#credit to anna sophia for a lot of this! credit

[rotzaprachim]

I absolutely love the autistic Nicky headcannon! It’s such a good interpretation and I hope there ends up being some good fics about it. Personally, I’d like to see “inexperienced with romance but still a competent badass” autistic Nicky fics. It really represents the disasters like me who can still be competent as hell while still being utterly hopeless in the romance department

this is such a lovely comment thank you! i have a few ideas but tbh... it’s sort of like i’ve suddenly gotten more AH HA clarity to the way i’ve viewed and written him, but I’ve always viewed/written him that way, even if i couldn’t quite put my finger on it? but yes actually i would like. this exact fic. done well. because i too am Competent as hell at like, certain specific things (by which i mean competitive speed debating about complex topics i started to learn a week ago but NOT spelling words or easily being able to tell left and right apart) but have two different and completely opposite bizarre bending romance situations! it’s a vibe. 

anyway under the cut for being slightly nsfw but

my friend and i were joking around with that headcanon that after all the years of seminary + the military Nicolo was in fact very sexually experienced by the time of his first death, because it’s sdafsdfdsf hilarious. but anyway we love an odd couple/romantic dramedy situation, and absolutely picturing some situation where Nicolo and Yusuf had extremely good sex shortly after they stopped killing each other and afterwards Nicolo was like ah ok now gonna go wash off and then go fall asleep over there with my own bedroll six feet apart this is gonna be another one of those Friends With Benefts/Brothers in Christ Situations and then Yusuf “Most Romantic Man Alive” Al Kaysani was like where are you going... all the way over there... obviously we were going to cuddle and fall asleep spooning and then watch the sun rise tommorrow morning... make breakfast and kiss each other softly on the forhead.... and Nicolo was like ???? ok so THAT is the part i am not Comprehending 

[thehouseofthedead]

Russia and Ability Users

Please note, I am not actually Russian so anything written here has come from my experience living there and from research. If you have things you want to add or discuss I am absolutely open to it :). 

Please also note: Much of this was developed with the aid of @glasses-dog and @straylcved​ so they take just as much credit for the notes below :) 

- Evidence of Ability Users manifesting in Russia dates back to pre-revolutionary times, but there was little record of who exactly these users were and what they could do. Much of their abilities were put down to witchcraft and treated with either respect or fear depending upon the region. Much of the writings have been lost or deliberately destroyed. 

- However it is speculated that Peter I, Boris Gadunov and Ivan the Terrible may both have been ability users. But there is no absolute concrete proof. 

- The first recorded ability users appeared during the reign of Tsar Nicholas II, as measures were taken to register abilities and put a watch on those with particularly dangerous capabilities. Tsar Nicholas hoped to utilise these people in warfare in order to increase Russia’s damaged prowess, but he and his family were slaughtered before this could come to fruition by the revolutionaries. 

- Multiple ability users flocked to the Bolshevik cause, partly by the influence of Lenin himself (It is thought he may have been an ability user of some kind, but it either never fully manifested or was too subtle given the busy circumstances around them to have been noticed). They were registered, but not treated unfairly. Lenin considered abilities to be an embodiment of revolutionary spirit and thus beneficial to the socialist revolution in Russia. 

- However. The Soviet Union was not kind to Ability Users when leadership changed to Stalin and from then onwards. There was interest in researching deeper into abilities and how they manifested, as well as a growing desire to cultivate stronger ability users than those in the United States. The NKVD were tasked with tracking down ability users to bring them in for research. Facilities at Moscow and St Petersberg State Universities were founded in order to conduct this research. 

- Conditions were dreadful, and experiments continued throughout and after the fall of the Soviet Union. But despite the inhumane treatment, a lot of results into abilities were produced. It is thought that Russia is one of the forerunners in ability knowledge, so much so that they have begun progress into artificial abilities and creation/removal of these powers. Russia was also the first nation to produce papers detailing how abilities can be inherited and passed between siblings. 

- This has not come without considerable backlash. Multiple protests lead by activists and university students protesting the cruel treatment of ability users have sparked actual terrorist raids on the facilities. Moscow State University’s facility has been raided twice, resulting in multiple ability users escaping. Following this the FSB introduced a state registry of ability users known to them. 

- As such. The status for ability users in Russia is considered extremely unsafe. Whilst general public may be accepting, the risk of being captured for experimentation is high. Many parents of ability users often abandon their children or attempt to keep the child’s abilities suppressed where possible to avoid detection. A notable sign in many ability users lives is moving constantly so as to avoid detection. 

