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For weeks, Internet rumors had been chattering that Eidos Montreal was working on the fourth installment in the popular stealth franchise, and the company confirmed the Thief 4 rumors on Monday. But beyond the announcement, Eidos remained fairly silent on just what it had in store for Thief 4. And while the company is still refusing to cough up details this early (the title just passed the proof-of-concept phase three weeks ago), D'Astous did talk with IGN about the team's general approach for the game and its overall philosophy as a studio.
The Thief franchise got its start on the PC and saw most of its success there, although the third Thief title also ended up on the original Xbox. And while it seems likely that a PC version of Thief 4 is in the works, the fledgling title's console future is a bit hazier.
"As for platforms and consoles, things are moving so fast. There's some contradictory noise on when there's going to be the next generation, so we're going to be prudent on that one," said D'Astous. "So we're going to wait a couple of months to announce more about that. It's going to be cutting edge technology, that's for sure. It would be imprudent for us to say which console because, first of all, we don't know exactly the window of release and we don't know the first-party strategy.
Does that mean Microsoft, Nintendo or Sony is planning to introduce a new console sooner rather than later? D'Astous wouldn't say anything further on the topic. But he did confirm that neither Thief 4 nor Deus Ex 3 would be on display at this year's E3 convention in Los Angeles. That leaves plenty of time for Eidos Montreal to get an earful from fans.
With Thief 4, there's a firm focus on the fanbase. After Monday's announcement, the studio threw up an official message board that quickly became peppered with comments and questions from fans of the franchise. Would Garrett return as the main character? Would voice actor Stephen Russell reprise his role? How would stealth be handled? Would it be open-world?
We asked D'Astous all of the above questions and were politely refused answers, although he did assure us that the game would stay true to its stealth roots, even while attempting to broaden the series' horizons.
"It's safe to say that there's an association of stealth games being boring and slow-paced. And we're fully aware of that. I think we'll try to repeat what the first game did, which is to really break ground on the traditional way of playing. And I think if we want to do a fully stealth game, it's going to be, I hope, very innovative and bring a lot of new things to the table," D'Astous said.
To do that, Eidos has established a top-notch team of developers in Montreal, many of whom left high-paying jobs at competing studios to work on Thief 4 and Deus Ex 3. Most of the team members have serious development pedigrees and solid experience shipping AAA titles. Before settling on Montreal, the company looked at both Vancouver and Austin, Texas, site of the now-shuttered Ion Storm (which created the original Deus Ex) as a base for the new studio. But, D'Astous said, the talent pool in Montreal sealed the deal.
And soon Eidos will be siphoning yet more top-tier talent away from studios like Ubisoft and EA in Montreal when it begins ramping up development on a third unannounced game next year. D'Astous wouldn't say what the studio's next big project is, but we know it will be a major or possibly new IP. Eidos killed 15 pending game projects when it reorganized around the new Montreal office last year, so expect all the studio's upcoming bets to be big ones.
For Eidos, that seems to mean hardcore-focused games that also draw in more mainstream gamers, ones who may not have played games like Thief previously but are curious and willing to try a new series.
"We want to bring something new to the table, because these games sold respectably [in the past], but we want to bring it to another level. We want to have a larger audience without diluting the content," said D'Astous. "That is the real challenge, to bring it to a larger audience but without making it too easy or too thin on content. We're going to bring certainly a lot of innovation to both [Thief 4 and Deus Ex 3]."
Exactly what that means is open to interpretation at this stage, although D'Astous hinted that story, choice and RPG elements will play a large role in Thief 4, rather than the instant gratification that comes with twitch combat.
"I think shooters are fine – it's an adrenaline rush. But I think the RPGs in recent years are really gaining a lot of momentum," said D'Astous. "People want to have a richer experience. They want to have choices in their gameplay and I think games are getting more and more sophisticated with storytelling, and I think we can certainly do something with that with Thief."


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Spirit C.C. 30th Anniversary Party - On The Scene
Lowrider Magazine congratulates Spirit Car Club, Phoenix Arizona Chapter in celebrating its 30th Anniversary at the luxurious Wyndham Hotel Ball Room in Downtown Phoenix. Spirit Phoenix now part of the well respected Senior Class of car clubs brought in their 30th year just as strong as their first event thirty summers ago a few blocks away at the Civic Plaza Lowrider Magazine Car Show. Spirit Car Club opened its chapter in Phoenix with Joe Montenegro, member of the Los Angeles Chapter leading the way. Phoenix native Frank Castillo and Joe who were operating the House of Hydraulics Lowrider Shop at the time, and they decided it was time to bring Spirit C.C. over to Phoenix and with the blessing of Lowrider Hall of Famer Buggs Ochoa founding father of Spirit L.A.they brought the Plaque to Phoenix in August of 1980. Since its early years Frank has been club President and is well respected in the Lowrider community for the standards his car club has endured, and his longtime Lowrider hydraulic shop business, now known as Franks Custom Hydraulics.
With thirty years of car shows, car hops, softball tournaments, car club Barbeques, and club parties, experience counts...When Spirit throws a party, nothing is overlooked. From the thousands of dollars of raffle prizes given away that night including wire wheels, hydraulic components, and vacation packages to Vegas and Rocky Point, to the beautiful SPIRIT C.C. Ice Sculpture, custom balloons, and dessert cakes decorating the luxurious Ball Room. This Lowrider event was one of the best Celebrations. The Soul Persuasion Band and DJ Johnny Romo led the crowd to the dance floor at the party of the year in Phoenix. And it gets even better when more than one thousand of your closest friends show up to the over capacity crowd and congratulate the boys in black for representing Phoenix Lowriding at its best.
With thirty years of car clubbing, Frank, and Club Officers Chaz Glen, Big Ed Moreno, Anthony Aguilar, Big Rich Medina, Rick Monray, Rich Celia, and Gabe Guyton, recognized the many members who helped fly the plaque in Phoenix such as Veteranos Louie Martinez and Joe Medina. Spirit Los Angeles Chapter members Roy and Ernie also attended their fellow Brothers special night. The club also did their part in keeping the economy alive and well in the Tuxedo rental business in renting more than sixty tuxes for that evening for their active members. Special plaques of appreciation and honors were awarded to many of its senior and active members who have gone clearly above the call of duty in promoting their car club.
One thing that stuck out was the obvious respect the Lowrider community demonstrated with the attendance of many other car clubs representing The Sophisticated Few, Majestics, Society, Identity, Klique, Rollerz Only, Intruders, Groupe, Reality, Dukes, Phoeniquera Classics, USO, La Gente, Phoenix Riderz, New Image, Phoenix, Unique, Old School, Unity, Techiques, Devious, United, and Lifestyle, to name a few. Many clubs and friends, who came out, stated it was the best Lowrider party Phoenix has ever seen. It's only appropriate that this party made its mark because of the Lowrider Spirit of Phoenix!
Congratulations to Spirit Car Club of Phoenix Arizona in your thirty years of Lowriding success!
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subset: commoncrawl


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Even if you are a stranger to this website you should already know my opinion regarding catching catfish and carp. Get out there and try it if you haven't already.
However, we have some amazing native freshwater fish species here in North America and many of the best are utterly ignored by the mainstream fishing media. If you love to catch fish and you live in North America, this list should be your fishing-bucket list. Put down the bass rod for a few weekends and get out there and be prepared to have your mind blown.
1) Alligator Gar
I usually don't need to convince people that alligator gar should be on their list of fish to catch. You show them a picture and all the convincing is done. These mammoth prehistoric fish are native to the Deep South, with the biggest specimens usually found in eastern Texas and Louisiana. The largest alligator gar ever record was 9'6" long and 365 lbs. These fish are often caught on cut bait using the same tactics that a trophy cat fisherman would use….only BIGGER.
2) Giant White Sturgeon
White Sturgeon are native to the west coast from Mexico to Canada but there are few fishable populations left outside of the North West. White sturgeon grow very slowly. They take 14-18 years to reach sexual maturity, the spawn only once approximately every 4 years and they can live to be 100 years old. The largest sturgeon ever caught on a rod and reel was caught by Michael Snell of Salisbury, England in the Fraser River, British Columbia. It weighed about 1,100 pounds and was 12 feet, 4 inches. It was released.
3) Buffalo
There are five species of buffalo. Small mouth buffalo, black buffalo, fleshy lipped buffalo, Usumacinta buffalo and large mouth buffalo. Buffalo are not related to carp but are a member of the sucker family and native to North America. The largest of the three buffalo is the small mouth buffalo. The record is 88 lb caught in Lake Wylie, NC by Tony Crawford. Buffalo can be caught using modern carp fishing tactics and baits.
4) Paddle Fish/Spoon Bills
These amazing looking monsters are incredible to see in the water. Because these beasts are mostly plankton feeders most people catch them by snagging. The Largest paddlefish in North America was caught on rod and reel in Montana in the Missouri River by Larry Branstetter. It weighed 147 lb 8 oz and was 77" long.
5) Bowfin
Bowfin are another prehistoric native fish that is found across the south. Bowfin are aggressive predators that prefer slow shallow water with lots of cover. They can be amazing to catch on top water using bass gear. The largest bowfin ever caught on rod and reel was 21 lb 8 oz from Forest Lake in South Carolina by Robert Harmon
6) Long Nose Gar
When you catch a long nose gar your first thought is "How badly do I want my lure back?" Those teeth are wicked but worth the risk. Gar a loads of fun to catch. These fish are tremendous predators. They love minnows and live in backwater creeks and rivers across the south. You can make killer gar lure using nothing but frayed white nylon rope on the end of your line. The frayed rope tangles those teeth and catches the gar better than most hooks would. The biggest long nose gar ever caught were 41 lbs from the Red River in Oklahoma and 41 lbs from Lake Panasoffkee Florida.
