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Dave goes through his gaming library to find the best 11 RPG's ever released.
Tag: Star Wars
Movies that are based on games get a hard time, should games based on movies get the same?
This week Gary looks back at Nick Fury: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D featuring David "The Hoff" Hasselhoff. Was it panned to early or did it deserve a chance?
Ruaidhri has a look through some games that got our hopes up with alpha footage, but never saw the light of day. For better or worse these are the The Top 5 Games That Were Never Released.
Biologist Randy Thornhill and anthropologist Craig T. Palmer popularised the idea that "rape evolved under some circumstances as a genetically advantageous behavioral adaptation" (to quote good ol' Wikipedia). While this is almost certainly true (to the rapist's lawyer), here's an article on another form of rape: the kind which – in my eyes – is far worse. The rape of franchises in film.
To once again celebrate the famed month of loved, I thought I would compile a list of my favourite all time geek couples. Couples that have had me weeping in their saddest moments, and rooting for them to finally make it work when everything else seems against them. These couples are seriously awesome, and I doubt they would be spending Valentines Day handing over boxes of expensive truffles or toasting classes of champagne. No they would be side by side, fighting crime or battling monsters. So without further ado…
We have all been there, sat with our nibble of choice and plenty of beers (or soda) chilling in the fridge, ready to watch the newest film that we have been all hyped about, or ready to destroy our way through a huge new TV box set. Well I was doing this just last night, with a cheeky bit of Game of Thrones before bed, and suddenly I was listening to a language I didn't quite recognise, when they started to speak Dothraki. Then a thought struck me, mid popcorn munch, as to just how many languages have actually been made up for a TV series of Film, and even better, which ones are my favourite? It seems all writers are now going that extra 'Tolkien' mile to construct a new language for their stories, so there are so many to choose from!
Here is my list of my all time favourite made up languages


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Ålesund is a unique experience, with its magnificent Art Nouveau architecture and the picturesque Brosundet. Experience also one of Europe's largest aquariums. Nowadays, Ålesund is one of the very few remaining Art Nouveau towns in the world, with an atmosphere and distinctive character valued by inhabitants and visitors alike.
Come and see the amazing decorations the colourful facades, and all the turrets that look as if they have been taken from a Mediaeval fairytale book.

subset: commoncrawl


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The Friday Five: Conservation and nature stories from around the world that caught our eyes this week
Each week, countless inspiring and informative stories are published about conservation successes or discoveries in nature and wildlife around the world. Here are some of the conservation and nature stories that caught our attention the week of August 8, 2016.
No parking on this road, unless you want to be "toad"
Thanks to the efforts of dozens of volunteers in Whistler, BC, endangered western toads can safely hop over to Lost Lake to mate and lay eggs this summer. Less than 500 individuals out of 50,000 make it across the road each year due to incoming traffic and predators, but the community has come together to protect this endangered species.
See for yourself how these tiny amphibians can cross safely this summer >
Findings emerge of the first modern extinction of a Galápgos bird species
Researchers have unearthed interesting information about a colourful songbird in the Galápagos. A subspecies of Vermilion flycatchers, the San Cristóbal Island Vermilion flycatcher, should be given full species status, but this bird hasn't been seen since 1987. This is considered the first modern extinction of a Galápagos bird species, scientists believe this to be an important turning point for conservation in the area.
Read more to learn about how this finding will affect conservation efforts in the Galápagos >
Nature's fireworks: Watch out for an extraordinary Perseid meteor shower this year
While the middle of August seems like the end of summer to many, the Perseid meteor shower may change your mind. Predicted to be extra-spectacular this year, the peak of the Perseids meteor shower is projected to be on the night of August 11-12, and is expected to produce twice as many meteors as it normally does. In Canada, the best viewing time will be from midnight to sunrise on August 12, with the best viewing spots away from the city lights in the wonders of the dark skies.
Tips & tricks on how you can see the Perseid meteor shower in full force >
Greenland shark determined to be the oldest living vertebrate animal in 2016
Joining a league of Earth's oldest organisms, an estimated 400-year-old Greenland shark is the oldest living vertebrate animal in 2016. Growing to a length of five metres, it is also one of the world's largest carnivores. After struggling for decades to determine the age range of these "wise" creatures, scientists have come close to accurantely estimate the shark's age by examining the proteins inside the lens of the shark's eyes. How eye-opening!
Learn more about the Greenland shark and its fascinating biological history >
Bison DNA believed to be the leading evidence in determining how people migrated to the Americas. Or is it?
A group of researchers at the University of California, Santa Cruz have deemed bison to be the ideal proxy for determining how human migrated through the Alaska and Beringia glaciers. However, a research team from the University of Copenhagen disagrees with this theory, and have a different say on how bison really shaped human migration.


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Enjoy And Have Fun While Caring For The Environment With Cardboard Towns By Country Cardboardia
Having and enjoying life while keeping the environment safe is highly possible with Cardboard Towns by Country Cardboardia. With this fun and lovely concept, one can create and materialize places and enjoy touring around his or her cardboard town. Various city items like theaters, monuments, libraries, winding streets, exotic animals, and even dresses, all made of cardboard.
Pratonzolo: A Fun And Eco-friendly Pencil Holder
Keeping your home or office in order can be hard if you have many small items that are a bit hard to keep off from sight like ball pens, pencils, calling card, and the like and keeping them in an eco-friendly way is even a lot harder. Well, this can be nothing if you are just being introduced to Pratonzolo, a fun and eco-friendly pencil holder and desk organizer by Max Battaglia and Matteo Mocchi of Giving Shape. Designed for StyleMyLife, the Pratonzolo is made of wood and has natural bristles responsible in holding your small items and desk objects. The green natural bristles also adds up some refreshing look into your dull and busy table.
IGreenSpot received this product submission from the page 'Submit Your Green Product Creation' feature, if you want exposure or showcase your green project, we welcome you to submit your green product for publication.
The MIT Soft Rockers: Enjoy Outdoor Fun While Charging Your Gadgets With Clean Energy
Outdoor lounging is fun and lounging in an eco-friendly fashion is even more fun. The MIT Soft Rockers is an outdoor lounging solution at first glance. However, this one of a kind rocker will not only allow you to lounge but also will let you recharge yourself and your electronic gadget with clean energy. The rocker collects solar energy at daytime through its solar tracking system of 1.5 axis 35 watt and stores the collected energy in a 12 ampere-hour battery. The rocker is stylish enough o be part of your landscape, as it has the leaf like shape with some catchy illumination.
Source: ARTS
Bottle Boat: A Fun Bath Toy For Your Little Ones
A fun toy needs not to be expensive and made of first hand materials by known toy brand. It can be made out of garbage or empty containers like the Bottle Boat from Floris Hovers that is made from empty shampoo bottles. With some other tools like sail and the like, a toy boat is made. This toy surely will create a fun and memorable bathing moments to you little ones without spending so much money while keeping the environment safe at the same time, as it surely will allow parents to give their child fun toys without buying new ones and reduce landfills as parents recycle their empty shampoo bottles.
Source: Floris Hovers
Total Crystal Teckell: Playing Foosball Can Never Be This Fun And Elegant
Many are now hooked into playing foosball. It will not only create fun among players but also the table itself creates an elegant and sporty ambiance to a home/office. How this product contributes for the safety of our environment? Well, playing the foosball requires zero energy and it produces zero carbon emission as well. Unlike today's gaming console that we have, Total Crystal Teckell allows its users to have fun even if there is no electricity, no internet, and all. It can be played anywhere even in remote areas and requires no battery at all. With this product, zero carbon emission activities like playing and having fun with family and friend can be possible.
Gooblet : A Fun And Eco-friendly Toy For The Whole Family
Playing is fun, but it can even be more fun if done with care for the environment in mind. The Gobblet by Distribution Solution LLC, is a toy that every member of the family will surely love to play. Except of course, those that are too young to analyze the game and is prone to choking the small items of the toy. Aside from enhancing the players analytical skills, the Gooblet also give the players the chance to help save the environment as it does not use those chemically processed and toxic plastic but instead, the Gooblet is made of natural wood. [Click here to get details information about Gooblet]
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Range rover sport full AV
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Come On Down To Caraudio Centre Nottingham and check out the Deals! Mp3 Headunits From £45.00 12″ Sub in a Box From £49.99 Massive clearout of Lanzar amps…….Last few to clear! be quick! 225 Radford Road NG75GU 0115 9422988
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Andy had an Alpine CDE 114BTi fitted by us a few weeks ago & was impressed with the service. He said he'd be back for a roof mounted screen. He called this afternoon asking if we could fit him in to have the Inphase IVR 10 installed. No problem is the standard reply. He also had a set of Inphase… Read more »
A customer came in today just to upgrade his headunit. He said he was on a tight budget & did not want to spend more than £100 all in. We spoke for a while but more customers started to come in. I asked the customer to bear with me while I serve someone else. The previous customer must have been… Read more »
I thought we needed to do a little more to attract people into the shop. Luckily we had an A board hanging around so I gave it a clean & decorated it with some ballons. Very attractive!
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We love impulse buyers here at Car Audio Centre. Paul is one such person. "I'm 53 years old & all I want is a decent sound system. I play RnB & Soul. I want a DVD flip out screen, new speakers all round & a subwoofer that fits under my back seat & I want it done today!" Paul drives… Read more »