KNOWN  ABILITY USERS AND THEIR CURRENT WHEREABOUTS

Fyodor Dostoevsky -  CRIME AND PUNISHMENT - Registered - Formerly interned at the Moscow Facility - Escaped and whereabouts now unknown - was seen as affiliated with Terror Raids by activist groups. - Level: EXTREMELY DANGEROUS

Lev Tolstoy - WAR AND PEACE -  Unregistered - Known as ability originally registered in elder siblings before being inherited. - Family interned at the Moscow Facility, all now deceased. - Pursued but has evaded capture. Whereabouts unknown - Level: DANGEROUS

Sergei Lukyanenko -  THE NIGHT WATCH - Unregistered - Escaped capture after reports from family about ability manifestation. - Pursued but has evaded capture, whereabouts unknown. - Level: DANGEROUS @straylcved

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn - ONE DAY - Registered - Under watch whilst at university, however was imprisoned for murder in Siberia where watch was increased. - Plans made to intern at St Petersberg facility, however he has disappeared. - Level: POTENTIAL THREAT

Izabella Akhmadulina - THE CANDLE - Registered - Under watch whilst at university due to ties with Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn - watch increased following his felony however trail was lost. - Level: POTENTIAL THREAT @afirethatneverburnstoembers

Anna Akhmatova - REQUIEM - Registered - Interned from infancy in Moscow facility - Successful modification of ability recorded. - Recaptured after first raid - Missing since Second Raid - Whereabouts unknown. - Level: EXTREMELY DANGEROUS

Marina Tsvetaeva - THESEAFARER - Unregistered - Difficult to trace due to poverty and has evaded capture. Whereabouts unknown, speculated she may have spent time overseas. - Level: POTENTIAL THREAT @afirethatneverburnstoembers

Sophia Parnok - I AM NEITHER FLESH - Registered - Known to have associated with activist Vladimir Mayakovsky and under tight watch. - Known Terrorist and likely to be working with overseas forces - Level: EXTREMELY��DANGEROUS @afirethatneverburnstoembers

Dmitri Glukovsky - THE DARK ONES - Unregistered - Ability reported by the army however he escaped capture. Likely fled underground. - All attempts at capture have resulted in multiple mass deaths. - Has been missing several months. - Level: EXTREMELY DANGEROUS

Vladimir Mayakovsky - TO HIS BELOVED SELF - Registered - Known activist and likely to have been involved in instigating terror attacks on facilities.-  Difficult to capture due to ability causing sickness. - Missing for several months since raids. - Level: EXTREMELY DANGEROUS

Yevgeny Zamyatin - WE - Registered - Interned in St Petersberg Facility for 4 years. - Escaped. Method unknown but likely using his ability due to slip up by staff. - Missing since escape and has evaded recapture. - Level: EXTREMELY DANGEROUS

Mikhail Lermontov - THE DEATH OF THE POET - Registered - Interned in St Petersberg Facility for 8 years. - Known to associate with Aleksandr Pushkin. - Failure to harness ability’s potential. - Escaped, method unknown. - Level: POTENTIAL THREAT

Ivan Goncharov - THE PRECIPICE - Registered - Interned in Moscow Facility for over ten years. - Known to associate with Nikolai Karamzin - Successful manipulation of ability at cost of mental health - Escaped during raid and whereabouts unknown - Level: DANGEROUS

Aleksandr Pushkin - FEAST IN A TIME OF PLAGUE - Registered - Interned in St Petersberg Facility for 8 Years - Known to associate with Mikhail Lermontov - Virus ability strengthened under testing - Escaped, method unknown - Level: DANGEROUS

Mikhail Bulgakov - MANUSCRIPTS DON’T BURN - Registered - Employee at Moscow Facility to care for dangerous ability users - Known to have looked after Anna Akhmatova - Speculated involvement in raids on facility and Akhmatova’s escape. - Whereabouts now unknown - Level: DANGEROUS

Nikolai Karamzin - SOLOVEY  - Registered - Interned in Moscow Facility for over ten years - Successful manipulation of emotions and ability usage - Known to associate with Ivan Goncharov - Damaged and taken during first raid - has evaded recapture and whereabouts unknown - Level: DANGEROUS @glasses-dog