7) Burbot
Here is where I begin to show my Alaskan roots. The burbot is the only freshwater relative of the ling cod and it is found in Alaska, Canada, The Great Lakes and they were fished to extinction in the UK. The burbot is a popular fish to target when ice fishing deep lakes and large rivers. It is typically caught on salmon eggs near the bottom. The largest burbot in North America was 24 lbs 12 oz, caught in Lake Louise Alaska.
8) Sheefish
Sheefish are rightly known as the tarpon of the north. They look like a tarpon, they are caught using similar tactics and they fight/jump like a tarpon. Sheefish are found in central Alaska in the Yukon, Makenzie, Pah and other large rivers. The largest ever was 53lb from the Pah River in Alaska.
9) Grayling
Grayling are not big fish. They are slightly smaller than the average trout, but they are (in my opinion) one of the most gorgeous fish in North America. Grayling are also extraordinarily fun to catch on a lure or fly rod. A small Meps or Super-Duper on an ultra light is a deadly combo. An elk hair caddis or Griffith gnat will also do the business well. Grayling rise to a dry fly like no other fish. Grayling can be found in high mountain lakes and stream of the west, Canada and Alaska. The largest grayling ever was 4 lbs 13 oz and caught in the Ugashik Narrows in Alaska.
10) Freshwater Drum
Freshwater Drum are good sized, plentiful, tasty, and they will hit just about any lure or bait. They prefer clear water with sandy or gravelly bottoms are found along the east coast and parts of the Midwest. The largest freshwater drum was 46 lbs from Spirit Lake in Iowa.


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Okay ... not really. That technology is quite old now and never really was all that secure to begin with.
Researchers have demonstrated structural cracks in GSM mobile networks that make it easy to find the number of most US-based cellphone users and to track virtually any GSM-enabled handset across the globe. The hack builds off research by Tobias Engel who in late 2008 showed how to track the whereabouts of cellphones by tapping …
A bit hyped there? What the researchers actually did was acted as a cellular network. Now what surprises me is "He was able to access the database using commercial services offered by companies in Europe." So there are commercial services which allowed an individual to directly talk to Telecom Core networks. That surprises me.
That you can then gain data by effective war dialing " They then called the account over and over using huge blocks of spoofed numbers" is trivial.
A final note: the location provided by the telecom network is a "location area" which is much larger than individual cell sites. But yes, it certainly does tell you if someone is internationally roaming.
So, someone inside or acting as a cellular network, can tell the location of an individual subscriber, and by abusing the network (war dialing) they can likely workout similar information for people on other networks. This is like being surprised that people in the tax office can look up Brad Pitt's tax return.
Having pontificated on all that, good article apart from the hype.
So surely the key (as with all such systems) is to ensure that such service critical platforms are not exposed to the world at large. However I'm still not clear how the researchers are able to derive the name of the cellphone user. You'd need to get to the billing/CMS system before you get that level of detail.
Firstly, the level of access to databases (especially the HLR) and network infrastructure here seems a bit beyond the average hacker. It would surely require an insider and not to mention it all sounds highly illegal so the "threat" of companies, private investigators and the like popping up that can harvest the information seems unlikely. Governments already have access to the information anyway, so there's nothing new. The rest of the threat is from a handful of hackers who have the resources and they're just going to go after big names. The average mobile user is hardly under threat here.
Secondly, I don't see how the caller ID database or HLR reveals any names. Or at least it's easy to not reveal anything. Just pop into a shop and get a PAYG sim. You don't need to give full details, or you can just lie (but besides details are usually on a mail in card that won't be registered for weeks), pop in the sim and have it registered by the automated system (usually doesn't ask for details), and off you go. Best caller ID will do is reveal the number associated with the SIM.
Maybe this only works in the US where reverse lookup of numbers is fairly easy from what I understand.
The real threat they revealed, which is far easier to attack is the well known one to spoof a caller ID and use that to access voice mail without authentication and thus harvest voice mails. Simple to protect against if operators just enforce the authentication regardless of whether you call the mailbox from your own phone or not (or maybe this is an option already with some).


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The engineering mind is a fascinating thing. When an engineer comes on the scene, the most common objects—a stack of pennies, for instance—can be transformed into just about any architectural masterpiece.
"Distracted Programmer" Mitch Fincher has published a Web page based on a talk he gave while studying civil engineering at Texas Tech University. He explains the science behind his creations:
"The following is the basic pattern for building cantilevered structures with pennies. Although it looks trivial, we can build amazing structures with these pillars.
"All penny columns are 10 high per stack. Two side-by-side pennies held in place by a penny above them is called a triad. (Pictured at left is a stack with two triads resting on top.)
"All stacks of coins were created without any glue. Only the weight of the coins provides the support.
Fincher's site has collected numerous examples of amazing coin stacks, which he calls "a fun hobby for kids, college students and adults."
The video below demonstrates how one "stacker" has designed a three foot bridge with over 2,000 coins:


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Leon Huff on Gamble & Huff's 10 greatest recordings of all time
Leon Huff talks Gamble & Huff's 10 greatest recordings of all time
"The first time we sat down together, I knew we had something special," says Leon Huff of the day he met Kenneth Gamble and formed one of the most successful songwriting and production partnerships in the history of modern music.
"The chemistry was spontaneous and magical. Five, six songs came to us in no time at all. We didn't have to think about what we were doing, we just did it."
Staring in 1967 with their first Top 5 hit, Expressway To Your Heart, the duo of Gamble & Huff would go on to write and produce over 170 gold and platinum records, ushering in what would become known as 'Philly soul,' or as they put it on their very own theme to Soul Train, 'The sound of Philadelphia.'
"We had our strengths, and we each knew how to complement the other guy," says Huff. "I played piano and had a good sense of music. Gamble played basic guitar, but he had a terrific way with words and themes. We formed a great team. For a time there, anything we did was a smash. That's how it happens if it's meant to happen."
In the early '70s, Gamble & Huff formed Philadephia International Records, and their string of hits for artists such as The O'Jays, Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes, The Three Degrees and others was just that - international. "You don't know what it's like to sit in a car in London and hear one of your songs," says Huff. "And then having the disc jockey say it's number one - number one in England!... That's the kind of thing you remember that all your life."
On the following pages, Leon Huff talks about the 10 greatest songs that he and Kenneth Gamble wrote and produced together, recordings that earned them induction into The Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame. "I probably shouldn't say this, but the writing was easy," Huff admits with a laugh. "Gamble and I had a ball, man. But see, that's the lesson: if it feels like work, something isn't working. Somehow, we always seemed to know that."
The O'Jays - I Love Music (1975)
"I love music. Yes, I do – and Gamble, too. We were having a ball writing songs like this. Every artist or group, when they're on a good streak, they just get together and whatever they do is happening. That's where Gamble and I were at this point. We just got in a room, and another hit walked out with us.
"We were paying tribute to the music we loved. When I grew up, my mother played everything. From Nat King Cole to Lawrence Welk, she did it all – rock 'n' roll, too. The only exception was Sundays. Sundays were for gospel. No rock 'n' roll on Sundays, man.
"But yeah, we gave our respects here. [sings] 'I love music/ any kind of music/ sweet sweet music/ as long as it's groovin'…' The O'Jays were the perfect group to sing the song. Everybody was loving The O'Jays when they recorded it.
"We worked with great arrangers. Gamble and I would hum the horn parts. We couldn't write them out, but we knew how they should go. The parts were melodic, they were percussive, they did it all. They stood out."
Billy Paul - Me And Mrs Jones (1972)
"Gamble and I got our offices in Philadelphia, at 250 South Broad Street. We were on the sixth floor of the Shubert Building. Before long, we developed a routine of meeting for breakfast at a restaurant on the ground floor.
"Over a period of time, I noticed that this very attractive, middle-aged lady would come in and have breakfast with a certain gentleman. Thing is, I had heard that the guy was from another town and he was married – to somebody else, of course.
"I said to Gamble, 'She comes in here every day. She sits down with the same guy, then she goes to the jukebox and plays the same song. And every day, they go outside. She goes her way, and he goes his. Tomorrow, they'll be here again.' And they were. [laughs]
"The song has a movie quality to it. We just switched things around so that the woman was the married one in the lyrics. Musically, it's kind of jazzy. The chords and the syncopation suited Billy Paul's talents perfectly. When I met him, he was a jazz singer. I used to see him in the clubs. I'm very proud that we wrote what's probably his signature song."
Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes - If You Don't Know Me By Now (1972)
"One of my favorites. It's a very emotional song. That's Teddy Pendergrass on lead vocals. He was so incredible – such a big, powerful voice. Later on, Simply Red did a beautiful job with this one, too.
"I could feel there was something special going on when Gamble and I wrote it. We sat in a room like we usually did, me at the piano and him singing, and we turned on the tape recorder. That was all we had to do.
"I started playing these chords, and Gamble freestyled the lyrics, just singing off the top of his head. We never worried too much about having a formula – we just played and sang what we felt. This song just came right out of us… a Grammy winner."
The O'Jays - For The Love Of Money (1974)
"Donald Trump's signature song. He took it and made it his own on The Apprentice. Lots of people who never knew the tune before heard it on TV with Donald Trump.
"Some very interesting groups have covered the song – punk bands, rock bands, all sorts. It's happening, man, listening to all these versions out there.
"I have to give it up for a great, great bass player by the name of Anthony Jackson. You hear that bassline he played, and you know the song. Just a few notes - that's all you need.
"Funnily enough, I wrote that part on the piano in the office. Even so, I knew it was a bassline. I can't take credit for the cool effects on the bass, though. [Engineer] Joe Tarsia and Gamble did all that."
The Three Degrees - When Will I See You Again (1974)
"I loved The Three Degrees! I remember getting on an airplane and flying to Boston to see them. I called them 'my group with royalty,' because they were huge in London.
"That's the way the song happened, too: When we released it in the United States, it bombed terribly. The radio stations just didn't want to know about it. But Columbia put it out in England, and it took off. It was one of the biggest songs by a female group since The Supremes were putting out all of their hits.
"After the song became a smash across the pond, everybody in the States took notice. The DJs played it, and everybody went crazy.
