text:
The spirit of Hackney Wick.Posted: December 14, 2015 Filed under: Bohemian London, Class, Dereliction, Graffiti, Lettering, London Types | Tags: graffiti, Hackney Wick, Hipster London, Lea Tavern, new East End 3 Comments
Katy Evans Bush:
Hackney Wick – that seedy, industrial, inaccessible part of Hackney down by the river that languished forgotten for decades – is still holding onto its wasteland aesthetic. There are desolate streets, decrepit warehouses, and graffiti all over every available surface as far as they eye can see. But these days, this appearance is a choice – it's an aesthetic – and Hackney Wick costs money. Forget what you've heard about Dalston, or Peckham – they've gone, tipped over the edge. The real hipster epicentre is Hackney Wick.
The warehouses now house bars, the vans sell veggieburgers and pastries, the air carries an aroma of artisan beer and the graffiti covering all those brick walls is just as likely to be 'street'-style advertising as actual tagging. But it's apparently not quite as simple as that: there's a war being fought for the spirit of Hackney Wick, and the battleground is its brick walls. Two Sunday afternoon trips a couple of weeks apart revealed the speed with which one covers the other, and is covered again.
Even the graffiti brings with it the subtle but unmistakeable whiff of money. The burgers aren't cheap. The warehouses house galleries. The labels on the single-hop beer look very similar to the pictures on the walls outside. Last weekend there was a Christmas tree seller in the middle of Queen's Yard (apparently the epicentre of the epicentre), with trees selling for anywhere £35 to £75.
Surprisingly, or unsurprisingly, alongside the intensely calm beardy cyclist fellows, the main demographic you see is the well-dressed bourgeoisie. Walking about. Being given the tour by their offspring. Eating artisanal food. Taking photographs. Like the tall, slim, puffa-clad French family we saw the other week, heading for their Range Rover, looking round and all exclaiming at once. Your correspondents felt a pang of kinship for one person: an older, scruffier man with a toddler on his shoulders, stopped between a narrow boat that is a prosecco bar and a warehouse pizza place that offers craft beers and walnut-&-stilton pizzas, conferring with his friend and looking slightly flummoxed.
The area is ringed – that is, more or less defined – by large 'upmarket residential developments', smooth-faced expanses mostly with big locked gates at the street entrance. Some have well-lit interiors, personal touches visible in their plate-glass windows, and balcony gardens; others are barren. Along the prime real estate River Lea they look across at the remnants of the Olympic Park, and down over a hotch-potch of narrow boats, whose riverine 'broken-chairs-tarpaulins-&-cables' aesthetic evocatively offsets the penthouses. In front of one block – its retail premises empty on the ground floor – is an old industrial chimney, standing all alone, with a plaque on it.
Near this, across from the entrance to Queen's Yard, is a vacant lot where once stood the Lea Tavern, demolished in 2008 for reasons which are opaque; the site is overgrown with buddleia. Along the top of its hoarding (a battleground of the graffiti war) is an ambiguous and badly punctuated sign:
It is as well to remind oneself that the great thing about London – the truly great thing – used to be the way that people of all sorts shared a neighbourhood: council blocks jostled with mansions, terraces of 2-up-2-downs gave onto parks and mansion blocks onto motorways. The narrow boats have suffered over recent years with increasingly punitive rules about mooring, but they do even now offer – if you can stick the lifestyle – relatively cheap housing. And in this neighbourhood, even the tattiest canal boat has sculptures in front of it.
This is, in a way, still real life. Tags and posters, hipster street art and the retro, angry, non-ironic article, fight for space and fight each other (as per the re-written speech bubble emerging from the mouth of this dazed stereotype).
This wraith, not far from a set of 'Sweet Toof's ubiquitous teeth, might be shaking his fist at a sign listing property prices.
The battle lines are clearly drawn.