Maxim Gorky - SONG OF THE STORMY PETREL - Registered - Interned in Moscow facility for several years until used as agent - Ability strengthened through testing - Escaped. Known to have been involved in raids on facilities. - Speculated he may be in contact with unregistered ability users - Level: EXTREMELY DANGEROUS @glasses-dog

Vladimir Nabokov - LOLITA - Unregistered - unknown other than from reports to authorities - speculated may have gone overseas but nothing certain. - watch ordered but difficult to trace - Level: UNKNOWN @straylcved

[spaceexp]

Sequencing the Station: Investigation Aims to Identify Unknown Microbes in Space

ISS - International Space Station logo. April 25, 2017 Building on the ability to sequence DNA in space and previous investigations, Genes in Space-3 is a collaboration to prepare, sequence and identify unknown organisms, entirely from space. When NASA astronaut Kate Rubins sequenced DNA aboard the International Space Station in 2016, it was a game changer. That first-ever sequencing of DNA in space was part of the Biomolecule Sequencer investigation. Although it’s not as exciting as a science fiction movie may depict, the walls and surfaces of the space station do experience microbial growth from time to time. Currently, the only way to identify contaminants is to take a sample and send it back to Earth.

Image above: NASA astronaut Kate Rubins poses for a picture with the minION device during the first sample initialization run of the Biomolecular Sequencer investigation. Image Credit: NASA. “We have had contamination in parts of the station where fungi was seen growing or biomaterial has been pulled out of a clogged waterline, but we have no idea what it is until the sample gets back down to the lab,” said Sarah Wallace, NASA microbiologist and the project’s principal investigator at the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. “On the ISS, we can regularly resupply disinfectants, but as we move beyond low-Earth orbit where the ability for resupply is less frequent, knowing what to disinfect or not becomes very important,” said Wallace. Developed in partnership by NASA’s Johnson Space Center and Boeing, this ISS National Lab sponsored investigation will marry two pieces of existing spaceflight technology, miniPCR and the MinION, to change that process, allowing for the first unknown biological samples to be prepared, sequenced and then identified in space.

Image above: NASA astronaut Kate Rubins not only became the first person to sequence DNA in space, but the sequenced more than a billion bases during her time aboard the space station. Image Credit: NASA. The miniPCR (polymerase chain reaction) device was first used aboard the station during the Genes in Space-1, and, soon to be Genes in Space-2 investigations, student-designed experiments in the Genes in Space program. Genes in Space-1 successfully demonstrated the device could be used in microgravity to amplify DNA, a process used to create thousands of copies of specific sections of DNA. The second investigation arrived at the space station on April 22, and will be tested this summer. Next came the Biomolecule Sequencer investigation, which successfully tested the MinION’s ability to sequence strands of Earth-prepared DNA in an orbiting laboratory. “What the coupling of these different devices is doing is allowing us to take the lab to the samples, instead of us having to bring the samples to the lab,” said Aaron Burton, NASA biochemist and Genes in Space-3 co-investigator. Crew members will collect a sample from within the space station to be cultured aboard the orbiting laboratory. The sample will then be prepared for sequencing, in a process similar to the one used during the Genes in Space-1 investigation, using the miniPCR and finally, sequenced and identified using the MinION device.

Image above: Student Anna-Sophia Boguraev, winner of the Genes in Space competition, is pictured with the miniPCR device. The miniPCR will be used with the minION to prepare, sequence and identify a microorganism from start to finish aboard the space station. Image Credit: NASA. “The ISS is very clean,” said Sarah Stahl, microbiologist and project scientist. “We find a lot of human-associated microorganisms - a lot of common bacteria such as Staphylococcus and Bacillus and different types of familiar fungi like Aspergillus and Penicillium.” In addition to identifying microbes in space, this technology could be used to diagnose crew member wounds or illnesses in real time, help identify DNA-based life on other planets and help with other investigations aboard the station. “The Genes in Space-3 process will increase the scientific capacity of the ISS by facilitating state-of-the-art molecular biology research for both current and next generation ISS researchers,” said Kristen John, NASA aerospace engineer and Genes in Space-3 project engineer. “The team has put a strong focus on generating a spaceflight-certified catalog of general laboratory items and reagents, and developing common methods and easily customizable reaction conditions for miniPCR and the MinION to enable other ISS researchers to use this technology.”

