worse than that. “I was writing down: don’t eat, don’t eat, don’t eat. Did he have a weight problem? “I was a little chubby at primary school, but no.” What does he think it came from? “It was something I could control. I felt very out of control in the rest of my life. I was struggling with my sexuality, my parents were divorcing, and I wanted to punish myself.”

I want to give him a hug, but I’m not sure he would appreciate it, particularly in the pandemic. Why did he want to punish himself? “It was self-loathing. I didn’t want to be gay. I was convinced I was the reason my parents were splitting up.” He never considered that their divorce may have had nothing to do with him.

He started to cut himself, too. Has he still got the scars? He points to his upper arms and thighs, “because people can’t see there. I was deeply ashamed of doing it. I wanted to hide it.” Are there many scars? “No. A friend saw a plaster on my arm and jokingly asked if I’d been cutting myself. After that, I was so embarrassed that I mostly stopped doing it. Bulimia carried on well into my 2os, but it became less and less frequent. It’s really hard to hold down any kind of job if you’re throwing up food all the time, and ultimately you have to choose.” It becomes a full-time occupation? “Yes, it’s all you think about. And you’re doing so much damage to your organs. I got taken into hospital once with my mum because I had this irregular heartbeat, which can happen through constant purging, and that really scared me. I thought I’d done something irreparable to my body, and my mum was so distraught. She couldn’t understand why her son was throwing up all the food she was trying to give him. She found out because I hadn’t cleaned the toilet properly.”

After studying performing arts at Hereford College of Arts, he moved to London and was liberated. He had a heady time of it – more drugs, clubbing and sex than even he had hoped for, while also getting regular work as an actor. But there was a downside. He saw friends struggle, sacrifice themselves to excess, fall by the wayside. “Everything was about going out and connecting with people at the clubs. I had a great time, but it was also a dark time. A lot of people took too many drugs. A few friends attempted to take their lives and one succeeded. That was devastating. You can see how easy it is for a party lifestyle to turn into something negative.”

Alexander has a strong survival instinct. There was his destiny to fulfil, the house to buy for his mother. He still struggled with his mental health, so he cut down on the destructive stuff. Today, he says, his main drug of choice is the antidepressant sertraline. “I was worried about longterm use, and the doctor said: ‘Well, the latest research shows it can promote neurogenesis, and I was like that’s the coolest thing ever.” Neurogenesis is the process by which new neurons are formed in the brain. “She was basically saying antidepressants are giving you superpowers, and I was like: ‘Amazing, I’ll keep taking them for ever.’” He starts giggling, and he can’t stop. “Neurogenesis – ooh, I love that. I’m going to be neuro-supercharged.”

Years & Years formed in 2010. Founder member and synth/bass/keyboard player Mikey Goldsworthy heard Alexander singing in the shower and asked if he wanted to become lead singer. When Alexander joined, Years & Years were a five-piece band, before shrinking to an electropop trio (Alexander, Goldsworthy and fellow guitarist and keyboard guru Emre Türkmen). Alexander, the main songwriter, has an ear for great sweeping choruses (think Sam Smith meets Pet Shop Boys with a dash of New Order). Their first album, Communion, went to No 1 in the UK, while the song King topped the singles chart and its follow-up, Shine, reached No 2. Many of their songs are about yearning and doomed love – particularly on their second album, Palo Santo – just like the first one he wrote aged 10.

Alexander also became known as an LGBTQ campaigner. He made a documentary, Growing Up Gay, for the BBC in which he talked to his mother in a tear-filled exchange about coming out; he also interviewed people about struggles with their sexuality, the pressure to be promiscuous and take drugs, and addressed schoolchildren about homophobia and mental health problems. Does he think of himself as an activist? He shakes his head. “It does a disservice to actual activists. There’s a tendency to use that word for anyone in the public eye speaking up about any issue. Going into schools and talking about mental health isn’t activism. I like doing that. If I can be helpful, I want to help.”

The week before we meet he was named celebrity of the year at the British LGBT awards. He doesn’t know why – he says he didn’t do anything in 2020. “Maybe they heard about my upcoming role and got in there early!”

He says he has learned so much from making It’s a Sin – not least about acting, and how tough it can be. “Doing an acting job where you have to turn up every day is really challenging. I was so used to my musician lifestyle, which is usually: get up late, get in a car, get driven to an airport, get on a plane, fall asleep, arrive somewhere, get driven to the venue, roll out of the car and do the show. It was too much like hard work every day. I thought I’d got past this!”

