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Professor Tom Holbrook's design research has developed an approach to strategic thinking that explores the dynamic between architecture and the scale of infrastructure and landscape. The relationship between research and practice has encouraged design innovation and a fresh attitude towards conservation, environmental sustainability and complex regeneration projects.
Tom came to architecture tangentially from a background in film-making and theatre. He co-founded 5th Studio in 1997 as a spatial design agency, working across the fields of architecture, urban design, infrastructure and landscape.
Tom completed a PhD by practice at RMIT in 2014. His thesis - Expanding Disciplinarity in Architectural Practice: Designing From the Room to the City - was published by Routledge in 2016, and proposes a generalist approach to architectural practice.
In combination with practice, Tom is Professor of Architecture and Industry Fellow at RMIT University, based in Melbourne & Barcelona. He is Visiting Professor at the Politecnico Milano, Italy. Tom directs Urban Studies at the London School of Architecture. He taught for ten years at the University of Cambridge Department of Architecture and has been an external examiner at London Metropolitan University and the MARCH school, Moscow. Tom also contributes to teaching at the London School of Economics Cities Programme and at Central St Martins. Tom regularly contributes critical writing and opinion to a variety of media; he is a member of the Design Panel for High Speed Two, the Quality Panel for the Olympic Legacy Development Corporation and is a design advisor to the Greater London Authority.
Recent work at 5th Studio includes leading on the Lea River Park Design Framework (winner of the International Urban Landscape Award) and the Creative Exchange building in St Neots (RIBA Award, and finalist for the Prime Minister's Better Public Building Award). Tom is currently directing work on a number of Olympic Fringe projects in East London – from masterplanning through to building scale – and the design of spaces for education and innovation in Cambridge.
Before founding 5th Studio Oliver had worked with James Stirling and then Sir Richard MacCormac on a number of international and national gallery, museum and higher education projects.
For a period of over 12 years Oliver combined practice with studio teaching at the University of Cambridge School of Architecture – focussing on attitudes to materiality and construction. Oliver has extended this research through the practice's work in developing a critical approach to sustainable construction and in particular to adaptation of existing fabric.
Recent project work at 5th Studio includes the direction of the award-winning projects at St Catharine's College Russell Street and the Wolfson Flats, Churchill College in Cambridge, which establish an innovative approach to low-carbon building. Current projects in Oxford, London and Cambridge are developing this approach over a wide range of new build and refurbishment projects – at scales from minor works to campus masterplanning and including the highly-sustainable refurbishment of a Grade I listed building.
Oliver has also directed the recently completed community and sports projects in London and Cambridge, extending the practice's reputation for skilful community engagement and successful management of local authority procurement.
Oliver is a founder trustee of Shape East – the architecture centre for the East of England – and, since 2009, a key member of the Cambridgeshire Quality Panel, advising on the sustainable growth within the city-region.
John studied at the University of Cambridge and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. After experience working for Haworth Tompkins Architects, John joined 5th Studio in 2004 and became a registered Architect in 2006.
As an Associate of the practice John has had a key role in a broad range of projects, including the Wolfson Building refurbishment and the 'hanging seminar room' additions for Trinity College, the comprehensive re-modelling of a 40 unit graduate-student housing block for Churchill College, Cambridge, and low carbon housing in Bow, London.
John has played a major role in producing strategic planning and brief development of studies for clients including Cambridgeshire Horizons (Cambridge urban extensions and public realm strategy) and Design for London (East London Green Grid – Lea Valley). John brings an impeccable sense of detail and consideration to projects at all scales, and is a key member of the London studio.
John has been a supervisor in construction studies for Clare College, Fitzwilliam College and King's College Cambridge. His other teaching experience includes a position as an undergraduate design studio tutor 2003-04 at MIT and a guest critic at Cambridge University Department of Architecture.
Liz King is an experienced, qualified Architect and a key member of the 5th Studio team. Her experience spans arts, residential, commercial and educational building sectors, both in terms of planning and delivery stages. Along with overseeing projects on site, she also enjoys the early stages of projects, working closely with clients to guide them through the complexities of research, brief formulation and project definition.
Liz was the Project Architect for the St. Catharine's College Russell Street development, completed on-time and on-budget in 2009. This project won the RIBA East award for best residential project in 2010. Since then Liz has worked on a variety of building and infrastructure projects within the Lea River Park landscape masterplan, and the Future Business Centre: a new headquarters building for the Cambridge-based national charity Allia.
Liz previously worked at Allies and Morrison, where among other projects she was a member of the team for the Stirling prize nominated Royal Festival Hall redevelopment project, and Ungless and Latimer Architects in Edinburgh, where she worked on buildings in the conservation areas of Edinburgh's Old and New Towns.
Liz trained at the University of Cambridge and London South Bank University. She maintains a close link with the Architecture Faculty in Cambridge, as is currently a Director of Studies in Architecture for both Trinity Hall and Girton colleges.
Kieran is an Associate at 5th Studio, a registered Architect and an experienced urban & landscape designer. Kieran works between the Cambridge and London studios and has been involved with the practice since 2001. Since joining the practice full-time in 2004 he has worked on projects at a range of scales and sectors and for diverse client groups.
Recent projects include large-scale landscape proposition and masterplanning work in the Lea Valley, the detailed design of innovative new public and residential buildings, and the development of highly crafted interventions in existing, often historic environments. Across all of these fields Kieran consistently brings skills of creative insight and the elegant resolution of complex, often contradictory, conditions.
Kieran's approach includes an impressive strategic outlook, excellent visual and verbal communication skills and a very high level of care in relation to delivery and detail design. He is particularly experienced at intelligently combining high-level strategic thinking with a concern for, and enjoyment of, the physical, experiential and practical qualities of buildings and places.
Kieran has taught at the University of Cambridge and at Nottingham University and serves on the Shape East Design Review Panel (LINK) and the Cambridge Design and Conservation Panel (LINK).
February has wide-ranging experience working as a lead consultant, project architect, project manager and contract administrator on multi-award winning projects varying in contract value from £40K to £20 million. This includes experience on listed buildings, new buildings, landscaping and public realm design.
She combines extensive knowledge and expertise in the field of conservation with innovative and sustainable approaches to the reworking of historic and modernist buildings. February has also taken on major award-winning new build projects and is proficient at dealing with complex spatial and material designs on constrained and open sites. Projects she has led at 5th Studio include New Court, Trinity College, Wolfson Flats, Churchill College and Creative Exchange, St Neots.
February's skills include leading large design teams and coordinating complex design packages - from inception to completion - working closely with cost consultants to ensure the best quality and value. She excels at working collaboratively through the design and construction stages to deliver highly successful projects.
February has experience with post occupancy evaluation, from analysing technical data and end user survey information to advising on adaptations to improve the comfort and productivity of end users, providing feedback for future projects.
Beth is an experienced qualified Architect with varied practical knowledge spanning the fields of urban design and architecture.
Since joining the practice in 2007 she has worked on a variety of building and infrastructure projects, including include large-scale landscape proposition and masterplanning work such as; a Design Framework for the Lea River Park, and developing streetscape proposals as part of the Mayor of London's Road Task Force study.
Beth has experience in both planning and delivery stages, and was the project Architect for the renovation and environmental upgrade of 200 student rooms at Trinity College which involved the development of highly crafted interventions in a complex, existing historic environment.
Beth leads the practice's Quality System Management.
Mike has top-class presentation and 3D drawing skills, and brings a detailed and instinctive design sensibility to all the projects he is involved with.
He has worked on a range of public realm projects during his time at 5th Studio, chiefly the Lea River Park; from the development of a planning framework, through consultation with clients and stakeholders, to detailed design of the Leaway, including the proposed visitor centres and public realm at East India Dock Basin. Other projects include the masterplanning of the proposals around the Olympic fringe, and the development of the material charecteristics of the first phase of the Leaway at Three Mills Green. More recently, Mike has taken a pivotal role in 5th Studio's work on a new transport interchange in Vauxhall.
