text:
Traveling Luck for Ponds Marina, New York, United States
Where is Ponds Marina?What's around Ponds Marina?
Wikipedia near Ponds Marina
Where to stay near Ponds Marina
The timezone in Ponds Marina is America/Iqaluit
Sunrise at 08:33 and Sunset at 18:00. It's Dark
Latitude. 44.0594°, Longitude. -76.3008° , Elevation. 76m
Weather near Ponds Marina; Report from Watertown, Watertown International Airport, NY 27.7km away
Weather :
Temperature: 2°C / 36°F
Wind: 10.4km/h West/Southwest gusting to 19.6km/h
Cloud: Broken at 3700ft Broken at 12000ft
Weather :
Temperature: 2°C / 36°F
Wind: 10.4km/h West/Southwest gusting to 19.6km/h
Cloud: Broken at 3700ft Broken at 12000ft
Satellite map around Ponds Marina
Loading map of Ponds Marina and it's surroudings
Geographic features & Photographs around Ponds Marina, in New York, United States
- Local Feature;
- A Nearby feature worthy of being marked on a map..
- Ponds Marina (0km)
- Ponds Corners (1.1km)
- Scott Marina (1.3km)
- Bedford Corners (2.5km)
- Martins Marina (2.6km)
- Snug Harbor Marina (3.2km)
- Brimmers Marina (6.4km)
- Isthmus Marina (6.4km)
- Bourey Marina (7.4km)
- Anchor Marina (9.6km)
- cape;
- a land area, more prominent than a point, projecting into the sea and marking a notable change in coastal direction.
- Baird Point (3.5km)
- Dablon Point (5.9km)
- Wilson Point (6.8km)
- Tibbetts Point (8.5km)
- Hickory Point (8.9km)
- Peninsula, Point (9.4km)
- Three Mile Point (10km)
- Clines Point (10.2km)
- bay;
- a coastal indentation between two capes or headlands, larger than a cove but smaller than a gulf.
- Carrying Place (3.1km)
- Mud Bay (3.8km)
- Basin Harbor (4km)
- Wilson Bay (6.1km)
- Fuller Bay (7.7km)
- Three Mile Bay (8.9km)
- Long Bay (9.1km)
- Chaumont Bay (9.4km)
- stream;
- a body of running water moving to a lower level in a channel on land.
- Fox Creek (0.5km)
- Little Fox Creek (1.7km)
- Kents Creek (3.4km)
- Shaver Creek (9.1km)
- Soper Creek (9.4km)
- Scotch Brook (10km)
- Three Mile Creek (10.3km)
- cemetery;
- a burial place or ground.
- Fox Creek Cemetery (1.8km)
- Putman Cemetery (6.3km)
- Saint Vincent de Paul Cemetery (7.7km)
- Saint Vincent de Paul Cemetery (9.8km)
- Riverside Cemetery (10.2km)
- Point Peninsula Cemetery (10.2km)
Accommodation around Ponds Marina
- populated place;
- a city, town, village, or other agglomeration of buildings where people live and work.
- Bayview (3.9km)
- Cape Vincent (9.4km)
- Rosiere (9.8km)
- Three Mile Bay (10km)
- Point Peninsula (10.4km)
- Herrick Grove (10.4km)
- island;
- a tract of land, smaller than a continent, surrounded by water at high water.
- Little Grenadier Island (3.8km)
- Fox Island (3.9km)
- Grenadier Island (6.4km)
- Squaw Island (8.4km)
- administrative division;
- an administrative division of a country, undifferentiated as to administrative level.
- Cape Vincent, Town of (9km)
- Lyme, Town of (9.1km)
- tower;
- a high conspicuous structure, typically much higher than its diameter.
- WMHI-FM (Cape Vincent) (4.5km)
- WKGG-FM (Cape Vincent) (8.2km)
- park;
- an area, often of forested land, maintained as a place of beauty, or for recreation.
- Dablon Monument (6km)
- Long Point State Park (8.9km)
- airport;
- a place where aircraft regularly land and take off, with runways, navigational aids, and major facilities for the commercial handling of passengers and cargo.
- John Gonzales Field (7.9km)
- meteorological station;
- a station at which weather elements are recorded.
- mountain;
- an elevation standing high above the surrounding area with small summit area, steep slopes and local relief of 300m or more.
- Indian Hill (4.8km)
- isthmus;
- a narrow strip of land connecting two larger land masses and bordered by water.
- Isthmus, The (6.5km)
- beach;
- a shore zone of coarse unconsolidated sediment that extends from the low-water line to the highest reach of storm waves.
- North Shore (3.8km)
- bar;
- a shallow ridge or mound of coarse unconsolidated material in a stream channel, at the mouth of a stream, estuary, or lagoon and in the wave-break zone along coasts.
- Herrick Shoal (9.9km)
Wikipedia entries close to
Ponds Marina
- Long Point State Park - Thousand Islands city city o
- Cape Vincent (village), New York city city o
- Burnham Point State Park city city o
- Chaumont (New York)
- Cedar Point State Park city city o
- Sackets Harbor (New York)
- Dexter, New York city city o
- Depauville, New York city city o
- Westcott Beach State Park city city o
- Watertown International Airport airport airport
- Fort Frontenac landmark fortress
- Queen's University landmark landmark
- Kingston (Ontario) city city e
- Clayton (village), New York city city o
- Brownville (village), New York city city o
- Glen Park, New York city city o
Airports close to Ponds Marina
Watertown international(ART), Watertown, Usa (27.7km)
Kingston(YGK), Kingston, Canada (35.2km)
Wheeler sack aaf(GTB), Fort drum, Usa (54.6km)
Ogdensburg international(OGS), Ogdensburg, Usa (112.3km)
Trenton(YTR), Trenton, Canada (115.4km)


text:
who we are.
Thirteen years and counting, this darling boutique is nestled in the shopping district of North Hills in Raleigh, North Carolina. Owners Christina Allen, Eliza Stoecker and Louise Stowe, all natives of North Carolina, have been dedicated to delivering distinguished quality and timeless design in all facets of their customers' lives. They provide an authentic and original twist to the home and wardrobe.
Their first love is to the wardrobe, investing many years uncovering new upcoming European and American designers to adorn the racks at Fleur. They provide a long list of old and new favorites that keep the regulars coming back, as well as, enticing the long distance clients with goodie boxes and trunk shows filled with their favorite wares of the season.
The new style for life brand was born a couple years ago during the renovations of their personal homes. Though the clothing has remained the focused, it is now only enhanced with the love of textiles and home design. Fleur's design studio and library is located in the back of the store and houses many upcoming lighting, furniture and fabric collections new to the area. The girls are now taking the Fleur style and transforming blank spaces to comfortable and elegant living.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Very sturdy easy install. Great material.
Reviewed By Darrun A (CERRITOS, CA) Reviewed for a 2003 Lincoln Navigator —2/16/2015 6:02 PM
2003 Lincoln Navi on 35 x 12.5 on 18x9 Pro Comp 7033 Wheels on ReadLIFT 3/2. I had to trim the front a bit as it was rubbing. Combo with AVS Bug Deflector. Other than that it's OK.


text:
Old Navy pink sweater (clearance, similar here) // AE Jeans // white vans // LV Eva Clutch // Kate Spade Gramercy Watch
I have been loving pink sweaters lately and have been on the hunt for one. During this hunt, I somehow accumulated three bright pink sweaters, and so far this is my fave! Although I myself am single (and ready to mingle), I still like getting in the Valentine's Day spirit. So if you're like me or just have casual Valentine's Day plans this look is perfect for you!
I do have to talk about my totally trashed slip-ons though. The pictures make them look a little cleaner then they actually are. In shorter words, I only try to wear a select few shoes when I go out and these just happen to be one of the pairs. Like my black flats, I desperately need to replace them, but I had to buy some textbooks! :/
What are your Valentine's Day plans? I hope you all are having a good week so far and happy February too!!


text:
小型収束超音波トランスデューサを用いた内視鏡的治療デバイス Endoscopic Therapeutic Device Using Focused Ultrasonic Small Transducer
In this research, an ultrasonic probe (5.5 mm in diameter), which has a concave PZT transducer at its tip, was fabricated for ultrasonic treatments such as sonoporation and sonodynamic therapy in the human body using a catheter and/or endoscope. Ultrasound has the potential to enhance cytotoxicity of drugs such as porphyrins, a process referred to as sonodynamic therapy, and also to deliver macromolecules such as plasmid DNA, a process referred to as sonoporation. The fabricated probe was then experimentally characterized by measuring the acoustic intensity distribution around the focal point, using a PVDF needle-type ultrasonic hydrophone. When the PZT transducer was driven by a 120 Volts peak-to-peak AC signal at 1.83 MHz, the ultrasound output was successfully focused at the focal point, with a peak intensity of 24.9 W/cm2 (0.87 MPa). Using the fabricated probe, cultured Chinese Hamster Ovary (CHO) cells were exposed to ultrasound (1.83 MHz, continuous wave, peak acoustic pressure of 0.5 MPa) for 2 s in the presence of microbubbles MB-3 and Green Fluorescent Protein (GFP) plasmid DNA. As a result of sonication, the expression of GFP was observed in CHO cells.
- 電気学会論文誌. E, センサ・マイクロマシン準部門誌 = The transactions of the Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan. A publication of Sensors and Micromachines Society
電気学会論文誌. E, センサ・マイクロマシン準部門誌 = The transactions of the Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan. A publication of Sensors and Micromachines Society 127(2), 69-74, 2007-02-01
The Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan


