#meanwhile NOW the uk price IS the same as the US price so it's more like £25 vs £80

[vivalasthedas]

not entirely accurate, but does kinda illustrate the issue doesn't it?

But also paranormal pack is more like the 'ghost hunter from Ambitions that we have at home' than it is the supernatural packs careers.

🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️

[mistydeyes]

So we had soap cousin how about ghost cousin x tf boys Hcs? She’s older than Simon and the two are super close. She would’ve been a barrier between him and his dad growing up. I can picture him being the least pissed at Price, meanwhile he’d be raging at Gaz and Soap. Soap would call her a milf and Simon has to be held back like a rabid dog

I’d love to see your take on this 🥰

ahhh I love this idea so much! thank you for reading my post about soap's cousin and requesting this :)

last name: riley

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summary: Despite Ghost trying to keep his family history secret, he can't avoid it when you, his older cousin, is transferred to his base. Now he has to keep his team in check as they want to get to know you more ;)

pairing: Task Force 141 (except Ghost) x fem!Reader

warnings: swearing, mentions of emotional abuse/trauma

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following the briefing, Gaz and Soap exited and invited Ghost to join them at the mess hall

however before Ghost could leave, Price stopped him at the door

"Can you stay back, Simon?" Price asked and everyone immediately knew something was up

especially when first names were used

being the nosy sergeants that they are, Soap and Gaz waited by the door and tried to listen in

after 10 minutes, Ghost emerged and looked surprisingly calm

"What was that about?" Soap asked as he tried to keep up with Ghost

"My cousin is getting transferred to one of the unit's on base" he said plainly and he was bombarded with questions

both Gaz and Soap were amazed that he had a cousin, especially one who he didn't seem to hate

eventually, Ghost slams his bedroom door on him and they're both left wondering what you're like

"God I hate the English weather," you complained as you arrived by helo to your new home

after months abroad, your captain decided to reassign you to the UK

you were initially upset but when you learned your cousin was also stationed there, your mood changed

"Is that little Simon Riley I see?" you exclaimed, seeing your cousin standing a few meters away

you slung your duffle on your back and ran towards him

despite being a good half foot taller than you, you hugged him tightly

"It's good to see you, Si," you said as you couldn't remember the last time you saw him

he returned it awkwardly as you took a look at his attire

"Still wearing that awful mask I see," you joked, lightly punching him on the shoulder

as you were chatting on the way to your quarters, you could see a man around your age leading two sergeants behind him

despite the captain's stern look, the two sergeants walked up to you and bombarded you with questions

"Sorry ma'am, they heard you were the Lieutenant's cousin and were trying to sneak out to meet you" he apologized and you laughed heartily

"What a welcome committee!" you smiled before looking back at them, "I'm Captain Riley."

as you introduced yourself and got to know Simon's team, they noted how you and Ghost shared different hair colors but the same piercing gaze

they also noted how you looked like you should be on the army's website with your light hair and hazel eyes as well as your fit physique

you also were much kinder than their Ghost and your smile brightened the drab hallway

"Riley?" one of them asked and you nodded, "our dads were brothers."

queue more questions about Simon's family history

while he tried to silence them, you were more than happy to answer a few of their questions

"Our dads were absolute arseholes, he sent me to live with Simon and I'd get into screaming matches with his old man," you explained

Simon remembered the times you were sent to Manchester and how you were the only one who could keep up with his father's insults and emotional abuse

despite being 5 years younger than you, he would follow you around and act like your best friend

you were surprised when you saw him after he joined the army and he was pure muscle (no longer the small boy who you would sneak out to get sweets with)

"His dad made basic seem like holiday" you joked, trying to lighten the mood

you answered a few more questions about you previous post before you began to yawn due to the jet lag

"Well it was a pleasure to meet you, Captain Riley," Price said shaking your hand

"Glad to see Simon is doing well here," you beamed, "now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to find my quarters"

As you walked away you could hear Gaz and Soap chatting with Simon. "You didn't tell us your cousin's a bonnie lass," Soap exclaimed, a little too loud for Simon's comfort, "she got a mans in Manchester?" You smiled at the compliment, making sure to walk extra slow to hear it all. While both sergeants were undeniably attractive, plenty of men had acted the same way to you during the course of your career. Before Simon could reply, you could hear Gaz interject. "How old is she?" he asked innocently. "Too old for either one of you," Price interrupted, "and she's a captain so that's far above your ranks." Out of Simon's task force, you assumed you were the closest in age to Price. You tried to do the mental math being 5 years older than Simon but decided it wasn't worth it as Simon would never let any of them speak to you again. As Gaz and Soap groaned lightly, you thought the conversation was over. However, Soap had one last thing to say. "That's a proper milf if I've ever seen one," he mumbled before you could hear Simon let out a string of insults and swears. You smiled to yourself, "guess Si finally learned how to stand up for himself."

[fromtenthousandfeet]

All Cash and No Credit

Let's talk about HYBE's strategy for Jimin's MUSE. It's pretty simple

Maximize Profit - Minimize Success

Let's break down how they're doing it.

Goal #1 is to get as many customers as possible to buy from Weverse instead of regular retailers like chains (Target, Walmart, Barnes & Noble) and online sellers like Amazon. When fans buy on Weverse, a HYBE subsidiary, the company keeps not only the wholesale portion of the album sale, but the retail portion as well. This is obvious, right? If not, I'm happy to explain. The company likely makes twice the profit (give or take) on albums purchased via Weverse. AND, they can control when those albums are shipped, and how, when, or if the sales are reported to the music charting agencies.

The fact that Target pre-sales of MUSE is sold out within hours is suspect. This indicates limited stock, just like the strategy used for Like Crazy CD singles. Meanwhile, Geffen is very slow to release the pre-sale links for other retailers. The Walmart presale just went up. Where are B&N and Amazon? Will they have limited inventory, too?

Putting Jimin's Production Diary on Weverse only was a conscious choice. The cost of the documentary was expensive - more than the monthly fee for streaming services, the company kept all the profit (didn't have to share the costs with Netflix or Disney+), and limited his exposure to the general public. I suspect they will operate the same way with MUSE.

Goal #2 Keep Jimin as low as possible on the charts. We've seen this over and over. First, by splitting Like Crazy versions and disappearing sales, no CD restocks. Then we saw the same behavior from BH/HYBE again with Closer Than This being released on the worst possible day of the year and almost zero promotion. You know the details.

HYBE will limit stock. They will likely not report all sales.

MUSE physical albums will not be eligible for UK charts because of a random inclusion. The previous four solo album releases have had specific UK versions with no inclusions. UK fans will have to rely on digital sales for charting purposes unless BH provides a new version. Dirty.

Goal #3 Promote the album just enough to garner sales from fans while minimizing advertising to the greater public. The announcement of the new album is also strange. The teaser video was only on Instagram and only on the BigHit/BTS channel (this didn't stop anyone, though, as far as I can tell) as well as Weverse (I'm getting tired of that platform). TikTok is a far more effective advertising tool when it comes to targeting young people. Why wasn't the teaser posted to TikTok? Either way, "Jimin Jimin" was trending on X/Twitter with over 1.7 million mentions many hours after the announcement of the new album. There's only so much BH can do to suppress Jimin now that fans have taken marketing him into their own hands.

Let's keep an eye on this.

What's different this time around? This time the fandom knows who is behind thwarting Jimin's success. Precious time was lost during the FACE era when everyone was blaming Jimin's sabotage on Billboard and Spotify, rather than the rightful villain - HYBE/Big Hit. This time the fandom knows to watch their every move and call them out on their shady and unequal treatment. That said, tagging Geffen, Big Hit, and HYBE on X is pretty much useless. They have shown they won't change their behavior when fans complain. Instead, fans must start tagging Billboard, Spotify, and media outlets. Media outlets are the most important. HYBE does not care about the fandom, but they do care about their public image, especially after all the damage that's been done to the company and the stock price due to the ADOR controversy and court case.

I think Jimin is going to a different label for his solo work. That's my hunch. The company is going to squeeze as much profit out of him as possible before he goes, but it's a balancing act because they don't want him to outshine Jungkook. Of course, I could be completely wrong.