His skills have been brought to use on many of the practices self-initiated propositions, including proposals for a new garden city in Calvert, North Sea Dialogues, and Stour City proposal - which was exhibited at the Royal Academy as part of its 'Four Visions for the Future of Housing' exhibition.
Mike studied at the University of Cambridge where he was awarded the Anderson and Webb Scholarship for studio work. He has since studied at the Royal Danish Academy of Arts in Copenhagen, and completed his Diploma thesis at London Metropolitan University. He is currently a Supervisor in Architecture at the University of Cambridge, and is a visiting critic at a number of architecture schools including Central St Martins and The University of Nottingham.
Iona joined 5th Studio in 2016 and brings her experience of working on a variety of public building projects in the Arts and Education sectors.
Iona lives and works in Oxford where she enjoys the rich cultural and architectural heritage of the historic city and engages in the current debate on housing shortage and the need for a bigger plan for the city. Since joining 5th Studio Iona has worked with an Oxford college on the planned restoration of significant historic fabric for use as a major college facility and is currently working on improvements to the college's interface with the public realm.
Before joining 5th Studio Iona worked as an Associate with Allies and Morrison on the award winning new buildings for Fitzwilliam College in Cambridge and on the refurbishment of the grade 1 listed Royal Festival Hall in which Iona had particular responsibility for the public foyer areas and the development of the riverside retail area. Iona worked with Arup Associates and Allies and Morrison on the new underground stations at Kings Cross which were critical to the 2012 Olympic delivery of 'operation javelin' transport link to the Stratford site. Iona has also worked for private residential clients and was runner up in the Grand Designs Awards 2008. Her commitment to sustainable design has led to the successful completion of a zero energy 'off grid' house in rural Oxfordshire.
Iona studied at the Universities of Cambridge and Harvard. She has taught studio design at Cambridge, Westminster and Sheffield universities and lectured in Practice Management at Oxford Brookes. As a governor of an inner city Local Authority school in Oxford Iona has successfully worked with a multi ethnic community to commission building work in the public sector.
Emily joined 5th Studio in 2016. She has since been on the design team for LB Lewisham's New Cross Gate Area Framework and Station Opportunity Study, planning growth around the extension of the Bakerloo Line. She has worked on the technical design of Ive Farm sports pavilion for London Borough of Waltham Forest, and has collaborated with other practices on large housing schemes for London Boroughs.
Emily previously worked at Haworth Tompkins, and as a researcher for the Cambridge University Department of Architecture. Here she gained her MPhil in Architecture and Urban Design, with research based on design and funding strategies for social housing in Swansea. She is a registered Architect, and completed her professional practice training at the Architectural Association. She is currently a practice mentor with the Stephen Lawrence Trust.
Raluca is an architect whose work inhabits the political and social spectrum of architecture and urban design.
Her experience at 5th Studio includes working closely with public authorities on strategic briefs, developing masterplans and dealing with the complexities of site construction. Most recently, Raluca has played an important role in overseeing the delivery of the Ive Farm Sports Ground in Leyton.
Before joining 5th Studio she was involved in a number of projects, most notably, the development of a masterplan for a heavily polluted industrial site in Beijing. Her previous work also includes projects in the commercial and education sector.
Raluca studied at Oxford Brookes University and at the Royal College of Art, where she was awarded a Distinction. She recently gained her Part 3 qualification from the Architectural Association.
Outside of the practice, Raluca co-runs Derailed Lab, a vehicle for interdisciplinary research into cities and the built environment.
Richard graduated from the University of Manchester School of Architecture in 1992. He worked in practices in Malaysia and London before joining Dixon Jones in 1996 to work on the redevelopment of the Royal Opera House.
Whilst at Dixon Jones, Richard gained a wide range of experience on projects including Saïd Business School in Oxford, Kings Place in London (a £100m arts venue and commercial office for the Guardian newspaper), and the Chelsea Barracks masterplan. He was made an Associate Director in 2005, taking on wider responsibilities for project running and management.
Richard joined 5th Studio in 2017 and brings a breadth of experience across education, residential and commercial sectors, and from interiors to large scale commercial projects. He also brings experience of all aspects of the design process, managing programme costs and delivery through a variety of contract types and procurement approaches, and through all phases of the design and construction process.
Richard enjoys working closely with clients and consultants to fully understand the functional and commercial drivers of projects, and believes that successful schemes stem from a truly collaborative approach to design and construction.
Kaiyil is currently completing a Masters in Spatial Planning and Urban Design at The Cass, where she received Distinction in her Part II diploma for projects concerning industrial activity in the Middle Lea Valley and the sensitive development of a North London council estate. She read her undergraduate degree at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and has gained experience in New York, Beijing, and London ranging from small scale urban intervention to proposals for assisted living with joint community facilities. Since joining 5th Studio in August 2016, Kaiyil is involved in the design of an outdoor Sporting Hub at Ive Farm, Leyton.
Dan is an experienced Part 2 Assistant, skilled in architectural and public realm design.
During his time at 5th Studio he has been involved in a number of projects, most notably playing a key role in the detailed development for the refurbishment of New Court at Trinity College in Cambridge. Dan's work included extensive detail testing and design development through full-scale models, comprehensive drawing packages and experience on site in the context of a Grade 1-Listed building. Dan has also worked on the design and delivery of the Leaway landscape and public realm project and Vauxhall Transport Interchange.
In tandem with excellent design skills, Dan is a highly skilled craftsman, and has created a number of exquisite models for the practice.
Anastasia is a Part 2 Architectural Assistant who has gained experience across various scales of architecture and urbanism.
Anastasia received her MPhil in Architecture and Urban Design at the University of Cambridge, where her thesis investigated the agro-sector of Almeria, Spain: a complex and challenging built environment and topography. The project proposed the reactivation of circulation spaces using ecosystem enhancement tools to create inclusive spaces for farmers, workers and nature, combined with small-scale infrastructure concentrated in clusters, as means to a more ethical agro-system. Her work received the Alexander Pike Award for best building technology dissertation. Part of her research degree involved an exchange programme at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
During her studies, Anastasia was involved in several internships and volunteering positions in the UK, Israel, Spain and Hong Kong, mostly related to the global food production system and its repercussions. She gained her Part 1 experience in London, working predominantly on high-end residential projects.
At 5th Studio, Anastasia is currently working on the Oxford-Milton Keynes-Cambridge Corridor: Future Planning Options Project.
Tom is an experienced Part 1 Architectural Assistant with a background in residential renovation and alteration. He graduated from Manchester School of Architecture in 2014 with a First for his thesis project 'Writer's block'. A skilled draughtsman, Tom's thoughtful approach produces clear and precise work, which he delivers with rigorous professionalism.
During his time at 5th Studio Tom has worked on the redevelopment of thirteen residential towers at Thamesmead. His previous experience includes volunteer work on the development of social housing projects in Oxford, the construction of a community library in Cape Town, South Africa, and work on the redevelopment of the Corn Exchange in Manchester.
Helena recently completed her BA Architecture at Central Saint Martins, for which she was awarded a First Class Honours. Her final major project 'Northdown Network' challenges what Margate's neighbourhood could become in a currently fragmented society, testing social regeneration through education and exchange. Through a mixed programme of residency and civic activities, the Hub provides the potential for interaction to occur, allowing a diverse community to unite and foster a new sense of belonging, identity, and trust. Helena was nominated for the Lowe NOVA Award 2016 and won the RIBA Drawing Prize. Northdown Network will be presented in the 'Brain Waves' exhibition at the Lethaby Gallery for London Design Festival.
Her previous experience has focused on collaborative design and build pavillions, using CNC technologies.
At 5th Studio, she has worked on a wide range of public realm projects, including Regent's Place and Chingford Community Hub, and has contributed to the regeneration and conservation of Leyton Sports Ground.