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The Singareni Collieries Company Limited (SCCL) Has Released Recruitment Notification For 1178 Management Trainee, Engineers, Foreman Posts.
Vacancy details:
Total No. of Posts: 1178 posts
Name And No. of Posts:
1. Management Trainee
Mining - 100
Civil - 10
Personnel - 40
2. Jr. Mining Engineer Trainee (JMET) - 811
3. Assistant Foreman Trainee (Mechanical) - 72
4. Assistant Foreman Trainee (Electrical) - 60
Age Limit:
Candidates upper age limit should not exceed 30 Years As On 01-02-2015. Age relaxations will be applicable as per the rules. For Postwise Age Details Go To Detailed Advertisement
Educational Qualification:
Candidates should have done B.E. / B.Tech / Engineering Degree / AMIE(Electrical / Mechanical / Electrical And Electronics Engineering / Mining / Civil Engineering), CA / ICWA / Post Graduation Degree, Diploma (Mining Engineering / Mechanical Engineering / Electrical And Electronics Engineering) or its equivalent qualification from a recognized university. For Post Wise Qualification Go To Detailed Advertisement
Selection Process:
All Eligible Candidates will Be Selected Based on Their Performance In Written Exam, Interview .
Application Fee:
For General/OBC Candidates Application Fee is - 200/- & For All Other Candidates (PH/ST/SC) Application Fee is - Nil.
How To Apply:
All Eligible and Interested candidates may fill the online application through official website http://scclmines.com before or on 25-02-2015.
Address -The General Manager (Personnel)/EE&RC,
The Singareni Collieries Company Ltd, Recruitment Cell,
Kothagudem-507101, Khammam District .
Important Dates:
Last Date for Registration of Online Application Form Is: 25-02-2015.
Read complete notification
Apply online


