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Granted, no one expects pharmaceutical web sites to exude the fun and games of say, The 21st Century Beetle – Rock 'n' Scroll, one of this year's Webby Award winners. But even in their own category at the 2012 Webbys, pharmaceutical brand web sites were conspicuous by their absence. Of the five nominees, the lone branded drug site was FluMist's Pick Your Nose—a clever take on Medimmune's nasal alternative to the flu shot that made the cut for the second year in a row.
The real innovation in the category came from entries that were decidedly un-pharma. So much so, this looked more like the anti-pharma web awards. Which is a shame, really. Because the concept that seemed to resonate most with the Webby judges is one that also resonates with today's empowered, engaged e-patients: helping healthcare consumers make informed choices. There's nothing inherently un-pharma about that, is there?
So take note pharma. Here are ideas you can use.
Idea #1: GoodRx. My personal favorite and also the People's Choice Webby winner, GoodRx aims to make prescription drugs more affordable for everyone, with or without health insurance.
Co-founded by two ex-Facebook guys, Doug Hirsch and Scott Marlette, the site gives consumers the same kind of tools they use to find the cheapest TV or airline tickets. Just type in a drug name and zip code to compare prices from major US chain stores, mail order pharmacies and even some local stores. Plus there are store coupons, info on pharmacy discount plans and links to drug companies' own discount programs.
What's stopping any pharma brand web site from helping consumers search for the best prices for their product? Nothing. Except maybe fear of instilling sticker shock? But consider the alternative: at GoodRx, patients can also search brand vs. generic pricing. Talk about sticker shock then! Or they can use the GoodRx iPhone app right in the doctor's office to get their doctor to write a prescription for the brand that best fits their budget. Maybe it's better to head them off at the pass with your own product price search. Or, at the very least,with an easy tool that lets me check my health plan's coverage or co-pay.
Idea #2: Ask a Patient This year's Webby winner for Best Web Site: Pharmaceuticals is all about patient empowerment. AskaPatient.com was created by Consumer Health Resource Group, LLC to help individuals research drugs and health care topics.
If GoodRx is the Expedia of pharmaceuticals, then AskaPatient is the TripAdvisor. Instead of commenting on hotel accommodations, consumers review their medications, sharing side effects and success stories, and rate their experiences on a scale of 1 to 5. According to the site's FAQ's the average rating for all drugs in the AskaPatient database is about 3, which equals "average" or "somewhat satisfied." After perusing a fair number of patient postings, I found as many high fives as low ratings. But like many other consumer product reviews, they are only one piece of the puzzle. (One person's dream vacation can be another's nightmare, after all.) However, AskaPatient certainly brings those dry adverse event profiles on the (mostly) unread PI's to life.
What's the big idea here for drug makers? I hardly expect them to open their web sites (or even their Facebook pages, for that matter) to consumer side effect complaints. On the other hand, it's getting harder and harder to ignore the elephant in the room. An honest discussion of side effects as part of real patient stories can go a long way toward managing expectations and improving adherence. My dream web site: one that compares side effect profiles of all drugs in a category, in much the same way that auto makers openly compare the stats of their cars with the competition. Maybe next year?
Idea #3: Help I need help. The branding of this OTC line of single symptom remedies is childishly simple. And simply brilliant. From product names (Help I Have a Headache)…
to plain Jane biodegradable packaging… to contents (uncoated, uncolored, single active ingredients), Help Remedies has cornered the market on less—less drug, less dye, less confusion. The HelpIneedhelp web site is an exercise in simplicity itself and a beautiful showcase for the brand. There isn't a single happy patient cliche in site. (The only people on the site are in the simply produced, tongue-in-cheek videos.) The playfully restrained design invites interaction and makes it simple (that word again!) to learn more, find a store or buy online.
The message for pharma? Simply, help me.
Help me understand my condition and your treatment. Help me find a way to afford it. Help me manage side effects. Help me any way you can. With simple and personal language. With easy-to-use tools. With relevant support. With whatever YOU would want if you were in MY shoes. Help me.
Then maybe we'll see more pharma innovation at next year's Webby Awards.


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Kwido at the forefront of technology and the elderly in Europe
During the months of May and June, Iñaki Bartolomé, CEO of Ideable and head of Kwido, participated in a number of events related to aging and technology in Europe.
- Ideable organised the leading event in elderly care technology use in Spain, AgingBilbao, which over the course of a day presented the main public and private stakeholders in the industry in Spain, along with some major international companies such as Samsung and Tunstall, who also attended to present their new products for the industry.
Iñaki Bartolomé presented all the lectures, in addition to presenting Kwido to all the attendees, of which there were more than 160 on-site, and many more attending internationally via streaming. More information on the conference can be found on the event's website you can find more data of the day, as well as photos and to all the presentations recorded in video.
- Kwido was in Brussels in May for the EIP on AHA event, "Innovation in Care, How to improve quality of life and services for an ageing population?", where Iñaki Bartolomé, head of Kwido, took part in a round table focused on "How to improve Age friendly environments" to discuss how technology is changing now and can further improve the quality of life of elderly people at home and even outside of their homes.
- Kwido was also at another European event as part of the actions of the EIP on AHA group, in this case the conference held in Valencia by the Polibienestar group.
Polibienestar is a Research Institute in Social Welfare Policies at the Universitat de València, specialising in research, innovation and social technology, technical advice and training in the field of social policy, aimed at improving the well-being and quality of life of all. On 8 and 9 June, the different European stakeholders working to improve the quality of life of the elderly gathered here to promote active and healthy aging programmes.
They included Iñaki Bartolomé, head of Ideable, who talked about Kwido and "Future trends and the implementation of IT solutions at home".

subset: commoncrawl


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Years ago, I had a friend who once described herself in a moment of honesty as having gone through a period where she was, as she put it, an exercise bulimic. She would exercise obsessively, going on runs every day and working out all the time. The label itself was perhaps the most interesting part, and seemed to be her own creation. We have mental categories for eating disorders. Most of us, however, do not have categories for exercise disorders.
Eating disorders, at least in the popular telling, are usually associated with looking excessively emaciated and thin. But instead of just not eating, she ate a more or less regular (albeit modest and vegan) diet and exercised like crazy. The result was looking thin but toned, not the stick figure arms that I always associated with anorexia or bulimia.
