#three best rated uk

[reasonsforhope]

Double dose of articles about how crime is actually plummeting

From the UK:

"Seventy-eight per cent of people in England and Wales think that crime has gone up in the last few years, according to the latest survey. But the data on actual crime shows the exact opposite.

As of 2024, violence, burglary and car crime have been declining for 30 years and by close to 90%, according to the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) – our best indicator of true crime levels. Unlike police data, the CSEW is not subject to variations in reporting and recording.

The drop in violence includes��domestic violence and other violence against women. Anti-social behaviour has similarly declined. While increased fraud and computer misuse now make up half of crime, this mainly reflects how far the rates of other crimes have fallen.

All high-income countries have experienced similar trends, and there is scientific consensus that the decline in crime is a real phenomenon.

The perception gap

So why is there such a gulf between public perception and the reality of crime trends? A regular YouGov poll asks respondents for their top three concerns from a broad set of issues. Concern about crime went from a low in 2016 (when people were more concerned with Brexit), quadrupled by 2019 and plummeted during the pandemic when people had other worries. But in the last year, the public’s concern about crime has risen again.

There are many possible explanations for this, of which the first is poor information. A study published in 1998 found that “people who watch a lot of television or who read a lot of newspapers will be exposed to a steady diet of crime stories” that does not reflect official statistics.

The old news media adage “if it bleeds, it leads” reflects how violent news stories, including crime increases and serious crimes, capture public attention. Knife crime grabs headlines in the UK, but our shock at individual incidents is testament to their rarity and our relative success in controlling violence – many gun crimes do not make the news in the US.

Most recent terrorist attacks in the UK have featured knives (plus a thwarted Liverpool bomber), but there is little discussion of how this indicates that measures to restrict guns and bomb-making resources are effective."

-via The Conversation, May 13, 2024

And the United States:

"[The United States experienced a spike in crime rates in 2020, during the pandemic.] But in 2023, crime in America looked very different.

"At some point in 2022 — at the end of 2022 or through 2023 — there was just a tipping point where violence started to fall and it just continued to fall," said Jeff Asher, a crime analyst and co-founder of AH Datalytics.

In cities big and small, from both coasts, violence has dropped.

"The national picture shows that murder is falling. We have data from over 200 cities showing a 12.2% decline ... in 2023 relative to 2022," Asher said, citing his own analysis of public data. He found instances of rape, robbery and aggravated assault were all down too.

Yet when you ask people about crime in the country, the perception is it's getting a lot worse.

A Gallup poll released in November found 77% of Americans believed there was more crime in the country than the year before. And 63% felt there was either a "very" or "extremely" serious crime problem — the highest in the poll's history going back to 2000.

So what's going on?

What the cities are seeing

What you see depends a lot on what you're looking at, according to Asher.

"There's never been a news story that said, 'There were no robberies yesterday, nobody really shoplifted at Walgreens,'" he said.

"Especially with murder, there's no doubt that it is falling at [a] really fast pace right now. And the only way that I find to discuss it with people is to talk about what the data says." ...

For cities like San Francisco, Baltimore and Minneapolis, there may be different factors at play [in crime declining]. And in some instances, it comes as the number of police officers declines too.

Baltimore police are chronically short of their recruitment goal, and as of last September had more than 750 vacant positions, according to a state audit report...

In Minneapolis, police staffing has plummeted. According to the Star Tribune, there are about 560 active officers — down from nearly 900 in 2019. Mannix said the 2020 police killing of George Floyd resulted in an unprecedented exodus from the department...

In Minneapolis, the city is putting more financial resources into nontraditional policing initiatives. The Department of Neighborhood Safety, which addresses violence through a public health lens, received $22 million in the 2024 budget."

-via NPR, February 12, 2024

[covid-safer-hotties]

Also preserved in our archive

Y'all know I'm not one to save celebrity news without reason: There's some excellent analysis done in this article about air quality and airborne disease.

Macbeth: cancelled due to “illness” The eagerly anticipated production of Macbeth, starring David Tennant in the title role at the Harold Pinter Theatre, has cancelled four consecutive performances this week due to “illness within the company.” The latest cancellation, announced just two hours before curtain, left audience members disappointed, including those who had traveled internationally and rearranged work schedules.

Among affected ticket holders, some expressed frustration on social media about the late notice and lack of clarity. Twitter user @clairebobcat voiced a common sentiment:

"Ticket holders were notified at 5:45 this eve. Really short notice considering illness has been ongoing since Friday. All best wishes to the cast—illness can’t be helped, but very shoddy treatment of ticket holders. Travel money & Annual leave wasted."

The ongoing cancellations reflect broader challenges facing the theatre industry in the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.

The arts still in crisis due to Covid A survey by Theatre Washington reported that while 58% of Washington, D.C. theatre patrons once attended performances six or more times per year, only 31% have done so since reopening. Almost half of patrons surveyed now attend just three times or fewer, and nearly 68% cited fear of Covid-19 exposure as a primary reason for staying away.

The UK is facing unprecedented rates of long-term illness due to long Covid, a condition marked by symptoms including post-exertional malaise, cognitive impairment, and cardiopulmonary dysfunction.

Public health data shows that over two million people in the UK are affected by long COVID, with more than 10% of Covid cases resulting in prolonged symptoms.

High-profile performers, including Alyssa Milano and Matt McGorry, have spoken publicly about their struggles with long Covid, shedding light on the profound and lasting impact of the illness.

Protect the Heart of the Arts In response to these issues, Protect the Heart of the Arts, an advocacy organisation for members of the performance community with long COVID or who are clinically vulnerable, has offered to donate a HEPA air purification system to the Harold Pinter Theatre, which is staging Macbeth.

Glenda from the group told the Canary:

"It’s unsustainable, unethical, and we can’t afford to accept it as occupational: our employers, unions, regulatory bodies and politicians have to address the ongoing SARS-CoV-2 pandemic head-on.

Beyond key vectors (hospitals, schools, prisons), creatives are uniquely vulnerable, especially within live formats, alongside venue staff and audiences; not to mention all within said categories who’ve been marginalised, nor the walk-back of digital programming."

The organisation argues that improved air quality could help reduce health risks for cast, crew, and audiences, potentially preventing further cancellations.

Covid isn’t over – as Macbeth inadvertently shows “We may not know the exact illness affecting the Macbeth cast, but we do know that Covid is a serious vascular disease requiring extended recovery times,” noted Charles Waltz, founder of Protect the Heart of the Arts:

"Reinfections weaken immunity to other pathogens, so without measures like air purification and adequate recovery time, we risk ongoing illness cycles that could impact health and stability across the industry. Clean air and flexible recovery policies are essential to protect the performance community’s long-term health."

[sunburnacoustic]

Muse - Q Awards 2007

Some shitty quality but fascinating pics of Muse with other musical stars of the 00s at the 2007 Q Awards, where Muse were seen talking to Shirley Bassey, Nicky Wire (Manic Street Preachers), Ricky Wilson (Kaiser Chiefs), Ian Brown (Stone Roses), the singer Mika (who apparently really likes Muse!) and Kate Nash.

And Muse themselves, triumphant winners of the Best Live Act award at 2007 Q's, beating Arcade Fire, The Killers, Arctic Monkeys and Kasabian.

Q Magazine did feature their awards in the Nov 2007 edition of Q, so I can sneak in a picture from there too (thanks Musewiki <3)

Here's what Muse had to say about it all (Q interview)

Rate your day on a scale of 1 to 10. Dominic Howard (drums): I'd say pushing eight. When we woke up hung over in Serbia this morning, it was about minus 5. But getting back to London pushed it up a few points and then winning this award pushed it up further again. By the time we get to the party later we'll hopefully have pushed it to 11.

This is the 3rd time you've picked up the Best Live Act Award. Not getting bored of it yet, are you? Matthew Bellamy (vocals/guitar): No, it's nice that we've bagged this again. We're not getting bored of playing live and we're not bored of people liking our performances either.

Your plane from Belgrade landed about an hour ago. you didn't get a nice early night in preparation for today, then?

MB: Not quite. Last night Belgrade was Bel-degrade. It got quite dark. I wasn't involved, but it included a transsexual called Pete. And a dildo. Pete was sat on your knee for quite a while Dom, wasn't that right? DH: (Solemnly) No.