Ben studied 'Architecture & Planning' at UWE, and at ENSA Paris La Villette, where he completed his dissertation on "the nature of socio-political constructs within 'public' space", and was nominated for the president medal. His fourth year final project titled 'Bath Power Station', speculated on the ontology of public space against the surface and material of an infrastructural masterplan.
Ben has developed experience as a Part 1 Assistant across education, residential, offices, retail and leisure sectors, working at Adam Khan Architects and Sheppard Robson. Over the past year, he has provided photography assistance to Helene Binet, travelling to photograph buildings by architects such as Herzog & De Meuron, Caruso St John and Rudolf Schwarz.
Julie is 5th Studio's Practice Manager, overseeing the practice's finances, invoicing, day-to-day management of the Cambridge studio, and acting as PA to the Directors.
Julie has a background in finance and customer service, and a meticulous attention to detail, which she applies to all her work at 5th Studio. Julie is also the leader in charge of her village Brownie unit, and helps members of Girlguiding with local, national and international adventures. She brings her imaginative approach to maintaining staff welfare at 5th Studio.
Both administrators liaise closely with each other to provide administrative support to architectural staff across both studios.


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Michelle - posted on 08/21/2013 ( 3 moms have responded )
What are other moms' opinions about using those animal backpacks with leashes attached in crowded stores with an unruly toddler? Oh, by the way, she LOVES wearing it right now.
Michelle - posted on 08/21/2013 ( 3 moms have responded )
What are other moms' opinions about using those animal backpacks with leashes attached in crowded stores with an unruly toddler? Oh, by the way, she LOVES wearing it right now.
Ev - posted on 08/21/2013
When I grew up I was taught to hold hands or to stay right beside my parent. I passed this on to my own kids who grew up with those leashes came out first time but did not have the back pack to go with it. I thought it looked demeaning being on the child and did not teach the kid or kids what they needed to know about staying with the adult. I taught mine much the same way Sarah did and it worked with both. When they were little and not walking a lot or we went places that we did a lot of walking around, they were in the stroller. They both knew that when we got to the mall or a special place and the stroller got out they had to get into it and stay there. When they got too big to go in the cart seat or the big basket part, I taught them both to hold on the end of the cart near me. As they both got older, I allowed them to move up the cart by degrees so they had their "independence" but I had control. When they got older, they were walking beside me and not running off in the store, mall or other large places. The KEY is I taught them. Its not too much trouble to teach a single child, twins or two close in age how to hold a hand and stay with mom or dad. What I hate to see is all those back pack leashes on kids and the parents are not really still paying attention to the kid. I still think its quite demeaning and does not teach the kid how to stay with parents. I think a lot of people take advantage of it to do their parenting for them. Now, I can understand if the child has some issues and needs it. But most kids do have the ability to learn how to behave and listen. Its up to the parents to do it. Just seems like they do not want to do their job as a parent. THat is just my opinion.
Crystal - posted on 08/21/2013
I use them but only when we go to the zoo or where we are gunna be out and about which results in them being in the car so they want to walk in the store. I love using mine bc I know that they are safe but I use it more as a precaution then something to control them with. .i hold their hand and explain that they need to hold my hand the whole time.I have twin 19 month olds and they both like wearing it ... they put them on and where them around the house. I get weird looks but I ignore those stares
Sarah - posted on 08/21/2013
I think every mom has to make their own decision on them. If they are unable to control their toddler and that is the safest way they have to keep them close then that keeps the child safe. For me personally I work on teaching my kids the rules which they need to follow when we go out. I have very strict boundaries and am very firm on those boundaries. I also do day care and carry that over to my day care kids when we are out and about. Often times I either have a grocery cart or a stroller with me. The rule is is if you are walking you must hold onto the stroller or the cart....otherwise you are put into the stroller or cart or if too big or I have too many little ones that can't walk and need to be in the stroller we don't move until their hand is back on the stroller. We also do this in a less crowded place like walking around the block, so when we are in a crowded place they are use to the rules and know what is expected. If I am out with out a stroller or cart then they must hold my hand and their neighbors hand. Again we develop a system and practice that where there is not lots of cars or people, so when we get into a place where there are lots the kids know what to do. I have been doing this for 15 years and have never felt like I needed a leash. I think that kids can be taught how they need to act and what the expectations are even at 2 or 3 yrs old.
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subset: commoncrawl


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London–The following links showed up in our daily search for news on the web. Readers might be interested to read these news stories.
ERJ editorial staff strongly advises readers to heed the warning below, these stories are not confirmed, and may contain mistakes.
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Rising rubber prices seen stabilising soon The Hindu Business Line (India)
Gov't bans iron and steel processing China…


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I've found some cool sites in the UK, but none here in the USA. Anyone have any suggestions?
Thanks Mead, I like Rebel Minis, and will probably order some of their zombie kits. I probably should have been more specific with my post. So here it goes, I was looking into some Sci-Fi miniature rules sets when I found Gruntz. It looks really cool, and while they have accommodations for any minis, I am really digging the Old Crow, and Ground Zero offerings. I guess my real question is, can I obtain these figures without having to place an international order? Are there any US companies that stock Old Crow and Ground Zero minis?
I suppose I can keep on looking, or just pay the extra shipping expense.
Ah, ok. Well, Noble Knight has a few GZG figures (http://www.nobleknight.com/ViewProdL..._A_GenreID_E_0), and from what I've read, the Old Crow seller doesn't bend you over for postage, also doesn't have a US distributor.
Last edited by Mead; 08-13-2011 at 11:26 PM.
Thanks again Mead. I actually decided to inquire about GZG and sent John an email. I heard back the very next day with direct answers to my specific questions. NO BS, just good customer service right there. Needless to say, I'll be ordering directly from GZG. I'm hoping Old Crow has a similar customer service department.


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Hi all, I'm new here with a few questions that I hope you won't mind me asking
I started to get painful joints and upper arm pain through the summer - by the middle of August it was really very noticeable and uncomfortable, waking me up at night or preventing me getting to sleep until the early hours. I was also getting pain in the back of my neck and had been feeling quite weak in my limbs and a bit tired. My fingers were going numb sometimes, especially at night, my hands often felt swollen but didn't look swollen.
At the end of September I saw some family members I hadn't seen for a couple of months and they all commented that I had noticeably lost weight and looked ill. 2 days later I saw a friend who had not seen me in a while who was also very concerned by my appearance, so I made a doctors appointment.
GP tested my blood for lots of different things in the first week of October and I finally got my results yesterday, apparently the Vitamin D and TSH result mean the doctor needs to see me again. I couldn't get much out of the receptionist so I have no numbers and my appointment isn't until the beginning of November (so obviously not urgent!), therefore as yet I don't have much information but I do have some questions!
I am assuming the Vit D is too low - which seems odd given these symptoms started during one of the sunniest summers in some time in the UK So my questions are:
Are the Vit D levels and TSH levels linked and sorting out one will resolve the other?
If so, does a low Vit D level cause abnormal TSH levels or does the abnormal TSH levels cause the low Vit D - or can it be either way round?
I want to be prepared when I see the GP, as at my first visit he was quite dismissive (I told him I wasn't taking anything for the pain - but to quantify, I also went through childbirth with no pain relief so I can take pretty high levels of pain!) so would really appreciate any knowledge you can pass on from your own experiences - thank you for reading


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Wewlcome to 4940 Pioneers Blvd in Lincoln, Nebraska! This beautiful four bedroom, two bathroom ranch-style home features 936 square feet of living space upstairs with 750 square feet of finished space in the basement. This beautiful, wide open home is located just east of 48th and Pioneers, within walking distance of Union College and all the shops and restaurants near College View. Available Aug 15.
Call today for your own personal showing of 4940 Pioneers Blvd in Lincoln, NE!