[thatstormygeek]

Legitimizing the right’s vile anti-immigrant views by trying to co-opt their positions enables the far-right vilification of refugees, asylum seekers, and immigrants. Failing to present a strong alternative to the right’s violent vision of deportations and destabilization ushers in their perspective as the dominant narrative. And that dehumanizing viewpoint has consequences. We’re seeing it in the UK, and we’re seeing it in America. Fascism has risen and has been legitimized in the eyes of far, far too many people. And the process I’m describing here has been instrumental to that far-right ascendence. This is not limited to the way the right, and center, speak and think and act on immigration. Take homelessness. One month ago the Supreme Court legalized the criminalization of homelessness in their Grants Pass ruling. California’s Governor, Democrat Gavin Newsom, has already signed an executive order using the ruling to enable mass homeless sweeps across the state. San Francisco mayor London Breed says that she plans to launch a “very aggressive” crackdown on homeless encampments in the city this month. “The problem is not going to be solved by building more housing,” she added as she made her announcement, “Thank goodness for the Supreme Court decision.” Here is the problem distilled down to its essence. What would solve the homelessness crisis? Housing, of course. Both a reduction in the cost of housing and simply providing housing for those in need. It’s both the ethical and the cost-effective solution, rather than paying for expensive sweeps accompanied by police, which then happen again and again because the people displaced from homeless encampments don’t, of course, have anywhere to go. So they set up another encampment. And now, in the wake of this Supreme Court ruling, we’re likely to see more legal fees and the sky-high cost of jailing and imprisoning people who cannot pay those fees, and so on and so forth. But instead of solutions we’re seeing the systemic criminalization of, and attack on, homeless people in the United States. This approach would not be possible without rhetoric and logic that supports treating struggling human beings as failures, as less than, as disposable. That logic currently proliferates on the right, but it is also widespread in the center, where far too many people would rather have homeless people removed from their line of sight than have the underlying problem of people living without housing removed from the world. This sort of thinking, this idea that humans can and should be disposed of, enables the fascist movement. It’s the same line of thinking that underpins white supremacy, misogyny, transphobia and supremecist thinking of all forms.

So the profit motive in the housing market can’t be blamed; the person who got fired or had a health emergency must be to blame for losing their housing. The center has ceded all of this to the right, if it was ever contested, and so homeless people are “swept,” meaning violently moved around as their belongings are repeatedly destroyed. Meanwhile, two numbers go up and up: the number of homeless people and the profits of rental companies and developers. Similarly, migrants are to blame for seeking a better life, according to the right and center. The destabilization of their home countries must be ignored, the neoliberal economics that devastate job markets and wreck the ecosystems of entire countries can’t be questioned. International economic policy in this late capitalist period must be taken for granted, and even ignored, because the decisions that individual people make to migrate in search of a better life might start to make sense within context. So here we are, with the price of rent and the cost of buying a home rising and rising. Here we are, with laws that make existing in public more and more difficult. Public space is being eaten up and commodified, and new laws that criminalize homelessness are already being weaponized even against people with homes, because how can cops or mall security tell if you’re unhoused or just engaged in the devious behavior of hanging out in public space? In the UK race riots continue as lynch mobs look for anyone who could be ‘foreign’ to attack, while the people actually driving up the cost of living and ruining communities sit back and relax, and, in fact, fund the scapegoating of oppressed groups.

[starseedfxofficial]

Trump's Win Shakes Up Oil and Metals: What Traders Need to Know to Stay Ahead Trump's Win Shakes Up Oil and Metals: What Traders Need to Know to Stay Ahead Ever have that one friend who throws a wrench into perfectly organized plans just for the fun of it? Well, that friend is back, but this time he’s not just crashing your party, he’s set on re-writing the entire script of global markets. You guessed it, Donald Trump. As election results pour in, markets are in a frenzy, giving us yet another episode of “Trump Changes Everything”—and this one's a doozy. Brent crude took a nose-dive to USD 74.40/bbl as a stronger Dollar piled on the pressure. But let’s not ignore the underlying genius here—Trump's love for oil production could send US supply up. For those who know the secret handshake, there’s a trick here: ramping US production means increased supply and lower prices. Now might be a good time to practice the art of hedging those bets—just don’t tell the Saudis I said that. The Ninja Strategy That No One's Talking About Meanwhile, gold has decided to play it cool—by cooling off from USD 2,749.78/oz down to USD 2,701.42/oz. What’s behind it? The same greenback that’s keeping Brent down, my friends. With “Trump Trade 2.0,” the Dollar is flexing its muscles, reminding us all that it’s still the boss. And here’s the twist: savvy traders are viewing this as an opportunity. Ever heard of the “Trump Correction?” That’s right, folks are buying gold dips with one foot in the fiscal stimulus boat and the other in safe-haven territory—a spread play that could be a game changer. Just remember, it’s about staying nimble. Copper Conundrums & The Secret Weapon Now let’s talk copper—the “Doctor of Economics” seems to be self-medicating with some hefty losses. Trade wars under Trump 2.0 loom large, and 3M LME copper dances nervously around the USD 9,513.00-9,708.00 range. But guess what? The pros are eyeing the NPC Standing Committee's upcoming fiscal stimulus as the magic potion. Here’s a little-known secret: watch what China does, not just what it says. The fiscal policy maneuvers could make copper prices do a quick U-turn, and if you’re sharp, you’ll want to ride that wave before the masses catch on. Storms Brewing—Literally & Figuratively And just as Rafael graduated into hurricane status—congrats, Rafael!—we have China stepping up its lithium, cobalt, and nickel exploration efforts. Some analysts are calling it a defensive play for national resource security, but here’s the underground take: China is playing the long game. Think of it as a strategic move in the next iteration of the “Rare Metal Wars”—because, believe me, this will get Netflix-documentary-worthy someday. Traders who understand that Lithium isn’t just a Nirvana song might just find themselves ahead of the pack when EV markets go bananas again. PMIs and Precarious Predictions Meanwhile, European PMI figures are out—Spain, Italy, France, Germany, and the EU gave us a mixed bag of surprises, and the UK’s Construction PMI missed expectations at 54.3 (come on, just a little more mortar and bricks, lads!). But all eyes are on the BoE, with some economists predicting rate cuts coming soon. Here’s an insight for those truly in-the-know: watch the divergence. As the Bank of England trims rates, those who bet on gilts might be in for a nice ride, while the short-sellers prepare their ‘I-told-you-so’ dance. BoE, Don’t Go Breaking My Rates The big debate is if BoE will hit us with the rate cut this week—NIESR forecasts suggest it’s coming. Traders, here’s your play: once rate cuts start, positioning on currency pairs like GBP/USD becomes a high-stakes game of ‘chicken.’ If you’re holding GBP, you might want to think about some downside protection, while keeping an eye out for a potential bounce when the dust settles. Imagine catching the bottom here—that’s not just smart, that’s legendary. A Call to Action for Those Ready to Capitalize So, we have everything from oil turbulence to precious metal twists, hurricane upgrades, and the most unpredictable PMI shuffle ever. If you’re ready to apply these insights and strategies, join us over at StarseedFX. This is where the elite minds of Forex gather—where we don’t just report the news, we decode the secret language of the market. Are you going to just sit back and watch the show? Or will you take the insider’s seat, know the moves before they happen, and turn the tables on market trends? We’ve got the tools, the community, and the insights you need. Dive into exclusive resources, join live discussions, and master those ninja tactics that set the pros apart from the rest. The game is on—what are you waiting for? - Latest Economic Indicators and Forex News: Stay informed on market movements and groundbreaking concepts with exclusive, real-time updates. - Forex Education: Expand your knowledge with in-depth resources, advanced methodologies, and little-known strategies. - Community Membership: Join the StarseedFX community for expert analysis, daily alerts, live trading insights, insider tips, and elite tactics. - Free Trading Plan: Set goals, manage risks, and track progress with our detailed trading plan. Discover rare strategic advantages. - Free Trading Journal: Enhance performance and refine strategies with real metrics using advanced methods for progress tracking. - Smart Trading Tool: Optimize your trading with automated lot size calculations, insights, and order management. —————– Image Credits: Cover image at the top is AI-generated   Read the full article

[lizseyi]

Amid The Run-Up To Christmas, How Can Your Firm Streamline Costs - Shredded-Paper

Even a few years on from when the cost-of-living crisis first hogged the headlines, small businesses up and down the UK continue to be under pressure. 

In any case, as the summer gradually makes way for the autumn, you will probably be looking at how your firm can position itself best for the busy Christmas season. That, in turn, brings fresh pressures as far as small-business spending is concerned. 

So, we decided that for today’s blog post, we would look at a few ways your business can be more cost-efficient in the lead-up to Christmas. 

Make decisions on your inventory as far ahead as possible 

The exact needs that a small firm has with regard to what it stocks for Christmas, will depend partly on what the business offers. And of course, you can’t always foresee whether any particular product will suddenly become “trendy” and in-demand between now and the peak of the Christmas period, thereby necessitating you ordering stock of it at short notice. 

Putting that factor aside, there will be ample chance for your small business to plan ahead. You may have sales data from past festive seasons, giving you insights into the products that you might have sold out of quickly, and the items that you may have ended up overstocking. 

If being left with a surfeit of Christmas stock post-December is a worry for you, it can be a good idea to aim for a balance between explicitly “Christmassy” and “non-Christmassy” products on your shelves. 

