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TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — Ranbaxy Pharmaceuticals Inc. has recalled dozens of lots of its generic version of cholesterol drug Lipitor because some may contain tiny glass particles, the latest in a string of manufacturing deficiencies that once led U.S. regulators to bar imports of the Indian company's medicines.
Ranbaxy, a subsidiary of Ranbaxy Laboratories Ltd., India's biggest drugmaker, is operating under increased scrutiny from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration because of quality lapses at multiple Ranbaxy factories over the past several years. The FDA also has alleged the company lied about test results for more than two dozen of its generic drugs several years ago.
On Friday, Ranbaxy posted a notice on its U.S. website, saying it's recalling 10-, 20- and 40-milligram doses of tablets of atorvastatin calcium. That's generic Lipitor, the cholesterol fighter that reigned for years as the world's top-selling drug.
The recall includes 41 lots of the drug, nearly all with 90 pills per bottle, but three lots contain 500 pills per bottle. It's unclear how many bottles are in each lot, but medicine batches typically contain many thousands of pills. The 80-milligram strength tablets are not affected.
Ranbaxy spokesman Chuck Caprariello did not answer questions or provide any additional information beyond the statement on the company's website.
"Ranbaxy is proactively recalling the drug product lots out of an abundance of caution," the website statement read. "This recall is being conducted with the full knowledge of the U.S. FDA."
The company also filed a two-sentence statement with the Bombay Stock Exchange stating Ranbaxy's investigation would be completed within two weeks, but that after that temporary disruption to the U.S. supply, the company expected to resume shipments here.
Patients who've filled a prescription can contact their pharmacy to determine whether it was made by Ranbaxy or another generic drugmaker and, if it's from Ranbaxy, whether it came from a recalled lot.
Ranbaxy's manufacturing deficiencies, dating to 2006, led to a lengthy investigation and sanctions by the FDA. During the probe, federal investigators found Ranbaxy didn't properly test the shelf life and other safety factors of its drugs and then lied about the results.
In mid-2008, the FDA barred Ranbaxy from shipping into the U.S more than 30 different drugs made at factories in India. Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Justice demanded Ranbaxy turn over internal documents, alleging the company lied about ingredients and formulations of some medications.
In early 2009, the FDA said it would not consider any new applications from Ranbaxy to sell in the U.S. any products made at the troubled factories.
As FDA discussions with Ranbaxy continued, it appeared Ranbaxy would lose its shot at a revenue windfall when Lipitor's generic U.S. patent expired last Nov. 30. At the time, Lipitor brought in almost $8 billion a year in U.S. sales.
As often happens when patents first expire, for the first six months only one generic rival could compete with brand-name Lipitor. Ranbaxy had that right, although an authorized generic from Lipitor maker Pfizer Inc. and partner Watson Pharmaceuticals Inc. went on sale on Dec. 1. With competition so limited, the generic prices only declined a bit from brand-name drug's price of about $115 a month — until several other generics entered the market six months later.
The FDA finally ended the suspense, deciding just before midnight on Nov. 30 to let Ranbaxy sell generic Lipitor made at the company's Ohm Laboratories factory in central New Jersey. It was unclear Friday whether the recalled Ranbaxy pills were made there or elsewhere.
Meanwhile, Ranbaxy is operating under a settlement with the FDA, called a consent decree, signed on Dec. 20, 2011. It requires Ranbaxy to improve manufacturing procedures, ensure data on its products is accurate and undergo extra oversight and review by an independent third party for five years. Ranbaxy at the time set aside $500 million to cover potential criminal and civil liability stemming from the Justice Department investigation.


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Profile Support is IN LittleBigPlanet
So the other day I got a beta invite for LittleBigPlanet, a mere five days before the beta is due to end. Ah well, I shouldn't complain. I'm getting something for nothing, right? You can read about the beta from a ton of other sources, so I won't go into that here.
But here's the kicker.
When you're in a game and add another player, you can choose if you want that player to be a guest of your main profile, or if you want that player to be tied to a different profile! Yay and hurrah! So two years after the release of the PS3, I finally had a reason to add a friend to my list of PS3 users. Sure enough, when he entered the game, he could choose his own profile. So next time he plays, he can again choose that profile, and get the character he made along with the costumes and everything he unlocked. What a lovely concept! It's something that the 360 has been doing for three years now, and it's finally on the PS3.
So, Sony, what other games are going to support this feature?

subset: commoncrawl


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Estimated read time: 4-5 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
NEW YORK (AP) - Carly Kerby, a mom of four girls, doesn't have the greatest track record as the Tooth Fairy, but it was another family tradition that nearly did her in: The Elf on the Shelf.
In case you've been hitting the egg nog a little too hard all these years, the elf is a big seller. It involves a picture book and a stuffed, felt elf that serves as a scout for Santa and has to be moved stealthily every night, traditionally around Thanksgiving until Christmas Eve.
The elf's mission? To report back to the boss in red on who's been naughty or nice. After eight years on the market, more than 6 million of the kits, book and elf, have been sold, and it has climbed high on best-seller lists, with two sexes and different skin tones now available.
Kerby, in Salt Lake City, thought it sounded like fun when she took it on last Christmas.
"My first epic mistake was not knowing that a female elf existed," she said. "My daughters were devastated that their elf was a boy and not a girl. Heaven forbid we have anything boy-related in our house. It went downhill from there."
She forgot to move it for days and days. And her youngest, at 18 months, loves to grab it King Kong-style, a no-no by elf rules.
"Everyone here freaks out because they read the book and it says if you touch it the magic is gone," Kerby said. "It really creates a lot of drama, but with four daughters, everything is drama!"
While, clearly, millions of people enjoy their elves on shelves, a backlash has bubbled up. There are anti-elf rants on Facebook and raunchy, bawdy and bloody visuals on Tumblr and Instagram. One photo circulating shows a green Grinch hat tied to the head of a large dog with one of those damning cardboard signs around his neck that reads: "I ate your Elf on the Shelf."
Kim Boerman in Charleston, S.C., has pulled hard elf duty with her 12-year-old daughter. There was the time it barely escaped their German shepherd, Myka, and another time it fell from the chandelier during dinner as it hung upside down.
She procured a doctor's prescription that states: "To Elf, address North Pole. Doctors orders: Take it easy, don't move around a lot ... rest!" Boerman and her husband even threw in a head bandage for the little guy before planting him under their Christmas tree with a toy ambulance for the duration.
Kerby said she had tons on her holiday to-do list before adding the elf, but mishaps aside, "it's quite fun for our little girl and a nice tradition."
The Elf on the Shelf _ you get to name it _ was born in 2005 as a self-published labor of love from Carol Aebersold and daughters Chanda Bell and Christa Pitts, co-founders of Creatively Classic Activities and Books. The company is dedicated to promoting and distributing the storybook and elf, recently launching its first sequel, a birthday elf and book. A dollar for every birthday kit sold goes to a charity working to provide clean drinking water in more than 20 countries.
"Every year we continue to be amazed and blessed with the fan response," Aebersold said in a statement, put out after their creation recently claimed the No. 1 spot on USA Today's best-seller list for the first time.
Other companies have gotten in on the game, including the makers of "Maccabee on the Mantel," which includes a snuggly plush soldier for Hanukkah. And Aebersold's company now offers games, a movie, elf couture, an elf registry online and elf adoptions in select locations around the country.
Meaghan B. Murphy isn't ho-ho-hoing. As deputy editor of SELF magazine, the busy and tired mom of three kids _ ages 3, 20 months and 4 months _ is on elf duty with her husband.
"The elf is the bane of my December," she said. "Her name is Arielle. She wears a Target-exclusive sparkly tutu that cost like 15 bucks. She has two. I can barely remember to brush my teeth, let alone hide her nightly or do an outfit change."
The fact that she forgot to move the elf usually hits around 3 a.m., while she's feeding her newborn. "At which point I run downstairs only to discover that I can't reach her because my husband who is 6-foot-3 hid her the night before on the ledge of crown molding 12 feet high," Murphy said. "I then peg her with things in the dark until I finally knock her down, at which point I hide her someplace glaringly lame."
She knows an elf supermom or two. Their Facebook feeds are hard to ignore, Murphy said.
"I have a friend who staged a marshmallow snowball fight between the elf and `Monsters Inc.' (characters)," she said. "Honestly, I don't think my kids give a crap. They're more excited about the chocolates in their Advent calendars."
Follow Leanne Italie on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/litalie
(Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)


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Mice Parade
What It Means to be Left-Handed
FatCat Records
The new record from Mice Parade is their first in the band's second decade of existence – and if you haven't already heard of them, you should start with this album.
A joyous mix of rhythmic West African drumbeats, indie rock and Swahili vocals, What It Means to be Left-Handed is optimistic, soaring and entirely epitomises what music should be. Founding member, Adam Pierce's philosophy for the record was "music was just music, and its very existence was its purpose."
Switching from Highlife to anthemic, rousing guitars reminiscent of Sigur Rós, to quiet acoustic finger-picked rhythms and pseudo-electronica, this album does everything right. Opener Kupanda is a soulful, frolicking affair with traditional kora melodies. The sheer variety of instrumentation, vocals and languages make Mice Parade's latest offering absolutely delightful. It's an album of blazing sunshine for the dreary autumn, with the best bits of everything.
For more information visit www.myspace.com/themiceparadeband.
Sophie Gordon


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Collection: BCBGMAXAZRIA
Founded in 1989, BCBGMAXAZRIA is the vision of one man: founder, designer, chairman and CEO Max Azria. Named for the French phrase bon chic, bon genre, a Parisian slang meaning good style, good attitude, the brand embodies a true combination of European sophistication and American spirit. The collection is a resulting line of directional, sophisticated designs in the most luxurious fabrics. Celebrities such as Angelina Jolie, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Rachel Bilson and Eva Mendes amongst many others, are huge fans of the brand.
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Eugene M. Isenberg School of Management Records
Business courses were first offered at the Massachusetts Agricultural College in the early years of the twentieth century, expanding rapidly during the 1930s and 1940s in response to student demand. The Board of Trustees established the School of Business Administration in 1947, and within seven years, it was conferring graduate degrees, including doctorates after 1967. In 1998, the School was renamed the Eugene M. Isenberg School of Management.
The record group consists of annual reports, deans' records, correspondence, committee reports, long-range planning, self-study reports, proposals, research reports, faculty reprint series, lists of faculty publications, general publications, brochures, seminar information, newsletters, newsclippings and other related materials.


