#but CRUCIALLY: I won’t work on the last one until next week. it’s not urgent.

[obstinaterixatrix]

the problem is I have This Could Be So Much More Efficient brain which means I get too enthusiastic about making things efficient which turns me into a capitalist’s dream worker which is not my heart. I’ve written like 7 training documents.

[expatimes]

A geneticist’s biggest challenge: Curing his own son

Palo Alto, California – Whitney Dafoe’s day begins at 2:30pm. His father, Ron Davis, peeks through the keyhole into the 37-year-old’s room. Is he awake?

ABSOLUTELY NO ENTRY is scrawled in red on a handmade sign pinned to the door below a picture of the Dalai Lama. Davis has rushed home from Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, to take the afternoon shift. When Whitney raises his left hand, fingers clenched to a fist, that’s Davis’s cue. Whitney is ready for his dad to change his diapers, put ice on his aching belly, and refill the IV-drip.

Davis’s shift ends at 6pm when his wife, Janet Dafoe, takes over. Dafoe, a child psychologist, carefully attaches a bag filled with liquid nutrients to her son’s j-tube because he cannot digest solid food. She will also take the night shift, so her 79-year-old husband can return to Stanford to work on the task that’s been governing his life for years: finding a cure for his son.

Whitney was diagnosed in 2010 with myalgic encephalomyelitis, or chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), a complex illness that leads to debilitating exhaustion, brain fog, insomnia and neurocognitive impairments. Any physical or mental effort aggravates the fatigue. He has been mostly bedridden for the last 10 years and has not spoken a word since Christmas 2014. He only communicates via pantomime or by typing short messages into his tablet. In one of his texts several years ago, Whitney typed, “Chronic fatigue sounds too banal. I call it total body shutdown.” He added an apology to his parents: “I am sorry I’m ruining your golden years.”

At about 190cm (6-foot-3), Whitney weighs a little over 45kg (100lbs). His head is shaved, his figure emaciated. Filmmaker Jennifer Brea (Unrest), a fellow ME/CFS patient, compares the illness to “a broken battery” that can only charge to five percent. Nobody has been able to identify a single cause. There are no standard diagnostic tests and no cures, doctors can only rule out other illnesses such as multiple sclerosis (MS) or cancer.

The National Academy of Sciences estimates that up to 2.5 million Americans suffer from ME/CFS, and an estimated 84 to 91 percent of people with ME/CFS are not diagnosed. The World Health Organization lists ME/CFS as a neurological illness, but Davis is convinced he’s confronting an autoimmune disorder, not unlike MS. Like many autoimmune disorders, it disproportionately affects women. His research became especially urgent after Dr Anthony Fauci, the top infectious disease expert in the US, warned that the novel coronavirus could cause ME/CFS.

“CFS is probably the last major illness we need to figure out,” says Davis, who speaks with a voice so tender everyone around him immediately lapses into silence so they can understand his words. “I feel the tremendous weight to find a solution.”

Whitney Dafoe, 37, who has chronic fatigue syndrome, weighs little more than 45kg

A problem solver

Davis, the director of the Stanford Genome Technology Center, has solved complex puzzles before. It’s something he has enjoyed since childhood when he would build model rockets, persevering despite being told by teachers that he would never amount to much because of his dyslexia.

He later developed one of the first methods for mapping DNA in 1967. In his 50-year career as a biochemist and geneticist, he has also worked with Nobel laureate James Watson at Harvard, created the first image of the pairing of two genomes, and made crucial contributions to the Human Genome Project.

I’ve always found tremendous joy in solving problems that others deem unsolvable.

Ron Davis

In 2013, Atlantic magazine counted him as one of “today’s greatest inventors.”

“I’ve always found tremendous joy in solving problems that others deem unsolvable,” he says in the foyer of his house, but the joy drains from his face when he stops at his son’s door. “My greatest hope is that we find the cause.”

Whitney, before he became ill with ME/CFS

‘When Ron calls, we come’

Whitney was an award-winning photographer with a keen, meditative eye. The lanky, curly-headed adventurer explored all 50 states and nearly all continents with his camera. He lived with a shaman in Ecuador, discovered the Himalayas on the back of his motorcycle, and helped build a nunnery in India. Like many CFS-patients, his breakdown started with an infection: In 2007, he went to a clinic in India with a fever and bloody diarrhoea. When the doctors there could not help him, he booked the next flight home to California.

But despite innumerable doctor visits, he kept getting weaker. In 2009, he took photos of then-President Barack Obama’s inauguration but already could not work full days anymore. He tried keeping up with wedding photo assignments, but it would take him an entire week to recover.

“First he couldn’t carry his shopping bags anymore, then he became too weak to cook, so in May 2011, he moved back in with us because he didn’t have the energy anymore for the simplest everyday things,” Janet Dafoe recalls. “At first, we couldn’t understand why he was always so tired. Then, we thought, OK, who are the specialists? At which clinic can we get help? We tried absolutely everything the doctors recommended.” She runs down a long list of medications, antidepressants, cancer remedies, MS supplements. “Until we realised: Nobody knows how he can get healthy again.”

That is when Davis came to a decision: “I have to do it.”

Whitney’s state is comparable to an AIDS patient about a week before his death. And that has been the case for the last six years.

Ron Davis

The words of the doctor who finally diagnosed his son with ME/CFS burned themselves into his memory: “The good news is, he won’t die from it. The bad news is, he won’t die from it.” But the truth is that any further infection, for instance from his feeding tube, could be the end.

Davis understands his race for a cure as a race against the death of his son. “Whitney’s state is comparable to an AIDS patient about a week before his death. And that has been the case for the last six years,” Davis says. At one point, Whitney spelled D Y I N G with scrabble tiles.

In 2013, Davis founded the Stanford Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Research Center (now called ME/CFS Collaborative Research Center). In his labs, centrifuges churn with the blood of dozens of severe ME patients, including his son. A geneticist colleague is sequencing their genes as a favour.

“There are still doctors who send these patients to a psychiatrist,” Davis laments. “If a general practitioner analyses Whitney’s blood, they get near-normal results. Therefore doctors think the illness is in their head.” But when he explored further, Davis detected anomalies. After more than 9,000 experiments, Davis has proven that Whitney’s blood is thicker and stickier. When he exposes the blood of healthy people to a stressor such as salt, it will soon revert back to normal, whereas the blood conductivity of CFS patients collapses. Davis has developed four diagnostic tools he is currently testing and believes he will soon be able to announce a breakthrough in confirming biomarkers.

Ron Davis, one of the world’s leading geneticists, is focused on finding a cure for his son

But Davis’s deeply personal fight for his son’s health is also a battle for the recognition of this illness. The National Institutes of Health spent only about $15m in 2019 on ME/CFS research, which affects up to 2.5 million Americans. It spent about $111m on MS research, which affects about one million people.

Luminaries from all over the world have joined Davis’s research and flew in for the last pre-pandemic CFS Symposium at Stanford in September 2019: Robert Phair, a former Johns Hopkins School of Medicine professor, has seen interrupted metabolism in patients; top surgeon Ron Tompkins established a CFS research collaboration at Harvard University; Maureen Hanson, professor of molecular biology at Cornell University who was motivated to join the efforts by a family member with CFS, has focused her research on the microbiome of patients’ gut and blood; neuroscientist Jonas Bergquist who travelled from Uppsala University, in Sweden, where he started a research centre on ME/CFS.

Stanford geneticist Mike Snyder summed up what many of them think: “When Ron calls, we come.” They all acknowledge his brilliant mind and work ethic, and complain about the lack of funding to study this complex disease.

With Davis’s help, the Open Medicine Foundation, which leads the largest non-profit effort to diagnose, treat and prevent ME/CFS and related chronic, complex diseases, raised more than $18m in 2019 and was on track to raise another $20m in 2020. Davis, who is the director of OMF’s scientific advisory board, has such a stellar reputation among scientists that he was able to convince numerous renowned researchers at Ivy League universities to contribute to his work, including Nobel Laureates Paul Berg and Mario Capecchi.

They have made progress: Neurologists found inflammatory changes in the brain; immunologists suspect an error response in the immune system; and geneticists point to a genetic marker for CFS that up to three-quarters of people may have. “It’s like looking at an elephant,” Davis jokes. “One is checking out the trunk, another the legs, and a third the ears. Everybody finds something in their area.”

Whitney has not said a word since Christmas, 2014

ME/CFS and COVID-19

Davis’s research became even more urgent and important after Dr Fauci warned that some COVID survivors showed symptoms in line with those of ME/CFS. “This is a phenomenon that is really quite real and quite extensive,” Fauci said at the federal government’s first conference on “COVID long haulers” in early December, calling it “a significant public health issue”.