text:
With a certain Project CARS hogging the limelight with its plethora of media and recent trailers ahead of the rapidly approaching release, the announcement of another massively popular driving game a
Posted 2 years ago by Andrew Ogley, 26 comments
Unless you've been living under a rock for the few months, you won't have been able to escape the fact that the Xbox One launched today in 13 countries across the world. As Microsoft are now pushing
Posted 5 years ago by Rebecca Smith, 45 comments
The week of release has finally arrived for WRC: FIA World Rally Championship 4 in Australia and Europe, and to celebrate the fact Milestone have released one final trailer for the game for its launc
Posted 5 years ago by Ellis Spice, 4 comments
There are a handful of superheroes invading retail shelves this week. Bruce Wayne's alter-ego is not the only man with special moves, as the heroes from the Marvel comics are also making an appearanc
Posted 5 years ago by Keith Gray, 38 comments
Following demos being released this week for Lego Marvel Superheroes and Payday 2, the Xbox marketplace sees yet another trial in the form of WRC: FIA World Rally Championship 4. Try out the 2013 FIA
Posted 5 years ago by litepink, 16 comments
It's not long now until WRC: FIA World Rally Championship 4 slides into stores, with the game set to hit the shelves later this month. Yesterday we got a sneak peek at three variations on the cover a
Fans that are eagerly awaiting the arrival of the upcoming racing title, WRC: FIA World Rally Championship 4, might be interested to know that the game will packaged with three different localized co
Posted 5 years ago by Andrew Ogley, 14 comments
For those who prefer their racing with a bit more dirt and a little less asphalt, rally racing just might be your style. WRC: FIA World Rally Championship 4 is just around the corner, and we've got m
Posted 5 years ago by Archer Rival, 20 comments
We have another gameplay trailer for WRC 4, this time featuring Sébastien Ogier driving his Volkswagen Polo R WRC during the ADAC Rallye Deutschland at sunset. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BgnbaBq
Posted 5 years ago by litepink, 9 comments
Earlier this summer, Milestone and Bigben Interactive confirmed that WRC: FIA World Rally Championship 4 would become the next iteration in the WRC franchise. Most recently, the day/night cycle withi
Posted 5 years ago by Keith Gray, 8 comments
community members have subscribed to receive updates for this game.
Copyright © 2018 TrueGaming Network
Ltd, All Rights Reserved
Xbox, Xbox Live, and all other Xbox Live specific terms are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corp.
TrueAchievements is a proud member of the Xbox Community Developer Program
Concept, Design, Programming and Server Stuff by Rich Stone
aka TrueAchievement
Site version: 5.1.2, also available on Mobile


text:
Sony Picture Home Entertainment will release a "Gandhi: 25th Anniversary Collector's Edition" on February 13th.
The critically-acclaimed film – an international box office hit, nominated for 11 Academy Awards, winning eight, including Best Picture, Best Actor (Ben Kingsley) and Best Director (Richard Attenborough) – will be available for the first time as a 2-Disc collector's set with extensive new bonus materials.
The extras will include more than 90 minutes of new material, including interviews with the director; actors Geraldine James, Saeed Jaffrey, and Edward Fox; Diana Hawkins (Director of Publicity), Terry Clegg (Executive in charge of production), Billy Williams (Cinematographer) and Stuart Craig (Production Designer).
The DVD will also include a Director's commentary with Attenborough, who also filmed a personal introduction to the film. The featurettes will include "In Search of Gandhi," "Reflections on Ben," "Madeleine Slade: An Englishwoman Abroad," "The Funeral," "Shooting an Epic In India," "Looking Back," "Designing Gandhi" (3 mini featurettes) and "From the Director's Chair" (2 mini featurettes).
A complete list of special features follows after the jump.
"Gandhi" is a riveting story about activism, politics, religious tolerance and freedom, depicting the life and times of Mahatma Gandhi, the Indian political leader who managed to free his country from the British rule using peaceful means and thus giving hope and inspiration for generations to come.
In addition to Ben Kingsley, the cast includes Edward Fox, Roshan Seth, Candice Bergen, John Gielgud, Trevor Howard and Martin Sheen.
The film will be presented on DVD in anamorphic widescreen (2.35:1) with audio in English (Dolby Digital 5.1), as well as French, Portuguese and Spanish (Dolby Surround Sound). Subtitles will be provided in English, Korean, Portuguese and Spanish.
The DVD will be available for the Suggested Retail Price of $24.96, but many stores will be offering this for as little as $17.00.
"Gandhi" Special Features Include:
· In Search of Gandhi Featurette
Lord Attenborough discusses
the various hurdles he faced in getting the film made, from the genesis
of the project in the '60s through to the start of production.
· Reflections on Ben Featurette
Cast and crew reflect on Ben Kingsley as he prepared for the role and memories of him during production.
· Madeleine Slade: An Englishwoman Abroad Featurette
Lord Richard Attenborough and Geraldine James discuss Madeleine Slade (Meerabahen), who became one of Gandhi's most committed followers
· The Funeral Featurette
Cast and crew discuss the recreation and filming of Gandhi's Funeral. This scene holds the record for containing more extras than any other in film history (in excess of 250,000 people).
· Shooting an Epic in India Featurette
Cast and crew discuss working in India and the challenges they faced as the production progressed.
· Looking Back Featurette
Cast and crew look back at the film. This featurette includes material about the success of the film, the impact it had on release and the Academy Award ceremony.
· Designing Gandhi - 3 mini featurettes
Stuart Craig talks about three different elements of Set & Design.
- Building the Ashram
- The Tent
- Finding Trains
· From the Director's Chair - 2 mini featurettes
Lord Attenborough shares his views on two areas of the production.
- On Casting
- On Music
· Ben Kingsley Talks About Gandhi - Featurette
· Four Vintage Newsreel Shorts
· The Making of Gandhi – A photo montage of behind-the-scenes stills


text:
Shrewsbury is built on rising ground in a loop of the river Severn which almost forms an island. England's 'finest Tudor town' has always occupied an important position near the Welsh border and was the seat of the Welsh princes of Powys back in the 5th and 6th centuries. Later it became part of the region of Anglo-Saxon Mercia and during the Norman period was enhanced by its mighty stone castle as Edward l set out to subdue his Celtic enemies. Once an important centre of the clothing trade, this county town still has more than 600 listed buildings. The river is crossed by two fine bridges traditionally known as the English Bridge and the Welsh Bridge.
|The castle was restored in the 18th century by the engineer and architect Thomas Telford. More famous these days is the local 11th century Benedictine abbey, setting for the Brother Cadfael novels by author Ellis Peters. The Cadfael connection is explored in 'The Shrewsbury Quest', a themed visitor centre near the Abbey. Shrewsbury public parks and gardens were made famous by the television appearances of their creator, gardener Percy Thrower and each year the town hosts the Shrewsbury Flower Show.
Charles Darwin (1809-1882) was born here and educated at the all-boys Shrewsbury School, founded by Edward Vl in 1552. Maybe there was something in the air in those days but he went on to pen his 'On the Origin of the Species' and change forever the way we interpret the world around us.
Outside the town stands the one-time Roman citadel of Viroconium which has undergone excavations from as far back as the 1860s. At one time it had a population numbering over 6,000 and is thought by some to have been a stronghold of King Arthur.


text:
Welp, you can add another bookmark to your URL list. Introducing Southwave. Maybe you're a slab-loving Aussie, so this site is nothing new to you. It offers a variety of substance: mostly photos and video, "sometime updated daily, sometimes not," as their motto says. Oh, and then there's this lovely Shark Island edit. It's a doozy and has all the ingredients that make Shark Island so entertaining to watch: Wipeouts, near-makes, dry-reef-sucking flails and a couple heroic makes by Jack Irvin, Caleb Mclean, Kirk Flintoff, and friends.
Shark Island At Its Finest
Wipeouts, near-makes, and dry-reef-sucking flails


text:
Justice Of The Peace in and around Cochiti Lake, Nm.
Life's Moments are those times in life that we choose to make a special recognition of life altering occasions. Weddings are celebrations, weddings are ceremonies, however most of all weddings are a new beginning, a moment in time to be cherished. Having the ideal Minister is important.
For these moments, we provide detailed Wedding Minister services, Just The Papers Wedding officiating, and also wedding solutions. From the very typical to modern services, our wedding celebrations as well as officiating services are created to show your desires, wishes and dreams. We will assist you to craft an event, secular or spiritual that will certainly be a cherished memory for years to come.
Pastoral services and wedding celebration officiating in the Cochiti Lake, Nm area is our specialty, but we can travel if the need arises. We supply a full range of Just The Papers Wedding packages; from elopement on the courthouse steps to the most intricate formal wedding you might want.
We also provide the finest in Justice of the Peace or secular weddings. These civil ceremonies provide their own form of celebration, whether it be with family members or simply a couple and also a couple of witnesses, your wedding is an unique moment to be treasured.


text: Section: Parts Title: UrQ OE Exhaust Price: 1.00 Location: cheshire, CT Date: August 08, 2004 Contact: bob Email: bob at audisport.com Phone: Description: NO PICTURES. Just took the exhaust off my 85 UrQ from Cat back. It all looks great still! There is a small wear spot on the top of the rear muffler, but otherwise in really good condition. Make offer URL: http://www.audifans.com/marketplace/show.php?table=pm_audifans_Parts&id=1509 -- [ This is an automated message ] [ You are receiving this message ] [ because you signed up for the ] [ Marketplace email notification. ]


text:
zayen c. created project Infrared thermal camera to detect breast cancer
Infrared thermal camera to detect breast cancer
iRiS is a preventive solution consisted of a mobile application connected to an independent, small and easy to use module equipped with an infrared thermal camera. iRiS will allow women to scan their upper body area and detect breast cancer (if present) at its early stages .
The project is designed to use Intel Edison and a FLIR camera. and it was tested in Tunisia in addition to several other countries.More explanation in the video


text:
Image by a.guzman
more on: www.asianplace.de/news.php?readmore=286
Gabriel: Isabel a good friend to James
read more
Read more on Sun Star
More Videos
A Chicago jury found former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich guilty on counts of attempted extortion, bribery, conspiracy and fraud. Dean Reynolds reports.
Read more on Advocate Tribune
Ron Artest: Does Name Change Signal He No Longer Cares About Hoops?
Ron Artest Has Come Up With Another Idea So We Don't Overlook Him Well he's at it again. Ron Artest is back in the news for something other than basketball. No, he didn't punch anyone or do something malicious, actually it is the exact opposite. Ron Artest has changed his name. The former Artest shall now be called…….. Metta World Peace? That is right. The same man that: flew into the …
Read more on Bleacher Report
Ind. hoops star in drug-induced coma after crash
An Indiana high school basketball standout who survived a plane crash that killed his father and stepmother is in a drug-induced coma as doctors monitor the badly injured 16-year-old's brain swelling, his father's…
Read more on WMDT Salisbury