"There's a wonderful quality to the strings – it's almost classical. I think you could take the vocals off and know what song it is."
Diana Ross & The Supremes and The Temptations - I'm Gonna Make You Love Me (1968)
"One of our earlier hits, with two of my favorite groups ever. Funnily enough, a few people recorded this song before it got to the Temptations and The Supremes. Dee Dee Warwick had the first version – she did it for Mercury Records.
"Gamble and I weren't well known at the time of this record. We were just honing our craft. We didn't produce it, either – Nick Ashford was one of the producers. But the song was important for us as writers because it taught us to modulate. The verse is in one key, and the chorus is in an entirely different key – higher. That really creates the excitement and the drama.
"One thing I'm happy about is that this version has the original members of The Temptations, with the great David Ruffin. He was something else."
Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes - The Love I Lost (1973)
"Teddy Pendergrass's voice was like a work of art. I know a lot of people were starting to focus on him around this time. He was so powerful, a very gutsy and emotive singer.
"The song is sad, but it's got a nice swing, a carefree feel. I used to go to clubs and watch people dance to it. Writing-wise, this was a natural. The way I was playing it, the way Gamble sang it – we knew it couldn't miss. We took it to the Blue Notes and they killed it.
"Some songs take an hour, some take 20 minutes. This one was probably more in the 20-minute category. Gamble and I never spent weeks and months on anything like some writers you hear about. If the song wasn't happening, we knew we should just move on to the next thing."
MFSB - TSOP (The Sound Of Philadelphia) (1974)
"MFSP - Mother, Father, Sister, Brother. That was the orchestra we used. This song would be the theme for Soul Train. It's basically an instrumental, but we had The Three Degrees do the background vocals. Their voices really added the perfect touch.
"Don Cornelius called me and Gamble and said he needed something for the show, an opening number. We said we'd be glad to write him a song. Don flew to Philadelphia to get into the studio with us – he wanted to be there while it was happening. Funny thing was, we couldn't think of anything. The ideas just weren't there. That was very unlike us, but you know, you just can't rush creativity.
"Don started to get nervous, and he said he had to leave the next day. We convinced him to stay another night, and right before we went back into the studio, right there in the office, we came up with the melody. We got with the musicians and just nailed it.
"Don loved the song, and it fit the show beautifully. He didn't want to call it Soul Train or the Soul Train Theme, so we called it The Sound Of Philadelphia – TSOP. It was everywhere. The song was number one, the album was number one, and Soul Train was a number one show. Not bad."
The O'Jays - Love Train (1973)
"The room was rocking when we wrote this one. Man, the good feelings were everywhere. I remember taking the instrumental track home to listen to after we recorded it. It was a Saturday night, and my family was having a party. I played Love Train for the very first time, and immediately everybody started dancing.
"I had to play it over and over again. People kept dancing and going crazy – unbelievable! I sat there thinking, OK, this is gonna be a big one. [laughs] We put the O'Jays on it, and man, talk about magic.
"Some writers like to wait to get to the chorus, but Gamble and I liked to start right out with it. Why not? You have a hook, you might as well show it off. Me and Mrs Jones, If You Don't Know Me By Now, Love Train, Back Stabbers – they all start with the hook. A lot of the time, that's the first thing you write, so it should be the first thing people hear."
The O'Jays - Back Stabbers (1972)
"One of the best ever! Not a bad song, Back Stabbers. But what's incredible is, when The O'Jays were first presented with it, they hated it. Couldn't stand it. They said it wasn't their sound, wasn't their thing. That's when I learned that artists just need to sing. [laughs]
"Gamble and I produced the track. When McFadden and Whitehead brought me the lyrics, they just had the story, there was no music.
"I took the words home and looked at 'em: 'What they do?/ They smile in your face, all the time they want to take your place/ the back stabbers.' I liked it. I wrote some stuff to it, and that was that. Gamble convinced The O'Jays to come into the studio, and we got a killer track.
"It's not like they were jumping up and down, though, but we did get a Grammy-winning performance out of them. They ought to be glad they did it, 'cause it started their ball rolling. I still love it. There's a lot of moods going on. You get lost in a song like this. I still listen to it and let it take my mind away."


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At Francis Marion University, the following are guidelines to applying for and administering grants and contracts from the planning and proposal stages to receipt of the grant award and completion of the project:
Submitting a Grant Proposal
The Principal Investigator:
- Initiates a Grant Concept Approval form to request approval to apply for a grant. A Grant Concept Approval form secures permission to begin the application process and approves any necessary release time and/or matching resources (cash or in-kind). A completed Grant Concept Approval form which reflects this planning process should be signed by the Department Chair, Provost or Dean, and the President. The form can be downloaded at Grant Concept Approval Form or by contacting the Director of Grants Development Program in the Associate Provost Office (Stokes Administration Building, Room 116). The Dean or Department Head will plan the coordination of departmental resources and release time should the grant be awarded to the University.
- Provides a draft of the grant proposal to the Director of the Grants Development Program in the Associate Provost Office (Stokes Administration Building, Room 116). The Associate Provost Office will send a copy to the Financial Services Office for review. The two offices will coordinate assistance as necessary to ensure that the grant proposal adheres to State, Federal, and grantor regulations.
- Completes the process by making the appropriate number of copies and mailing them to the grantor as well as forwarding copies to the Provost, the Grants Development Office and the Financial Services Office.
The Financial Services Office:
- Reviews the budget section of the grant proposal.
- Submits the budget to the Human Resources Office (if appropriate) to verify the budget for personnel costs.
- Requests completion by the Principal Investigator of the Certification for Exemption Form if specialized equipment is required by the grant and coordinates with the FMU Purchasing Office. Prior to acceptance of certification, the project must be reviewed by the Dean or Department Head, Vice President or Provost (as appropriate), and the Financial Services Office.
- Completes appropriate GCR forms if grant amount is greater than $200,000 and submits them to the Office of State Budget 65 days prior to the submission of the grant application to the grantor as required by state regulations.
- Requests grant status from Principal Investigator at 30 day intervals until award disposition is known.
If the Grant is Awarded
The Principal Investigator:
- Provides Financial Services a copy of the award letter. If signature of acceptance is required, traditionally the VP of Business Affairs should sign; however, the Provost or President may sign on behalf of the University.
- Coordinates the use of departmental resources and release time arrangements with appropriate Dean or Department Head.
- Submits any grantor approved budget changes to the appropriate Vice President, Provost, or Director who will then provide written notification to the Financial Services Office of such changes.
- Requests approval of changes in program personnel from the Provost (or other Vice President, or President, as appropriate) and seeks written approval of the changes from the grantor. Forwards correspondence from grantor to the Provost (or other Vice President, or President, as appropriate) and to the Office of Financial Services.
- Prepares reports as required by grant guidelines.
- Completes progress reports, final reports, and requests for renewal funding at least 15 days prior to due date.
- Submits quarterly personnel Activity Reports for federally sponsored programs that include payroll costs 45 days after the end of the quarter.
- Incorporates financial reports as completed by the Financial Services Office.
- Makes the designated number of copies and forwards to the Financial Services Office.
The Financial Services Office:
- Submits the GS-7 form to the Office of State Budget within 14 days of receiving project award notice, if project is less than $200,000.
- Sends Funding Verification form to grantor, as appropriate.
- Sets up budget and circulates budget codes.
- Notifies the Principal Investigator of the specific requirements of the Activity Reports for federal programs with personnel services expenditures.
- Sends Notification of Grant Award forms to Human Resources, Accounting, Purchasing, and Public and Community Affairs.
- Verifies all purchase orders, requisitions, travel requests, release time, and personnel services expenditures to ensure adherence to budget.
- Verifies report schedules with Principal Investigator; sends reminders 30 days prior to due date.
- Completes all financial reports and ensures submission of accurate Activity Reports in a timely manner.
- Monitors budget until all funds are received and the project is complete.
- Verifies all reports and is responsible for forwarding reports to the grantor at least 10 days prior to the due date.


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The Not-So-Great Firewall of Europe
I am staggered by the cluelessness of some politicians [.pdf]:
The Presidency of the LEWP [Law Enforcement Working Party] presented its intention to propose concrete measures towards creating a single secure European cyberspace with a certain "virtual Schengen border" and "virtual access points" whereby the Internet Service Providers (ISP) would block illicit contents on the basis of the EU "black-list".
A big hint of that cluelessness is that these people are still using the term "cyberspace" *seriously* in 2011, as is the fact that they actually think it's possible to create a "single secure European cyberspace" with "virtual borders" and "virtual access points". They only have to look at how porous the Great Firewall of China is - something that has been created and honed by experts with huge resources.
Finally, they seem completely oblivious of the implications of their daft "plan": the imposition of Europe-wide censorship. Again, the fact that "blacklists" (a) don't work and (b) are always flawed is obviously not something the twits in Brussels have quite appreciated. But even if they did work, it's outrageous that the European Union can be contemplating their use without even the slightest twinge of conscience.
Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca.


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Greg – better known as Ned Flanders in the comments – makes his debut as an F1 Fanatic guest writer by picking ten of the oddest causes of driver retirements.
Retiring from a motor race is often an unremarkable experience for an F1 driver. Although reliability has improved hugely in recent years, the sight of a smoking car pulling off the track remains a routine one for F1 viewers.
But occasionally a race ending incident occurs which is rather more noteworthy. Some you may be familiar with – Lewis Hamilton?óÔé¼Ôäós pit lane exploits, for example- and others you may never have heard of – how about the driver who was soaked by his cockpit fire extinguisher mid race?
This is a collection of the some of the most embarrassing, frustrating and downright bizarre race retirements ever recorded in F1.
Lack of motivation
Damon Hill, 1999 Japanese Grand Prix, Suzuka
Damon Hill ended his Grand Prix career in the most ignominious style possible at his final race in Japan in 1999. On lap 22, while running in 17th place, Hill damaged his front wing in a spin and headed to the pits. But instead of waiting for a nose change, he stepped out of the otherwise undamaged car for the final time, despondently claiming ?óÔé¼?£there was no point in going on?óÔé¼Ôäó.