According to Fauci, “a considerable number” of COVID survivors struggle with extreme exhaustion, memory lapses, and cognitive difficulties many months after they have been officially cleared as recovered.

Davis is part of a high-level interagency work and research group (PDF) looking at the long-term consequences of COVID with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), National Institutes of Health, the Veterans Administration, and the Department of Defense.

This could be a turning point to figuring out how ME/CFS gets triggered and how to stop it before it starts.

Whitney Dafoe

He launched the first study into long-term molecular changes in COVID patients and he is years ahead in his research on why some patients cannot recover easily after a severe viral infection.

“This could be a turning point to figuring out how ME/CFS gets triggered and how to stop it before it starts,” Whitney typed in a text shared by his parents. “They are taking blood from coronavirus patients and monitoring their progress so they can see, in real-time, the transition from coronavirus to ME/CFS.”

‘Superman’

In the early years, Whitney was still able to work with a physiotherapist. “Now he can’t tolerate strangers in the room. Everything is too much.” Janet Dafoe sighs. She reduced her therapy hours and her husband reorganised his institute so they can care for Whitney around the clock. Sometimes, a nurse takes over the night shift, but the family cannot afford constant care. “Many ME/CFS-patients have a warped night-day rhythm,” Janet Dafoe explains why she often stays with her son until 5am. They have tried in vain to find a different rhythm. “Whitney hardly sleeps more than two hours a night, and nobody knows why.”

Ron Davis and Janet Dafoe

Just like the virus took over their son’s body, it has also brought his parents’ lives to a standstill. “Our life is stuck in a holding pattern,” Janet Dafoe acknowledges. “Doing my PhD was hard. I conquered mountains, that was hard. But living with my son’s illness is a thousand times harder. Our entire world has been eaten up by a chronic disease.”

Last July, Davis and Dafoe celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary. They met at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) when she was a budding child psychologist, he a geneticist who had already garnered the first of his 30 patents. They immediately connected over their shared interests: hiking, nature, Indigenous American wisdom. They used to enjoy mountain tours, trips to the Sierra mountain range, and visits with Native American shamans. But their travel together has all but ceased as at least one of them always stays close to their son. They still have a traditional sweat lodge in their lush garden, Janet Dafoe’s greatest pride.

“Because we can’t travel anymore, I take care of the garden, so we at least have a nice place here,” Janet Dafoe says, her grey curls framing her face. Tibetan prayer flags flutter above the pillars of their elegant single-family home in Professorville in the heart of Palo Alto, a reminder of Whitney’s Buddhist faith.

This is a devastating, really serious disease that affects many body systems. It will completely knock you out, it will ruin your life and the lives of people who take care of you. It can affect anyone if they just get the wrong virus or the wrong environmental stress.

Janet Dafoe

In the hallway leading to Whitney’s room, Whitney and his younger sister, Ashley Haugen, smile from framed photos, taken in happier times, their toddler selves dancing hand-in-hand. Ballet used to be Ashley’s passion; now she is an event manager and new mother.

In 2011, after Whitney first fell ill, his sister took care of him for a full year. But she burned out. “He was my best friend,” she says. “It is hard to find someone who knows you as well as your brother.”

Her parents invited friends and colleagues to their Palo Alto home on this pre-pandemic afternoon the day after the conference, including a dozen patients with milder ME who are strong enough to leave the house. For 20 years, Janet Dafoe worked full-time at the Children’s Health Council in Palo Alto, then the last 15 years at the Morrissey Compton Educational Center in Redwood City, mainly counselling children with Aspergers and autism. Instead of taking care of her own psychology patients, she now spends many hours a day comforting other ME/CFS patients. “I try to show them that they are not alone. I am busy every day to prevent suicides,” the mild-mannered Janet Dafoe says, then her tone changes and she speaks of increasing despair.

Whitney and Ashley when they were children

“This is a devastating, really serious disease that affects many body systems. It will completely knock you out, it will ruin your life and the lives of people who take care of you. It can affect anyone if they just get the wrong virus or the wrong environmental stress,” she adds. “They should all be up in arms that the research isn’t funded better so we can figure this out! Instead, some doctors are still telling patients to simply man up or exercise. They are basically committing malpractice. It’s absolutely mind-blowing.”

Of course, many patients are depressed and anxious, she says, “because so much has been taken away from them. But that doesn’t mean the illness is in their head. You would be depressed, too, if you couldn’t do most of the things you used to do, and nobody knows how you can be helped.”

She tries to retrieve her sense of humour, recounting one of her last conversations with her son several years ago. He was worried he would not be able to find a wife. “’They’ll all be taken by the time I’m recovered,’” Janet Dafoe smiles as she remembers his words.

“I told him finding a girlfriend for him will be the easiest problem to solve.”

Everything can change in a moment. You never know what will happen in the future. Never stop fighting. I'm fighting with you. If you feel like giving up, give it to me. I will carry it for you.

Whitney Dafoe

This year, Whitney’s energy has improved a little with experimental medication. For the first time in years, he can type longer texts into his tablet, opening a window into his isolated inner world. When Dafoe asked her son if he had a message for other CFS patients, Whitney closed his eyes, focused, and wrote a few lines: “Everything can change in a moment. You never know what will happen in the future. Never stop fighting. I’m fighting with you. If you feel like giving up, give it to me. I will carry it for you.”

Janet Dafoe had the lines printed on posters, with a picture of Whitney’s raised left fist, photographed through the keyhole of his room.

It’s a fight his parents have vowed to never give up either. Davis’s book with award-winning journalist Tracie White, The Puzzle Solver: A Scientist’s Desperate Quest to Cure the Illness that Stole His Son, hits bookshelves this month. It paints an intimate portrait of Whitney’s journey to diagnosis and his father’s fight to find a cure.

Whitney, with his parents and sister, who have taken care of him at different times since he fell ill in 2010

Sitting in the garden, Davis keeps checking his mobile phone until it tells him it is time for the next feeding. He promptly gets up to mix a second helping of nutrient powder for his son.

When Davis returns from feeding his son, his face is crumpled by exhaustion. “I’ve got to sit down,” he says. Both father and son have Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, which causes joint pain and fatigue. Davis started suffering from rheumatic fever as a one-year-old toddler, was often bedridden for weeks as a child; he lives with chronic pain every day. “I’m used to pain,” he says flatly. “You just rewire your brain to ignore it.”

It was precisely his childhood experience with medicine that ignited his passion for science. When a doctor gave him penicillin for the first time, instantly erasing his fever, the child thought medicine was a miracle and vowed to study it from then on. “His whole life prepared him for the task of saving his son,” Janet Dafoe comments. “Whitney truly believes dad is superman.”

The book The Puzzle Solver, co-written by Ron Davis and Stanford science writer Tracie White, will be published January 5, 2021, by Hachette.

#technology Read full article: https://expatimes.com/?p=16320&feed_id=26392 #coronaviruspandemic #features #health #scienceandtechnology #unitedstates #usampcanada

[crimsonslytherin]

I’ll Be Your Reason - Chapter 5

(First) - (Previous)  

Words: 2937

A/N: Please note I used a deleted scene for the beginning of the chapter. 

It was spring time and classes had started up again. Final exams were coming up and of course Hermione was studying every chance she got, making sure to invite Fiona to join her whenever possible. The two girls were sitting at the Gryffindor table across from the boys. Harry was looking through a book, per Hermione’s suggestion, but Ron was going through the cards he’d gotten from chocolate frogs.  Hedwig landed on a stack of books nearby and squeaked at Harry.

“Hi, Hedwig,” he greeted her while Fiona reached out to give the bird an affectionate stroke. Hermione looked at the owl before looking to Ron.

“Look at you, playing with your cards. Pathetic,” she said to him. “We’ve got final exams coming up soon.”

“How could we forget?” Fiona asked. “You remind us every day,” she teased with a playful smile to the girl. Hermione gave her a only slightly playful look back.

“I’m ready,” Ron insisted. “Ask me any question.” Harry smiled as he looked between the two.

“Alright. What are the three most crucial ingredients in a forgetfulness potion?” she asked. Ron looked at her before looking down.

“I forgot.”

“Fiona,” Hermione said as she turned to her.

“Lethe River Water, mistletoe berries, and Valerian sprigs,” Fiona recited without looking up from her Transfiguration book.

“That’s not exactly fair,” Harry mumbled. “Fiona actually likes Potion’s Class.”

“And what, may I ask, do you plan to do if this comes up in the final exam?” Hermione asked Ron.

“Copy off you!”

“No you won’t!” Hermione countered. “Besides, according to professor McGonagall, we’re to be given special quills bewitched with an anti-cheating spell.”