After all, not everything that a business sells during the festive season actually needs to be overly Christmassy. Many relatively “generic” items will remain highly usable and popular both during the Yuletide period and throughout the year. 

Don’t feel a need to reduce your prices, unless it’s the right policy for your store 

What with Black Friday and Cyber Monday promotions having seemingly become “a thing” out  of nowhere among UK retailers in recent years, your small firm might feel a lot of pressure to join in. But participation in such Christmas-season sales events isn’t always the right call for a lot of small firms, especially given their often-minimal financial wiggle room to begin with. 

In fact, in your Christmas marketing, you might even make a virtue of the fact that you don’t jump on the Black Friday bandwagon. 

You may emphasise that your store genuinely believes in offering great deals at all times of year. In doing so, you might point towards alternative schemes of yours that bring the customer longer-term value, such as a loyalty or VIP programme or a “refer a friend” scheme. 

The latter might work on the basis of the customer getting a discount on a product or service from your business if they recommend your firm to a friend who goes on to buy from you themselves. 

Bulk-order the supplies that are well-suited to bulk ordering 

As we recently wrote about here at Shredded-Paper.co.uk, not everything that an individual or small business may conceivably buy in bulk, actually lends itself well to this popular money-saving approach. Various food and drink items, for instance, might have “use-by” dates that arrive sooner than you can manage to use or sell all the stock. 

But as we explained in that article, shredded paper very much can be an excellent choice of product to bulk purchase, not least as it is so versatile. You therefore shouldn’t feel the same kind of pressure to use or sell your stocks of shredded paper before the festive season is over. 

There might also be further opportunities to save when you buy shredded paper filler in bulk. Did you know, for example, that we offer shred-only pricing for customers of ours who have brand-specific paper and simply wish to have it shredded? 

Some small firms, meanwhile, may wish to combine branded with more generic shredded paper for use in their packages delivered to customers. Naturally, we can cater to that requirement as well. 

Send us an email today, or call 01603 927300, to learn more about our renowned wholesale service. You really don’t need to look anywhere else for cost-efficient shredded paper filler! 

[sception]

The Conservatives for the past decade have been pulling a scam where they pretend to fund the NHS more and more and yet service continues to decline, in the theory that eventually the NHS budget will be so huge and service so bad that the British people will accept a changeover to the American model. The lie here is that while the overall healthcare budget has increased, more and more individual chunks of it are legislated such that the NHS has to acquire those services from particular private companies, with all the greed and waste and corruption you'd imagine that would entail. The government gives a big wad of cash to the NHS for a service the NHS could provide both cheaply and well, but requires the NHS to instead hand that same wad of cash over to a private company (usually owned or run by Conservative donors) to do the same job worse and at higher cost. meanwhile the actual NHS budget for things like hiring, training, and maintaining doctors and nurses gets squeezed more year after year, and that's before you even consider the effects of Brexit and the associated wave of anti-immigrant sentiment causing many EU born health care professionals (which the UK relies on due to chronic underfunding of healthcare education) to leave. Nor does that even consider how many doctors and nurses were lost to Covid - whether through quitting the profession, moving out of the country, or just straight up dying - due to the Conservatives' late action on quarantines and willful misallocation of PPE procurement contracts. The PPE contracts especially provide a glaring example of the problem. The NHS is capable of ordering its own PPE, it has long running relationships with proven reliable contractors, including british based manufacturers. The government could have just given money to the NHS to buy the needed protective gear and it would have been done quickly and efficiently. Instead the Conservative Government created an 'emergency fast track' system for PPE contract approval which didn't go through the NHS at all, and as a result billions of pounds were wasted on dodgy contracts with companies that had no experience in producing or procuring medical PPE, some of which hadn't even existed weeks earlier, with their only qualifications being that they were friends of Conservative ministers or big ticket donors to the Conservative party. Not surprisingly these contractors often delivered unusable non-medical-grade products or even in some cases literally nothing at all. Where they did deliver usable products, they were much slower and at dramatically higher prices than any other EU country's health system was paying for the same goods even at the height of the pandemic. And now that same conservative party would have you believe that public health care just doesn't work because the NHS wasted billions of dollars, when the NHS had nothing to do with it, the waste was purely down to Conservative corruption and private capitalist greed. Conservatives will govern badly on purpose and practice flagrant corruption and then pretend that their villainy just goes to show that government is inherently incompetent and corrupt, and use that as an excuse to dismantle public services even faster and funnel even more public wealth into the hands of their corrupt corporate partners.

[olko71]

New Post has been published on All about business online

New Post has been published on http://yaroreviews.info/2023/04/shoppers-swap-fresh-for-frozen-as-food-bills-rise

Shoppers swap fresh for frozen as food bills rise

By Noor Nanji

Business reporter, BBC News

Consumers are swapping from fresh to frozen food in a bid to combat rising grocery prices, retailers have said.

Frozen food is outperforming fresh in supermarkets at the moment, data from research firm Kantar suggests.

Frozen chicken, ready meals, pizzas and chips are the most popular items.

These are some of the things mum-of-three Laura Tedder told the BBC she chooses to help keep her food bill down. “We’re buying much more frozen food. We can’t afford fresh,” she said.

Mrs Tedder is not alone. The British Retail Consortium said consumers are making the same “swaps to save money” as the cost of living rises.

Waitrose, M&S and Iceland all told the BBC frozen food is rising in popularity, while Tesco has also seen shoppers switching from fresh to frozen.

“Frozen food tends to be much cheaper, and there’s less waste, so you can see why it’s selling well in the cost of living crisis,” said retail analyst Ged Futter.

Why are prices rising so much?

Deal hunters go to supermarkets four times a week

Five hacks to help save money on your food shop

Mrs Tedder, from Ampthill in Bedfordshire, has to keep an eye how much she’s spending at the supermarket.

“When you have a lot of kids to feed, it all adds up,” she said.

She often finds herself comparing fresh versus frozen prices for items like chicken and has been buying a lot more frozen vegetables in recent months.

She also uses frozen fruit to make smoothies for her daughters – Millie, aged 10, Pip, nine and Ottilie, six.

In the past, she bought fresh food as she believed it was nutritionally better for her children.

“Now I’m more worried about the sweets my kids eat, rather than the meals I cook them,” she said.

Lindsay Hawkshaw

Lindsay Hawkshaw from County Durham has also been stocking up on frozen chicken, rice and waffles for her three children.

“It’s cheaper than fresh, and there’s less waste, so it’s a no brainer when we’re counting pennies,” she said.

She said she had noticed more supermarket deals on frozen food.

“It’s not ideal,” she said. “Fresh tastes better, there’s no doubt about that.”

“But the packaging says it’s frozen immediately so I think that dispels the myth of it being less healthy,” she said.

Mr Futter said frozen food “has had a bad rep for years” but the quality “is actually really high”.

“Whether it’s peas, potatoes or fish – a lot of the time, it’s even better for you, as these items are frozen the minute they’re ready, whereas fresh items can sometimes be sitting out for longer,” he said.

Cost of living concerns

In the supermarkets, frozen food is doing “notably better” than fresh at the moment, Fraser McKevitt, head of retail and consumer insight at Kantar UK, told the BBC.

“And some of that is clearly to do with the cost of living,” he added.

Kantar’s data, seen by the BBC, shows that demand is strongest for items such as frozen chicken, where volumes are up 5.9%. Meanwhile, frozen prepared foods, including ready meals, pizzas and chips are up 2.6%.

Overall, frozen food volumes have held steady, even though overall shoppers are buying less. In the 12 weeks to mid-March, total grocery volumes fell by 4% while the volume of frozen goods bought was unchanged, the data shows.

‘Budget friendly’

Waitrose said its frozen food range had been rising in popularity while customers keep tabs on their budgets.

M&S told the BBC it was seeing more customers opt for frozen vegetables and frozen herbs, which it said are “a great value choice”.

Richard Walker, executive chairman of Iceland Foods, said frozen food unlocks “many benefits” to consumers, adding: “More shoppers are waking up to this more budget friendly option during these challenging economic times.”

Fresh food inflation hit 17% in March, up from 16.3% in February, according to the British Retail Consortium, marking its highest rate since records began in 2005.

Many of the country’s largest supermarkets recently experienced shortages of some salad items and vegetables, which helped push prices up further.

Kate Hall

Mum-of-two Kate Hall from Bromley set up a website, The Full Freezer, to advise people how to save money and reduce waste by using their freezer properly.

She said she’s had much more engagement in the last six months, as living costs soared.

“People are getting over their fear of frozen food, and that’s a good thing,” she said.

Mrs Hall freezes everything from cashew nuts to eggs. She also freezes red wine, to use for cooking.