Does visiting new cities give you more licence to misbehave? MB: Yeah, a bit. We've been lucky this year in that we've been able to go to new places - Eastern Europe, Asia, Mexico. Sometimes on tour you just cocoon yourself in your hotel room and keep your head down until gig time. being somewhere new puts you in the mood to get out more and meet new people, just to find new experiences.

So what's the oddest experience on tour this year? DH: Sorry, I can't get the transsexual out of my head now. Indonesia was interesting, mainly because I could've got killed. We'd taken a few silly things and we decided to check out some local bars in a really rough part of town. The houses were all corrugated iron and we had chickens running over the bonnet of the car, people banging on our windows. One of the guys got out of our car and he got shouted at, so we got out of there as fast as possible. But we were told later that we were lucky we didn't get shot, then robbed.

MB: Our tour manager got robbed by three ladyboys in a lift there, too.

Have you had any celebrity fans coming to the shows?

Christopher Wolstenholme (bass): In LA the kid for The Sixth Sense (Hayley Joe Osment) came to see us. I think he crashed his car on the way home.

MB: Paris Hilton to the LA show, too. But she left during Knights of Cydonia, which is the first song on the set. If we're offending Paris Hilton we must be doing something right.

The UK people will see your two Wembley Stadium shows in the summer as the pinnacle of the Muse live experience. How were those shows for you?

MB: I think we did our best. It's an amazing venue and the crowds made those shows. Big shows like that aren't just about the band, its about the whole experience and watching the crowd is part of the fun. It definitely gave us a taste for more of those big shows.

Any outrageous stage props that got vetoed by the council? Ten-foot-high robots and the like?

MB: Well, we wanted to have helicopters doing a balloon drop and circling above us with searchlights spotlighting the crowd, but apparently you're not allowed to have helicopters fly over big crowds in case they fall out of the sky and start mincing up. Which is fair enough, I suppose.

DH: We wanted to arrive by Zeppelins and drop down to the stage, but we weren't allowed to do that either...

MB: We're gonna make that happen next time. You can get these business Zeppelins now, like a private jet, so we could fly from gig to gig, descend for the gig and then get lifted back into the Zeppelin lounge.

So how do you go about topping Wembley? MB: We'll probably start from scratch again and build things back up with smaller gigs. DH: We'd like to do multiple nights in smaller venues. We might have more people onstage.

[Q mishears] Q: Small people onstage? DH: Yeah, more small people. Like Spinal Tap. No, it'd just be good to have the time to evolve the whole musical side of the show.

Is this tour ever going to end? MB: Technically, it's over in December. But there are a few more things that we've been offered for next year, so who knows?

The rumour is that you're going to headline Glastonbury again next year... MB: Ooh, that's a strong question! Very strong. Well, Glastonbury is a festival that's very close to our hearts. And it'll be amazing to play it again...sometime. But next year's plans have yet to be settled upon.

So we'll take that as a "yes" then? MB: No, don't take it as anything. DH: It's a maybe. CW: It's a flat "no".

Back to today: is there anyone here you really want to meet? MB: I'd love to say hello to Paul McCartney. But so would everyone here, I bet. We'll not be allowed near him.

Are you pretty sociable when you're at parties without musicians? MB: It's like when two dogs meet in the park: they eye each other up for a bit, then have a sniff around each other. So we'll see who's smelling OK later. Who's that? (Points at Damon Albarn posing for Q's photographer) Damon Albarn? (Unimpressed) Oh...

What do you want for pudding? DH: What's the obsession with pudding here? Someone else just asked us that. CW: We'll say something classic. Bread-and-butter pudding. Can't go wrong there.

So what are you doing next? MB: I have a meeting with out lawyers. Very rock'n'roll. But we'll be out at the party later. These days if we're in London it usually means we have to work, so one of the ideas in coming to this was to have a big night out.

Pics - microcuts.net archives | article - MuseWiki.

[thislovintime]

"The individual Monkees don’t necessarily agree about everything, but three of ’em are stuck glue-tight together on one subject — Peter Tork! Micky, Mike and Davy all rate him the outstanding musician of the outfit. They say he’s hardly ever without a guitar or banjo in his hands. If he is then it’s because he’s playing his Vox organ in his dressing room. And they all speak up as one about his acting ability. Davy says: 'Mostly, on the television shows, we three are just playing ourselves. But Peter really has to play a part. You see, he’s really very intelligent and he’s also the quietest one of us four. So when he plays that way-out character in the TV series… well, it’s just not him at all! Those double-takes and the way he looks kinda baffled… that’s not our off-stage Peter!'" - Jackie Richmond, Monkees Monthly, June 1967 “[Peter’s] really a genius, a prolific musician — he plays about seven instruments.” - Micky Dolenz, Record Mirror, February 11, 1967 “Peter is the best rock guitarist around today. He plays about ten instruments in all — just about everything with strings. Mike and I also play guitars, although we are not in Peter’s class.” - Davy Jones, Melody Maker, January 14, 1967 “Peter Tork has to be one of the best guitarists around — he can cut anybody on guitar. He plays about 10 instruments — banjo, uke, the lot.” - Davy Jones, The Ottawa Journal, January 20, 1967

Requested on Facebook: non-1967 quotes (by Michael)

“There are two common and, to me, repugnant notions about the Monkees. Number one, that I was the only one who had any talent, which is patently absurd. It’s as unfair and as unkind as it is stupid. The other one is that I was the only musician. I wasn’t the only musician and I wasn’t much of a musician. Peter was a much more skillful player than I was by some orders of magnitude. He wasn’t a singer nor was he a writer. What I was able to do was write tunes — I could sort of pull those out of a ht. But they weren’t very good, were they? I mean, they were the tunes that were on the show from time to time, so that’s what made them seem better than they were.” - Michael Nesmith, Monkees Tale (1985)

“Everyone was accomplished—the notion I was the only musician is one of those rumors that got started and won’t stop—but it was not true. Peter was a more accomplished player than I by an order of magnitude, Micky and Davy played and sang and danced and understood music.” - Michael Nesmith, Rolling Stone, March 8, 2012

[twainxavier]

Oooo Cali Beach Trip Au??? ❤️

Hey Ky!!! Yes, absolutely! 💜

I adore this fic, though I haven't written too much of it 😅👌 Premise is that Edwin, Charles, and Crystal have all gone to University in the UK and just finished their final year 😊👍 As a drunken decision made by Charles and Crystal, they end up going on an end of year trip for a few months to California to enjoy the beach and everything 🤣👌 And whilst on the beach, Edwin might end up getting distracted from his book by a rather attractive surfer 👀

Okay, for snippet it was a really hard choice, but I think I'm gonna go with the first time Edwin sees Thomas (the Cat King) 👀 (with a slight hint of his slight crush on Charles too 👀)

After a little while of hiding behind his knees, putting more energy into not looking at Charles than actually reading, Edwin felt his heart rate finally start to slow. He relaxed a bit, switching to sitting cross legged, and actually diving into the world of the book he brought with him. It was a pleasant escape from reality, or certainly from the reality of his ridiculous crush on his best friend that he really shouldn't still have. Edwin headbutted the book in his hands struggling to focus as the words swam together on the page and his mind drifted to places he was fighting hard to keep it away from. With a deep sigh he raised his gaze away from the book and back to the bright blue of the ocean in front of him. Instead of looking anywhere near Charles and Crystal, Edwin cast his gaze further down the beach. Most of the families had left now, but there were one or two bodyboarders still out in the waves. Edwin hoped it would be rather harmless to observe them for a moment. It was just to try and work out how it was done so that he would not make an utter fool of himself should the three of them try it out themselves later on in their holiday. It didn't seem too complicated, and he supposed this part was obvious from the name, but they wouldn't have to try and stand, unlike surfing. He had to admit, it did seem like it would be quite fun. Edwin was about to turn away again, when a bodyboarder he had not seen until now emerged from behind a wave. Edwin could not seem to stop staring as the stranger pushed his torso up off of his board a little and the wave crashed behind him, propelling him forward. His arms were lithe yet muscular, and perfectly tanned in a way that Edwin assumed was natural for people local to this area, what with all the sun. Edwin's eyes drifted further, and he found that the stranger's chest was just as perfectly sculpted as his arms, and carried that same tan. The fact he was covered in water wasn't helping Edwin much, as his skin quite literally glistened in the late afternoon sun. What he could see of the stranger's face was equally as gorgeous as the rest of his body, though he was a bit far away to make out too much in detail, and his messy wet curls framed his face perfectly without him even having to try. Edwin was utterly enraptured. He really should have turned away and stopped staring by this point, but he was in such a daze he hadn't even realised that the stranger had gotten out of the water and was looking his way, a soft smirk on his face. Until their eyes met, that was. Edwin startled a little, eyes blowing wide as he utterly froze. The stranger was still staring straight at him, the smirk shifting into a smile. For a moment Edwin hoped that he wasn't actually looking at him, and that he hadn't noticed his staring, but he already knew there was no one else in this direction. Perhaps he was just admiring the scenery, or something, and Edwin could play off his staring as the same. But then the stranger raised a hand and waved at him, and that hope was dashed. Immediately, Edwin dropped his head to hide behind his book. He was far too afraid to even dare look in the handsome man's direction again, or at anything other than the words in front of him. When a shadow darkened the pages just a few moments later, Edwin froze yet again, trying to think up some sort of lie to escape whatever confrontation was about to occur. “Edwin, mate, are you alright? You look like you've seen a ghost?” Charles’ voice interrupted his spiraling thoughts, tone jovial and light.