Cosmic Carpool: DNA To Go

This process will give scientists on the ground real-time access to the experiments going on in space, allowing for more accuracy and a more efficient use of the time on the space station. “If you could get a snapshot of the molecular signatures of your research as it was occurring on the ISS, how would you change your experiment?” said Wallace. “Would you change your time points? Provide a different nutrient? Alter growth conditions? You can imagine how, if you had that data, you could adjust your experiment to enhance the insight being gained.” Closer to home, this process can be used to provide real-time diagnosis of viruses in areas of the world where access to a laboratory may not be possible. The ISS National Laboratory is managed by the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS). For more information about research happening aboard the space station, follow https://twitter.com/ISS_Research. Related links: Biomolecule Sequencer: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/2181.html miniPCR: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/1913.html Genes in Space-1: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/1913.html Genes in Space-2: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/2437.html Genes in Space-3: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/2461.html Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS): http://www.iss-casis.org/ Space Station Research and Technology: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/index.html International Space Station (ISS): https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/main/index.html Images (mentioned), Video, Text, Credits: NASA/Kristine Rainey/JSC/Jenny Howard. Best regards, Orbiter.ch Full article

[biofunmy]

Piero Tosi, Who Outfitted Stars of Italian Films, Dies at 92

Piero Tosi, a costume designer whose careful research and intuitive eye were prized by leading Italian directors like Vittorio De Sica, Mauro Bolognini and especially Luchino Visconti, died on Saturday in Rome. He was 92.

The Franco Zeffirelli Foundation announced his death on Facebook. Mr. Zeffirelli, who died in June, and Mr. Tosi had been friends since their student days in Florence, Italy.

Mr. Tosi dressed some of the biggest stars of the day — Sophia Loren, Maria Callas, Claudia Cardinale, Marcello Mastroianni, Burt Lancaster. He was nominated for the costume design Oscar five times — for the Visconti films “The Leopard” (1963), “Death in Venice” (1971) and “Ludwig” (1973); for Édouard Molinaro’s “La Cage Aux Folles” (1979), sharing the nomination with Ambra Danon; and for Mr. Zeffirelli’s “La Traviata” (1982).

Although he never won that prize, in 2013 he did receive an Honorary Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Board of Governors, the first costume designer to do so. The citation called him “a visionary whose incomparable costume designs shaped timeless, living art in motion pictures.”

Mr. Tosi was born on April 10, 1927, in Florence. He attended the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence, where he studied under the painter Ottone Rosai.

In a 2013 interview with Port magazine, Mr. Tosi described how his friendship with Mr. Zeffirelli led to his entree into the film business. He was in Florence in the late 1940s, he said, when Mr. Visconti turned up there to direct a stage production of “Troilus and Cressida.” Mr. Zeffirelli made the introductions, and he was offered a job as third assistant to Maria De Matteis, the production’s costume designer.

“Of course I was so pleased and accepted straight away,” he told Port. “This is how my career started, really. I was later asked by Visconti to work as a costume designer on his next movie, ‘Bellissima.’”

“I was only in my early 20s,” he added, “but I was very courageous, strong and passionate.”

That film, released in 1951, starred Anna Magnani as a mother trying to get her young daughter into the movie business. Mr. Tosi is said to have taken an unusual approach to his first assignment as costume designer, asking strangers on the street for their clothes.

Deborah Nadoolman Landis, a costume designer and historian and founding director of the David C. Copley Center for the Study of Costume Design at the University of California, Los Angeles, recalled a story Mr. Tosi once told her about sitting at a train station in Milan, taking photographs of women as they got off trains, searching for the right look for Ms. Magnani’s character. One woman’s coat struck him; he approached her and offered to buy it. The startled woman balked until he explained that the coat would be for a film role for Ms. Magnani, one of Italy’s biggest stars.

“And she looked at him,” Dr. Landis said in a telephone interview, “and she took off her coat and said, ‘For Anna Magnani, you can have my coat.’”

Mr. Tosi would frequently be involved in hairstyles and makeup, unusual for a costume designer. Why? “Because the face is fundamental,” he explained in a 2006 interview with the journal Framework. “You know, you do a lot on the costumes, but then the whole scene is focused on the face.”

As for the clothes, he said, achieving the proper look involved melding cloth, actor and character.

“I gradually shape the costume on the actor,” he said. “I work on the actor, step by step. After that, one has to find the nature of the character. In the end the costume is not just clothing any more, but it becomes the skin of the character.”