“That’s insulting!” Ron exclaimed. “It’s as if they don’t trust us!” Harry pretended to be shocked which made Fiona laugh. “Dumbledore again!” Ron threw down the card in his hand. Suddenly the four heard laughter coming from the students by the door. They looked up to see Neville hopping down the aisle. “Leg-locker curse?” Ron guessed.

“Malfoy,” Harry accused. Ron nodded. Neville made his way to the group.

“You have got to start standing up to people, Neville,” Ron told him.

“How? I can barely stand a’tall.” He almost lost his balance but caught himself. Seamus stood up from beside Ron.

“I know the counter curse!”

“No! That’s all I need – You to set my bloody kneecaps on fire!” Neville protested. Seamus slammed his wand down on the table.

“I don’t appreciate your insinuation, Longbottom,” Seamus said with a frown. “Besides, if anyone cares to notice, my eyebrows have completely grown back!” He pointed at them before he turned to leave revealing a bald spot on the back of his head. Hermione and Fiona tried not to smile. Harry suddenly tapped Ron on the arm urgently.

“I found him!” Harry handed the card of Dumbledore to Ron who began to read it aloud.

“-and his work on alchemy with his partner Nicholas Flamel!” Ron finished. Hermione visibly gasped and started to gather her things.

“I knew the name sounded familiar,” Harry said. “I read it on the train that day.”

“Follow me!” Hermione whispered urgently before she got up and began to leave. The boys and Fiona gathered their things and began to follow.

“Hey, wait! Where are you going?” Neville called after them. Fiona stopped and ran back to Neville, steadying him as he almost fell over.

“Sorry Neville. Vita ad motum!” She waved her wand and his legs came apart.

“Thank you!” he called after her as she ran to catch up with the others.

__________________________

Ron and Harry sat in the library at a table, while Fiona was across from them working on some homework, waiting for Hermione to come back from getting whatever book she wanted to show them. She came back with a huge book.

“I had you looking in the wrong section. How could I be so stupid?” she thumped the big book down in front of the two boys making the three jump. “I checked this out a few weeks ago for a bit of light reading.”

“This is light?” Ron asked. Hermione glared at him as she opened the book before flipping through the pages. She ran her finger down a page until she found what she was looking for.

“Of course! Here it is! ‘Nicholas Flamel is the only known maker of the Philosopher's Stone!’”

“The what?” The boys asked in unison

“Honestly, don't you two read?”

“Hermione, I doubt they’d pick up a book this big,” Fiona said motioning to the book. Hermione nodded.

“Hey,” Ron said with a frown.

“She has a point, Ron,” Harry said quietly.

“The Philosopher's Stone is a legendary substance with astonishing powers. It will turn any metal into pure gold and produces the Elixir of Life, which will make the drinker immortal.” Hermione read from the book.

“Immortal?” Ron asked.

“It means you'll never die,” she explained.

“I know what it means!” Ron exclaimed a bit too loudly.

“Shh!” Harry shushed him.

“’The only stone currently in existence belongs to Mr. Nicholas Flamel, the noted alchemist, who last year celebrated his 665th birthday!’” Hermione read. “That's what Fluffy's guarding on the 3rd floor. That's what's under the trapdoor...the Philosopher's Stone!”

“Why would it be here though? At a school?” Fiona asked.

“Dumbledore wants it safe, right?” Harry asked. “Having it here means having it close to him so he can keep an eye on it.”

“He’s not doing a very good job then if Snape’s trying to get it,” Ron said.

��

That night, Hermione, Fiona, Ron and Harry ran across the wet grounds to Hagrid’s hut. They knocked on the door and a moment later Hagrid opened it.

“Hagrid!” Harry exclaimed.

“Oh, hello,” Hagrid said. He was wearing oven mitts and an apron. “Sorry, don't wish to be rude, but I'm in no fit state to entertain today,” he apologized before going to close the door.

“We know about the Philosopher's Stone!” The four shouted in unison. Hagrid opened the door again.

“Oh.” He opened the door and motioned them inside. The four followed him in, taking off their cloaks and sitting around the hut. Hermione and Fiona sat in a giant chair while Ron and Harry sat beside Hagrid’s black boarhound Fang.

“We think Snape's trying to steal it,” Harry said.

“Snape? Blimey, Harry, you're not still on about him, are you?” Hagrid asked.

“Hagrid, we know he's after the Stone. We just don't know why.”

“Snape is one of the teachers protecting the Stone! He's not about to steal it!” Hagrid protested.

“What?”

“You heard. Right. Come on, now, I'm a bit preoccupied today,” Hagrid said.

“Wait a minute,” Harry said. “One of the teachers?” he asked.

“Of course! There are other things defending the Stone, aren't there? Spells, enchantments,” Hermione guessed.

“That's right. Waste of bloody time, if you ask me,” Hagrid said. Hermione looked at Ron, who was being sniffed in the face by Fang. Ron shuffled away. “Ain't no one gonna get past Fluffy. Hehe, not a soul knows how. Except for me and Dumbledore. I shouldn't have told you that. I shouldn't have told you that.” A cauldron over a fire began to rattle. “Oh!” Hagrid hurried over and grabbed something. “Ooh! Ooh! Ooh! Ooh!” He put the thing, an egg, on the table. The group crowded around it.

“Uh, Hagrid, what exactly is that?” Harry asked.

“That? It's a ... it’s um…”

“I know what that is! But Hagrid, how did you get one?” Ron asked.

“I won it. Off a stranger I met down at a pub. Seemed quite glad to be rid of it, as a matter of fact.” Hagrid said.

“You won this?” Fiona asked. Hagrid nodded.  The egg rattled and cracked. Pieces flew off as a baby dragon emerged. It squeaked and slipped on an egg piece. “Awe! It’s so cute!” Fiona said. Ron and Harry looked at her with wide eyes.

“Is that...a dragon?” Hermione asked.

“That's not just a dragon. That's a Norwegian Ridgeback! My brother Charlie works with these in Romania.”

“Isn't he beautiful?” Hagrid asked. “Oh. Bless him, look. He knows his mummy. Hehe. Hallo, Norbert.” The dragon squeaked as it looked at Hagrid.

“Norbert?” Harry asked.

“Yeah, well, he's got to have a name, doesn't he?” Hagrid asked. Ron chuckled.  “Don't you, Norbert?”

“I like it,” Fiona said with a nod.  Hagrid raised his fingers back and forth across Norbert’s chin.

“Dededede.” Norbert backed away, hiccupped and blew a fireball of fire into Hagrid's beard. Hagrid quickly patted the fire out.  “Ohh! Oooh, ooh, ooh, well...he'll have to be trained up a bit, of course.” Norbert hiccupped again. Hagrid saw someone looking in the window. “Who's that?” The four turned to see Draco, who scampered away when he saw he’d been seen.

“Malfoy,” Harry said.

“Oh, dear,” Hagrid said.

…

The four were walking back through a corridor.

“Hagrid always wanted a dragon,” Harry said. “He told me so the first time I met him.”

“It's crazy. And worse, Malfoy knows,” Ron said.

“I don't understand. Is that bad?” Harry asked.

“It's bad,” Ron said. They stopped as McGonagall, in her nightgown and robe, appeared.

“Good evening,” she said. Malfoy appeared smugly beside her.

She brought the group into her classroom. The four accused stood in front of McGonagall's desk, while Malfoy was feet away, smirking.

“Nothing, I repeat, nothing gives a student the right to walk about the school at night. Therefore, as punishment for your actions, 50 points will be taken.”

“50?!” Harry exclaimed.

“Each. And to ensure it doesn't happen again, all five of you will receive detention.” Malfoy nodded, then his smile vanished as he realized what she’d said. He stepped closer.

“Excuse me, Professor. Perhaps I heard you wrong. I thought you said...’the five of us,’”Draco said.

“No, you heard me correctly, Mr. Malfoy. You see, as honorable as your intentions were, you too were out of bed after hours. You will join your classmates in detention.” The four Gryffindors grinned as Draco sagged.

…

The next night for detention the five students were led to Hagrid’s hut by Filch.

“A pity they let the old punishments die. There was a time detention would find you hanging by your thumbs in the dungeons. God, I miss the screaming,” Filch said. Draco gulped. “You'll be serving detention with Hagrid tonight. He's got a little job to do inside the dark forest.” Hagrid appeared out of his hut with a crossbow. He sniffled. “A sorry lot this, Hagrid. Oh, good God, man, you're not still on about that bloody dragon, are you?” Hagrid sniffed and sighed.

“Norbert's gone. Dumbledore sent him off to Romania to live in a colony.”

“Well, that's good, isn't it? He'll be with his own kind,” Hermione said.