We see a lot of Alexander in It’s a Sin – in every sense. He gets more than his share of sex scenes, and says it was fascinating being taught how to do them properly. So he enjoyed them? “All those hot guys. That aspect I loved! And going into it I thought, I’m going to have so much fun doing this, I’m a confident-ish guy, love having sex, it will be great.” That’s so refreshing, I say, to hear actors admit they enjoy sex scenes.

Ah, well, he says, it wasn’t quite that simple – he initially became self-conscious. “I broke down into hysterical tears, like ‘don’t fucking touch me’. I found it really hard.” Then the intimacy coordinators got to work on him. “They were a life-changing experience. Intimacy coordinators are there for safety ’cos there’s a lot of shit that can go wrong between what a director wants and what an actor wants, and boundaries being crossed. They’re there to rehearse everything beforehand with the director and the performers. You talk about animals you might imitate, the sounds you make.” He pays tribute to intimacy coordinator extraordinaire Ita O’Brien, who introduced the Intimacy on Set guidelines in 2017 and worked on Normal People as well as It’s a Sin. “Anything with sex in it, she’ll be involved. She’ll be on all fours at one point, saying: ‘Now I’m going to be like a cow and moo in ecstasy.’ She’s amazing, amazing, amazing.” And yes, he did start to enjoy the scenes.

Did he find them arousing? Now it’s my turn to blush and I apologise for the question. Did he start to enjoy it too much? “No, that’s what I want to know. What if someone gets a hard-on – how embarrassing would that be? Ita said: ‘It’s natural and normal for certain body parts to get excited and if you get an erection that’s absolutely fine, but it’s not appropriate for the workplace.’” He adds a caveat: “Depending on what kind of job you’re doing. And she said: ‘If that happens, you just take a time out. So you’re all there thinking, OK, how embarrassing – because you say time out and everybody knows it’s because you’ve got a hard-on. Hahahhaa!” Did he have to take a time out? “No!” Did anyone? “Not to my knowledge.”

Who did he have most fun with? “I’d say best kiss was the guy who plays Ash [newcomer Nathaniel Curtis]. Great kisser.” And the best shag? “Sexual simulation,” he corrects me. “Best sexual simulation was Roscoe [Omari Douglas, another relative newcomer].” Has he told them? “It’s all coming out in this article, Simon.” And I can sense him calibrating what he has just said. “It’s going to ruin my standing!” But a second later he changes his mind. “No, that’s a compliment right? I compliment them both. Hahahaha!” And he laughs giddily.

I ask about the future. You sense he’s not sure where to go from here, acting-wise – that it can’t get any better than It’s a Sin. Fortunately, he owes the band an album’s worth of songs. He had them done and dusted before the pandemic. “But all that time in my flat going insane made me realise I didn’t like any of the music, it didn’t feel relevant. I just wanted to start again, which is what I did. Now it’s almost ready – again.”

It will be only their third album in seven years. “I know,” he says. “It’s embarrassing. Ariana Grande has had about five out in the time we’ve done one.” In the meantime, he says, Türkmen has had one baby, with another on the way.

What about his own love life? “It’s pretty dire.” Sex? “I’m hopeful to have more sex … it’s very difficult in the age of Covid if you’re single. I actually tried to lock someone down who would be my ‘friends with benefits’ sex buddy, because I saw that Holland were advising people to do that. In the first lockdown I said: ‘Look, we can just have sex with each other. I trust you, you trust me, we’re not together, but this is an arrangement. I’ve not had sex in six months, what do you think?’ But he said no. I was quite upset. So yeah, not a lot of sex in 2020.” For a split-second, the puckish Alexander looks forlorn. Then he grins his toothiest grin yet. “But I’m hopeful that it will pick up in the new year!”

It’s a Sin is on Channel 4 on 22 January at 9pm

[fortheheavenssake]

Harran is one of the oldest cities in the World. Located in southern Turkey, a remarkable feature of this ancient place is its beehive-shaped adobe houses, built entirely of mud without any wood. Their design makes them cool inside and is thought to have been unchanged for at least 3,000 years. Some were still in use as dwellings until the 1980s. Harran dates back to at least the Early Bronze Age, to sometime in the 3rd millennium BC.