And this proved almost the perfect disguise, because someone who just likes to exercise a lot fits the aspirational ideal of our society. We envision them as ourselves but with more willpower, doing all the gym classes that we always meant to do but never got around to doing.
By contrast, someone who simply refuses to eat meaningful quantities of food, certainly in public, strikes many more people as inherently suspicious. Having willpower being channeled into straight self-denial of something so basic like food, rather than hard work on something "virtuous" (in the modern telling) like exercise, raises far more alarm bells about sanity. These alarm bells themselves are quite telling, of course. They arise because we live in an inherently self-indulgent society dedicated to consumption and self-centredness, where self-denial seems like a bizarre refutation of what we hold dear. But nonetheless, the perception was what it was.
I have known a number of girls over the years who claimed to have eating disorders at some point or other.
Parenthetically, I even knew one girl who claimed this was a very useful cold reading technique on women. Say to them "I'm guessing that you possibly had an eating disorder at some point, though you may not have ever told anyone about it." The reason it worked, she claimed, is that this described a sufficiently sizable majority of women in the population, so was a safe bet to make regardless of who you were talking to, especially given the ambiguity in understanding of the term 'eating disorder'.
But among those few who claimed to have an eating disorder, there were some things that stuck out.
Firstly, the claim was always in the past tense. I had an eating disorder some time ago, not I have an eating disorder. But the story somehow never made it clear that the underlying mindset had changed that much. The circumstances had changed, sure, but the stories tended to lack a defining end which stated "and that's when I figured out that I had to change my way of thinking, and so I did." Instead, the descriptions of past eating disorders always had a distinctly confessional aspect about them. I suspect my cold-reading friend knew of what she spoke when she added the clause about maybe not telling anyone about it. One does not lightly confess to things which sound like mental health problems.
People nearly always tell you the unflattering things about themselves in oblique ways, and you need to know how to listen. One way is the one above, and the rarer case, where introspection and honesty have gotten to the point of identifying flaws, but they are phrased in the past tense. When you hear "I was [this unflattering thing]", you should understand it to mean "I fear I still am [this unflattering thing], but I struggle and work to try to change it, with varying degrees of success"
The other way people reveal themselves is by generalization to the population at large, particularly when it comes to mental processes. Whenever you hear someone say "people generally think in manner X", pay close attention, especially if the characterisation strikes you as wrong. They are nearly always describing themselves.
My cold-reading friend, for instance, was not among those who had said they'd had an eating disorder themselves. But it would be a very good bet to make.
The second notable aspect of the eating disorder confessions I've heard is the rationale. And they all said the same thing: it wasn't really about being thin. It was about exerting control over one small aspect of their lives. And the need to do this became strong when the rest of their life seemed to be sliding out of control. The message in multiple cases was the same - "At least I can control this part".
Which fits in with the characterisation of the mindset above. What seemed to have changed to make the eating disorder go from present tense to past tense, if you read between the lines, was that the problems making their life uncertain had gradually subsided. That, more than anything else, was what caused them to no longer obsess about their weight and eating. Everyone wants to look thin, pretty and be in good shape. But what was being felt internally, and what sometimes but less frequently gets observed from the outside, is the excessive control. This was the underlying need - the food was merely the one part they could solve in a life that had gotten chaotic and frightening. In one case it was going to boarding school at age 13. In another it was being in a foreign country and suddenly knowing nobody.
I have a suspicion, though I'm sure many psychiatrists will disagree, that a decent amount of what we classify as mental disorders really represent points on a continuum of character traits, rather than binary instances of a disease. At some point, we have a general view that the threshold has been crossed into the pathological territory, but this is nearly always a judgment call on which people will often disagree. The distinction between being a clinical narcissist, a sub-clinical narcissist, and just a general selfish asshole, is not an easy one to pin down.
So it seems to be here.
The underlying tendency here is far more common in its less pathological form - that when you can't manage the large things in your life, you at least manage the small. You may not know where your relationship is heading, or how you're going to find a job, but you can at least get the laundry done and make sure the dish cloths aren't too dirty. At some point, I suspect a lot of us have done this, busying ourselves with the musical score of day-to-day activities while the deckchairs of our life slowly slide down the deck of the Titanic.
What we are really observing with something like anorexia, then, is that the need for control has gotten so great that the person can't even see how they appear to the outside world. Keeping yourself 10kg underweight is very hard work. The pathology is that the need to do something extremely hard and controlled outweighs even the need (or ability) to see that others will perceive you as being mentally ill.
And to be honest, this is a pretty good diagnostic of at least some instances when things have tipped over into pathology - when you can no longer even see how you appear to the outside world. But if one focuses only on this aspect, one tends to treat the symptom of the excess, but not think about the underlying cause, especially in the sub-clinical cases.
For instance, one of the girls I knew said that the lesson she had learned was not that she shouldn't obsessively control her weight, but rather that she needed to obsessively control her weight and weigh a few kilograms more so that people wouldn't think that she looked too thin.
It seems, shall we say, optimistic to think that this has fixed the underlying problem, unless you think that eating disorders are merely a problem of low BMI.
For those of us who are not psychiatrists and not dealing frequently with people who are genuinely mentally ill, the interesting thing about understanding pathological behavior is for what it reveals about how to fix our own, non-pathological versions of the same basic trait.
And I suspect the broader lesson is that you should be wary of dealing with the uncertainty and chaos of your life by focusing on the small problems in lieu of the large. Willpower is a finite resource. Spend it on the most important use.


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Harry Redknapp has admitted trying to keep QPR in the Premier League will be his toughest challenge yet.
The former Tottenham manager has taken over a side rooted to the foot of the table, with just four points from 13 games and without a win all season.
He has saved Portsmouth from relegation and took a Tottenham side from bottom of the table to the Champions League the following season. But he said: "We mustn't kid ourselves, this is much tougher that those two jobs in my opinion, but I'm optimistic we can pull it off.
"I want to be successful here, really badly. I want to keep this team in the Premier League. If the players try as hard as I am going to try we'll be successful."
Redknapp confirmed a deal was being done to bring in long-time assistants Joe Jordan and Kevin Bond to assist him. And he warned the players he would not tolerate a lack of effort.