Hackney Wick station looks a bit sinister by night, but it is probably getting more traffic than ever before. The studiedly 'urban' look of the area gives the lie to the sanitised gloss of the recent 'Spirit of 2012′ (though it feels fair to suppose that this look owes as much to Jean-Michel Basquiat and the iconographised dirt of eighties New York than to anything more organic); but the biggest surprise in Hackney Wick is its proximity to Stratford Westfield Shopping Centre.
Stratford, of course, was the local station for the Games, and the town centre had a massive do-over for the tourists. Facing east, looking past the couples strolling along the waterside like animated architects' mock-ups, past the Olympic park and Anish Kapoor's Brobdingnagian toy town tower, the backdrop for all this is a familiar, and surprising, sight. The beacon of the middle class. An unflashy, but insistent, glowing sign: JOHN LEWIS.
Neighbourhoods are mortal. Change is constant. The really important thing to remember is that the really big developers are already moving in. The second Battle for Hackney Wick has probably already been lost; the artists, pizzateers and canal-dwellers will be shunted to the provinces, the cute little prosecco boat will give way to a big slick floating bar where you have to book, and we will rue the day when we thought these little concrete galleries with bike racks were the actual problem, not just the symptom. And the real old London will be that little bit more lost.
© Katy Evans Bush. All pictures © David Secombe.
Katy's new collection of essays Forgive the Language is published by Penned in the Margins.
See also: On the Natural History of Gentrification; Before the Blue Wall; Traffic on the Lea.
Blind Chivvy.Posted: August 6, 2015 Filed under: Architectural, Artistic London, Bohemian London, Churches, Eating places, Entertainment, Food, Graffiti, Housing, Literary London, London Music, Performers, Vanishings | Tags: 12 Bar Club, 1890s London, Arthur Machen, Brydges Place, Corpus Christi Maiden Lane, Denmark St., Dennis Nilsen, Ernest Dowson, Larry Parnes, Mariachi at E.N.O., Rules Restaurant, Save Tin Pan Alley, The Port House Strand, The Salisbury 6 Comments
Brydges Place, looking towards St Martin's Lane. © David Secombe 2015.
From A London Phantom by R. Thurston Hopkins:
I spent many evenings with Dowson in the Bun House. Though the name of this rendezvous has a doughy sound, it never at any time offered buns to its customers. It is just a London tavern, but it was part of the literary and newspaper life of the eighteen-nineties. It was there that I saw Lionel Johnson, the poet, John Evelyn Barlas, poet and anarchist who tried to 'shoot up' the House of Commons, Edgar Wallace, just out of a private soldier's uniform, Arthur Machen in a caped 'Inverness' coat which he told me had been his regular friend for twenty years. …
After I had met Dowson a few times at the Bun House we would sometimes rove forlornly about the foggy London streets, initiated bohemians, tasting each other's enthusiasms. … As we wandered about London at night we often played a sort of game which we called Blind Chivvy. The idea was to find short cuts or round-about-routes from one busy part of London to another by way of slinking alleys and byways which then were not well known to the average London man.
D.S.: We at The London Column like to think of ourselves as being in the vanguard of the Ernest Dowson Revival, but we can't deny that our Ern remains something of a niche interest. My friend CJ – one half of the award-winning (really) wine blog, Sediment – is unconvinced by my claims for the poet who wrote the quintessential 'decadent' poem of the 1890s, Cynara. That said, CJ liked the sound of 'Blind Chivvy' and agreed to join me for an afternoon in a bid to play it. Admittedly, we were doing it on a bright July day rather than a murky November evening, and a few things have changed since Dowson's time, but the promise of some light lunchtime drinking rendered CJ putty in my hands. We met at The Port House on the Strand, an Iberian sherry bar located in the building that was once The Bun House. In the candle-lit gloom, CJ and I munched tapas, drank white wine and attempted to visualise the interior peopled with the bohemian talent of decadent London. We failed. The ambience in the Port House is that of a bodega in Madrid, and there was no way we were going to conjure up the shades of Dowson, Johnson, Machen or anyone else. But it was a start.