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Ada Delroy to Buffalo Female Minstrels ……. p.1
Cameo Revue Co to Th' Drolls ……. p.2
Edward Branscombe's Dandies to Futurists ……. p.3
(1909-18) Englishman Edward Branscombe toured his Jesters troupes around Australia from 1909. He changed the name to The Dandies in 1911 so as to better reflect their elegant style of costume entertainment. Each troupe was distinguished by a colour and had its own exclusive repertoire. Among the most prominent of artists engaged were George Edwards, Claude Dampier, Walter George and Georgie Martin, Joe Brennan and Ida Newton, Harry Borrodale, and Courtney Ford and Ivy Davis. The Dandies played Branscombe's circuit of capital city garden theatres (open-air) up until 1918.
- More details
- See also: Edward Branscombe • Edward Branscombe's Jesters [below]
Image source: Brisbane Courier 9 Aug. (1913), 2.
(1909-1911) Englishman Edward Branscombe toured his Jesters troupes around Australia for several years, having previously managed the Westminster Glee Club and Scarlet Troubadours. The first Jesters troupe, comprising five male and three female artists, made its debut in St Kilda, Melbourne on 9 November 1909. Each week the performers would dress in costumes from a different historical period, while presenting a repertoire of refined songs, dances, scenas and sketches. The final Jesters shows appear to have been played in Perth and regional Victoria in early 1912 (from the end of January 1912 the Perth company's name was changed The Frolics). Among the best known Jesters were Howard Hall (ex-J.C. Williamson's), Renn Miller, and English singers Ben Calvert and Florence Henderson.
- See also: Edward Branscombe • Edward Branscombe's Dandies [above]
1:The Richard the Lionheart and Robin Hood period costumes are described in the Theatre Magazine as comprising Lincoln green suits and hats adorned with red quills (for the men), with one exception being a performer who wore the cap of the professional jester; while the women were costumed in russet brown dresses with muslin chemisettes, red underskirts, and caps with white quill feathers. The stage was set up as a forest glade (Oct. 1915, 28).
2: From late-1911 Branscombe began re-branding his Jesters companies as The Dandies so as to better reflect the elegant style of costume entertainment being presented.
Image source: Table Talk (Melbourne) 28 Oct. (1909), 29.
ELITE VAUDEVILLE AND MINSTREL Co
(1895-98) Originally known as Delohery and Speed's Empire Minstrels for its 1895 Sydney engagement this minstrel, burlesque and vaudeville troupe became the Elite Burlesque, Minstrel and Variety Company when it debuted in Brisbane that same year (it was also later known by other name variations). Essentially revolving around Delohery, Craydon and Holland (the "Australian Team") and W.H. "Billy" Speed, other high profile artists associated with the company included: Steve Adson, the Fausts [below], Bovis Brothers, Sydney Deane, Florrie Ranger, Amy Rowe, Tom Edwards, and Horace and Lorrie St George.
(1879-1884) Founded by Ella Carrington and her husband/business manager Charles Fuller, along with actor/writer Charles H. Taylor (also tour manager), the Stray Leaves travelled through Australia and New Zealand for some five years, playing both metropolitan theatres and regional centres. The company, initial comprising Carrington, Taylor, Nellie Mansell, J.F. Forde, and pianist J.A. Delaney, presented a combination of dramatic/comedy sketches, songs and dances presented under titles such as Stray Leaves, Appointments, Scraps and Troubles. Later members included Lillie Reid (piano), Mr A. Carter (piano), Carrie Williams, Mr P. Spiller and Charles Fuller himself.
- See also: Ella Carrington
The company received much unwanted publicity in late 1880 and throughout 1881 after Carrington, Reid and Taylor were arrested and charged with the murder of an infant. All charges were later dropped when it was proven that Carrington had suffered a miscarriage. Reid, who was also pregnant at the time, later sued the policeman who charged her.
Image source: Goulburn Herald (NSW) 20 Oct. (1883), 5.
ELTON BLACK REVUE Co
aka Elton Black-Kate Howarde Revue Co / Elton Black's Town Topics
(1915-16, 1918-19, 1926-27) Elton Black and Kate Howarde debuted their revusical company in 1915 at Howarde's Sydney theatre, the National (Balmain). The line-up then included Peter Brooks and Clifford O'Keefe (later with Stiffy and Mo), Billy Maloney and Pearl Livingstone. They took the troupe to New Zealand for the Fullers but Howarde returned to Australia leaving Black to oversee the shows. After the couple separated in 1918 Black revived the company several times, including a 1926 New Zealand tour. In 1927 the company was known as Elton Black's Town Topics.
- See also: Elton Black • Kate Howarde
(1927-28) An altogether separate company to Elton Black Revue Company, the New Follies was a Brisbane-based variety company which played a seven months season at the Cremorne Theatre between early December 1927 and mid-February 1928. Its high-class variety show comprised elements of vaudeville, revue, burlesque and musical scenas, with music that ranged from popular to operatic. Among the artists engaged were Alice Bennetto, Nell Fleming, Moon and Morris, George Moon Jnr and Vic Roberts. One of the highlights of the Follies' season was the 1927 Christmas pantomime, Aladdin (written by Vic Roberts).
(1873-74) Emerson's Minstrels were formed in Chicago in 1870 and later played San Francisco for two years. Although only five members of the Californian line-up came to Australia, several American performers already in the country, as well as a few locals, were engaged by Emerson upon his arrival. The tour included two seasons in Sydney and Melbourne, along with shows in Adelaide and several regional towns. When Emerson returned to America some of the members remained and went on to co-establish the US Minstrels with a number of Australian performers.
- See also: Billy Emerson.
THE ENGLISH GLEE & BULESQUE OPERA Co
aka Melvin, Bent & Norman / Liddle, Melvin, Bent & Norman
(1867-1868) In July 1867, six months after the demise of the Australasian-touring Christy's Minstrels, former members J.H. Melvin, Thomas Rainford, and W.H. Bent put together the English Glee and Burlesque Opera Company for a tour of select Queensland centres. Showcasing "glees, quartettes, trios, songs, ballads, pianoforte fantasias, and comicalities etc," along with burlesque productions of well-known operas, the ensemble also featured Linley Norman (music director/pianist) and Miss M.A. Liddle. The ensemble later played Sydney and regional New South Wales (with the addition of Octavia Hamilton and T. Holme Davis). Melvin, Bent and Norman (and later Liddle), toured a similar show under their own names in early 1868. The original line-up was revived in May with the addition of J.C. Rainer and toured as the English Glee company until 21 August.
- See also: W. Horace Bent
1: Among the operas to be burlesqued were: The Bohemian Girl (also a feature of the Christy's Minstrels repertoire), Lucrezia Borgia, La Somnambula, Lucia Di Lammermoor, and Maritana.
2: The 1867 tour incl. Queensland – Brisbane, Maryborough, Rockhampton, Ipswich and Toowoomba; New South Wales – Maitland, Morpeth, Singleton, Armidale and Uralla.
3: The 1868 tour incl. New South Wales – Young, Grenfell, Gundagai, Tumut, Adelong; Victoria – Bendigo, Ballarat, Geelong and Hamilton; Tasmania – Launceston, Hobart.
4: W.H. Bent served as the troupe's secretary and business manager. J.C. Rainer took over the business manager duties from ca. May 1868.
5: Melvin, Linley, Norman and Bent remained in Tasmania until March 1869 presenting various individual or short-term entertainments together or in different combinations, as well as involving themselves in local theatrical activities – largely in Hobart and Launceston.
aka Famous Pierrots / English Pierrots / Will and Rob Thomas's English Pierrots
(Aust: 1904-1920) English society entertainers Will and Rob Thomas debuted their show in Australia at St James Theatre, Sydney on 4 April 1904. Billed simply as the Pierrot Entertainers, the three pierrots and one pierette presented an entire show of humorous and sentimental songs and instrumentals (including coon songs and banjo solos), musical and humorous sketches and recitals, monologues and illustrated lecturettes. The line-up was later expanded, with frequent changes over time, and at one stage the Thomas's also introduced moving pictures. During the next 16 years the popular ensemble played engagements in most capital cities and in many regional centres. The Pierrots also played New Zealand on at least one occasion (1905).
1: The troupe's Australian headquarters for many years was St Kilda, Melbourne. After Rob Thomas died in 1920 several of its members bought the company, but it did not continue for long.
2. Artists identified with the troupe to date are: W. Armstrong (1908-09), Leslie Austin (1907-18), Avalon Collard (1907), Roy Cooke (1915-18), Shirley Cooke (1917), George Denby (1915), Mr Gollmick (1908-09), Madge Griffiths (1916), Nellie Holden (1909), Leslie Holmes (1916), George Horton (1915-16), Elsa Langley (1908-1919), Charles Lawrence (1913-20), David Lyle (1916-18), Olive Meron (1907), L. Mitchell (1916), Elsie Rosslyn (1915-18), Madge Scott (1917), C. Throsby, (1908-09), W.P. Turner (1909-18), Billie Wilson (1915-19), Rima Young (1918-19). Years are those identified to date.
3: Sydney Hollister appeared with the company in Adelaide in 1917. He was then lessee of the Exhibition Gardens.
Image: Will and Rob Thomas; Source: Punch (Melbourne) 29 June (1905), 36.
aka Eric Masters' Maxims
(1928) Put together by Eric Masters in late May 1928 for a season at Fullers' new Bijou Theatre [2], Melbourne, the Merry Whirls made its debut on 9 June. Headed by Stud Foley and Iris Ackworth, and supported by Bert Vasco's jazz band, the company presented a season of revue up until 13 July (with comedy pianist Nat Hanley joining for the last week). On 11 August Masters and most of the company, including Hanley, opened for a season at Brisbane' Cremorne Theatre, billed as Eric Master's Maxims. Will Butland's orchestra provided the music. The Maxims remained at the Cremorne until 5 October, with Clem Dawe's Frolics taking over the following night.
- See also: Eric Masters
Personnel incl. Iris Ackworth, Will Beresford, Doreen Carroll, Two Dalys (M), Winnie Edgerton, Nell Fleming (M), Stud Foley, Nat Hanley, Eddie and Decima McLean, Al Mack, Eric Masters, Al Maurice (M), Cecil Scott, Nan Taylor, Alme Valdor (M), Lance Vane (M), and the Exquisite Eight. (M = Melbourne only).
aka Backus and Rainer's Serenaders
(1856-1857) Not to be confused with Rainer's Ethiopian Serenaders (ca. 1853-55), this minstrel troupe came together for a Volunteer Fire Company benefit at Sydney's Royal Victoria Theatre on 17 April 1856. Comprising D.F. Boley and W.A. Porter (Backus Minstrels), T.P. Brower, J.M. Foans, and Neil Bryant (Rainer's Ethiopians) and J.E. Kitts (New York Serenaders), the troupe debuted as the Ethiopian Serenaders in Wollongong in late April, and went on to play shows in Sydney and regional New South Wales until around mid-1857. The line-up expanded over time with the inclusion of various local artists – both male and female.
1: The name Ethiopian Serenaders had been used by the Backus Minstrels (from around March 1856) as a feature act during their shows. By that time Neil Bryant had joined the troupe, having left Rainer's Ethiopian Serenaders.
2: D.F. (Dan) Boley. See also Boley's Minstrels [above].
Image source: Illawarra Mercury 28 Apr 1856, 7
ETHIOPIAN SERENADERS: See also Ethiopian Serenaders [1]
Please Note: "Ethiopian Serenaders" was a commonly-used minstrel troupe name in Australia between the late-1840s and 1860s (generally preceded by the name of its leader). Such troupes include: The Ethiopian Serenaders [1] (ca. 1848-49), Howard's Ethiopian Serenaders (ca. 1852), Woods Ethiopian Serenaders (ca. 1857), White's Ethiopian Serenaders (ca. 1858-59), and several "Amateur Ethiopian Serenaders" troupes between 1859 and the mid-1860s. More details on these troupes is forthcoming in the AVTA.
(ca. 1873-1896) Acrobats, musicians, pantomime and sketch artists.
The Faust Family of Acrobats developed a touring act which also incorporated theatrical and musical performances (under the direction of cornettist Charles Von Der Mehden). They toured the Australasian region with Chirani's Circus in the mid-1880s and later for J.C. Williamson, Charles B. Hicks and George Rignold among others. The Faust company disbanded in the mid-1890s after various members either retired or moved on to pursue other career opportunities.
- More details
- See also: Charles Von Der Mehden.
F. GAYLE WYER'S BAND BOX REVUE Co
aka Band Box Co-Optimists / Bandbox Revue Co
(1924-ca 1929) While in Australia working as lawyer for a US oil firm F. Gayle Wyer was induced by the Fullers to return to his former occupation as a burlesque producer. He subsequently put together his Band Box Revue Company, with the initial line-up featuring Billy Bovis, Sadie Gale and Walter Cornock. Later members included Vera Benson, Charles Norman, Sam J. Ward and Ward Lear Jnr. The troupe toured through both Australia and New Zealand presenting Wyer's revusicals, vaudeville programmes and occasional pantomimes until late 1929 (at which time it was known as the Co-Optimists).
- See also: F. Gayle Wyer • Old Time Nigger Minstrels [2] (Fullers)
Formed at Fisk University (USA) in 1871, the original Jubilee Singers introduced spirituals to America, England and Europe until 1878. After reviving the concept in 1879, Frederick Loudin brought the Fisks to the Antipodes (1886-89), with Orpheus McAdoo touring his Singers twice during the 1890s. The last troupe remained for several years after his death in 1900. Fisk troupes returned at least six times between 1905 and 1936, with the longest tour lasting nine years. A radio series "The Story of the Fiske Jubilee Singers" was broadcast frequently during the 1930s and early 1940s.
Australasian tours by various Fisk Jubilee Singers (and known managers) included: 1886-89 (Frederick Loudin) • 1892-94 (Orpheus McAdoo) • 1898-1902 (Orpheus McAdoo / R.H. Collins) • 1905-1907 (R.H. Collins / Clarence H. Tisdale) • 1909-10 (R.H. Collins / Prof. C.A. White, Music Dir.) • 1914-1922 (Prof. C.A. White, Music Dir.) • 1923-25 (Marshall Palmer) • 1927-28 (Marshall Palmer) • 1936 (Huntley Spencer, New Zealand only).
- For further details see: Lynn Abbott and Doug Seroff. Out of Sight: The Rise of African American Popular Music, 1889-1895 (2009)
- See also: Orpheus McAdoo • McAdoo's Georgia Minstrels and Alabama Cakewalkers
1: Several Fisk Singers troupes were briefly established in Australia following the 1886-89 tour.
2: 1892-94: Initially referred to as the Virginia Jubilee Singers, the troupe was largely billed as the Fisk Jubilee Singers.
3: 1898-1902: Although mostly billed as McAdoo's Jubilee Singers between 1898 and 1900, the term Fisk was nevertheless frequently applied to the troupe in newspapers. Following McAdoo's death in April 1900 the troupe was once again billed as the Fisk Jubilee Singers.
Images: Top – Loudin's Fiske Jubilee Singers, ca. 1886 (source: J.T. March The Story of the Fiske Jubilee Singers); Bottom: McAdoo's Jubilee Singers poster (auspostalhistory.com)
aka Fitzgerald Brothers Vaudeville, Dramatic and Musical Combination / Clifton-Vane Refined Vaudeville and Dramatic Co
(1912, 1914-15) Eminent dramatic actor S.A. Fitzgerald put together his All Stars dramatic and vaudeville company for a New South Wales Northern Rivers tour in mid-1912. The line-up featured his four sons – actors Max Clifton, Lance Vane and Clifton Stephens, and circus acrobat/ comedian Jim Gerald. Other artists included Nellie Morrison, Miss Ray Anderson, Miss Erica and the Renee sisters. Re-organised in April 1914 as the Clifton-Vane Company, the new troupe toured through New South Wales and Queensland until early 1915. Among the new members were Essie Jennings, Pattie Holt, Gladys Thomas.
- See also: S.A. Fitzgerald • Lance Vane • Jim Gerald
Image source: Clarence and Richmond Examiner (Grafton, NSW) 25 May(1912), 12.
(1889) Using his industry connections, music director/showman Hermann Florack secured the services of some of F.E. Hiscocks' former Federal Minstrels to feature in an season of minstrelsy at Sydney's Haymarket Music Hall beginning 16 March 1889. Among the ex-Hiscocks artists were Beaumont Read, George Turner, J.S. Porter and Charles Holly. Other artists included Harry Clay, Tom Buckley, Arthur Farley, Lucy Fraser, Frank York, Mons Provo, Arthur Sullivan. Harry Cottier, Ethel Silvena, and Johnny Cowan. Florack also contributed music (including overtures) to the programmes. According to the Evening News, the opening programme was in keeping with the business that had long ago made the Federals popular (18 Mar. 1889, 3). The season ran until late May.
- More details (research notes)
1: In a move guaranteed to incite the anger of Hiscocks, Florack billed his company the Federal Minstrels and advertised it as a "Grand Re-formation" (Hiscocks had recently disbanded his Federals troupe). A few days later Hiscocks gave the venture additional publicity (through paid advertisements) by refuting any connection with the company and claiming he owned the rights to the name. Florack responded with a letter to the Editor arguing that the artists had the right to appear under the name they were most associated with.
2: The last advertisement for the season was published in the Sydney Morning Herald on 27 May. No final show was announced.
THE FOLLIES [Hobart, 1920-1921]
(1920-1921) Following the end of the Famous Diggers season at Hobart's Temperance Hall, C.W. Webber took over the venue's lease and opened for business on 9 October 1920 with an unnamed vaudeville company. The line-up was specially selected by comedian Fred Bluett. From 20 November until 28 January 1921 (the end of Webber's lease), the entertainment was billed as The Follies. The company's debut performance featured Will J. Saunders, Fred Webber, Gladys Shaw, Olga Pennington, Ernest Pitcher, Hilton Lucas, the Illusive Foyles, and Desperado and Rose among others. Webber engaged Will Saunders as director, Fred Webber as music director and Rupert Foyle as stage manager. Artists to later join the Follies included Will Carlyon, Muriel Phillips, Captain Winters and his Educated Animals, and Gerard (Hypnotist).
1. The company selected by Fred Bluett featured F.J. Sidney & Co (acrobats), the Lee Chee Loon Troupe (illusionists), Kate Gourley ("the girl from Glasgow"), the Musical Shirleys, Hal Scott (baritone), Ted Russell (comedian), and Fred and Winifred (patter/sketch artists).
aka Fullers' Follies of Pleasure / Les Bates' Follies of Pleasure
(1916-1918) American producer Murray Simons came to Australia for Fullers' Theatres in July 1916 to oversee the initial Follies of Pleasure productions. Specialising in musical/burlesque comedies and revusicals, the company debuted at the Adelphi, Sydney, with a line-up that included US imports Helen Le Cain and Walter Johnson. A re-organised company then toured the Fullers Australian and New Zealand circuits until early 1918. Key members of the Follies included Les Bates (under whose name it also became known), Con Moreni, Les Warton, Madge Moore, Lalie Brooke, Arthur Elliott and Muriel Esbank.
- See also: Les Bates • Con Moreni • Les Warton.
Image: Male members of the Follies of Pleasure. Source: Theatre Magazine Sept. (1916), 43.
FRED DAVYS' BRIGHT LIGHTS Co
(1891-1893) Formed in mid-1891 by Fred Davys and Georgie Devoe, the Bright Lights troupe undertook two regional tours in Australia (1891) and year-long tour of New Zealand (1892). Specialising in musical farces and miniature pantomimes, there was also an emphasis on spectacular limelight effects, transformation scenes and Davys' giant marionettes.
- More details
- See also: Fred Davys • Georgie Devoe
(1935) Formed in Melbourne in August 1935 for a three weeks tour of Tasmania, the Frivolities was managed by Barney Barnes, and presented a first part vaudeville program and second part revusical. The line-up was a mix of well-known stage and radio personalities, with George "Hermie" Ward the biggest name (Tasmanian children knew him as "Uncle Hermie" from the popular 3DB children's program). Ward also contributed the revusicals for the tour. Among the other artists engaged were 3UZ announcer and comedy/musician Ken Collie, all-round entertainer Myrtle McDonald, singer Ida Raymond, acrobat/contortionist Doris Haslena, comedian Hal Bertini, musician Stan Seddon, lightning sketch artist Poster King, equilibrist Cardigan, and a ballet/chorus for the revusicals.
The tour began in Burnie on 12 September. Other recorded destinations were Devonport, Ulverstone, Penguin, Launceston and Hobart.
FULLERS' AMERICAN REVUE Co
aka Ward-Sherman Revue Co
(1921-ca. 1925) In 1920 the Fullers brought US comedians George H. Ward and Charles L. Sherman to Australia as a vaudeville act. The following year they began touring their own revusical company – initially called Fullers' American Revue Company and later the Ward-Sherman Revue Co. Among the company's best known members were Les Warton, Harry Burgess, Mabelle Morgan, Curly Sherwood, Winnie Trevail and Ivy Moore. After Sherman left the company in 1924 his role was taken over by Hebrew comedian Bert Le Blanc. The troupe then became known as the George Ward Revue Co (and later the Whirl of Mirth Co).
- See also: George H. Ward • Charles L. Sherman • Fullers Theatres Ltd
Image source: "Ward-Sherman Revue Co." Theatre Magazine Apr. (1921), 22.
aka Reg Harrison's Futurists / The English Futurists
(1920-1925, 1927-1928) Although this Futurists company underwent different leadership phases during its lifetime, one constant was the presence of comedians G.W. Desmond and Cyril Northcote. After making its debut in Western Australia in late-1920 the troupe toured internationally as a costume comedy company until late-1923 under the management of singer Fred Monument. Desmond and Northcote briefly revived the troupe a year later, playing Sydney's Haymarket Theatre and Brisbane's Tivoli. The Haymarket season included several radio broadcasts by Farmers Service in 1924 and on their return to Sydney the following year the station produced several studio shows. Ex-Huxham's Serenaders comedian Reg Harrison oversaw a four month Tasmanian engagement in 1925, after which the company took a hiatus. Desmond and Northcote revived the Futurists for Melbourne radio station 3LO (1927-1928) and toured New Zealand (as the English Futurists) in association with Joe Brennan during the same period.
- See also: Cyril Northcote • G.W. Desmond • Fred Monument • Reg Harrison
1: The 1920 Fremantle line-up included: Cyril Northcote (also scenic artist), G.W. Desmond, Claire Solly, Lillian Skinner, Peter Roxby.
2: The 1921-1923 international tourists were Cyril Northcote (also scenic artist), G.W. Desmond, Gladys Walsh, Ira Bissett. Scott Clark was business manager. The tour included Java, the Federated Malay States, Ceylon, Burma, India, Afghanistan, Uganda, Rhodesia, South Africa. Most countries were reportedly played two or three times.
3. Desmond and Northcote's Futurists (1924-1925) included: Cyril Northcote (also scenic artist), G.W. Desmond, Ira Bissett, Gladys Thomas, William Beresford, Hilda Sutton, Vera Murray.
4. Performers engaged by Reg Harrison in 1925 were: Reg Harrison, Cyril Northcote, G.W. Desmond, Courtney Ford, George Correlli, Gus Dawson, Winnie Edgerton, Ernest Powell, Eily Dalgleish, Ira Bissett (aka Ira Love), Gladys Thomas, Ivy Davis, Dorothy Rona, Mona Potts; and the Futurist ballet. The shows included several revusicals – notably The Night Porter and Midnight at Maxims.
5. The 1927/1928 radio ensemble included: Cyril Northcote, G.W. Desmond, Ira Vanda, Gus Dawson. The New Zealand touring party comprised: Northcote, Desmond, Vanda, and Dawson, along with J.W. Brennan, Ida Newton, George Corelli, Peggy Sharpe, Dell Barnes, Betty Lee and the Cabaret Kittens Ballet.
6. Ira Bissett, Ira Love and Ira Vanda were stage names for Ira Northcote (possibly nee Bissett).
Image source: Above – Daily Mail (Brisbane) 4 Jan. (1925), 11; Below – News (Hobart) 14 July (1925), 6.
aka Cecil Ramsdale's Futurists
(1927) This Futurists variety company has been identified in connection with Cecil Ramsdale and the Victorian town of Frankston. Comprising local performers the company made its debut at the Palais Theatre on 12 August 1927 with a show produced as a means of raising funds for the Frankston Football club. The original company, which presented a revue-style entertainment, included W. Gilbert, H. Davis, Cecil Ramsdale, Dr Plowman, E. Wykes, Mrs P. Chitty, P. Wheeler, H. Davis, Mrs Gregory, Miss W. Baxter, Miss Willox, Mrs Holman (piano accompaniment). The show's popularity with the Frankston community saw Ramsdale revive the Futurists for a second show on 8 December in aid of the Frankston Bowling Club.
Interestingly Ramsdale's company used the Futurists name during the same period that Cyril Northcote and G.W. Desmond were presenting their shows on 3LO, something that the Frankston community would have been aware of. There is no known connection between the two companies, however.
Image source: Frankston and Somerville Standard (Vic) 27 July (1927), 5.