His team boss Eddie Jordan disagreed; the incident sparked a rift between the two which lasted for many years.
The extent of Hill?óÔé¼Ôäós disillusion with F1 had been long been apparent. By 1999, Hill was a shadow of the driver who had once challenged the likes of Prost and Schumacher, and while his team mate Heinz Harald Frentzen was challenging for the title Hill seldom progressed beyond the midfield.
At Suzuka, what was left of his already weak motivation finally disappeared. It was an unfortunate end to a remarkable F1 career.
Beached in the pit lane gravel trap
Lewis Hamilton, 2007 Chinese Grand Prix, Shanghai
Lewis Hamilton's first Grand Prix retirement came in the most frustrating and embarrassing circumstances imaginable.
At the 2007 Chinese Grand Prix, while running on threadbare tyres as the team delayed a switch from wet to dry weather rubber, Hamilton?óÔé¼Ôäós McLaren understeered at snails pace into a tiny gravel trap in the pit lane entrance. He could have been forgiven for lamenting his luck – it was virtually the only gravel trap on a circuit surrounded by acres of tarmac run off.
After futile attempts first to accelerate out of the gravel and then to gain a push from the marshals, Hamilton conceded defeat and began the short walk of shame back to the McLaren garage. Little did he know that the points he had frittered away in the Shanghai pebbles would eventually cost him the championship.
Read more: 2007 Chinese Grand Prix review: Raikkonen win blows title race open
Crashing in the pits
Lewis Hamilton and Kimi R?â?ñikk?â?Ânen, 2008 Canadian Grand Prix, Montreal
Hamilton?óÔé¼Ôäós pit lane demons came back to haunt him in Canada barely six months later. A safety car period early in the Canadian Grand Prix encouraged most cars to dive into the pits, and from a seven second lead Hamilton found himself staring at the gearboxes of rivals Kimi R?â?ñikk?â?Ânen and Robert Kubica as he headed for the pit lane exit.
With hindsight he would have been better served observing the red light by the pit lane exit. He didn?óÔé¼Ôäót, and subsequently cannoned into the back of R?â?ñikk?â?Ânen?óÔé¼Ôäós Ferrari, putting both out on the spot. The lost win, and the likely six points he was denied by his ten place grid penalty for the following race in France, almost cost him the title for a second consecutive season.
Read more: Controversy as Lewis Hamilton hits Kimi R?â?ñikk?â?Ânen in pit lane
Stalling while waving to the crowd
Nigel Mansell, 1991 Canadian Grand Prix, Montreal
Nigel Mansell retired from the lead of the 1991 Canadian Grand Prix with less than half a lap to go – of this there is no doubt. What is less clear, however, is what caused his car to stop just a few hundred metres from the flag, gifting victory to his nemesis Nelson Piquet.
Mansell and his team claimed that the gearbox in his Williams had failed coming out of the hairpin for the final time, causing him to stop. What Mansell declined to acknowledge was that he had been seen waving to the Canadian fans in a premature celebration just moments before his car ground to a halt. Cynics suggested he had in fact allowed the revs from his Renault engine to drop too low, causing the engine to stall.
Mansell refuted the criticism, calling his detractors ?óÔé¼?£idiotic?óÔé¼Ôäó and ?óÔé¼?£pathetic?óÔé¼Ôäó, and blamed the press for the creating rumours. Was Mansell genuinely blameless or was it a desperate attempt to cover his blushes? You decide.
Running over a loose drain
Juan Pablo Montoya, 2005 Chinese Grand Prix, Shanghai
A dislodged drain cover was responsible for Juan Pablo Montoya?óÔé¼Ôäós exit from the 2005 Chinese Grand Prix. Running slightly wide out of Turn 10, Montoya drove straight over the protruding metal grate, damaging his front right wheel beyond repair. The safety car was dispatched for several laps while marshals attempted to weld the grate shut. The incident effectively handed that year's constructors' championship to Renault.
Alarmingly, though, it was not the only time that the drainage had caused chaos at Shanghai. Just four months earlier, Australian V8 Supercar driver Mark Winterbottom came across a similarly dislodged drain cover which sliced through his car and could well have injured him. Thankfully, there have been no such incidents since.
Read more: 2005 Chinese Grand Prix Review
Burnt by the cockpit
Mark Webber, 2004 Japanese Grand Prix, Suzuka
Mark Webber is renowned for coping with tough conditions in an F1 cockpit – recall his performance at Fuji in 2007 despite vomiting in his helmet. But at the 2004 Japanese Grand Prix at Suzuka, Webber was forced surrender to adversity, in this case an overheating cockpit.
The temperature of the driver?óÔé¼Ôäós seat inside the Jaguar had intensified throughout the race to the point where it was actually burning Webber. Though his mechanics attempted to cool him by throwing a bucket of water into the seat during a pit stop, the heat soon returned until the luckless Aussie finally decided he could take no more and withdrew. It had nevertheless been a valiant drive that typified Webber?óÔé¼Ôäós commitment, though presumably his rear end has never been quite the same.
Trapped nerve
Justin Wilson, 2003 Malaysian Grand Prix, Sepang
The HANS device, which helps protect drivers from neck injuries in the event of a violent accident, met with some opposition when it was introduced in Formula One. And with some good reason, as there were a few major problems to iron out as Justin Wilson discovered.
Racing in only his second Grand Prix Wilson was forced to withdraw 41 laps into the race after losing all feeling in his arms.
The injury was eventually attributed to an ill-fitted HANS device, which had been putting so much force on his shoulders that it caused a trapped nerve. Considering that racing in Malaysia is a major physical challenge at the best of times, Wilson did well to survive as many laps as he did
Pit lane crash
David Coulthard, 1995 Australian Grand Prix, Adelaide
David Coulthard?óÔé¼Ôäós race-ending accident at the 1995 Australian Grand Prix was not only highly embarrassing but costly. In his final race for Williams, Coulthard was comfortably leading as he entered the pits for his first stop. Yet he did not slow enough for the tight pit lane entrance and understeered on the dusty surface into the pit wall.
After the race, Coulthard desperately tried to pin the blame for the accident onto his Renault engine, claiming he had been ?óÔé¼?£driven towards the wall?óÔé¼Ôäó by the sudden acceleration of his Williams. But for all his denial?óÔé¼Ôäós the bottom line was that DC had thrown away a comfortable win with an amateurish mistake.
He wasn't the only driver to be caught out by the slippery surface, though. Johnny Herbert abandoned an attempt to get into the pit lane and continued for another lap, while Roberto Moreno backed his Forti into the pit wall not far from where Coulthard crashed.
Crashing on purpose
Nelson Piquet Jnr, 2008 Singapore Grand Prix
Initially, Nelson Piquet Jnr's race-ending accident at the inaugural Singapore Grand Prix seemed innocent enough. It appeared to be nothing more than another error by a much-maligned driver who was on his way out of F1. The rumours of the crash being part of a wider race fixing scandal were gradually extinguished, and the incident was soon forgotten.
Only in July of the following year did the shocking truth emerge. Piquet, it transpired, had been ordered by the Renault team management to crash his car in order to give his team mate Fernando Alonso an opportunity to win. Piquet did not dispute this request (undoubtedly influenced by the promise of a contract extension), backing his car into the wall at turn 17 just metres in front of a packed grandstand.
Never before in F1?óÔé¼Ôäós six decade history had a driver been forced by his own team to endanger his life (and the lives of spectators and marshals) by crashing intentionally. That the three known conspirators – Piquet Jnr, Flavio Briatore and Pat Symonds – are no longer in F1 indicates that the sport is no longer prepared to tolerate such behaviour. However, the inability of the FIA to successfully punish the trio, allied to the suggestion that others had knowledge of the plan (including a certain Ferrari driver), means that it is not inconceivable that similar schemes could be devised in the future.
Spanners jammed under brake pedal
Johnny Herbert, 1998 Italian Grand Prix, Monza 1998
At the 1998 Italian Grand Prix at Monza Johnny Herbert experienced a situation Toyota owners across the world currently live in fear of. His Sauber's brake pedal jammed as he approached the high speed Lesmo corner, causing his car to slide off into the gravel.
To the millions of fans world wide watching on television the spin appeared simply to be a driving error, yet the hapless Herbert was not to blame. Incredibly, a mechanic had mistakenly left a spanner in the cockpit before the GP, which had worked its way into the footwell and became lodged beneath the brake pedal. Herbert was predictably unimpressed, labelling the mechanic responsible ?óÔé¼?£stupid?óÔé¼Ôäó, and perhaps unsurprisingly he left the team just a few races later
Bonus blunders
It wasn't easy to whittle this one down to a top ten. Here's a few more that didn't make the cut:
Running out of fuel
Jean Alesi, 1997 Australian Grand Prix, Melbourne
Jean Alesi is by no means the only driver to have run out of fuel in an F1 race, but ignoring his team's instructions to pit for fuel was unprecedented. For several laps, his Benetton team desperately tried to remind the Frenchman that he needed to come back to the pits to refuel, yet he turned a blind eye to the pit boards and ignored all radio messages.
Inevitably, he coasted to a halt with an empty fuel tank on lap 35, leading ITV commentator Murray Walker to suggest that the Benetton mechanics would be ?óÔé¼Ôäóab-so-lute-ly furious!?óÔé¼Ôäó
Michael Schumacher's safety car woes
Michael Schumacher, 2005 Chinese Grand Prix and 2004 Monaco Grand Prix
What is it with Shanghai and driver retirements? The 2005 Chinese Grand Prix capped arguably the worst season of Michael Schumacher?óÔé¼Ôäós career. On lap 23, Schumacher lost control of his car going into turn six and spun his car into the gravel and into retirement. The spin alone was unbefitting of a seven-times world champion; the fact that it had occurred under the safety car made it even more embarrassing.