Ernest Dowson has left the building … The Port House, Strand. © David Secombe 2015.
Emerging from the Port House, I led a dubious CJ into a narrow entrance next door. Exchange Court is one of those ancient pathways off the Strand that bears witness to a lost London landscape. Halfway up this remnant of 17th century town planning there is a courtyard behind a new (early 1990s) bar called The Porterhouse. Before the construction of this establishment, it was possible to come here – a spot no-one had any reason to visit – and discover a genuine fragment of the 'Great Wen': a desolate cul-de-sac that Dickens would have recognised. When I visited in 1984, you could still see the original box office window of the Adelphi theatre, complete with Victorian London prices, bricked up in an alcove. Then they built the pub and the alcove disappeared. Now they store barrels here and the court seems almost cheerful.
We followed Exchange Court to the end and emerged in Maiden Lane, CJ looking around him like a lost Japanese tourist. 'Where are we now?' Doing my best Peter Ackroyd, I replied that Maiden Lane was one of the oldest thoroughfares in the West End – and, in the same mode, indicated a plaque above the Adelphi's stage door commemorating the murder of William Terriss. 'Who? What?' On cue, the shutter of a loading bay was yanked open and for a moment we had a glimpse of the business end of a working theatre. The sight of the vast maw of an empty auditorium brought back memories of other West End venues, not to mention Proustian associations of childhood visits backstage. Me: 'What's playing here now?' CJ: 'Kinky Boots'. We moved on.
Your correspondents reflected in the doorway of Rules. © David Secombe 2015.
We crossed the road to look in the window of Rules, 'the oldest restaurant in London' (est. 1788). To celebrate the august history of its dining rooms, Rules's website features a poignantly misjudged piece of copywriting which is worth reproducing here:
As well as being frequented by great literary talents – including Charles Dickens, William Makepeace Thackeray, John Galsworthy and H G Wells – Rules has also appeared in novels by Rosamond Lehmann, Evelyn Waugh, Graham Greene, John Le Carré, Dick Francis, Penelope Lively and Claire Rayner.
Whilst studying the menu I asked CJ if a publisher had ever taken him to Rules and he looked at me beadily, suggesting that I might be confusing him with someone else; Ian McEwan, maybe. Or Marian Keyes, perhaps.
Bull Inn Court. © David Secombe 2015.
Rules faces Bull Inn Court, another alley where Dowson might have gone to find company ('absinthe makes the tart grow fonder' is his line); in July 2015 it is a spot where office workers go to juggle cigarettes and smart phones. But a couple of doors further along, the tone is abruptly elevated by the ecclesiastical majesty of Corpus Christi. Mirroring the promise of the Adelphi, its doors were invitingly open, affording views of 'the grey twilight of gothic things' (or the 1870s repro version) in WC2. Dowson converted to Catholicism in the last years of his short life, so it's at least possible that he took communion in Corpus Christi. In any case, we yielded to the lure of its gilded interior and behaved like a pair of sightseers, taking photographs and lighting candles (25 pence a go).
Corpus Christi. © David Secombe 2015.
We backtracked west along Maiden Lane, down Chandos Place and thence into Brydges Place. We have featured Brydges Place on The London Column before, so I won't dilate on this atmospheric passageway here – except to note that there were more homeless pitches since my last visit and the stink of piss was overwhelming. Brydges Place debouches into St Martin's Lane next to E.N.O., where we emerged to see a Mariachi band posing on the steps of the Coliseum. Mexican dance music seemed like a bit of a departure for English National Opera, but the band looked fun and an obliging gaucho performed some impressive lasso moves for the cameras. Diverting as it was, this wasn't the woozy, drink-soaked metropolis we were looking for, so we repaired to The Salisbury to re-group. The Salisbury was once a well-known gay pub, extensively referenced in the Dirk Bogarde film Victim, and where the serial killer Dennis Nilsen cruised in the 1970s and 80s – but any flickers of the city of dreadful night were banished by the holiday crowd ramming the bar. The Salisbury's ghosts were as lost to us as those at The Bun House. We sat behind an etched glass window, drank London Pride and swapped stories of career disappointment. The phantom of Thurston Hopkins's essay, who they fear is haunting them on their nocturnal rambles through London, is a man Dowson described as having 'a face like a wizened bladder of lard' – but in the noisy saloon of the Salisbury, CJ and I were merely haunting each other.