“Yeah, but what if he don't like Romania?” Hagrid asked. Filch rolled his eyes. “What if the other dragons are mean to him? He's only a baby, after all.”

“Oh, for God’s sake, pull yourself together, man. You're going into the forest, after all. Got to have your wits about you,” Filch said.

“The forest?” Draco asked. “I thought that was a joke! We can't go in there. Students aren't allowed. And there are...” There was a howl. “...werewolves!”

“There's more than werewolves in those trees, lad. You can be sure of that.” Draco looked frightened. “Nighty-night,” he said before leaving.

“Do you see a full moon?” Fiona asked turning to Draco who quickly masked his fear.

“Full enough,” he muttered.

“You got us into this,” Fiona hissed.

“I-…” Draco frowned and let out a sigh.

“Right. Let's go,” Hagrid said before leading the group into the forest.

…

Only a few minutes into their walk Hagrid stopped, bent down and dipped his fingers in a silver puddle. He pulled his fingers out and rubbed them together. A silver trail smeared with his fingers.

“Hagrid, what's that?” Harry asked.

“What we're here for. See that? That's unicorn's blood, that is. I found one dead a few weeks ago. Now, this one's been injured bad by something.” Harry looked around before looking at Hagrid. “So, it's our job to find the poor beast. Ron, Hermione, you'll come with me.”

“Okay,” Ron said weakly.

“And Harry and Fiona, you'll go with Malfoy.” Draco grimaced, and Harry and Fiona nodded.

“Okay. Then I get Fang!” Draco demanded.

“Fine. Just so you know, he's a bloody coward,” Hagrid said. Fang whined making the three look at him.

…

The three walked through the forest, Fang beside them and Draco holding up the lamp. Harry and Fiona held hands.

“You wait till my father hears about this. This is servant's stuff,” Draco said.

“If I didn't know better, Draco, I'd say you were scared,” Harry accused.

“Scared, Potter?!” Draco scoffed. There was a sudden howl. “Did you hear that? Come on, Fang… Scared.” He shook his head before looking at Fiona. “Are you scared?”

“Hardly,” she said but Harry could feel her hand shaking in his. He gave it a slight squeeze and she smiled at him.

“I’ll protect you,” Draco said with a smirk making both Harry and Fiona roll their eyes.

“I’ll believe that when I see it,” she mumbled making Harry snicker.

The group approached a flat ground with gnarled roots all over. Fang stopped then started to growl.

“What is it, Fang?” Harry asked. Up ahead, a cloaked figure was crouched over a dead unicorn, drinking its blood. The figure raised its head, silver blood dripping from its mouth. Harry gasped and grabbed his scar, which was hurting.

“Harry?” Fiona asked. Draco suddenly screamed and ran, Fang following. “Malfoy you git!” she screamed after his retreating figure.

“HELP!!!” he was screaming. Harry and Fiona turned back to the figure as it slid over the unicorn and rose until it was standing. It advanced towards the two, who backed up. Fiona moved in front of Harry. The two tripped backwards and crawled backwards, Harry pulling Fiona with him and putting his arms around her. She ducked her head let out a scream. Suddenly, there was the sound of hoof beats. A figure leaped over the two and landed near the cloaked figure. It was a silver centaur, Frienze. He reared, and the cloaked figure retreated, gliding away. Harry and Fiona stood, each looking each other over for injuries before facing their savior, standing close to each other and still holding onto each other’s arms.

“Harry Potter, you two must leave. You are known to many creatures here. The forest is not safe at this time. Especially for you,” The centaur warned.

“But what was that thing you saved us from?” Harry asked.

“A monstrous creature. It is a terrible crime to slay a unicorn. Drinking the blood of a unicorn will keep you alive even if you are an inch from death. But at a terrible price. You have slain something so pure that the moment the blood touches your lips, you will have a half-life. A cursed life.”

“But who would choose such a life?”

“Can you think of no one?”

“Do you mean to say...that that thing that killed the unicorn...that was drinking its blood...that was Voldemort?”

“Do you know what is hidden in the school at this very moment?” Firenze asked as he leaned down to speak quieter to them. Harry’s eyes widened.

“The Philosopher's Stone,” Harry whispered. Suddenly, Fang barked. Harry and Fiona looked up and saw Hagrid, Hermione, Ron and Draco appear a few yards away.

“Harry!” Hermione exclaimed.

“Fiona!” Ron exclaimed at the same time.

“Hello there, Firenze,” Hagrid said. “I see you've met our young Mr. Potter and Miss Gaunt. You all right there, you two?” The two nodded.

“Harry Potter, this is where I leave you. You're safe now. Good luck,” Firenze said before leaving. The two joined the others.

“What was that you said about protecting me?” Fiona asked as she glared at Draco who immediately grimaced and gave her a sheepish look.

“Come on, let’s get you five back to the castle,” Hagrid said. “It’s not right being out here,” he said before leading them back.

“Gaunt,” Draco whispered but Fiona ignored him. “Fiona, I... I-I panicked.” She continued to ignore him and saw Harry roll his eyes beside her. “You understand… you saw that thing-” Harry put an arm around Fiona’s shoulders before she did the same to him.

…

Once the group had returned to the castle the Gyrffindors went to their common room while Draco was left to return to his on his own.  The Gyrffindor group sat around the fire. Hermione sat in a chair near where Harry was standing while Ron and Fiona sat on the couch.

“You mean, You-Know-Who's out there, right now, in the forest?” Hermione asked.

“But he's weak. He's living off the unicorns. Don't you see? We had it wrong. Snape doesn't want the stone for himself, he wants the stone for Voldemort. With the Elixir of Life, Voldemort will be strong again. He'll… He'll come back,” Harry said before sitting down in the other chair.  

“But if he comes back, you don't think he'll try to kill you, do you?” Ron asked.

“I think if he'd had the chance, he might have tried to kill me tonight,” Harry said. Ron gulped.

“And to think, I've been worrying about my Potions final!”

“Hang on a minute. We're forgetting one thing. Who's the one wizard Voldemort always feared?” Hermione asked. “Dumbledore! As long as Dumbledore's around, you're safe. As long as Dumbledore's around, you can't be touched.” Harry smiled slightly. 

__________________________

(Next Chapter)

A/N: So there is no known incantation to the reversal/ counterspell of Locomotor Mortis (Leg-Locking Spell/Curse) so since Locomotor ("of or relating to locomotion”) Mortis (“death”) roughly means “death to locomotion” I figured the counterspell would be something similar so I’ve made it “vita ad motum” or “Life to the Motion”

[collecting-stories]

Two Weeks - Tommy Shelby

Request: Could you do the movie "Two Week Notice" in the Peaky Blinders universe?? where Tommy relays too much on his assistant which drives her crazy, then she quits and they search for a replacement. - @samascara 

Two Weeks - Tommy Shelby

It was five o’clock in the morning. Or at least it had been when banging on your door had woken you and possibly all your neighbours. You had dressed quickly, opened the door, and found one of Tommy Shelby's men standing in the hallway.  

“Ma’am,” he tipped his cap to you, “Mr. Shelby says it's urgent.”  

“Does he?” You were certain the sarcasm was evident in your voice. Even so you followed the Blinder out to a car that was waiting for you.  

Tommy only seemed to have great business epiphanies in the middle of the night when normal people  were asleep and you were forced to get up and go to his house to hear him talk about the latest innovation to his business. Tonight was the night, or the very early morning, that you were going to quit. You were going to tell Tommy Shelby it was nice doing business with him but he was a selfish prick that was now out a secretary.

You had told yourself plenty of times before that you were going to quit but the moment you walked through the doors to his office he would begin talking and then suddenly it was nearing nine in the morning and he was asking you to stay for breakfast. It was a rather embarrassing, especially because everyone seemed to think you were sleeping with Tommy. Which, while you certainly weren't against sleeping with Tommy you were definitely not doing that.  

"Mr. Shelby," you greeted, closing the door to his office behind you. "Before we start, may I speak?"

All of what you said next was a lie. Tommy stood there, expressionless, listening as you claimed to have found a new job and told him that this was your last night transcribing for him. "So, while I've enjoyed working for you and I will obviously use the utmost discretion in mentioning the nature of your work in the future."  

This was your last night working for Shelby Brother's Limited but you hadn't found a new job yet. You just had to get out. Tommy was driving you mad and the longer you stayed his employee the more of your sanity was lost. Anything, you reasoned, had to be better than working for someone who took this much of you for granted. He called you all hours of the day and night. He made you transfer money places that were rather unsafe and, when you voiced concern, simply handed over a gun that you were supposed to carry.  

"If you feel you must leave." Tommy commented, offering the smallest hint of a shrug. He was indifferent, how hard could it be to find a secretary willing to work for the Shelby Brothers.  