"We've got to do better to give ourselves any chance of getting out of this mess," he said. "I need 11 people with ability to put effort in. If they don't they're not going to play and I'll get 11 people who do. I've got no time for people who lose the ball and stand their with hands in the air."
On the team spirit, he added: "The lads I met yesterday were all upbeat. They've got to realise they are in this position because they haven't really performed to their capabilities and they've got to do better.
"The players have to take responsibility for performances, they've got to up their performance level and get us out of trouble."


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The wineries
The company I MORI was founded in the early 70's, when the family Giannelli decided to redevelop its small farm, which has gradually grown since then. The company is situated on the hills surrounding Florence, in the Chianti area, and the main crops are, naturally, the vines and olive-trees. Today the firm includes various farms and has extended its territory to 160 hectares of which 50 are vineyards and 15 are olive-groves.
In 1997 the family Giannelli bought a new company in Montalcino, the Podere CANNETA, which produces Brunello di Montalcino, Rosso di Montalcino and Sant'Antimo wines. Canneta is 1000 meters far away from the old fortress of Montalcino: it is composed by 10 hectares of vineyards and 2 hectares of olive-groves and surrounded by 30 hectares of thick wood.
In the year 2003 Canneta expanded its agricultural industry also in Maremma: a region naturally destined to the vine-growing. 37 hectares of land were bought in Cinigiano: 3,5 hectares of which planted with vines for the production of the D.O.C. Montecucco and Maremma. This is the birth of the "La Pietrosola" wines.
In the year 2015 all wineries converged in the Società Agricola Canneta S.r.l. allowing us to offer a big range of Tuscan Wines. The family Giannelli still takes care of the production respecting the environment and the tradition and certainly ensuring the Authenticity and "Tuscanity" of its products.
Canneta 290 - 53024 - Montalcino (SI)
Tel. +39 055 8784452 - Fax +39 055 8784651
- Partita IVA IT00694780529


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I can be a mother and a wife. I can be a dreamer.~ Kristy from Breath of Sunshine
When my husband trained to run his first marathon, he was never asked: Do the kids miss you? Who watches the kids for you while you train? He never heard comments like: Your wife and kids must have sacrificed a lot for you to go for your marathon dream. It seemed a given for Chris to reach for his dreams–to go after his goals. It was accepted. But for me, the mother of 4, wife and stay-at-home-mom, those questions and comments were the norm. Whether it was their intention or not, these questions and comments were designed by nature to be dripping with the undertone:don't you feel guilty?
I often feel like I have had to put my defenses up, to justify my actions to explain away why I dream big and chase after those dreams. And I shouldn't. I hope to raise my children to believe they can dream big. And I pray my daughters will have the confidence to do so guilt free, without having to worry about the judgments of others, especially, especially other mothers.
I recently heard Kathi Lipp speak and her message was loud and clear: It's OK to chase your dreams, it's OK to have goals, even if you are– just a mom. It's OK to be a mom and a dreamer.
And yet I want to be careful with what I'm trying to say. Because so often I read things or hear from other moms–where in order to feel better about their choices, they have to put down others who make choices different from their own. I don't ever want to make someone else feel bad for their choices, even if they are different from mine.
I know for some, placing their dreams on hold is what works best for them, for their souls. And that is best for their families. Others don't want to wait, and what's good for their souls is chasing those dreams in the here and now, and that is what is best for their families. So I want to be careful, and say with love; if you choose to wait, it's because you know what is best for you, it doesn't make you less of a woman. If you choose to act, it doesn't make you selfish or less of a mother.
I'm just a mom. I spend my day cooking meals, cleaning, driving children to and from school, hosting playdates, kissing and bandaging owies, reading books with a lap full of children, helping with homework, doing laundry, grocery shopping, squeezing in my runs and workouts, taking Baby for walks, worrying: am I doing enough? am I raising them right and good?, combing hair, building legos and building up their spirits, cuddling a child of mine who just needs extra love for no other reason than wanting to be in my arms. Just a mom who spends her days loving her children, just like any other mom.
And I'm a dreamer. I have running dreams: to some day run a 100 mile race (but not now, not even soon…even I place dreams on hold), to cross the finish lines of my first two ultra marathons this year, to get faster. And other dreams: to raise as much money as I can for lung cancer, to build up MyFitFamily to something worthy of being proud of, to write a book, to one day have my dream job once my children are all in school, to start my own charity. So many dreams and so many more. Some I'm chasing now and some have to wait.
And now, I can confidently say: No. I don't feel guilty. Not at all. Because I don't want to just tell my children to chase their dreams–I want them to see me doing it. So they really know how important it is to go after what the heart longs for. How else will they know that it's OK to dream big unless I stop apologizing and feeling guilty about chasing my own dreams? I want them to see that a mommy can set goals and achieve them, just like a daddy can. I want them to feel confident about their choices–whether they choose to act or choose to wait.
I'm a mother. And a dreamer.
Also published on MyFitFamily.com.
Dear Readers. Since writing this post I did cross those 50 and 52.4 mile finish lines. Keep dreaming!


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I've come to finished another mix media layout. Here's my layout....
Monday, 9 June 2014
I've come to finished another mix media layout. Here's my layout....
14 comments:
Dearest Merry ....or Linda !!! ... your work is amazing!!! I can see that you truly put your heart on this project, its obvious that your husband's photo gave you lots of inspiration !!! I love your background work and your red embelishments, they make your black & white photo to pop out !! Thank you so much for playing with us at Scraps n Pieces challenge blog !ReplyDelete
wow! your background is phenomenal! amazing work! thank you so much for playing with us at SNP!ReplyDelete
Wow and Wow!!!!!!!!!!!!! Wonderful work - eye catching, dramatic, vibrant!!! Thanks for joining us at SNP!!!ReplyDelete
Gorgeous page - love your background work - it's just amazing. Thank you so much for joining us on Pixels and Paper in June.ReplyDelete
The background is so vibrant and fun! I love what you did with the chipboard too! Thank you for playing with us at SNP!!!ReplyDelete
A real piece of art! your rocked this challenge! Thanks for your contribution to this challenge at Sketchabilities!ReplyDelete
This is beyond stunning !!! Thanks for playing along with SketchabilitiesReplyDelete
love this page great techniques thanks for joining us @ Pixels and paper this month xoReplyDelete
Wowow amazing !ReplyDelete
A fantastic and gorgeous page I love how you have used the colours in the inspiration picture :)ReplyDelete
Great page. I love the colours you have used to create it. Thank you for joing us at Pixels and Paper ths month. I look forward to seeing more of your art. Cheers, DiReplyDelete
AMAZING LAYOUT!!!LOVE THE COLOURS AND ALL THE DETAILS!!!GREAT WORK!!!THANKS FOR SHARING IT WITH US AT SCRAPS N'PIECES!!!ReplyDelete
i love this LO!!! i like the colors that you chose for the background! they match wonderfully with the photo!thanks for playing with us at scraps n pieces!ReplyDelete
Amazing page and image inspirationReplyDelete
tks for playing with us at Sketchabilities


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Landschlacht, Switzerland, 9 November 2017
I don´t drive.