I hope you enjoyed this little hint! I really need to get back to this fic but I need to make sure I've got a good plan in place so it doesn't get too repetitive 😊💜🫂

[stephensmithuk]

The Hound of the Baskervilles: The Stapletons of Merripit House

A mullion is a vertical divider in a window.

A scullery maid was the lowest ranking female servant in the household, who would wash the dishes and sometimes the clothing too. Snow White and Cinderella started off in this role.

It would take Watson around two hours to walk to Grimpen. I've done longer walks and I suppose he would have done so in his Army days.

A grocer is a person who runs a grocery, which in British English is analagous to a general store, where you would buy most everyday items, including the most common newspapers and magazines. We would also distinguish these days between the larger supermarket (grocery store) and the smaller corner shop (what New Yorkers would call a bodega); frequently run by immigrants or their immediate descendants. This is an example of the latter.

I do not know how common it was then, but today it is very common, even in major cities, to have a Post Office counter as part of another store such as a corner shop; these franchised businesses are run by subpostmasters. The Post Office, as well as post, provides banking services for both its own financial business and for other banks or building societies. The computer system that was used for financial transactions by them, Horizon, is currently at the centre of a major scandal.

Dartmoor has many peat bogs. The Ordnance Survey maps give their general location, but their exact size varies depending on conditions. Walkers frequently end up in them by accident or lack of experience; safe routes are marked out, but not always easy to see. The vast majority are not that deep and the worst that will happen is a case of smelly, muddy embarrassment. However, some are deeper, where you can end up with a risk of hypothermia - there are no less than four volunteer Mountain Rescue teams in the area to help people in difficulty.

Then some are straight up lethal, especially to animals. A gallop is the fastest horse speed setting - a horse can run at around 25 to 30mph for up to three kilometres before getting winded. So, not a good idea to do it on boggy land.

Grimpen Mire is believed to have been inspired by Fox Tor Mire:

There are 14 species of bittern. One of them is the Eurasian bittern, which was indeed extinct in the UK for a while when this story takes place and is still only here in limited numbers with its habitat. The species as a whole currently rated "Least Concern" but in decline.

The Neolithic period lasted from c.10,000 BC to c.2,000 BC, being the final period of the Stone Age. There is a timber track pathway in Somerset, the oldest recorded road, dating back to c. 3,838 BC.

Cyclopides was an old name for several species of South African Skipper butterflies. They tend to be found in southern Africa, not Dartmoor:

Miss Stapleton must deem the situation urgent to leave without her hat; people did not as a general rule go hatless in this period, even the poorest usually had some form of cap.

[snarryauctoberfest]

AUctoberfest: Day 14

Title: First Impressions

Creator: ???

Pairing: Harry Potter/Severus Snape

Prompt: 2024-216: Trope reversal: Snape was forced into multiple arranged marriages by his grandparents. The spouses kept dying. Very mysterious. But Harry isn't worried when he winds up the latest candidate.

Rating: Explicit

Word Count: 24.6k

Warnings/Tags: No Archive Warnings Apply, Alternate Universe - No Voldemort, Forced Marriage, MysteryHouse Elves, Animagus Harry Potter, Healer Harry Potter, POC Harry Potter, Indian Harry Potter, Potioneer Severus Snape, Trans Female Character, Blow Jobs, Anal Sex, Anal Fingering, Facials, Severus Snape Has a Large Cock, Size Queen Harry Potter, Dirty Talk, Public Sex, Glove Kink, they're just so horny for each other, Warning: Margaret Thatcher (UK Politician), i love that that's a tag, brief mention of cruelty to creatures, Very brief mention of domestic violence, little bits of angst but it's mostly fluffy

Summary: When Harry is forced to marry a complete stranger, he tries to make the best of things. After all, he's a Healer, he can take care of himself. And his new husband seems nice enough… But why, exactly, has Severus already been married three times before? And why have all three of those previous spouses died unexpectedly? Is Harry next? Or will he fall in love with his new husband after all?

💚❤️ Read on AO3 💚❤️

2024 Snarry AUctoberfest Entries || HOS Tumblr || Discord

[scotianostra]

Ooh, what’s Edinburgh like? Moving there next year hopefully, from Africa, and after a few quick trips I can’t say I’ve gotten too much of a sense of the city :(

I'm kinda biased, but it's a good place, quite small and easy to get around, the main bus serice is Lothian Buses, for a flat fare of £2 you can get from ato b on one bus, for £5 cash you can hop on and off, the best value is paying by debit card , what they call TapTapCap from as little as £4.80 per day and £22 per week, so if you are one 3 or more buses in one day it caps at £4.80, and £22 is the most you will pay fr a week. The bus service is very good and I use their bustracker, find it on Google Play "My Bus Edinburgh" The vast majority of Museums and Art Galleries are free, only charges tend to be if there are special exhibitions, like The National Museum of Scotland had a Doctor Who exhibition last year. There are two main train stations, Waverley and Haymarket, and several small ones and stops.

Most people don't realise that Edinburgh and the surrounding areas have some great beaches, Portobello is the best in the city, ad has plenty of places to eat and drink at there. Cramond Beachis a mecca for dog walkers, there is a Causeway there where you can explore Cramond Island, just watch the tide times. There are plenty of parks and green spaces, the city is officially the greenest city in the UK, with almost half the city (49.2%) being classed as 'green space'.

If you are relatively fit there are plenty hills to climb to get great views, some are very easy, Calton Hill, Corstorphine to name but two. Arthur's Seat offers different routes to the summit of varying difficulty, but you can actually drive so far up and just make the easy climb to the top, there are three man made "Lochs" around Arthur's Seat, if you're lucky you will see Otters at Dunsapie, Duddingston and St Margarets have plenty swas and ducks. For more serious walkers the Pentland Hills are a great place to explore, there is even a herd of oor Highland "Hairy Coos" up there. If you can ski, there is a dryslope on The Pentlands, the longest in the UK.

Pubs and clubs are a plenty, I have no idea of your age as you have decided to remain anon, but many places cater for students, prices vary, I pay between £2 and £4 for my drinks, although the touristy places will charge you up to twice this amount, over £6 for a drink is not unusual.

Of course we have the Festival, well there are several throughout the year, Edinburgh gets the tag of Festival City at times. The main one is in August and the population of Edinburgh is said to double in the time, licensed premises are automatically given an extension to their opening hours, some open to 5 in the morning.

It's a safe city  with a low crime rate, but as with other places you have to be aware of your own safety. If you plan on taking in the paid attractions The Castle wil set you back about £20, as will The Palace of Holyrood House. Opposite the Palace is The Scottish Parliament, you can visit thisfor free and sit in while it is in session. If you are planning on venturing around Scotland and like your history I recommend a membership of Historic Scotland, again I don't know your age, but prices start at under £3 a month and are less than a fiver for adults over 24. National Trust of Scotland also offer meberships from £3.35 to £5.80.

Can't really think of much more to put for now, perhaps my followers can make suggestions, or ask questions?

Oh and pack your umbrella get a waterproof jacket, even in summer we can get some heavy showers, naturally you will be aware it can get cold as well, invest in a decent winter jacket and layers to keep warm.

I hope this has been helpful.