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Sellati and Company Inc Woodbridge Methadone Treatment Center
8427 Dorsey CircleManassas, VA 20110
show details » hide details »
There are 8 alcohol and drug treatment facilities in Manassas, VA.
With so many options in Manassas, you will have multiple treatment methods to select from such as Free and Low Cost Drug Rehabs, Residential Inpatient, Outpatient Treatment, and Detox Facilities.
If you are not sure what type of treatment program would be most effective for you, it can be extremely helpful to speak with a counselor who is familiar with different treatment options. Our certified counselors can help you decide on a treatment plan and run you through an assessment that will match you with the most effective type of treatment for your situation.
Call us to verify your rehab insurance benefits
Click on a filter to display treatment centers matching the criteria.
Residential Inpatient Treatment provides long-term care and recovery in a safe setting. You will stay at a Residential drug rehab for the entirety of your treatment which generally lasts around 90 days. While inpatient treatment is a longer commitment and typically more expensive form of of treatment, it is by far the best type of rehab to attend and will offer you the highest chances of getting clean and staying sober. An inpatient drug rehab has an average cost of around $40,000. Cost can vary depending on length of stay, quality of care, and location.
Outpatient treatment is unique because it allows you to attend therapy groups or treatment counseling during the day and then return home once completed. This can be beneficial if you have certain aspects of your life you must attend to while seeking help for alcoholism or drug addiction. While the freedom of outpatient treatment is appealing to many individuals, it also can be difficult to dedicate the focus that is required to overcome addiction. A good support group of friends or family around you that will keep you in line when not in therapy can greatly increase the success of this type of treatment. Outpatient treatment can cost around $3,000.00 on average.
First off, detox is not rehab. Many people think detox is the same as treatment, but this not true. Going to a detox is the initial step most people do before going into rehab. When coming off drugs or alcohol, most people experience withdrawal symptoms that are extremely uncomfortable or dangerous. Going to detox helps you get through these withdrawals safely, while minimizing the effects that generally occur. Detox can last anywhere from 5 days to 3 weeks depending on what substances you were using. The cost will vary depending on how long you are in detox and whether it was a medical detox or drug-free.
Financial Concerns are one of the main reasons people do not enter an alcohol and drug rehab. Many people think there is no way they can afford effective treatment because they are unable to pay for it. However, there are rehabs that will accept medicaid or offer payment assistance to help you with treatment costs. You may also look for treatment facilities that offer a sliding scale fee that adjust the cost of rehab based on your income. While these options may not be the number one choice for many, they are still more helpful than doing nothing. Getting help is always the best choice.
Counseling or therapy is usually part of any treatment program you attend. However, many places offer counseling or therapy outside of treatment as a way to help you with any problems that can occur in everyday life that could cause you to relapse. They are offered in multiple formats such as group or individual therapy as well as family counseling. Counseling and therapy are an excellent form of aftercare planning as well.
12-Step meetings are support groups and can be helpful for many people as a supplement to treatment. 12-step follows the specific guidelines that were outlined and originated from Alcoholics Anonymous. For some people, this is the only type of treatment they receive and for a few, it is successful. 12-Step works much better as a continued aftercare plan once you have completed treatment.
Most people don't even consider what to do once they complete an alcohol and drug rehab program. Setting up proper aftercare planning and learning relapse prevention techniques is important to maintaining a healthy and drug-free lifestyle. Many treatment centers will offer some type of aftercare plan for when you leave, but there are places that specialize in aftercare and relapse prevention if you need additional assistance. Aftercare can also include transitional or halfway housing if you need a place to live after you finish drug and alcohol treatment.
Manassas, Virginia resides in Prince William County and Manassas City County
Addiction to intoxicating substances is considered a recurring and relapsing disease. To this end, it might not be easy for you to completely stop using drugs or drinking alcohol once and for all. There is always a possibility that you could relapse even after going through the most rigorous addiction recovery program.
However, there are some things that you can do to ensure that you do not relapse after attending an alcohol and drug rehabilitation and treatment program. Some of these relapse prevention tips include:
After checking out of a rehab facility - especially if you were undergoing inpatient or residential addiction treatment - it might be in your best interests to make sure that you have a carefully thought-out plan that addresses how you intend on maintaining your sobriety.
You'll need a clear plan because it can be difficult making the transition from rehab to your regular daily life and staying sober. Further, checking out of rehabilitation could increase your risk of relapsing because you will no longer be under the care and supervision of a medical and treatment team.
Some of the things that you can do after finishing rehab to ensure that you maintain your recovery include:
Rehabilitation for addiction is now considered to be one of the essential health benefits that every American is entitled to. To this end, you can be sure that insurance will now cover your addiction treatment and rehabilitation. However, the amount of rehab that will be paid will largely depend on the kind of health insurance that you have.
There are various types of insurers - including private, government funded, and group insurance. Depending on the type of insurance that you have, it should be possible for you to ensure that all or some of your addiction treatment is paid for by the company.


text: Cosmo Kitty Apr 2016 Cosmo Kitty Apr 2016 Get more inspiration in your inbox! Signup now and receive an email once I publish new content. Thank you for subscribing. Something went wrong. By signing up for my newsletter, you're agreeing to my privacy policy. You can unsubscribe at anytime. I will never give away, trade or sell your email address. You can unsubscribe at any time.


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(855) 217-1221
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Gallery 216, American Art, second floor (McCausland Gallery)
Main Building
Gallery 216, American Art, second floor (McCausland Gallery)
Main Building
Severin Roesen's lavish tabletop array is crowded with blooms from all seasons--topped by a crown imperial and including lilacs, poppies, daylilies, tulips, irises, roses, morning glories, and nasturtiums, among others--and reflects the mid-nineteenth-century American taste for scenes of natural bounty. Strong, dense flower forms at the brightly lit center balance with more sinuous, silhouetted stems that reach outward to the edges of the composition.
Roesen simultaneously elevated still life painting in America and charted a new direction for its practice. He spent much of his career working for local patrons in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, northwest of Philadelphia, but his influence extended across the country.
Gallery 216, American Art, second floor (McCausland Gallery)
Title: | Flower Still Life with Bird's Nest |
Date: | 1853 |
Artist: | Severin Roesen (American (born Germany), 1816–c. 1872) |
Medium: | Oil on canvas |
Dimensions: | 40 × 32 inches (101.6 × 81.3 cm) Framed: 51 × 43 1/2 inches (129.5 × 110.5 cm) |
Classification: | Paintings |
Credit Line: | Purchased with support from the Henry P. McIlhenny Fund in memory of Frances P. McIlhenny, Mr. and Mrs. Robert L. McNeil, Jr., the Edith H. Bell Fund, Mrs. J. Maxwell Moran, Marguerite and Gerry Lenfest, the Center for American Art Fund, Donna C. and Morris W. Stroud II, Dr. and Mrs. Robert E. Booth, Jr., Frederick LaValley and John Whitenight, Mr. and Mrs. John A. Nyheim, Charlene Sussel, Penelope P. Wilson, the American Art Committee, and with the gift (by exchange) of Theodore Wiedemann in memory of his wife, Letha M. Wiedemann, 2010 |
Accession Number: | 2010-6-1 |
Geography: | Made in New York, New York, United States, North and Central America |
We are always open to learning more about our collections and updating the website. Does this record contain inaccurate information or language that you feel we should improve or change? Contact us here.
Please note that this particular artwork might not be on view when you visit. Don't worry—we have plenty of exhibitions for you to explore.
Gallery 216, American Art, second floor (McCausland Gallery)
Main Building