I never learned how.
(I know….strange for a Canadian adult to say that, eh?)
We own a car.
My wife drives it.
My work takes me to places well outside of reasonable walking distance, so I spend a lot of time on buses and trains.
And as much as I dislike bus travel and loathe the SBB (Schweizerisches Bundesbahnen or Swiss Federal Railways), the one advantage that constant passenger travel offers me is the opportunity to read.
Recently I have been reading Ben Aaronovitch´s Rivers of London, the first in his series of Peter Grant novels.
"Meet DC Peter Grant.
He will show you his city.
But it´s not the capital that you all see as you make your way from tube to bus, from Elephant to Castle.
It´s a city that under its dark surface is packed full of crime.
And of magic.
A city that you never suspected…."
Monday, after a frustrating day at work, I bought myself J. K. Rowling´s The Tales of Beedle the Bard.
Inspired by this purchase, today I bought the British Museum´s Harry Potter: A Journey through the History of Magic.
Just ten days ago I bought at Heathrow Airport a keychain train ticket passage from London to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, departing from King´s Cross Station´s Platform 9 3/4.
If there is one thing that Aaronovitch and Rowling (the Harry Potter series) and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (the Sherlock Holmes series) have taught me is that there is much we take for granted and that magic lies just below the surface of what we see.
Just yesterday, I went into Kreuzlingen and Konstanz to get our phone repaired and to do some shopping to change the funky mood I have been in since Monday, and I serendiptiously made some discoveries.
I had lunch in a Japanese café I had not known existed on the Hauptstrasse and was served by a young woman from Newcastle, England.
I visited the Kreuzlingen Tourist Information Centre and I found myself astonished to bring home many brochures and pamplets from my visit.
Later still I found a street in Konstanz that leads from the border post to Rosengartenstraße, offering restaurants previously undiscovered and a second hand shop that gives away free CDs and books from time to time.
So often I think I know a place and then I am surprised by something new that had escaped my previous attention.
As tourists we visit places with preconceptions of places that often are quite different from reality.
From 23 to 29 October, the wife and I visited London and, of necessity, we rode the London Underground with its own magic just under the surface….
London, England, 23 October 2017
It was inevitable.
First day in London and we were compelled to use the Tube, London´s nickname/brandname for its Underground subterranean railway system.
The world´s first below-ground railway, first began operations in 1863, the Underground handles over 1 billion passengers a year, at an average of 8 million per day, and yet it is not the world´s busiest metro system.
Ten other cities have busier systems with Beijing the busiest.
Though the entire London Underground comprises a total of 250 miles/400 km of track, Shanghai has the longest route system.
Although the Underground has 270 stations, New York City has more.
There are 157 cities in 55 countries that possess a metro system.
This country boy has only ridden the metro systems in 21 cities in 15 countries.
(As fellow Canadian Michael J. Fox commented in the NYC-set 1993 movie The Concierge / For Love or Money, "I take the subway like any other animal.")
And the idea of having a metro system keeps expanding, with Australian cities like Melbourne and Sydney constructing new metro systems, and even Honolulu getting into the metro scene.
But the London Tube, being the oldest, is the metro system with the longest history of being under attack.
As early as 30 October 1883 (Paddington Station) and as late as 15 September 2017 (Parsons Green), the Tube has been bombed (or has been attempted to be bombed) for over 150 years.
And the memory of the 7/7 Tube attacks in 2005 remains fresh in many people´s minds, when bombs were set off between Aldgate and Liverpool Street stations, Russell Square and Kings Cross St. Pancras stations, and Edgware Road and Paddington stations, and on a double decker bus above ground on Tavistock Road, resulting in the deaths of 52 UK residents of 18 different nationalities* and more than 700 people injured.
(*Every week 2,000 migrants unload at Victoria Coach Station.
At least 55% of people living in London are not ethnically white British.
There are more people in London with little or no English than the entire population of the city of Newcastle.)
Still Londoners and visitors keep calm and ride the Tube.*
(*Except for, sadly, those who use the Tube to commit suicide.
In the first decade of the new Millennium, there were 643 suicide attempts on the Underground between 2000 and 2010, including successful attempts.
More people commit suicide at King´s Cross and Victoria stations than at any other Tube location.
People who throw themselves under Tube trains are called "one-unders" by the staff.
In New York they call them "track pizza".)
During the London Blitz in World War II many people used Tube stations as bomb shelters.
Above: Aldwych Tube Station, 1940
A Tube station was never once struck by aerial bombardment.
But on 3 March 1943, after British media reported a heavy RAF raid on Berlin on the night of 1 March, the air raid Civil Defence siren sounded at 8:17 pm, triggering a heavy but orderly flow of people down the blacked-out staircase leading to Bethal Green station from the street.
A middle-aged woman and a child fell over, three steps up from the base and others fell around her, tangled in an immovable mass, which grew as they struggled, to nearly 300 people.
Some managed to get free, but 173 people, most of them women and children, were crushed and asphixiated.
And speaking of Tube air quality, an environmental study in 2000 showed that the air quality of the Tube was 73 times worse than the air quality above ground.
In the heatwave of 2006, temperatures inside the Tube reached the sweltering extreme of 47° Celcius/117° Fahrenheit.
Still Londoners and visitors keep calm and ride the Tube in 26 of London´s 32 boroughs.
Our experience in London left me with an uncertainty of how to feel about the Tube.