text:
Indonesia Brings WTO Case Over Pakistan Paper Duty Probes
On Wednesday, Indonesia lodged a request with the WTO Secretariat for formal consultations with Pakistan over a pair of duty investigations on Indonesian writing and printing paper, the WTO said in a notice posted on its website. The consultation request represents the first step under the WTO's dispute settlement process.
In its request, Indonesia contended that, despite a WTO rule that...
To view the full article, register now.
Try Law360 FREE for seven days
Already a subscriber? Click here to login


text:
Sealing The Deal: Paul Hastings Becomes King Of FDIC Auctions
So the lawyers dusted off materials they had compiled nearly 20 years ago, the last time the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. made sweeping changes to the way it sold off seized...
To view the full article, register now.
Try Law360 FREE for seven days
Already a subscriber? Click here to login


text:
Stateful Applications on Mantl Using the Mesos ELK FrameworkCloud
Introduction Throughout this week the discussion has been focused on the necessity of a programmable infrastructure and the Mantl project. Mantl was formulated to deliver application level flexibility by providingRead More
Data Driven Platforms to Support IoT, SDN, and CloudPerspectives
More and more enterprises are managing distributed infrastructures and applications that need to share data. This data sharing can be viewed as data flows that connect (and flow through) multipleRead More


text:
Land and property data
Land and property information is gathered using annual site surveys and statistical information from other sources. This information is used to record past trends and plan for future requirements.
For more information about our land and property data please call 03000 41 74 44 or email email@example.com.
Find out more about land and property owned by Kent County Council.
Annual monitoring reports
Housing completion numbers and rates of development in Kent are available from the annual Housing Information Audit (HIA) reports.
- Introduction and glossary - Housing Monitoring (HIA) (PDF, 325.1 KB)
- Kent local authorities - Dwelling completions (PDF, 554.3 KB)
- Kent local authorities - Housing Land supply (PDF, 505.9 KB)
- Residential and commercial planning applications in Kent (PDF, 643.9 KB)
If you require past versions of any of the reports below please email email@example.com.
Additional information
Not included in the annual monitoring reports, but also available:
- Affordable housing (PDF, 623.2 KB)
- Council Tax base data (PDF, 639.0 KB)
- Council Tax charge £ (PDF, 623.6 KB)
- Dwelling completions in Kent (PDF, 490.5 KB)
- Homelessness (PDF, 770.6 KB)
- House prices and sales - quarterly (PDF, 537.3 KB)
- House prices and sales - annual (PDF, 1.0 MB)
- Housing stock by age of property (PDF, 1.0 MB)
- Housing stock by size and type (PDF, 467.3 KB)
- Housing stock by tenure (PDF, 463.7 KB)
- Energy Performance Certificates (PDF, 889.2 KB)
- Land prices (PDF, 385.4 KB)
- Land use (PDF, 328.0 KB)
- Mortgage and landlord possession (PDF, 1.0 MB)
- Rent prices (PDF, 670.6 KB)
- Right to Buy (PDF, 515.6 KB)
- Second homes in Kent (PDF, 395.0 KB)
- The Housing Register (PDF, 465.5 KB)
- Vacant and empty dwellings (PDF, 549.3 KB)
Annual monitoring reports
The reports below provide information on the overall losses and gains in commercial floor space across the Kent during the year. The reports include the take-up of commercial land allocated in the Local Development Frameworks. Developments with planning permissions not yet started, under construction and completions by use class are also presented.
The Glossary of commercial land terms (PDF, 320.5 KB) explains the terminology used in the annual monitoring reports.
If you require past versions of the annual monitoring reports, please email email@example.com.
- Ashford Borough (PDF, 617.8 KB)
- Canterbury City (PDF, 676.9 KB)
- Dartford Borough (PDF, 604.3 KB)
- Dover District (PDF, 558.9 KB)
- Gravesham Borough (PDF, 661.8 KB)
- Maidstone Borough (PDF, 593.1 KB)
- Sevenoaks District (PDF, 622.8 KB)
- Shepway District (PDF, 572.0 KB)
- Swale Borough (PDF, 569.4 KB)
- Thanet District (PDF, 621.4 KB)
- Tonbridge & Malling Borough (PDF, 627.7 KB)
- Tunbridge Wells Borough (PDF, 686.1 KB)
- Kent summary (PDF, 928.5 KB)
A summary of the latest commercial floorspace is presented in Commercial floorspace completions in Kent (PDF, 599.8 KB).
Additional information
There is some information that is not included in the annual monitoring reports, but is available in the Non domestic rates (business rates) report (PDF, 1.8 MB). This report shows information about stock figures, floorspace, rateable values and vacancy rates.