[allthegeopolitics]

Immigration and crime were once again central themes throughout the US presidential election campaign. The belief that immigration drives up crime is one of the oldest—and strongest—convictions held by the public, spanning over a century in the US and elsewhere. This view remains deeply rooted despite mounting evidence to the contrary, in large part thanks to politicians such as Donald Trump, who are all too keen to amplify this narrative. Since his first presidential campaign announcement in June 2015, Trump has persistently linked immigration to crime. At that time, he stated: "When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending their best. They're sending people that have lots of problems … They're bringing drugs, they're bringing crime." He has since stepped up this rhetoric. In the final stretch of his recent presidential campaign, he made claims such as: "The corrupt media is outraged that I keep talking about migrant crime and the migrant crime epidemic. It's the worst thing that's happened to our country in 50 years. They're taking over our small towns and cities." According to survey evidence from the Pew Research Center, an American thinktank based in Washington DC, immigration and crime were two of the top three issues for Trump voters in the 2024 election, after the economy. But what does the evidence really show? Our analysis reveals that studies consistently find no causal link between immigration and increased crime across a variety of countries. Research from the US, including both older and more recent studies, as well as research on Italy and the UK, demonstrates that immigration does not have a significant impact on crime rates.

Continue Reading

[maximumwobblerbanditdonut]

Maggie Smith, Oscar-winning star of stage and screen, dies aged 89 💔

Dame Maggie Smith, the masterful, scene-stealing actor who won an Oscar for the 1969 film “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie” and gained new fans in the 21st century as the dowager Countess of Grantham in “ Downton Abbey” and Professor Minerva McGonagall in the Harry Potter films, died early Friday in a London hospital.

Margaret Natalie Smith was born in Ilford, on the eastern edge of London, on 28th December 1934. Her father was assigned in 1939 to wartime duty in Oxford, where her theatre studies at the Oxford Playhouse School led to a busy apprenticeship.

One of Smith’s most iconic early roles was as Desdemona in Shakespeare's Othello. Laurence Olivier spotted her talent, invited her to be part of his original National Theatre company and cast her as his co-star in a 1965 film adaptation of “Othello.”

Laurence Olivier offered Smith the part opposite his Othello

Smith was frequently rated the preeminent British female performer of a generation with two Oscars, a clutch of Academy Award nominations and a shelf full of acting trophies.

The role that brought Smith international fame came in 1969 when she played the determined non-conformist teacher in the title role of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.

The role of Jean Brodie, alongside future husband Robert Stephens, won her an Oscar

The film was adapted from the 1961 novel by Muriel Spark, set in 1930s Edinburgh, and the character was based on the author's inspirational teacher.

"Jean Brodie," in which she played a dangerously charismatic Edinburgh schoolteacher, brought her the Academy Award for best actress, and the British Academy Film Award (BAFTA) as well.

Maggie Smith won critical acclaim for her role as Betsey Trotwood in a BBC adaptation of David Copperfield at the turn of the century. The part also brought her Bafta and Emmy nominations.

She appeared with a young Daniel Radcliffe in David Copperfield.

She starred alongside a young Daniel Radcliffe, who she would later act with again in the Harry Potter films.

In 2001, she took on the role of Professor Minerva McGonagall in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.

Dame Magie Smith is known to millions as Professor Minerva McGonagall from Harry Potter. Dame Maggie was reportedly the only actor JK Rowling specifically asked to star in the films.

In 2007, while working on Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince, Dame Maggie was diagnosed with breast cancer but continued filming. She was given the all-clear after two years of treatment.

From 2010, she was the acid-tongued Violet Crawley, Dowager Countess of Grantham, in the hit TV period drama “ Downton Abbey,” a role that won her legions of fans, three Emmy Awards, a Golden Globe and a host of other awards nominations.

Downton Abbey - Violet Crawley - The period ITV drama ran from 2001 to 2015, followed by two films

One of Smith's most famous later roles was as a homeless woman in The Lady In The Van, as Miss Shepherd, a redoubtable woman who lived for years in her vehicle on Bennett’s London driveway.

Smith first played Miss Shepherd on stage in 1999 and earned an Olivier nomination for Best Actress

Smith added a supporting actress Oscar for “California Suite” in 1978, Golden Globes for “California Suite” and “A Room with a View,” and BAFTAs for lead actress in “A Private Function” in 1984, “A Room with a View” in 1986, and “The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne” in 1988.

She also received Academy Award nominations as a supporting actress in “Othello,” “Travels with My Aunt,” “Room with a View” and “Gosford Park,” and a BAFTA award for supporting actress in “Tea with Mussolini.” On stage, she won a Tony in 1990 for “Lettice and Lovage.”

She was one of a select group of actors to win the treble of big US awards, with two Oscars, four Emmys and a Tony - as well as seven Baftas and an honorary Olivier Award in the UK 🇬🇧

Maggie Smith was made a Dame Commander of the British Empire 🏅 the equivalent of a knight, in 1990.

She will never be forgotten & her characters will continue on, for future generations to love 💫 🎭

RIP Maggie Smith 1934-2024 🥀 🖤

#DameMaggieSmith #Oscar-winning #star #film #ThePrimeofMissJeanBrodie #DowntonAbbey #CountessofGrantham #VioletCrawley #BAFTA #HarryPotter #ProfessorMinervaMcGonagall TheLadyInTheVan #MissShepherd #GoldenGlobe #Gettyimages

Posted 27th September 2024

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Morgan Stephens at Daily Kos:

 In 2024, more than 60 elections took place worldwide, prompting Pew Research Center to describe it as “a year of political disruption.”  In an analysis, Pew highlighted a few key electoral trends in shaping the political landscape across the globe.

Surge and endurance of right-wing populism 

Over the past decade, right-wing populist movements have gained significant traction in the United States and Europe, causing major shifts in political dynamics. This trend continued in 2024 as populist parties solidified their presence and influence in various countries. United States  In the United States, former President Donald Trump triumphed over Vice President Kamala Harris in a high-profile election, further consolidating the populist "Make America Great Again" movement within the Republican Party. This shift has sidelined long-standing Republican figures like Liz Cheney and Mitt Romney in favor of a more nationalist agenda.  The party’s recent electoral victories also mean that Republicans will soon hold all three branches of government: executive, judicial, and legislative. Additionally, Trump’s three Supreme Court appointments from his first term have helped shape its ideological makeup, with the possibility of more appointments in his second term. France In France, parties from the left and center joined forces in an attempt to prevent Marine Le Pen’s National Rally, a right-wing populist party, from gaining power. Nevertheless, Le Pen’s party significantly expanded its presence in the National Assembly. In December, the National Rally allied with the left-wing coalition, the New Popular Front, to oust conservative Prime Minister Michel Barnier after only three months in office. Austria Austria witnessed the far-right Freedom Party secure 29% of the vote in September’s elections, resulting in its best-ever performance and surpassing all other parties. Portugal  In Portugal, the right-wing Chega party emerged as a significant political force. After winning 50 seats in the March elections—up from just 12 in 2022 and one in 2019—Portugal has been added to the list of European countries with a rising right-wing presence.

Incumbents are unseated in a post-pandemic world

According to the International IDEA, 16 elections in 2024 resulted in party turnover, a 32% rate of change that signals a global trend of unseating incumbents. Economic challenges played a key role in these electoral shifts, with voters in many countries citing economic issues as their primary concern. This was particularly evident in the United States, where the economy was a central issue for voters, especially among Trump supporters.

[...]

Battle of progress vs. tradition with migration at the center

Pew noted that “the spread of populism has coincided with deepening political divides over culture and identity in many nations,” which was evident as several leaders used a nationalist approach to sway their populace to victory. 

2024 elections across the world were about anti-incumbent sentiments, as the Tories got deposed after 14 years (9 as outright) of their rule ruining the UK and Donald Trump (R) beating Kamala Harris (D) along with the GOP flipping the Senate and keeping the House to bring a trifecta. Also, these elections proved that populism, especially the right-wing kind, is a staying force.

See Also:

Pew Research Center: Global Elections in 2024: What We Learned in a Year of Political Disruption

[covid-safer-hotties]

Many long COVID patients adjust to slim recovery odds as world moves on - Published Nov 14, 2024

By Jennifer Rigby and Julie Steenhuysen

Summary Long COVID symptoms can persist for years, with slim chance of full recovery Funding and attention for long COVID research are dwindling in many wealthy countries Long COVID symptoms can include extreme fatigue, brain fog, breathlessness and pain

LONDON, Nov 14 (Reuters) - There are certain phrases that Wachuka Gichohi finds difficult to hear after enduring four years of living with long COVID, marked by debilitating fatigue, pain, panic attacks and other symptoms so severe she feared she would die overnight.