Renown as a point on the Silk Road, there are many references to this ancient place in the Bible and, for example, its trade with the Phoenician city Tyre in ‘choice garments, in clothes of blue and embroidered work, and in carpets of colored stuff, bound with cord and made secure’ (Ezekiel 27:23-24). It is perhaps most famous as the city of Abraham. His birthplace, Sanliurfa, is close by and Harran is the place where his father Terah went to die. My own interest in this city is not, however, in its Biblical connections, fascinating though they are, but in its more esoteric history.

Harran beehive houses ( CC BY SA 4.0 )

The Christian Interest in Harran and the Ancient Kingdom of Edessa

Harran’s close neighbor, Sanliurfa, holds a clue to this hidden aspect. Sanliurfa has undergone many transformations over the millennia. Most curiously, in the 12 th century, when Sanliurfa was a Christian kingdom that went by the name of Edessa, it attracted the attention of the Knights Templar. There seems to be some significance in St Bernard of Clairvaux, and not the Pope, preaching the Second Crusade at Vezelay in Eastern France, not in order to defend Jerusalem but to rescue Edessa after its capture by the Seljuk Turks in 1145.

Christ Embracing St Bernard by Francisco Ribalta (circa 1625) ( Public Domain )

The question is, why? Why did St Bernard, who was responsible for helping to create the Knights Templar, take such an interest in this land-locked city-state which, as writer Adrian Gilbert points out, was of no strategic importance on the wrong side of the Euphrates? (Adrian Gilbert Magi – the Quest for a Secret Tradition, Bloomsbury, London, 1996 p191) It was quite a military undertaking after all, and not an obvious destination.

Trulli in Harran ( CC BY NC ND 2.0 )

Maybe the Knights Templar knew that Edessa could have been the original ‘Ur of the Chaldees’; the place where the Chaldean Magi had spent time. In the 1920s, Sir Leonard Woolley claimed that the ‘Ur of the Chaldees’ was his excavation of the city of Ur in southern Iraq. What he found was spectacular and extensive: huge quantities of artifacts dating back three thousand years, and much gold, including a beautiful golden sculpture of a ram caught in a thicket. Many of his finds are on display in the British Museum. But important though his find was, I am not convinced that this was the Ur of the Bible. ‘Ur’ is a common word found in ancient times as it has the meaning of ‘foundation’ and can be found in the name of Jerusalem – ‘Uru-shalom’ – meaning ‘place of peace’. It makes more sense that the Chaldean Ur was further north, not least as Abraham makes reference to his conflicts with the Hittites who were based in central Turkey.

The famous Ram in the Thicket found in the Great Death Pit at UR Gold Silver Lapis Lazuli Shell 2600 BC ( CC BY NC SA 2.0 )

Hidden Knowledge in Harran?

The Chaldean magi, an elite of wise men, skilled in the arts of divination, had taken refuge in the remains of the Hittite empire in central Turkey at least a thousand years before the Knights Templar arrived and it is possible that something remained of their occult knowledge in the area. But it is just as likely that the real focus of the Templar attention was Harran itself.

It is important to reflect at this point on what might have been the genuine mission of the Knights Templar. There is no doubt that St Bernard played a key role in creating the cover story that this select group of religiously inspired crusaders existed to protect the routes to Jerusalem. But given the low numbers of Templars, at least to begin with, this explanation does not make sense. What is more plausible is that they had a presence in the Near East because, after the First Crusade in 1097, St Bernard and others from the Court of Burgundy became aware of occult knowledge contained in a body of writings known as the Corpus Hermeticum considered to be ‘older than Noah’ having been composed by Hermes Trismegistus and therefore of great interest. And one group of people who knew a lot about the Hermetica was the Sabians, who at the time of the Crusades lived in Harran.

What made Harran unusual in the 12 th century was that it was not Jewish, Islamic or Christian. Its main temple, eventually destroyed by the Mongols in 1259, was dedicated to the Mesopotamian Moon god, Sin. It was also famous as a center of alchemy, as practiced by the Sabians who regarded Hermes as the founder of their school.