“You can freeze leftovers, it can be as simple as putting a spare onion in the freezer, and then using that later to make a soup.

“There’s much less food waste if you use your freezer effectively, and that’s something people are really conscious of right now.”

How can I save money on my food shop?

Look at your cupboards so you know what you have already

Head to the reduced section first to see if it has anything you need

Buy things close to their sell-by-date which will be cheaper and use your freezer

Read more tips here

Related Topics

Retailing

Inflation

Cost of living

Supermarkets

Food

More on this story

Why are prices rising so much?

23 March

Deal hunters go to supermarkets four times a week

28 March

Shopping lists making a comeback to save us money

2 April

[hussyknee]

Experts are predicting demand for life-saving antiviral drugs will rapidly outpace supply. Like the vaccine, the poorest countries will be left until last.

Covid-19 has quietly become the gift that keeps on giving for big pharma. The past two years has seen it reap huge profits from Covid vaccines, while simultaneously opposing wider sharing of the technology required to make them. And now there’s a new money-spinner on the rise: Covid antiviral treatment pills. Once again, we’re poised to fall into the same inequality traps we’re caught in with the global vaccine rollout.

Both Pfizer and Merck have new antiviral pills rapidly arriving on the market – Paxlovid and molnupiravir respectively. As with the vaccines that came before them, both corporations have made it their business to ultimately decide who gets to make generic versions through the medical patent system – a crucial, life-saving question for millions around the world.

And business certainly looks promising. Pfizer alone, freshly cemented as the global Covid-19 vaccine kingpin, expects to make as much as $22bn from its new pill this year, on top of $37bn it made in 2021 from the vaccine.

The new medication isn’t coming cheap. Pfizer’s Paxlovid currently costs about $530 for a five-day course of the treatment. Merck’s molnupiravir, now approved for use in the UK, costs about $700. Reportedly, the cost of production for molnupiravir stands at about $17.74.

Familiar alarm bells should be ringing. Experts across the board are predicting demand for antiviral drugs will rapidly outpace supply. A World Health Organization report produced in January warned of a “high risk of shortages” of Paxlovid for low- and lower-middle-income countries until generic versions became more widely available, which isn’t likely to be until the second half of 2022 at the earliest. Separate analysis from the data and analytics firm Airfinity suggests that could be as late as early 2023. After an uneven global vaccine rollout, lower-income nations are faced with the prospect of a “wild west” scenario for life-saving pills, too.

Pfizer and Merck have chosen to designate a select few generic manufacturers able to produce cheaper versions of their drugs, through the Medicines Patent Pool (MPP). But even with these deals in place, they remain firmly in control, and access to generic versions are within reach of only half the world’s population.

A number of countries including Argentina, Brazil, Thailand, Russia, Colombia, Peru, Turkey and Mexico have again been excluded from such licences and are left to try to cut deals for the most expensive products. With so many priced out of the market, global supply will again be prioritised to rich countries, while the companies refuse to make affordable generic antivirals available to everyone wherever they are needed.

This is a grim mirror of the dramatically uneven vaccine supply earlier in the pandemic, when rich nations bought up many more doses than they could use. The US, where almost two-thirds (65%) of the population is already fully vaccinated, has reportedly put up more than $10bn for Pfizer’s Paxlovid – more than twice the entire GDP of Sierra Leone, where just 9% of people have the same protections. For less wealthy nations, competition isn’t even a possibility.

Meanwhile, Merck continues its “evergreening” patent strategy to extend its monopoly on molnupiravir beyond the standard 20-year protection. Since developing the pill, it has sought at least 53 patent applications to tie it up in legal red tape and stay firmly in control of who gets to make it and where. It has already received emergency approval in the US and Japan, and has been given the green light in the UK.

Even in nations within the MPP, where the pills are allowed to be made by select manufacturers, a low cost is not guaranteed. Dr Reddy’s Laboratories in India has made a generic version of Merck’s pill that costs $18 for a course of treatment. However, these costs won’t necessarily be reflected everywhere. Across the border in Bangladesh, the generic version of Pfizer’s pill will cost more than $170 for a course of treatment – prohibitively expensive for a huge number of the population. By restricting which manufacturers may produce a generic version, firms maintain considerable control over the final price. In the past, Gilead’s treatment for hepatitis C, sofosbuvir, only dropped in price consistently when the number of manufacturers was increased without these limits.

There is an uncomfortable assumption those in the global north have tacitly begun to accept. When the demand is higher than supply, there is a pecking order: rich nations first, buying up more than they realistically need, while the poorest are forced to scramble to outbid each other over what is left, dramatically overpay, or just wait until they’re affordable and watch death tolls rise. But this supply crisis is entirely artificial. We could produce more – Pfizer and Merck’s drugs are not complex, and could be easily manufactured in a wide range of developing countries if they had access to the knowhow and could avoid the threat of legal action. We need patents and other intellectual property barriers on life-saving medicines to be waived – either voluntarily by companies, or by government decree – so we can quickly supply all countries of the world.

We’re doubling down on a two-tier world when it comes to Covid-19 – rich, highly vaccinated nations with easy access to both preventive measures and treatments, and poorer nations trying to get by without either. It’s vital that we don’t sleepwalk into giving corporations so much control over who gets to live and who gets to die, all balanced on what they deem an acceptable bottom line.

Source: Guardian

I want to cry.

Just as deliberately creating a food shortage and barriers to aid is a genocide, so is this.

The total worldwide death count from covid currently reported stands at 5.9 million. Data analysts who use excess deaths over the pandemic years in each country (comparing the number of deaths in pandemic years with the average pre-pandemic mortality rate) say that the real pandemic death count (that includes underreported deaths, fudged numbers, deaths from complications from covid, and otherwise preventable deaths that happened because the healthcare systems were at capacity) is anywhere from 12 million to 22 million. Most of those numbers are overrepresented and even outstripped in Global South countries, because our healthcare systems completely buckled and almost broke due to lack of resources and vaccine scarcity.

The percentage of covid patients who develop long-term disabilities is far higher in Global South countries because we are less likely to have adequate intervention and care resources. The pandemic has also been catastrophic for our economies, with millions of people plunging beneath the poverty line, entire industries capsizing and people left homeless and starving, in turn leading to dangerous political instability. Waiting another year for a generic drug means devastation on a truly incomprehensible scale.

And for what? So a handful of rich white assholes can get richer by magnitudes. All because Global North governments won't intervene.

[ukrfeminism]

As energy suppliers have warned of further price hikes in 2022 amid the cost of living crisis, new data from charity WaterAid has revealed over a quarter of people in the UK say they or their family have struggled to afford period products in the last year.

In a survey to mark Menstrual Hygiene Day on 28 May, it found one in five people who bleed (NOTE - ALL PEOPLE BLEED. ONLY FEMALE PEOPLE MENSTRUATE.) resort to coping by using makeshift materials, such as loo roll or sponges and one in four admitted to wearing period products for longer than they should, risking their health.

Throughout the pandemic, over a million girls aged 14-21 in the UK struggled to access period products, with many forced to cut back on other essential items like food, hygiene products like soap or toothpaste and clothing in order to purchase sanitary items. 

The worsening cost of living crisis has led campaigners to call out government inaction and demand more is done to support people who menstruate. 

22% of British women and girls have relied on free period products from work, school, a food bank or other charity in the past year, while 30% have had to choose cheaper brands to cut costs.

“Apparently, the government regards period poverty as a serious issue. Yet, when asked what they’re doing next to tackle the worsening situation, the next steps are said to be announced: “in due course”, charity Bloody Good Period wrote on Twitter.

“Meanwhile, demand for period products is rising sharply as the cost of living crisis bites. We want to know what is being done right bloody now – not in ‘due course’. This week, in the lead up to #MenstrualHealthDay, we’ll be asking the UK government to recommit to ending period poverty – just like they did three bloody years ago.”

While period poverty has always been an issue in the UK, the charity – which works to provide period products for those who can’t afford to buy them – has seen a 78% increase in demand for its services during the first quarter of 2022 compared to the same period in 2020, rising from 7,452 period products to 13,284.

The shocking figures serve as a stark reminder of the widespread impact the crisis is having on people who bleed across the country. 

Indeed, not only do people have less money to spend on essentials due to rising electricity and gas bills, but the price of period products themselves has also been rising due to inflation and supply chain issues, according to research by The Grocer.  

That’s despite the end of the so-called ‘tampon tax’ – the 5% rate of VAT previously imposed on sanitary products – and the surge in period poverty triggered by the pandemic. 

“The government committed to tacking period poverty in 2019, yet despite the issue being so much worse now due to the combined impact of the pandemic plus the current crisis, there is no meaningful commitment nor funding to provide essential period products for people who can’t afford them,” Emma Defoe, the operations and activism manager at Bloody Good Period, told The Guardian. “Instead, small charities like Bloody Good Period fill the gap.” 