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Om Prakash Bhatt is intensely loyal to the State Bank of India (SBI). "This was a great bank, and it was seeing relatively bad days," says Bhatt, who joined the bank in 1972 as a probationary officer and was named chairman in 2006. "They put me in the chairman's seat, and it was up to me to do something. If not me, who would?" SBI—the country's largest bank by assets—had fallen on tough times when Bhatt took charge of the state-owned institution. With roots stretching back to 1806, this stalwart of the Indian economy was losing market share to up-and-coming private banks and a growing list of foreign players reaching customers with new products and new technologies. State Bank, in which the government has a 60 percent interest, was languishing in inertia.
The prescription was innovation, but the challenge centered on getting 200,000 workers stretched across 10,000 branches to take their medicine. Communicating the need for change and shaking this huge corporate behemoth from its lethargy became the critical task ahead of Bhatt.
Bhatt, who spoke with McKinsey Quarterly editor Roger Malone in SBI's corporate center, in downtown Mumbai, said it's too early to be confident of success, although the bank is slowly regaining market share, posting robust profit growth, and recently became a Fortune Global 500 company. In this interview, Bhatt also describes the bank's continuing efforts to improve performance.
The Quarterly: What was the situation with State Bank when you were named chairman, in 2006?
Om Prakash Bhatt: The bank had been losing market share steadily for more than two decades. In the early 1970s, we had about a 35 percent market share, but that had fallen to about 15 percent. During the early years of this century, the decline was getting worse.
Also, when I joined 37 years ago, the bank had an influential voice in India—in the economic sphere, in the industry, in government circles. It was an opinion leader. But by 2006, the bank had become just another bank. Maybe it was the largest bank in India in terms of assets, branch network, customers, but so what? It had lost its voice and its influence significantly.
In addition, the bank's employees were not energized anymore. They had lost their pride and sense of belonging. From the very top down through the branches, everybody was pulling in different directions. The people weren't performing poorly as individuals; they just weren't aligned along a common set of objectives—no goals, no vision, no commitment. I didn't like what I saw.
The Quarterly: How did this come to pass?
Om Prakash Bhatt: Until the 1980s, the bank was doing fine. But toward the end of that decade, the dominance of the private sector began, and by the early 1990s, after liberalization, there was more competition from both private and foreign banks. They came with new technologies and new products, a hunger for the market, a sharp risk-and-reward strategy, and without any legacies. SBI carried the legacy of being state owned and having outdated technology, a suspicion of trade unions, and no competitive spirit.
Before liberalization, most bankers in India were administrators with little discretion around decision making. The Reserve Bank1 would decide whom to lend to, how much, and at what rate. Everything was predetermined. You did have some freedom, but it was limited. The public-sector banks were not really equipped to predict the future, much less to plan for it.
The State Bank was conscious that things were slipping away, and it did try to respond. There was a reorganization effort, but all that did was add another layer of management, which added to the response time within the bank. Signals were getting a little confused, as they were translated from the corporate center down to the branches. Feedback from the branches to the center was weak. There was also an initiative to computerize the branches. It took a fair amount of time for the bank to get this initiative in place. Meanwhile, the market was moving away.
The Quarterly: What opportunities were you missing?
Om Prakash Bhatt: Two significant segments were slipping away from us. One was large and midsize corporations. We had always been the king of this business because there was a time when the main thing a corporation needed from a bank was a large chunk of money, and we were uniquely placed to provide that. We ran a huge distribution network and would mop up large sums of money from our depositors, which was always available to give to these customers. But suddenly these corporations didn't need just money; they needed something else—for instance, fee-based services like treasury, trade finance, and cash management across multiple currencies and borders—that required technology we didn't have. Naturally, these businesses started moving away from us.
The other segment was the young and affluent. They had never been a significant customer base for the bank, but eventually more opportunities surfaced for young Indians who were salaried workers or even self-employed. For these youngsters, State Bank was not the first bank of choice. When younger people started becoming more affluent, we didn't notice. We didn't offer, for example, personal loans for buying a car or a house, for furnishing a home, for taking a holiday, or for whatever reason. Psychologically, it was easy for these young customers to veer toward the more flashy private-sector and foreign banks, rather than the relatively dull and dowdy public sector. Today, these two segments represent significant business in India.
The Quarterly: How did you face these challenges?
Om Prakash Bhatt: Immediately, we did several things. We had a voluntary retirement scheme, which meant some of our best people, those confident of getting hired at private-sector or foreign banks, were leaving us in droves. Many of our talented workers were taking the retirement offer and then going to the competition. We needed these people, so I ended the program. I also stopped the rollout of the centralized computerization system. Problems with the system—poor connectivity and its complexity—meant that it was actually damaging our ability to serve customers. It could take two hours to open an account. We were losing business, and the staff was getting frustrated. I also shuffled a lot of portfolios in top management.
All this was primarily damage control.
The Quarterly: But these actions didn't touch the doldrums that had settled over the bank. What did you do there?
Om Prakash Bhatt: If you look at any transformational effort at any institution across the world, most of the things people have done are common sense. There is no magic to it. The secret is how you do it, how you build a team, and how you build consensus around what you're doing. Only then are you able to execute your plan. I had a vision for the bank, but I needed to communicate it.
I started by talking to senior executives in small groups, trying to get them both worried and excited: worried about what had happened to the bank and excited about how we could undo the damage. During my second month, when I thought I had a critical mass who understood the problems at the top level, I held a conclave where 25 of the bank's senior leaders sat together for five days talking things over.
The Quarterly: How did this meeting help to bring about high-level alignment?
Om Prakash Bhatt: It was very different from anything in my experience, as well as theirs. I started by showing a movie, The Legend of Bagger Vance. It's about a golfer who has lost his swing. A golfer's swing is not an intellectual exercise. It demands harmony of your entire being: heart, mind, and body. If you lose your swing, it's a challenge to find it again, but if you do, you can be as good or better than you were before.
I created a context for the movie, bringing in stories from the Bhagavad Gita,2 which teaches how karma and excellence can be their own reward, and other Indian stories. I would stop the movie just to make a point or to illustrate a theme: finding your swing, how different golfers have different styles, how others can help you. I tried to draw parallels between the movie, the Gita, the condition of State Bank of India, and the mind-set of its officers.
Just showing the movie was so unusual that it created a different kind of psychology. Afterward, we had four days of structured discussions, which always returned to the themes that came out that first night. We talked about how to build a bank, what to do in the bank, what not to do, the problems we faced and how to solve them, and so on. All this took place in the context I set with the movie.
The next day, for about two hours, I discussed the status of the bank, a speech later dubbed my "state of the nation" address. Before, we were always told that everything was hunky-dory, but I wanted to be brutally honest. When a company tries to hoodwink itself, everybody becomes a partner to institutionalized hypocrisy, which is what had happened here. Feedback and dissent were suppressed, or at least not encouraged. And here I was, willing to sit there and expose my ignorance and lack of experience but also—despite it all—to show a burning desire to do the right thing and to take everybody along. I think it took everybody by surprise. The idea was to create an environment where people were free to voice their ideas, to criticize and to accept criticism, and in the end to build consensus and alignment.
The Quarterly: What practical measures came from the conclave?
Om Prakash Bhatt: We left with a 14-point agenda that fell into three broad groups. The first involved issues directly related to the business. What products and businesses are we missing out on? Where should we make our presence felt? Are there businesses we should abandon? What needed more energy and focus?
In the past, if there were ever discussions about how to take the bank forward, it would stop with a discussion around the business. But our agenda went beyond that. Our second group of ideas focused on how to facilitate these businesses. We looked at business processes, risk management, performance management, technology, incentives—all those things.
The third area, hitherto taboo in the bank, centered on people. What is it that demotivates the people? And what can we do to change that? We talked about training and recruitment, but we also discussed motivation and whether we needed a different organizational culture, role modeling, communications strategies, and leadership. Together, these measures became the grand strategy that encapsulated our new vision.
The Quarterly: Once you had alignment within your top team, how did you reach out to your massive workforce?
Om Prakash Bhatt: That is one of the things we discussed early on. We were 25 people at the conclave, and we were feeling great about our new ideas. But we have 200,000 people in the bank. How do we communicate these ideas to them? We now knew what we wanted to do, but we wanted to create alignment in a natural way.
A first step was to edit the state of the nation address into a presentation that the deputy managing directors could make to all 10,000 branch managers. There was some hesitation, but the deputy managing directors eventually made the presentation across the country in groups of up to 80 branch managers. The chief general managers, who oversee these branches, were also there. People were very moved when they were told what had happened. Nobody had told them anything like this before.
In addition, this was the first time the chief general managers had met with all the branch managers under them. If you're a chief general manager, you oversee 500 to 1,000 branch managers and have a tenure of about two or three years. In your tenure, you might meet 100, 200, 300 branch managers, but you don't meet them all. For branch managers it signaled an entirely new approach, underlining the importance of individuals and the transformation process. It was also a great opportunity for the chief general managers to hear the issues from the front lines, establish rapport, and understand the pulse of the bank better.
And we weren't done yet. The conclaves continued, bringing together senior managers again and also lower-level leaders. In groups of 50 to 100, I met with all the assistant general managers in closed-door, no-holds-barred conversations, where my primary role was to listen to their perceptions of the bank, its issues, and what they thought we should be doing.
The Quarterly: You also had to bring the message to the trade unions?
Om Prakash Bhatt: These are important stakeholders, and I brought senior representatives from the unions and officers' associations together in a meeting similar to the management conclaves. I spent four days with 30 leaders from across the country. Some of my best advisers at the bank warned that the leaders weren't trustworthy and could be disruptive, but by being different and asking them to a conclave—like monks in a cave—I built up huge curiosity. They wanted to know what I was doing and to be a part of it. I told them I'd sit with them, but only if they came as friends of the bank. I think what hooked them was not only the quality of the discussions and the revelations but that the chairman was willing to spend so much time with them, eating and drinking, even singing and dancing.
The results were fantastic. They had the good of the bank as much at heart as anybody else, and they came to realize the chairman cared about people as much as they did. Just as important, they had not understood how badly the bank had slipped but now saw they could do many things to reverse this shift. Pain and motivation came together.
The Quarterly: Beyond this massive communications effort, what changes have you brought to the bank?
Om Prakash Bhatt: Within my first few months as chairman, we created three new business groups. One was the treasury, which had always been a residual function of the bank. I wanted to convert it into a profit center under a deputy managing director, who would undertake all the tasks that treasuries in large banks normally do.
I also created the rural business group tasked with reaching out to 100,000 unbanked villagers in two years, in addition to our normal agriculture business. Rural areas require a different focus, product range, and strategy as well as an outsourced model led by technology and the lowest costs possible. Apart from our traditional focus on development banking, most of the future growth of India will come from prosperity in rural areas. We need to capture this space and position the bank for the future.
The third group, corporate strategy and new business, identifies financial-services opportunities in areas in which the bank isn't active or is doing poorly and develops these new products or businesses. I explicitly tied the group to corporate strategy to show the strategic importance of new businesses and to make the group more powerful and more relevant. It has already improved our Internet offering, for example, launched wealth-management services, and helped set up a joint venture with Société Générale to offer custodial services.
The Quarterly: Overall, have your efforts been successful?
Om Prakash Bhatt: We have stemmed the tide. We are no longer losing market share, and in fact we gain a few basis points each quarter. I used market share as a rallying cry within the bank because that is something everyone understands. They know what to do: get more business. If I told them that we have to improve profitability or market cap, that would be more difficult.
We're also improving against other metrics. In January 2008, we became number one in India in terms of market cap, overtaking ICICI Bank.3 We became India's most valuable bank the day I received CNN-IBN's Indian of the Year award. State Bank is now the country's 5th largest company in terms of market cap, from 14th in 2006. And internationally, we've entered the Fortune Global 500. Customer service is also improving. In 2007, we were rated the best bank in India in terms of customer service, brand loyalty, and branch strength.
In the past year, we've also raised $4 billion through rights issues—$1.5 billion from the public and $2.5 billion from the government. Normally, the government only gives capital to banks that are sick, but the fact that the government bought the story of SBI from me and subscribed to a rights issue from a healthy bank is huge. Looking back, the timing could not have been better. In today's environment, banks badly need liquidity and capital, and almost premptively we secured these in fair measure through the rights issue.
The Quarterly: What are you doing to sustain these changes?
Om Prakash Bhatt: We've implemented a new program called parivartan, which means "transformation" in Hindi. It is a two-day program designed to build awareness. There is no preaching, no teaching involved. Rather, it's a workshop designed to create awareness around the need for change and as a call to action or duty among all employees. We took about eight or ten months to build the program inside the bank. We trained the trainers carefully, and we practiced every nuance, every mannerism, so the quality of the program was uniform across the country.
The idea behind parivartan was to sensitize everyone at the bank to the need for ongoing change. We have 60 or 70 training centers across the country, and we stopped all other training to make room for this program. In 100 days, we covered everybody. Any slower, and the skeptics might have overwhelmed the conversation.
Parivartan brought new energy across the bank—more pride, more involvement, and more joy. There are people who participated in the program who confessed that they were driving the customers out of the bank. But now, they said, they'll make amends. Across the bank, there's a perceptible, qualitative change in the kind of customer service the bank renders. All the success—business, getting awards, raising our rankings—came only because we brought 200,000 employees on board through parivartan.
The Quarterly: Where would you like SBI to be at the end of this transformation?
Om Prakash Bhatt: I would like us to be among the top 20—if not the top 10—banks in the world. I'm encouraged by what has happened, but I know that the climb ahead is far steeper and more difficult. I would also like our balance sheet to be at least 25 percent international business, compared with around 10 percent today.
I also want to extend our reach within India. I want us to be a bank for every Indian, not necessarily through a branch network; technology and outsourcing should enable this. I want us to be available to every Indian, from the poorest of the poor to the richest of the rich, to both individuals and institutions. Whatever they need, the entire range of banking and financial services, we should be able to provide it.
And I want us to be where we can serve India Inc., whether it's through acquiring resources, technology, products, or skills. We don't need to build a footprint in the world just to be global; I want us to be able to serve our primary clientele—India and Indians. So wherever I go, I keep this in mind. How does it strengthen our ability to serve India?
And finally, I want to do all this by instilling in my people a sense of service and helping them realize their work in the bank is not only about excellence in the workforce but also about self-development, evolution, and excellence in life.