"I do." You nodded.  

"Well then, before you go, I just want to go over this recent expansion plan, could you write this down?" And then he was off, launching right back into business mode.  

You sat down at the desk, beginning to transcribe as he continued you speak. You had promised him this one last opportunity to drive you completely mad. He was happy to take it, keeping you in the office well into the day as his transcription need turned into a business meeting he needed you to be present for. By the time you left it was nearly dinner. Exhausted, you simply went home and collapsed on your bed.  

It wasn’t until 3am that you woke up again, alarmed by a loud knocking on your door. You pulled on a dressing gown and opened the door to see the same man from the night before.

"Morning ma'am, Mr. Shelby needs you."

"Tell Mr. Shelby, I know I didn’t write it down so maybe he's having trouble remembering but I've quit." You answered. You began to shut the door but the Blinder who'd been sent to collect you put his hand out, stopping you.  

"Ma'am, it's early, I don't want to upset Tommy." He said, trying to reason with you.

"I don't care. I quit, so let go of my door or I will shoot you in the hand." You commented.  

He let go of the door and you slammed it shut, being sure to lock it. You couldn’t believe Tommy's nerve, you had been perfectly clear that you were no longer working for him and yet he sent some around to get you anyway. As if your words meant nothing to him.  

In the weeks following you assumed Tommy had taken the hint. After the first three nights he stopped sending men to your door to drive you to his home. In fact neither of you saw each other at all. You heard from Lizzie that he'd hired a new woman to act as secretary. You found another job balancing books for an office. It was 9 to 5, something you appreciated, but it was boring.  

Since leaving Tommy's business you'd acquired a steady job and had even begun to see someone. He was nice, he was a copper in Small Heath, very by the book about everything. You thought he was a nice change from Tommy even though you had never dated Tommy and couldn’t technically compare the two.  

While things were looking better for you they had gotten worse for Tommy. He'd been through four separate secretaries in the weeks since you'd quit on him. Each one was worse than the one before. The first one had a tendency to run her mouth, the second kept trying to sleep with John and Esme had nearly murdered her, the third couldn’t read and therefore couldn't write either, and the fourth was always late. Tommy fired each one quicker than the last. It was getting to the point that he was stuck doing the work himself.  

"I know it's not my place but you should just talk to her, maybe she'll forgive you." Esme commented, peering into the office. Tommy was shuffling through stacks of paper looking for a letter that had come down from London.  

"If you have to start your sentence with 'it's not my place' then you shouldn’t say anything at all." Tommy commented, "and I have nothing to apologize for. She quit."  

"Because you were fucking awful to her." Esme retorted.  

"John! Getting your fucking wife out of my office!" Tommy hollered, glaring at his sister in law.

"I know where the door is." She said, making her way out of the office.

Despite being annoyed by Esme's intrusion into both his office and his personal life Tommy couldn’t help but be bothered by what she had said. His business hadn't felt the effects of your departure quite yet but he had and he was certain it was only a matter of time. He was certainly suffering from the loss of your employment. He felt as though he was doing twice the work that he typically did and he could never seem to find anything when he needed it.  

So Tommy finished work early one night and took the car into town. He knew where you lived but he had never actually visited the building himself. It looked very similar to the houses on the row but the rooms inside were divvied up into flats. You lived on the second floor, the only room on that landing. Tommy knocked, glancing around the rather unkept stairwell.  

You had just gotten in from a date and were surprised to hear the door. You thought maybe it was the man you'd been seeing. After having been shot down when you invited him up to your room you had made a quick exit. Maybe he had changed his mind and was coming up afterall.  

You opened the door only to find Tommy Shelby standing there. "Mr. Shelby."

"Tommy, please." He replied, letting himself into your flat.

"Tommy, can I ask what you're doing here?" You asked, closing the door.  

"I've been thinking, would you consider coming back if a raise in your pay was on the table?" He bargained.  

"I didn’t leave because the pay was bad."  

"May I smoke in here?" He asked, already lighting a cigarette.

"Tommy, I left because I was unhappy with the job."

He glanced over at you, looking rather confused that anyone would be unhappy with their job working for him. He considered himself a fair employer and he always took care of his own. Men left his business because they died not because they wanted to.  

"You sent people to my house all hours of the night, dragging me from bed because you wanted to talk my ear off. Or you wanted me picking up money from different areas around the city, not concerned in the slightest for my safety. I had no life outside of working for you. Yes, you paid well but my new job isn't so bad, I've even started seeing someone." You stated.

"I know." Tommy replied. He had looked into both your new employer and your new boyfriend. He was rather displeased with both of them. You new employer had a gambling problem and often skimmed off his employees pay in order to feed his habit. Your new boyfriend patrolled Small Heath but lived the next district over with a wife and child. Though he knew he could use that information against you he said nothing about it, not wanting to hurt you in the process of getting you back.

"Tommy, I appreciate you stopping by but I think it's better you left."

"None of the other secretaries I've hired have worked out. They're terrible honestly. Every single one so far as been awful. I'm not a begging man but I'm willing to if it means you'll come back to work."  

You wanted to tell him you'd think about it. You forgot how much, despite being driven crazy, you enjoyed just being in the same room as him. But you knew that Tommy was just saying these things to get you back. He would go right back to his old behaviour. "I can't."

"Alright...and this doesn’t leave this room...I need you. Please, reconsider."  

"I'm sorry, what was that?" You almost laughed. "That was hardly begging."

"Honestly."  

"I can't Tommy, you're good at talking but you won't change anything." You replied.

"It will, you can set your hours and I won't make you run money anymore. But I need you, you're crucial to the business." He answered. You were a rather crucial part of his life as well but he would keep that to himself.

You hated the job you had now and spending time with Tommy on your terms seemed rather tempting. "I'll give you my terms and conditions on Monday. If you don't follow them then I'll leave again and you'll be stuck with whoever you can get."  

"Very well." He paused, flicking his finished cigarette into the fireplace. "Now, since you're already dressed, would you be interested in accompanying me to dinner?"

"What?"

"I'm asking you out to dinner." Tommy repeated, lighting another cigarette.

"I just got in from a date."

"Which, judging by the state of you, could have ended better." He replied.  

He walked out of your room, you following behind him. "What's that even supposed to mean? It was a lovely evening!" You felt the need to defend a date you weren't even that invested in.  

"I'm sure it was I just mean," Tommy stopped in the stairwell and turned to look at you, "I wouldn’t have left you at home by yourself when you're looking like that."  

"Oh really?" You rolled your eyes, assuming immediately that he was just trying to get a rise out of you.

"First, the evening will end at my house. And, if any form of goodwill or luck is on my side, you'll be out of that dress." He answered.  

He walked the rest of the way down the stairs and made it all the way to the front door before stopping again. You were still stood on the stairwell, rather shocked by his admission.  

"Are you coming?" Tommy asked, glancing back at you.  

Tommy Shelby was going to take you out to dinner and then, possibly, take you home with him. "Yes!" You hurried down the stairs the rest of the way, following Tommy out into the night.

Tommy Shelby: telling women he’s going to have sex with them since 1919. 

tagged: @weirdnewbie @clairyfaiiry @ducks-are-kwl @photograiphy-00 @crowleyismybabycakes @ifoundmyhappythought @baygabb @smashablepieces @diborbi 

[labourpress]

The Tories offer pensioners nothing but insecurity – Debbie Abrahams

Labour is today (Tuesday 23 May) challenging the Tories to come clean on their plans for older people, after they caused confusion with their failed attempt to ‘clarify’ their social care policy.

Labour is calling on Theresa May to guarantee pensioners won’t be hit with further cuts to universal benefits or further hits to their incomes.

The challenge comes as Labour warns that, having broken their promise on social care already and announced plans to means test Winter Fuel Payments, hitting up to ten million pensioners, the Tories could next come for other benefits, including free bus passes and TV licences.

Debbie Abrahams, Labour’s Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary, said:

“The Tories have plunged pensioners into insecurity. Their manifesto promised to take away winter fuel allowances; it ditched the security of the triple lock; and proposed making people pay for essential care with their homes.

“Yesterday, they attempted to back away from their plans, but only raised more questions about what they were going to do instead. They could offer no reassurance to worried pensioners.

“Given the gaping hole in the Tory plans, and the dumping of their existing promises, the risk is now that the Tories could have other nasty surprises for pensioners up their sleeves. There’s a real possibility that other hard earned benefits like bus passes and free TV licenses could be next.”

“The promises in the Tory manifesto are clearly no longer worth the paper they’re written on. So we are today calling for Theresa May to come clean, set out what exactly she’s planning and rule out definitively further attacks on pensioners’ living standards.

“You can’t trust the Tories to protect pensioners. They offer only insecurity.”