This symbiosis, not simply designing and making clothes, was what interested him, as he acknowledged after his work on Mr. Visconti’s “The Damned” (1969), a film set in the 1930s, brought him a lot of attention.

“When ‘The Damned’ came out, a film which was successful in America, I was asked by a fashion company to design a clothes line inspired by the 1930s, but I could not accept that,” he said. “I could never design modern clothes for an anonymous person, something you shape on a mannequin.”

Mr. Tosi was a believer in costume authenticity “right down to the undergarments,” as a 2009 article in The New York Times put it, since foundation garments affect how people move and carry themselves. He often worked on period films that required him to resurrect underwear of yore.

“Just as dress was becoming looser and less formal, women were abandoning their girdles, and some would soon be burning their bras, in the Italian film world the whalebone corset was brought back with a vengeance,” the Times article said.

Yet, Dr. Landis noted, Mr. Tosi wasn’t a slave to historical re-creation. She recalled a story from his work on “The Leopard,” a film set in the 1860s. An aide had researched cavalry uniforms of the period, determining that they were a particular blue, but Mr. Tosi didn’t like the shade. The aide raised the authenticity issue. “And Tosi said, ‘Well, we’re just going to make it a much better blue,’” Dr. Landis recounted.

His contributions to a movie could be subtle; for a key nighttime scene in “Rocco and His Brothers,” a 1960 Visconti film, he put the actor Alain Delon in a dark sweater with a white V at the neck, to help make him visible. Or they could be eye-popping. For “The Leopard” he designed 300 19th-century gowns for a ball scene — one that was filmed in Sicily’s August heat. “Everything was melting under my eyes,” he told The Hollywood Reporter in 2013.

Mr. Tosi racked up most of his costume design credits from the 1950s through the ’80s, but he continued to work on films into the last decade. All told, he served as costume designer on more than 65 movies, and would surely have worked on more but for his aversion to travel. When Ms. Cardinale accepted his honorary Oscar for him at the 2013 Governors Awards in Hollywood, she told the crowd that he had never been to the United States.

In 2003 Mr. Tosi received the Costume Designers Guild’s inaugural President’s Award. His work has been the subject of several exhibitions, including one last year at the Palazzo delle Esposizioni, as part of the Rome Film Festival.

Information on his survivors was not immediately available.

Dr. Landis said that while many people conjure period dramas when they think of a costume designer’s contributions to filmmaking, the anecdote about Mr. Tosi and the train passenger’s coat showed a more important side, one involving meticulousness and insight.

“Here’s Tosi,” she said, “sitting on a bench in a Milan train station, waiting, waiting, waiting for that Anna Magnani to come off the train.”

Sahred From Source link Arts

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[clusterassets]

New world news from Time: Rescuers Search For Those Still Missing in Deadly Wildfires in Greece

(MATI, Greece) — Rescue crews were searching Wednesday through charred homes and cars for those still missing after the deadliest wildfires to hit Greece in decades decimated seaside areas near Athens, killing at least 79 people and sending thousands fleeing.

There was no official indication as to how many people might be missing, and some took to social media and Greek television stations with appeals for information on their loved ones.

Fire service spokeswoman Stavroula Malliri said the death toll had increased by five to 79.

More than 280 firefighters were still in the area to the northeast of Athens in the wider Rafina area, dousing the remaining flames to prevent flare-ups. A further 200 firefighters backed up by a water-dropping helicopter were tackling the second forest fire west of the capital, near Agioi Theodori, where local authorities pre-emptively evacuated three nearby communities overnight, according to the fire department.

Flags across Greece were flying at half-staff after the prime minister declared three days of national mourning for the victims.

The two fires on either side of the Greek capital started Monday within hours of each other, and were fanned by gale-force winds that hampered firefighting efforts.

Read more: Photos Show Scale of Devastation From Deadly Athens Wildfires

The speed with which the fire northeast of Athens spread took many by surprise, and is believed to have contributed to the high death toll.

“We couldn’t see any fire. The fire came suddenly. There was so much wind, we didn’t realize how it happened,” said Anna Kiriazova, 56, who survived with her husband by shutting themselves in their house instead of trying to flee through the flames.

Kiriazova said they doused their house in the Mati area near Rafina with water from a garden hose, and credited the fact that their window frames were metal instead of wood for their home being spared.

“We shut ourselves in the house, we closed the shutters, we had towels over our faces,” she told The Associated Press. “The inferno lasted about an hour. I have no words to describe what we lived through.”