text:
|- Big Daddy.
|Smash Hits
|- Mark Brzezicki interview about the PIOT LP.
|The Sport
|- Moscow here we come!
|The Times (Arts)
|- Showbiz, Soviet style
|- Stuart - the best days of my life
|- Pop in the Big Country" about the PIOT Moscow '88 trip
|Melody Maker
|- Big Country at Glasgow Barrowlands
|- Big Country at Glasgow Barrowlands
|New Musical Express
|- Through A Big Country review
|Melody Maker
|- Republican Party Reptile review
|MM or NME (?)
|- No Place Like Home review
|Melody Maker
|- No Place Like Home review/interview
|The Times
|- Big Country - tale of Country folk
Big Daddy
LM, January 1987
BIG COUNTRY are back on the road this month, and STUART ADAMSON is in a quandry. Performing live in front of the band's loyal and dedicated fans has always been important to him, part of the process of breaking down the barriers between stage and audience. But, as he told DAVID CHEAL, touring also drags Stuart away from his beloved Scotland and his equally beloved family.
Big Country were shooting the video for their latest single, Hold The Heart, in a community arts centre in north London. My appointment with Stuart Adamson was scheduled to come at a convenient break in the filming, at an unspecified time during the course of the afternoon. I couldn't sit in on the shoot because it was in a room with mirrored walls, and hangers-on were excluded - they might creep into the shot.
So I sat downstairs, drank several gallons of coffee and leafed through a fascinating B&I Ferries brochure until Stuart finally appeared clad in a stylish, expensive-looking suit (with cuffs turned up) and a porkpie hat. A tuft of spikey hair bristled out in front of the hat's rim. Stuart lit a cigarette, took his hat off and placed it on the table next to my tape recorder. I half-expected the tuft of hair to remain attached to the hat, but it stayed firmly on his head.
Stuart spoke in a gentle, lilting Scots accent, by no means as incomprehensible as I feared it might be. He's a very thoughtful bloke, a member of that rare species, the intelligent pop star; Stuart avoids the platitudes and cliches which make up the vocabulary of the average music celebrity.
It's been a good year for Big Country: an album, three succesful singles, two tours in the UK, the second of which is currently underway. They've also just started to break into the American market, following their successful US tour.
"We have a good live following over there," says Stuart. "It's not mega-platinum status but it's good, a lot of people buying records and coming to gigs. Our show over there is pretty much the same as the one over here; we don't do a different stage show just because we're in America or Japan or whatever. We tend to get pretty much the same reaction wherever we play."
Does he find that Big Country attract similar audiences the world over?
"We get a much more varied audience than a lot of people think, a mixture of ages and cultures, and if our audiences are the same the world over they're the same because we get the same sort of mixture of different people."
Their album The Seer is still doing the business, too. Was he pleased with it?
"I was ecstatic. Every aspect of it - musically, lyrically, and live, it's something that's been an absolute joy to work on. There's a lot of space and a lot of atmosphere in the album, and it's brought out a lot of subtleties in the group that were always there but never quite came through before."
It also brought out a lot of subtleties in Kate Bush, who's featured on one of the tracks. Stuart explains how she came to be involved.
"I've been a big admirer of hers for a long time. We were working on The Seer and because the song itslef has a woman as a central character we thought it would be nice to have a woman singing it. We've used a girl singer in the past - for some reason it seems to match up quite well with my voice; I don't have a traditional gravelly rock'n'roll voice, it's a bit more straight than that.
"And because Kate has such a vast range of vocal styles and because of the way she arranges her own stuff vocally, I thought it would be smashing if she could do some work for us. So I called her up, sent her a tape and she really liked the song. We didn't want to tell her what to do; we just wanted her to be Kate Bush, so she worked out her own arrangement and came in and sang for 12 hours straight. I was quite in awe of her actually."
The album's lyrics continue Stuart Adamson's mythical, mystical storytelling style of songwriting.
"It's a lyrical style that interests me a great deal. It's a way I feel I can put not only human situations but moods and emotions and intangible things like spiritual things across, rather than sitting there saying 'I felt great''. It's trying to create the mental landscape, a mental picture that can re-create the mood or emotion in the listener. On The Seer, the idea around which the album revolves is one of learning from the past not to make the same mistakes again in the future.
"The song itself drew ona story I'd heard about a sort of Scottish Nostradamus who lived in the 12th Century. I thought it would be nice to use that with modern ideas. The Red Fox was about a guy who was in charge of the English forces in Scotland and was shot by someone, and no-one knew who had done it and it was like an historical act of terrorism. And it was using that idea to show how people's frustrations at their own situation can spill over into violence."
there are obvious parallels with the 20th Century and with unemployment, something about which Stuart has gone on the record with particularly strong views. And it's typical of his attitude that what impresses him is that the frustrations of the unemployed have not spilled over into violence on a large scale, despite the most devastating of circumstances.
"I was reading Bob Geldof's autobiography, adn there's one passage in it where he says that when people are at their worst they're at their best, and I think there's a lot in that. In the area where I come from, we've got the second-highest unemployment rate in Scotland. A fifth of the workforce is out of work. It's farcical, a ridiculous situation. But people still seem to have a sense of humour, and I think that's something that's worth believing in."
What helps the people back home through this rough period is their strong sense of community, believes Stuart. This concept is a strong thread throughout his work, and growing up in a small community near Dunfermline has taught him the advantages of living your life among people you know and trust.
"I find it very sad that we seem to be developing more and more into a nation that subscribes to the 'I'm alright, Jack' theory. Maybe it's nostalgia, but I did grow up in a close-knit community and I think it's something special, it gives you a sense of purpose and a sense of belonging, and a sense of being pert of something. When they're left to their own devices people tend to turn in on themselves and become suspicious and malicious. It causes a great deal of hostility between people, and causes you to look for people's differences rather than their similarities."
Stuart still lives in the town where he was brought up, and seems to be at his happiest there, surrounded by the most important people in his life: his family. Stuart is now the father of two young children, and he takes his responsibilities as a father very seriously.
"To say that my family is important to me would be an understatement. I'm very important to my family too, and that's a nice situation to be in, there's a mutual dependency. I think it's important not to teach children how to learn or how to grow up, but to help them, because they do it themselves. Also the basic warmth and company within a family is something that's important for kids."
Stuart once described himself as a 'depressed optimist', but bringing up a family has altered this view: "Children give you a sense of naivety, and I mean that in a nice sense, in that kids do see the wonder of things, and can see hope in things, and don't always look at the negatives. I see it in people's faces; I think your basic average human being is a pretty nice person, and I think you have to rely on hope for the human spirit."
Prolonged absences from his family have altered Stuart's attitude to touring, now ambivalent.
"It's something that's very much a part of me - the actual physical act of playing in a band is something that I derive a great deal of fulfilment from, and it's something I feel very lucky about. I do earn a living out of doing something that I love doing, and not many people can say that.
"But it does get a bit of a bind sometimes, and I do suffer very severely from homesickness. But we've tempered that this year by doing three or four weeks on and then three weeks off. It's a much more civilised way of doing things, particularly since three out of four members of the band now have families."
The continued success of Big Country surprises some critics, but not Stuart. He believes that the Big Country success story is largely attributed to the control they've maintained over their lives, their careers, their music, and their integrity, remaining true to themselves rather than adhering to an idea of what might be commercially successful.
"We've been successful by doing what we want do to and by keeping control of it. I don't think the group would last very long if we started doing stuff that was aimed specifically at a commercial market. We obviously want our stuff to be successful, because I don't see any reason in working in a communicative form and playing to myself, my family and my living-room, but it's important to us to do stuff that we are committed to. You do have a certain amount of clashes and arguments, and we do listen to what other people have to say, but when you do have fixed ideas about whatever it is that you want to do you have to stand by them.
"It would be a very vainglorious form of success if it was all done on someone else's conception of what the group should be. I'm not interested in success for success's sake - it's too narrow a concept for me to find any great lasting satisfaction from."
What is success?
"Finding myself deeply committed and deeply satisfied by my work, finding that the responsibilities I have as a father are repaid, and finding that I do what I do without looking too much of a prat, really. That's what it's all about."
Another important element in the Big Country success story is Stuart's refusal to be sucked into the star system; he prefers to present himself as a pretty regular sort of guy, because that's what he is.
"I'm not really into hero-worship. What I do through my work and through the way I live is something that just goes to make up part of me as a human being, and it doesn't set me apart from other people. I find it disorienting when people do look upon me in that manner. People that are interested in the group come up to us and talk to us and don't feel inhibited, and it could be like that for anybody; I think it's just a matter of how you view yourself. I don't have a stage persona that I can just turn on; Stuart Adamson the songwriter, guitar- player, singer, husband and father is all the same person.
"People where I live are pretty straightforward and don't make a great deal of fuss about it and just see it as my job. It is a very expressive and emotional form of work, but work it is, it's what I do to make my living. I don't think it's a matter of taking something special and making it everyday, I think it's seeing what there is special in the everyday, I think that's the magic."
Finally, there's the group itself. Musically, personally, politically, they all clicked from the word go and have gone on without any major conflicts.
"We have something very special between the four of us. I don't know quite what it is, whether it's something in the cut of our trousers or what, there's something there. It's something that's more than the input of each of the individuals. We do play and write with a great deal of spirit. It's something more than just sitting down with a guitar and strumming a few chords. It's a very intangible sort of thing, but it's part and parcel of what goes to make up the group."
Suddenly it's time to go; Stuart has a photographic session to attend, then the sleeper train back up to Scotland. We talk about the film Restless Natives for which he wrote and recorded the score: "I liked the discipline of writing to illustrate someone else's pictures. I'd like to do more of that," he says.
He's an ambitious man, but not in the traditional sense of the word. Ask most men what their ambitions are, and they'll talk to you about work, careers; most pop stars would mention unfulfilled yearnings to be novelists, film directors, poets or racing drivers. Stuart Adamson's greatest ambition is more realistic, but given his views on children and families as an expression of hope in the future, perhaps it's more important.
"I'd like to be someone's grandfather. I think that would be a fine thing to be."
The madcap world of Big Country
Smash Hits, August (?) 1988
Cast your minds back, pop tarts, through the swirly mists of time to approximately one billion light years ago. Stuart Adamson, Mark Unpronounceablename and two other blokes, otherwise known as Big Country, were gadding about the charts with their infectious pop tootlings such as "In A Big Country" and all the other ones that sounded just like it! All was going hunky "dory" when suddenly The "Tree", as they were then known , slipped off the face of the universe never to be seen or heard of again...until now that is. Yes - yes! - they're back!
Their new single "King Of Emotion" is sweeping its way across the nation and Big Country are pop stars once again! So, Bitz has rudely awakened Mark Unpronounceablename to find out just what happened to ver lads in their so-called "twighlight" years...only there seems to be a slight "hitch" as Mark is having a fit or something.
"Hahaaaheheh! Mark Unpronounceablename!!! That's a good one that is. Smash Hits christened me that years ago and it's stuck! Everyone calls me that now! Hoho...guffaw... teehee!!! Even fans come up to me and say 'Oh, you're that Unpronounceablename bloke aren't you?' It doesn't bother me at all. I like it best when you say 'Markunpronounceablenameofbigcountry' in one long swoop. That looks even more fangled!"
So it does. So what have you been up to since you last hat a "hit" then?
"Well, it's been two and a half years since we were in the charts but we've been busy. You see, we're a gigging band. Lots of bands go into the studio these days and have the Lock, Stock and Barrel treatment but they can't actually play live. We're really good at it.!
Oh. So, you weren't down the dumper then?
"Certainly not! The thing is we also write all our own songs and that takes time to do... (goes on about the time-consuming art of writing "proper" songs for a few months). We've also been in the studio making a new LP. It's called 'Peace In Our Time'."
Oh dear, sounds a bit like a dreaded "concept" album to Bitz...
"Oh God, no!! Every song is about something different. I'm not telling you about what though, because Stuart writes the lyrics and he's one for letting the audience decide for themselves."
How very wise of him. So what else have you been doing to "while" away the hours?
"Well, I've been learning to fly an aeroplane, and Stuart has been sponsoring the Big Country Racing Team. Honestly! He's mad about motorbikes is Stuart, but he had to sell all his bikes because he kept...er...well, let's just say he's better off watching than he is riding. I was watchingWorld Of Sport the other day and it's really wierd watching this bloke going round with 'Big Country' written on his motorbike! Anyway, I'm still going to learn to fly. As soon as I get time off I'm going to take to the air! Hee hee!"
Mark Unpronounceablename! Unpronounceable name - crazy guy!(??)
Moscow here we come!
The Sport, September 1988
Big Country are doing their bit to help East-West relations.
They became the first British rock band to perform a concert inside the Soviet Embassy in London.
The band, who set off this week to headline a major Moscow rock festival, brought a touch of noisy Glasnost to the embassy.
They performed in front of a specially invited audience that included concerned-looking embassy officials.
There was also the rare sight of the nation's music press in "smart" dress as requested on the much sought after embassy passes.
The band's new LP aptly named Peace In Our Time, is released this week. And stay tuned for tales of the band's trip to Moscow in a couple of weeks.
Showbiz, Soviet style
David Sinclair joins in the ballyhoo over the first private enterprise rock concerts in Moscow
The Times, Monday 3rd October 1988
It looked for a moment as if the centre piece of Big Country's contribution to glasnost was going to end up as a fiasco. Over a weekend when Mikhail Gorbachov was teching the Politburo to sing a new song, the Anglo-Scottish band was performing the second of five concerts at one of Moscow's Palace of Sports, an 8,000 capacity ice skating rink called the Palace of Wings. But a voltage regulator essential for protecting the group's sophisticated guitar electronics from the extreme fluctuations in the Moscow power supply, had been disconnected and the band was forced to give up half way through the first number, while the road crew searched for the fault.
Half an hour later the musicians bounded back on. "Let's do it properly," said the vocalist and leader Stuart Adamson. They lasted less than eight bars before a related problem prompted them to leave the stage again. The lights went up and a bemused Russian crowd was left waiting for another hald an hour.
Although audiences are still trying to get a fix on the various stylistic and behavioural co-ordinates associated with rock, the market for the music in the Soviet Union has already been revealed as one of massive potential. This show was not sold out, but in a society where there is virtually no advertising, approximately 5,000 people had nevertheless turned out and paid 5.7 roubles each for the privilege of seeing a group whose music most of them had never even heard before. The trickle of acts which started in the early Eighties, with mainstream pop artists such as Cliff Richard, Elton John, Abba and Boney M has swollen, since glasnost, into a steady flow of rock bands, including in recent months UB40, Status Quo, Public Image Limited, The Scorpions and Uriah Heep.
However, Big Country is the first Western act to have set up its concerts through a promoter independently of the state-run Goskontsert agency. The shows have been organized by the Russian former pop star Stas Namin, who now runs a music school.
Big Country's records are not available in the Soviet Union, where there is only the one state-run record label, Melodiya and no copyright law to enable collection, let alone payment of royalties. During a lengthy career, the aforementioned Stas Namin is reputed to have sold 40 million albums in the Soviet Union, but has never earned more than the basic wage for a musician.
But, if Big Country receives nothing from this visit in terms of income generated within the Soviet Union, the band's record company Phonogram, is determined that the rest of the world will get to hear about the rest of these shows, and Big Country's otherwise unremarkable new album: Peace In Our Time. the company flew more than 230 people from the media in the UK, Europe and North America, to be at this concert: a junket that will long be remembered in such circles, not least because it looked for a while as if the group was not going to play.
The days have long passed when Big Country was routinely classed as the equal of bands like U2 and Simple Minds and, predictably, new material such as "Broken Heart (13 Valleys)" and "Thousand Yard Stare" was not a patch on the oldest songs such as "In a Big Country". Nor could the audience be relied on to know numbers like "Steeltown" and "The Seer", which lack instant appeal, whatever their merits.
It was intriguing to see so many Red Army conscripts in their dark green uniforms, some with their hats on, dotted about the crowd, not as security but as excited members of the audience.
"I think this is an important event in the spirit of glasnost," said drummer Mark Brzezicki after the show. "It's obviously a promotional launch of the album, but at the same time it springs from a genuine desire to play over here. People who know the band know our intentions are genuine, but of course there will always be those who read the worst into any situation."
The Amnesty International tour featuring Bruce Springsteen and Peter Gabriel has not been granted permission to visit the Soviet Union, where Amnesty remains a banned organisation, and the scope for participaion by Western rock musicians in the Soviet Union remains limited. Nevertheless, one can only admire the spirit in which this and similar events have been undertaken.
Stuart Adamson
The best days of my life
??, October 1988
Performing behind the Iron Curtain and going doolally as Dunfermline won the Scottish Football Cup are all among Stuart Adamson's favourite days. Andrew Fleming meets the man from Big Country (in Russia, to be precise) to find out more.
The most amazing thing about Moscow is the architecture, it's breathtaking. I think generally though, they're well behind Britain and many other parts of the world. I mean the food is very basic - stale bread and apple juice for breakfast. The band would love to come back here some day, though.
I was still a teenager in Dunfermline when I met Sandra. Friends and I would go down to this dancing club called The Roxy, and we met each other one evening. It wasn't exactly love at first sight though, we were friends for quite a while first, and we went out for ages before we decided to get married. If I can remember right, it wasn't a get-down-on-one-knee job - after a while, both us just knew we were going to get married.
I can remember being so nervous on our wedding day. My best man and I got all dressed up in these morning suits and looked really smart. The worst thing about the wedding was making the speech at the really posh reception after the wedding. I can sing in front of thousands of people, but making the speech to thank everyone was so nerve-wracking. The funniest bit of the wedding was when we went to this hotel for our honneymoon. I found out that George Best (famous old crinkly footballer) was staying in the same hotel as us, so I was more interested in getting a glimpse of George than spending time with Sandra! No, that's not true.
I think I was the first person ever to fail my motorbike test in Dunfermline! It used to be so easy up there - all you had to do was take the bike round these cones and you'd pass. I failed! Finally I passed though, and it was brilliant. I love the feeling of driving along in the freezing cold with the wind rushing past your face. It's so invigorating, so refreshing, and you feel really free - not like when you're enclosed in a car. I've got a couple of bikes at the moment up in Scotland and I go out on them as often as I get the chance. Sandra does tend to worry when I'm out. I think bikes are safe as long as you don't do anything silly.
Unfortunately I was somewhere in Europe when our first kid was born. I got a phone call from my mother-in-law telling me that Sandra had just had Callum (now aged six), and it was the wierdest experience, knowing that we'd become parents. Suddenly there was this added responsibility. I didn't get to see him for ages, 'cause I was on tour with the band.
When our daughter Kirsten (now three) was born, I was at the birth, which is the strangest experience ever. I think it's a very mother/child experience which men will never really be able to understand. The children are great - really the best thing that's ever happened to Sandra and myself. They're quite clever as well.
I've been going to see Dunfermline, my local football team, since as far back as I can remember. At one point I was well into it - I had the scarf and everything. The year they won the cup was just unbelievable. I can remember every minute of the game and when they won there was the most massive cheer ever. The town was mad that night. All the shops on the main road put up congratulations banners on their windows and the team came home on an open-top bus with the cup. Everyone was going mad. I still go and see the team play whenever I get the chance, with my brothers-in-law and my father-in-law. I'm still a keen supporter.
I get well into Christmas. As a youngster I loved it, and it's brilliant playing Father Christmas to Callum and Kirsten. I loved waking up as a kid to find that Father Christmas had been. I can't tell you what the kids are getting this year, 'cause no doub't they'll see this and that'd spoil the surprise.
Pop in the Big Country
??, January 1989
It has been a year of foreign travels for Big Country, but at last they are back on their home territory with theior current UK tour which marks a welcome return to live work for the Scottish band who delivered one of 1988's most powerful rock albums, 'Peace In Our Time' - dedicated, as the title suggests, to the cause of world peace.
Stuart Adamson, Big Country's frontman and the founder member of the band, has always been noted for his social conscience: 'It was incredible playing to roack fans behind the Iron Curtain, and the great thing was that they knew most of older numbers. We haven't had any offical record releases there, but a lot of our recordings do get heard via the black market. They are big rock and pop fans and are always looking out for cassettes of music from Western Europe.
'Mind you it's my experience that audiences are the same wherever a band plays. People ask what it's like to play to audiences in the USSR, East Germany or Hungary, but the fact is that they are just as enthusiastic about the music there as they are anywhere else in Europe.'
Fans have always been important to Big Country: 12 months ago the band took the unusual step of playing low-key gigs around the country, virtually unpublicised in the musical press, as a 'thank you' to those who have supported them over the last five or so years. It was a gesture that didn't go unnapreciated, but now the Scottish band are back where they belong: playing to capacity halls and stadiums around the UK.
And no doubt it won't be too long before they're off travelling behind the Iron Curtain again, supporting their personal crusade for Peace In Our Time.
"Kings Of Emotion"
Big Country
Barrowlands, Glasgow
Melody Maker, 2nd June 1990 - good review!
In what Stuart Adamson calls, "The Big Country Nostalgia Extravaganza", a Bowie-styled jaunt designed to promote their worthy Greatest Hits collection, every crowd-thriller Big Country have ever learned is present, correct and kicking its legs fervently in the air.
"This band have been in fashion, out of fashion, praised, hated, up, down," says Adamson, prefacing a song of the but-you've-always-been-with-me variety. The ropey new single, "Save Me", even comes with a touch of the vitriol more commonly reserved for the asset stripping Southern vultures who haunt Big Country's lowland industrial anthems: "How many people here listen to Radio One?" Huge cheer. "Here's one you probably won't know then".
What has always marked Big Country out from the other stadium contenders has been their ability to move an audience without reducing them to drooling, Pavlovian slabs of meat. It's not just to do with the egalitarianism which allows them to bring four punters from the stalls onstage to add their vocals to a blistering "King Of Emotion". It's also the supple electric delicacy of their songs - stirring, throat-lumping, defiant, but never crass or over played.
there is still plenty of fodder for cynics, though: the spectacle of awestruck fans knocking lumps out of each other in their attempts to secure Adamson's discarded plectrums during songs on the desirability of global harmony, the crushingly bad piece of rapping which dissects "Heart Of The World", the other songs about "the soul" and "the heart" and other metaphysical babble that tempts one to scream "Nietschze, ya bass!" at regular intervals
It would still be a shame if they went the way of all flesh, though. If nothing else (and there is a lot else to Big Country), they were a troupe of hearty minstrels who asked whether the noble, the epic, the transcendent could be articulated by a medium as morally tarnished as rock and whether an audience could submit to music without being labelled vegetable. Tonight, in what may or may not have been their swansong, in front of a wild, good-vibed, packed-beyond-capacity crowd, they got their answer.
What a nice bloke this Allan Brown is: not only does he appear to have been to the gig and managed to stay for more than five minutes (unlike most music journalists) he also gives an unbiased pro/con account of the great night out! Oliver.
Big Country
Glasgow Barrowlands
NME (?), June 1990 - pretty good review!
"Swing yer pants! Swing yer pants!" Two thousand Glaswegians issue their terrifying orders to Stuart Adamson and he can only obey. Adamson and his chums swing their gaily coloured garments, running around the stage like big girlies playing rounders on drugs. "We come down from Dunfermline and you people call us 'teuchters' and say we do things with sheep," complains Adamson, stilling his neatherwear for a moment. He points gaily at the world's thinnest man, Bruce Watson. "And here's the proof."
Big Country are a jovial live performance. The (to quote Shagger Stu) Big Country Nostalgia Extravaganza is here to promote a Greatest Hits LP that entered the charts 1,000 units away from Number One, and so everything from the skirl of the pipes to the fiery rock to the weird Heavy Metal is unrolled and beaten mightily. It is great fun, and the audience control the show. They count in the songs. The demand pant-swinging. And they sing everything. It would have been no surprise had they recited Adamson's between-song patter along with him (especially as this tends not to vary from night to night).
Yet Big Country had their secret weapon. After a hundred 'Fields Of Fire' and 'Kings Of Emotion' and 'Wonderlands' they return to perform The Equals' awesome funk metal monster 'Black Skinned Blue Eyed Boys'. For a moment we believe Stuart Adamson to be Eddy Grant. Stuart waves to the crowd, basking in their love. With one voice they wave back and shout, "YOU'RE A DICK! YOU'RE A DICK! YOU'RE A DICK!"
Big fun.
David Quantick
A fantastic review considering that it's come from NME... Oliver.
"Long Play"
Big Country
Through A Big Country
New Musical Express, June 2 1990 - average review...
OH GOOD. Just what the world needed, a compilation of Big Country's greatest hits. Contractual obligations can lead to the most tedious consequences. But hang on a minute - didn't Stu and the boys support The Jam at the latter's farewell gigs? Didn't they once record a much-cherished Peel session? Didn't Big Country inject the rock scene with a healthy dose of spirited reality when their compatriots sought pompous grandeur and overblown reverence? yes, yes and thrice yes.
Shame, then, that "Through.." kicks off with current smash "Save Me", a turgid meander across Gary Moore's builder's yard terrain which taints the subsequent clutch of faves from "The Crossing". The likes of "In A Big Country", "Fields Of Fire" and "Chance" reveal the band at their peak, emotive and toying with their bonkers gosh-don't-they-sound-like-bagpipes? guitars.
Thereafter, the formula becomes a touch repetitive, a few shades duller as the Biggies started socialising with rock's royalty (Phil, Midge et al) and pandering to thrill-seeking bank clerks. Curiously, both "Just A Shadow" and "East Of Eden" threaten to turn into Cocteaus classics, shimmering ten second false promises which ultimately follow the traditional Big Country pattern of thumpathumpa beats with a shower of twiddly plectrum bits on top.
So it's loud but safe, invigorating without ever being intimidating. Rock music with neither exceptional qualities nor truly execrable characteristics. Which is quite possibly the worst way to be. Safety hurts (5)
Simon Williams
I suspect that Mr. Williams reviewed this LP whilst doing a hundred and one other things, not giving the songs his full attention, and thus can be forgiven for producing the average review seen above... Oliver.
Big Country
Republican Party Reptile (Vertigo)
Melody Maker, 24th August 1991 - typical MM review...
In which the caber-tossing, girder monsters attempt their "Subterranean Homesick Blues" and rail against all things right-wing in a lyric including lines like "industrial kickbacks" and "offshore banking". As you'd expect, it shimmmers rather less than does Prince. Stuart Adamson may leave us in no doubt he's voting Labour, but does this labour.
Big Country
No Place Like Home
MM/NME(?), 1991 - very poor review...
"What do you do", wonders the writer of the sleevenotes with undisguised awe, "when you are a group that has created one of the truly distinctive sounds in rock and been at the top of your profession eight years?" What indeed. The truly distinctive shall always be distinguished from the falsely distinctive, and where I come from, that means only one thing: BAGPIPE.
The great thing about Big Country is that they were never able to live that one down. Better, they can never stop themselves from bringing it up in a vain attempt at pre-emption. For the rest of the world it's a joke, but for Stuart Adamson, it's an obsession. If Adamson were on his deathbed with the priest approaching to give him extreme unction, his last words would be "Don't mention the bagpipes!". Did I mention that Big Country are also SICK AND TIRED of malicious journalists making cheap shots about bagpipes? In fact, just to make sure we know they're not kidding about this, they enlist the help of (again) the sleevenotes writer, who tells us, his nostrils quivering with indignation, that "For too long, the emotionally charged essence of Big Country's music has been obscured by LAZY and CLICHED talk of bagpipe guitars and checked-shirt rock". Well, I never.
The terrible thing about Big Country is that their music is crap. This is a band that makes Lime Spiders look like the Rolling Stones. Adamson is responsible for the "emotionally charged essences" that make him sound like a Celtic Springsteen wannabe, gasping through a series of insufferable bar-room boogies. This, we are told, is Big Country getting back to their basics, their R&B roots. Naturally, all sentient listeners will wish they wouldn't, but who listens to us anyway?
In terms of songwriting technique, I invite you to consider this couplet from "I Know We're Not In Kansas": "They took up all the yellow bricks/And sold them to Japan/And still the advertisers tell you/There's no place like home". Did I happen to mention that Big Country are sick of being laughed at?
Caren Myers
Another narrow-minded, short-sighted, self-opinionated review by a 'nobody' journalist trying to cater for the 'trendy' masses who only exist in the minds of the record company and 'newspaper' (I use the term loosely) marketing executives... Oliver.
Big Country
It's only Rock 'n' Roll...
Melody Maker, 21st September 1991
BIG COUNTRY's new album, 'No Place Like Home', is meant to be a return to the basics of classic, honest-to-God guitar rock, a celebration of straight-from-the-shoulder rock'n'roll. To the ears of THE STUD BROTHERS, however, it still sounds like the bombastic swagger of yore. Pics: TOM SHEEHAN
"We were the band that made your brain think and your foot tap at the same time (not a trick everybody can manage, mind you - there are some real thickets around). We had - dare I say it - class. And we were the band whose gimmick was...music. Oh, yes, we had that reputation" - Iain Banks, "Espedair Street"
We're early. A good two hours early. Some sort of time-warp, a loop in time, or
something. Our airline tickets promised us we'd be in Edingburgh by 11, the press officer
told us the cab ride from Edingburgh to Dunfermline would take 40 minutes. We were to
interview the band at 12.30. but it's 10.30, so unless we got up early we must've gone back
through time.
We're pondering the mystery in a bakery-come-caff just off Dunfermline's only busy street when Bruce Watson walks in. Bruce Watson is 30 years old and still looks a more convincing Dunfermline docker than he does a rock'n'roll guitarist. His demeanour's part amiable pub racontuer, part ned hardman. He smiles a lot and has a front tooth missing. He keeps his new tooth in the breast pocket of his denim jacket.
Bruce greets our photographer Tom Sheehan warmly. Tom's known Bruce for f***ing years. According to Tom, Bruce used to be a real rascal around a drink.
"Och, Tom," grins Bruce. "It's been six years now. Six years without a drink. Six months without a cigarette."
He considers this feat of self-control for a moment then adds with a flourish, "So, would anyone like any heroin?"
With that Bruce is sharpley summoned to a nearby table to appear before his Auntie Mary who would like to know why she's seen neither hide nor hair of him for weeks now. We can think of a number of good excuses - writing and recording a new album, making videos, organising next year's world tour - but then we're not Auntie Mary. Auntie Mary's wounded expression reminds us of a headmaster who once told us excuses are lies.
We retreat to the street and from there to a hotel where Tony Butler, Big Country's
bassist, turns up bearing a massive hangover he's eager to share. We offer sympathetic ears.
Bruce, though has evidently discovered that one of the few pleasures of not drinking is to
exacerbate Tony's hangovers with finger-wagging I-told-you-so's.
He tells Tony, "I told you so."
Tony was born in West London but now lives with his family in a tony Cornish village. He didn't even bother going back for this year's Notting Hill Carnival. When Tony was a kid, the Carnival was the biggest event of his year. He played in the calypso bands and helped to decorate the floats. Now London's out of the question - too fast, too frenetic, too smelly. Maybe even too dangerous.
Stuart Adamson arrives sporting a spectacular quiff, leather motorcycle boots, a heavy leather belt and a huge leather jacket. Adamson lives just around the corner with his wife, two kids and two retrievers. Everywhere Adamson goes people ask "How's yer wee bairns?"
Adamson at least looks like he's involved in pop music. Tony kind of does but only in an erstwhile capacity. Part-time roadie. Bruce is so determinedly proletarian he makes The Farm look like Motley Crue. As rock'n'roll stars go, Big Country aren't up to much. We like them immediately.
Homely, affable, intelligent, Big Country, who eschew any gimmick more ostentatious than a leather jacket, look awfully dignified. This, though laudable in blues or soul, bemuses the pop fan. Dignity, to pop, looks undignified. Big Country have simply written honest rock'n'roll songs about, well, Stuart Adamson. What Adamson does, thinks, reads, cares about. Simple, artless honesty looks to some contrived.
"Yeah, well, people think," says Adamson, "that we're simply a career band, working musicians, or just doing it because it's something to do. People think we're not into it, that it doesn't mean much to us. But I care passionately about music, I just get really cheesed off with all the nonsense that goes with it. For me being in a band is writing songs and playing the guitar. The most important response we can get is if one of our songs can affect someone's life in the same way a song can affect my life, if someone can just identify with it."
With the recent "Republican Party Reptile" single, Adamson identifies with the
right-wing American journalist PJ O'Rourke. "Republican Party Reptile" (the title is lifted
from a collection of essays by O'Rourke) is an assessment, maybe even a celebration, of PJ's
hedonistic, self-seeking capitalist, someone to which Adamson, the still-committed socialist,
admits a helpless attraction.
"You could never admit to being like that", he says. "It's just so not-right-on. But to know someone like that, someone who wants it all - who wants to get wasted and laid and wants a career in politics as well - would be brilliant."
While we approve of the sentiment, we're far less keen on the music, an oddly characterless lump of blunt guitar riffola. These feelings extend to the album, "No Place Like Home", a perpetually bombastic affair that swaggers in an objectionably American way, which, even at its most plaintive and pastoral, sounds inexplicably impersonal.
"No Place Like Home" leaves all Big Country's idiosyncrasies behind and instead makes reverent reference to an impeccable lexicon of American stars - Neil Young, early Heart, early ZZ Top, even John Waite's one hit-single. It left us feeling genuinely bewildered. We even wondered if Stuart Adamson had gone mad.
"From the outside it will look like a real departure," says Stuart. "But for us it's what we do and what we are. I wouldn't even begin to pretend we're the same band we were three years ago, that we're even the same people. What we've done with this album is to emphasise the different musical sides of the band. We can't go and make a record wondering what people will think about it afterwards. We do it the way we wanna do it and if we can't do it that way then we won't do it at all."
We don't for a minute doubt the sincerity with which Big Country's new album was
written and recorded. Adamson is a long-time fan of American music and, long before his punk
days with The Skids, played R&B with a band called Tattoo.
Jon Bon Jovi once told us he was still just playing in a bar band. The only difference was the bars had turned into stadia. The same applies to Big Country.
Still in Dunfermline with family, kids and dogs and now back with an album that pays homage to the American guitar rock they've loved for years, Big Country are probably the biggest, brightest pub-rock band in the world. Still the band whose only gimmick is...music.
The album, "No Place Like Home", is out on Phonogram this week.
"Tale of Country folk"
Big Country
Town & Country
The Times, Saturday October 5th 1991 (Arts section) - not a bad review
Having reached a creative impasse and suffered grievous financial losses on their 1988 Moscow adventure to promote the Peace in our Time album, Big Country were ready to throw in the towel. In the event only drummer Mark Brzezicki quit. Nevertheless, the group has turned to a new page with their latest album, No Place Like Home, a radical and inspired departure from the galloping rhythms and skirling guitar sounds of old.
Even so, Big Country remain a band painfully out of joint with the times. Dominated by the thoughtful, honourable and down-to-earth personality of singer and guitarist Stuart Adamson, they have neither the "dangerous" attitude to compete with such young turks as Guns N'Roses or the lofty pretensions of contempories like Simple Minds.
If anything, their relationship with their audience is akin to the easy and cosy rapport of a long-established folk act, and indeed halfway through this, the first of a five-night residency, Adamson strapped on an acoustic guitar and asked for requests. The result was an unaccompanied version of "Broken Heart (Thirteen Valleys)" with the crowd enthusiastically adding their football-chant vocalese to the chorus.
However, there is no folk act that gets the kind of response which greeted the opening salvo of "We're Not In Kansas", "King of Emotion" and "Look Away". It looked as if the dance floor had been turned into a giant trampoline, such was the mass of bodies bouncing at the front.
The new material was greeted with more restraint, but the bluesy "Republican Party Reptile" and the country-tinged ballad "Ships" nevertheless dovetailed surprisingly smoothly into the structure of the set. The honkey-tonk piano, mandolin and mellow sentiments of "Beautiful People" sat less comfortably in the mix, and an old song about the aftermath of a nuclear holocaust, "Winter Sky", seemed a perversely dated choice, both musically and topically. Better by far was the taut menace of "The Hostage Speaks", with its picaresque lyric and haunting wah-wah soloing from Adamson.
The old standbys, "Chance", and "In a Big Country" gave way to encores including an emotional reading of Neil Young's epic "Rocking in the Free World" and an ill-advised stab at Muddy Water's cock-of-the-roost anthem "Mannish Boy".
Well, well, well...another good review! Seems The Times sends reviewers to concerts who are prepared to report honestly and constuctively about the gig. Shame that that happens less and less these days... I think this is the same guy that did the liner notes for NPLH... Oliver.
Back to the "from the archives" page
Back to the "I hope you like it!" main page