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"When my sanity returned to me, so did my honor and glory and kingdom. My advisers and nobles sought me out, and I was restored as head of my kingdom, with even greater honor than before."
We've come through (hopefully) with less stories of those who had a temporary lapse of judgment or discretion at the annul office holiday party. One would think that given the past year plus of the #metoo movement and the heightened awareness of workplace misconduct that everyone would have learned their lesson. We can't be so sure. What is more evident than ever now is that any lapse comes with a higher punishment and less tolerance. Where once we might have laughed it off as "they just had one too many", in today's world, one too many is one too far. Let's remember that we are in a heightened state of alert and as leaders or co-workers that others look up to, we carry with us a responsibility of consistency and lack of temporary lapses.
We are not without sin and fallibility so we will fall. But God gives us account after account that He will return us to Him after we do. There was King Nebuchadnezzar being forewarned by Daniel about what exactly would happen if the King didn't turn around from his ways. Daniel even told him that he could be restored to his throne if he repented. So, why would the King not listen, go through seven periods of time as basically a crazy person living and eating among animals? And then, just as Daniel predicted, the King's temporary lapse of sanity ended and he was returned to rule his kingdom. The difference was that after the lapse, he came back humble and giving glory to God. So, sometimes we will just do stupid things and ask ourselves, "What we were we thinking?", before God can get our attention. We might do one of those today. If we do, then let's be quickly reminded to return to Him right then and there and ask for forgiveness and restoration.
Reference: Daniel 4:36 (New Living Translation)