It wasn?óÔé¼Ôäót his day. Less than two hours earlier, while heading to the grid, the German had drifted carelessly into the path of Christijan Albers?óÔé¼Ôäó quicker Minardi, causing a sizeable shunt which forced both men to start from the pit lane.
Schumacher?óÔé¼Ôäós mediocre run to 12th in his only previous Chinese GP was scarcely more impressive, leading many observers to suggest he had finally come across a bogey circuit. But Schumacher disproved this in some style in 2006, scoring his final win to date at the track.
It wasn't his only altercation behind the safety car, however – in 2004 he emerged from the Monte-Carlo tunnel having crashed into the wall during a caution period.
Fire extinguisher explosion
Oliver Panis, 2004 British Grand Prix, Silverstone
Toyota?óÔé¼Ôäós hopes for success at the 2004 British Grand Prix were dampened quite literally when the fire extinguisher in Olivier Panis?óÔé¼Ôäó cockpit suddenly and inexplicably went off, filling the car with foam and blinding the driver.
Fortunately Panis managed to bring the car to a halt in the gravel without making contact with the barriers or another car, but his final race at Silverstone was over.
Over to you
The incidents above represent ten of the most bizarre reasons for retirements I could think of, I?óÔé¼Ôäóm sure there have been plenty more accidents or mechanical failures that I?óÔé¼Ôäóm unaware of that have been stranger still.
So this is where you come in. If you know of any other odd retirements worth mentioning, let us know in the comments below.
This is a guest article by Ned Flanders. Want to try your hand at writing a guest article? Got a great idea for a top ten? Get in touch here..
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Read more top tens


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Richmond, CA—In California, the Kaiser name has long been linked to innovations in work organization, personnel practices and healthcare delivery.
During World War II, industrialist Henry Kaiser built America's largest shipyard, virtually overnight, here in the East Bay. That now-famous facility turned out scores of "Liberty" ships, using new production techniques, female welders (a k a "Rosie the Riveter") and African-Americans who had been excluded from higher-paying blue-collar jobs.
Kaiser's wartime experimentation with a pioneering group health plan, tied to hospitals in Richmond and Oakland, paved the way for pre-paid medical coverage of millions of workers and their families. As a broader nonprofit Health Maintenance Organization, Kaiser Permanente (KP) now operates the largest network of unionized hospitals in the country and has long been known as "the HMO that labor built." To keep the peace on its own far-flung properties, Kaiser formed a much-heralded Labor Management Partnership (LMP) with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and other unions in the mid-1990s. Through their embrace of "non-adversarial" labor relations, Kaiser caregivers were supposed to gain more say in workplace decision-making so they could improve service to patients. Their unions won the right to organize non-union KP workers without management interference—a "neutrality" deal only available to LMP participants.
By 2007, there weren't many healthcare employers who appeared to be so "patient centered" or "labor-friendly." So the union-backed lobbying-group American Rights at Work, bestowed its Eleanor Roosevelt Human Rights Award on Kaiser at a gala dinner in Washington, DC, attended by top union officials. As recently as this past July, the HMO's "shared purpose" and "partnership approach" was still being praised on the AFL-CIO's official blog.
Meanwhile, outside the Beltway, the HMO has been attracting more picket lines than plaudits. On September 22, more than 21,000 Kaiser employees conducted the largest work stoppage in California healthcare history. This unusual European-style protest strike reflected widespread worker concern about contract concessions sought by Kaiser despite profits of $5.7 billion since 2009.
At hospitals and clinics throughout the state, the one-day walkout (and accompanying smaller-scale strike activity the day before and after) generated unflattering publicity about Kaiser's recent cost-cutting, rate increases, understaffing and unfair labor practices. The new National Union of Healthcare Workers backed up its strike-related critique of KP's managed-care practices with a blistering report, released in mid-November, based on information provided by NUHW-represented social workers and psychologists, plus outside experts.
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Titled "Care Delayed, Care Denied: Kaiser Permanente's Failure to Provide Timely and Appropriate Mental Health Services," the study documents Kaiser's "systematic" failures to observe "recommended clinical standards" and thus meet the "mental health needs" of patients suffering from "conditions ranging from autism, anxiety and bi-polar disorder to depression, schizophrenia and suicidal ideation." Accusing Kaiser of noncompliance with state laws requiring HMOs to provide "timely access" to appropriate care, the union is urging California state and federal officials to "initiate immediate investigations to determine the full extent of Kaiser's regulatory violations."
When the independent NUHW and the AFL-CIO-affiliated California Nurses Association (CNA) struck together in September to blow the whistle on management—and oppose benefit take-aways—their joint action exposed rifts within labor about when, how or whether to resist concessions. Other AFL-CIO and Change To Win affiliates have downplayed the giveback threat and refrained from any public criticism of Kaiser's patient-care deficiencies. The largest partnership union, SEIU, even urged its Kaiser members to cross picket lines set up by their own co-workers—advice that was ignored by SEIU-represented rank-and-filers—about 1,000 of them, by NUHW's estimate—who stayed away from work as well.
As documented by the National Labor Relations Board (and my own recent book, The Civil Wars in U.S. Labor), Kaiser's respect for workers' rights has become highly selective. The big HMO and SEIU have both tried to squelch support for NUHW, the breakaway union formed in 2009 after SEIU put a dissident California local under trusteeship. In late 2010, the labor board obtained a rare federal court order forcing Kaiser to provide $2 million in back pay that was illegally withheld from 2,300 workers who voted to replace SEIU with NUHW.
In July an administrative law judge for the NLRB overturned the results of the largest private-sector union representation vote in seven decades—a decertification election sought by NUHW among 44,000 Kaiser service and technical workers. Although SEIU won that contest, the NLRB ordered a new vote (still pending) because, the judge said, the incumbent union's illegal campaigning—in conjunction with Kaiser's own previous misconduct—"interfered with the exercise of a free and reasoned choice among employees."
Among the strikers in September were Kaiser nurses represented by CNA and NUHW. (Two thousand members of the International Union of Operating Engineers were scheduled to picket, but legal pressure from Kaiser forced them to bow out instead.) RN Zenei Cortez, a CNA co-president and leader of its Kaiser bargaining council, explains that the labor agreement covering her fellow nurses doesn't expire until 2014. Nevertheless, 17,000 of them struck for a day in sympathy with the 4,000 RNs and other professional staff, represented by NUHW, who have been negotiating with Kaiser since last year.
In its bargaining with NUHW and another independent union, the Guild for Professional Pharmacists, Kaiser seeks to replace defined-benefit pensions with individual retirement accounts, eliminate retiree health coverage and force active employees to pay more for their medical benefits. Howard Hertz, vice president of the Guild for Professional Pharmacists, finds these concession demands reprehensible in light of past collaborative "efforts [that] have given Kaiser ever greater profits and membership growth." Says Hertz, "The benefit changes Kaiser is trying to impose punish people for their past loyalty…. they are not just wrong but immoral."
According to Cortez, if Kaiser wins concessions from other unions, including SEIU, before CNA's next round of bargaining, nurses will have a much harder time defending their own pensions, retiree health insurance and other contract benefits. Interviewed in Los Angeles earlier this summer, a dialysis nurse at Kaiser Sunset Medical Center (who wished to remain anonymous) reported that "a lot of experienced Kaiser nurses are already contemplating taking early retirement and leaving nursing practice" before any pension cuts take place. "Kaiser will save a lot of money," she pointed out, "because they will hire new nurses and start them at a lower pay rate," a trend she and others believe will have negative consequences for the quality of patient care in already understaffed Kaiser hospitals.
Kaiser spokesman John Nelson denied any knowledge of such shortcomings and expressed confidence "that we have appropriate staffing levels to meet our members' needs." According to Nelson, Kaiser is merely trying "to find ways to contain costs in partnership with our unions. Both management and labor have a stake in the financial challenges we face and meeting rising healthcare costs and costs of pension benefits." Echoing SEIU spokesperson Elizabeth Brennan, Nelson was particularly critical of NUHW, saying it was "disappointing that they have chosen to strike instead of engaging in constructive action." In Brennan's view, the main risk facing Kaiser workers today is the choice some have made to join "a weak, ineffective group," instead of SEIU. "While NUHW is facing major takebacks, SEIU-UHW members are now preparing for bargaining next year to extend good raises and lock in all of our benefits, pension and job security through 2015 and beyond," she said.
Only time will tell which path pays off for Kaiser workers—the familiar partnership route, or the harder road of rank-and-file militancy and solidarity. At a time of dwindling strike activity nationally, the latter approach drew impressive rank-and-file support in late September. Just after that walkout, Kaiser suddenly announced a rollback of up to $30 million of premium increases imposed on 300,000 Californians employed by small businesses and nonprofit organizations—a rate hike vigorously opposed by NUHW and community allies like the Courage Campaign. In the new contested terrain of California healthcare, some workers' willingness to link their own contract fights to broader public concerns about the cost and quality of patient care may prove to be the better prescription for resisting concessions and reviving unions.


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Friday 30 December 2011
Happy endings
Very well, Hans Sachs and Fairy Edna may have nothing else in common, but they do both help an outsider and a merchant's daughter in difficulties towards a wedding. And to be honest, the panto in Wimbledon spoke more often to my depths - or my shallows, though what's as profound as Homeric laughter? - than the Royal Opera's Meistersinger revival (the final scene of which is pictured above by Clive Barda). There were passing pleasures, all the same, in the second of the two comedies which rounded off a year rich in events.
I tried to unpluck the best from its varied tapestry in my Arts Desk 2011 choice, but even then I found I'd missed a few (how could I not have squeezed in Kazushi Ono's CBSO Mahler Resurrection Symphony?) I needn't repeat the results here except for the crème de la crème: in terms of Gesamtkunstwerk, it was a tough choice between Christopher Alden's production of Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream and Sasha Regan's riotous but also very moving all male G&S Iolanthe, full of attractive strangers and responding well to Wilton's Music Hall magic (and there's another special event I left out - Alina Ibragimova's recital-happening at Wilton's in colloboration with the Brothers Quay. I think Sussie Ahlburg's photo was taken at the concert's first, Manchester venue, but never mind).