No smoking, no pets.
4940 Pioneers Boulevard Lincoln, Nebraska 68506
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Emotionally Intelligent Keyring
A keyring for those dedicated to increasing the amount of emotional intelligence in circulation. These types don't merely want to be smart, successful or popular, they want to be wise. They understand that navigating relationships and careers is a skill, not an intuition - and are committed to educating themselves in the art of living.
For sale GBP £7.50The School of Life
Streeton Prints - the unseen 'honeymoon' etchings Contemporary works inspired by Sir Arthur Streeton
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The Manifesto of Autonomous Governance decrees that the models of Servant Leadership, Agile Philosophy and Service Oriented Architecture - which have proven to enhance the success of Enterprise Change initiatives - must now be applied to government. Authored by Rebecca Gabrielle Cannon, Australia Day, 2017.


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Private schools aren't a new idea. They've been existing since the Victorian Era, even though in another format. There was a time when parents especially those belonging to the wealthier parts of their society were against sending their kids to public schools. But, education was significant. Thus, tutors were known as home to teach the kids. It's from here that the idea of british international school abu dhabi originated.
But now the concept of private schools has increased on a bigger scale. Now, this class incorporates advanced options like other curricula, boarding school and far more.
For People who don't understand, here is an enlistment of those benefits that inspire parents to choose private schools for their kids:
Better academic options: When it comes to these schools, we've told you that your children get an opportunity to select from the many options of syllabus. This makes it much easier for your child to select something of their liking and revel in education instead of being burdened with the regular studies.
It is a smaller class: All these schools teach in small batches so that kids get a much better environment to cultivate their skills. The teachers can concentrate on the children in a better way. The individual attention also aids in catalyzing their development.
Parental Involvement is Higher: All these schools are based on the idea of open communication. This implies that since the parent you have to spend additional time with your kid and be part of the development too.
Motivating environment for kids: As the teachers concentrate on the kids and discipline is much better highlighted, students get a motivational environment in British international school Abu Dhabi. This leads to their general development in a significant way.


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February 20th 2014, update from Daniel
Greetings from New Zealand. As I write to you I'm in Auckland. We start the first of our 5 New Zealand shows tonight in Hamilton and then it's onto Australia. We are looking forward to seeing everyone at all the venues that we will go to over the next month. It's hard to believe how quick the two years have passed since we were last here.
I'm sure you have already seen Majella's message of thanks on the website and I'm delighted she's doing so well. I just want to add my thanks to you for your support since last July. It has meant a great deal to both Majella and myself. We thank God that her treatment and surgery has been successful. Through all of this we have a lot of time to reflect and take stock of things and it makes us realise that life is short. I want to let you know at this point that I have decided to take an extended break from touring after the Gertrude Byrne Caribbean cruise finishes next February 2015. I can't really say how long the break will be, but there will be no shows until at least the middle of 2016. For me this was a very big decision but there are a number of things that Majella and I want to do and even if we live to be 90 (which I hope we do) I don't want to have to say "I wish we took the time to do such and such……" . I would like to thank you at this point also for supporting my career over the last 30 years and I hope when we get back to doing shows that I will see all of you again.
On a happier note as I look at the dates planned until next February starting tonight in Hamilton I feel we are travelling to almost everywhere that we have gone over the last 30 years so I will look forward to seeing many of you over the next year.
I want to stress that "This is not retirement, it's just a sabbatical"
Until the next time, God Bless


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|[jira] [Commented] (COUCHDB-1501) Add flag to the changes API to return only new changes
|Fri, 22 Jun 2012 13:53:42 GMT
[ https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/COUCHDB-1501?page=com.atlassian.jira.plugin.system.issuetabpanels:comment-tabpanel&focusedCommentId=13399318#comment-13399318 ] Robert Newson commented on COUCHDB-1501: ---------------------------------------- You can record the update sequence value while reading the changes feed, it's the value you then pass back to the since parameter. This feature would mean you would miss updates. You can already get the current update sequence, as I told you on the mailing lists and as you show above, with GET /dbname. What's the motivating use case here? If we do this, and I don't think we should, the option would need to be very clear that you are potentially missing changes (to ensure no one tries using it for replication). > Add flag to the changes API to return only new changes > ------------------------------------------------------ > > Key: COUCHDB-1501 > URL: https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/COUCHDB-1501 > Project: CouchDB > Issue Type: New Feature > Components: JavaScript View Server > Affects Versions: 1.2 > Reporter: Daniel Gonzalez > Priority: Minor > > As discussed in this thread: http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/couchdb-user/201206.mbox/%3CCAAOi-OHB6%3DYu%2Bt%3DWkiFAypQAfnv%3DQd-PL4tELZNL1C1-TQvtWw%40mail.gmail.com%3E > I copy paste part of the conversation. > --- > I am subscribing to the _changes API. My database is quite big, and each time I restart my client, I get all old notifications. I only need the new notifications, since the moment that I subscribe to the feed. > I have seen that there is a "since" parameter, but this is not helping me further, because I do not know what is the last document sequence number. So I would need one of the following: > - a method to get the last sequence number to use as value for "since" > - a flag to tell the _changes API to just give me the changed *from now on*. This would be the most clean solution, since it saves me a request to get the since parameter (which can be outdated anyway very fast). Is there something like this? > --- > I ended up going the GET /dbname route > I guess there is no specific flag for the _changes API to request future changes... > --- -- This message is automatically generated by JIRA. If you think it was sent incorrectly, please contact your JIRA administrators: https://issues.apache.org/jira/secure/ContactAdministrators!default.jspa For more information on JIRA, see: http://www.atlassian.com/software/jira
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Indian Muntjac Deer Skin Cells Triple Labeled for Mitochondria, Filamentous Actin, and DNA
A triple fluorophore combination of MitoTracker Red CMXRos, Alexa Fluor 488 conjugated to phalloidin, and DRAQ5 was used to label the adherent culture of Indian Muntjac cells presented in this section for mitochondria, the F-actin network, and nuclear DNA, respectively. The cells were first treated with the MitoTracker probe in growth medium for one hour, washed and fixed with paraformaldehyde (prepared in growth medium), permeabilized, and blocked with bovine serum albumen. The cells were subsequently labeled with the conjugated phalloidin and counterstained with the anthraquinone (DRAQ5) reagent.


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I'm on the Fathers' Day episode of the She-Explores podcast talking about my relationship to my father and the outdoors! This episode is a beautiful tapestry of all kinds of women with all kinds of dads and I'm so honored to be included.
Listen here! http://she-explores.com/podcast/to-dad-from-daughter/ (My bit starts at 29:00).


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Privatisation of Education in India
Poor parents, concerned with the quality of state run schools, are turning increasingly to private education in India.
It has long been assumed that responsibility for meeting the educational needs of poor people lies with the state. Yet in India low-income families are turning to private providers to educate their children. Education authorities which are starved of resources struggle to deliver education for all (EFA), and private sector involvement in serving the educational needs of poor student deserves wider discussion.
A report from CfBT looks at evidence from Hyderabad in India in order to challenge the assumption that private schools serve only wealthy families and are thus irrelevant to poverty reduction debates.
The World Bank estimates that 27 percent of all Indian children enrolled in schools are being privately educated. Figures from education authorities in the state of Andhra Pradesh show that 61 percent of pupils in schools in the capital Hyderabad attend schools in the private sector.
Competition between private schools is intense, yet most make a profit. On average, each school charges the equivalent of about £2 per month and has a student to teacher ratio of 29:1. Most pupils' fathers are daily-paid labourers or market traders earning considerably less than the minimum wage. Thirty percent of their mothers are illiterate.
Researchers talked with parents, pupils and teachers in 15 schools drawn randomly from the many hundreds of private schools meeting the needs of low-income families in Hyderabad. They found that:
1)Even though some government schools provide free uniforms, lunches and books, instead of sending their children to these schools, poor parents choose to pay fees, even though the costs for each child may be a tenth of monthly income.