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This week on the podcast we're talking about so much Apple stuff, but we're also hacking cameras, fixing coffee addictions, solving mail archive issues, and figuring out how to gift a DD-WRT router.
How to Listen to This Week's Episode
Here's how you can listen to our episode:
Download the MP3 directly.
Just listen to it in the Souncloud player below.
News and Top Stories
The New iPhone, iOS 6, iTunes, and Even More iThings
Apple released a bunch of new things this week. We go over it all quickly in the show, and if you want more information you can check our full Apple coverage. Also, if you want to upgrade to iOS 6 a week early, go get it.
The Apple UDID Leak Resolution: Not the FBI
Alan fills us in on the resolution of the Apple UDID leak. Apparently it was not the FBI, but rather a development company.
Fox Offering $15 Movie Downloads Prior to Blu-ray Release
Fox is jumping on the movie streaming bandwagon, releasing popular movies before they come out on Blu-ray. They're even going to start working with Netflix and other streaming services to make films available earlier. Yep, there will be DRM, but this is a great start!
How to Get Off the Upgrade Treadmill
At the Kindle launch last week, Jeff Bezos mentioned how he and Amazon don't want everyone on the "upgrade treadmill." That's to say that we upgrade too much, and we don't need to be replacing our hardware like its toilet paper. Us tech geeks love the next best thing, however, so it's hard to let go of these upgrades. Thorin offers some suggestions.
Get "Pro" Features on Your Canon Point-and-Shoot with CHDK
Whitson hacked his Canon point-and-shoot camera this week by installing CHDK, a custom firmware that offers tons of awesome features. It only took him about 10 minutes, too. It's a great way to add more to your cheap camera with little effort and no cost.
Moving On When A Service You Love Shuts Down
Alan tries out lots of web services, gets hooked, and then many of them shut down. He decided he wanted to find out better ways to cope with this problem and did. Here's what he suggests.
PayPal Still Sucks
Sellers hate PayPal because PayPal freezes their funds constantly. This is bad for buyers, too, because it can really hurt the businesses they're buying from. We recommend using a PayPal alternative—as there are many excellent options—but it does sound like PayPal might improve in the future. We're not getting our hopes up, but it's a nice thought.
Questions and Answers
Each week we answer five questions from readers and listeners. Here's what we tackled this week.
How can I retroactively run Gmail's spam filter on my email archive?
Darren transferred his email archive to Gmail via Thunderbird. There was a lot of spam email in it. Gmail didn't mark any of it as spam. Darren found this annoying. While we couldn't find any way to actually retroactively run spam filters, I recently transfered my archive by using Gmail's import feature and the SPAM filter ran on all the messages. It didn't catch EVERY spam message, but it found thousands. To import this way, just go into Gmail's settings and choose "Accounts." From there you can import your old account in the "Check mail from other accounts (using POP3)" section. This will import your archived mail and apply the spam filters.
I drink 18 cups of coffee per day. How can I kick my caffeine habit?
With patience and willpower. Readers have offered some suggestions, like using caffeine supplements and slowly replacing caffeinated cups with decaf. Basically, you need some sort of emotional reaction to the problem so you're motivated to actually stop the problem. From there you just really have to buckle down, understand that your life is going to be tough for a month or two, and slowly ween yourself off caffeine. We're not doctors or even life coaches, but we've broken bad habits many times and that's the common thread: you have to really want to stop and accept that it's going to be hard.
How do I gift a DD-WRT router to a normal person without overloading their brains?
DD-WRT isn't something the average person is going to be able to jump into easily no matter what you do to it.
Downloads of the Week
Each week we talk about our favorite downloads. Here are our picks for this week.
Social Fixer (Firefox/Chrome/Opera/Every Browser)
We've talked about Social Fixer on the podcast before: it's an extension for Chrome, Firefox, Opera, and Safari that fixes tons of Facebook annoyances, adds new features, and overall just makes Facebook better. If you haven't tried it out, though, we found a great new use for it: filtering out annoying, unintelligent, political posts from your Facebook friends. All it takes is a few simple filters to make it happen, and it's well worth the installation of a new extension.
Retinizer (OS X)
The new MacBook Pro with a retina display are great to look at, but not every piece of software has been updated to support the higher resolution. Retinizer is an app that allows you to force higher resolutions in apps where it's possible.
Sleep Time Alarm Clock (Android and iOS)
Did you wake up this morning feeling awful, even though you got plenty of sleep the night before? You may have woken at the deep end of your sleep schedule. Sleep Time Alarm Clock is a free app for Android that will make sure that doesn't happen again.
Download Sleep Time Alarm Clock for Android and iOS
YouTube (iOS)
The new YouTube app for the iPhone and iPod Touch offers thousands of new VEVO music videos that were previously desktop only, lets you search by voice, and features an overhauled UI that makes browsing playlists and favorites easier.
How Do I Submit a Question?
There are three ways to send in your question:
Call (347) 687-8109 and record a question. Calls are awesome! We like them!
Email your question to [email protected].
Please keep your questions as brief as possible. This means about 3-5 sentences for emails and 30-60 seconds for calls and videos. Your questions can be specific, but broader questions are generally better because they'll apply to more people. For example, "how can I breathe new life into my old PDA?" is much better than "what can I do with an old HP iPAQ 210?" Either way, we look forward to hearing from you!
Newspaper, Computer, and Clock (by Brandon Hopkins) provided by the Noun Project.