Thought I ought to do a quick coast back over the 2011 blog, too, for other signifiers. Nothing new about the most entertaining book I read all year, Simon Winder's Germania - others rail against its flippancy, but he makes no bones about it - or the most revelatory author, Halldor Laxness, though after Under the Glacier and Independent People, I'm getting stuck with the disconsolate whimsy of World Light. Nothing new either about all seven series of The West Wing, after which everything on telly comes across as flat and unprofitable (dipping into BBC drama, it always seems well acted but poorly scripted. And could you believe the direness of Ab Fab? I couldn't).
The places I fell in love with, either for the first time or again, are too numerous to mention, but I'll try - from Darwin's Down House, the treasures within Cologne's churches and the unpickled German small-town perfection of Göttingen to the wilds of Connemara and the Burren in Ireland, the monastery of Tioumliline, the medina of Meknes and the beautifully-sited Roman town of Volubilis (pictured above again, why not? )in Morocco and - of course, the highlight - the top of Iceland's Snæfellsjökull and its lavafields/slopes running down to a blue, blue sea. Of course the whole place would tell a different story in wind and rain, but that's not how we saw it.
Here's hoping that we do head back to Iceland's south coast in 2012. And may your year be as adventurous as you want it to be.
Wednesday 28 December 2011
Bergman filming Trollflöjten
That's The Magic Flute in Swedish as the greatest of filmmakers (pictured on the left in the above photo) saw it, for me the best opera movie ever. Fellow Bergman buff David Thompson had kindly put together for me a few bits and pieces I'd never seen, and the other evening we got round to watching the Swedish one-hour documentary on the making of Trollflöjten with French subtitles. Would you believe the film itself still hasn't been issued on DVD in the UK, despite talk last year; I treasure all the more my Criterion copy, and I was pleased to pick up the soundtrack in an Oxfam shop - the libretto is interlaced with further Bergman commentary.
What comes across in these loosely-filmed 'backstage' scenes – as in the similar documentary on Fanny and Alexander – is the approach of a passionate enthusiast as well as a skilled practitioner getting right in there, with lots of laughter and freewheeling speeches, plenty of affectionate laying-on of hands (we see the director walking rather comically with the Sarastro, Ulrik Cold, and chivvying a dubious Josef Köstlinger in Tamino's crucial later trials). It all reinforces the film's greatest quality – that these are real people delivering their homilies and their humanity to us at very close quarters: chamber-cinema opera, in short. And that's clearly part of the quality Bergman wanted to reproduce; one of the many magical moments is when he gets Tamino and Pamina at their first actual meeting to stare into each other's eyes very much face to face, nearly touching but just not quite, at least not until she grasps him when Sarastro punishes Monostatos.
The other magic comes from the way the stage action moves from the truly pretty to the scarily metaphysical, but with a weather eye on all the backstage business Bergman loves to conjure in films from Sawdust and Tinsel to Fanny and Alexander and After the Rehearsal. It's telling both that we see him examining this watercolour showing the cast preparing for a Weimar performance in 1794 under Goethe's leadership, and that it graces the cover of the recording booklet. I didn't find its representation anywhere else.
The documentary jumps between the sound recording, where Bergman seems to have delivered his rhapsodic observations on Mozart unselfconsciously to all and sundry
and the filming. The heart of the film, stitched together from both, is when Bergman tells the assembled company in the recording studio that the trials of fire and water remind him of Leverkühn's meeting with the devil in Mann's Doktor Faustus. He freely paraphrases what the devil actually says of hell – that it's two vast rooms, one hot enough to melt granite, the other unbearably cold, between which the inhabitants rush frenziedly.
So we have the souls crying out in silent agony as they roast, and writhing at the bottom of the ocean, while all the while the flute weaves its solemn magic in total contradiction of all that visual frenzy.
Curiously the one moment that had the greatest significance of all for Bergman doesn't figure in the documentary, though he deals with some of its points in general. This is Tamino's questioning, after his disorienting encounter with the Speaker, whether the darkness will ever end, when the light will come, and the two answers. You may not agree with everything Bergman says here in the commentary accompanying the libretto, but you can see how deeply it affected him:
For me this is the most agitating music there is. These twelve measures involve two questions at the outermost limits of life - and two answers. When Mozart wrote this music, he was very ill, and he felt the touch of death [make of that what you will]. In a moment of despair and courage, he shouts his question: 'O dark night, when will you disappear? When will I find light in darkness?'
And then comes the answer from the chorus, clear and ambivalent: 'Soon, soon or never more'. Mozart, fatally ill, asks his questions in darkness and from this darkness he answers himself - or does he get an answer? I have never felt so close to the deepest secret of spiritual intuition as just here, at this moment.
And then the other question: 'Does Pamina still live?' The music translates the little question of the text into a big and eternal question: Does Love live? Is Love real? The answer comes quivering and hopeful: 'Pa-mi-na still lives!' Love exists. Love is real in the world of man.
It can't save the protagonist of Bergman's most frightening film, Hour of the Wolf. Here, some years before he filmed The Magic Flute, Bergman puts his own sentiments into the mouth of one of his creepiest characters. The puppet-theatre scene occurs at 5'36 into this 'dining with vampires' sequence.
Thursday 22 December 2011
Three church visits and a sermon
Well, that's just about it: one and a half seasonal events over the past week or so - not counting panto and ballet, of course - and a third setting-foot inside a church for a bit of peace and quiet. Events first: the Maytree fundraiser in St Botolph's Aldgate included several eloquent, touching speeches from those wonderful people involved with the 'sanctuary for the suicidal'; vivid readings including an evocation of Mole's makeshift good cheer from The Wind in the Willows, John Julius Norwich's now-familiar take on The Twelve Days of Christmas - always worth hearing when delivered as well as this - and U A Fanthorpe poems beautifully read by Adjoa Andoh; and the handbells - ah, those handbells! Such a surprisingly dulcet art, especially when applied to the little wisdom of Papageno and Pamina in the Act 1 finale of The Magic Flute. And on Sunday after birthday revels for two-year-old Mirabel, we went round the corner with her ma and friends to St Leonard's Shoreditch.
That's right, 'as seen on TV' in the gently charming and ever so slightly subversive Rev.. The carols-by-candlelight event was packed, and mostly with young folk from the arty-bohemian vicinity - but no mocking renditions of 'Jerusalem' (if you've seen the humiliating Midnight Mass episode of Rev., you'll know what I mean).
And there may have been a sermonish speech from St Leonard's own laidback Rev., but I blush to say we didn't have a chance to find out since we left our money in the plate and exited halfway through, as intended, for a more profane supper up in Highbury. The sermon I've taken for the season was this.
Pullman's central conceit is of two brothers, one of whom is hellbent, if you'll pardon the expression, on making his sibling's not entirely good but always human words and deeds - glad Pullman doesn't go soft on the angry, militant side of Jesus - sexier for posterity. Interestingly, Jesus's most extended speech, in Gethsemane, isn't overheard by brother Christ but, of course, related by the narrator - and it distils the very simple message of this alternative story: 'as soon as men who believe they're doing God's will get hold of power, whether it's in a household or a village or in Jerusalem or in Rome itself, the devil enters into them'. As for the death of Jesus and the resurrection of Christ - well, that's a punchline I realise I may have given away. It's clever and rings true enough for me but still feels somehow a little undernourishing. Tuesday's church visit was made spontaneously during a visit to the ma-in-law down in Rye. I always like to do a circuit of the cobbled streets up the hill, and no matter the time of year the 'square' - more a graveyard with houses around it - at the top is quite a sanctuary. But I'm not sure I've been inside St Mary's since I was a child. Its size is surprising, with the Clare Chapel to your left as you enter and Norman remains embedded in the North Transept.
The glass is all Victorian and 20th century, but I'm developing a fondness for those later angels like the one up top (Kempe, 1896, I think). A Burne Jones design executed by William Morris & Co is dismissed by Nairn and Pevsner with one word - 'sentimental' - but it's characteristic.
I do like the big windows local literary hero E F Benson had dedicated in the late 1920s and early '30s to family members: at the east end to his parents - J's just read a book about the very remarkable mother - and in the south transept (finest of all but too dark to capture) to brother A C of 'Land of Hope and Glory' fame. The nativity of 1933 is slightly twee but colourful.
And I suppose one of the original Quarter Boys whose fibreglass replicas stand either side of the clock outside will serve as suitably seasonal cherubic ambassador of good will to all readers.
Monday 19 December 2011
Death in the south
Romantic their poetic aspirations and their post-mortem canonisation may have been, but there was nothing mythical about the deaths of Keats and Shelley. I thought I owed my latest, serendipitous visit to their graves in the quiet corner of Rome that is the non-Catholic cemetery by the pyramid of Cestius a bit more background reading. Daisy Hay's Young Romantics proposes not only a more social history of the way in which the lives of the Shelleys were entangled with Byron as well as the lesser figure of Leigh Hunt, but a bigger celebration of those long-suffering half-sisters Mary Shelley and Claire (Jane) Clairmont.
Keats, alas, is a marginal figure in Hay's history - a shame, since he was probably the nicest of the male pack. Hay makes it clear what a catastrophe was his last-minute bolt for Rome in late 1820 with the helper who's buried beside him, the artist Joseph Severn.
The idea was to seek a warmer clime for Keats's advanced tuberculosis, but they should never have left England: the stormy channel crossing in cramped conditions was a nightmare for a sick man, and all Severn could do in those cramped lodgings by the Spanish Steps was try and allay his friend's 'dread of never seeing [England] more' and attempt to ease a horrible death. There's still a waft of bitterness from the inscription on Keats's grave, designed by Severn and Charles Brown
though a fairer plaque is set into the wall nearby.
This is the most open, green corner of the cemetery with views over to the pyramid.