Among them are normally innocuous statements such as, "Feel better soon" or "Wishing you a quick recovery," the Kenyan businesswoman said, shaking her head.

Gichohi, 41, knows such phrases are well-intentioned. "I think you have to accept, for me, it’s not going to happen."

Recent scientific studies shed new light on the experience of millions of patients like Gichohi. They suggest the longer someone is sick, the lower their chances of making a full recovery.

The best window for recovery is in the first six months after getting COVID-19, with better odds for people whose initial illness was less severe, as well as those who are vaccinated, researchers in the United Kingdom and the United States found, opens new tab. People whose symptoms last between six months and two years are less likely to fully recover.

For patients who have been struggling for more than two years, the chance of a full recovery "is going to be very slim," said Manoj Sivan, a professor of rehabilitation medicine at the University of Leeds and one of the authors of the findings published in The Lancet.

Sivan said this should be termed "persistent long COVID" and understood like the chronic conditions myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome, or fibromyalgia, which can be features of long COVID or risk factors for it.

WANING ATTENTION Long COVID, defined as symptoms persisting for three months or more after the initial infection, involves a constellation of symptoms from extreme fatigue to brain fog, breathlessness and joint pain.

It can range from mild to utterly disabling, and there are no proven diagnostic tests or treatments, although scientists have made progress on theories about who is at risk and what might cause it. One British study, opens new tab suggested almost a third of those reporting symptoms at 12 weeks recovered after 12 months. Others, particularly among patients who had been hospitalized, show far lower rates of recovery.

In a study, opens new tab run by the UK's Office for National Statistics, two million people self-reported long COVID symptoms this past March. Roughly 700,000, or 30.6%, said they first experienced symptoms at least three years previously.

Globally, accepted estimates have suggested between 65 million, opens new tab and 200 million, opens new tab people have long COVID. That could mean between 19.5 million and 60 million people face years of impairment based on the initial estimates, Sivan said.

The United States and some countries like Germany continue to fund long COVID research.

But more than two dozen experts, patient advocates and pharmaceutical executives told Reuters that money and attention for the condition is dwindling in other wealthy countries that traditionally fund large-scale studies. In low- and middle-income countries, it was never there.

"The attention has shifted," said Amitava Banerjee, a professor at University College London who co-leads a large trial of repurposed drugs and rehabilitation programmes.

He says long COVID should be viewed as a chronic condition that can be treated to improve patients' lives rather than cured, like heart disease or arthritis.

'PROFOUNDLY DISABLING' Leticia Soares, 39, from northeast Brazil, was infected in 2020 and has battled intense fatigue and chronic pain ever since. On a good day, she spends five hours out of bed.

When she can work, Soares is a co-lead and researcher at Patient-Led Research Collaborative, an advocacy group involved in a review, opens new tab of long COVID evidence published recently in Nature.

Soares said she believes recovery seldom happens beyond 12 months. Some patients may find their symptoms abate, only to recur, a kind of remission that can be mistaken for recovery, she said.

"It's so profoundly disabling and isolating. You spend every time wondering, 'Am I going to get worse after this?'" she said of her own experience.

Soares takes antihistamines and other commonly available treatments to cope with daily life. Four long COVID specialist doctors in different countries said they prescribe such medicines, which are known to be safe. Some evidence suggests they help.

Others have less success with mainstream medicine.

Gichohi's illness was dismissed by her doctor, and she turned to a functional medicine practitioner, who focused on more holistic treatments.

She moved out of her hectic home city of Nairobi to a small town near Mount Kenya, policing her activity levels to prevent fatigue and receiving acupuncture and trauma therapy.

She has tried the addiction treatment naltrexone, which has some evidence of benefit for long COVID symptoms, and the controversial anti-parasitic infection drug ivermectin, which does not but she says helped her.

She said shifting from "chasing recovery" to living in her new reality was important.

A piecemeal treatment approach is to be expected while research progresses, and perhaps longer-term, said Anita Jain, a long COVID specialist at the World Health Organization.

Meanwhile, long-haulers face a new challenge with each spike in COVID cases. A handful of studies have suggested re-infection can exacerbate existing long COVID.

Shannon Turner, a 39-year-old cabaret singer from Philadelphia, got COVID in late March or early April of 2020.

She was already living with psoriatic arthritis and antiphospholipid antibody syndrome, autoimmune diseases for which she regularly took steroids and an immunotherapy. Such conditions may increase the risk of developing long COVID, researchers say.

This past summer, Turner got COVID again. Once again, she is extraordinarily tired and uses a walker for mobility.

Turner is determined to pursue her music career despite ongoing pain, dizziness and a racing heart rate, which regularly land her in hospital.

"I don't want to live my life in bed," she said.

[solarsonicsoda]

Rating 500+ Theme Tunes - #20: The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy

To me, the adventures are rather light-hearted. The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy was one of the premier Cartoon Network shows of the mid 2000s. It follows a rather sorrow girl named Mandy, a rather wacky boy named Billy, and their friend, The Grim Reaper. One of the better show pitches if you ask me. It's a well-remembered show for its comedic nature, as well as great voice performances for its main three characters and a variety of memorable side characters. Grim is the best, I love him.

Some may not remember this, but the show actually began as part of the Grim & Evil combo. There would be three segments, usually with two Grim episodes to one episode of Evil Con Carne, another show by creator Maxwell Atoms. However, Billy & Mandy would quickly gain popularity. Due also in part to a change in direction from the network, both segments would spin-off into their own full shows, giving us the Billy & Mandy show we know today. This process would actually be delayed until the full end of "Season 1" in the UK, whereas in the US half of these episodes would air under the full show title. It'd be a big hit, running to 2007 with 86 episodes under all iterations.

Personally, I didn't see a lot of this show growing up. It had finished its run by some time once I had Cartoon Network in my home, which meant my time with it was limited. I definitely saw it here and there though once I did, and before that at friends' houses. My largest experience with it was through games on the old Sky box though. We never had one of the fancy ones, but our box had the old internet games where you could play small platformers and stuff with the remote. There was definitely a Billy & Mandy one because all my memories are of the show's vibes and not its content. But do I remember the theme?

The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy Theme Tune

I very much do remember this theme! It's incredibly memorable with a very distinctive sound. That spooky, out-of-this-world tune really sticks in the brain, and sets the tone really well. It's fast-paced and fun, which is exactly what you want with such a show, whilst still maintaining that supernatural feel. It could stand to be a bit more full-on and in-your-face, but it's not strictly necessary. The laughing of Grim also adds a nice bit of specific personality to the track, not that it lacked character to begin with.

Overall, this is a pretty good theme. I love the sound and it's a good fit, so it's definitely near the top. This one is going to be very close, it's right at the top of this tier, but I'm going to settle with a B grade!

Stay tuned for more and be sure to send in any suggestions for other shows you'd like to see done (after the 500 already in the pipeline that is). Check out the intro to this series here, and check out the tier list.

[bodypaintsculptures]

High Priestess | Alex Turner Story

An Alex Turner 'The Car' Era inspired story. Synopsis: High Priestess are a down on their luck, struggling Welsh band made up of three best friends; Niko, CJ and Viola. The band have struggled to get themselves the recognition they need to kick start their careers, with no labels wanting to sign them nor bands wanting to tour with them. Contemplating giving up on their collective dream, the band finally get their lucky break; the chance to support one of the biggest successes to come out of the UK. The Arctic Monkeys. Was this finally the opportunity they needed to kick start their dream careers of being a successful rock band? Or will a tumultuous relationship between the two lead singers and a secret confession of devotion ultimately be too much to handle for the three best friends?

Disclaimer: This work of my own imagination and is completely fictional. It in no way represents the real persons involved.

Warnings (Mature Rating) Drug usage Mentions of death Mentions of mental health issues & body dysmorphia Mature sexual scenes

The milky way she walks around. All feet firmly on the ground. Two worlds collide, two worlds collide... - Dr John Cooper Clarke

Coming this Friday... let me know if you would like to be tagged!!

BodyPaintSculptures ©️ 2023

[grits-galraisedinthesouth]

"Professor Neil Ferguson, the architect of Britain’s lockdown, today denied ever calling for the first national stay-at-home order – in the latest instance of lockdown backpedalling."