Her 65-year-old husband, Theodoros Christopoulos, said the couple decided to take shelter in their home because the narrow roads outside were jammed with cars.

“There was a great panic because the whole street was blocked by cars,” Christopoulos said. “Shouting, hysteria, they could see the fire was coming with the wind. It already smelled a lot, the sky was black overhead and in no time at all the fire was here.”

Hundreds of others abandoned cars and fled to nearby beaches, from where they were evacuated hours later by coast guard and private boats. Dozens swam out to sea despite rough weather to escape the intense heat and choking smoke blanketing the area.

With the number of missing unclear, authorities appealed for people to call them if they were searching for loved ones. Some people also turned to Greek television and radio stations, asking for information from the public for relatives they hadn’t heard from since the blaze.

The story of one man desperately searching for his children highlights the plight of many families looking for relatives.

Yiannis Philipopoulos appeared on television early Wednesday appealing for help to locate his missing twin daughters, who he said he had spotted on television footage arriving in the port of Rafina in a fishing boat during the evacuation of people from beaches overnight Monday to Tuesday.

Yiannis Philipopoulos said he and his wife recognized 9-year-old Sophia and Vasiliki in the news footage after spending a fruitless day searching hospitals and giving DNA samples at the Athens morgue. He had contacted police, who were helping search for the girls.

Philipopoulos said the girls had been with his parents, of whom there was no sight in the footage. Speaking on television stations Skai and Alpha, he said the images gave him hope his children were alive, and urged anyone with information to contact him.

The footage showed two girls among other people, many clad just in swimsuits, disembarking from the fishing boat. Philipopoulos said he went with police to the TV station and saw the footage in higher resolution, and was sure the children were his daughters. But he had not heard from them since the fire.

The captain of the fishing boat said authorities had recorded the names of rescued people as they disembarked. The names of the two girls, however, appeared not to be among them.

July 25, 2018 at 01:19PM ClusterAssets Inc., https://ClusterAssets.wordpress.com

[investmart007]

MATI, Greece | Rescue crews search for missing in Greek wildfires; 79 dead

New Post has been published on https://is.gd/BPQLot

MATI, Greece | Rescue crews search for missing in Greek wildfires; 79 dead

MATI, Greece — Rescue crews were searching Wednesday through charred homes and cars for those still missing after the deadliest wildfires to hit Greece in decades decimated seaside areas near Athens, killing at least 79 people and sending thousands fleeing.

There was no official indication as to how many people might be missing, and some took to social media and Greek television stations with appeals for information on their loved ones.

Fire service spokeswoman Stavroula Malliri said the death toll had increased by five to 79.

More than 280 firefighters were still in the area to the northeast of Athens in the wider Rafina area, dousing the remaining flames to prevent flare-ups. A further 200 firefighters backed up by a water-dropping helicopter were tackling the second forest fire west of the capital, near Agioi Theodori, where local authorities pre-emptively evacuated three nearby communities overnight, according to the fire department.

Flags across Greece were flying at half-staff after the prime minister declared three days of national mourning for the victims.

The two fires on either side of the Greek capital started Monday within hours of each other, and were fanned by gale-force winds that hampered firefighting efforts.

The speed with which the fire northeast of Athens spread took many by surprise, and is believed to have contributed to the high death toll.

“We couldn’t see any fire. The fire came suddenly. There was so much wind, we didn’t realize how it happened,” said Anna Kiriazova, 56, who survived with her husband by shutting themselves in their house instead of trying to flee through the flames.

Kiriazova said they doused their house in the Mati area near Rafina with water from a garden hose, and credited the fact that their window frames were metal instead of wood for their home being spared.

“We shut ourselves in the house, we closed the shutters, we had towels over our faces,” she told The Associated Press. “The inferno lasted about an hour. I have no words to describe what we lived through.”

Her 65-year-old husband, Theodoros Christopoulos, said the couple decided to take shelter in their home because the narrow roads outside were jammed with cars.

“There was a great panic because the whole street was blocked by cars,” Christopoulos said. “Shouting, hysteria, they could see the fire was coming with the wind. It already smelled a lot, the sky was black overhead and in no time at all the fire was here.”

Hundreds of others abandoned cars and fled to nearby beaches, from where they were evacuated hours later by coast guard and private boats. Dozens swam out to sea despite rough weather to escape the intense heat and choking smoke blanketing the area.