Three-year old William Shelley had been buried nearby, one of several young victims of his parents' roving around Italy. He succumbed to malaria in Rome; not long before his baby sister Clara had fallen sick on an unnecessary, hasty and uncomfortable journey to Venice, and died in her mother's arms. The cause, as with so many unhappy instances in the fates of the Shelleys, sprang from Lord Byron's unfortunate liaison with Claire, which led the Shelley-Clairmont trio to Italy in the first place. This is hardly the place to try and untangle its web, but the offshoot of that relationship was in many ways the most tragic figure of all, the little girl Allegra - separated from her doting mother after the early months, and consigned by Byron against all Claire's pleadings to a convent on unhealthy land, where she died aged five.
In all this, one thing seems clear: for all the vaunted equality of the women - for which Mary's mother Mary Wollstonecraft had fought so hard - the men always closed ranks. But how young, how untested, they all were! Mary was still in her early twenties when, having suffered miscarriages, the loss of two treasured children and several depressions which seem all too explicable, Shelley (depicted by Severn in a posthumous image above writing Prometheus Unbound in the Baths of Caracalla) was drowned in the Bay of Lerici - an inexperienced boatman in a poorly constructed vessel, the Don Juan. Shelley's preferred name had been the Ariel, which may partly account for the inscription on the grave I found so useful for my only-connect Arts Desk piece on Abbado's Shakespeare programme.
But what's in the grave? All that remained from a messy attempted cremation of the disfigured, washed-up corpse on the beach at Viareggio was an organ Hay surmises was the liver rather than the heart, and even that was squabbled over before being handed over to Mary. And there it is, cor cordium. Bit of a mystery why Edward Trelawny, Shelley's bragging friend of less than a year, should be buried alongside him; but he'd bought the plot of land, and there he was interred at the age of 88 in 1881. Mary as keeper of the flame had lived on until 1851, always doing the decent thing by her late husband and preserving a measure of immortality through her Frankenstein. Claire maintained an uneasy independence as governess and died in 1879, almost 60 years after Shelley's drowning.
Friday 16 December 2011
From Tarby to Edna in Wimbledon
My jaw aches. That's partly because the root-canal treatment continues weekly, with various attendant degrees of horror, but mostly because I went from a grim hour or so in the dentist's chair yesterday to laughing 'til I cried at the most relentlessly funny show I've seen since the last production of Noises Off. Yes, good people, a panto. The Arts Desk needed Dick Whittington at the New Theatre Wimbledon covered, and I went with the idea in mind that the global gigastar of Moonee Ponds, Dame Edna Everage, would be up to her usual tricks if all else failed.
She was, but how I underestimated the rest, and what a shame the ten-year-old I thought would love it turned his nose up at the idea of a drag star (my fellow child-at-heart Edwina came instead, and marked it way above the Hackney Empire panto she'd seen the previous evening). The comedy hardly ever let up; different kinds and levels of humour, all first-rate, came from Renaissance writer-director-dame Eric Potts as Sarah the Cook (alas, the only picture they sent me of him, along with the above, has the dame marginal to the Dame)
as well as Kev Orkian charming the pants off us as a stand-up Idle Jack - Charles Spencer, how could you not be amused? - and break-dancing small personage Ben Goffe. The three of them pulled off an endless - and endlessly funny - routine in the second act of which the Marx Brothers would have been proud. But here I repeat myself; read the review.
There I also self-indulgently divulged when I last saw panto in Wimbledon: as a cub scout, lured backstage by peer pressure to get Jimmy ('Tarby')Tarbuck's autograph after Jack and the Beanstalk*. Strange to tell, I don't remember nearly as much about it as I do about an earlier Cinderella at the London Palladium with Cliff Richard and the Shadows, no doubt prompted by the soundtrack which I still possess.
The songs are good! And so are the Shadows' instrumental numbers. And look at young Cliff back in 1967.
I'm told I had one of my usual agonising childhood ear infections, and remember being propped in front of the black and white telly shortly afterwards. The only other panto of which I have any memory is one in which a muscle man in leopardskin underpants did his routine to the usual tune, though don't ask me where that was.
As for Wimbledon Theatre, now the New Wimbledon Theatre under the very canny management of the Ambassador Theatre Group, it hasn't changed within and strikes me now as rather beautiful and well-preserved of its ilk. Certainly the best thing I saw there in my youth, apart from very good London Transport Players shows which my grandfather, who worked for LT, always insisted we saw, was a London Festival Ballet Nutcracker. This would have been 1970 - must dig out the season programme, which I think lurks in a box in my mother's loft. Galina Samtsova and Alan Dubreuil were the Sugar-Plum Fairy and Prince Orshad-Coqueluche (that's Coughdrop to you, so much for the poetry of the Pas de Deux), but of course I was much more struck by the sets and the score. And this was probably the fullest Tchaikovsky version ever; when elsewhere has anyone seen Mother G(C)igogne, that fabulous number which ought to end the divertissement (and did in 1892; how surprised I am to find Vsevolozhsky's original design reproducable)?
And I bet few of you have seen the English sailor's dance in the divertissement. Which as it resurfaced many years later on CD, turns out to be John Lanchbery's arrangement of Tchaikovsky's sketches for a Gigue or Jig. That was class, and I'm sure I sensed it: no Nutcracker since, other than Matthew Bourne's reinvention, has come anywhere close for me.
*In the light of more recent events, 'lured' may sound a bit ambivalent. Anyway, he was very nice to me.
Wednesday 14 December 2011
Emperors and popes: mostly bad, some mixed
What a sorry but enticing saga is the history of Rome – rather oddly told, it has to be admitted, in Robert Hughes's popular and understandably art-skewed book bearing the city's name as title. Odd and skewed since, once the glory days and the era of the Grand Tour are over, Hughes seems to be stumped for specifically Roman material and goes tramping all over Italy, and sometimes the rest of Europe. He's also no Simon Winder – see one of my endless paeans to Germania – in that the personal flavour of the Prologue gets lost in the chronological, if still selective, account that follows.
Yet Hughes can be entertainingly wrathful on the grandeur and follies of emperors and popes. He questions, as any good historian must, the story of Rome as told entirely from a Christian perspective. Horrible things happened to the early Christians, to be sure; but equally horrible and worse tortures lay in store for the so-called Pagans (a term I had to reassess, since of course it embraces so much of the humanities) under the so-called Christian emperors.
I do like the sound of the emperor Julian – some 'Apostate'; it simply transpires that the fledgling Christianity didn't speak to him; but he never went round stoking any fires under the believers.
Besides, one forgets that Julian's predecessor Constantine wasn't exactly a 'Christian emperor' in the all-embracing way we think of it. Tolerant of the Roman majority and no zealot after his 'vision' at the Ponte Milvio, he was nevertheless another of those family monsters – putting his own son by an early marriage to death on the accusation of a later wife, boiling her alive in the hot-room of the palace when it turned out she'd lied. No wonder mamma Helena sublimated her sorrow by going off round the middle east buying up bits of cross and less easily transportable objects.
Much worse for history, though, was the later, forged 'Donation of Constantine' which gave free rein to papal infallibility. And it's no surprise, of course, that most of the later popes wallowed in luxury and persecuted the faithless with a zeal that puts even Caligula and Nero to shame. But here the paradoxes accumulate, especially since many who would seem to us the worst have given us Rome as we so wonderingly know it. Most likeable to a libertarian is Leo X, Giovanni de'Medici, who kept a pet elephant, led a shameless gay sex life and honoured scholars and poets.
But his feckless spending led to that sale of indulgences, posts and art treasures which gave his polar opposite, Martin Luther, fuel to his rightful indignation. Nevertheless I know which I'd rather invite to an ideal dinner party.
Even the anti-religious Hughes has mixed feelings about the 'manic-impressive' Sixtus V. Stalin could hardly have done a better job on purging the criminality which beset Rome when Sixtus, born Felice Peretti, came to power in 1585.
He drove many of the spectacular lines we see through Rome today, often at the expense of the classical, with which he held no truck – other than to show its inferiority to Christianity; the tale of the dragging of the Egyptian obelisk from the back of St Peter's to stand at the centre of the square in front takes on Neronian dimensions. He also stuck a statue of St Peter, cast from melted-down classical bronzes, on top of the magnificent Trajan's column. As Hughes reports, 'in dedicating the statue of Peter, His Holiness explained that such a monument as Trajan's could become worthy to bear the effigy of Christ's Vicar on Earth only if it were rededicated in the cause of the Catholic Church – an astonishing piece of casuistry'.
Another tale chills the blood but simultaneously warms one's spirit to know that ordinary Romans did sometimes fight back: here's what followed an accusation carried out in the traditional dialogue between the messages posted on the old statue called the Pasquino (a BC Greek sculpture of Menelaus) near the Piazza Navona and those on the river-god Marforio outside the Travertine Prison (now at the entrance to the Capitoline Museums on the Campidoglio). Let Hughes tell the tale:
…one day during the reign of Sixtus V Pasquino was seen wearing a horribly filthy shirt. Why, Marforio wanted to know, did he wear such a stinking rag? Because Donna Camilla was the pope's sister, who in her humbler days had been a washerwoman but had just been ennobled by His Holiness.
There was a limit to what great figures would endure from Pasquino, and this crossed the line. It got to the ears of Sixtus, who let it be known that if the anonymous satirist owned up to writing it, his life would be spared and he would receive a present of one thousand pistoles, cash. But if anyone else found him out and denounced him, he would be hanged. Naturally the nameless graffitist – for who was going to turn down such a reward? – confessed. Sixtus V gave him the money and spared his life, but unsportingly added that 'We have reserved for Ourselves the power of cutting off your hands and boring your tongue through, to prevent your being so witty in future'. But nothing would shut Pasquino up; he had a hundred tongues and two hundred hands. The very next Sunday he was seen draped in a freshly laundered, still-wet shirt, to dry it in the sun. Marforio wondered why he couldn't wait until Monday. 'There's no time to lose,' said Pasquino, thinking of His Holiness's taxation habits. 'If I stay until tomorrow perhaps I'll have to pay for the sunshine'.