Worship of the Moon God. Cylinder-seal of Khashkhamer, patesi of Ishkun-Sin ( Public Domain )

A Sabian Sanctuary

The Sabians’ distinctive form of alchemy focused on metals, especially copper, and minerals, rather than gold. In the view of some writers, this distinction indicates a very early tradition, possibly going back to 1200 BC when copper was the chief metal (Jack Lindsay The Origins of Alchemy in Graeco-Roman Egypt, Frederick Muller, London, 1970). There is little doubt that the Sabians’ beliefs and practices date back into ancient times and that they had strong links with Egypt. Indeed, it is possible that the name ‘Sabian’ derives from the ancient Egyptian word for star, sba, and they may have been ancient refugees from Egypt.

The Sabians could have been the last remnants of Egyptian priesthood which mostly disappeared from Egypt in the 4 th century when Romano-Christians destroyed what was left of Egyptian temples. As a result of that persecution, they may have found their way up the trade routes to Harran on the northern Euphrates where they felt safe enough.

Hermes and Athena by Bartholomeus Spranger, 1585 ( Public Domain )

What kept the Sabians safe and allowed them to continue with their practices was a reference to them in the Koran. The Koran acknowledged that the Sabians were of the religion of Noah and therefore accorded them respect. The precariousness of their existence is, however, recorded in the story of the Caliph of Baghdad who passed through Harran in 830 AD. He wanted to know if those who dressed differently were ‘people of the book’ (i.e. the Koran or Bible). Fortunately, he accepted the response that the Sabians’ ‘book’ was the Hermetica, their prophet was Hermes and they were the Sabians referred to in the Koran and so they were spared death as infidel.

Little did the Caliph realize how much the Sabians had contributed to his own culture, Sabians having helped to found the city of Baghdad in 762 AD and turn it into a great seat of learning. The Sabians were a great ‘conduit for the transmission of ancient wisdom to the Arabs, especially to the Sufi and the Druze (Adrian Gilbert op cit,1996, p70) . It was a Sufi alchemist by the name of Jabir ibn Hayyam who had in his possession one of the oldest copies of the most famous Hermetic texts, the Emerald Tablet , and who wrote the magical tales of a Thousand and One Nights . He was skilled in mathematics, medicine and other sciences and was keen on disseminating knowledge of the Pythagorean principles of number (Baigent & Leigh - The Elixir & The Stone, Viking, London, 1997 p41) .

Above all, it is thanks to the Sabians, and to the city of Harran, that so much knowledge relating to ancient civilization, to the Egyptians and others, was preserved throughout the Dark Ages and from which we can now once again benefit.

Top image: Dome Urfa Harran ( CC 0 )

Lucy Wyatt is author of ‘Approaching Chaos – could an ancient archetype save C21st civilization?’ (2010) and co-organiser of Eternal Knowledge Festival ( www.eternal-knowledge.co.uk) a weekend focusing on Bronze Age to Modern Age – knowledge that is useful and relevant.

By Lucy Wyatt

https://www.ancient-origins.net/ancient-places-asia/why-were-knights-templar-so-interested-harran-one-oldest-cities-world-008337

[wikipress01]

Media Is Lying, No Gas Attack In Syria

One of the world’s most revered conflict reporters says he has discovered no proof of a mass chemical assault in Syria, after visiting the nation and conducting a radical investigation.

Robert Fisk’s first-hand account, printed within the UKs Independent newspaper, contradicts each mainstream media declare about what occurred throughout the April seventh incident in Douma.

Zerohedge.com reviews: Fisk is the primary Western journalist to achieve and report from the location of the alleged chemical weapons assault extensively blamed on Assad’s forces. Writing from Douma in japanese Ghouta, Fisk has interviewed a Syrian physician who works on the hospital proven in one of many well-known movies which purports to depict victims of a chemical assault.

Importantly, the report, printed late within the day Monday, is inflicting a stir amongst mainstream journalists who–minutes after the Saudi-sponsored jihadist group Jaish al-Islam (Army of Islam) accused the Syrian Army of gassing civilians–started uncritically selling the “Assad gassed his own people” narrative as an already cemented and “proven” reality based mostly on the mere phrase a notoriously brutal armed group who itself has admitted to utilizing chemical weapons on the Syrian battlefield in prior years. Also notable is that no journalist or worldwide observer was anyplace close to Douma when the purported chemical assault happened.

Controversy ensued instantly after Fisk’s report, particularly as he is among the many most recognizable names up to now 4 many years of Middle East conflict reporting, having twice gained the British Press Awards’ Journalist of the Year prize and as seven time winner of the British Press Awards’ Foreign Correspondent of the Year (the NY Times has referred to him as “probably the most famous foreign correspondent in Britain” whereas The Guardian has referred to as him “one of the most famous journalists in the world”).