With the number of missing unclear, authorities appealed for people to call them if they were searching for loved ones. Some people also turned to Greek television and radio stations, asking for information from the public for relatives they hadn’t heard from since the blaze.

The story of one man desperately searching for his children highlights the plight of many families looking for relatives.

Yiannis Philipopoulos appeared on television early Wednesday appealing for help to locate his missing twin daughters, who he said he had spotted on television footage arriving in the port of Rafina in a fishing boat during the evacuation of people from beaches overnight Monday to Tuesday.

Yiannis Philipopoulos said he and his wife recognized 9-year-old Sophia and Vasiliki in the news footage after spending a fruitless day searching hospitals and giving DNA samples at the Athens morgue. He had contacted police, who were helping search for the girls.

Philipopoulos said the girls had been with his parents, of whom there was no sight in the footage. Speaking on television stations Skai and Alpha, he said the images gave him hope his children were alive, and urged anyone with information to contact him.

The footage showed two girls among other people, many clad just in swimsuits, disembarking from the fishing boat. Philipopoulos said he went with police to the TV station and saw the footage in higher resolution, and was sure the children were his daughters. But he had not heard from them since the fire.

The captain of the fishing boat said authorities had recorded the names of rescued people as they disembarked. The names of the two girls, however, appeared not to be among them.

___

Becatoros reported from Athens. Menelaos Hadjicostis contributed to this report.

By COSTAS KANTOURIS and ELENA BECATOROS,  Associated Press

[anujtikku1974]

I booked into a hotel in Kiev that was not too fancy costing Rs 2500 for one night. As I arrived at the hotel, I asked for my luggage to be taken upstairs. The hostess at the reception politely declined and said this is a three-star property, sir. You have to take it up yourself. I coolly walked into my room which was small but cosy. Kiev gave me the first glimpse of an Eastern European country with tardy roads, garbage on the street and graffiti on the walls. The women here are beautiful but the men are very serious looking more like army soldiers. I booked a package tour from a local agency on my third day in the city. An eight-day package tour around the city of Kiev and Lviv cost me 800 Euros with hotel and airport transfer along with an entire day tour of Chernobyl.

My guide for the tour around Kiev was Anna, a beautiful girl who was my hostess through the maze of the city. Our first stop was the Red University near Taras Shevchenko Park. I took out my GoPro and let Anna be the companion for the day. It was through her eyes that I would take the journey around the city.

Red University near Taras Shevchenko Park

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Anna spoke fluent English and thus, was a great anchor for my Travelthon. She kept talking and I followed with my GoPro behind her. This was going to be one great partnership. With the rain, the weather was almost freezing. St. Vladimir’s Cathedral, Opera House and Golden Gate was our next stops.

St. Vladimir’s Cathedral

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We walked a lot during the day and took short breaks of coffee and sausage buns. “You know Anna, I would love to see an Opera in Ukraine. It would be fun. I have never seen an opera.” Anna smiled “Well, let me see if we can arrange one for you on the weekend”.

Opera House

Golden Gate

The Sofia Cathedral was very beautiful and the old Renaissance architecture stood out from rest of the old buildings. Fresca paintings of saints and Christ on the ceiling and the walls of the cathedral gave it that spiritual look as people burned candles to say a prayer to the Lord.

Sofia Cathedral

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I lit a candle to pray for my father’s soul as I usually do in all the spiritual places around the world. I was now getting the true flavour of this ancient yet delightful Eastern European country and I knew there was a lot more waiting for me to see and discover. At night, I settled down for a meal of Minestrone soup, beef and potatoes again. Sour cream is something heavily used in meals in this part of the world. I bid goodbye to Anna for the day and retired to bed dreaming about the fresco paintings of the Sophia Cathedral and the golden domes that adorned the churches of the city.

Anna and the Kiev Merry Go Round I booked into a hotel in Kiev that was not too fancy costing Rs 2500 for one night.

[londontheatre]

Stephen Boxer and Natalie Simpson in The Cardinal – Credit Mitzi de Margary

I’m pleased I wasn’t the only one in the audience that hadn’t had much if any, previous interaction with the works of James Shirley (1596-1666). As I never tire of saying when it comes to rarely performed works, there must be a reason why a play like this doesn’t have more productions. At least this one had its early life curtailed by country-wide politics as opposed to the show itself being panned. The Cardinal has gone down in history as one of the last ‘extant’ plays (some others presumably having been lost) to have been written and performed prior to the English Civil War of 1642 to 1651. At the start of this war, all theatres in England were closed down by order of Parliament.