The surge in demand comes in the aftermath of the pandemic and lockdown restrictions, which also contributed to worsening rates of period poverty across the UK. 

At the time, Bloody Good Period’s CEO Rachel Grocott told Stylist about the mental health impact that period poverty can have on those affected. 

“No one should have to worry about the products they need to deal with their period, and many of the people we’ve helped have reported increased stress as a result of being without period products,” she said. “These are essential items for anyone who menstruates, and we will carry on providing them to everyone who needs them.” 

[sunkisseddaffodils]

reunion- pt 2 (final)

Pairing: sherlock x fem!reader

Request: 'hi! can i pls request a sherlock x fem!reader fic in which reader is kinda john's childhood bestfriend, but they were separated when reader with her parents moved somewhere (to united states, for instance). so now when she is in britain again, she sort of struggles with finding a not very fancy place to stay. fortunately, she meets our johnny boi and he immediately proposes for her to stay in 221c, baker-street. so reader moves there, meets sherly and they sorta starting to fall in luv with each other'

Summary: Sherlock accidentally drags up some old unwanted memories for the reader

Genre: reader insert, angst

A/n: this is the final part of the above request. Sorry, I didn't exactly follow the request but I mostly tried to. Thanks to anon for requesting though! Enjoy!

Read pt 1 here.

-

The following day, after a restless night’s sleep, Y/N sat nervously in Mrs’s Hudson cosy kitchenette. Mrs Hudson had switched on the kettle and was preparing to make both of them a cup of tea. From what John had told her, she was perfectly lovely but she couldn’t help but be anxious. It was in her nature; she worried about everything. She made sure to bring papers to prove to her that she had a monthly income. But what if that wasn’t enough and Mrs Hudson had already decided that she wasn’t good enough to stay in her upstairs flat? The sound of china cups being placed on the table brought her back from the depths of her mind.

‘What brings you to London? John tells me you moved all the way from the States?’

John was right, Mrs Hudson was delightful. Y/N felt more relaxed at the sound of her comforting voice.

‘I’m starting my training next week to be a dentist in Harley Street ’

Mrs Hudson’s eyes genuinely glistened with interest.

‘Oh? John told me you already completed dental school in Seattle? Aren’t you already qualified?’

‘Yeah in the States. To work here, I have to do an extra year before I’m qualified. I don’t mind though, I wanted a fresh start in the UK.’

A door closing behind them interrupted their conversation. Both Y/N and Mrs H turned to where the noise came from but couldn’t see who or what made it. The latter called out.

‘Sherlock? John? Is that you?’

With no response, they returned to their conversation.

‘Y/N, you seem like a lovely young woman with a bright future. Of course, you can stay in the upstairs flat!’

She smiled widely, uttering a thousand ‘thank yous’. Y/N grabbed her important documents and handed them to Mrs Hudson.

‘Thank you. I’ll take a look at these later.’

Tomorrow, Mrs Hudson gave Y/N a tour of 221c. She fell speechless as she looked around. It was the same layout as Sherlock’s but had recently been renovated to have a more modern look. The apartment was already furnished so all she had to do was move her belonging's in from storage. She couldn’t believe that she was able to afford this apartment! Especially, as it was in central London. Promptly, she strolled over to where her new landlady was waiting by the front door.

‘So I get all this for this price? That’s insanely cheap for London.’

Y/N commented while pointing to the tenancy agreement Mrs Hudson was holding.

Simply, she just chuckled.

‘I do special rates for Sherlock and John. If you’re a friend of John’s then you’re a friend of mine. I’ll do the same for you.’

She continued.

'I met Sherlock in Florida when my husband was sentenced to death. He was able to help out so I owed him a favour. ’

Her face was completely serious yet it sounded so implausible. How could a lovely little lady like Mrs Hudson have such an impossible past like that? Adding to that, Y/N wondered that Sherlock really must be a genius if he can stop someone from being executed.

‘Wait, are you saying that Sherlock stopped your husband from being executed?’

‘Oh no, he ensured it.’

And with that bombshell of a statement, Mrs Hudson disappeared downstairs leaving Y/N utterly astonished in her new apartment. She made a note to herself to remind her to ask John about Mrs Hudson’s past. There was so much she wanted to know about her life.

A few days passed and the time finally arrived for Y/N to move into 221c. She was standing outside the cafe with Mrs Hudson, waiting for the moving company to arrive along with her possessions. She glanced at her watch, anxiously. The moving people were already five minutes late. Meanwhile, Sherlock and John were upstairs having carried three boxes between them that Y/N had brought herself. John was busying himself, tidying up the flat, waiting for a text from Y/N so he and Sherlock could help her move in and set up the place. He had told Sherlock to make himself useful but looking over his way, he hadn’t. Sherlock was staring intensely at the three boxes they had placed on the dining table by the windows. John marched over there to tell him off.

‘Sherlock! What are you doing? If you’re not going to make yourself useful up here, then can you at least go downstairs to check what’s taking the mover’s so long?’

Sherlock completely disregarded everything he just said.

‘Look at these three boxes, John. What do they tell you?’

He just groaned.

‘Nothing, they’re just boxes.’

‘Fine, if you’re not going to play ball then I will just tell you.Y/N has made sure she took these boxes here herself. Why? That suggests they’re private and she doesn’t want strangers, i.e the movers, to touch them. The first two boxes are labelled: electronics and toiletries. Makes sense then for why she would want to move them herself: one’s valuable and the others personal.’

He pointed towards the last cardboard box.

‘But why hasn’t she labelled this one? I’m sure I’m right to assume that she would have labelled every single box from what I’ve seen from these two. So what’s in this box that separates it from the rest?’

John stepped away from the dining table and started fluffing some pillows on the couch.

‘Sherlock, I really couldn’t care less. There’s nothing weird going on. She’s not part of some underground crime syndicate. Just leave it alone. You can’t know everything.’

However, the crinkling of tape being peeled off from the box told John that Sherlock, was in fact, not going to leave it alone.

John raced back over to the table and seized the box from Sherlock. Soon, a tug of war for the box began between them.

‘You are not going through Y/N’s private things!’

He yanked the box harder.

‘But John, I have to know what’s in there.’

John glared at him, pulling the box back towards him.

‘Tough luck. Once again let me spell this out: you cannot go through other people’s belongings. It’s rude.’

Sherlock’s grip remained firm, however.

‘Don’t you want to know more about why she’s moved back here? The answer could be in this box. It’s strange that she just packed up and left her life back in Seattle. She obviously doesn’t have any family here. Otherwise, why would she come to you for help? And there’s also the fact I heard her tell Mrs Hudson that she has to do extra training to be a qualified dentist in the UK. Why go to all that effort when she’s already qualified back in the US? Aren’t you in the least bit curious?’

John once again dragged the box back to him.

‘Oh so now you’re not only going through her stuff, you’re also eavesdropping on her?’

Sherlock was offended even though there was a hint of truth to what John was saying.

‘It wasn’t eavesdropping! I just happened to overhear her.’

What Sherlock was saying did make John curious, but still, Y/N deserved her privacy. It was up to her if she wanted to them the real reason she moved back to the UK. John was about to tell Sherlock this when the door burst open.

‘Hey, guys! The movers are here now if you wanna come down.’

Y/N’s voice staggered when she saw the scene before her.

In a moment of alarm, both Sherlock and John had dropped the box. Its content spilt out onto the floor. An off-white ornate picture frame smashed onto the hard wooden floor, glass spraying everywhere. The picture in the frame was of Y/N and a man in front of the Seattle Great Wheel. Y/N stood in surprise as the said man was knelt down holding a rose gold diamond-encrusted ring. The picture frame was custom engraved and it read ‘For my love.’

Oh.

It all made sense now to Sherlock.

However, there was no time to think more about the picture. Sherlock and John stood like a deer in headlights

‘It was Sherlock!’

John pointed accusingly towards Sherlock.

Y/N didn’t say anything, simply walked over to where the box had fallen, glass crunching under converse trainers. She knelt down to pick up the photograph. She remained there for a moment, an expression of profound anguish on her face.

John tried to help her up, but she refused. She practically ran out of the flat, trying to conceal her pain. John didn’t even have time to tell her that she had cut her knees on the glass from the floor. He grabbed a broom from the kitchen and started cleaning up the mess on the floor. He looked at Sherlock who was still in the same place. He had a look of regret on his face.

‘Sherlock there’s no point making that face now! You’re cleaning this mess up too. We’re going to make it up to her by making this apartment look really nice before she comes back.’

As he shifted the box back onto the table, he thought of his own way to make it up to Y/N.