An Arabic speaker, Fisk turned well-known for being among the many few reporters in historical past to conduct face-to-face interviews with Osama bin Laden, which he did on three events between 1993 and 1997.

Fisk says he was capable of stroll round and examine newly liberated Douma with out Syrian authorities or Russian minders (partially that is doubtless as a result of he has reported from inside Syria going again many years, in war-torn 1982 Hama, for instance), and he begins his account as follows:

This is the story of a city referred to as Douma, a ravaged, stinking place of smashed house blocks–and of an underground clinic whose pictures of struggling allowed three of the Western world’s strongest nations to bomb Syria final week. There’s even a pleasant physician in a inexperienced coat who, after I observe him down in the exact same clinic, cheerfully tells me that the “gas” videotape which horrified the world– regardless of all of the doubters–is completely real.

War tales, nonetheless, have a behavior of rising darker. For the identical 58-year previous senior Syrian physician then provides one thing profoundly uncomfortable: the sufferers, he says, had been overcome not by gasoline however by oxygen hunger within the rubbish-filled tunnels and basements by which they lived, on an evening of wind and heavy shelling that stirred up a mud storm.

Fisk goes on to establish the physician by identify – Dr. Assim Rahaibani – which is notable given the truth that all early reporting from Douma usually relied on “unnamed doctors” and nameless opposition sources for early claims of a chlorine gasoline assault (these days morphed into an unverified “mixed” chlorine-and-sarin assault).

The physician’s testimony is per that of the well-known Syrian opposition group Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), which initially reported based mostly by itself pro-rebel sourcing that heavy authorities bombardment of Douma metropolis resulted in the collapse of properties and underground shelters, inflicting civilians in hiding to suffocate.

According to SOHR, which has lengthy been a key go-to supply for mainstream media over the course of the conflict, “70 of them [women and children] have suffered suffocation as a result of the demolition of home basements over them due to the heavy and intense shelling.”

Though shops from The Guardian to The Washington Post to The New York Times have quoted SOHR on a close to each day foundation all through the previous six years of conflict, the anti-Assad opposition outlet’s reporting of mass asphyxiation attributable to collapse of shelters has been notably absent from the identical publications.

Fisk to Spirit Radio: “The video is real, but they are not suffering from gas poisoning…”

Fisk particulars the Syrian physician’s testimony, who’s adamant in his emphasis that civilians had been suffocating en masse, and weren’t gassed:

It was a brief stroll to Dr Rahaibani. From the door of his subterranean clinic–“Point 200”, it’s referred to as, within the bizarre geology of this partly-underground metropolis–is a hall main downhill the place he confirmed me his lowly hospital and the few beds the place a small lady was crying as nurses handled a reduce above her eye.

“I was with my family in the basement of my home three hundred metres from here on the night but all the doctors know what happened. There was a lot of shelling [by government forces] and aircraft were always over Douma at night–but on this night, there was wind and huge dust clouds began to come into the basements and cellars where people lived. People began to arrive here suffering from hypoxia, oxygen loss. Then someone at the door, a “White Helmet”, shouted “Gas!”, and a panic started. People began throwing water over one another. Yes, the video was filmed right here, it’s real, however what you see are folks affected by hypoxia–not gasoline poisoning.”

In addition to interviewing a physician whereas standing within the very hospital featured in White Helmets footage of the occasions, Fisk cites the testimonies of a number of locals within the following:

Before we go any additional, readers must be conscious that this isn’t the one story in Douma. There are the many individuals I talked to amid the ruins of the city who stated they’d “never believed in” gasoline tales–which had been often put about, they claimed, by the armed Islamist teams. 

These specific jihadis survived below a blizzard of shellfire by residing in different’s folks’s properties and in huge, extensive tunnels with underground roads carved by means of the residing rock by prisoners with pick-axes on three ranges beneath the city. I walked by means of three of them yesterday, huge corridors of residing rock which nonetheless contained Russian–sure, Russian–rockets and burned-out vehicles.

And additional fascinating is that the veteran British conflict correspondent comes upon native Douma residents who’ve so lengthy been trapped in an remoted ‘fog of conflict‘ battlefield setting, that they don’t seem to be even conscious of the worldwide significance that the city has performed within the US coalition choice to bomb Syria:

So the story of Douma is thus not only a story of gasoline–or no gasoline, because the case could also be. It’s about 1000’s of people that didn’t go for evacuation from Douma on buses that left final week, alongside the gunmen with whom they needed to dwell like troglodytes for months to be able to survive.