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There was a "security issue" aboard a US Airways flight from Paris to Charlotte, N.C., earlier today, and the plane was diverted to Maine's Bangor International Airport, where it landed around noon ET.
As The Portland Press Herald and other news outlets are reporting, the Transportation Security Administration says it is "aware of reports of a passenger who exhibited suspicious behavior during flight. Out of an abundance of caution the flight was diverted to BGR where it was met by law enforcement."
The Press Herald says there were 179 passengers and nine crew members on US Airways' Flight 787.
CNN says the North American Aerospace Defense Command has confirmed that "two F-15 aircraft scrambled to direct" the jet in to Bangor.
We'll update when more is known about what happened.
Update at 1:40 p.m. ET. More Details:
Senior law enforcement officials, NPR's Dina Temple-Raston reports, say a woman on board the plane may have claimed she had a bomb inside her body. But those officials also say they do not believe the woman had any such device. They also do not think she presented an actual danger or that she is connected in any way to a terrorist group.
Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.


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MoneySince Apple launched its iPhone App Store in July 2008, the mobile applications market has exploded.
In 2016, Statista reported that Apple customers had downloaded 130 billion apps. On the other side of the smart phone universe, Android users have downloaded 65 billion apps since the Google Play launch in 2010.1
To put those numbers in perspective, that's over 26 apps downloaded for every person on the planet.2
While many of these apps are games and social media programs, an increasing number have been developed to help individuals with their personal finances. Which leads to an interesting question: what should you look for in a personal finance app?
Tip: Like any good tool, apps are as useful as you make them. An app may be able to help with financial decisions and transactions, but it won't get you to stick to a budget.
One of the first things to consider is what type of financial apps may be most useful. Bankrate.com breaks them into four categories:
Budget tracking apps allow users to record expenditures as they are made to keep track of bank balances and budget categories. Some allow users to make a budget and then watch how closely expenditures are tracking to it.
Financial assistant apps collect, store, and report information from users' various savings and investment accounts, providing a single place to keep track of asset performance.
Loan calculator apps estimate payments and current balances for loans. Some also track how long it will take to pay off one or more loans.
Spending and saving apps allow users to perform a wide-range of activities, including "what if" scenarios.
Fast Fact: By 2020, nearly 40% of the world's population will own a smartphone. That amounts to almost 2.9 billion users worldwide.
Source: Statista.com, 2017
Once a user has decided on a category of app that may be useful, there are additional criteria to consider.
Credibility. As everyone knows, not everything written on the internet is true. For example, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times are generally considered more credible than an anonymous blog. The same principle applies to apps: understand who's providing the information.
Security. Before using any financial app, read the privacy or security statement. This can typically be found at the bottom of the company's web page or in the About section of their website. If you don't find one online, contact the company to request a copy.
Clarity. A personal finance app should provide information that is easy to understand. There are some apps that provide detailed charts on stock performance using a wide variety of financial analyses. However, if you don't understand the underlying analysis, the app may be useless.
Relevance. Remember the old saying: "If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail."3 The same applies to financial information. A mutual fund company may be a great source of information about mutual funds, but it may be less useful at providing information about estate planning.
Using an app to help with your personal finances may be a great first step in becoming a better money manager. And asking yourself a few key questions before you download may help you select the app that best fits your personal finance needs.
- Statista, 2016
- U.S. Census Bureau, 2016
- Abraham Maslow quote from Brainy Quote, 2016
The content is developed from sources believed to be providing accurate information. The information in this material is not intended as tax or legal advice. It may not be used for the purpose of avoiding any federal tax penalties. Please consult legal or tax professionals for specific information regarding your individual situation. This material was developed and produced by FMG Suite to provide information on a topic that may be of interest. FMG Suite is not affiliated with the named broker-dealer, state- or SEC-registered investment advisory firm. The opinions expressed and material provided are for general information, and should not be considered a solicitation for the purchase or sale of any security. Copyright 2019 FMG Suite.


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From the kitchen of One Perfect Bite...This is a wonderful recipe to have on file for those days when time trumps intent and you still have to put dinner on the table. It is perfect for a busy week night and, while it is delicious, it is also very easy to do. Unlike many Asian recipes, it doesn't require a lot of chopping and the ingredients needed to make it are probably already in your pantry. The only trick to successfully making this dish is having everything ready to go before you start cooking. Rice noodles can fall apart if they soak for too long a period of time. I've found five minutes in a boiling water bath is all it takes to soften them. You want the noodles to be soft and flexible, but not tender, when they go into the wok or frying pan to finish cooking. I serve these noodles with a chili sauce that is passed at the table. That keeps the fire-breathers happy, but keeps the dish mild enough for children to enjoy. I think you will like these. Here's the recipe.
Asian-Style Pantry Noodles...from the kitchen of One Perfect Bite inspired by Nancie McDermott
8-oz. wide dried rice noodles
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon molasses
1 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons vegetable oil, divided use
1 tablespoon coarsely chopped garlic
1/2 pound thinly sliced beef
5 cups loosely packed baby spinach
1/4 to 1/2 cup chicken stock
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1) Place noodles in a shallow pan. Cover with boiling water and let sit until noodles are flexible and soft but not yet tender. Drain, rinse then drain again.
2) Combine soy sauce, molasses and salt in a small bowl and stir until salt dissolves.
3) Heat wok or frying pan until hot. Add 2 tablespoons of oil. When oil shimmers, add garlic and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Add beef and toss until beef changes color. Add spinach and stir until spinach is a vibrant shiny green, about two minutes. Transfer spinach and beef to a platter.
4) Reduce heat and add noodles to same pan, tossing to separate strands. Cook for about two minutes, adding splashes of chicken stock to moisten and prevent them from sticking to pan. When noodles have softened and turned white push them to one side of pan. Add remaining 1 tablespoon of oil to center of pan. Pour in eggs and swirl to spread them into a thin sheet. When they begin to set, scramble them and turn noodles into them mixing well.
5) Return beef and spinach to pan. Add soy-molasses mixture and toss everything well. Cook for about 1 minute to heat through. Transfer to a serving platter and serve immediately. Yield: 4 servings.
One Year Ago Today: Coffee Cake Muffins
Two Years Ago Today: Homemade Ginger Ale
Three Years Ago Today: Savory Roasted Potatoes for A Crowd


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Chad Billingsley (2-1, 3.04) vs. Stephen Strasburg (2-0, 1.08).
Rev up the hype machine! Sons Dusty, Sax and yours truly and reader John G will be in the house to check out the major-league debut of the first pick of the 2010 draft, 19-year old Bryce Harper. Mr. Eyeblack, who signed a five-year, $9.9-million contract, is the most hyped prospect since, well, starting pitcher Stephen Strasburg. The 23-year-old Strasburg, the first pick of the 2009 draft, signed a four-year, $15.1 contract and has already undergone Tommy John surgery in his young career. Is he back on track for greatness? Will Harper live up to the hype? The Dodgers will find out tonight.