2)Private schools cover the whole curriculum and offer a wide range of extra-curricular activities such as science...
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The future of video production – Playstation 4
April 10th 2013
On the 20th of February 2013 Sony held a massive press conference in New York to announce the latest installment of their games console, the Playstation 4 (PS4). The long awaited unveiling hardly came as a surprise, and neither did the list of features the console would boast: improved graphics, updated controller, new software and greater social networking integration.
For most non-gamers a new console is nothing to get excited about until you realise the implications that Sony's latest hardware could have on the future of home entertainment and the future of video production. Sony have a history of innovation and revolution. The PS1 was the first games console to use a disc drive, the PS2 was, for many people, their first DVD player and 2006's PS3 introduced a lot of consumers to HD video and blu-ray. By integrating these technological advances into their systems, Sony have often forced consumers to jump to the next stage of home entertainment, and the PS4 is no exception.
4K….it's like HD…just bigger
Sony announced that with the PS4 will come the ability to show 4k video and images. For those of you who don't know, HD video is 1080 pixels high (or 1K) so 4K is…4 times the size. This means you get 4 times the number of pixels on screen allowing for sharper images, more detail and a larger depth of colour.
It'll be interesting to see what ramifications this has on home entertainment and video production. At 4 times the size, most films will be around 100gb in size and wouldn't even fit onto a dual layer blu-ray whilst present 4K TVs cost anywhere between £15,000-£25,000 and are not readily available. But Sony have a history with driving the industry forward so prices will start to fall just as they did for 1080p HD screens.
Should this happen then we would certainly expect to see an increase in demand for 4K projects.
Well not exactly, but with Sony announcing that 3D is '…not a focus…' for the gaming or electrical side of the business, does this spell the end for the often lamented gimmick? The technology is certainly still being used and improved and will always have a place in film, television and gaming but it seems it is no longer considered to be such a top priority.
We're certainly interested to see what happens when the PS4 is released at the end of this year and the ramifications of Sony's latest offering.


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furniture. Monday , December 18th , 2017 - 18:05:43 PM
We'll remain in the sphere of seating units made of tree stumps and we'll continue with these beautiful benches and stools that combine wood and metal in a seamless manner. This is a series designed by Hilla Shamia, called Wood Casting. The elements included are made by inserting lengths of tree trunk into a mould and filling the gaps with molten metal.
When you have a set of coffee tables instead of just one, it becomes easier to organize the space and to make everything comfortable. Consider dividing a large coffee table into several equal sections and opting for several small ones instead. This way you'll be able to distribute them each as needed or to keep them together depending on the occasion.
Tall and traditional, this credenza has plenty of storage space and doesn't take up as wide a berth as many others. Accent lines give this piece from Bramble a more straight-laced look.
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The path from saviour to scapegoat is a short one at Anfield. Jurgen Klopp has to be careful that his career does not go down a blind alley.
Liverpool's 2-0 Carabao Cup defeat by Leicester City is not disastrous but it adds to the pressure building on him. The Reds return to the King Power Stadium in the Premier League on Saturday and the spotlight will be on the 50-year-old. Nearly two years into his tenure on Merseyside, questions remain about Liverpool's direction and there are no easy answers.
Klopp's attack has been seductive and exciting. They have also been wasteful. Dominating matches is not enough if the ball is not going into the opposition net.
At the other end, the defence is insecure. They leak goals with predictable regularity. The same mistakes occur again and again. Klopp came to Anfield renowned as a manager who improved players, but the pattern of errors by his back four threaten that reputation.
The main concern is that the Liverpool manager appears to have been in denial. After the Leicester match he said he was "sick of this," when talking about his team's capacity to leak goals. Is this finally a wake-up call?
For the first few weeks of the season, Klopp expressed surprise (and irritation) that the focus was on his defence and not his attack. That would be a legitimate argument if Liverpool were piling up the goals. If they were winning 5-2, then the back-line's lapses could be overlooked. The problem is that Klopp's team are not killing off the opposition.
Too often their approach work is impressive but rival teams have learned to let Liverpool play in areas where they cannot do damage. In their last Premier League game, Burnley came to Anfield with a plan. Sean Dyche flooded the zones around the penalty area and let Klopp's men have the ball 25 or more yards out. Shots from that range are considerably less dangerous than efforts inside the penalty area. Burnley were compact, rode their luck and looked to exploit Liverpool's weaknesses on the break.
It's true that the visiting side were lucky in one respect to come away with a point in the 1-1 draw. On the other hand, Dyche's team had two late chances -- from set pieces, Klopp's Achilles Heel -- and could reasonably claim that they could have seized the three points.
So much of Klopp's appeal is his personality. On the Kop, the urge to "support and believe" is strong. He has always made a point of connecting with fans and his attempts to rouse the crowd have drawn a largely favourable response, but belief begins to ebb away when results go wrong.
The Liverpool manager responded to criticism of the summer's transfer policy and the inability to sign a central defender when the Virgil van Dijk deal fell through by saying that there were no defenders available that he considered as upgrades to the current squad. If this is true, it defies belief. The back four is a shambles. It is one of the worst defensive units in the Premier League. Van Dijk would not have solved all the problems, of course, but in a summer where Liverpool were prepared to invest £150 million more than they eventually spent, it goes against all football logic that they could not find three or more defenders who would improve the team.
The focus on strengthening the squad is lopsided. Attacking players have arrived on Merseyside and look spectacular. Liverpool's forwards display trickery, imagination, pace and intelligence but the balance is not quite right. They are creative, but not clinical.
Daniel Sturridge, who has the ability to be one of the sharpest goal scorers in the division when fit, has taken to shooting from distance or dribbling into traffic. Sturridge thrived in space behind opposition defences. His movement, pace and guile stretched them; now, though, teams know that by sitting deep they can suffocate Klopp's side. The England striker has taken to ranging outside the box in search of the ball and shooting from distance.
The first angry calls for Klopp's head are appearing on social media, but it's too early for that. He was the best manager available to Liverpool two years ago and remains superior to any viable candidates. He retains the support of the club's owners, Fenway Sports Group, who have bought into Klopp's adoration as much as (if not more than) the most ardent Kopites.
Even so, this is a dangerous time for the manager. Another bad night at the King Power this weekend will ramp up the pressure. A disappointing draw against Sevilla in the Champions League has set up two away ties, against Spartak Moscow and Maribor, that are awkward but winnable. Any mistakes in Europe will be costly.
In the league, an away match against Rafa Benitez's Newcastle United is followed by two crunch games, at home to Manchester United and away to Tottenham Hotspur. Unless Liverpool tighten up, their top-four ambitions will be undermined. Last season, the fourth-place finish gave the team a sense of progression but Klopp needs to restore that feeling of momentum. It's currently stalling.
After 23 months on Merseyside, the goalkeeping problems remain, the defence has become worse, the midfield look no more coherent than before his arrival and the attack, as exciting as it is, has to get sharper.
Heavy Metal football? It's more like a Little Mix video: superficially attractive with no real depth and instantly forgettable. Liverpool need to get back on track very quickly. You do not have to stray far off the correct route for the mood to turn at Anfield. Unless Klopp finds the right direction very soon, the clamour of criticism will grow louder.


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One of the biggest challenges that I face at work is the signal-to-noise ratio of the communications that I have to monitor. Let me explain.
As an API document writer, I need to know about the conversations our engineers have with each other and with the product managers that deal with our APIs. But not all the conversations. Not most. There is a lot of communication among them in our work tracking system, emails, instant messaging, meetings, and gossip, that is pretty meaningless to me. I may understand it, but it doesn't matter to me and my work. But in all that noise, some is meaningful to my goals. They might not be telling me directly, but like an astronomical observatory, I nonetheless observe it and, to me, it is a valuable signal about something that I need to know.