I walked throughout this city fairly freely yesterday with out soldier, policeman or minder to hang-out my footsteps, simply two Syrian buddies, a digital camera and a pocket book. I generally needed to clamber throughout 20-foot-high ramparts, up and down virtually sheer partitions of earth. Happy to see foreigners amongst them, happier nonetheless that the siege is lastly over, they’re principally smiling; these whose faces you may see, in fact, as a result of a stunning variety of Douma’s girls put on full-length black hijab.

…Oddly, after chatting to greater than 20 folks, I couldn’t discover one who confirmed the slightest curiosity in Douma’s position in bringing in regards to the Western air assaults. Two truly informed me they didn’t know in regards to the connection.

But it was an odd world I walked into. Two males, Hussam and Nazir Abu Aishe, stated they had been unaware how many individuals had been killed in Douma, though the latter admitted he had a cousin “executed by Jaish el-Islam [the Army of Islam] for allegedly being “close to the regime”. They shrugged after I requested in regards to the 43 folks stated to have died within the notorious Douma assault.

The Evidence thriller pic.twitter.com/aWYQNJQieF

— Bassem (@BBassem7) April 16, 2018

Concerning the White Helmets, who’ve performed a doubtful position all through the conflict whereas presenting themselves as “impartial” and “neutral” rescue employees and film-makers, although recognized to function solely in al-Qaeda and different jihadist-controlled areas of Syria, Fisk reviews the next:

The White Helmets–the medical first responders already legendary within the West however with some fascinating corners to their very own story–performed a well-recognized position throughout the battles. They are partly funded by the [British] Foreign Office and many of the native workplaces had been staffed by Douma males. 

I discovered their wrecked workplaces not removed from Dr Rahaibani’s clinic. A gasoline masks had been left exterior a meals container with one eye-piece pierced and a pile of soiled army camouflage uniforms lay inside one room. Planted, I requested myself? I doubt it. The place was heaped with capsules, damaged medical gear and recordsdata, bedding and mattresses.

Of course we should hear their facet of the story, nevertheless it is not going to occur right here: a girl informed us that each member of the White Helmets in Douma deserted their principal headquarters and selected to take the government-organised and Russian-protected buses to the insurgent province of Idlib with the armed teams when the ultimate truce was agreed.

And Fisk additional narrates the strangeness of a few of the reporting now taking place far exterior of Douma which flatly contradicts the testimonies of civilians nonetheless inside Douma that he encounters:

How might it’s that Douma refugees who had reached camps in Turkey had been already describing a gasoline assault which no-one in Douma at the moment appeared to recall? It did happen to me, as soon as I used to be strolling for greater than a mile by means of these wretched prisoner-groined tunnels, that the residents of Douma lived so remoted from one another for therefore lengthy that “news” in our sense of the phrase merely had no that means to them. 

Syria doesn’t reduce it as Jeffersonian democracy–as I cynically like to inform my Arab colleagues–and it’s certainly a ruthless dictatorship, however that couldn’t cow these folks, glad to see foreigners amongst them, from reacting with a number of phrases of fact. So what had been they telling me?

They talked in regards to the Islamists below whom they’d lived. They talked about how the armed teams had stolen civilian properties to keep away from the Syrian authorities and Russian bombing. The Jaish el-Islam had burned their workplaces earlier than they left, however the huge buildings contained in the safety zones they created had virtually all been sandwiched to the bottom by air strikes. A Syrian colonel I got here throughout behind one in every of these buildings requested if I needed to see how deep the tunnels had been. I finished after properly over a mile when he cryptically noticed that “this tunnel might reach as far as Britain”. Ah sure, Ms May, I remembered, whose air strikes had been so intimately linked to this place of tunnels and mud. And gasoline?

For a chief instance of what Fisk references as refugees in Turkey “already describing a gas attack which no-one in Douma seemed to recall…” CNN aired a phase from one such refugee camp which is totally weird and beautiful in its claims.

During the phase which aired “hours after” the US-led airstrikes on Damascus, CNN’s Arwa Damon started sniffing a 7-year-old Syrian lady’s backpack whereas concluding, “I mean there’s definitely something that stings…” – with the implication that empirical proof had been discovered of presidency chemical weapons use in opposition to the little lady and her household.