Professor Lockdown Denies Ever Calling For Lockdown

BY TYLER DURDEN

MONDAY, NOV 06, 2023 - 03:30 AM

Authored by Will Jones via The Brownstone Institute,

In one of the more bizarre moments at the Covid Inquiry so far, Professor Neil Ferguson, the architect of Britain’s lockdown, today denied ever calling for the first national stay-at-home order – in the latest instance of lockdown backpedalling. 

The Mail  has more.

Professor Neil Ferguson’s terrifying March 2020 models warned that 500,000 Brits would die unless tougher action was taken to curb the virus’s spread.

It spooked Boris Johnson into adopting draconian restrictions that saw the country told they “must stay at home.” Vaccines — considered the only safe route out of the pandemic — were still months away from being deployed.

But Professor Ferguson, who quit his role as a SAGE adviser two months after being caught breaking social distancing rules to meet his married lover, today insisted he didn’t tell officials to plunge the country into a lockdown.

He told the UK COVID-19 Inquiry that the situation was “a lot more complex.”

The inquiry is in its second module, which is examining core UK decision-making and political governance.

Hugo Keith KC asked: “Do you feel that you did confine yourself to the provision of scientific advice, or did you become, despite your best endeavours, irrevocably involved in determination of policy?”

Imperial College London’s Professor Ferguson, nicknamed ‘Professor Lockdown’ for his infamous modelling, said it was a “difficult question to answer.”

He said: “I know I’m associated very much with a particular policy.

“But as you’ll be aware from the evidence I’ve given in my statement and statements of evidence, the reality was a lot more complex. 

“I don’t think I stepped over that line to say ‘we need to do this now.’

“What I tried to do was at times, which was stepping outside the scientific advisory role, to try and focus people’s minds on what was going to happen and the consequences of current trends.”

The epidemiologist drew heavy flak for his team’s modelling on the Covid pandemic. 

Their work suggested 500,000 Brits would die if nothing was done to stop the spread of the virus and there would be 250,000 deaths if two-thirds caught Covid.

Worth reading in full.

Ross Clark in the Spectator says that perhaps the most remarkable revelation from Professor Ferguson’s inquiry evidence is that “he spoke to and emailed Ben Warner at No. 10 on March 13th, three days before the Imperial paper [Report 9] was published.”

Warner was a data scientist brought into Downing Street by Dominic Cummings and whom Cummings later credited for inducing pandemic alarm in No. 10, so Ferguson contacting him directly beforehand is significant. 

However, Clark notes that in his email to Warner,

“Ferguson then stopped short of damning the Government’s policy of mitigation rather than suppression. In fact, if the Government decided to continue with mitigation, he wrote, ‘there is a rational basis to that decision which I would say the science supports.’ However, he added, the Government should make it clear how many people were likely to die.

“Intriguingly, Ferguson then went on to write: ‘This event is in the natural disaster category and the cure (e.g. massive social distancing, shutdowns) could be worse than the disease.’ In other words, he had at least considered the possibility that lockdowns could cause more damage than they were worth – but neither he nor anyone else seems to have tried to model this.”"

[forasecondtherewedwon]

seven degrees east - chapter two

Fandom: Masters of the Air Pairings: Gale x Bucky; Nash x Helen; more tbd Rating: T (may change) Chapter: 2 / ? Word Count: 4285

read on tumblr: one

The next morning hit some of them like a hammer. It hit others like falling dominoes of hammer-laden hardware store aisles.

They’d stayed out late, naturally. Though a bartender had eyed them up as the troublemakers they were, they’d gotten the fighting out of their system with just the one, so, in a move they were only moderately regretting in the light of day, they’d been able to sit undisturbed and drink until Crosby—their canary in the coalmine—claimed he was on the verge of ralphing. That was the point at which they always knew to cease. Well, that they knew they would need to cease in another round or two. Three at most.

In the style of a detective in his office past the midnight hour—shoes on the desk, blinds cracked to permit stripes of light from the streetlamp outside—Crosby was a sad, self-loathing drunk. The night before, true to form, he’d laid out his regrets and likely future failures for his friends to pick at like vultures. No one had, largely because no one had been paying him any attention. He was a sadsack who could be counted upon to tap out early. As usual, he’d woken up feeling much more optimistic about life. And then he’d barfed himself hoarse. And then he’d felt pretty good again.

For a night at the bar, Bubbles had two possible character archetypes from which to choose: a weathered, Steinbeckian striving towards greatness; or a Faulkneresque delusion in the face of inevitable doom. Crosby’s own maudlin reflections could sometimes push his friend towards the latter option, but the previous evening’s adventures had kept Bubbles upbeat. He’d done his upchucking before bed, and had thus awoken feeling reasonably refreshed and capable of making his roommate (still Crosby) coffee in the pot that was in such constant use that it almost never got cleaned.

Tortured Nash, whose greatest misfortune was usually that there was absolutely nothing wrong with him, had for once had ample cause to get as drunk as he had the night before. By the time he’d extricated himself from the recounting of the scuffle outside, Helen had vanished. They’d pitied him, his friends. The fact that they’d still made him buy the next round did not negate the genuine sympathy they’d felt hearing that Nash hadn’t gotten Helen’s number. Their schools were a whole half-hour drive apart. It was hopeless. Theirs was a romance fated to go unconsummated, but for a single, shining evening. They were textbook star-crossed lovers. Face pressed to the passenger-side window of Rosie’s car on the drive back to campus, Nash had thought seriously about switching his primary field to Shakespeare.

People who didn’t know Curt well were always surprised to learn he knew when to stop—when to stop drinking, that was. He’d only had the two pours from the pitcher of beer, but he’d also slipped away a couple of times and come back giggling. His friends knew that at least one of these sorties had involved toking on a squashed joint from his wallet (the scent was undeniable), but the other had lasted longer, and the plum-coloured hickey visible on the underside of Curt’s jaw when he showed up to class was pretty damning. The mark left them guessing with whom Curt had chosen to adhere to two Beat culture tenets: drug use and sexual experimentation.

In contrast with Curt’s alcohol-specific restraint, John rarely knew when to stop. Or maybe he did and ignored it. As Gale had noted at the time, the practice of overindulging was very Hemingway of him, as was John’s perennial drunken threat to take up fishing. It was the best he could do, since the UK’s lack of large predators put Hemingway’s other quarry of choice—grizzly bear, lion, etcetera—out of reach. As usual, John’s friends had applied themselves to the redirection of his inebriated enthusiasm for “the hunt,” but failed to catch the long-legged bastard when, back on campus, he’d sprinted for the iconic tower the school used in all its brochures and attempted to scale its stony carapace. (Quietly, unassumingly, and invisibly to John and Gale both, the hunt had resumed after Gale’d wrestled him off the wall, when they’d walked back to the dorms together, falling into slow, perfect step.)

Gale was subdued, and not only because he was trying to keep things in their shared dorm to a volume respectful of John’s embattled, hungover state. It was Monday, and Mondays were when Marge called. Marge was Gale’s girlfriend. Sort of. Before he’d moved overseas to complete his education, they’d had a conversation about it. They’d discussed her coming with him, they’d discussed marriage, but ultimately it’d felt like too big a step too soon, and so they’d agreed to put the relationship on hold. There were calls to check in—coming more frequently from her and with a greater feeling of guilt from him—but Gale had the sense that these had begun to feel increasingly perfunctory to them both. He just didn’t want to be the one to acknowledge that the flourishing thing they’d once had was now rootbound, likely limiting any further growth for either of them. He’d thumbed through his broken-in copy of The Portrait of a Lady the night before, looking for answers on how to reconcile his old world with his new, but Henry James didn’t make anything simple.

Rosie woke feeling fine. He inspected his mustache with pride, then carefully shaved the surrounding stubble and headed to class humming the theme song from The Nanny.

In the seminar room, Professor Harding watched each of them enter, his gaze devoid of sympathy for those in rough shape. Crosby whimpered quietly at the slant of morning light through the tall windows; had Harding raised all the goddamn blinds on purpose? Wordlessly, Bubbles nudged the thermos of coffee back into his friend’s hand.

When Gale and John walked in last, Harding got in John’s way to stop him.

“Happy Monday, Doc,” John offered with a wide grin.