I also pinch hit with our user- and admin-facing docs and that adds noise that must be listened to and considered. Noise? Or signal? And I work with customer support and, to a large extent, my team tries to evolve our documents in response to live customer needs. So we have to keep an ear on the railroad tracks of customer support. But this adds noise along with signals.
The problem is necessary because nobody can know and think of everything all the time. Many times, before an engineer modifies a REST API, she will think, "Hey, I bet Haber would want to know this," or, "This may affect customer developers. I should probably tell someone." But between that thought and the corresponding action, a thousand distractions may arise. Like I must read emails, attend meetings, field questions, admit distractions, stay on top of internal forums and corporate instant messaging, so must they.
The problem isn't trivial and its source isn't only internal. As a product owner for our developer outreach, I need to monitor our name brand in developer communities as well as the general trends among our competitors. You may have noticed that there are a few websites, that many websites cater to software developers, and that few of those websites or developers feel particularly obligated to find me whenever they have a comment about my company or our product. Inconsiderate, I know, but there it is. You may also have noticed that there is a lot of crap on the Internet.
Signal to noise ratio.
So how do I sift through all that dross to find the bits of gold?
Well, again my constant disclaimer: I am not an expert. The ideas below help me. Maybe they help you. I'd love to hear your ideas.
First principle: If a bit of info is a signal, it's rarely unique. More similar signals will follow. They'll get stronger and more intense with the urgency of the topic. Like a homing torpedo coming in to smash me, its sonar pings will get more frequent as it gets closer. Good. That means that if I miss a stray signal, it was probably weak and remote anyway. That takes some pressure off.
Second principle: If a bit of info comes from my boss or my teammate, it is usually signal rather than noise. They're good like that. I use that knowledge, and similar knowledge about other people, as a first-glance guide to what I should or should not tune out. These people have a direct line to me, so to speak.
- I observe valuable places most. What's valuable? The communication tools are most valuable where I get tend to get the most reliable and useful signals. Some tools help you do this selective attention. For instance:
- Zoom in: Slack, the popular IM software for companies, allows users to get notified when keywords get used. That way, I can ignore the engineering channel except when they mention
documentationor some other word often connected to the things that I care about. This helps me to usually ignore my company's
#bicyclingchannel, and all the other lovely places online where we get to know each other during the workday but that rarely help me get my job done.
- Filter: Gmail and Google Apps mail allow you to create filters based on criteria in the subject line, from senders, or body content. I make most things go into my ordinary mail, but things emails from my boss or C-level execs, emails that are sent only to me, and emails from customers all go into priority mail.
- I browse. I check real quick to see what's important. If it's not, then I drop it quickly. It goes away. If it is important, then I respond quickly or else make a note to respond later. To keep from stressing, I keep all these notes in one place. A really great time to scan is in those empty few minutes. When I'm compiling code or waiting for a download, when I'm able to focus on other things for a minute or two only, that can be a great time to quickly check emails or instant messages during the day. Quickly.
- I constrain time. Bearing in mind our first principle that the important things make themselves known, I don't monitor all the things all the time.
- I remove myself. When things get very busy because, say, I'm under pressure for an important deadline, everything but the deadline turns to noise. So I disconnect. Emails can wait. Messages can wait. I even leave the office and work from home or a cafe to prevent walk-in visitors. Not everyone has that flexibility, I am glad that I do. At these times, my boss knows my issue and he is the only one who can find me. Anyone else has to get through him. Hopefully, you have that kind of boss, too.
So my routine is:
- I check email and messages for 30-60 minutes at the start of the workday. Most of my messages from outside my office come from east of my location. That means they arrive early rather than late in my workday. This includes work tickets that I am subscribed to and actively monitoring.
- After lunch, I check emails again briefly. After lunch, I also look over a list of work tickets that include my keywords. This way I can see if there are any that I should start tracking actively.
- I always consider direct messages important enough to at least scan soon. Soon might mean "right now," or it might mean "when I wrap up this thought." My office tends to use instant messaging more than emails. Often when I get emailed, if it's urgent, the sender also messages me or walks over to my desk. You might not have the same environment.
- Before the end of each day, I check email again for 5-10 minutes.
So that's what works for me, as much as anything does. What works for you?


text:
Our Dronfield Wills and Probate solicitors can assist with any question or issue you have from writing Wills to advising on the payment of Inheritance Tax, arranging Power of Attorney and challenging probate. They can provide expert legal advice and guidance when you need it most.
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Those who may be able to make a claim include:
Simply having such a relationship with the deceased is not enough to validate a claim. A lawyer who specialises in challenging Wills will look at how old you are and whether you can support yourself independently. For example, an unemployed adult child challenged the Will of her deceased father who left his entire estate to his second wife. The daughter alleged that her father should have made provision for her in his Will. However, a judge found that there was no reason she could not support herself as her being unemployed was a lifestyle choice. Her ageing step-mother, who was only in receipt of a modest pension, needed the assets to live a reasonable standard of life.
A Court will always look at the claimant's circumstances as well as how altering the distribution of assets will affect other beneficiaries. They may award a lump-sum, create a trust where the claimant benefits during their lifetime but where the assets remain in the ownership of the estate, transfer the ownership of property to the applicant or request the estate make a series of payments to the claimant.
Wills and Probate both relate to estates but they are two different things. A Will is the written instructions of how the testator wants their assets to be allocated in the event of their death. An Executor is nominated in the Will, and this is the person with the responsibility of carrying out the instructions in the Will.
One of the first things an Executor will do is apply for a Grant of Probate. Probate is issued by the Court and confirms the Executor has the legal authority to administer an estate and distribute the assets. If a person dies without leaving a will - known as dying intestate - a potential Executor can apply to the Court for a Letters of Administration (now called Grant of Representation) instead of a Grant of Probate.
It is vital to the success of any claim again a Will that you seek legal advice and representation at the earliest opportunity. Contesting a Will under the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975 (which is the law that allows for reasonable provision for dependants) must be made within six months of the Grant of Probate. Beneficiaries who are making a claim against an estate - for example, someone who believes they should have inherited more than they did, have up to 12 months to make a claim, while there is no time limit on claims being made for fraud.
Spencers Solicitors can explain your rights if you are challenging a will or you are an Executor of a will that the subject of dispute. Call today or fill in our online form for a representative to call you back.
Here are the answers to some of the most frequently asked questions we receive about Wills and probate.
Call Spencers Solicitors today on 01246 266637, or fill in our enquiry form to request a call back. Our expert advisors will be happy to answer any initial enquiry you have about Wills and Probate management including whether you may have legal grounds to dispute a Will.
A Grant of Probate is a certificate is issued in recognition that the Will is legal and valid. You don't need to obtain Probate if the value of the estate is less than £5,000 cash. If the value of assets is greater than this, or the assets are held in the form of property, shares, pension, or business, you will need to obtain a Grant of Probate (or Letters of Administration, in the situation of intestacy) from the court.
Financial institutions can set their own limits for requiring Probate, and you need to be a nominated Executor, or acting on behalf of them, to apply for it. Without a Grant of Probate or Letters of Administration, you will not be able to administrate the estate.
Probate, the act of administering an estate, typically takes six to nine months. It can take longer if the estate is complicated or if a beneficiary or potential beneficiary contests the will.
The Executor is responsible for ensuring all the tax returns submitted are correct, and that all creditors receive payments. Executors can be personally liable if they do not take any action required to protect the value of assets or if they do not pay all of the estate's bills correctly and on time.
It is possible to challenge the way an executor is managing the estate or how they interpret the instructions in the Will. You can also make a claim against an executor if you believe they have been fraudulent in the statement of accounts, for example, if they have not reported or undervalued certain assets, or if you suspect they are charging the estate excessive fees for personal gain.