It is definitely an odd sensation to stand in a Tube car where no one talks to one another as if talking on the Tube was an silent taboo everyone understood.
Is it a shared misery to ride the Tube wherein one mustn´t complain?
It is certainly an exercise in map-reading and decryption trying to navigate through London´s maze of Underground stations and lines, which always makes me wonder if the architects who designed the entire network were inspired to create a system that resembles multi-coloured strands of twisted spaghetti thrown randomly upon the heart of this great metropolis after nursing hangovers in an Italian restaurant.
It wouldn´t at all surprise me if this were true.
Setting out to explore London on two feet remains the best way to discover the city´s most interesting corners, but above ground navigation can be equally confusing.
As well, the distance between central Tube stations is always further than you think, as the schematic Tube map is very misleading.
So most Londoners find that, except for very short journeys, the Tube is the quickest way to get around and about London.
Eleven different lines cross much of the metropolis, although south of the Thames River is not very well-covered.
Each line has its own colour and name.
All you need to know is which direction you are travelling in: northbound, southbound, westbound, eastbound, unless you are taking the Circle Line then…..well, good luck, mate.
As a precaution, one must also check the final destination displayed on the front of the train, as some lines, such as the District and Northern Lines, have several different branches.
All this complexity which Londoners take simply in stride does this country boy´s head in.
I grew up in a village of less than 500 people and live today in a village with a little more than 700.
There is almost no planning or logistics computation needed to navigate from one end of the village to the other.
Only one city in Switzerland has a metro – surprisingly neither Zurich nor Geneva do – Lausanne, with its two lines and 30 stations, is the smallest city in the world to have such a system.
Above: The logo of the Lausanne Métro
So though I have visited and lived in cities with metro systems, I have never felt at ease zooming at high speed through underground tunnels in overcrowded trains.
Yet despite all this I know there is magic and history to be found in London´s Underground.
Some of the history of the Underground is horrible.
Victorian Londoners were very superstitious.
One preacher, Dr. Cuming, said that digging into the ground would be digging into Hell and the Devil would be disturbed.
(Even today people say the Underground is Hell.)
The first Tube trains ran on 10 January 1863 from Paddington to Farringdon.
So many people got on at the start that there was no room for anyone to get on at the other stations.
(Not a lot has changed since then.)
Steam trains were used for the first 25 years, filling the tunnels with smoke.
The railway companies said the smoke was a good thing.
If you had a bad chest then Tube smoke would clear it.
(….and putting your head on the track will cure your headache.)
Electric trains were first used in 1890.
The law said a person would be fined two Pounds if he/she tried to ride on the roof of an electric train.
If you rode on the roof your head would be knocked off.
Headache gone, two Pounds saved.
To test the first escalators, of which the Tube now has 426, the operators used a man called Bumper Harris to demonstrate that even a man with two wooden legs could use the escalators safely.
The first Tube carriages had no windows and had buttoned seats, looking uncannily similar to the padded cells of insane asylums, which might lead one to question the sanity of riding the Tube.
The tunnels were cleaned at night by ladies with feather dusters, dustpans and brushes.
They were known as "fluffers"!
Many carriages are too small today for many people who travel on the Tube, as the tunnels were built in the 1860s when people were smaller.
And, of course, an old Underground must be rumoured to be haunted.
An actress from the Royal Strand Theatre, knocked down to build Aldwych Station, is said to haunt Aldwych.
(More on Aldwych in a moment…)
Sarah Whitehead became a nun and haunts Bank Station, because she is searching for her brother Philip who was executed in 1811 for forging bank notes.
Above: Entry to Bank Station, in front of the Bank of England
The ghost of Amen-Ra, an Egyptian pharoah who died in about 1500 BC was said to haunt the abandoned British Museum station, because the trains disturbed its eternal slumber.
Wearing only a loincloth and Egyptian headdress, he was said to scream so loudly that the sound would carry down the tunnels to the adjoining Holborn tube station.
The rumour grew so strong that in 1932 a newspaper offered a reward to anyone who would spend the night there.
No one took up the challenge.
The story takes a stranger turn after the closure of the station on 25 September 1933.
The comedy thriller Bulldog Jack, made in 1935, featured a chase through a secret tunnel that led from the station (called Bloomsbury in the film) to the Egyptian Room of the Museum, from where a necklace belonging to Amen-Ra was stolen.
On the very night that the film was released, two women are said to have disappeared from the platform at Holborn – the next station along from the British Museum station.
Strange marks were later found on the walls of the closed station.
More sightings of the ghost were reported, along with weird moanings from within the tunnels.
London Underground has always denied the existence of a tunnel from the station to the Egyptian Room.
The actor William Terriss was stabbed to death in 1897 and is said to haunt the Covent Garden station.
Above: William Terriss (1847 – 1897)
One can hear the tapping of footsteps and doors flung open at the Elephant and Castle station.
"The Screaming Spectre" of Anne Naylor, who was murdered and chopped to pieces by her mistress in 1758, is said to haunt Farringdon Station.
There is no Tube station at Muswell Hill as there is supposed to be, as construction workers came across a deep pit full of the skeletons of people buried during the Plague.
And there are, of course, the urban legends with just enough truth in the telling to make the tales believable.
An art student, a woman was travelling on the Underground back to her campus from central London late at night – she no remembers which line – alone except for one other person – a man in his 30s – in an empty carriage when three people boarded – she can´t recall which station – and sat opposite her.
The art student decided that the trio looked like drug addicts and avoided making eye contact with them.
Then the 30-something man started acting strangely.
He walked over to the student and behaved as if he knew her, asking:
"Hi. How are you? I´ve not spoken to you in a long time."
….before leaning into her and whispering:
"Get off at the next stop."
The student was wary of this, but did not wish to be left alone on the train with what she thought were three drug addicts, so she followed the man off the train and onto the platform.
Once they were off the train, the man revealed to the student that the girl in the trio was dead.
He had seen the two men drag her onto the train with a pair of scissors embedded in the back of her skull.
The story of the corpse on the train….simply an urban legend….just a horror story about travelling with strangers in enclosed spaces?
People do die on London´s public transport.
There are instances when bodies have been found on the Tube, if rumour and gossip are to be believed.
A train arrived at the East Finchley station at the end of the morning peak time.