Mariachi at English National Opera. © David Secombe 2015.
Opposite The Salisbury is an entrance to another 17th century survival, a passageway called Goodwins Court. Needless to say, Goodwins Court was a surprise to CJ, who remarked upon the beautiful bowed shop-fronts (18th century, I am told, although they are no longer shops, and it is hard to tell exactly what they front now). When I was a boy my parents took me to a show-business party in the house at the end, the one that abuts Bedfordbury. The host was the late Tony Sympson, an actor whose family were instrumental in preserving Goodwin's Court against destruction. I remember a jewel-box of a house composed of implausibly large rooms, their Regency elegance constituting an act of defiance: as late as 1978, the threat of wholesale demolition still loomed over Covent Garden. The house is still someone's home; perhaps the most desirable place to live in all the West End. Next door is Giovanni's, a discreet Italian restaurant popular with old-school actors and producers. I have purple memories of this place too: a lunch with an actor friend which deteriorated into an afternoon lurid enough for me to give up drinking for months afterwards. After mistily reminiscing on all of the above, CJ pointed out, not unreasonably, that those anecdotes are specific to me, and that the state of my liver was of little interest to him.
Bedfordbury, looking into Goodwin's Court. © David Secombe 2015.
Taking the hint, and with time against us – CJ's dinner beginning to call, in far distant Mortlake – the rest of our dèrive went at something of a galop. By this stage, I had a destination in mind, a spot with more recent associations than the 1890s. We walked swiftly up Garrick Street, crossed Long Acre towards Seven Dials, cut up West Street (past The Ivy and those strangely conjoined twins of tourist theatre-land, The Mousetrap and Stomp), crossed Shaftesbury Avenue, continued north on Stacey Street – alongside the vast bulk of the Covent Garden Odeon and beyond the fragile greensward of Phoenix Garden – and finally arrived in crumbling, doomed Denmark Street.
In the 1950s Denmark Street ('London's own Tin Pan Alley!') was London's music business quarter, an Expresso Bongo world of post-Suez Britain. Then, the street was the domain of the impresario Larry Parnes, (much-mocked svengali of improbably-named singers like Vince Eager, Dickie Pride, Johnny Gentle, and some others who actually made it), songwriter Lionel Bart ('King of Denmark Street'), the jingle writer Johnny Johnston (Softness is a thing called Comfort, Beanz Meanz Heinz, and 5000 others), and all the other personalities of the pre-Beatles universe. In the 1960s The Stones, The Who, The Kinks, Donovan, Bowie, Hendrix all came here to record, in studios carved out of 17th-century basements. Ten years later it was the turn of the phlegm-flecked protégés of Malcolm McLaren (the '70s version of Larry Parnes) The Sex Pistols, who rehearsed and lived here for a while. And, whilst he is unlikely to get a blue plaque, Dennis Nilsen – abovementioned, hanging around the Salisbury – spent the early '80s working in a jobcentre that used to be on the corner with the Charing Cross Road. This jobcentre's speciality was the catering industry, and for one Christmas staff party Nilsen made his colleagues punch in a large cooking pot he brought from his home, the same pan he used for boiling his victims' heads.
Hanks, Denmark St.; Centre Point behind. © David Secombe 2015.