Anyway, it's Sixtus we have to thank for some of Rome's avenues and the fountains I much admired on my dawn walk back to Termini the other Monday. But as far as the human cost is concerned, compared to all this, the caprices of Pio Nono in the 19th century and Mussolini (and Berlusconi) in the 20th seem like childsplay.
15/12 - a neat addition from Banksy and his disfigured cardinal in Liverpool's Walker Art Gallery. Read about it here, or just enjoy/abhor the seasonal sentiment I've extrapolated: 'The statue? I guess you could call it a Christmas present. At this time of year it's easy to forget the true meaning of Christianity - the lies, the corruption, the abuse.'
Monday 12 December 2011
A great Britten symphony
Had he not styled it a Sinfonia da Requiem, and run its three continuous movements - 'Lacrymosa', 'Dies Irae' and 'Requiem Aeternam' - at a highly compressed 20 minutes, Britten's early masterpiece would be officially up there with Elgar's and Walton's two symphonies and the best of Vaughan Williams's nine, not to mention the darker monuments of Shostakovich and Prokofiev. Britten's two, showing he could achieve symphonic continuity outside the opera house, are this and the even thornier Cello Symphony for Rostropovich, which I love yet more dearly. This CD is an indispensible one, though Rattle's recording of the earlier work is one of his best.
Our new Rattle, Ed Gardner, dared to harrow us with the Sinfonia da Requiem right at the start of another BBC Symphony Orchestra blockbuster event on Saturday, and you can hear the results this afternoon on Radio 3; for some reason, broadcast has been delayed, but it will soon be on the iPlayer for the next week. My colleague and perceptive Britten scholar Alexandra Coghlan reviewed the concert for The Arts Desk. As I'd discovered for the class, and consequently for the pre-performance talk, there were several points of connection with the other epic bookender, Walton's Belshazzar's Feast, which I haven't heard in concert for years. That reminds me I ought to get to the John Martin exhibition soon; his doomy canvases used to appeal to my adolescent love of extremes.
The links? Not only were Walton in 1929 and Britten a decade later young men still in their twenties when they set out on adventures which changed course; both works start - though Walton's takes time to settle - in a D minor lament. Britten's resolves in D, Walton's in the relative major, F, with jazzy accents to the last and a hint at the tritone which, of course, holds the tension to the end of Britten's later lamentatory masterpiece, the War Requiem.
Much to illustrate in the talk, then - too much bearing in mind the BBCSO brief of covering all bases, which meant a not unwelcome injection of what I could bring to bear on the three fascinating Sibelius orchestrated songs in the programme - 'On a terrace by the sea', much blacker than its title suggest, also holds tritonal terrors and modernistically anticipates the Finn's Fourth Symphony by some years - and Sibelius's little suite of incidental music to another Belshazzar's Feast, modest but personal as ever. One thing I hadn't realised at the time was that Sibelius made his orchestration of the Twelfth Night setting 'Come away, death' just before his death in 1957. Delighted to find it on YouTube in Jorma Hynninen's performance. I'd been blown away by his performances of the songs when I was preparing the talk, and though Gerald Finley was fine and cut through a sometimes very heavy orchestra, he doesn't have Hynninen's lower centre of gravity.
All the more fascinating, given the terminal circumstances of the arrangement, that the last chord leaves matters unresolved. 'Komm nu hit, död' ties in two other dying composers' significant end-pieces, Rachmaninov's piano transcription of Tchaikovsky's 'Cradle Song', written in the year of the junior master's birth, and Stravinsky's instrumentation of two pleading-with-God Wolf songs.
So it was quite a death-haunted programme as we enter the silly season; and we can still go deep this Friday when that phenomenal Sibelius interpreter Jukka-Pekka Saraste conducts Sibelius's Sixth and Seventh Symphonies. Why the Bosch above? Well, partly because the Sinfonia da Requiem is a triptych, too, though with a fast-motion hell at the middle, and partly because that Dies Irae's fluttertonguing flutes and muted brass delineate Boschian creatures while not forgetting to hothouse the terror and weave in on alto sax the ever-changing lament of the first movement (it achieves resolution in the finale, but not a falsely triumphalist one).
Such details would have led me to guess that the work was influenced by Shostakovich's even more harrowing Eighth Symphony, were it not for the fact that the Russian masterpiece had not been composed at the time of the English one's belated premiere. That took place under Barbirolli in New York in 1941, the Sinfonia having been unsurprisingly exiled from the concert for which it was commissioned, a 200-player celebration of Japan's 2,600 year old empire at which Richard Strauss's noisy occasional-piece Japanese Festival Music WAS performed, and at which the Nazi salute was held during the playing of the Japanese national anthem. Once again, the unwitting Strauss was in the wrong place at the wrong time; but so would Britten, and Britain, have been, had the Japanese royal representatives not objected to his 'gloomy', 'discordant', 'Christian' and of course very uncelebratory work of youthful genius.
Sunday 11 December 2011
Protests great and small
I little thought, when Tunisia set the democratic trail blazing at the beginning of the year, that 2011 would draw to a close with Putin-dominated Russia joining the party. But there they were south of Moscow's centre, about 50,000 of them, all protesting against parliamentary elections that no-one seems to doubt were rigged.
The top photo was swiftly placed on Wikimedia Commons by one of those ever-growing people whose courage we can't begin to grasp, Dmitry Mottl; below it is a kind of Where's Willy? shot by Brian Rybolt - who also took the next image - in which I am one of quite a few grinning gleefully not (knowingly) at the camera but at the fabulous Henry Goodman's witty song-plea to keep Gaby's Deli safe from needless obliteration by the ghastly Westminster City Council. Here's Henry with the owner, Gaby Elyahou, at the more or less impromptu 'Cabaret Falafel' on Thursday afternoon, where they were preceded by another wry ditty from Gaye Brown.
It's a drop in the ocean, yet equally reliant on force of numbers - as well I know in the dismal lack of response to save the black poplar trees on the south side of our gardens from a very dubiously reasoned execution - and once a London landmark is gone, it's gone for good. Daquise, unchanged since Coronation Year, outlived plans to redevelop the row of shops by South Kensington but then had a horrid makeover by New Polish Prosperity and is now unrecognisable. Here the proposition is to replace thriving Gaby's, which caters for salt-beef addicts and vegetarians alike, with a 'Strada-like chain restaurant', of which there are already hundreds in the West End. My colleague Judith Flanders set the ball rolling on The Arts Desk, clarifying the situation: sign the petition, please.
And I hope we'll have sound and/or vision of Henry's speech and song up soon. With that easy charm which makes everyone instantly jolly, he remembered sitting in Gaby's at various times with Jeremy Irons, Alun Armstrong and Ute Lemper. Whose image on the Chicago poster next to the cafe here - my pic as they were assembling for an outdoor shot - is both apt and a reminder that Gaby's is tied up with the soul of West End theatreland.
Then I was off, buying myself on the way a Chinese pork bun and a strong Italian espresso from other Soho stalwarts, to pure escapism and the fabulous Anne Schwanewilms digging luminously deep into Mahler at the Wigmore. But what a year it's been for people power. Not always successful - pray, or whatever it is you do, for the Syrians - and often with an ambiguous outcome; yet I can't remember a time in my life where the tide of the world seemed to turn so momentously in such a potentially hopeful direction. More, no doubt, to follow in 2012.


text:
Gucci Mane – Shittin' Onum Lyrics
[sound of a fly buzzing around]
Hot damn! Hot, hot, stankin hot
A steerin wheel charm 'bout the size of a dinner plate
Too many VVS, and when you see you got to say
("Gawwwwd damn! Sheeeeeeit!")
Is your lights on? (Yeah) Iced on (Yeah)
Diamonds on my chest my name right on my wrist my fist
it be like ("Gawwwwd damn!")
All the hoes sayin ("Sheeeeeeit!")
Then the niggaz be like diamonds on the chest thick
Wrist, arm, fist, man, Gucci Mane, LaFlare, he the shit
Gucci Mane in the party, bump whoa Kemosabe
So sick with the words think I need chemotherapy
No simpleton, but this beat, it's a sicken them
Gucci Mane the maestro but you should take a whiff of it
Halloween down to chain, hoes wanna trick or treat
Brother trick it off, 'fore I take yo' bitch out to eat
Buyin chain so foolish, girl I spent a hundred G's
I can trick my brightland then, and, get a hundred G's
Hundred G's ain't nothin to me, I need least two thousand ki's
Where are those two thousand pizzas it been dry out here a week
Laugh not for the kid dawg, twenty thousand for a fee
Ten cars, got a fleet, I done rolled and everything
See the second verse better so get your air freshener
Wanna be like Gucci? Little buddy eat your vegetables
I'm on another level, I'm Gucci Boosay
Gucci boots were purchased 'fore they came out schedule
Thirty-five thou' just to come to your house
say happy birthday, ate cake and bounced out
Now Gucci is a drought, whereabout, not in this house
Pills pills powder traphouse like a drug sto'
Never too much, I'm the shit, like the commode
Toilet stool breath ass girl, you need to back up
Shawty so fine she need to slow it up, slow it up
Shawty showin legs but she still ain't seen enough
Speedy, Gucci
The So Icey boys baby girl, see our diamond watches
All the girls are jockin cause they know, that my diamonds poppin
Floppin, flies around me, cause they know that Gucci's funky
Toppin, and bossin, and save the posses for the runnin
AK-47, is still, what's shakin for me
So Icey squad pussy nigga, we cross the country
See I'm the man, bland pussy nigga we the army
We made a plan, and, and, look we formed a company
So mad, told y'all that we gettin money
Every day they cocky, and dirty laundry
1500, just to clean my garbage
I'm Gucci Mane, LaFlare, I'm from the projects
("Gawwwwd damn! Sheeeeeeit!")
[flies buzzing]
("Gawwwwd damn! Sheeeeeeit!")
[fades out]
Writer(s): MILLER HARVEY L, WRITER UNKNOWN


text:
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