-

Y/N was falling asleep at her desk, she was now four hours into writing her essay on dental hygiene. She placed her head in her hands, thinking she would just have a quick nap. Her phone ringing ended that plan though. She saw that it was Sherlock and hesitated. She still hadn’t forgiven him for trying to go through her things and bringing back unpleasant memories. It had been a week into ignoring him and giving him the cold shoulder. She let it ring out. Sherlock still didn’t get the hint and texted her.

‘Y/N meet me here. I wanna make it up to you. S.H’

That text was accompanied by a GPS location.

Y/N couldn’t think of any possible reason why Sherlock had asked to meet her here. Her uber ride had stopped outside of a manor house just on the outskirts of London. She quickly checked with the driver to make sure she was at the right place. To her bewilderment, he answered yes. Hesitantly, she strolled up to the door. She didn’t even have to knock when Sherlock opened the door. He motioned for her to follow him.

‘Sherlock, what the actual fuck? Do you live here?’

Sherlock led her through a ton of rooms. Y/N swear she could have counted there were at least five formal living rooms.

‘Nope.’

He opened a set of French doors and led her out into the back garden of the estate. Not that you could call it a garden. It was massive. In the distance, she saw stables as they walked through a formal botanical garden. Sherlock was more like running though, but Y/N didn’t know what was so urgent.

‘So if you don’t live here. Then who does?’

An undesirable thought entered her mind.

‘Don’t tell me you broke in here?’

Sherlock turned around just outside of the exit to the formal gardens, jangling keys in front of her face, a childish grin on his face.

‘It’s not breaking in if you have a set of keys.’

They had finally reached their final destination. Y/N saw that someone had set up a bonfire in the middle of a field. A can of petrol and a box lay adjacent to it. That box seemed really familiar. Sherlock picked it up and brought it over. It was hers!

‘Sherlock, you’re going through my things again. You know what, I’m done here!’

She began jogging back towards the house. Sherlock grabbed her arm.

‘Wait! Y/N. Let me explain.’

She gazed back at him intensely, waiting for an explanation.

He placed the box down.

‘I know you haven’t told me about what happened. But unfortunately, I am good at deducing things. Those things in that box came from a bad past relationship. I’m pretty sure I can guess what happened.’

He started to stammer, not sure of how to word what he wanted to say next.

Y/N wasn’t sure where he was going with this but could see he was trying.

‘John will be the first to let you know that I’m no expert on love or on relationships. But I can see you haven’t moved on. I thought it might help if you chucked all of the old stuff from the relationship on that bonfire and set it alight.’

She looked down, knowing that Sherlock was right. He had guessed everything perfectly. He had read her like a book.

‘You’re right. But I took running away from your problems to the extremest.’

She sat down on the grass, wrapping her arms around her knees. Sherlock shortly joined her.

‘He was my world. Or I thought he was until one night I returned home to see him shagging my best friend on the sofa.’

There was a moment of silence before she continued.

‘I just felt so foolish. I had to get away from Seattle. The place was full of memories of my time with him. I couldn’t stand it any longer.’

Sherlock got up and picked up the box.

‘And that’s why you should burn this stuff. He doesn’t deserve to have this much hold on you when he never cared about you in the slightest. We don’t have to do it if you don’t want to. But please just think about it.’

Y/N stood up with determination. Sherlock was right. She had to burn all of this stuff to finally move on. Together they placed the contents of the box around the bonfire.

Y/N stood back as Sherlock poured the can of petrol over the bonfire. He asked.

‘One more thing. Do you have that picture with you?’

She grabbed it out of her bag as an answer and showed it to him.

‘I thought you would', he stated.

She placed the picture in the centre of the bonfire.

They walked back a safer distance from it and Sherlock got a box of matches from his pocket. He lit one up and handed it to Y/N. He could see that she was having trouble actually lighting the bonfire. He reached out and held her hand to comfort her. Y/N greatly appreciated that. She took the final step and with her other hand, threw the match into the bonfire.

The bonfire went up in ablaze. It was oddly beautiful watching the embers rise up into the sky. Standing there in hand in hand with Sherlock, she felt the weight that had been on her shoulders for months slowly lift off. The whole experience was cathartic.

Out of the blue, they heard the distant sound of alarms ringing from back at the house. Y/N looked to Sherlock for answers. He just told her to:

‘RUN!’

They sprinted, holding onto each other, seemingly heading towards a gate at the end of a stone wall surrounding the estate.

‘Sherlock! What’s going on?’

Sherlock tried his best to explain as they were running.

‘Technically I did break into this house. But it’s my brother's so it should be fine. There should be a cab waiting just outside this gate.’

‘Oh my god!’, she exclaimed worrying about the consequences to come for their actions.

When they had reached the road outside the gate, they stopped to catch their breath. Then they looked at each other and burst into laughter.

She hadn’t laughed that like in months. And it was all thanks to Sherlock.

-

[canyousonicme]

“Certain actors have a reputation for being difficult. I don’t want to be one of those people”. - Alex Kingston


INTERVIEW: The Sunday Post


It comes as no surprise to Alex Kingston that her daughter has decided to follow in her footsteps, despite her best efforts to temper her acting ambitions.

The actress fell pregnant with Salome, now 19, when she was playing surgeon Elizabeth Corday on the long-running US medical drama ER in the ’90s.

Alex’s pregnancy was written into the script and Salome, whose father is German writer Florian Haertel, was just weeks old when she joined the cast as Elizabeth and Dr Mark Greene’s baby girl.

Now, two decades on, mother and daughter are working together again, this time in a Doctor Who spin-off audio drama, The Diary Of River Song. Now in its eighth series, it focuses on the Time Lord’s brilliant wife, the poetically named River Song, whom Alex has played on the TV show since 2008. Salome, meanwhile, plays the part of her synthetic humanoid companion, Rachel.

Alex said: “My daughter was in my belly on ER then played the role of our baby girl Ella Greene. She’s secretly always had the desire to act, but I was always adamant that she finished her education first.

“Salome plays a character who River Song meets up with occasionally and they have adventures together. Working with my daughter has been terrific fun. I am super-impressed with her. She is incredibly professional.”

© Big Finish

Alex with daughter Salome

For the past year Alex and Salome have been isolating together at her London home, alongside Alex’s third husband, television producer Jonathan Stamp. The pair married in an intimate Italian ceremony in 2015, and Salome was a bridesmaid.

They are joined by Alex’s German-born mother, Margarethe, who sadly suffers from dementia. It sounds like a potentially stressful set-up but Alex has cherished the unexpected extra family time lockdown gifted her.

Alex, who celebrated her 57th birthday a few days after the first lockdown was announced last March, said: “My daughter had arrived from New York and decided she wanted to live with us. Then my mother, who has dementia, suffered two strokes early on in lockdown and she moved in as well. So I was her carer.

“It was an amazingly special time. And I cherish it. Particularly with my mother, because I wouldn’t have had that opportunity otherwise.”

Like the rest of us, Alex has relied heavily on streaming services to keep her entertained during the long days spent at home. She even broke her self-imposed rule of not watching her own stuff on screen.

She said: “We did all the usual things, massive clear-outs, and of course binge-watched TV. I loved Schitt’s Creek, Call My Agent, Bridgerton and Luther. I can’t bear to watch myself on the television. However, I started watching ER, because it was streaming on Channel 4. I look at myself and it’s like I am watching someone else. It’s such a good show, and it’s really held up!”

She added: “As much as everyone is saying this is the year that they want to forget, I actually feel it’s a year one can never forget. It certainly wasn’t an easy time. However, I have much stronger memories of the year, and of the patterns of the year than I have ever had pre-pandemic, when there was always so much rushing around.”

© Paul Drinkwater/Warner Bros Tv/Amblin TV

Alex in 1994 with fellow ER cast members (l-r) Anthony Edwards, Eriq La Salle, Goran Visnjic, Noah Wyle

Alex began her career at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, where she met her first husband, Skyfall actor Ralph Fiennes. They were together for 10 years before marrying in 1993. Two years later, Alex was left bereft when Fiennes left her after an alleged affair with a co-star. The London-born actress has barely stopped working since she first appeared on UK screens in 1980, as Jill Harcourt on the iconic children’s series Grange Hill. She continued to find success in UK dramas including Upstairs Downstairs, and The Fortunes And Misfortunes of Moll Flanders.

She first appeared in the fourth series of Doctor Who alongside David Tennant in 2008. Alex thought it was a one-off but has reprised the role in 15 episodes between 2008 and 2015.

It’s thanks to her Doctor Who appearances and, more recently, Sky’s hit supernatural drama, A Discovery Of Witches, that she has become known to a new generation of fans.

During her long and successful career, Alex has never been afraid to call out sexism in the industry. When she was dropped from ER aged 41, after seven seasons, she accused producers of ageism. saying “Apparently, I, according to the producers and the writers, am part of the old fogies who are no longer interesting.”