An executor must follow the instructions in the Will. It is not for them to decide whether the distribution of assets is unfair and should be altered, or to make moral judgements. They can use their discretion if there are not specific instructions about when or how assets can be sold, but they need to be careful not to be negligent in protecting the value of them.
There are times when instructions in a will are vague or contradictory. An executor can use their judgement though they should be very careful about providing evidence to support their decision in case their actions are contested by a beneficiary. We always recommend people have a Will professionally drawn up to avoid any ambiguity in their wishes, and contact us if they are an Executor who faces a situation where the Will's instructions are unclear.
A Will does not need to be prepared by a solicitor for it to be legally binding. However, DIY wills are often less robust and more easily challenged as people without a legal background are not always aware of the necessary requirements.
You do not need a lawyer to help you administer an estate, but many people choose to as the executor can be personally held liable for any errors. Also, managing an estate can be time-consuming and it can be difficult to fit responsibilities into working hours.
Our offices are conveniently located near to Chesterfield town centre & fully equipped with onsite meeting facilities, disabled access and free parking.


text:
five feet of fury
james lileks
small dead animals
tim blair
paul tuns
girl on the right
crying all the way to the chip shop
blazing cat fur
the other mccain
ezra levant
legion of decency
ace of spades
celestial junk
mark steyn
furious d
i want my rocky
recovering journalist
chris buck
phil dellio
scott woods
arts & letters
big hollywood
tv tattle
city journal
the digital bits
james bowman
something I learned today
the punk vault
killed by death records
honey, where you been so long?
funky 16 corners
7 inch punk
spread the good word
soul detective
the b side
something old, something new
big rock candy mountain
ONE OF THE LAST really enjoyable assignments I had at the paper that laid me off was a six-part series where I tried to find out what it would cost, physically and financially, to be James Bond. I pitched the idea, and it ran pretty much as I imagined it, with some necessary scaling back due to time, expense, and word count. While I was writing it, I actually allowed myself some optimism about the paper, and my future there, despite all the warning signs. I've always been an idealist - it's my fatal flaw.
The series ran as a prelude to the release of Quantum Of Solace, and was just a part of our near-saturation coverage of the film, which included at least another half dozen features before we ran our interviews with the director and cast and review. It was the last gasp of the paper's moviecentric entertainment coverage before sections and word counts began shrinking, and the new editor began filling the gaps with columnists. It'll probably be a long time before I'm able to disassociate QOS from what were to be my final months at the paper.
I'M A BIG FAN OF THE BOND FRANCHISE. It was probably inevitable - the first Roger Moore Bonds were hitting the theatres on the back of massive publicity campaigns when I was a boy, just as the Connery films were playing on television, as big deal weekend evening events on the big three U.S. networks. It's a strange boy who won't respond to the appeal of Bond, and I might have been a bit odd, but there was never a chance that I wouldn't respond to the siren song of cool gadgets, bit explosions, loathesome baddies getting dispatched with a quip and - gradually, though with undeniable effect - the allure of the Bond girl.
As long as there's a new generation of boys responding to the louche fantasy of being Bond - and there probably always will be, despite the best efforts of the public education system - then there will always be new Bond films, though some part of me shudders to think what they might be like around the hundredth anniversary of the franchise, and we're already nearly halfway there.
The Connery Bond seems comfortably ensconced as the gold standard, and the Moore era is distant enough to have become fondly remembered kitsch - when I was researching my series for the paper, I encountered no shortage of men who sheepishly admitted that they preferred Moore to Connery. You may even know one, and if you do, I suggest you act as if nothing's made you suspicious - who knows how they'll react to being shamed - but keep something heavy close at hand.
George Lazenby's single shot at the role has its share of defenders - though I suspect that Diana Rigg's stint as Bond girl might have a lot to do with that - and Timothy Dalton's brief tenure has had its share of cautious appreciations for heading in what seemed, at the time, like a darker direction (though a majority would still prefer to describe them as dreary.)
With time, no doubt, even Pierce Brosnan's Bond will have its defenders - whenever we reach the point when the '90s have retreated into a more distant past, and reveal some charming aspect or unforeseen quaintness that will allow us to be nostalgic about them. I can't imagine it either, but the '70s have already passed from regretful to retro in my lifetime, mostly thanks to a generation that wasn't alive to experience them first hand.
The "re-booting" of the series with Daniel Craig as Bond in Casino Royale three years ago was a huge critical and box office success, restoring the franchise to Connery-era esteem, though the release of Quantum Of Solace last fall has already made me nostalgic for the previous film, and the possibility that the people in charge of the series weren't suffering from the misapprehension that Bond has to be relevant to whatever undergraduate theory of geopolitics is currently gripping Hollywood.
The film begins, in ritual fashion, with a car chase along the lakeside roads of northern Italy before Craig's Bond dispatches his pursuers rather too neatly in a Carrera marble quarry. It's the first sign that the producers haven't chosen well by putting Swiss director Marc Forster in charge; by his own admission, and everyone else who was in a position to hire him, he's not known for his action movie chops, which you'd think might have been considered for a film with at least half a dozen major action sequences.
It's not surprising then that the intro car chase, and almost every other action scene - with one notable exception - is shot and cut in the incoherent, overedited style that'll doubtless be a style cliche as particular to today as magenta gels and Tangerine Dream soundtracks were to the '80s. Second units are usually tasked with the shooting of car chases and scenes featuring stunt doubles, but you get the feeling that Forster has abandoned every creative decision in these scenes to a whole second unit province of the film.
The payoff at the end of Casino Royale was Bond, honed into an unerring instrument of revenge, hobbling the new Blofeld - Jesper Christensen's Mr. White - with a sniper rifle and standing over him, triumphant. The new film begins just moment later, and after dispatching his pursuers before the titles roll, Bond and Judi Dench's M get down to the business of interrogating the man in a dank basement underneath Sienna.
It all goes very badly, alas, and White escapes, disappearing so that a new villain can emerge - Matthieu Amalric's Dominic Greene, a shady European industrialist in the classic Bond baddie mold, with a public cover as an environmental philanthropist, as embodied in his rather broad jape of a name. Before absconding to the sidelines, however, White dispatches his primary duty as a Bond villain, which is to spill the beans on his criminal enterprise, revealing to Bond and M that Quantum, the new SPECTRE, is both ubiquitous and one step ahead of their secret services. You have to wonder how much more successful these guys would be if they could just keep shtum.
The action detours to Haiti to introduce Greene, the Bolivian general and former dictator who's his principal client, and the film's principal Bond girl - Olga Kurylenko's Camille, a Russian former model playing Latin American with a generous coating of liquid tan. There's a fight, a boat chase, and a revelation that the CIA is in bed with Greene, with the reluctant complicity of the latest Felix Leiter (Jeffrey Wright.)
The action swings back to Europe, and the annual opera production in the Swiss town of Bregenz, which is being used as a cover for the annual shareholder's meeting of Quantum. Bond eavesdrops on the meeting, then blows his cover by announcing his presence to all assembled while he uses his Sony Ericsson cell phone to take photos of a few of Quantum's principals. Anyone who's ever tried to take a decent shot with a cell phone will marvel at how implausibly some proprietary MI6 software turns a 2 megapixel image taken from hundreds of feet away into verifiable mugshots that identify a Russian mining oligarch, a former Mossad agent turned telecom giant, and a close adviser to the British PM.
Bond's clash with Greene's henchmen as he escapes is the sole departure from the stock standard action scenes in the rest of the film, and Forster admitted that he's lavished more than the usual care on it when I interviewed him last fall. As the sound gives way to the score of Tosca, the opera being performed, Bond and Greene's gunmen trade fire in the restaurant and lobby of the opera house, while the film cuts back and forth to the bloody murders and executions onstage. At the risk of offending casual viewers interested in status quo bang-bang, you wish that Forster had followed his muse a bit more and given the same care to the rest of the film's action scenes; it wouldn't have dissipated from the film's other problems, but it would at least have given QOS some idiosyncratic style that's been missing from the series since the Moore years.