This CNN report by Arwa Damon is an instance of what Western governments and media contemplate proof that the Syrian govt used chemical weapons in #Douma. In reality it proves nothing. CNN continues to shamelessly promote Jihadist propaganda & western army intervention #Syria pic.twitter.com/8taqefyfAa

— Walid (@walid970721) April 16, 2018

And within the full phase, Damon makes an attempt to subtly introduce the concept of a nerve agent used in opposition to the household (although preliminary claims had been extensively reported to be chlorine) by awkwardly together with the account of the lady’s escape from Douma: “She could barely breath… she felt as if her entire nerves basically released.”

This Syrian lady hid her dolls inside a field, telling them “you’re going to suffocate in here, maybe, but at least you might be safe from the bombings.” CNN reviews from inside a refugee camp in Syria hours after a coordinated US-led airstrike hit the realm. https://t.co/vxiFwlaTTp pic.twitter.com/svIg5zpKnm

— CNN (@CNN) April 14, 2018

Though it’s unclear what the unusual phrasing of “her entire nerves basically released” truly means, CNN’s Arwa Damon is in the end claiming to have the ability to safely and comfortably deal with and sniff a backpack which accommodates residual sarin and chlorine brokers, whereas concurrently presenting the backpack as “proof” of a chemical assault which occurred per week prior (to say nothing the clearly unscientific and bogus nature all the above).

Notably, along with Fisk’s bombshell report filed from floor zero of the claimed chemical assault in Douma, cable community One America News has additionally issued a report from on the bottom within the newly liberated city, discovering “no evidence” – in its phrases – {that a} chemical assault happened there.

OAN Investigation Finds No Evidence of Chemical Weapon Attack in Syria: https://t.co/gR3jkPQWRh through @YouTube

— One America News (@OANN) April 16, 2018

Robert Fisk’s report for The Independent and the One America News phase represent the primary main worldwide media reviews from the situation of the alleged chemical assault. But it will likely be fascinating to see the extent to which worldwide chemical and weapons consultants both validate or refute their conclusions as soon as the location is inspected.

Meanwhile, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) Fact-Finding Mission (FFM) crew arrived in Damascus on Saturday, April 14th – after the US-led in a single day strikes which primarily hit authorities buildings within the capital.

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Social Media Day Special: Which Platform Comes Out On Top?

It's Social media site Day on 30th June, as well as the team has been ringing with discussion regarding all things social. Which social media channel do our group prefer and also, more significantly, what makes it so special? What separates a hashtag from a regram? Our specialist digital marketing group tell us their views ...

Our Elder Digital Expert, James, assumes the visual nature of Instagram is what makes the platform stand out

I only make use of one system: Instagram. I utilize it to comply with top quality cooks as well as their restaurants, style houses as well as their creative directors. These are 2 of my largest enthusiasms and also Instagram is the apparent means for me to adhere to the very visual web content they share.

I like the simpleness of the system, which sees web content instead of discussion lead the way. I mostly utilize Instagram for exploration - as an example, to take a look at the restaurants and food manufacturers I mean to go to while on vacation. By utilizing the place attribute instead of relying upon reviews offered, you could obtain a truer sense of the food from the pictures various other individuals have shared.

As for the material I share, it's primarily images of meals I have actually consumed in numerous restaurants throughout the globe as well as the odd video of me blowtorching some king scallops or doing pull-ups at the gym.

Our Social media site Manager, Donna, is likewise group Insta

In a matter of months adhering to the launch of Instagram's stories feature I stated "see ya later" to Snapchat. And whilst there's no denying the two functions are rather comparable, in my eyes (at the very least) this was even more compared to a Snapchat copycat.

Having primarily made use of Snapchat to send out foolish snaps (typically wearing canine ears) to a small select team of good friends, Instagram's offering immediately seemed like a much more sophisticated and 'grown up' way to share moments throughout my day.

I usage Instagram A WHOLE LOT in my personal life, to release photos and video clips of my travels, veggie cooking occupations and also maybe 1 or 2 (read: ten) breaks dedicated to my animal Budgie, Pal. I've actually found that I publish much less articles on my Instagram feed, as I favor the less 'polished' unedited nature of instagram stories.