ENDS

Background:

“Nothing has changed” – the Tories promise insecurity for pensioners

 ·         We have a crisis in social care under the Tories:

o   The Tories have starved the system of money, taking £4.6 billion out of social care between 2010 and 2015.

o   The number of people receiving state funded social care fell by over a quarter under the Tories.

o   This year care firms have ended contracts with 95 councils, warning they are unable to deliver services on the amount they are being paid[i].

o   There are now 1.2 million older people (1 in 8) with unmet care needs in England.

o   There is a currently a funding gap of £600 million for 2017/18, which will rise to £2.1bn by 2019/20.[ii]

 ·         To help address the Tory social care crisis, Labour has promised to invest £8bn into social care in the next parliament, including an immediate £1bn.

 “Our first urgent task will be to address the immediate funding crisis. We will increase the social care budgets by a further £8 billion over the lifetime of the next Parliament, including an additional £1 billion for the first year.”

The Labour Party Manifesto 2017

 ·         The Tories haven not promised to match this funding. Instead they came forward with a plan which originally said that they would cap care costs and would help pay for it by means testing Winter Fuel Payments.

 “So we will means test Winter Fuel Payments, focusing assistance on the least well-off pensioners, who are most at risk of fuel poverty. The money released will be transferred directly to health and social care, helping to provide dignity and care to the most vulnerable pensioners and reassurance to their families.”

The Conservative Party Manifesto 2017

 “we will introduce a single capital floor, set at £100,000, more than four times the current means test threshold. This will ensure that, no matter how large the cost of care turns out to be, people will always retain at least £100,000 of their savings and assets, including value in the family home.”

The Conservative Party Manifesto 2017

 ·         They explicitly rejected the policy of having a cap as proposed by Andrew Dilnot.

 Jeremy Hunt:     At the moment if you end up going into a care home, you could get down to £23,000 and now we’re quadrupling that amount. And what is the alternative? I think this is the important thing because I know you had Sir Andrew Dilnot on earlier. If you have that cap that was his proposal…

Nick Robinson:  Excuse me, it was your proposal in your last manifesto. You promised to implement it; you passed a law to implement it. You then said let’s delay it a few years. So let’s not slop it off to Sir Andrew Dilnot, this was a Tory manifesto promise.

JH:                          Yes, and we couldn’t be being clearer.          

NR:                        You’re dropping it.

JH:                          Yes, and not only are we dropping it but we are dropping it ahead of a general election and we’re being completely explicit in our manifesto that we’re dropping it. We’re dropping it because we’ve looked again at this proposal and we don’t think it’s fair.

BBC Radio Four: Today, 18 May 2017

 ·         Despite a chorus of disapproval in response to their plans, Theresa May herself defended the policy just this weekend.

 “You have a situation where two widows are living side by side in homes of the same value. One of them [has] saved up all their life and has over £23,000 in savings, now finds that they need care in a home and has to pay for that because they are above the current threshold. Then there is [the widow] next door who has perhaps lived the good life and doesn't have those savings and gets in for free. And I think we are equalising home and residential calculations and setting the threshold four times higher at £100,000.

'We are being fair to those who have saved over time.”

Theresa May, The Times, 20 May 2017

 ·         Now they’ve changed their minds, but they can’t provide detail about what their plan will mean. And they have announced no extra money for social care.

 ·         This is not just a chaotic change of direction, it’s a repeat of a broken promise. In their 2015 Manifesto, the Tories promised to introduce a cap on charges.

 “We will cap charges for residential social care from April 2016 and also allow deferred

payment agreements, so no one has to sell their home.”

Conservative Party Manifesto 2015, Page 65

 ·         Only weeks after the 2015 general election, they broke their promise and announced that the cap on charges for residential social care would be delayed until 2020.

 “we have taken the difficult decision to delay the introduction of the cap on care costs system until April 2020.”

Written Statement: Care Costs, Lord Prior of Brampton, 17 July 2015

 The Tories have broken their promise before, how can they be trusted not to do so again?

 What will the Tories do to fill the gap?

 The Tory reversal leaves a substantial black hole in the Tory manifesto. To date there is no detail on how the cap will operate, at what level it will be set, who it will apply to and, crucially, how the Tories will deal with the funding gap in social care which must be filled to give the system the stability it needs.

 ·         The Tories also have a £2bn black hole in their plans caused by their reversal on NICs earlier this year.

 ·         After the U-turn on NICs Hammond said that he would address the £2bn black hole in the forthcoming Autumn Budget which would be ‘broadly fiscally neutral’. The £2bn would come from either higher taxes or more cuts elsewhere.

 As a result of the decision I have announced today, the spring Budget is no longer broadly fiscally neutral, but I am committed to addressing that issue in the autumn. The intention remains to balance the measures that we are delivering between spending and taxation.

Philip Hammond, 15 March 2017

https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/2017-03-15/debates/8C87BBE6-1F11-44F8-A01E-1D99ECBD0ACA/Class4NationalInsuranceContributions?highlight=broadly%20fiscally%20neutral#contribution-A24CFA97-B0EC-4B6D-8C7F-DC88B51F6250

 ·         Today’s U-turn, and Hammond’s commitment to a ‘broadly fiscally neutral’ Autumn Budget, means we can expect either post-election tax rises or further cuts to vital public services under a Tory government.

 ·         The Tories already pose a threat to pensioners with their plans to cut Winter Fuel Payments for up to 10 million pensioners.

 o   Scrap the Triple Lock on state pensions after 2020.

o   Cut Winter Fuel Payments for up to 10 million pensioners.

o   Raise the State Pension age for up to 34 million workers.

 ·         That threat could now get even greater, as the Tories may look to means-test other pensioner benefits such as free bus passes and free TV licences.

 ·         The Tory Manifesto‘s wording only commits Theresa May to maintaining the existence of current benefits throughout the duration of the parliament.

 “We will maintain all other pensioner benefits, including free bus passes, eye tests, prescriptions and TV licences, for the duration of this parliament.”

Conservative Party Manifesto, 2017

 ·         This potentially leaves the door open to the introduction of new means-testing and plans to phase out, reduce, or end benefits after that parliament.

 ·         More than 4 million over 75s receive a free TV licences and 9 million pensioners receive a free bus pass in England alone.

 ·         Theresa May has refused to rule out cutting other universal pensioner benefits. Just two days before the publication of the Conservative Manifesto, Theresa May refused to give a straight answer when asked to commit to keeping free bus passes.

 Robert Peston:     Thomas is concerned you might take away bus passes from pensioners and the disabled?

Theresa May:      Well, again, there may be a number of questions that will come in which are issues that will be addressed when we publish our manifesto later this week. I’d rather wait until we publish that package in the manifesto for people to see what we’re going to do.

ITV News Facebook Live, 15 May 2017

 Other senior Tories have in the past opposed universal pensioner benefits

 ·         The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions Damian Green has described free bus passes as a “bribe” saying they “take the prize for sheer all-encompassing pointlessness”.

 “Many Chancellors have indulged in pre-election bribes, some effective, some ineffective and some straightforwardly cynical, but to offer free off-peak bus passes for pensioners takes the prize for sheer all-encompassing pointlessness in the large areas of the country where there will be no one to receive the bribe that the Chancellor is trying to give them.”

Damian Green, House of Commons debate, Hansard, 22 March 2005, Column 810

https://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200405/cmhansrd/vo050322/debtext/50322-27.htm

 ·         Senior Ministers Sajid Javid, Matthew Hancock and Liz Truss have supported the Free Enterprise Group which has previously called for free bus passes and free TV licences to be means-tested.

 “Pensioners with incomes of more than £50,000 should lose their free TV licences, bus passes and winter fuel allowances to help cut the deficit, senior Tory MPs have said […] The Free Enterprise Group numbers 39 Conservative MPs among its supporters, including the Treasury minister Sajid Javid, the skills minister Matthew Hancock, and the childcare minister Elizabeth Truss”

Telegraph, 22 November 2012, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/9694503/Wealthy-pensioners-should-lose-free-bus-pass-MPs-suggest.html

 ·         Former Culture Secretary John Whittingdale has previously spoken of the case for means-testing TV licences.

 “I can see a case for means-testing on the same grounds of why should a rich retired person get a winter fuel payment, so why should they get a free TV licence? […]“But these are matters for the BBC to consider. They could get rid of the free TV licence altogether if they chose to do so but they could not do it until 2020.”