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Posted on September 7, 2016
"Another thing: to minister fruitfully (and God does not call us to anything else) we must minister as those who have died. This is really the same point as the last, but it has total ramifications in the… Read More
Posted on September 12, 2016
The Brilliance – YHWH | Music Mondays
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Last month I wrote about the intense harmfulness of pride, this originally was one whole post, but far too long – so this post needs the one before, so you can read part one here.
Although it is self-affirming, it doesn't do much good to simply diagnose the problem without an attempt at offering some part of a solution. So here is my best attempt at how we might begin to confront pride in ourselves. 1
Can you imagine being immediately grateful for a confrontation?
4 years ago, our church community invited a lady to speak to us who was a qualified life coach. She came to teach our church community how to ask questions that would help us grow. While there were many good tools shared in that week, it was a story she told that made the biggest impact on me. She described a co-worker who naturally rubbed her the wrong way in most interactions. She described it such a way that made it easy for everyone listening to put themselves in her shoes and imagine their own 'grace-grower'! She then spoke about how she began to develop a consistent point to pray for this person and at the same time was developing a very strong desire to be transformed by any means possible into the likeness of Christ.
Can you guess what happened next?
This same co-worker approached this lady and confronted her about a pattern of behaviour she had noticed. The co-worker did not communicate it perfectly and there may have been plenty of justification for push back. But she was so motivated towards transformation that she was able to sincerely thank this co-worker for the confrontation as her first response.
Now many of us can imagine saying the right thing as a response, through gritted teeth and then later bad mouthing the person to some others in a way that reassures us that we were in the right. But that was not the testimony of this lady, she literally had a sincere overflow of gratitude for the confrontation that she was able to respond to. In that moment I was struck with my absolute inability to do that.
I was imagining the very equivalent person in my life and thinking, "sure, I could muster enough self control to say the right thing". But the idea that I could have a sincere response of gratitude that overlooked the way a confrontation came to me was as foreign as the idea of being able to laugh upon being stabbed. Many of us in the christian life have cultivated enough self-control to do the right thing, but what does it take to feel the right thing? I intended to find out.
In the following months I considered during times with God, how much value did I really hold in becoming like Jesus. Did I really value it above all else, like the many songs I had sung, enthusiastically described? Or was I secretly committed to be just nice enough to get by with my pride in tact. I realised that deep down I was committed to how people perceived me more than about who God knew me to be.
Although I didn't have a marked story within those months to illustrate the growth I began to experience, I felt assured that this season shifted something in the foundations of my inner life. The power of pride was in some way broken down and that made many of the following decisions easier and more felt than before.
Now of course my intention is not to present a somehow finished work in this, but simply to encourage us that we can take steps forward, steps which make responses of spontaneous holiness possible. Would I struggle over someone harshly confronting me? Im sure I would, but instead of confronting them back in self-protection, I feel more assured that I might be able to take on the 'meat' of their confrontation and leave the bones to the Lord to deal with.
The good news is that we are wrong
Often the good news of God has been compressed into simple phrases like "God loves for you" and while I believe that, the gospel also offers and maybe even begins by providing a way to say "I was wrong". In fact to be renewed, reformed and resurrected into the kingdom of God, somewhere we have to have a deep revelation that "I was wrong". This is the good news, that we get to be wrong and it doesn't have to annihilate us.
We have to realise we are wrong about God; God in Jesus is nothing like the God we would have imagined. The trajectory of our imaginations outside of God would have never given us the story we were given. It would have never revealed the 'right' in a way we could have anticipated, and so we are left with an invitation, an invitation to say "I was wrong…".
Of course, just like the prodigal son returns to the Father to say 'I was wrong', the Father bounds over with an embrace. That is the good news, that (if I can risk sentimentalising the process a little) that the Father squeezes the wrongness from us in an embrace and welcomes us into a vocation that will even further transform us2.
Our ability to recognise we were wrong and the humility and request for forgiveness that flows from this is essential to the gospel impacting our lives, and it is not just a one-time thing. For those of us that follow Jesus it actually is like a circadian rhythm in our stories that follows a pattern of being wrong, revealing our wrongness3, being forgiven , being renewed. This is the pattern of the person who is truly changing, truly reforming, truly transforming, again and again.
Saying we are wrong helps us receive God's forgiveness
There is something else that I've observed; that our relationship to God is characterised by the same things that characterise our human relationships. I have observed enough to believe it to be true, that those who refuse or feel unable to forgive others are unable to forgive themselves. This is a big problem because the same place that forgiveness flows out towards others is the same place that God's forgiveness and release flows in. God's forgiveness is the very foundation for our knowing and experiencing God in all other ways. I have painfully observed that as people allow their inner lives to become increasingly filled with small unforgivenesses they find it increasingly hard to relate to, experience and participate in God's life. Alot is at stake in this pride and forgiveness dynamic.
So to return to a biblical image of our lives, we are made to be like clay in the potters hands. God's intention is not just to let us in the door of salvation, but to transform us over a life of salvation. Pride and unforgiveness do not contribute to God's intended human flourishing, its made us like hard clay. Hard clay can not be loving moulded but has to be smashed into softness on the potter's wheel or more terrifyingly set aside altogether. God intended us to be able to say "I was wrong" in order be transformed for God's sake, for our sake and for the sake of the World.
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- I spoke shortly about the type of understanding and heart-posture that would be required to confront this in our loved ones at the end of the last post. ↩
- I wrote about that a little more here ↩
- or having it revealed. God is not picky about this part! ↩
Posted on August 15, 2016
Benjamin James – Beggar | Music Mondays
Joel Limpic – Psalm 1 | Music Mondays
Psalm 1 – If you can't see a way to play the music below this, click here
Posted on August 3, 2016
Why the inability to be wrong is destroying us, our relationships and our world
No one likes to be wrong, and often admitting we were wrong seems like adding insult to an injury, yet it is an absolutely crucial ability for humans to foster. When we consistently refuse to cultivate humility we instead cultivate an inner person of pride.
The true impact of our pride
When we observe pride within ourselves and often more easily in a family member that cannot easily hear truth about themselves, we play it down. We say, 'well so and so is just like that'. They then give non-verbal cues and passive aggressive attacks towards those in social situations who conversationally risk moving towards those areas in their life, character and relationships. Our pridefulness must increasingly hold a mask of our own faultlessness up until we have tricked ourselves with our image consciousness and cannot discern the real from the imagined.
When our pride is in a room everyone becomes aware that conversation must stay in the shallow end of the pool of life. Anyone who attempts to venture into the deeper end of things will be met by the abandonment of silence or a short harsh yank back to the shallow end again. While we make excuses and explanations around nature and nurture for the way pridefulness acts, it destroys a sense of connectedness in a room, and more painfully in our families and friendships. It creates disconnection and isolation that leads people to talk about us being there but not actually 'present'.
I'm wanting to break the mirage of harmlessness that we pick up about pride, it is not harmless it is endangering our very souls and shared abundant life. I believe the outbreaks of fear, anxiety, depression and suicide in our societies trace themselves to the relational disconnections and aloneness that result. Pride is not harmless.
Interpersonal pride is one thing, but we increasingly live in a world where there is an epidmeic of pride that characterises the very institutions that govern our societies. As fear dominates the international politcal landscape we see leaders engage in brinkmanship and insist on their often self-deluded image of themselves and their nation. Their pride and the corresponding lack of ability to admit any wrongness is literally leading people to their deaths in wars, coups and riots.
The person of pride is not a bad person but a pained person
Now, as you consider the ones you love, not least yourself in this diagnosis of pride I do want to keep something before us. The person of pride is not a bad person, they are a pained person. This person will not be served by purely rebuking them in some fire and brimstone fashion. People retreat into pride as a mechanism of self-protection, what these people need is to be loved. But loved enough not to swerve the invisible road blocks that are put into place but to be engaged.
Again, I want to excercise caution in how you engage the person of pride. Very often we have built up a great deal of resentment to the unspoken tension the person of pride creates and engaging them can very quickly become letting them have it and that will causes even deeper levels of retreat.
If you are going to confront someone in a moment where you observe pride rearing it's ugly head, you have to be motivated for the person, their transformation, and for the liberation of their relationships that are in bondage to this pattern of control.
A person with pride is not a bad person, but instead someone who's pain has overcome their ability to do the necessary work on the inside. So what does it look like to overcome the person of pride in ourselves? That's the good news and what I'm writing about next week!
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Posted on August 1, 2016
The Liturgists – Vapor | Music Mondays
Posted on July 27, 2016
If everything is Holy can anything be Holy?
Often I'll say, and hear others wonder aloud 'Where did the time go?'. I marvel at how life has become submerged in one continual tapestry that I can't quite tease into recognisable components. Other times I observe the opposite in myself and in others; I feel the frantic tendency to want to capture, perceive and hold on to a moment or experience in a way that actually causes it to slip away.
I observe something beautiful; a view, a child's first steps, a sunset, cityscape, mountain and grab for a phone or camera to immortalise it. I walk away and later reflect on these immortalised pictures and wonder, was I really there? Often in some way I notice, I wasn't really there, I was not present.
There are moments in life that as children we are taught to recognise and pay attention to, then as adults we learn to perceive something special is taking place; A funeral, a wedding, a commemoration of a moment that has marked common memory. We learn to intuitively understand these moments as set-apart, in some sense holy. Not things to be taken lightly.
Standing to attention
In my first trip to the US I attended a small college basketball game. Before the game began the national anthem was played, people stood and pledged allegiance to their flag and nation. I was enjoying my first experience of the US, a nation I'd only seen before in TV and movies, but it never occurred to me as appropriate or even desirable that I, as someone from another nation would join in this nationalistic practise.1 Within the first line or two of the anthem, a complete stranger turned around and virtually lifted me to my feet, I decided not to resist. As I reflected on it, I though how extraordinary that a stranger was so moved by the significance of this moment that he man-handled someone he had never met to enjoin him in his holy moment.
As children we are shoe-horned into the many rules and etiquettes of these 'holy-moments', but by adulthood we reflect back on our lives and these moments gain a luminescent quality without the needed prompting from others 2. We remember that wedding, that party, that funeral, that public commemoration. Whether we recognise it as literal divine presence, we begin to recognise a type of set-apartness, a type of holiness that exists in these moments.
While I've increasingly come to affirm these moments and recognise something of the glory of God existing through many of them, I've often reflected and reminded myself, isn't everything holy? Isn't every person an image bearer of God and therefore holy? Aren't all places created and sustained by the Christ who holds all things together? Doesn't God want us to perceive himself in every moment, in every person and in every place?
The Holy has torn through the curtain
In many ways this was the achievement of Jesus' life, His presence, His life, His holiness showing up everywhere especially the places we don't expect him. Jesus is revealing the God who drinks wine with the wrong kind of people, welcomes even the hated samaritans to be included in God's great plan of rescue and adoption. His very death tears the veil of where the Holy used to live and then in His ascension He sends His Holy Spirit on flesh of every nation to prophecy and priest God's good kingdom on earth? Isn't the story of God showing us His desire to include the world, in ever increasing circumference the domain and reign of His Kingship. While that is an arresting and often stirring perception of God's activity I find myself realising how impossible it seems for every moment to be 'set-apart'. If everything is holy, then can anything be?
Do we only know the Holy in contrast to the profane? More practically, is God's intention that we walk around our days in consistent awe and slowness? Well, certainly we would be helped if we did in fact spend our days staying open to holiness in each thing but the question I am increasingly asking is not just, is everything holy? But what kind of Holy is it? In what way is this moment, this person, this place set-apart? If to be Holy is to be set-apart, then Holiness is surely to respond rightly to the value and grace God has placed in that particular person, experience or place.
To walk by the Spirit means to recognize him in everything you do and to expect his action. You set your mind on the things of the Sprit. – Dallas Willard
How to observe the particular holiness that is present
To walk through our days in this way takes a kind of reflectiveness that our world has forgotten about. One of the simplest ways we can learn how to reflect is to practise it. There is an ancient christian practise called the examen. The intention is for it to be placed at the end of the day, and to literally examine your day in the presence of the Lord. As simple as it sounds, this is what is required in a world where we rarely slow down to understand what kind of holiness is present and called for in response.
1. Recall you are in the presence of God.
2. Look at your day with gratitude.
3. Ask for help from the Holy Spirit to search your day to observe where you participated in God's holy action in the world and where you failed to.
4. Reconcile, Restore and resolve with the Lord.3
We desperately need a people and a Church that perceive the type of holiness that is required. Childhood is made holy because it is set apart from adulthood, Sabbath is made holy because it is set apart from work, Music is made holy because it is set apart from silence, Family is made holy because it is set apart from strangers. All of these things are holy, but all are not holy in the same way. In the same way we wonder at the beauty of the actions of a child, those same actions become profane in adulthood. The core of holiness is not a set of rules to live by, but an understanding of how we should properly relate to something or someone given God's own revealed personhood.
When we mistake or blur the distinctions between these forms of holiness we lose the ability to observe its particular grace. Part of our maturing as people in Christ is that we will learn to reflect on, respond to and begin to intuitively recognise the particular holiness in front of us and that is how we live in holiness. When we devolve our understanding of holiness to 'abiding by the rules'4 we lose God's intention for humanity. Not simply to be obedient to an arbitrary standard of holiness, but to participate in human flourishing which understands, in each moment, how to relate to created things through the God who was before creation.
- I do have to admit to an underlying adolescent theme of classic british-passive-aggressive detraction at this point. ↩
- I'm thinking more of Weddings, funerals than basketball games at this point. ↩
- Read more on the examen here ↩
- although I don't be any means advocate a marcionite throwing out of rules, but rather a realisation that rules are there to train us to perceive the foundational revelation of God's character that rules or laws can only gesture towards. ↩
Posted on July 25, 2016
St Paul and the Broken Bones | Music Mondays
Posted on June 30, 2016
2 Ways Jesus' childhood can teach us about effective discipleship
Often in conversations where people speak of Jesus, it seems like Jesus' lifestyle and behaviours were effortless to Him, downloaded as it where. Now while that might be an attractive idea for our current instantaneous generation, I actually believe the gospels and our own lives in Christ indicate to us that Jesus in fact apprehended his behaviours through much of the same resistance and effort that we engage in to see transformation.
I don't mean to say that Jesus in any way attempting to earn salvation or strive in ways that were sourced from an insecurity within, but that in fact the very nature of humanity is that we are potential that needs to be cultivated, even before our falleness.
Certainly for us, our fallenness creates barriers to transformation that require the grace of God, namely the indwelling presence of God, but that too requires our participation and the ordering of our desires. This, as anyone who has ever tried can attest, is simply hard work. It is good work, but it is hard work.
So, what might Jesus' learning and growing phases of his life looked like?1 Well, while there are only fleeting glimpses of his childhood collected in the canonical gospels and the non-canonical gospels such as the 'Gospel of Thomas' paint fanciful and falsified pictures of Jesus' childhood2, we are left to make projections based on the shape of 1st century jewish education that we can know from other sources and make some informed projections from there.
1. Jesus learned in family
Whilst there are many passing remarks based on a presumption that Jesus would have been involved in some formal rabbinnic schooling, there is actually very little evidence that there was formalised school systems for all. Especially someone of Jesus' status could have very well been schooled almost entirely at home by his mother and father in torah, vocation (likely some kind of builder) and the work of everyday sustenance.
The shape and size of this educational environment is something I think is worth reflecting on and thinking about it's implications for modern discipleship. Education here is not simply a transferance of information but a participation in a relational group which passed on knowledge on interpretation (both of torah, surrounding events) and living (putting the knowledge into practise in observing ritual and living a set apart life). This is a key way that we as humans are made to learn, amongst knowing, nurturing, and practising relational groups.
Some implications for discipleship
It is very easy to get drawn into arguments on whether the size of churches matter, and I don't think that there is inherent worth in whether a faith community is large or small. What I am assured of though is that we only grow through a relational participation of life within a group that resembles the size of a nuclear or slightly larger family. So, no matter whether your overall church size is 5 or 5000, within those numbers there needs to be a group that you are truly living life alongside.
We are shaped by and bear fruit in the relationships that are nearest to us, which is why, although I listen to lots of teaching and training through the internet, I don't check if I am bearing the fruit through the internet, I have it reflected to me by the people in closest relational and geographical community with me.
Now I know many of us, myself included at times, will want to resist that. We have been taught, predominantly through our interactions with technology that we can trascend our physicality and our geographies. This particularly serves us well when our physicality and geography causes us pain, becomes uncomfortable, offends our feelings or simply do not reflect to us our sense of importance. But, as obvious as it sounds to say, we can be nowhere other than where we actually are.
I don't mean to throw out the many benefits of friends and mentors that might live at distance to you, but too often it is easy to project a onesided editorial of our lives in ways that communicate that we are the victor or victim when in fact those around us and close enough to us can observe that as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn said;
"If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being."
We need family, we need neighbours, and we need people who can reflect the true shape of our lives back to us. The most powerful transformation, for both good and bad comes from family and family-level relationships.
2. Jesus learned through the mundane
Life in the 1st century near east was extremely different to 21st century life. I know that seems like an obvious thing to say, but just consider it for a moment.
We live in an automated and information economy but in 1st century palestine there wasn't running water or supermarkets. I don't just mean that they didn't have schools, hospital or the internet, but things we consider basic and archaic technology like good water, sanitation, food and fire were the jobs of every person in the family unit.
Most 1st century palestinians like Jesus had a huge variety of now-forgotten skills just to sustain their lives. Collecting water, building fires, killing and preparing animals, preparing grain, constructing implements and buildings, delivering babies, cleaning, and almost everything imaginable that we now take for granted were piece-meal skills that were crafted through necessity. As a jewish boy Jesus would have been involved in serving the running of his family life through mundane tasks seemingly disconnected from his own upbringing for the sake of his family and community.
These days, especially in the west, the only serving children do is for parents to keep them occupied, entertained or to grow them in character. Households no longer regularly rely on child-labour to get daily necessities done. We are not talking here about industrial revolution-style child labour, of getting children up into chimneys or in factories, but the mundane mechanics of 1st century life like preparing food and cleaning.
Some implications for discipleship – part 2
So what does this have to do with Discipleship? Well, in our automation of modern life, we have much to be thankful for. I am grateful that I did not have to risk my life or miss out on an education to sustain my family during my childhood. It is easy to over-romanticise historical times without recognising that there existed a harshness that we are delivered from in modern times and I don't want to do that here. But all of our automating of actvities for sustenance gives us a hierarchy of activity;
We have activities we want to do, and activities we have to do and we far prefer the former. The problem with getting to do all the things we want to do scarcely needs describing, but a consistent diet of comfort ends up leaving us numb. Numb to the cost of our comfort, to the pain of others, and ourselves. The seeming mundane can teach us the disciplines, the trustworthyness and stick-ability that is required to truly thrive as people made in the image of God.
It is in the midst of the mundane that God works out our salvtion, where our character grows slowly like an oak tree rather than a fibre-optic 3 second download. Yes, God meets us in the moments but faith is expectation, over time; faithfullness. We need both the seemingly special and the seemingly mundane to grow us up in God.
- Much of the historical basis for my projections on the childhood of Jesus came from this teaching from NT scholar Scot McKnights short treatment on what 1st century jewish education might have looked like. You can listen to that here ↩
- these were created to further a divisive theological interpretation in the early church rather than to give faithful account. ↩