text:
BBB - A+ Rating - the best there is
An excerpt from www.HouseOfNames.com archives copyright © 2000 - 2018
Venice, one of the oldest and most beautiful island regions of Italy, is the esteemed birthplace of numerous prominent families, including the family that bears the surname Papa. Although people were originally known only by a single name, it became necessary for people to adopt a second name to identify themselves as populations grew and travel became more frequent. The process of adopting fixed hereditary surnames was not complete until the modern era, but the use of hereditary family names in Italy began in the 10th and 11th centuries. Italian hereditary surnames were developed according to fairly general principles and they are characterized by a profusion of derivatives coined from given names. Although the most common type of family name found in Venice is the patronymic surname, which is derived from the father's givenname, names derived from occupations are also found. Occupational surnames, which are less common than other types of surnames in Italy, date back to the feudal era. However, under the Feudal System, occupational names did not become hereditary until the offices themselves became hereditary. It was only after an occupation was inherited by several generations in lineal descent that occupational names came to be applied to entire families, and so became a hereditary surname. The surname Papa is a common occupational name for a person who was in some way associated with an ecclesiastical office, either as an employee or as a Father. The surname Papa is derived from the Italian word papa, which means Father or Pope.
Papa Early Origins
Papa Early History
Papa Early History
This web page shows only a small excerpt of our Papa research. More information is included under the topic Early Papa History in all our PDF Extended History products and printed products wherever possible.
Papa Spelling Variations
Papa Spelling Variations
Enormous variation in spelling and form characterizes those Italian names that originated in the medieval era. This is caused by two main factors: regional tradition, and inaccuracies in the recording process. Before the last few hundred years, scribes spelled names according to their sounds. Spelling variations were the unsurprising result. The variations of Papa include Papa, Lo Papa, Papotto, Papaccio, Papazzo, Papallo, Papadomenico, Papadonno, Papajanni, Pappaianni, Papaleo, Papaleone, papalenoi, Papalìa, Papaluca, Papandrea, Papapietro, Papazzoni, Papacoda, Papacizza, Papadia, Papafava, Papareschi, Papaivano, Paparusso, Papasergio and many more.
Papa Early Notables (pre 1700)
Papa Early Notables (pre 1700)
Prominent among members of the family was Papa family in Piedmont, Counts of Costigliole in 1280; The Papacizza family was of Paduan nobility in 1311. The Papacoda family in Naples was of the noble class and possessed 30 feudal territories and much other land. Alfonso Papacoda was an Admiral under ruler...
Another 86 words (6 lines of text) are included under the topic Early Papa Notables in all our PDF Extended History products and printed products wherever possible.
The Great Migration
The Great Migration
In the immigration and passenger lists were a number of people bearing the name Papa
Papa Settlers in United States in the 19th Century
Papa Settlers in United States in the 20th Century
Contemporary Notables of the name Papa (post 1700)
Contemporary Notables of the name Papa (post 1700)
Papa Family Crest Products
Papa Family Crest Products
See Also
See Also
Sign Up
BBB - A+ Rating - the best there is