Then, when she auditioned for the role of Lynette Scavo on Desperate Housewives which eventually went to Felicity Huffman, she says she was turned away for being too curvy.

Although vocal about the challenges that face women, she admits she has seen positive changes in attitudes towards female talent in recent years.

She says: “When I was working on ER, I thought that I wasn’t allowed to get pregnant, I didn’t want to offend the producers as that is not what they had intended. I thought that I would have to ask permission. It was Anthony Edwards, who played my on-screen husband, who said ‘Don’t be ridiculous, don’t wait for them to allow you, you are not that important. If you want to have a child, go and have a child, and they will find a way to work round you.’ So I took his advice.

“I grew up with this notion that one had to be polite and always ask for permission. Whereas this generation don’t. They just get up and do it. The lovely and talented Teresa Palmer, whom I work with on A Discovery of Witches, is constantly popping out babies. Production just work around her. And it’s great, I admire her very much for that.”

© Chris Haston/Warner Bros Tv/Amblin TV

Alex in ER

Alex puts her staying power down to being in the right place at the right time – and being nice to people, though she says theatre will provide her with a safety net should the TV work dry up one day.

She said: “Being as versatile as possible helps. I’m up for anything as long it is written well.

“I had a formal training. My first love is theatre. Having that as a backbone will always support me. In an industry that will favour youth more, theatre is always there. In order to succeed on the stage you have to have had good solid training and know how to handle your voice.

“Also, being a nice person counts for a lot. If you were difficult you would get a reputation. Of course there are actors who are extremely difficult and tiresome to work with, and there will come a point at which you think is it worth it? I don’t want to be one of those people.”

Despite her time-travelling credentials Alex has no idea what the future holds but still harbours a dream of being a Bond Girl (though obviously not one who falls for the smooth-talking spy).

She laughs: “I would love to be a villain in a James Bond movie, the real villain, the main one. Because they’ve never had a female villain. And I want to be a villain who does not find James Bond sexy at all. And doesn’t succumb to his charms, I want to be his real nemesis.”

Time for a return to Tardis?

© PA / BBC

Alex alongside Peter Capaldi in Doctor Who

From ER to the Tardis, Alex’s career to date has been distinguished by roles opposite fictional doctors, whether medical or time-travelling.

The smash-hit hospital drama which made her a star in the ’90s famously launched the Hollywood career of a certain George Clooney. Then in 2008, Alex won a new generation of fans as the wife of Doctor Who.

Because the Doctor transmutates over time Alex, as River Song, gets several leading men for the price of one. Alex said: “Essentially my character is the same, so there’s continuity there, and the fun is interacting with someone who is essentially the same man, but in a different skin and with a different energy.”

Perhaps the least lucky man in the role was Matt Smith.

Alex explained: “One of the most memorable parts of filming was when I flew through the universe, got caught in the Tardis and kneed Matt Smith, who was playing the Doctor at the time, in a sore place by mistake. There were a few tears of laughter from me and cries of pain from him.”

Speculation is rife among fans that Alex will return to the Whoniverse, if the incumbent Time Lord Jodie Whittaker steps down. All Alex will say is: “My Tardis door is always open…” [x]

[thessalian]

Thess vs the British Oligarchy

So now not only are they raising National Insurance as of, like, next week, but they’re also lowering the wage threshold at which you have to pay National Insurance. And somehow, Rishi fucking Sunak thinks that a 5p per litre decrease in fuel tax is going to make any kind of difference. I mean, shit, a lot of the people who are going to struggle the most don’t have a car. And that’s not going to stop the public transport price hike, which has already happened and is a little bit insane.

At the same time, they’re getting a £2k pay increase, MPs and cabinet.

I do not get it. At all. I mean, come on; how the fuck much money do you need? They need to scrap the National Insurance hike, put the threshold for paying it back to where it used to be, scrap VAT on fuel and energy in general, and institute a wealth tax. They have more money than they could ever conceivably use, and they really need to understand that. For them, it’s a way of keeping score at this point, all the money, and that is not right.

If it wasn’t hurting me and people like me so badly, I’d feel sorry for them. Johnson (or at least his wife) seems to need £200 a roll wallpaper to even come close to being happy with things, except not really because somehow that’s treated as a necessity. Me? Last night my bestie threw a silly little fun game called Capybara Spa at me, because it’s one of those little Zen time management games I love so much plus the general Zen atmosphere generated by capybaras and it seemed therapeutic for me given the stress I am currently under, and I was overjoyed. It takes so much to make those greedy fucks happy, while I’m just thrilled that the lettuce I planted the other day is sprouting.

They threw billions at their mates on shitty PPE and a test and trace system that didn’t work during the pandemic, and they’re not seeking reparations for that. They’re not going after the billions in Covid benefit fraud, generally undertaken by larger companies. The wealth will stay in the hands of the wealthy and the ‘common folk’ will get less and less. Meanwhile, our right to protest is being strongly curtailed, voter ID is being instituted which means vote suppression, and leaving the EU has meant a terrifying watering down of our employee protection laws. And in the face of all this, Johnson gave a speech to the Conservative Party talking about “freedom”.

Yes, Russian oligarchs are bad. But what about the British ones? Basically every member of cabinet is exceedingly wealthy, and they’re all making the rules to make sure they stay wealthy. I posted the other day about the difference between oligarchy and plutocracy. Plutocracy is using your wealth to leverage power. Oligarchy is being in power and turning to despotism to keep your wealth. And behold our government, at least where finance is concerned:

Chancellor of the Exchequer - a former hedge fund manager with a fashion mogul wife whose net worth is more than that of the fucking queen.

Minister for Brexit Opportunities and Government Efficiency of the United Kingdom (and isn’t that a scary phrase) - another hedge fund manager, and son of a man who literally wrote the book on how to profit from disaster capitalism. And he’s running Brexit opportunities and government efficiency. What the fuck?!?

Home Secretary - parents own a chain of newsagents, personal net worth of £2.2m or so (small potatoes compared to the others, but still), considers herself a Thatcherite. Also please keep in mind that her parents were immigrants but her father actually ran for office in Hertfordshire as a UKIP candidate (UK Independence Party, the precursor to the Vote Leave campaign and massively anti-immigration). This boomerang bigot, like her father before her, is obsessed with keeping people from taking the same opportunities her family did. And she’s in exactly the right political position to do it.

Secretary of State for Health and Social Care: former Chancellor of the Exchequer, and prior to his political career was heavily into banking. Another child of immigrant parents who proceeded to pull the ladder up behind him. Net worth approximately £8m.

Prime Minister - old money, net worth actually not that high in comparison to some of his cabinet (£2m) but he more than makes up for it in misuse of Tory party donations. Used to write for newspapers, considers his ministerial salary of £150k “chicken feed” and states that one cannot survive on it while allowing his Chancellor of the Exchequer to tax the almighty fuck out of people who earn eight times less rather than deprive him or his chums / donors of even a penny more than necessary. Also, maybe Americans have the right idea - our Prime Minister is not a natural born citizen, so if this was the US (where he was actually born), he wouldn’t be able to be Prime Minister.

This? THIS is an oligarchy. People in power using their power to push their own agendas, protect their own wealth, and in general be despots. Given the voter suppression and the restriction of the right to protest, plus the huge increase in police powers to stop-and-search anyone they feel like, anytime they feel like (when even the police themselves say it’ll be disproportionately used on POC, particularly Black people)... I don’t see how we can claim to be against what Russia’s doing when the only difference is that we’re not bombing anyone.

I’ll honestly be glad to get back to work because I won’t have time to doom-scroll at work. And no, I’m not talking about Twitter; I’m talking about the fucking Guardian website. And while I know that the invasion of Ukraine by the Russians is important, it shouldn’t be enough to obliterate everything going wrong in this country off the front page - including the rise in Covid cases (probably more than it looks like given they scrapped free testing and mandatory quarantine if testing positive, so only a few would probably bother) and Javid insisting that it’s not a problem.

I’m going to go distract myself. Thankfully, I have the option to dunk capybaras in spas and feed them carrots until I feel up to dealing with more narrative endeavours.

[lesbiansandgayssupporttheminers]

This is going to be possibly a bit long and rambly, but bear with me, because I do have a point.

In the early 90s, my parents bought a house in a nice-ish part of South London. They had one (slightly above average) salary and no debt apart from their mortgage. They had a car, and could afford holidays about every other year. My mum was a stay at home parent until I started school, and then she worked part time. Financially, we/they were pretty comfortable.

My cousin is about the same age my parents were then. He works in London too. He has a partner, and they both work full time in professional jobs. They rent a house in a less nice part of North London. They don’t have a car. I can’t remember the last time they went on holiday. They have a tonne of debt, and there’s absolutely no chance they’ll be able to buy a house in London.