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Recorded presentations are now available to all attendees of Plastics in Aerospace: The Virtual Edition. But if you missed the event, you can access recorded presentations by registering now to gain access! Or if you have multiple employees from your company wanting to view the recorded presentations, you can purchase a 10-Pack for team access!
Empowered Processing: The Virtual Edition, presented by the SPE Injection Molding Division offers attendees the opportunity to learn and apply best practices for the injection molding process from industry leaders and innovators. The online event, taking place June 9, includes a powerful speaker line-up, presenting on topics relevant for today's plastic processing environment.
To honor longtime plastics journalist Bill Bregar, SPE and Crain Communications recently announced the launch of the Bill Bregar Memorial Scholarship Fund, which will support aspiring journalists and business communicators in the plastics and manufacturing industries. Bregar, who passed away on April 5, 2020, at the age of 58 of an apparent heart attack, spent 31 years reporting on the plastics industry. He joined Crain Communications' Plastics News as a staff reporter shortly before the publication's launch in 1989.
SPE recently announced the launch of SPE Polymers, a peer-reviewed, fully open access journal dedicated to all aspects of polymer science, polymer engineering, and polymer technology. Open access provides the opportunity to quickly make article acceptance decisions leading to prompt online publication. SPE Polymers articles are immediately open upon publication which also allows for faster broadcasting of research data to a much broader audience.