Shirley’s relatively straightforward – less flowery and more direct – script makes it far more accessible to audiences then and now than something like Shakespeare’s plays. Not much is lost in terms of emotional impact, quite the opposite in this case – how pleasing to note that even in the reign of Charles I, less sometimes meant more. Naturally, not every element makes sense for someone seeing this show for the first time in 2017, and I suspect this was a play written for discerning audiences who understood the socio-political climate of the day. Some of the lines proved educational for me – I wasn’t aware of tarantism, for instance, before it was mentioned in this play.

Perhaps the original script does not call for it anyway, but it was surprising how little staging there was. There’s nothing aside from a raised platform and, in one scene, some sheets and pillows to denote a bedroom. Thus in this tale in which the dramatis personae included miscellaneous people of importance, there’s a King (Ashley Cook) supposedly without a throne, and a Cardinal (Stephen Boxer) supposedly without a prayer stall.

The sound design (Max Pappenheim) was quite extraordinary, making a small performance space seem much bigger than it really is, with voices echoing as they would in the King’s palace or the Cardinal’s church, but without them being unpleasantly ear-piercing. With the audience sat on three sides, the cast move about very well, ensuring that there is no significant disadvantage wherever someone’s vantage point of proceedings is.

In the title role, Boxer’s Cardinal is performed as one of those characters that one loves to hate, and in so doing became quite likeable for me, from the outside looking in. Unlike his nephew, Columbo (Jay Saighal), who takes an ‘I don’t care who you are, I shall speak my mind regardless’ approach, he has a calculating darkness, and would probably be an excellent ‘spin doctor’ for a political party today. It was certainly the most believable performance of the lot. Of the supporting roles, Natalie Simpson’s Duchess Rosaura takes on the full gamut of human emotion – she has to, given the rapid turn of events in Act Three. Valeria (Sophia Carr-Gomm) and Celinda (Rosie Wyatt) provide humorous asides and observations.

That this play from 1641 gives women such pivotal roles in the narrative goes down well in the twenty-first century. Granted, such characters would, at the time, have been played by male actors – one punchline, “I know not whether she be man or woman” (Act Four, Scene Two, line 93) doesn’t have any resonance at all in this particular production, what with men playing men and women playing women.

But, as with older plays, the audience is directly addressed a lot of the time and kept abreast of characters’ thoughts and feelings. Yes, it adheres strictly to dramatic conventions in tragedies that stretch back as far as Aristotle, so few marks for originality, but it doesn’t stop this being an absorbing and entertaining production.

Review by Chris Omaweng

The state of Navarre is in crisis. An unscrupulous Cardinal has the ear of the King and is hungry for power. The Duchess Rosaura longs to marry the Count D’Alvarez, but the Cardinal wants her for his brutish nephew. To tighten his grip on the Kingdom, the ruthless Cardinal will stop at nothing to secure the marriage. But in the Duchess it seems he has finally met his match…

Hailed as James Shirley’s tragic masterpiece, The Cardinal (1641) was one of the last plays staged in England before Oliver Cromwell’s ban on theatre. With remarkably lucid and fast-paced dialogue, it is the captivating story of a religious monster and his relentless pursuit of power.

Starring Stephen Boxer (King Lear, National Theatre) and Natalie Simpson (King Lear, Hamlet and Cymbeline, Royal Shakespeare Company), directed by Justin Audibert (Snow in Midsummer and The Jew of Malta, Royal Shakespeare Company) and produced by Troupe (After October, Flowering Cherry and The White Carnation, Finborough Theatre).

Creative Team Director – Justin Audibert Designer – Anna Reid Lighting Designer – Peter Harrison Sound Designer – Max Pappenheim Fight Direction – Bret Yount Movement Direction – Natasha Harrison

Cast Stephen Boxer, Sophia Carr-Gomm, Phil Cheadle, Ashley Cook, Marcus Griffiths, Patrick Osborne, Jay Saighal, Natalie Simpson, Timothy Speyer, Paul Westwood, Rosie Wyatt.

Troupe presents The Cardinal by James Shirley 26TH APRIL – 27TH MAY 2017

Venue: Southwark Playhouse 77-85 Newington Causeway London SE1 6BD

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