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Break My Fall, the feature film debut from Kanchi Wichmann, explores the underbelly of a group of twenty-somethings in East London.
Films exploring the drug-riddled, gritty lifestyles of urban twenty-somethings are nothing new. From Kids to Spun, Human Traffic to Thirteen, directors have focused on groups of young adults, floating nocturnally from one dead-end hangout to the next, their loves, hates, trips and trysts exposed in an age-old formula.
Break My Fall, the feature film debut from Kanchi Wichmann, continues the genre in the atmospheric, ramshackle backstreets, warehouses and cafes of contemporary Hackney, to examine the lifestyle, and romantic destruction, of two lesbian protagonists, and their clique of outsider friends. Character-led, Break My Fall focuses on Liza and Sally, who are struggling to maintain their doomed relationship amidst a down-and-out lifestyle in Hackney. Liza, a student, continually doubts the fidelity of her girlfriend and is driven to wild rages of jealousy when Sally receives a letter from her ex-girlfriend. The pair fluctuate between caring devotion, silent resentment and violent hysterics and the destruction is clearly apparent to all those around them. Regularly visiting their dingy student flat, the girls' friends, Jamie and Vin, provide two alternatives for lost existence. Vin is working as a rent boy and, along with Sally, he resolutely maintains a cheery demeanour and feigns ignorance to the anarchy around him. He's also falling in love with Sally, and the two optimists seek solace in their friendship from the frequent anger and wrath of Liza's drink and drug-taking. Completing the quartet is Jamie, an urbane, laid-back American who longs for some domesticity outside of his crazy existence working in a gay cabaret bar and taking home a different man each night. Muttering that "there's a whole other world of people who go to bed at night and get up in the morning," Jamie poignantly represents the escape route of normalcy to which the others seem oblivious.
Taking place over three days culminating in Liza's disastrous 25th birthday party, the camera follows the foursome from Sally and Liza's flat, to their dead-end jobs, band rehearsals, drinking binges, record shopping and to an ill-fated warehouse rave. The girls' relationship self-destructs at an alarming rate, with domestic abuse, infidelity, distrust and terrifying emotional control all rife, until the inevitable estrangement.
Having previously created shorts including I Don't Exist, Forty-One Gorgeous Blocks and Travelling Light, Wichmann has taken the bold step of funding this, her first feature film with the help of her crew: "It was very low-budget and a lot of the crew were friends or friends of friends." This close-knit vibe created a relaxed, almost family-oriented set: "I'd say the process was mostly really good fun, it's funny, when you see the film it's quite emotional, but a lot of the time on set we were just buzzing with excitement (or nervous fatigue maybe). I had an amazing cast and crew, they just gave themselves to the project and really worked to make it happen." Furthering this easy familiarity is the fact that "the locations were all places we know" and Hackney becomes a big part of the film – its Victorian terraces, local music stores and greasy spoons symptomatic of the changes that both the area and the characters are undergoing.
This area of East London, on the precipice of the Olympics, represents a dying microcosm of an underworld scene of lost, creative souls, something that Wichmann, as a Hackney-dweller since the age of 17, wanted to capture while it remained. "East London has that classic thing that happens in big cities, where the poor so-called ghetto areas get inhabited by artists and outsiders looking for cheap rent and a reason for their alienation from the mainstream and that creates a whole new subculture, but it's changing fast – if you look at Dalston today, I remember when you would think twice using a cash machine there at night and now it's just wall to wall trendy bars and clubs, so who can say how it will all end up?" It's often beneficial, if not tantamount to a work's success to write about and portray what you know and for Wichmann this depiction of Hackney was an important aspect of the film and its production. Asked if Break My Fall could have been situated elsewhere she is firm that, with her at the helm, it could not – "for me at this time no, because this is the world I know," but goes on to discuss that "actually the story could have been set anywhere because the core of the story – Sally and Liza's relationship and Liza's decision to change – is essentially a universal story."
Another important atmospheric element of Wichmann's direction is the use of music throughout the film. Liza and Sally's band Blanket contribute in a sense to Liza's turmoil because, in spite of Liza's college course and Sally's part-time takeaway job, the music is where their passions lie. Still seizing on her hopes for a creative career, Liza is determined to continue rehearsals in the face of their crumbling relationship, but Sally's fragile emotional state makes any kind of productivity impossible. Towards the end, Blanket is the only common goal that the girls can maintain, and in a way it seems like Sally sabotages its success through her continued nonchalance precisely because she recognises how important it is to Liza.
Emerging independent acts including Plug, Micachu, Wet Dog, Peggy Sue, Sam Amant, Alan MX, the Raincoats, Scout Niblett and Numbers, create an eclectic soundtrack of the UK's freshest talent, due to a careful selection process by Wichmann. "Most of the bands I used are UK female-orientated, often lesbian and also in their 20s," and it adds a further layer of authenticity to the work. Moving through the film the evolution of Liza and Sally's relationship is played out in the soundtrack; the songs are all fairly indie, emotionally intense, occasionally riot grrrl tunes that immerse the viewer in the characters' own experiences. "The music situates Liza and Sally against a backdrop without actually having to show the music scene within the film[… it] also supports the emotion of the film. [If] you listen to the songs on their own in the order they appear in the film this would reflect the journey of the narrative." Interestingly the work of Blanket in the film adds a layer of Wichmann's biography to the narrative, as the songs of the fictional band were penned by Wichmann and left aside until necessity brought them to light: "The Blanket music is some music I made, which I had not particularly intended to make public, but it was difficult to get a band who would give their songs to be the band songs … so the sound designer and I made the decision to use my songs."
Alongside this use of an integrated soundtrack is the repetition of drawn-out, almost voyeuristic silences. We witness the characters lurching about their flat, hung-over, angry and withdrawn, and Wichmann allows the direction to go minutes at a time with no dialogue or direct action for the camera. In doing this Break My Fall aligns its methodology to the preoccupied, uncertain lives of its protagonists. Similarly the cinematography employs jolting camera-work, half-transferred typographical credits and blurring scenes to reflect the state of mind of the characters. For Wichmann this was a natural progression: "It supports the emotion and the world of the film and me and Dawid [Pietkiewicz, Director of Photography] planned that through very carefully. In terms of the titles and titles sequence, they reflect the world that Liza and Sally belong to; they don't live in a glossy focussed world so for me there was no question of using HD or whatever to film it and having a shiny sharply focussed title sequence because then we would have just been watching them from the outside from a safe vantage point rather than being in their world with them."
Having debuted at the London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival, Break My Fall will inevitably be classed as a gay film, and openly lesbian herself, Wichmann admits that it has an element of the autobiographical, but she stops short of attributing specific situations to her own experience. She explains: "The way I work is that I start from a point, usually an emotion or a situation, something very specific to me that I then grow into a story and characters that are not me." Essentially as director, Wichmann returns to her familiar world, as with directing Blanket to perform her own compositions and situating the action in Hackney, of which she says: "The squat raves, the music scene, the drug scene etc. Yes it's a world that I know, but not one that I frequent so regularly anymore!" The film is clearly a very personal project.
But Wichmann, however, sees the project as emblematic of the transitions that many people, both gay and straight, go through in early adulthood and repeatedly emphasises the universality of the central relationship, and the spectacular way in which it implodes over the course of a few days. "For me it's a film about that point in your life … where the status quo just becomes untenable and something's got to give, the point where you start to make choices rather than just reacting to things that happen to you."
Break My Fall is symbolic of a transition that many people undergo at certain points in their lives. And as Wichmann argues, their worlds can be as gritty, drug-addled and party-oriented as those of the characters in the film. But equally these things can happen on a much more discreet level, and Break My Fall risks falling into clichés in creating such a cut-and-paste world of creative angst, particularly for the gay community. Wichmann defends these decisions by arguing: "I didn't set out to make a 'party-hard angst driven narrative,' that's just what the characters do, the backdrop to the story not the story itself – that is how people live and the story is not in the drugs and the late nights, when you live like that it's normal to you, in the same way that getting up and going to work is normal to other people." In creating such a narrative, and in making the experiences of her characters so explicit and raw, Wichmann achieves a sense of the universal in the script, even through the use of situations which, contrary to her argument, are extreme for many.
At times, Break My Fall navigates itself too easily into clichés of twenty-something lost souls, but conversely Wichmann consciously tried to avoid some of the clichés of lesbian relationships, recognising them as "moving in on the first date, getting a cat, merging into one person, co-dependency" and on the other hand she controversially acknowledges the domestic violence about which many have remained silent: "I wasn't aware of there being a stereotype of lesbians being violent. I actually think it's quite a taboo to acknowledge that there is violence in lesbian relationships too." When asked if this emotional intensity is another lesbian cliché, Wichmann again emphasises the universality of the plot to a particular point in our lives: "I think the emotional intensity of their relationship is more to do with their age and their lifestyle – than to do with them being lesbians."
Break My Fall is a difficult watch. While Sally, Vin and Jamie are all sympathetically portrayed, the protagonist Liza is difficult to relate to. Overly emotional, co-dependent and distracted beyond reason by (initially) unfounded jealousy, she drags her friends and the audience into a story of which they have no desire to be a part. The plight of Jamie becomes, in a way, representative of that of the viewer – you want to escape, to enjoy companionship and simplicity, but you are constantly drawn into a dark underworld of mind games, overindulgence and violence.
Wichmann's film attempts a lot, and it aims to be an emotionally intense experience that eschews cinematic traditions, but at times plays up to its stereotyping too readily. The interesting thing is the rawness of the characters at the hands of the, at times, deeply unpleasant central character; and it would be interesting to see how Wichmann's career would continue away from stumbling across the clichés of an East London indie film.
Ruby Beesley


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Wisdom Teeth Extraction in Children
What are wisdom teeth?
Also called third molars, wisdom teeth usually make their first appearance in young adults between the ages of 17 and 21. Usually, an initial evaluation of the wisdom teeth should be performed between the ages of 16 and 19. Because most mouths are too small for these four additional molars, an extraction (removal) procedure is often necessary.
When should wisdom teeth be removed?
The following signs and symptoms may indicate that the wisdom teeth have erupted and surfaced, and should be removed before they cause more serious problems. The wisdom teeth may be partially erupted, meaning the teeth have partially surfaced and have no room in the mouth to come in completely. However, each individual may experience symptoms differently. Signs and symptoms may include:
Infection in the mouth
Facial swelling
Swelling of the gumline in the back of the mouth
Completely impacted teeth have not come through the gum and may never erupt into the mouth. If they are not causing problems or potential problems, many dentists will opt to monitor them over time. If the wisdom teeth are causing problems or are likely to cause problems, most oral health specialists will recommend immediate removal of the teeth to help eliminate problems, such as an impacted tooth that causes the roots of the second molar to dissolve, According to the American Academy of General Dentistry, third molar impaction is the most prevalent medical developmental disorder.
What problems are often associated with impacted third molars?
Some problems associated with impacted third molars include the following:
Bacteria and plaque buildup
Cyst development (a fluid-filled sac)
Tumor development
Jaw and gum disease
Decay or root resorption of the adjacent tooth
What is involved in the extraction procedure?
Wisdom tooth extraction surgery involves making an incision through the gum tissue that presides over the tooth, gently detaching the connective tissue between the tooth and the bone, removing the tooth, and suturing (sewing) the opening in the gum. Occasionally, some bone surrounding the impacted tooth needs to be removed to allow the tooth to be extracted. Also, the tooth may need to be cut into sections to remove it.
Most wisdom teeth extractions are performed in the dentist's office under local anesthesia. People who are particularly anxious should consult their dentist or oral surgeon about supplements to local anesthesia or alternative forms of anesthesia.