There are still music shops to be found on Denmark Street, but the redevelopment of St Giles has been the cause of much anguish amongst London's music lovers, as first the Astoria and then the 12 Bar Club have been laid waste in favour of Crossrail and a looming corporate/retail zone. Around 1900, the year Dowson died, the great loss London suffered was the destruction of Wych St. and environs to create 'new' Aldwych and Kingsway (the subject of one of our previous walks). That particular act of civic philistinism didn't just obliterate some of the prettiest streets in the capital, it cauterized life on the streets – which is exactly what it was intended to do, removing 'unwholesome' theatres and booksellers and erasing one of London's cultural centres. The destruction of the area around Denmark Street is the 21st Century equivalent. How do we characterise it? London dans le style Boris, perhaps, London après Cameron, London sans coeur, etc. Chalked graffiti on the hoarding in front of the remains of the 12 Bar was eloquence itself …
Hoarding where the 12 Bar Club used to be. © David Secombe 2015.
By now CJ and I were starting to feel generally chivvied out. The day-glo office blocks opposite St.Giles in the Fields measured the gulf between the city of our imaginings and the one we are actually stuck with. Calling it a day, Charles headed for Waterloo and his train to Mortlake, and I boarded a quasi-Routemaster 38 to Hackney. Sitting on the top deck, in an interior as retro as the Orla Kiely catalogue, I considered the dilemma: if Soho is dead, if the West End is dead, if Chelsea is dead, if Shoreditch is dead (no cheering please), what is left? A Bright New World safe for out-of-town consumers to play in – but not somewhere you would want to live, even if you could afford to. Hence London becomes the new Dubai, and Margate the new Peckham. Good for Margate, perhaps, but London as a place of invention and creativity becomes no more than a historical footnote. Don't look for culture here, mate, only ad agencies can afford the rent. Live music? Try the relocated 12 Bar Club – it's on the Holloway Road (if you can find it). No call for it round here, pal. The revolution will not be televised – but you can download it as a podcast.
Denmark Place. © David Secombe 2015.
(I have just noticed that this post is the 250th on The London Column. I was going to apologise for the fogeyish tone, but then thought 'why should I?')
See also: In Search of Old Wych, The Riverine Strand.
And so it begins again …Posted: January 2, 2015 Filed under: Amusements, Graffiti 1 Comment
Portugal Street, WC2. © David Secombe 2014.
2nd of January and we are just waking up … Here's to 2015. DS
Balfron remembered.Posted: September 19, 2014 Filed under: Architectural, Class, Dereliction, Graffiti, Housing, Interiors, Lettering, London Labour, Monumental, Vanishings | Tags: Balfron Tower, gentrification, James Wakefield, Michael Mulcahy, Mike Seaborne, Peter Luck, Trellick Tower Comments Off on Balfron remembered.
Balfron Tower. © Michael Mulcahy
Katy Evans-Bush:
Balfron Tower. I love it. It anchors Poplar, it looms over the A12 just by the Blackwall Tunnel approach, and it seems to defend that whole end of Tower Hamlets. In the evenings, when the sun reaches a certain point, it glows golden. You couldn't help but find it beautiful, its slightly Escher-esque planes and shapes and perspectives changing with the weather and the light, its strange humanity, its arrow-slit windows. Just as the now-demolished gasometers in Stepney did, it casts its grandeur over everything around.
Poor Balfron suffers the slings and arrows of public disgust towards its whole genre. People think 'the New Brutalism' is called that just because it's brutal, but in fact, it's a play on the French term 'béton brut', for raw concrete. It's easy to forget now that when this architecture went up, it was intended to make life better for people. Goldfinger referred to its corridors as 'streets in the sky', and the plan included incredibly optimistic landscaping: Balfron has private yards for the bottom flats, mature trees and shrubberies shielding it from the A12, and light coming at it from all directions. Its flats meander up and down levels, and have balconies and stupendous views.
A website by a Trellick Tower resident, Chris Paulsen, gives the flavour of its aspirations towards good living:
The flats themselves are large by tower-block standards, & packed with space-saving devices. … Doors of wood & glass slide rather than open out, & can be used to partition certain parts of each flat. Glass is plentiful in order to let in as much natural light as possible… Adjoining the main tower is a service tower. This incorporates lifts, stairs, & refuse chutes, as well as a boiler house. The lifts stop at every third floor, meaning that in some flats the bedrooms are above, & in some below, the entrance level. The flats have large balconies which, if you are high enough up, offer views across the North Downs.