text: 135. Love going forth from the Lord as a sun is felt in heaven as heat, because the interiors of the angels are in a state of love from the Divine good that is from the Lord; and in consequence their exteriors which grow warm therefrom are in a state of heat. For this reason heat and love so correspond to each other in heaven that everyone there is in heat such as his love is, according to what has been said just above. This world's heat does not enter heaven at all, because it is too gross, and is natural, and not spiritual; but with men it is otherwise, because they are in both the spiritual world and the natural world. As to their spirits they grow warm in exact accordance with their loves; but as to the body they grow warm both from the heat of their spirit and from the heat of the world. The former flows into the latter, because they correspond. The nature of the correspondence of the two kinds of heat can be seen from animal life, in that the love of animals-the chief of which is the love of propagating offspring of their kind-bursts forth and becomes active in accordance with the presence and influence of heat from the sun of the world, which is the heat of the spring and the summer seasons. Those who believe that the world's heat flows in and excites these loves are greatly mistaken, for there can be no influx from the natural into the spiritual, but only from the spiritual into the natural. This influx is of Divine order, but the other would be contrary to Divine order.# # There is spiritual influx, but not physical, that is, there is influx from the spiritual world into the natural, but not from the natural world into the spiritual (n. 3219, 5119, 5259, 5427, 5428, 5477, 6322, 9109, 9110, 9111).