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Change in Slovak Penal Code Welcomed
Washington – In advance of the May 3 observance of World Press Freedom Day, United States Helsinki Commission Co-Chairman Rep. Christopher H. Smith (R-NJ) today expressed optimism over the abolition of criminal defamation and insult laws.
"This week, as the Helsinki Commission examines the state of press freedom in the OSCE region, it is heartening to see progress in an otherwise bleak landscape," said Co-Chairman Smith. "The Helsinki Commission has long tracked the use and abuse of criminal defamation and insult laws – laws that were a favorite tool of political oppression by communist regimes in the past and of repressive regimes today. I have consistently and strongly urged leaders in post-communist countries to repeal these laws and thereby give concrete substance to their rhetorical commitment to free speech and a free press."
"Last week, Slovakia took another step forward in implementing the reform mandate Slovak voters have given to the Dzurinda government. I commend the Slovak Parliament for voting to repeal Article 156(3) of the Penal Code, a provision which, if enforced, would have resulted in people being prosecuted merely for expressing their opinions."
In June 2002, the Slovak Parliament repealed Articles 102 and 103 of the Penal Code. Two other criminal defamation/insult provisions, Articles 154 and 206 of the Penal Code, remain on the books in Slovakia. In the Czech Republic, which inherited the same criminal statutes upon the dissolution of Czechoslovakia, Articles 154, 156, and 206 are still in force and individuals continue to face charges under those Articles.
The United States Senate is expected to begin debate shortly on the Protocols of Accession to enlarge NATO – a proposal to include Slovakia, Romania and five other OSCE participating States in the trans-Atlantic alliance.
"I hope the momentum in the Romanian Parliament to genuinely reform the Penal Code would continue unabated. Repealing – and not just tinkering with – Romania's plethora of criminal defamation and insult laws would be a great manifestation of Romania's commitment to real reform."
Criminal defamation and insult laws are actively used against those who criticize their governments in a number of other OSCE participating States, including Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Greece, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkey and Uzbekistan.


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Official Website
Myspace Page
Quasi on YouTube
Booking / Publicity Info
Band Bio:
Quasi consists of Sam Coomes and Janet Weiss, both of whom possess impressive indie rock credentials. Sam has recorded and/or toured with Heatmiser, Elliott Smith, Built to Spill and more. He also performs solo under the Blues Goblins moniker. Janet has played with The Go Betweens, Junior High, and Elliott Smith, as well as pounded the skins with Sleater-Kinney.
Quasi formed in Portland, OR in 1993 and released their first recording, a self-titled cassette, that same year. 1995 saw the release of Early Recordings, and two years later they joined the roster of Up Records. Up released their next three albums: R&B Transmogrification (1997), Featuring Birds (1998), and Field Studies (1999). Quasi has released four full-length records on Touch and Go since 2001: a reissue of Early Recordings, The Sword of God (2001), Hot Shit (2003), and When the Going Gets Dark (2006).
Quasi creates an incredibly large sound within the limitations of a two person band. Much of their signature style was originally derived from the use of a Roxichord (a unique hybrid keyboard) and Sams acidic lyrics coupled with Janets deft drumming and honeyed backing vocals. The duo fleshed out each album with a number of different instruments at their disposal. Recent years have seen the band moving away from sunny, keyboard-driven songs into a bluesier, psych-tinged guitar-based sound. Hot Shit saw the addition of caustic, politically charged lyrics to their already highly personal agenda. With When the Going Gets Dark, the duo further expanded their sound with perhaps their most furious playing to date.
Seven albums into their constantly changing career, Quasi continue to explore and stretch the boundaries of what they can achieve together.


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Delivery Info
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Once you place your order we will prepare and notify you when it's ready for collection (typically within 1 hour but could be longer during busier times). Click & Collect times are between 09.30am till 4.30pm. If you require your order on a specified date, please state this in the order notes when checking out.
Local Delivery - £2.50 SUSPENDED TILL FURTHER NOTICE
We now offer a local delivery service within a 3 miles radius of our shop. This is useful if for any reason you are unable to travel to our shop.
National Delivery SUSPENDED TILL FURTHER NOTICE
Delivery charges start from as little as £0.90 up to £5.00 depending on your chosen courier. PLEASE NOTE there are products on our website that are not available for national delivery.


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Savage Power with Electric Convenience!
For durability and ease of use, the dual-battery, dual-motor
electric E-Savage can't be beat! Full-time 4WD and Savage design
place it well above any other electric monster truck you can find
today! The E-Savage is completely pre-built with and equipped with
an electric drivetrain for total ease of use, tough build quality
and outstanding power and performance! There's no easier or fun way
to get into the world of off-road electric monster trucks! Simply
charge and go!
The awesome
E-Savage is also now available as a 'Sport' version. Click here for more details.
- Completely ready to run (RTR) - just supply 8 AA batteries for the transmitter (Sport version also requires two stick-pack batteries and charger).
- Twin motors, electronic speed control and all radio equipment installed
- Painted and trimmed bodyshell included for instant custom looks - choose from monster truck or ATV style bodyshells
- Pre-glued all-terrain tyres grip every surface
- Full manual included for easy repairs
- Twin GT550 Electric Motors have loads of grunt and top speed muscle
- GT 14.4v electronic speed control with reverse for superb control
- 2x 3300mAh, 7.2V stick-pack batteries included (not included with the Sport version)
- Dual outlet 12V powered fast-charger included (not included with the Sport version)
- Adjustable Twin Plate Slipper Clutch for extra drivetrain durability
- Durable TVP (Twin Vertical Plate) aluminium chassis
- 22 high efficiency ball bearings provide maximum efficiency
- 8 long-stroke oil-filled shocks soak up all bumps and jumps
- Double wishbone fully independent suspension for great handling
- 14mm hex hubs, compatible with standard Savage wheels and tyres
(RTR version includes TF-3 tranmitter. Sport version includes TF-1
transmitter and excludes batteries and charger)
ELECTRONICS The reliable and sturdy HPI TF-3 radio
controls the E-Savage, giving you ultimate control in a fantastic,
ergonomically designed radio! (The E-Savage Sport uses the similar
HPI TF-1) The steering wheel design makes you feel as if you're
actually driving the truck, and the trigger-style throttle and
brake controls provide you with finger-sensitive action when
accelerating and stopping! The radio transmitter features
interchangeable frequency crystals, servo reverse switches, a
retractable aerial with sliding cover, easy access to radio
adjustments and simple battery replacement. Taking the signals from
the transmitter, the installed HPI RF-1 receiver uses standard RC
connectors to send your control signals to the SF-1 steering servo,
which controls the steering, and the forward/reverse speed
controller. The dual-motor, dual-battery 14.4v GT Speed Controller
handles the throttle, brake and reverse commands to both GT-550
motors, which give the E-Savage awesome acceleration and power!
With HPI electronics you'll get reliable long-range connection and
control for loads of fun! You can also upgrade the electronics very
easily! Because all of the electronics are normal-size RC
components with industry-standard connectors, any or all of the
components can be upgraded at any time, or moved into a different
RC vehicle in the future. The E-Savage will also accept any
standard 540/550-size motors, and any RC stick-type battery
- Completely Pre-assembled and Ready to Run
- Twin GT550 14.4V Electric Motors
- Twin 3300 mAh Ni-MH rechargeable battery packs included with #505, #548
- GT Escape quick charger included with #505, #548, capable of charging two batteries at a time
- HPI TF-3 super narrowband AM transmitter with changeable frequency crystals included with all kits
- Pre-painted and trimmed body
- Twin Plate Slipper Clutch
- Electronic speed control with reverse
- Durable TVP twin vertical plate aluminium chassis
- High efficiency ball bearings
- 8 long-stroke oil-filled shocks
- Double wishbone fully independent suspension
- 14mm hex hubs, compatible with standard Savage wheels and tyres!
E-Savage with pre-painted bodyshell. Comes with everything you need
to get started, including detailed instructions manual and
comprehensive HPI RC Cars DVD. Supplied with HPI TF-3 transmitter.
548 - RTR E-Savage with GT Truck bodyshell
Specification may be subject to change