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QUESTION FROM A FAN; Crew Position; Lifelines
>I am be wrong however I feel I see a lot of infringements regarding rule 49.2.
>The main infringement occurs when approaching finish line and crew stand on gunnel and act as "human Pole". This requires them to lean well outside lifelines for a long period of time.
>I believe this is a lack of crew education and a deliberate rule infringement.
>Am I correct?
>If I am correct whose job is it to protest? Is this cause for a discretionary penalty?
>Band One
>4. Did anyone who was not part of the boat's crew or support team contribute to the breach? YES
>Band 2.
>A positive answer to these questions would lead to increasing the penalty.
>1. Was the breach repeated? YES
>Thank you. (M.S)
Answer #1:
Any boats can protest a boat under RRS 60.1, the race committees can protest a boat under RRS 60.2, and the protest committees can protest a boat under RRS 60.3.
If anybody files a protest, the conclusion and decision of the protest hearing must be as follows;
Protest conclusion:
1. A competitor aboard boat X positioned his torso outside the lifelines is contrary to RRS 49.2 .
2. Boat X broke RRS 49.2.
X is DSQ from race #1.
See attached Case 36 & Case 83 対訳 (pdf): 「case36_engjpn.pdf」をダウンロード 「case83_engjpn.pdf」をダウンロード
Answer #2:
This protest is not a subject of DP (Discretional Penalty). Because RRS 49 is not specified as DP in the SIs. Then the decision has to be disqualified under RRS 64.1.
Answer #3:
Such an action by a spinnaker trimmer is often seen here and there. I suppose that most sailors don't know RRS 49 for the reason of a lack of education.
Answer #4:
Here are some photographs which were taken recently at the neighboring regattas. Excuse me to carry these photos on this blog. I have no other purpose to quote them.
Please judge which boat (crew) breaks RRS 49.2 or not?
| 固定リンク
「Learn the RRS」カテゴリの記事
- Social Distance Race - 意図的な出場を提供する計画(2020.06.01)
- <後編その3>Membership of National Authority - Yachting New Zealand(2020.05.18)
- Social Distance Race(2020.05.19)
- <後編その2>Membership of National Authority - Sail Canada(2020.05.17)


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AI-driven advertising platform Kobe connects brands with relevant influencers
ST Bureau
Kobe AI-driven advertising platform that pairs advertisers with relevant everyday influencers, leveraging on their ability to broadcast messages to millions of users so that businesses can get represented in front of their target audience in a credible manner.
Kobe's AI function is able to figure out the interest of an individual, based on what he posts and comments online made seen to the public. This includes one's interest in health and fitness, food, beauty products, latest clothing fashion and many more.
In an exclusive interview with Startup Terminal, Evangeline Leong, Founder & Director of Kobe shares more insights about the venture and future goals.
|Evangeline Leong,
Founder & Director of Kobe
ST: Tell us more about Kobe.
Seeing the lack of marketplace for social media users to generate more traction out of their social media content, Kobe serves this function as an AI-driven advertising marketplace and self-serve platform (agnostic to social media platforms) that ride on deep analytics and smart aggregation, pairing advertisers with everyday influencers. As what it stands for, 口碑 (Kobe) spreads advertising messages through people instead of ads, by giving advertisers targeted and scalable word-of-mouth through social media on an outcome-driven manner to deliver real customer impact and credibility for your brand.
ST: How do you leverage Artificial Intelligence to create an advertising platform with an outcome-oriented approach?
Our AI function is able to figure out the interest of an individual, based on what he posts and comments online made seen to the public. This includes one's interest in health and fitness, food, beauty products, latest clothing fashion and many more.
This programmatic and objective pairing process allows influencers to be fairly represented and accurately paired with advertisers.
We have a pending patent pricing algorithm that ensures that the outreach and engagements we promise to our clients are met if not over exceeded, backed up by quantifiable figures that is outcome-oriented.
ST: What business opportunities do you see particularly in your sector- Influencer Marketing?
Being in the digital marketing industry focusing on SMEs for almost 10 years (in the perspective of the founders), we've seen how slow small businesses' adoption of digital solutions had been due to unfamiliarity of digital marketing solution.
Our self-serve, easy-to-use platform cracks the slow moving long-tail market. That's also why we called ourselves Kobe. Kobe means 口碑 in Chinese – which is an auspicious word that stands for good reputation, word of mouth.
We managed to break down the barriers of mystique about digital marketing for 'uncles and aunties' in the local SME market as this colloquial word would be familiar to them. Can you imagine getting a duck-rice stall embark on digital marketing solutions?
We did exactly that - https://www.instagram.com/p/BJ6vu4bDGfB/
Apart from the long-tail SME scene, there is a good amount of education opportunities in social media and content creation. Businesses have been demanding for learning opportunities in digital marketing – especially in the areas of social media and content marketing. Influencer marketing is uniquely positioned to tap on these opportunities with its ability to learn from outstanding individual influencers on their content creation skills, and their constantly up-to-date social media trends and techniques.
ST: How brands can reach their respective target audience while using Kobe in a cost efficient manner?
As aided by our AI, our relevant everyday influencers are the very authentic voice to what their real passion is, as they speak about brands that relate to them. In that way, it would be a natural pairing and brands will benefit from reliable and trustworthy everyday influencers who interact closely with their knitted community of followers.
Unlike brand-driven advertisements or content, influencer marketing – through the voices of 3rd party opinions, brands can elevate their credibility, share alternative perspectives and build trusted awareness through social media users sharing on Instagram or Facebook platforms.
Moreover, brands are able to decide for themselves how much outreach and engagement they deem desirable, according to the priority of their campaign. The pricing is supported deliverables in reach and engagement; that is trackable, allowing every dollar spent on the campaign to be worthwhile.
ST: Can you explain your business model? How do you generate revenue streams?
We take a cut from what the advertisers spend with us that delivers them guaranteed KPIs in reach and engagement, and the remaining goes to influencers – all via our pending patent pricing algorithm. There is no management fees on top of influencer marketing fees.
ST: As an entrepreneur, what challenges do you face in your day to day professional life, if any?
Outreach and credibility. A startup always faces the challenges of getting people to trust, and buy! We have had to convince people - "Hey we're real, yes here's our ACRA profile, and we actually have an office!" coupled with the (digital marketing) industry we're in, there's a lot of education before the actual sale so the sales cycle is longer.
Being with CommunicAsia – a long trusted brand – elevates our credibility as well. That's why we're here.
ST: What are your future plans?
This year is really about foundation strengthening – to get ourselves into a right linear momentum in our revenue growth and building a strong team culture. Next, it'll be an expansion into neighbouring markets in Asia. At Kobe, we believe in the power of small businesses and are focused on helping them digitally transform their marketing channels. Our vision is to be the enabler of cross-border programmatic influencer marketing across Asia.
Send your feedback to email@example.com


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Image courtesy of AP
Notre Dame received some bad news yesterday when it was revealed starting tight end and All-American candidate Kyle Rudolph has a torn hamstring that will require surgery. Immediately.
Losing Rudolph hurts. He's the best tight end in the country and is one of QB Dayne Crist's favorite targets. You can't just replace a 6'7 target who rips off 95 yard TD catches like Rudolph. But the Fighting Irish will have to have players step up.
One of the candidates to replace Rudolph are Tyler Eifert who is a sophomore and has been slowed down by a shoulder sprain this season. Eifert is 6'6 and has good hands but doesn't have the blocking skills of Rudolph. Senior Mike Ragone was expected to be the next budding superstar tight end when he was recruited by Charlie Weis to follow in the footsteps of Anthony Fasano and John Carlson. Knee injuries, an off-field incident and Rudolph has hampered his ability to see the field much in his career at ND. Now is his chance to step up. Also waiting in the wings is sophomore Jake Golic.
My prediction is Ragone steps up and takes advantage of this huge opportunity. Ragone has the speed and the skill to be an excellent choice to replace Rudy at the tight end position. He just needs more reps. He should get them and forget about the drop pass he had last week against Pitt. He knows now that if he messes up he will still be given a chance to see the field which I think will do wonders on his confidence.
Losing Rudy for the season hurts the Irish today but it might help them next season. Rudolph is the nation's premier tight end prospect and was expected to weigh an early entree decision into the NFL draft after his junior season. Now with the expected recovery time of 4-6 months from the hamstring surgery it appears it would be in his best interest to come back for his senior season and rehab while getting his degree.