John Whittingdale, reported in The Times, ‘Free TV licences could be means tested for over 75s’, 21 May 2017

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/free-tv-licences-could-be-means-tested-for-over-75s-8ktzgbn9t

[accountantseo]

The High Cost of Thinking Your Local Search Visibility Is Free

The name’s a shameless rip-off of Wil Reynolds’s excellent presentation on “The High Cost of Free Traffic.”  One reason I’ve got no shame is that that describes the situation perfectly: Although technically your business’s visibility in Google Maps and the rest of local search is free, you run into trouble once you start treating it as you would other “free” stuff.

Business owners and their marketers often mess up and overlook enough things even when they pay $20 a click (as in AdWords) for their traffic.  Their strategies get even more ragged when they don’t have to pay for visibility in the local search results, and are confident they won’t need to any time soon.

“Free” gives you a sense of relief.  You don’t think much about how you use your water if all you have to do is dip your cup in the creek.  That’s fine as long as it’s not winter or there’s a cattle drive upstream.

What’s the “high cost” of free traffic (the one I named this post after)?  It’s not one specific high price you pay, but rather a long list of missed-opportunity costs.  They’re problems you’ll face, time you’ll waste, or wins you won’t seize.

They’re what happens when you assume “free” rankings and traffic are permanent, or unlimited, or guaranteed, or something you’re entitled to, or always easy to get more of, or always what you need more of.

Cost 1: Trying to farm out all parts of your local SEO strategy.

(Or, even worse, trying to farm out all of your marketing.)

Some parts of local SEO require a decision-maker’s personal involvement.  Doing what it takes to earn good links and reviews are two examples of that.  Though third parties can help to one degree or another, they can’t do it well and without any of your involvement.  “Your one-stop, turnkey solution” is a marketing ploy.  The sooner you realize that, the sooner you’ll get visible in the local search results, and have it actually result in more business, and have it last.

Cost 2: Seeing if you can “just get your site to rank” without putting in any real effort.

If your primitive strategy of microsites / keyword-stuffing / cheap links / lousy “city” pages doesn’t work you’ve wasted time and are back to the drawing board.  Even if you’re fortunate enough to have your bare-minimum effort bring you good rankings, you’ll be one non-pushover competitor or one Google test or update away from Search Engine Siberia.

Especially when it’s early in your local SEO effort, either you need to specialize and carve out a niche, or put in a little work to differentiate yourself, or do both.

Cost 3: Only worrying about the “easy SEO wins” at first.

Isn’t it great if you can meet your goals with a minimum of effort?  Sure.  Shouldn’t you try to do that?  Yeah, probably.  But what if your quick no-brainers yield no results?  Then it’s a question of when you start putting in the hard work, and how long it takes to pay off.  Fixing up your title tags, wiggling a few keywords into the cracks, and cleaning up your local listings will only get you so far.

How long should you wait to see if your quick wins did the trick?  2 months?  6 months?  A year?  Damned if I know.  I say you start digging the well before you’re thirsty.  Start on the ongoing activities while you’re still working on the one-time stuff.

Cost 4: Using a site/CMS that makes changes difficult or slow to make.

Your Squarespace or Wix or Joomla or GoDaddy site is probably fine to keep if you can structure it correctly, create a homepage that doesn’t suck, make it more or less conducive to conversions, and do other basics.  It doesn’t need to be perfect.  It’s better to get a rough site out there early, and improve it later.  The problem is what happens if you can’t improve it later.  Because you consider your local search traffic “free,” you don’t feel it’s urgent to get a site you can work with.  You’ll let it molder until traffic dries up or something really breaks, or both.

Cost 5: Hiring hacky writers.

If you had to pay $20 for each click, would you send visitors to pages that don’t make it clear what you do, or pages that make it apparent you’re “too busy” to put any effort into your site yourself, or pages that make you look like you can’t string two sentences together?  No?  Well, doing that with “free” traffic is even worse.  At least if you pay $20 (or much more) for a click, you might eventually learn that more traffic often isn’t the answer.

With bad writing you have the online-marketing equivalent of BO.

Cost 6: Waiting too long to get serious about getting reviews.

You probably “just want to rank” first.  Once you have more customers, you’ll start encouraging reviews.  That’s backwards.  Good rankings without good reviews tend not to bring in much business.  On the other hand, good reviews will help you as soon as you start getting them, no matter how visible you are.  Go after them early.

Cost 7: Not replying to customers’ reviews, even when you don’t “have to.”

You probably don’t let negative reviews go unaddressed.  That’s usually wise.

What about the positive reviews?  Think of how hard you’ve worked to get however much visibility you’ve got, and to do a good enough job for customers that they wrote you those nice reviews.  Don’t you want that visibility and traffic to convert as many customers as possible, so you continue the upward spiral?  Sometimes replying to a positive review – even if only to say thanks – is a way to do that.  It shows you give a hoot, and that you still care about customers after they’ve paid you and reviewed you.

Cost 8: Assuming all your visitors saw your best reviews before visiting your site.

Given all the info Google shows IN the search results these days – especially when people search for your business by name – it’s smart to think of Google’s results as your second homepage.  To wow customers there with all your reviews is crucial, and you need to do it.  Those review sites sure are prominent.

But what if those people go even farther, and get to your site?  Those people are even deeper into your “conversion funnel,” and are this close to taking an action you want.  Don’t hold back now.   Even if they saw your “review stars” in the search results, they probably didn’t see reviews from specific customers.  If you had to pay for each click, you’d make sure your best reviews were front-and-center.  That’s smart even if you don’t pay for each click.

Splatter or sprinkle your reviews across your site.

Cost 9: Waiting too long to start earning links.

Yes, the one-time work on your site and on your listings is important.  You may see a bump from doing only that.  But sooner or later you’ll hit a plateau.  At that point you can’t just “optimize” your site more, or crank out more citations, and expect to get unstuck.  And don’t think an SEO person has some fancy maneuver for your site that will do it.  You’ll go round and round on tweaking or overhauling your site, to no effect.  7 SEO “experts” and many dollars later, you’ll realize you missed a big piece of the puzzle.  You could have spent a fraction of that time on effort on trying to earn good links, and you could have seen results sooner.  Slow process?  Sure, but not as slow as the alternatives.

Here are some relatively easy link ideas, just to get the juices flowing.

Cost 10: Fixating on ranking across your entire service area.

You want to rank in 25 more towns.  That’s a fine goal.  So you must be pretty visible in your town already, right?  If not, start there and branch out only when you’ve had some success.  Now, it may or not be possible to rank in all (or half) of the places you want to reach.  It depends on many factors, including whether you’re trying to rank in the local organic results (doable) or in the Maps results (less realistic).  I’m not even saying you should trim back your goals.  I’m saying only that you should do what it takes to build up a little visibility in the place where it’s most likely you can do so, before you try to go farther afield.

Cost 11: Creating lots of awful “city pages.”

If you won’t take the time to do them right, at least don’t spend too much time on doing them wrong.  Make 5 worthless pages rather than 50 worthless pages.  That way, you can return that much sooner to whatever you were doing that was so much more important than putting a little thought into your city pages, so that they might rank and convert.

Cost 12: Never using AdWords to learn about would-be customers or to sniff out markets.

Too many business owners think, “Why on earth should I pay for traffic when I can get it for free?”  Well, for one thing, because it’s the only practical way to sniff out people’s level of interest in specific services in specific cities/areas where you don’t rank.

Google Analytics only tells you about the traffic you already get, and nothing about the traffic you might be able to get.  Set up a quick-n’-dirty AdWords campaign, keep it on a short budgetary leash, let it run for a couple weeks, and mine the stuffing out of the “Dimensions” tab.  I know of no better way to research keywords, to get a sense of how well traffic converts for those keywords, and to find out exactly which cities/towns those searchers search from.

If you think of pay-per-click as a way to buy data (and not necessarily to get customers, at least at first) you probably couldn’t get anywhere else, you can put new vim and vigor into your local SEO effort.

Cost 13: Assuming that because your local visibility is “free” it’s also unlimited.

That may be the costliest cost of all, for many reasons.

You can always lose visibility.

You won’t have a monopoly while you have it.

Just because you got some visibility easily doesn’t mean you can get more with similar ease.

You don’t know who will become your competitor next.

Google likes to test just about all aspects of the search results.

Google likes to change policies in all areas of search.

Google likes to stuff the free search results with paid search results.

You don’t even own your local listings.  The only online thing you own is your site, and everything else is rented land.

It’s for those reasons and many others that you do not want to grow complacent.

Why do the signs at parks and nature reserves tell you not to feed the animals?

Because if you feed them and other people feed them, they’ll get conditioned to freebies, and not be as able to hunt and forage.  (Also, the tripe most people eat isn’t necessarily good for a growing critter.)

If you’re an animal, it’s fine to catch as catch can, but you probably want to be able to feed yourself if the hands with free food ever go away.  The same is true of business owners.  Don’t be a Central Park pigeon.