Why I love them:

Increased exposure- it's not just my straight followers that can find my stories

Local tales - I have actually greater than tripled the sights on some tales just by including a place sticker

I could still use hashtags (yay!)

It feels natural as well as does not have to be as sleek as posts

Because every good social marketing expert likes an excellent story

Oh, and also they have a pet dog ears filter currently, too, my life is complete!

Disclaimer: Whilst I still use Snapchat - together with the 166m other everyday active users - its 'year-on-year growth being up to 36% - below 48% * in Q4' reveals a clear decrease in brand-new customer growth.

* source: https://econsultancy.com/blog/69124-the-best-social-stories-and-campaigns-from-may-2017

Twitter comes out on top for our PR Executive, Johnny

I could claim something hipster, like MySpace (that didn't enjoy a PC4PC?), however I'm playing it safe by picking Twitter.

Like most social media platforms, Twitter is totally customisable, yet to an extent that makes it the excellent resource for news as well as home entertainment. It places individuals as well as points appropriate to your lives as well as rate of interests - football clubs, political parties, bloggers, celebrities, feline pictures, Ed Miliband - right in front of you in an unbelievably easy-to-digest format, instantaneously.

From a specialist viewpoint, Twitter has fantastic reach, making it ideal for sourcing remarks and also influencers for material. Increasingly, reporters are pleased of a tweet from a PR about a tale they might have, possibly giving you a leg up among the digital noise.

You'll discover our Social Media Executive, Laura, scrolling through Twitter's feed, too

Some view Twitter as a little bit of a stick in the mud as it doesn't seem to adapt to change in the exact same means that various other social networks have. Its fundamental features have hardly altered since its launch in 2006.

However, you could suggest that this is just what makes it various from various other platforms. There is a strong sense of area, despite the fact that you might not always know people similarly you do your Facebook buddies. It's additionally a fast-paced social media network, with around 500 million tweets each day! *

Algorithms on the main feeds of Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn can be discouraging - causing you seeing messages from days ago yet missing the most recent ones. From a specialist point of view, it indicates that more cash needs to be designated to boosting messages to make certain that all of your followers are watching your content. Twitter's feed displays tweets chronologically so you could obtain a real-time sight of what's going on. There has actually been conjecture in the past regarding the supposed decrease of Twitter, but when a huge event happens it's Twitter that everyone mosts likely to when it concerns searching for information. This is not constantly a positive point, as wild conjecture could take place and also individuals are lead off in the wrong direction, yet chronological uploading as well as real-time reactions are most definitely essential from a journalistic perspective.

On a lighter note, Twitter is a wonderful location for humour. I directly can not get enough of "Scottish Twitter" Tweets!

* source: http://www.dsayce.com/social-media/tweets-day/

So where's Facebook in all this? Our Digital Material Exec, Sophie, provides Facebook a vote of confidence

I've obtained plenty to state concerning Facebook. From its fake news fight to countless new Messenger attributes, it's reasonable to say Facebook's not gone to its really best for a while now. It may not draw in the brand-new, possibly younger, Break generation (actually, dead users are readied to at some point surpass the living) yet there are still a whole lot of attributes that make Facebook an integral part of a social networks users' life.

For me, the occasions function is a wonderful example. With many occasion organisers, firms and also brand names deciding to develop on the internet web pages for their occasions, Facebook really is the go-to place to look for next weekend break's task. From unusual occasions predestined to go viral (Leeds Cheese Feast, any person?) through to the more standard neighborhood bar tests, I have actually found tons of extraordinary events that would have or else dipped under my radar.

Sneaky Experience is just one business that occurs for producing widespread event passion with the Facebook function. Maintaining information unannounced, releasing teasers as well as following up with albums of photographs from the event all keep users coming back to the page repeatedly - and also welcoming their close friends to find along at the same time. It's an absolutely fracturing means to make use of social networks in a fun, engaging and also inventive way which, for me, is exactly what social networks advertising and marketing is all about.

From a brand viewpoint, events might be used tactically for online launches, upcoming competitors and more. Creating a Facebook event is basically founding an online neighborhood of users with a typical interest, so there's no factor why the "occasion" has to be a physical one.

Join in the social conversation!

Are you enthusiastic regarding Pinterest? Can not obtain sufficient of Snapchat filters? We desire to find out about the social functions that YOU enjoy! Our group of electronic experts prepare in order to help your organisation take advantage of these wonderful social media sites attributes. Greet on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or LinkedIn.