text:
Call us on 1-800-219-4817
Monday to Friday 9am to 11pm Eastern Standard Time
Compare Health Insurance Rates in Minutes!
Take five minutes & fill out 1 form, get rates from top rated insurance companies. Compare rates and pick the one that is right for your situation.
We offer plenty of options to fit your health insurance needs.
- Individual
- Family
- Medicare
- Short Term
When Companies Compete you Win Get a quote online or call us by phone
*Please review our terms and conditions for this service. We offer no guarantees about rates and your potential to save money.
4 Essential Things You Should Consider when Buying Health Insurance
It is not a secret that many people find it difficult to decide on the best health insurance company when searching for medical insurance. The situation is made worse by the proliferation of health providers who offer different types of insurance products at different rates. This explains why many people have long periods of time without insurance coverage. Here are a few things to consider about health insurance.
1) Health Insurance Quotes
To start off, you actually need to check out insurance quotes that match your insurance needs and provide the coverage you are looking for. You can use online tools to request quotes from the insurance companies websites or talk to an insurance agent to assist you further. Since money is a major factor here, you should get quotes that offer the best coverage and good value for your money.
2) Suitability of Medical Coverage
Once you get the right quotes and the right price, check whether the company's insurance coverage suits your personal or family insurance needs. Since insurance is always a costly affair, you may not like the idea of missing some of the key benefits or locking out some members of your family from your policy coverage. Your insurance coverage should give you access to the best health care services and at the same time, minimize out of pocket costs towards medication and or any other treatment.
3) Terms and Coverage
As you compare insurance products, you should carefully read the terms of insurance of all potential insurance companies. This is very important since many insurance companies use marketing gimmicks to draw away the attention of customers from critical points of missing or limited coverage. You don't want a policy that has serious limitations and costly implications long term just to save a few dollars today. Make sure you understand if co-pay percentages are involved and if their is a threshold or limit to your coverage or if you have to pay a certain amount out of pocket before your coverage takes place.
4) Type of Insurance Available
Take some time to think about all the types of insurance that are available in the market and pick the one that best fits your needs. Know the market and how you can shop your rates for the best price. Take advantage of health care coverage offered through your place of work. Since its based on the concept of a large group sharing the risk, you should be able to save a significant amount of money compared to buying insurance on your own time and out of pocket.
Conclusion: The End Result
Don't rush the decision to take out just any insurance policy , take time to find an insurer that provides suitable coverage and affordable premiums towards your medical insurance. If the terms of coverage seem vague or ambivalent, you should seek clarification from the insurer's representative first before you sign up for the policy coverage. With these 4 essential things, you can never go wrong about your choice of health insurance.


text:
I know how you all like a friendship-angst situation, so come and give me your opinions (longish, sorry, will make as brief as possible)(7 Posts)
Mintyy Fri 03-May-13 10:46:53
pictish Thu 02-May-13 23:06:22
Mintyy Thu 02-May-13 23:00:49
pictish Thu 02-May-13 22:46:50
MissSusan Thu 02-May-13 22:42:05
OhHullitsOnlyMeYoni Thu 02-May-13 22:40:13
Mintyy Thu 02-May-13 22:37:35
Join the discussion
Registering is free, easy, and means you can join in the discussion, get discounts, win prizes and lots more.Register now
Already registered with Mumsnet? Log in to leave your comment or alternatively, sign in with Facebook or Google.
Please login first.


text:
In this modern era, where gadgets are being manufactured on a large scale, people can expect new products that can make life easier for them. One such modern gadget which is growing in popularity is the Smartwatch. Depending on the needs of the users, the smartwatch can act as a fitness tracker, time tracker or a smartphone controller. This means that you don't have to use your phone for tracking your fitness, accessing apps, texting, making calls, etc. The Smart Fitness Watch Connects to your phone via Bluetooth so that you can take control it with ease. Now let's take a look at some of the best 7 Smart Fitness Watches brands that offer smart and stylish watches for fitness tracking and smartphone access.
Top 7 Smart Fitness Watches Brands:
Contents List
- 1. Apple Watch Series 1 Smart Fitness Watch
- 2. Samsung gear S3 Frontier Smart Fitness Watch
- 3. Fitbit Blaze Smart Fitness Watch
- 4. Healthsense Smart Pedometer Fitness Watch
- 5. GOQii Life Fitness Band – Smart Fitness Watch
- 6. Garmin vívosmart HR Activity Tracker – Smart Fitness Watch
- 7. ROBOSTER Cubee S Gold Bluetooth Smart Fitness Watch
1. Apple Watch Series 1 Smart Fitness Watch
Get next generation connectivity using this top quality smartwatch from Apple, which is undoubtedly one of the best Smart Fitness Watch brands of all times. The rose gold aluminium chassis and a pink sand sports band adds extra richness to the product. Use this top-rated Apple watch to monitor your activity and connect your iPhone via Bluetooth to check apps, messages, emails, etc.
2. Samsung gear S3 Frontier Smart Fitness Watch
Manufactured using the latest innovations in digital technology, this watch from Samsung Smart Fitness Watch brand is a must have for users who need a smart and stylish watch. The distinctive steel bezel and the active watch face helps to access all apps and notifications that appear in your smartphone.
3. Fitbit Blaze Smart Fitness Watch
Innovate your workout experience using this handy watch from Fitbit Smart Fitness Watch brand. The main attractions of this product include connected GPS, PurePulse Heart Rate, FitStar workouts and smartTrack. Users can choose any of the sports modes and set regular exercise goals based on their schedule.
4. Healthsense Smart Pedometer Fitness Watch
The Smart Fitness Watch brand Healthsense offers a smartwatch which is made using smart 3D tri-axis technology. Designed with advanced technology, this smartwatch has all the necessary features for enabling easy fitness tracking. Get this watch to use the pedometer, count your steps, find out calories burnt and check the activity time.
5. GOQii Life Fitness Band – Smart Fitness Watch
This Smart Fitness Watch serves as an excellent tool for comprehensive health management. The watch comes with an advanced fitness tracker and offers easy Bluetooth connectivity, integrated USB charger, 14 days battery life, health locker, personal coach and diagnostics.
6. Garmin vívosmart HR Activity Tracker – Smart Fitness Watch
Add your fitness goals and track all activities using this smart wrist watch from Garmin. The sleek band and active display of this Smart Fitness Watch add extra comfort and clarity to it. Use this fitness watch to stay active, measure your activity intensity, find out your heart rate, stay connected and add new goals on a daily basis.
7. ROBOSTER Cubee S Gold Bluetooth Smart Fitness Watch
This Smart Fitness Watch comes with a working memory, chipset, segment display and touch screen. Some of its key features include support for SIM card and camera, easy access to apps, microphone, better display and multi-language support. Compatible with most of the smartphones, this fitness watch helps in effective tracking of your daily activities.
Selecting the best fitness watch can help you monitor all your activities in an effective manner. Moreover you can also take control of your smartphone and get all phone notifications without actually touching your phone. Check out the 7 watches which are manufactured by some of the best Smart Fitness Watch brands in the world. These Smart Fitness Watches are highly popular due to their stylish appearance, easy smartphone control feature and accurate measurements for fitness related activities. So, start setting daily fitness goals and enhance your performance using the top quality smartwatches.