“You weren’t planning on wearing those sunglasses in my classroom, were you, Mr. Egan?”

“Aw, these?” He plucked them from his head, revealing bloodshot eyes. “Nah, I just didn’t want to forget to give them to you.”

Gale stood stiffly at his side, willing John to shut up and follow him to their usual seats at the long wooden table. He watched in silence as, instead of demonstrating self-preservation (why break tradition?), John very deliberately folded the legs of his aviators, then reached out and slipped them into Harding’s shirt pocket.

“Just temporary,” John said, “so don’t get attached.”

Gale watched his best friend and their professor stare each other down—Harding unreadable, John with a cold intensity in his eyes.

“Noted,” Harding said at last. “Take a seat.”

“Can do.”

The group released a collective breath, shoulders dropping, Rosie flicking his eyebrows up at Bubbles to indicate a narrow escape, Bubbles returning the signal with a subtle wiping of faux sweat from his brow. Phew. Another close call with Bucky, their maybe too fearless co-leader.

“Projector today, sir?” Crosby asked weakly, as Harding settled into the seat at the head of the table, skimming his notes.

Crosby dreaded accidentally glancing into the overhead projector’s uncaring beam. The hot, blinding light would probably instantaneously melt whatever remained of his brain into a chunky, horrible soup—the coffee was helping with his hangover, but he really needed to not think the word chunky.

“No, Crosby. No.” Harding sniffed in the way some people had of making a sniff sound dignified rather than a harbinger of hay fever. He looked up at them. “I think we should… talk.”

The words triggered in Gale a sinking feeling that he couldn’t, and then didn’t want to, explain.

Though Harding looked uncomfortable at his own proposed plan of action, he pushed through.

“What I have on my agenda for today’s class—and what all of you have on the syllabus I gave you at the start of this course, if any of you have managed not to lose it—is some lecture from me, summary and close-reading of the ‘House-Warming’ chapter by…” He consulted his notes again. “…Rosenthal. Prepared, Rosenthal?”

His eyes found Rosie, who nodded sharply and had fed-up expressions directed at him by some of his friends for having the nerve to be bright-eyed and prepared when others of them felt like their faces had been replaced with rubber Michael Myers Halloween masks.

“Good,” Harding said (about as effusive as he ever ventured with his praise). “Well, we’re scrapping that. And the lecture. Next class though, Rosenthal. You’re still on deck.”

“Sounds good,” Rosie said.

“Sounds good?” Nash echoed at a whisper. Rosie frowned at him.

Curt’s hand shot up.

“Biddick.” Harding nodded for him to speak.

“So, what’re we gonna talk about?”

“It’s time we tried something new. How are you liking Walden?”

The boys glanced at each other. The entire course, the entire summer, was about Walden, but they hadn’t been asked before. Some professors did that—checked in to see how they felt about a text rather than just what they thought about some theme or detail. Not Harding. John squinted at his professor suspiciously for a minute, wondering if Harding himself might’ve hit the bar the night before. Whether he might have been wasted at that very moment, only astounding at hiding it. There was so much to learn at university with the right instructor.

Bubbles bravely went first.

“Well,” he said, “he’s thorough.”

“You’re suggesting the work is good simply because it was written by a man we consider an important writer?” Harding asked, attempting to extract more.

“Thorough, not Thoreau. Damn accent,” Bubbles muttered at the end.

“My apologies,” Harding offered awkwardly. “So, you appreciate his thoroughness. His commitment to the project, perhaps?”

“He did what he thought needed doing. From what he wrote down, seems like he worked hard at it.”

“Alright. Other responses?”

John didn’t lift his arm from the table, but he lifted his palm, and then a finger from that palm. Harding nodded at him.

“Whitman writes, ‘Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself,’” John recited with an indolent competence.

“‘I am large, I contain multitudes,’” Gale finished under his breath. John reached below the table and squeezed his knee.

“You think Thoreau contradicts himself?” Harding interpreted.

John took his time sliding his hand from Gale’s knee. It trailed a little higher before he lifted it to join his other hand above the table, so he could gesture with both at once: a shrug with his palms upturned.

“One minute he loves to be alone, the next he’s talking about all his buddies who keep showing up. I mean, come on,” John said flatly. “What kinda hermit in the woods did this guy really think he was?”

“A pretty damn good one,” Rosie cut in.

“That’s why he wrote the book braggin’ about it,” Gale tacked on.

“Thoreau’s tone can get self-congratulatory,” Harding allowed. “Is this unwarranted?”

“Yes,” John said emphatically, right as Crosby said, “No.”

“‘No’?” John repeated.

“It was hard! It was hard for him! It would be hard for us, if we were honest with ourselves!” The caffeine was hitting Crosby.

“No,” John said, his own ‘no’ this time.

“No it wouldn’t be hard for us or no you won’t be honest with yourself?”

“No.” John smiled slowly and Crosby shook his head with jittery impatience.

“I got a thought,” Curt volunteered.

“Go ahead,” Harding said.

Curt breathed deeply, sighed, and announced, “Thoreau needs to get laid.”

Rosie permuted his abrupt laughter into an unconvincing cough.

“Please tell me you plan on strengthening your point,” Harding requested in a suffering tone.

“Uh, yeah, I do, sir,” Curt promised quickly. He shuffled forward on his seat. “It’s all his tension, right? He’s, like, super anal about his spending and his fuckin’ bean field. And then he wants to be alone, but he wants his friends to come over and hang and play Air Combat on his fuckin’ PlayStation all the time.”

Rosie sighed loudly.

“Alright, now,” Harding said, stepping in. “That wasn’t the most orthodox argument, but before anyone rebuts Biddick’s point, let me just say that he has one.”

“Was Thoreau in love?” Nash wondered. Having not done the reading, he’d been trying to keep a low profile in case they swung back around to “House-Warming” after all, but this topic was completely irresistible to him.

“Well… it’s not an unpopular argument that the object of Thoreau’s affection does appear in Walden.”

“I don’t even remember him mentioning a woman except… Emerson’s wife?”

“No, Nash, it’s—”

“Thoreau’s mom?” Curt demanded. His face suggested he was both disgusted and delighted by this bombshell.

“The woodchopper,” Gale guessed.

“The woodchopper,” Harding confirmed. “Very astute, Cleven. Yes, that Thoreau had”—he cleared his throat—“sexual feelings for the woodchopper is a not unpopular theory among scholars.”

“The woodchopper’s a man,” Nash said.

“So, you have been doing some of the readings,” Harding observed wryly. That shut Nash up.

“The woodchopper?” Curt said. “The French guy? Well, I guess…”

He began retreading his own points from earlier—the tension, the struggle between a need to be alone and a need to be with others who were important to him. To this, Curt added a recounting of Thoreau’s (somewhat insulting) admiration for the woodchopper, for the way he lived, for the purity of him, aligned as he was with the natural world Thoreau himself had set out to better appreciate.

Throughout Curt’s monologue, John’s gaze shifted repeatedly to the side of Gale’s face. He saw Gale’s jaw clench. The tension. John wondered if anybody knew how the woodchopper had felt, whether anybody’d bothered to write that down. From one minute to the next, Thoreau became interesting to John for the first time. It would’ve been impossible with the woodchopper, but had Thoreau ever married a woman, or had it mostly been him and the trees, him and his fuckin’ bean field, as Curt had said? John wondered if you ever got used to that solitude, or you only pretended to seem strong and silent. Thoreau was reminding him of Hemingway, and how he separated his male protagonists from the women they loved to permit this manly, weary continuance. It seemed exhausting to John, who was hungover, whose furrowed brow was not evidence of his concentration on the matter of Thoreau and the woodchopper but of his fraught endeavour to recall what he and Gale had said to one another the night before on the walk to their dorm.

Gale, next to John, had been fairly confident in his theory of Thoreau and the woodchopper, or else he wouldn’t have spoken up. It had felt vulnerable, as it always did to offer an interpretation to Harding. He respected the man. He didn’t want to be wrong. And it wasn’t as though, for as long as men had been writing books, they hadn’t been imbuing them with homoeroticism, but bringing it up while seated beside John was different from picking up on subtext while reading, making a calm bullet point in his composition book. He’d only named the woodchopper because it’d seemed too clear not to, and because it might help the others to understand—to understand the book. Gale had named the woodchopper because that was an easy attraction to identify. He could stab his finger down on the page and say, Now, that, gentlemen, is what pining looks like. He found it so much simpler, sometimes, to study people in books. With an actual person, there was a chance of interpreting them incorrectly, and then what would happen? Gale didn’t like all the unknowns. He propped his elbow on the table and rested his cheek on his fist.