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Ar. Lo. Colindale Te. Edgware Road The Hyde
- Date:
- 14 Jul 1982
- Reference:
- Type:
- Photograph (Negative)
Not what you're looking for? Try a new search
This material has not yet been fully catalogued. Abbreviated location and subject details are recorded in the title field.
This is part of the Sub Series: PSA01/04/G General; within the Series: PSA01/04 Negatives; within the Collection: PSA01 Property Services Agency
© Crown Copyright. Historic England Archive
Curator: Jackson, Vanessa
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Internet's Cat Obsession Justifies Itself In Cancer Ward
We're not sure it's ever been studied, but we're willing to bet that the glut of cute animal photos on the Internet is a testament to their soothing effect on the human mind.
So imagine you're a cat lover who can't see your own cat because you're in an isolated hospital ward for an unknown duration. Sure, you could look at cat photos on your computer, but maybe you get tired of staring at the screen.
Imagine, then, a private four-hour screening of thousands of cat photos sent in by strangers projected on sheets draped over your bed. You lie back, relax, and watch the cats flash above you; there's even a purring sound to bring them alive.
This "cat immersion project" unfolded in Maga Barzallo Sockemtickem's room just a few weeks ago through an art project at Seattle Children's Hospital. Barzallo Sockemtickem, 16, is receiving treatment for graft-versus-host disease, an affliction that can occur after bone marrow transplants. She had a transplant in November 2011 after being diagnosed a year earlier with acute myeloid leukemia.
It all started because Barzallo Sockemtickem really missed her cat, Merry. She hadn't seen Merry in weeks, and it was all she could talk about with Artist-in-Residence John Blalock during one of his regular visits to her room.
Blalock, who has done photo and music video projects with several other patients in the hospital's Adolescent and Young Adult Cancer Program, says he thrives off the weird ideas that come up in his chats with patients.
"I've learned that whatever random idea you come up with from a brainstorm, that's the best idea," he says.
At first, Blalock solicited cat photos from other staff members. Then Barzallo Sockemtickem suggested that they post a request on the hospital's Facebook page — specifically photos of cats who, like Merry, would be greatly missed in case of separation.
Soon, more than 3,000 photos poured in. Some came over Facebook, others came as printed photos in the mail. Microsoft sent a cat calendar, someone else mailed in a cat care package with catnip and toys; another sent a book of cats wearing wigs.
"It was a big surprise, how big a response I got," says Barzallo Sockemtickem. "But I think it was the simpleness of it all. People love cats; animals make us happy."
Blalock hadn't expected that kind of response, either.
"We do these projects every day, and most don't take on a life of their own," says Blalock. "But people on the Internet love cats. And I guess anything that I have an emotional response to engages me, makes me invested."
On July 25, Blalock rigged up a tent made of sheets around Barzallo Sockemtickem's bed and projected 1,800 images he'd chosen for the slideshow. Watch the video of that day here:
The best part, Barzallo Sockemtickem says, was knowing that the photos came from other cat lovers outside the hospital.
"In the hospital, you feel cut off," she says. "You lose contact with regular people. So the photos made me feel like I was part of the world again."
Then she set about saying thank you to all of the people who sent photos. She hasn't responded to every single one yet, but she's made a huge dent, Blalock says.
Blalock, meanwhile, is scheming up new art projects; he's hoping to get a Skype robot to drive around the cancer ward.
"I think all hospitals are such a blank slate for doing art because you can take a medical experience and transform it," he says. "Installations [like the cat immersion project] are about changing an environment and making it a subversive experience. Patients have to spend so much time here and can't leave the room, so we transform the room with the resources we have."


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Unfortunately this may well be my last strawberry post for a while. The strawberries were all but gone from the farmers market and there was this one last recipe that I just had to try. Goat cheese is one of my favorites but I had never even thought about breading it and baking it. I had also recently discovered the wonders of roasting strawberries and I thought they would go well with the baked goats cheese. Since the strawberries give off a lot of juice when roasting I used that juice as the base for the salad dressing. I like to add nuts to my salads and I thought that some toasted pecans would go well. This roasted strawberry and baked goats cheese salad was really good! I enjoyed the warm goats cheese with its slightly crisp coating and it went well with the roasted strawberries. The entire salad was covered in the amazing flavour of the roasted strawberry dressing. I have lingered on strawberries for long enough. It is time to move on to enjoying the new fruits and vegetables that are now available.
Roasted Strawberry Salad with Baked Goat Cheese
- 4 ounces goats cheese
- 1/4 cup bread crumbs
- 2 cups strawberries (stemmed and halved)
- 1 tablespoon honey
- 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
- 2 handfuls romaine lettuce (cut into bite sized pieces)
- 1 handful peas (optional)
- 1 green onion (sliced)
- 1 handful pecans (toasted, chopped)
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 teaspoon mustard
- salt and pepper to taste
- Freeze the goat cheese for 20 minutes.
- Slice the goat cheese into discs.
- Dredge the goat cheese in the bread crumbs.
- Bake the goat cheese in a preheated 425F/220C oven for 6 minutes.
- Toss the strawberries in the honey and balsamic vinegar to coat.
- Place the strawberries in a baking dish in a single layer.
- Roast the strawberries in a preheated 425F/220C oven until slightly caramelized, about 10-12 minutes.
- Pour the juices from the pan into a bowl and mix with the olive oil, mustard, salt and pepper.
- Assemble salad and toss to coat with the dressing.
Roasted Strawberry and Asparagus Quinoa Salad
Strawberry and Feta Salad
Strawberry and Avocado Spinach Salad
Spinach and Strawberry Salad with Butter Toasted Almonds
Roasted Strawberry Saganaki Salad
Strawberry and Balsamic Grilled Chicken Salad
Berry Salad with Honey and Lemon Yogurt Dressing


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Alex Constantine - August 15, 2014
By David A. Lieb, Associated Press AUGUST 12, 2014
Mom: Brown "didn't Create Problems. He Fixed Things." According to his mother, Michael Brown, the 18-year-old shot dead Saturday night in an altercation with a police officer in the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson, had been eager to start...
FERGUSON, MO. — Michael Brown Sr. stood alone in the center of the narrow street where the blood of his namesake son still stained the gray pavement, two days after the 18-year-old was shot dead by a police officer. He straightened a waist-high wooden cross and re-lit the candles erected as part of a makeshift memorial.
"Big Mike," as some of his friends called Michael Brown Jr., wasn't the type to fight, family and neighbors said, though he lived in a restless neighborhood where police were on frequent patrol. His parents and neighbors described him as a good-hearted kid with an easy smile who certainly wouldn't have condoned the violence and looting that spread though his north St. Louis suburb following his death.
"He was funny, silly, he would make you laugh," his father said, and when there was "any problem going on, any situation, there wasn't nothing that he couldn't solve. He could bring people back together."
Brown, who was unarmed, was shot Saturday by a Ferguson police officer while walking with a friend down the center of the street. Police have said a scuffle broke out after the officer asked the boys to move to the side. Witnesses say Brown's arms were in the air — in a sign of surrender — as a white policeman repeatedly shot the black youth.
After a vigil Sunday night, an angry crowd looted stores, and a night later police in Ferguson fired tear gas in an attempt to disperse protesters. The U.S. Justice Department has announced that its civil rights division was opening an investigation, and Brown's family retained the same lawyer who had represented relatives of Trayvon Martin — the Florida teen killed in a racially charged 2012 shooting. Civil rights activist Al Sharpton was to meet with Brown's family on Tuesday as tensions remained high.
Brown, who had recently graduated from Normandy High School, had been staying at his grandmother's apartment, where he would often hang out in the parking lot tossing a football with friends, said Markese Mull, a neighbor whose 17-year-old-son was one of Brown's closer friends.
Brown was an aspiring rapper, though it was more of a hobby. This week, he was supposed to start college in pursuit of a career as a heating and air conditioning engineer. On the day of this death, Brown had walked with another friend to a nearby convenience store. Mull saw them in the street and honked his horn to say to "hi" — just minutes before the police officer came by.
"He was never a person who liked confrontation," Mull said. "His smile was going to make you smile."
Neighbors described Brown as quiet and respectful — a "good boy," who "was never in trouble," said Sharon Johnson, 58, who lives just a little ways down the street. Johnson said Brown would frequently stop to chat.
"We talked about how when you turn yourself to the Lord you feel so good — and good things come your way," Johnson said. "He had a more mature mind than a little boy's mind."
On Monday, Johnson was standing at the side of the street where Brown was shot as a woman who had driven in from a nearby community preached loudly to anyone willing to listen about the importance of peaceful protests and parental discipline for teenagers.
A passing car stopped, letting out a man wearing a newly made black T-shirt bearing Brown's baby picture and the words "NO JUSTICE NO PEACE."
"I'm his father," he said somberly, eliciting hugs.
The older Brown picked up a piece of cardboard that had been lying on the ground. "End police brutality," it read. He placed it on a pile of toy animals stacked by a streetlight pole, then set about straightening up his son's mid-street memorial.
He had just returned to the grass when a gunshot rang out. Then another. And another. It was time to go.