text:
Planting an orchard this summer has been one of the most fulfilling and therapeutic things my wife and I have done since buying our first house last winter.
Last night, we were watering these young apple saplings after a long day of work. After I reluctantly headed inside for the night, I began to think of blog post topics. I started to ponder how growing and maintaining trees that will deliver bushels of fruit is analogous to investing our hard earned money in the hopes of someday having the benefit of financial independence.
Here are the four lessons that we've learned while starting an orchard that can enrich your investing ethos.
Lesson #1: Start Now!
"The best time to plant an orchard was 20 years ago. The second best time is now." –Chinese Proverb
We planted all these apple trees as soon as the temperature was warm enough to stick them in the ground. Apples take anywhere from 3-5 years to start producing large quantities of fruit so we knew that if we did the work now, we could reap the benefit earlier as well.
Similarly, if you start investing as soon as possible, your investments will grow thanks to interest compounded over a longer amount of time.
We didn't have the money to buy large, established trees, so we purchased what are called "bare root" trees. These trees are very small (3-feet), and were shipped to our house in a dormant state. This provided a sizeable cost savings compared to buying the expensive 6-foot trees from a local nursery.
When investing, it's important to start small, even if you don't make very much money. It's been crazy how these trees really took off! Those saplings are already over 6 feet tall, and will probably out pace a nursery tree's growth thanks to a strong foundation and starting small.
Lesson #2: Don't Stop
"The seed of a bamboo tree is planted, fertilized and watered. Nothing happens for the first year. There's no sign of growth. Not even a hint. The same thing happens – or doesn't happen – the second year. The tree is carefully watered and fertilized each year, but nothing shows. No growth. No anything. For eight years it can continue. Eight years! Then – after the eighth year of fertilizing and watering have passed, with nothing to show for it – the bamboo tree suddenly sprouts and grows thirty feet in three months!" –Zig Ziglar
We watered our trees nearly every week. If you want apple trees to thrive, you need to continue investing in them. Trees need water, nutrients, and even pruning.
In the winter we will prune off any bad growth, or limbs that might impede fruit production. These steps must be taken every year to ensure that we maximize fruit production and ensure the long term durability of our apple trees.
With investments, you also need to contribute every year.
Investing some money in a consistent manner will really help your investments grow that much larger and faster. Add the magic of compound interest to your annual or monthly contributions and you will be much more likely to have a fruitful retirement.
Lesson #3: Play the Long Game
"Never cut a tree down in the wintertime. Never make a negative decision in the low time. Never make your most important decisions when you are in your worst moods. Wait. Be patient. The storm will pass. The spring will come." –Robert H. Schuler
It's a struggle to maintain an orchard. From diseases that scar the leaves, to bugs that feast on the fruit before it ripens, it's sometimes tempting to just rip up the whole lot of them and plant the easier to manage and safer crop: turf.
Similarly, just turning on cable TV for 20 minutes can make you think the whole economy is going to collapse. These cable "experts" tell you that you should cash out your IRA to buy gold and keep a big pile of cash under your mattress.
When you plant an orchard, you do so with the understanding that it will take YEARS before you get to benefit from your toils. There will be good years of growth and also drought years where the tress really suffer.
Make sure you know from the start that you will participate in the market through the low times and the high times.
You never want to jump off the roller coaster until you've finished the ride. Remember back in 2008-9 when a lot of people cashed out there investments? They lost a TON of money. That's because they let their emotions define their investment decisions. Be patient, the inevitable storm will pass.
Lesson #4: Enjoy the Fruit from Your Orchard
"The fruit derived from labor is the sweetest of pleasures." –Luc de Clapiers
Whatever you do, have a reason for it. Our reason for planting an orchard was to drastically lower our grocery bill, eat healthy, and give some of it away.
Why do you invest?
Hopefully it's for the same reasons we planted an orchard- to be financially independent, to have freedom, and to give some of it away.
It's hard work, but once you hit that time period of fruit production, enjoy it. You've earned it.
How do you invest? Do you have any advice for the readers to help "grow" a productive investment portfolio? Share in the comments below!
Also, check out this article which describes how growing an edible landscape is helping us achieve Financial Independence (FI)!


text:
I love Harry Potter! And Draco! They rock! Yeah, well, I'm going for the fanfiction thing again, but if you really want to find me, go to harrypotterfanfiction.com, under voldemortisevil19.
This is an unofficial site and is not supported or recognized by any of the publishers of the Harry Potter books. The author J.K. Rowling created this world and owns all the names and characters in it; this is a humble fan site run by teenagers who are scared of lawyers and don't wish to break any laws. E-mail us at mnffstaff3 at gmail dot com if you have any questions or concerns.


text:
- Item No.
- 866814
- Mfg Part No.
- 26465
- Availability
- Not Available
Product Information for Compucessory 4 GB USB 2.0 Flash Drive - Black - 1 Pack
Highlights for Compucessory 4 GB USB 2.0 Flash Drive - Black - 1 Pack
- Storage Capacity:4 GB
Marketing Information
Flash drive offers portable, secure storage in a compact package. Flash drive is compatible with USB 2.0 ports and password-protected. Write speed is up to 5MB per second. Read speed is up to 12MB per second.
General Information
Country of OriginIndia
Assembly RequiredNo
Physical Characteristics
Technical Information
Safety Warning


text:
On 15 January 2016, Hong Kong's government gazetted proposed amendments to the Securities and Futures Ordinance to allow for the establishment of open-ended fund companies (OFCs) for both public and private funds. The Securities and Futures (Amendment) Bill 2016 (the Bill) follows from the public consultation conducted in 2014.
Outline of the OFC structure
The Bill largely follows the proposals in the original consultation, with some welcome additional flexibilities. The Bill provides for:
- a company with variable capital
- established under the Securities and Futures Ordinance (SFO)
- regulated and supervised by the Securities and Futures Commission (SFC), and
- registered with, but not licensed by, the SFC
An OFC will be required to:
- delegate all investment management functions to an asset manager holding an SFC type 9 licence
- entrust all assets to a qualifying custodian
- limit its primary investments to those types of investments regulated by the SFO, namely securities and futures, and OTC derivatives once the new OTC regime is in force – a 10% de minimis limit has been included for other types of investments
- comply with an OFC Code, to be the subject of a future consultation, whether the OFC is publicly or privately offered
- have at least two directors
Changes from the original consultation
The Bill includes several changes from the original proposals that add flexibility to the OFC structure:
- as noted above, a 10% de minimis limit has been included to permit an OFC to invest in investments that are not regulated by the SFO
- the requirement to appoint a Hong Kong custodian has been removed; it will now be possible to appoint a custodian either in Hong Kong or overseas, so long as various eligibility criteria are met
- the requirement that an OFC have at least one Hong Kong-resident director has been removed
Tax position
Publicly offered OFCs, which are required to be authorised by the SFC in the ordinary course, will enjoy a level playing field with existing authorised funds in terms of tax concessions: the existing profits tax exemption for public funds will apply to publicly offered OFCs.
For privately offered OFCs, the government recognises the importance of tax considerations in deciding where a fund is to be domiciled. Initially, the profits tax exemption will be available under the existing regime for offshore funds provided the OFC's central management and control is located outside Hong Kong. However, the government has also indicated that it will further review the existing profits tax exemption with a view to placing onshore privately offered OFCs on a level playing field with offshore privately offered OFCs.
As currently envisaged, a transfer of shares in an OFC will be subject to stamp duty.
Moving forward
We anticipate the OFC structure is likely to be more attractive to retail fund managers initially, given retail funds are already subject to SFC regulation and the existing profits tax exemption for public funds will apply to publicly offered OFCs. Retail fund managers will be keen to understand how the OFC Code will work with the existing Code on Unit Trusts and Mutual Funds.
For the private funds industry, much depends on the nature of the registration process, the supervisory approach adopted by the SFC and the detail of the OFC Code, to be the subject of a separate consultation. At least initially, the restrictions on investment scope, the tax uncertainty and the higher regulatory burden as compared to various offshore jurisdictions that are typically used by Hong Kong fund managers for private funds mean take-up of the OFC structure for private funds is likely to be subdued.


text: Machiko Toyoshima (豊嶋 真千子 Toyoshima Machiko) is a Japanese voice actress from Pokémon. Pokémon Horsea Beautifly Retrieved from "http://pokemon.wikia.com/wiki/Machiko_Toyoshima?oldid=563257" Ad blocker interference detected! Wikia is a free-to-use site that makes money from advertising. We have a modified experience for viewers using ad blockers Wikia is not accessible if you've made further modifications. Remove the custom ad blocker rule(s) and the page will load as expected. Categories: Actors Female Voice Cast Members Japanese Voice Actors