“Short essays are due this Friday,” Harding reminded them at the end of class. “If you haven’t met with me about your topic because you’re so confident that you prefer to surprise me… God help you.”

With that, they dispersed.

—

There had been an airfield, Bubbles knew. It had been gone since before the university had bought the land and decided to raise upon it buildings that lied about their age in the opposite direction Bubbles’ mother was always trying to. The airfield was the reason for the large lawn devoid of trees. Younger trees had been planted elsewhere on the property, but this stretch of grass had been left. Except for the one solid oak Crosby was currently leaning his back against. He had found the only tree in sight.

“Croz,” Bubbles greeted, tossing his bag down, then himself, inhaling deeply. The afternoon was growing late, and the ground was warm, the scent of the grass he disturbed as he stretched out on the lawn a pleasant mingling of sweet and bitter.

Crosby looked up over the top of The Lady in the Lake and smiled.

“Hey, buddy.”

“Essay done?”

“A version of it.”

They both knew how Crosby operated: the minute an assignment was given, he went to work on it, burning the midnight oil and refusing to rest until it was complete. This left him plenty of time to second-guess himself and start over from scratch, sometimes multiple times. Crosby claimed he worked best under pressure, and was generally happiest with the last iteration he created. This could only be achieved under conditions of severe eye strain and over-caffeination. His mind was a fine instrument; his body was treated with all the consideration shown to Victorian chimneysweeps before the introduction of child labour laws.

Bubbles fished inside his bag for a pack of gum, folding a stick into his mouth. Eyes back on his page, Crosby stuck out a hand; Bubbles rolled his eyes and gave him a stick too. He jerked his chin at the book.

“What’s this one about?”

“Guns, booze, missing dame.”

“Chandler sure knows his wheelhouse, I’ll give him that,” Bubbles said.

“And the Second World War. He wrote it right after Pearl Harbor.”

Bubbles nodded to acknowledge he’d heard, and they let the quiet linger. Crosby flipped a page. Bubbles gazed across the lawn, wondering if he was only imagining that he could see where the runways had once been. It was all grass now. Warm, scented grass, mushed soft where he lay.

Snapping his gum, Bubbles extracted a few more supplies from his bag: notebook, pen, lucky writing snow globe. Unlike Crosby, he didn’t have a tried-and-true process, but he did have the calm he felt when he shook the little globe and watched the plastic flakes float down. At this hour, the glitter that was also suspended in the liquid sparkled like diamonds. Bubbles stared at the components that came together to imitate snow and let his mind drift with a similar abandon. He thought of real snow and Absalom, Absalom! and how to tell a story and whether, once told, that story was a kind of truth regardless of its factuality. He thought he might write his essay about Walden’s genre, and began jotting down ideas.

Because of the lack of students on campus during the summer—not to mention the lack of trees—John was able to see his friends from a distance: Crosby a shape against the bark and Bubbles sprawled out nearby. John came strolling across the lawn. Judging his friends to be distracted, he changed course at the last minute and approached them from behind the tree. He snuck close, then jumped out next to Crosby.

“The butler did it!” he shouted.

Crosby’s hands flew up, his mystery novel launched from their grasp. Laughing, John swept an arm low and snagged poor Chandler from midair.

“It’s not really that kinda mystery, Bucky,” Crosby said, eyes narrowed with distrust even as John sank down to join them.

“That’s a shame. You ever think of writing your own?”

Crosby looked alarmed.

“Write my own detective novel?”

“Yeah,” John said nonchalantly. He shrugged. “Why not? You’re a natural-born plotter.”

Crosby’s eyes shifted to Bubbles’ face and they exchanged a look; neither was able to tell whether this was a compliment, exactly.

“Thanks?” Crosby said.

John nodded, the motion loose and magnanimous.

“You’re welcome, Croz. So, what’re you two suckers up to? Procrastinating that essay?”

“Working on it,” Bubbles said.

“Working on procrastinating?”

“Working working.”

“Oh,” John said, sounding disappointed. He looked again to Crosby. “What about you?”

“Taking my mind off it before I write another version.” Crosby shut his novel around his index finger and flapped the cover against his knee.

“Eesh. You are a glutton for punishment.”

“Seems like.”

“In the meantime, procrastination is a fine art,” John declared. He retrieved from his own pocket the sunglasses he’d earlier slipped into Professor Harding’s. He laid on his back and put them on with a deep sigh. “And I’m fucking Picasso.”

“I wish the both of you every happiness,” Bubbles mumbled, half distracted as he drew lines across his paper to connect his ideas.

“Perv,” John accused lightly, to cover the flush that rushed across his cheeks.

It wasn’t the joke that made him blush. He wasn’t actually sure what it was, not exactly, just that he wasn’t fucking anyone at the moment. Not regularly. Normally, he was satisfied with this state of affairs to the point of boastfulness; unlike Crosby and Gale, who both had some calibre of long-distance thing going on with chicks back in the States, John was typically free to hook up whenever the chance presented itself. He hadn’t wanted to lately, but he could—they knew he could. It was just…

He wished he could remember his conversation with Gale.

John hadn’t brought anything to work on when he’d come wandering back from the dorms. No books to read, no paper to write on. What he had done was slide his Discman into the fathomless pocket of his jeans and hook the headphones around the back of his neck. He dragged them up over his ears now and pressed play, launching back into (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? partway through “Some Might Say.” He closed his eyes to better focus on the heat of the sun on his face.

He didn’t realize he was almost asleep—lulled by the rolling sonic waves of “Champagne Supernova”—until Gale gave the sole of his shoe a gentle kick, rousing him. Blearily, John sat up, tugging his headphones off.

“Hey.”

“Hey,” Gale said back.

John removed his sunglasses and rubbed his eyes, making the world go fuzzy. He noticed that Crosby was gone, and Bubbles was packing up. They probably wouldn’t have left him there. Probably. Then again, he was sometimes grouchy if someone woke him up. Not Gale though. He was never grouchy with Gale.

He lifted a hand in farewell as Bubbles departed, then turned his attention on his best friend.

“What’s up?”

“Nothin’ much.” Gale wandered over to the tree, reaching out and trailing his fingertips across the bark. “Me and Marge broke up.”

John knew it would be childish to point out they hadn’t really been together, so he said nothing for several long seconds. What the hell did he know about relationships? He’d never been part of anything as serious as what Gale and Marge had. Had had. He’d actually expected Gale to propose after defending his dissertation. John had expected a big wedding. He’d expected to be asked to be best man. Gale and Marge weren’t together now, but John had always assumed things would go back to how they had been when Gale (and John—perennially single, perennially unserious, tagging along) had left England. That was how things went: sometimes, you got to be someone else, somewhere else, for a while, but then things mostly went the way they were supposed to go.

When John had been sixteen, with the Rolling Stones on the verge of breaking up, he’d thought he might’ve been the second coming of Mick Jagger. Then somebody’d finally told him he couldn’t sing for shit, and he’d gone back to reading books. It had probably saved him from a lot of harsh criticism (which he could’ve handled the way he’d handled the Brits at the bar) and a cocaine addiction (which, yeah, wouldn’t have been great). John knew it might have been fatalistic, but he did think things tended to work themselves out, for better or worse.

Only… Gale and Marge were no longer together.

“You ok?” John asked.

“Yeah.”

But Gale didn’t look ok, not completely, though it was hard to be certain when he kept looking at his hand on the tree and not at John.

“We weren’t really together anymore anyway,” Gale said, which made John feel bad that he’d been thinking the same thing.

“Don’t say that,” he said softly.

Gale waved him off. John wasn’t sure how to help. Was he supposed to encourage Gale to try to get Marge back? Was he supposed to root for that? Or did he call Marge a bitch and assure Gale that he was better off a free agent, like John himself? Nothing but highs. Another day in the life.

“Quit looking at me like that,” Gale ordered without turning his head.

“Like what?” John asked instead of lying and saying he wasn’t.

But Gale didn’t have an answer.

Eventually, John forced himself up off the lawn and walked Gale to the dining hall to grab dinner. They stepped into their own long shadows over and over again as the sun warmed their backs, like it existed just for that, like it orbited the earth and not the other way around.