During lockdown, both of them were able to do 100% of their jobs 100% remotely. So, they were hoping to be able to make that a permanent or semi-permanent thing, so they could move out of the city and find somewhere to live along the M4 corridor, where their rent wouldn’t absolutely cripple them. But they are both being told they need to get back to the office, and working from home even part of the time won’t happen.

House prices across the UK have obviously increased hugely in that time, and increased disproportionately in cities. Because most people can’t afford to buy in the area where they need to be for work, lots of young people are now paying an insane amount of rent to live in substandard accommodation, and the insecurity of this accommodation often means they are regularly moving, which is expensive and impacts on their ability to save or gets them into debt.

Meanwhile, lots of landlords get very rich for doing very little.

Remote working had the potential to change all of that, quite suddenly. People could have moved out of cities to cheaper areas of the country (and yes, there are downsides to that as well). Rents and house prices in some areas would have gone down. Commercial rents would have gone down as companies no longer needed large offices in central locations. People would have likely enjoyed a better standard of living without spending hours a day commuting, and with more secure accommodation.

But that’s not being allowed to happen. The system is rigged against us. Those in charge will never let things get any better for us if it means things getting even slightly worse for them.

And that’s why we need a new system. That’s why fiddling at the edges will never be enough.

People look at the system and believe it might give us the chance to elect a slightly socialist leader, who might make things temporarily a bit better. But it won’t- when was the last time a Western Democracy elected a true socialist? If anything, we are slipping more and more to the right.

If we let things continue as they are, we will always have a lower standard of living than our parents. And our children will very likely have a lower standard of living than us. There might be individual exceptions to this, but that will be the trend. The rich will get richer, and the rest of us will get comparatively poorer.

And that is why we need radical change.

[newstfionline]

Saturday, March 6, 2021

U.S. birth rates plunged in 2020, a sure sign ‘things are not going well for a lot of people’ (The Week) As if we needed more evidence that the pandemic has been rough on everyone, experts say sinking U.S. birth rates point to widespread societal challenges, and could cause further complications later on. Data from 29 states showed a 7.3 percent drop in births in December 2020, nine months after the pandemic began in the U.S., CBS News reports. Birth rates have been declining for years, and its not surprising major economic disruption would cause a dip, but preliminary numbers suggest the pandemic has led to an especially notable drop—in the wake of the Great Recession, birth rates fell by 3 percent, CBS notes. University of Maryland sociologist Phil Cohen told CBS the “scale of this is really large,” and argued the decline “means things are not going well for a lot of people.” A column by two Brookings Institution economists in The New York Times outlines some of the struggles that have people postponing or avoiding expanding their families: a weak labor market, job and income loss, school closures, and fewer social activities, to name some.

The most desirable countries and cities for workers looking to relocate in 2021 (CNBC) Canada is now seen as the most desirable destination for overseas workers when it comes to choosing a country to relocate to, a global survey has found, knocking the U.S. off top spot. This is according to a poll of 209,000 people in 190 countries that aimed to find out whether and in what circumstances respondents would move to a foreign country for work. The survey was conducted between October and December 2020 by management consulting firm Boston Consulting Group and global recruitment alliance The Network. The authors of the report said the U.S. had been “hurt by an inconsistent pandemic response, the adoption of more nationalistic policies, and social unrest.” Meanwhile, they said Canada and Australia, which placed narrowly behind the U.S. as the third most desirable country for relocation, had both done a “far better job of pandemic management.” “They are also seen as having better social systems and more open cultures than the U.S.,” the authors added.

Texas Farmers Tally Up the Damage From a Winter Storm ‘Massacre’ (NYT) Texas farmers and ranchers have lost at least $600 million to the winter storm that struck the state last month, according to an assessment issued this week by economists at the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service. Damage and disruption from the bitter blast of cold and snow, which farmers are calling “the St. Valentine’s Day massacre,” is likely to cause some gaps on grocery shelves in the eastern part of the country and push prices higher. The storm also caused a severe shipping and processing bottleneck that continues to challenge the food-supply chain. Truck drivers were stuck for days waiting to load or unload produce. Processing plants had no power. Dairies were forced to dump 14 million gallons of milk, said Sid Miller, the Texas commissioner of agriculture. In a state that sells $25 billion worth of agricultural products each year and has more farms and ranches than any other, the damage is spread far and wide. The storm killed newborn calves, acres of newly planted watermelons and nearly the entire crop of Valencia oranges.

U.S. detained nearly 100,000 migrants at U.S.-Mexico border in February—sources (Reuters) U.S. border agents detained nearly 100,000 migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border in February, according to two people familiar with preliminary figures, the highest arrest total for the month of February since 2006. The figures, which have not been previously reported, show the scope of a growing surge of migrants arriving at the southwest border as U.S. President Joe Biden, a Democrat, seeks to roll back some of the restrictive policies of former President Donald Trump, a Republican. U.S. Border Patrol agents caught more than 4,500 migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border in a single day on Wednesday, according to government figures shared with Reuters, a sign that illegal entries could continue to rise in March.

Pope Francis flies to Baghdad, beginning the first-ever papal trip to Iraq (Washington Post) Pope Francis on Friday began the first-ever papal trip to Iraq, flying to a country with an extraordinary biblical history but that is also experiencing a serious coronavirus outbreak and ongoing political turmoil. Francis’s four-day visit is his first international trip since the start of the pandemic and marks a return to the globe-trotting diplomacy—especially to minority-Christian countries—that had been his hallmark. It amounts to a show of encouragement for a nation trying to recover from the chaos of a U.S.-led invasion and the brutality of the Islamic State, a group that once vowed to “conquer Rome.”

India’s farmer protests (Foreign Policy) Indian farmers are planning another major road blockade outside New Delhi on Saturday, as protests against agricultural laws reach their 100th day. “We believe that after these 100 days, our movement will put a moral pressure on the government to accede to our demands, because the weather will also worsen,” said Darshan Pal, a spokesperson for the farmer unions’ coalition. “It will weaken the government, which will have to sit down with us to talk again.” The protests have contributed to a significant decline in Indian soft power, Sumit Ganguly writes, as Narendra Modi’s BJP makes a “risky calculation” between domestic dominance and international condemnation.

China sets growth target ‘over 6%,’ tightening HK control (AP) China’s No. 2 leader set a healthy economic growth target Friday and vowed to make the nation self-reliant in technology amid tension with the U.S. and Europe over trade and human rights. Another official announced plans to tighten control over Hong Kong by reducing the public’s role in government. The ruling Communist Party aims for growth of “over 6%” as the world’s second-largest economy rebounds from the coronavirus, Premier Li Keqiang said in a speech to China’s ceremonial legislature. About 3,000 delegates gathered for its annual meeting, the year’s highest-profile political event, under intense security and anti-virus controls. It has been shortened from two weeks to one because of the pandemic. The party is shifting back to its longer-term goal of becoming a global competitor in telecoms, electric cars and other profitable technology. That is inflaming trade tension with Washington and Europe, which complain Beijing’s tactics violate its market-opening commitments and hurt foreign competitors.

People wasting almost 1bn tonnes of food a year, UN report reveals (The Guardian) People waste almost a billion tonnes of food a year, a UN report has revealed. It is the most comprehensive assessment to date and found waste was about double the previous best estimate. The food discarded in homes alone was 74kg per person each year on average around the world, the UN found. In the UK, which has some of the best data, the edible waste represents about eight meals per household each week. The UN report also includes data on food waste in restaurants and shops, with 17% of all food dumped. Some food is lost on farms and in supply chains as well, meaning that overall a third of food is never eaten. The researchers said nobody bought food with the intention of throwing it away and that small amounts discarded each day might seem insignificant. Therefore increasing people’s awareness of waste was key, they said.

What’s Catalyzing Catalytic Converter Thefts? (Washington Post) Rhodium is a metallic element used in an automobile’s catalytic converter. It’s unparalleled in its ability to remove the most toxic pollutants from vehicle exhaust. 80% of rhodium comes from South Africa, as a byproduct of that country’s platinum mining industry. Because rhodium is a byproduct of platinum, it’s only produced when mining platinum is profitable. A surplus of platinum has existed in South Africa for years, keeping prices so low there’s been no incentive to mine platinum, ergo rhodium isn’t being produced. At the same time demand for the metal has soared as countries in Europe, the Americas, and East Asia raise emission standards for new vehicles. The shortage has driven the price of rhodium to astronomical heights, currently 15 times more than the price of gold. But apparently not enough to restart platinum mining. And that explains why there’s been a huge rise in thefts of catalytic converters in the US in recent months. Thieves are taking a hacksaw to multitudes of tailpipes. Keep a close eye on your car’s exhaust pipe.