With his traveling privileges pulled by M, Bond needs help, so he turns to Giancarlo Giannini's Mathis. When we last saw him in Casino Royale, he'd been tasered and dragged away for interrogation as a double agent. Rehabilitated and living in a fabulous pad on a lake in Northern Italy with a foxy Lombard babe, he's pulled reluctantly back into the action as Bond's wingman, and as a prick to his conscience.
While it's always nice to see Giannini in a film, it's jarring to hear that Mathis was actually innocent, even more when he winds up dead a few scenes later, after being used as a human shield by Bond and left in a dumpster. The writers were probably trying to underscore Bond's calloused nature, and the gruesome realities of life as a spook, but Giannini's Mathis was one of the few really likeable characters introduced in the reboot of the series; Jeffrey Wright's Leiter had better watch himself, though previous Leiters haven't done so well. Turning Mathis into a bloody prop, though, is just one of the miscalculations in tone and intention made by the writers of QOS.
The balance of the film plays out in Bolivia, where Gemma Atherton gets to play the thankless role of the expendable Bond girl, named Strawberry Fields in the cast list, though the filmmakers seem to have been overcome by second thoughts, and we only ever hear her called Fields. Her death is a notably sour reworking of the Bond legacy - echoing Shirley Eaton's Jill Masterson in Goldfinger, she's found dead on the bed in Bond's hotel room, naked and covered, not in gold, but in oil.
Yes, I get it. No, really.
You can only imagine how clever the screenwriters must have felt when they wrote the scene, and it's not surprising that at least part of the script was the work of Paul Haggis, Hollywood's go-to guy for knitting recycled Chomsky and Howard Zinn into films. Oil is the new gold - get it? Get it? I like to think I'm not alone in resenting anyone who squanders the precious remaining value of the Bond franchise with cheap lunges at political relevancy, dissolving the Bond high style into the frantic paranoia of the Bourne films, and the dreary realpolitik of latter John Le Carre.
In a scene where Judi Dench's M is called on the carpet by the British foreign minister, she's told that "Mr. Greene's interests and ours now align," as a justification for calling Bond off the villain's trail. Briefly alluding to peak oil, he tells her that "Right or wrong doesn't come into it - we're acting out of necessity." It's sort of thing cynics and sophomores imagine powerful men in suits sound like behind closed doors, and it signals an intent to diminish whatever moral purpose Bond could once count on when he got his marching orders. Craig's Bond is even moved to make a sharp crack to Leiter later in the film about "cocoa communism" and American complicity in South American political instability. The Che Guevara t-shirt can't be far behind.
What's amusing is how inconsistent this is with the basic plot of the Bond film, which requires that Quantum's objectives and Greene's intentions in particular are meant to be undeniably evil. Even as we watch Greene deliver some disingenous environmental browbeating to a gala crowd at a fundraiser in La Paz - while conspicuously sporting a red thread "Kabbalah bracelet," one notes with a snort - we know that the fate of the planet is the furthest thing from his mind, and we learn shortly thereafter that he's the cause of an artficial drought in the region, from which he intends to profit once the new dictator gives Quantum the resource rights to the area. Water is the new oil, er, gold - get it? Get it?
Even more drolly, we can't help but note that the fire that consumes the desert hotel in the explosive climax is apparently caused by the hydrogen fuel cells powering the "green" establishment - environmental correctness proving itself ultimately lethal. One can't help but wonder at how the film's conspicuous evocation of global warming and environmental apocalypse will sound in ten or twenty years - will they play like the Cold War stage sets of the Connery films, or as querulous, dated fits of theatrical panic like those that once played out under the media-driven threats of overpopulation, insect plagues, ozone holes and impending ice ages.
There was once a time when Bond villains would threaten the world with some implausible arsenal of atomic threat, pandemic or environmental catastrophe (Blofeld in On Her Majesty's Secret Service, Hugo Drax in Moonraker, Max Zorin in A View To A Kill,) with a hint of comic menace that parodies of the genre - Our Man Flint, the Austin Powers films - would broadly satirize. Like so much of popular culture today, the Bond films have lost their self-correcting sense of irony, and we've reached a point where a climatic castrophe scenario straight out of a Bond film is actually considered not just plausible, but imminent, by something like a majority of the population. And admit it - after George Soros, Al Gore is probably the closest thing we've got to a Bond villain in the real world today.
The ending of Quantum Of Solace ultimately chokes on its highmindedness; finally confronting Vesper Lynd's ex-boyfriend, a Quantum agent charged with turning female secret agents, the film works on the presumption that Bond, still blinded by vengeance, will kill the man and waste the last best chance at cracking the criminal conspiracy. We know that he won't, thanks to the film's agonizing set-up of the moment, and of Bond's transformation into a cold-blooded professional.
Almost absent-mindedly, the film ends with the trademark shot of Bond firing at the camera down a gun barrel that fills with a curtain of blood, a traditional prelude to the title sequence that Forster and the producers toss in at the end like an afterthought. It seems like a small complaint, but it's typical of the carelessness and disregard for form that's overcome the Bond franchise so quickly after its successful reinvention with Casino Royale. If Bond's cinematic overseers continue on the current course, they'll manage to accomplish the creative disembowelling and audience evacuation that Octopussy and Moonraker didn't.
A NEW EDITION OF SEAN CONNERY'S final turn under the Bond toupee is being released on DVD the same week as Quantum Of Solace, though comparisons between the two films are probably unfair - except for one thing.
There's a loose rule that a good Bond theme song means a good Bond film, and it plays out pretty well under scrutiny. The Connery films - Dr. No excepted, though you could say that Monty Norman's twanging guitar theme will do more than ably in a pinch - were all blessed with fantastic theme songs, sung by Shirley Bassey, Tom Jones, Matt Monro and Nancy Sinatra, and the Roger Moore films were given a good start with Wings' "Live And Let Die," after which things trail off with diminishing returns in a sonic porridge of Carly Simon, Sheena Easton, Duran Duran, a-ha, Sheryl Crow and, at the bitter end of the Pierce Brosnan years, the baleful nasal keening of Madonna.
I actually enjoyed Chris Cornell's Casino Royale theme, which had the right mix of jauntiness and bombast for me, but knew well enough to gird myself when I heard Jack White and Alicia Keys' entirely chemistry-free duet for Quantum Of Solace. With this in mind, I knew not to expect much when I heard Lani Hall's breathy performance of the title tune of Never Say Never Again, the 1983 film that came about mostly because of Connery's ego and the labyrinthine legal complications surrounding Ian Fleming's legacy.
To be fair, Connery looks better in Never Say Never Again than he did twelve years earlier, in Diamonds Are Forever, his last "official" Bond film. The short retrospective production documentaries included on the disc, however, strenuously point out that action sequences had to be dialled back drastically to accomodate the aging star, and almost everyone admits with a shrug that the film, essentially a remake of Thunderball, really wasn't much, and that they'd have admitted it at the time if they'd felt like being honest with themselves.
Connery and his stunt doubles manage not to look too tired as the film globetrots through the usual cartoonish locations, and Klaus Maria Brandauer and Kim Basinger do what's expected of them as Bond villain and girl respectively, while only Barbara Carrera seems to be having any fun as the Bond bad girl. Michel Legrand's abysmal soundtrack makes one miss John Barry - and even Bill Conti and Michael Kamen - rather sorely.
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© 2009 rick mcginnis all rights reserved
i'm a dad in my forties with two daughters. i've worked as a photographer, journalist and, recently, tv columnist. currently a member of the growing workforce awaiting new employment opportunities. church-going catholic.
punk rock was my crucible, lodestone and avalon.
i look nothing like william powell.
rick -at- rickmcginnis.com
no comments - i can't be bothered with the extra work, to be frank - but if you have something to say, I might print it in the margin over here.
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