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[tab]Specifications[/tab]Base Metal: Sterling SilverPlating: Polished 14k Yellow Gold


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Colombo, September 29 (newsin.asia): "A little bit of compassion, patience and tolerance goes a long way in making an individual with autism live happily and productively in any family or community," says Saima Wazed Hossain, a licensed clinical and school psychologist in the US and WHO's Goodwill Ambassador for Autism for South East Asia.
Daughter of the Bangladesh Prime Minister Shiekh Hasina Wazed Saima Wazed says that the core feature in autism is the victims' difficulty in engaging with others around them.
Saima, who is founder-Chairperson of the NGO Shuchona was in the Sri Lankan capital recently where she interacted with the media on various issues.
Writing in BDNews24.com Saima Wazed says that a distinguishing feature of autistic children is that they lack in social interaction and social communication.
"They display repetitive or restricted patterns of behavior and interests."
The inability to interact with people around can be spotted in early childhood, and can be treated successfully before the autistic child reaches adulthood.
"Put very simply, we can start watching out for whether they are more focused on objects or the people around them from even before the age of two," she says.
And there are well researched assessment tools that can help recognize autism in children as young as 12-months-old. However, a knowledgeable and attentive caregiver can recognize from about nine months of age for that is the age when the child begins to engage more with their social surroundings.
"How well the child responds to its social surroundings compared to a typically developing child ,is a key indicator," she says.
However there are many autism cases where the child develops typically till age 2-3 years and then begins to lose the skills that they had acquired.
"The loss of any previously acquired developmental skills is a major indicator for an autism spectrum disorder," Saima warns.
But when given the right interventions and schooling where autistic children are taught to not only read and write but also how to take care of themselves and their daily needs, use money, move around in society and communicate their needs, they do much better than those who aren't, Saima says to the relief of parents of autistic children.
"A little bit of compassion, patience and tolerance goes a long way to making an individual with autism live happily and productively in any family or community. "
"We just have to remember they don't learn the same way or at the same rate as most people around them. And we all – the individual's family, the psychologists, therapists, teachers and others who come into contact with them on a regular basis – have an important role to play in helping them acquire those life skills," Saima stresses.
She points out that individuals with autism look and behave like everyone else most of the time, until the moment they don't! And that causes a problem.
"Autistic children also never get the compassion that someone with a more physically obvious disability might get, " she observes.
The other issue is the misplaced focus of the society.
"We spend so much time focusing on what they cannot do that we forget that they may need to start learning skills a bit earlier and need a bit more practice than their typical age peers," she points out.
"The entire world could benefit by making it possible for persons with ASD and other Neuro Developmental Disorders (NDD) to become productive members of society," she adds.
According to Saima, the causes of autism are not sufficiently understood yet, as it is a combination of genetic and environmental factors.
The genetic factors are mainly irregularities in the genes, while environmental factors include exposure to toxins as far back as two generations before the child's birth. The change in brain development that results in autism occurs long before the child is born.
"Toxic exposures during pregnancy, and complications associated with delivery, such as lack of oxygen supply to the child's brain, can disrupt brain processes before birth and shortly afterwards. Mutations in the genes associated with autism can also affect how the brain develops and functions, starting well before birth. A child is born with it. However, it cannot be reliably diagnosed before a child starts talking, Saima says."
Autism is a widespread global problem. WHO accepts that the ASD rate in the world is 1 in 100 individuals. Some countries have higher rates because of more rigorous and regular measurement systems of child development and functioning.
"Presently, about 0.17 percent persons are diagnosed with ASD in Bangladesh, which is 17 out of every 10,000 people," she notes.
Because the brain is extremely complex, and still developing intensely the first 3 years, evidence-based interventions are extremely important, and these should be resorted to as early as possible.
Individuals with autism have a brain that is physically and functionally different from most people. Therefore, how they experience the world around them, how they learn, behave and engage with everything in this world is also fundamentally different.
According to Saima, it is a medical disorder and can be diagnosed but using the same language that we use for diseases like cancer, heart disease or even dementia is really incorrect and unfair.
Upbringing cannot be blamed for autism, Saima says.
"Autism is so complex that we tend to latch onto the first and easiest reason we can find. Many of the thoughts such as nuclear families, mother's education level, child rearing practices causing the lack of attachment, and other correlations in the study have already been scientifically proven as false in many countries, she says.
"In fact, a most recent, very rigorously done study in India does not even indicate a difference in a higher urban prevalence rate," she points out.
The chances of poor nutrition of pregnant women, exposure to second hand smoking and gas fumes, lead paint, asbestos and other toxins are more likely to increase the chances of autism, as we know that they already cause low birth-weights, smaller head circumference, premature birth, and negatively impact neonatal development.
"Autism is not caused by parents. It can't be, because the brain begins to develop long before the baby is born. We know that the atypical neurological development starts long before the child starts living in a family unit," Saima says emphatically.
(The featured image at the top shows Saima Wazed Hossain of Bangladesh, a practicing clinical and social psychologist who is also the WHO Goodwill Ambassador for Autism for South East Asia)


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14 Small Armies That Somehow Crushed Far More Powerful Enemies
Everyone loves an underdog story. When those stories involve tough little armies battling the odds against enormous aggressing forces, they make for some of the most exciting, moving stories of war heroism. Military underdog stories of small armies that defeated massive opposition come from all over the world, from Finland to Africa, Asia, and the Americas, and span centuries of warfare. When forced to fight, small, poor, and otherwise powerless nations and ethnicities need to get creative to outsmart opponents. In some instances, small countries fighting big aggressors won simply by virtue of displaying tremendous courage under fire.
War is never pretty, but it occasionally serves and important purpose, such as defending a culture and way of life from massive invading forces bent on wiping out natives and their lifestyle. The startling military upsets on this list show the tremendous bravery and fortitude of those who took a stand against imperial invasion.
On November 30, 1939, the Soviet Union's Red Army set its sights on Finland, left the Petrograd District (now St. Petersburg), and headed north over the Russian-Finnish border with the goal of pushing that border into Finland, thereby expanding the Soviet Union. The USSR believed the sheer size of its one-million strong mechanized battalion would brush 400,000 Finns aside, and the conflict would be over within weeks. The Finns gave them hell.
When the Red Army attacked the eastern Finnish border, it encountered something unexpected: forest so dense it slowed Soviet progress. At the time, very few roads existed in rural Finland. Those that did exist were logging roads, which forced Soviet vehicles to travel single file.
The Finns harnessed their environmental advantage, trapping the Russians in pockets. This technique, dubbed Motti Tactics, named after a Finnish term for a measurement of wood, was a huge success during the month-long battle of Suomussalmi. For example, when Finns encountered a column of Russian tanks in single file, they destroyed the first and last tanks in the row, trapping those in the middle. With nowhere to go, these tanks and the troops were picked by camouflaged Finnish ski troops.
Extreme winter temperatures and a lack of an effective officer corps, which had been wiped out in Stalin's purges, aided the Finnish cause. The Finns also did a bang-up job fighting the Soviets in the air - one Finnish pilot made headlines around the world for shooting down six soviet bombers in four minutes.
Suomussalmi, and the entire Winter War, for that matter, was the greatest and most surprising defeat for the Red Army in World War Two. It proved a million-man modern army with tanks and an air force could be defeated by an army less than half the size.
Greece and Italy go way back, and their relationship is a bit fraught. Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini dreamed of rebuilding the Roman Empire, and thus began invading other countries. In October 1940, the Italian army crossed the Greek border at several locations, intent on capturing a number of cities. Though the Italian army was small at the time, its size swelled to more than 500,000 troops, and was reinforced by armored units and the Italian Royal Air Force (Regia Aeronautica), while the Greek army numbered less than 200,000.
After about five months, the Italian army withdrew, having suffered several decisive defeats. Greek sovereignty was preserved. Several factors decided the outcome of this short chapter in World War II, including Italy's grave mistake of not informing one of Mussolini's top generals of the invasion of Greece until it had already begun. On top of that, attacking the opponent's position was incredibly difficult thanks to mountainous terrain and the rainy season, which created a deluge of mud. Greek familiarity with the terrain and weather, as well as home support, helped greatly.
Mussolini was known for being paranoid, as well as his tendency to change his mind quickly and often. In addition to scheming behind his generals's backs, the dictator rushed the Italian army into war without adequate preparation. Though outnumbered and at a technological disadvantage, Greece proved perfectly capable of dashing Il Duce's plans to resurrect an empire in the Mediterranean and Aegean.
In annals of failed crusades, the Third Anti-Hussite Crusade takes the cake as the most embarrassing defeat for a major crusading force invading a small region. It was a small conflict in a series of engagements known as the Hussite Wars. The crusade was launched against Hussites, followers of John Hus in Bohemia (Czech Republic), by Pope 'Oddo' Martin V, who declared his opponents heretics.
In July 1420, a crusading force of 3,000 to 4,000 knights reached the walls of Prague and mounted an attack against a key point, Vitkov Hill. About 60 local soldiers, aided perhaps by some peasants, defended the position with an unexpected, very violent and aggressive push, which drove the surprised knights down a steep cliff, causing them to panic and flee, A relief force arrived thereafter and helped secure the area.
The most remarkable part of the Hussite victory was a peasant rebel army wresting independence from a professional crusader army and the Church in Rome. This rebellion gave birth to the Moravian Church, which has existed since 1457, and predates the Protestant Reformation.
The outbreak of World War I saw the invasion of several small nations by larger, more powerful foreign armies. Tsar Nicholas's imperial army, for instance, invaded the East Prussian territory of the German Empire (now Poland). In August 1914, the German army, comprised of around 150,000 troops, attacked the invading Russian army, which was nearly twice its size.
After an initial encounter, the Russians advanced and the Germans retreated over the Vistula River to reorganize. While regrouping, the Germans eavesdropped, by radio, on Russian conversations about their next move. Realizing the Russians had stretched their forces too thin to coordinate maneuvers and stay supplied, the Germans attacked on multiple fronts, driving the enemy away.
The Russian retreat became a brutal route. The Germans lost around 20,000 soldiers, but captured close to 100,000 Russians and killed 30,000. Additionally, the smaller German force captured 500 artillery cannons and successfully destroyed an entire army. It's believed the amount of materiel and prisoners seized by the Germans was enough to fill sixty trains.
The decisive German victory demonstrated how a small army could adapt and outsmart a much larger invading force with a flexible order of battle. The German victory was so thorough distraught Russian general, Alexander Samsonov, walked into the forest and shot himself.


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A word from Bryn: 'We know that the language barrier means the full meaning and nuance will always be lost in translation, so for us this track is also about the process of production and the discussion between 3 friends that have come from very different backgrounds - to come together to help one other navigate the situation they find themselves in whilst developing an understanding of their past in a wider context and knowing that our problems are systematic of something larger and often out of our control. I feel the first lyric in this track articulates this and the uncaring nature of the world, 'I am not important/man nistam mohem.'
Datastream 011 was Filmed and directed by Tardast, Tom Doubtfire and Bryn Lyricist: Tardast Producer: BЯYNMastering: Leo