The crew inspected the train and found a man slumped in a seat, who they tried to wake.
They discovered that the man was dead, and had been for so long that rigor mortis had set in and he was rigid in his seat.
The body had to be removed by being laid sideways on a stretcher to prevent it rolling off.
While rigor mortis begins three to four hours after death – so it was possible after the morning peak – maximum stiffness does not set in until around twelve hours.
It is possible the body was left overnight on the Tube.
On the eastbound Piccadilly Line at Southfields, a passenger raised the alarm when a man on the packed train seemed "a bit poorly".
The guard did not wish to delay the train so he persuaded a couple of passengers to help him drag the corpse off the train and left it sitting upright on a bench.
The police were called and complained about the disrespectful treatment of a body.
The guard then responded with:
"What else could I do? I couldn´t delay the train, could I?"
121 Westminster Bridge Road was once the site of London´s strangest railway station – the terminus of the Necropolis Railway, which operated between 1854 and 1941.
In the mid-nineteenth century, cemetery spaces in London were becoming increasingly limited due to the rapid increase in population and the legacy of the cholera outbreaks of recent years.
So, in an effort to find a solution, Richard Bourn started the Necropolis Railway Company.
A station was first set up in York Street, opposite Waterloo, from where trains could transport the London dead to Brookwood Cemetery in Surrey.
When Waterloo was expanded at the turn of the 20th century, the Necropolis line had to be relocated to allow more room for regular train services, so a new terminus was opened in Westminster Bridge Road in 1902.
The railway was divided both by class and by religion with 1st, 2nd and 3rd class tickets for each.
These class divisions didn´t just apply to the travelling mourners; they also affected the style in which the deceased travelled, with more ornate coffins and storage compartments for 1st class, while in 3rd class the plain coffins were stacked up and crammed into a hearse carriage.
On arrival at the terminus, mourners would be led to an appropriate class waiting room, while the coffin was discreetly unloaded from the hearse and sent to platform level by lift.
At its peak, 50 corpses a day were transported along this line.
One of the more notable bodies to be carried by the train was that of Friedrich Engels, the German socialist political theorist and philosopher, who died in London on 5 August 1895.
Above: Friedrich Engels (1820 – 1895)
Engels had expressed a wish to be cremated and for his ashes to be cremated at sea, but at the time there was no crematorium near London, so he was taken first to Brookwood, then on to Woking Crematorium.
By the 1930s London had more cemeteries and crematoria of its own, so the service was reduced to two trains a week.
During the Second World War the station was heavily damaged in an air raid, which brought the Necropolis Railway to a halt.
The repair work was not seen as financially worthwhile, so at the end of the War the station building was sold as office space.
The track to the cemetery was removed in 1947.
As previously stated above, there are 267 tube stations in operation.
Twenty-one have been taken offline since 1900.
Most of them were closed when London Transport was created in 1933, merging several independent transit operators who had been stations very close to each other to compete for passengers.
Some were a real loss for commuters, while others had just been badly designed.
Most of these ghost stations have been abandoned or walled up.
Visiting these ghost stations is largely impossible.
Closed since 1994, the ox-blood red brick facade of Aldwych Underground still stands on the corner of the Strand and Surrey Street.
During WW II, Aldwych was used as an air raid shelter, while treasures from the British Museum were stashed away in the tunnels.
Today, the abandoned station is often featured in films (Patriot Games, Die Another Day, V for Vendetta).
Access to the public is denied, but visits can sometimes be arranged through the London Transport Museum.
I suspect that most of the millions who ride these rails every day, year after year, neither know nor care about corpses, ghosts or ghost stations, and they choose not to remember the Tube´s history of being attacked.
With Oyster Cards firmly in hands and a bland uncaring resigned look on their faces, London passengers keep calm and carry on with their journey, reading one of the many free papers distributed at many central London stations, looking down at their mobile electronic gizmos or grimly staring off into the distance at the space between spaces.
(The Oyster Cards, "smart" cards that register your entry and exit from tube stations and debit your travel account accordingly, are named after the idea that "the world is your oyster", that the world is just waiting to be discovered like a pearl of great value.)
Our first Tube ride together took us from Paddington Station to Piccadilly Circus (on the Bakerloo Line via Edgware Road, Marylebone, Baker Street, Regent´s Park and Oxford Circus) to pick up our Internet-ordered London Passes from the Tourist Information Kiosk at Leicester Square.
We encountered no corpses, no ghosts, no ghost stations then nor during our seven-day sojourn in London.
We never felt threatened nor nervous about being attacked either above ground or below it.
We ate well, drank well and had a merry old time.
We used the Tube, because it was convenient, but like a marriage of convenience, there was not much love felt for the experience.
Perhaps there is magic beneath the streets of London, a world of possibility behind the sliding doors of the Tube carriages.
I honestly can´t say I felt it within the crowded, friendless confines of a speeding carriage hurtling its way through dark and damp tunnels.
I quickly lost count of how many staircases I climbed, how many times I used my Oyster Card, how often I felt confused by the complexity and tangle of train maps and schedules, how many miles I walked without seeing the sun or the stars or feeling fresh air against my face.
Perhaps the Tube is a part of London life, but it is a life that I cannot eagerly embrace, for one doesn´t ride the Tube as much as one haunts it.
Like a ghost that cannot leave until its goal is realised, one cannot abandon the use of the Underground until one´s destination is reached.
Rail romance has been replaced by Underground urgency.
Without travelling companions or time restrictions, I would rather walk.
Too much of modern day reality is rushed and packaged.
A free man prefers to walk.