—

What’s a missed-opportunity cost I missed?

Any cautionary tales?

Leave a comment!

via WhiteSpark-LocalViz-LeadWorks-Syndicated http://ift.tt/2AeKp6z

[ber39james]

How to Best Prioritize Your Work Tasks

When the first task lands on your desk, you think: “No problem, I can handle it.” The second and third requests cause a little self-doubt. Soon, you don’t even know how many projects you have on your to-do list.

Does this scenario sound familiar? How can you cope when the projects pile up and the time is short? Learn today how to prioritize your work assignments efficiently and keep your cool.

In a typical day, hundreds of responsibilities vie for your attention. However, not all work tasks are equally significant. You need to prioritize them, ASAP. Priorities take precedence because they are the worthiest pursuits among many competing tasks. To give priorities the special attention they deserve, you must first decide what they are. Finishing a project is a goal. Priorities are more all-encompassing than a single undertaking; they are life values that influence your actions and decisions as you strive toward them.

For example, if your priority is punctuality, you will avoid distractions and finish projects on time in pursuit of that value. Before you read on, ask yourself: “What is my true priority for my career?”

How to Decide What You Should Do First

Steven Pressfield, author of The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks & Win Your Inner Creative Battles explains the principle of priority: “(A) You must know the difference between what is urgent and what is important, and (B) you must do what’s important first. Urgent tasks appear on your task list to address a pressing issue or because they require immediate attention or response. For example, imagine a group of IT technicians have a list of five tasks on their agenda for the day—install current anti-virus software on all the computers, find a funny tech meme for the lunchroom bulletin board contest, set up an account for a new employee starting today, order a replacement part for a broken computer, and stop by the office of someone who requested support. To be most efficient, they should first determine whether each item is urgent or important.

You might think that all the tasks are urgent and important.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who used the priority principle throughout his military and political career, challenged this belief, “What is important is seldom urgent, and what is urgent is seldom important.” The main difference is that important tasks support our long-term purpose, values, and objectives.

Urgent tasks are extremely time-sensitive, but they may not do anything to help us accomplish our goals. For example, the lunchroom contest poster urges the IT team to “Enter before Friday at noon!” but whether they do or not won’t affect their professional mission. They should eliminate the chore or begin it only when they have done everything else on their to-do list. What urgent tasks can you postpone or scratch off your daily schedule?

Let’s return to the IT team’s other four tasks. If their overall purpose is to keep the office network up and running, they will mark the new employee account and the support request as “important.” The affected employees won’t be able to continue their work which, in turn, could slow down the whole operation. The technicians need to order the part and update the software as soon as possible, but these assignments are of a lower priority than the new account and support request.

You might be looking at your agenda thinking, “I have too many important tasks!” In Stephen Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, you will find a matrix to help you sort your crucial duties. First, tackle tasks that are important and urgent. Next, prioritize tasks that are important, but not urgent. After you completed everything important, you can work on some of the urgent but non-essential concerns.

How to Reduce Your Volume of Tasks

Is it possible to limit the urgency of an important task? Absolutely, you can lessen the pressure of a deadline if you plan intelligently. Often, you receive notice of deadlines weeks or months in advance. Don’t wait until the last minute to start working. Chunk your task into its components and schedule them in a logical order.

Things break unexpectedly, but sometimes you can prevent important fixes from becoming urgent by scheduling regular maintenance. For instance, if our imaginary IT team performed weekly checks and educated employees about fixing minor repairs, support requests and broken computers would be less frequent. Can you arrange your schedule to accommodate planning and maintenance?

You have the potential to be extremely efficient. Reading this article proves that you have an interest. The next step is putting its advice into practice.

Decide what your priorities are, and allow them to influence how you act. Focus on important tasks, and put urgent ones in their place. Your stress will decrease in proportion to the pile of work on your desk. And who knows, you might even finish ahead of deadline!

The post How to Best Prioritize Your Work Tasks appeared first on Grammarly Blog.

from Grammarly Blog https://www.grammarly.com/blog/how-to-prioritize-work-tasks/

[jenesiswithajay]

I know, I know… its already the second week of February and now I’m telling you my January favorites. Hi everyone! Now that January is over, I can finally share products that I have been loving for the past few weeks. Some of the items were purchased in London, and will forever be cherished back home in Jersey. I totally wasn’t going for any particular color scheme when I made a list on my iPhone for this post, but I am very pleased with the aesthetics. The mint green aligns perfectly with the gold accents and marble background  (which, by the way, is my work desk that I sit at every day to do homework, send out resumes, and write blogs!).

Before I delve into my favorites, I would like to let all my readers know that I will be posting blogs posts about my views on current events, journal entries, and opinionated editorials on my personal blog which I am currently working on revamping. I decided to separate these types of posts because I do not want to alienate any readers with content they didn’t follow my blog for. So, if you’re still interested, you can keep tabs by staying up to date on any future posts. I will be unveiling my personal blog February 24!!

These items are my January favorites!!

The first item, pictured above, is an EOS cucumber scented hand creme that I carry with me everywhere. The winter wreaks havoc on my hands, especially when I wash them with harsh soap or hand sanitizer. This product has a delightful scent and is compact, making it the perfect addition to any handbag.

The second item is a face mask that I purchased on Oxford Street in London. I heard great things about Origins skincare products so I decided to give it a try. It was pricey for a face mask of this size – around $30- so I try to use it sparingly. Whenever my skin acts crazy I use this mask. It tightens pretty quickly, and the first few times it tingled a little. I am always weary of skincare products that tingle because it can only mean two things: It’s working ORRRR you’re having an allergic reaction. There has never been an in-between for me. However, this tingle turned out to be positive because I have noticed clearer skin for two to three days after each use. I apply it after my nightly cleansing one to two times a week for best results. As great as it is, though, I do believe that anyone interested in this product can definitely find a comparable face mask that achieves the same results with a more reasonable price or a larger container with more product.

The next item on my favorites list is a set of rings that I purchased from Aldo during the same shopping trip on Oxford Street :) I do not know what possessed me to purchase the rings that I could have easily bought back at home, but the rings were a little bit toooooo pretty to leave without. I was worried that I wouldn’t find them in stores anywhere else so I just took it home with me that day. NO RAGRETS… not even a letter. I coated them in clear nail polish to prevent them from tarnishing. I wear the one on the far left almost daily.

click on images to magnify

The bottom right picture above is a pair of gold-plated zipper headphones that were given to me by my aunt and uncle. Unfortunately, I forgot to get a better picture of it, because I have a habit of hiding my headphones so I won’t lose it lol. But, extra headphones always come in handy. This pair always stays at home in my desk, only to be used for my most urgent Netflix binges.

My super cute marble watch, also purchased from ALDO. It was first featured on my blog in my previous post which you can read here, if you have not already. I go in to more detail in that post, but basically, it is a favorite of mine because it is minimal and I have been wearing it a lot this past month.

These face + body wipes are really soothing, cleansing, and cheap! I bought it at TJ Maxx where they always have the best deals on the cutest furniture, clothing, and accessories. I keep this pack in my bag when I go to school just in case I need it for spills or borinnnnng lectures that make my skin oily. It’s not made specifically for removing makeup, however, if you use this with coconut oil it works like a charm. It will even remove any excess oil without leaving your skin dry and cracked. Of course, you should still wash and moisturize your face afterward. Wipes don’t substitute cleansing (unless you’re lazy, but I’m not judging).

This shizz is awesome, I highly recommend. It has really transformed the texture of my skin. It’s from Lush, as you can probably tell from the packaging. It’s cruelty-free and totally free of nasty chemicals and toxins which I love :) This dries out my skin so I only use it right before I moisturize. What follows is clear skin!! (Up until I walk out of my house and into the fumes that are NEW JERSEY)

This book by Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook, was assigned for a course I am currently taking about women in leadership positions. I am about half way through, and so far it has been really insightful. She writes from experience, which is nice, but she also sites all of her information which is crucial for scholars reading this book. I feel confident in her writing because she refers to actual facts, and evidence. This isn’t just any olself-helplp book… it’s the real deal. Highly reccommend :)

And my last favorite is this mesh pink bomber I purchased from Forever 21 back in December when I was supposed to be Christmas shopping. It makes any outfit look put together almost instantly. Perfect for those who are too lazy to get up and actually come up with an outfit on their own. Sometimes, I just wanna wake up and head out without having to think so much. Here’s a bathroom selfie :)

  Wore this on my second day back in class 

  Thank you for reading my favorites for January, please tell me if you have tried any of these items or if you have your own favorites that you’d like to recommend!!

Bye!

Jenesis

    January Favorites: Beauty+Fashion I know, I know... its already the second week of February and now I'm telling you my January favorites.