Sources: Wikipedia / Google / The Rough Guide to London / Terry Deary, Horrible Histories London / Rachel Howard and Bill Nash, Secret London: An Unusual Guide / Ben Judah, This Is London: Life and Death in the World City / Simon Leyland, A Curious Guide to London: Tales of a City / Scott Wood, London Urban Legends: The Corpse on the Tube and other stories


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Home » Printers and Multifunction » Laser & Copier Multifunction Printers » Laser Single Function Printers
The Canon imageCLASS LBP151dw is an easy to use, wireless, single function laser printer that is an ideal solution for a small or home office environment. The compact, space saving design delivers professional quality output in one small footprint. The LBP151dw delivers exceptional black and white laser output at speeds of up to 28 pages-per-minute1, with your first print in your hands in 8 seconds or less2. This device supports PCL 6 and UFR II LT printer languages, allowing versatility for your printing needs. The Canon imageCLASS LBP151dw is eco-friendly, only using approximately 1.7 watts or less of energy in wireless, energy saving mode, and is set to automatic duplexing right out of the box which helps you save on paper and related costs. The device offers paper handling of up to 250 sheets in a front loading cassette and 1 sheet in the multipurpose tray3. Wireless connectivity4 allows you to print from almost anywhere in your home or office, and you can "Print on the Go" with various mobile features using your compatible mobile device such as Mopria™ Print Service6 and Google Cloud Print™7. The Canon PRINT Business5 app allows you to print to the LBP151dw from compatible iOS or Android devices. The single cartridge system combines the toner and drum into 1 unit, making cartridge replacement simple. This printer uses Canon Genuine Toner, Cartridge 137 Black.
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imageCLASS LBP151dw product
Starter Cartridge 137 (Starter Yield: 1,700 sheets ISO/IEC)
Power Cord
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Warranty Card
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Windows® 10, 8.1, 8, 7, Windows Vista®,Windows Server® 2012 R2, 2012, 2008 R2, 2008, 2003 R2, 2003, Mac OS 10.5.8 & up
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Program Description
The BA in Professional Communication is an intensive degree-completion program which enables you to complete your third and fourth years of study with cutting-edge program content that balances academic education, professional experience, creativity and practical skills. The program combines a comprehensive overview of communications as an academic field with courses in digital communication, professional writing, public persuasion, visual communication, multimedia storytelling, global communication, media and cultural studies, sustainability communication, crisis communication management, Indigenous contexts, and much more.
This program is delivered in two formats: as a 12-month on-campus model (combines years' three and four into an intensive 12-months) and as a 24–month blended model which incorporates online learning with two short on-campus residencies. There are four terms in the 12-month program which are comparable to full-time university semesters. The terms include four to six courses over a time frame of approximately ten weeks, with an additional week at the end of the last term for final papers and exams. Students are expected to be on campus every day.
Both models offer 60 credits of coursework, and are equivalent to years' three and four of the BA, enabling successful students to graduate with a four-year BA degree.
Who It's For
Graduates of this program will become well equipped for advancement in their careers. While training in communication skills in key to all career paths, education in professional communication is especially beneficial for careers in public relations, advertising, marketing, journalism, and corporate, technical, or web-based communication.
Students typically apply to the program with 60 university credits (or years one and two of a BA), often in the form of an associate of arts diploma or degree. Applicants who do not have the formal academic education or credits to qualify for admission, may be assessed on the basis of both their formal education or career experience in accordance with the Flexible Admission Policy. Please see the Admission Requirements page for more information.
Students who don't meet the language requirements for the program can complete years one and two of the Communication degree program through our International Study Centre.
Graduates of the BA in Professional Communication will be effective communicators who understand communication is a creative, intellectual, professional activity. They will appreciate the international and intercultural frameworks and ethical parameters of socially responsible communication. They will be professionals with an understanding of communication as a human activity and be ready to enter the workforce as effective practitioners, decision-makers and supporters of communication. Finally, they will be able to function in environments that require team-work, public speaking, professional writing and publishing skills, basic computer-mediated communication, and problem-solving skills.
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In the late 80's I interviewed The Band, the Robbie Robertson-less version of the band. I was working for CJCS1240 in Stratford Ontario at the time. Back then I know about the music of The Band as a "oldies" radio station the CANCON music policy allowed us to play only the best of Canada back then – and The Band qualified as a mainstay of our playlists. I was selected to interview Stratford's Richard Manuel, Rick Danko, Garth Hudson and Levon Helm who had started touring again in1983 after then five person band stopped playing live following 1976's Last Waltz.
I interviewed The Band with Brian O'Neill, our Sales Manager at the time, and a real music buff. We would interview the guys before they went on stage; take the tape and put together a 1-hour special featuring the interview and music. We had one hour to interview the band, and what a great interview it was, great answers to the questions, and lots of laughter with the stories they told. When we were done, and had talked for more than an the hour allotted, we took the tape back to the studio only to find that the batteries on the cassette recorder had died 30-40 minutes into the interview, a good chunk of what we recorded didn't.
In Testimony, Robbie Robertson was told, by his mother, that when he was older he too would be a storyteller, just like the Elders of the Six Nations Reserve near Brantford where he spent the early years of his life. Even without publishing Testimony Robertson told stories, just read about the music of a career he writes about from hitting the stage with Ronnie Hawkins and the Hawks to leaving the stage after playing for hours in The Band's farewell concert in the "the Last Waltz"
From Ronnie Hawkins, to Bob Dylan to Helm, Danko, Hudson and Manuel Testimony is about his musical relationship – make that musical partnerships and how they made the music that executives in 1968 didn't know what to label. It was the music that shifted the musical world much like Dylan did by going electric, which Robertson had a stage view of. The tours with Dylan were illuminating as Robertson describes the lifestyle of rock stars, the drugs and alcohol that eventual drove The Band from the stage. He writes of the struggles, especially with Richard Manuel who struggled with alcohol only to turn to marijuana and then cocaine to help with a heroin habit. Rick Danko and Levon Helm also had major issues and Robertson writes of not only their issues but also his use, but when it comes to this part of his life and the story telling, he leaves out his struggles with his use of drugs and drinking. He makes it seem like he is the big brother who did no wrong, but was always there when his little brothers fell down.
I tweeted out when I started reading Testimony that it was like being counted into a song by Levon Helm; 1-2-3-4 Bam, you are into a song. What kept me turning pages was the music. What the band did in 1967 and 68 leading up to two of the greatest albums of the sixties is amazing reading, it gets into your mind and your imagination. Following Dylan's motorcycle accident The Band retreat to Woodstock NY and the Big Pink, chapters 18 and 19 are required reading on the creation of Bob Dylan's "Basement Tapes" and The Bands' "Music from the Big Pink". There is a passage about the vocal arrangements for "The Weight" that will forever by in my head, and when I listen to the song I will hear Robertson say…
"I began singing the chorus to "The Weight" over and over to the guys, trying to convey the staggered vocal idea I had. "Levon, you go, 'aaand', then Rick , 'aaand', then Richard on top, 'aaand'. Levon, 'you put the load', Rick, Richard, Levon, 'you put the load right on me'."
Now, just try listening to "The Weight" without having this text in front of you or in your head hearing Robbie give those instructions.
Robertson only takes us through to the end of the Last Waltz, which is timely as I figure he has another book in him with his Post Waltz music. In the book he takes the reader through the thought, action and performance of what many call, the greatest rock concert film ever made. I could write more about the last few chapters leading up to the concert, but I think you would get more reading about creating the line up of artists, the new budding professional relationship with Martin Scorsese and how it was all managed to be held together AND the fabulous dinner served to 5000 people before the concert began.
Testimony is two-way mirror into making music, great music and a looking into how success put strains into relationships and what the five did to survive. Levon, Rick and Richard used the drink and drugs, Garth fiddled with electronics and Robertson made music and films with others and discovered the west coast. But as he writes his eulogy to The Band in the final pages, the love of the brotherhood is greater than all the troubles and sins that happened between 1960 with Ronnie Hawkins and the Hawks to Thanksgiving 1976 and "The Last Waltz" , the love clearly outlasts any pain and misunderstandings that took place.
In the end, Testimony is the BEST rock and roll book I have ever read, its honesty and admiration of the players Robbie Robertson shared a stage with is something I have never taken from pages before.
Testimony is required reading for anyone that plays or loves music that changes how we listen to music.
While I knew the music of The Band, Testimony would have been a great primer for my interview with The Band, in the late 80's. After reading Testimony, I now understand the music and brotherhood of The Band, and man what questions I would have asked if only I knew as I do today.
Thank you for reading this post; to catch all my posts and be notified as new ones come up please follow me on WordPress. You can also see me on www.redheartbluelife.wordpress.com for what I see, hear and read.
I can be found Twitter @robertdekker, @rdmediaottawa and on Facebook at http://tiny.cc/n5l97. I can be reached at email@example.com.


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Nana's started as Goode's Mobile Kitchen in 2010 as one of the first food trucks in Washington, DC. Our food got such great buzz that many companies requested for us to be at their locations regularly which told us we should be in a location where our customers could always find us. In 2018, we rebranded ourselves and opened in Clinton, MD. It is our pleasure to provide deliciously slow hickory smoked barbeque, seafood, as well as quick and healthy food options for our many patrons. Come by and enjoy the many tasty items we have to offer. See you soon!
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In the winter of 1980-81 I analyzed the question of American involvement in southern Africa in the pages of this journal.1 I discussed a set of concepts-"constructive engagement in the region as a whole"-as a possible basis for pursuing American interests in southern Africa. It seemed to me at the time that this phrase was self-evidently consistent with mainstream U.S. internationalism and essential to the very meaning of activist diplomacy.
I recognized that there was a major risk in suggesting that the United States was prepared to deal seriously and substantively with a distant foreign policy minefield with which Americans were overwhelmingly unfamiliar. The risk, in other words, seemed to lie in its very ambition, its commitment to a realistic and sustained pursuit of U.S. goals in the region as a whole (the concept was not proposed as the basis of policy toward South Africa alone).
If we were to undertake such a commitment, I argued, we would need to base our actions on a solid grasp of the region's dynamics and to have the ability to interpret its actors and their motives. We would require an adequate internal consensus to prevent Americans and South Africans from exploiting each other's internal debates and conflicts. Finally, we would need to recognize the sharp limits on U.S. influence and to focus carefully on the likely consequences of possible U.S. actions.
In describing the possibilities for constructive Western statesmanship, the 1980 article painted a sober picture of a deeply troubled region. Regarding South Africa, it underscored the ambiguity of political trends within Afrikanerdom. It was far from certain what the newly emerged coalition of "modernizers" and "reformers" assembled by then Prime Minister P. W. Botha would attempt to do with its more streamlined and centralized decision-making apparatus. The article foresaw both "autocratic political change" imposed from above and "continued and even gradually increasing political conflict and violence."
Beyond South Africa itself, the 1980 article foresaw an aggressive external posture by
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Mountain Lion Is Coming
Today, Apple released the first developer preview of the next step in OS X, Mountain Lion. First, let me say that Apple has once again proven it can work on software for months without a peep, then just let it loose to the surprise of everyone.
It brings more iOS features to the desktop. Messages replaces iChat, Calendar replaces iCal, Contacts replaces Address Book, and adds Notes and Reminders as separate apps. All of this is consistent with Apple's push to integrate the computer and the mobile. All of these apps (as well as new document-creation apps) will use iCloud to sync between computers and mobiles.
In Mountain Lion, Reminders are taken out of the calendar and Notes are taken out of Mail. They are separate, just like they should be. New App Store apps on the Mac will have the choice to save in traditional file system folders, or in a simplified iCloud interface.
One thing bothers me, as Gruber points out:
I'm interested to see how developer support for Mac App Store-only features plays out. Two big ones: iCloud document storage and Notification Center. Both of these are slated only for third-party apps from the Mac App Store. Many developers, though, have been maintaining non-Mac App Store versions of their apps.
This could get very expensive. I am a HUGE user of the Omni Apps. I use OmniFocus, OmniOutliner, OmniGraffle, and OmniPlan extensively and daily. I bought these apps long before the Mac App Store existed. Thankfully, the fine folks at OmniGroup keep update in parity between App Store and in-the-wild versions of the software. By Apple only allowing iCloud and Notification Center to App Store Apps, I will need to re-purchase $400-$500 in Apps so that notifications show up on my desktop. This seems a bit anti-consumer and anti-developer, especially when alternate notification systems, like Growl, are available for nominal cost.


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Arduino UNOtoMKR Bundle
Code: VB00007
Making is a bundle of fun! Pick the one that's right for you and get started on your next Arduino project in style! Simply mount your MKR1000 to this new adapter and plug in any of your UNO shields!
- Overview
Bring your UNO projects into the IOT!The UNO to MKR bundle contains:1 x Arduino MKR10001 x MKR2UNO Adapter
The MKR2UNO Adapter allows you to turn your Arduino UNO form factor project into a MKR based one without too much effort! You can upgrade your project with a powerful board with integrated LiPo battery charger.
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Get inspired
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