My own personal knowledge of Balfron Tower reached its zenith in 2001, when, as a publicity officer for Tower Hamlets' housing department, I toured the place with a deputation from Trellick Tower, and a member of its resident management committee. The reason they were visiting was very simple: Trellick was in trouble and needed a major overhaul. (The figure given at the time was £9m to get it up to its original standard.) Balfron and Trellick are 'sister buildings'; Goldfinger learned some lessons from Balfron, but by 2001 they were like twins raised separately.
Trellick had, being in (even if only north) Kensington, been gentrified while the East End was still thought of as a wild space. Its tenants were that bit more prosperous, and more able to get mortgages, and had bought their flats under Right to Buy. However, many new owners didn't have the money to maintain the flats – or else they did have the money, and took out original features. Kensington's reputation for affluence got in the way of attempts to secure funding. They had a vandalism problem, and some of the original features – such as the marble that had been in the entry area – had been stolen. The building had been designed to have a concierge but for many years it never had one. No one was – literally – keeping an eye on things. It was in a bad spot.
Balfron Tower. © Mike Seaborne.
Balfron, by contrast, had had a boring life, with tenants instead of leaseholders, and with several rounds of major works on it – new windows, for example, and new asphalt in the external linking walkways. It also had more of its original features, like the quarry tiles lining the corridors – different colours on different floors – and its flats had more of their original fittings – for example their bakelite light switches instead of Thatcherite gold-look ones. And Balfron had had one asset money can't buy: it had had one very hands-on, community-spirited caretaker for almost twenty years.
I interviewed Irvine Gallagher, otherwise known as Jock, for the council's newspaper, East End Life, around the time of this tour of the block. (I knew him a bit to have a drink with; when I rang him to suggest the interview, there was a long silence, and then he growled: 'IN THE PUB.') He told me, 'When we took over this estate from the good old GLC it was a disaster area. Burnt-out cars, black soot stains, bin rooms full of old rubbish'.
'No one knows as much as me about Balfron Tower', he said. 'I know how the whole building works, where everything is. I've had calls from housing management, architects, heating engineers. They wanted to put in new central heating but it's listed, they couldn't run the gas pipes up the outside – I identified where the cupboards were, and internal routes where they could run their pipes. I know how the flats fit together, this one on one level, this one on two – I always know where the water's coming from'.
Balfron Tower. © Mike Seaborne.
Jock was a people person, though, as well as being able to do 3D mental mapping. 'I know everything that happens here', he said. 'Everybody knows me and I know everybody . I know all the kids, who their mums and dads are. I'll knock on someone's door if I've seen them doing something. Nine times out of ten people are grateful and say they didn't know their kid was doing whatever.
'But there isn't much vandalism. We've got CCTV, and if a kid is doing something we can see them. We call out the window, "Smile for the camera!" You should see them run!'
Happy days. Also around the time of this interview, Jock had to apply for his job, as the council was bringing in 'super-caretakers' – a sort of Blairite caretaker-manager position. I spoke to him right after his interview and he said it had gone really badly. It lasted five minutes.
Five minutes! What went wrong?? 'Well what was I supposed to do', he growled down the phone. 'Spend an hour talking about fucking BLEACH.'
So the job went to someone else, and Jock became an under-caretaker, and I heard last year that he had recently passed on.
My other personal connection with Balfron Tower is that when I was working in that job, my marriage had broken up and my children and I were living in adorable but extreme overcrowding in a wisteria-garlanded one-bedroom flat in Hackney. Things were difficult, and at just this juncture a flat came on the market in Balfron Tower for something like £37,900. But Balfron was in Poplar, and my kid were in school in Stoke Newington, and you couldn't raise a mortgage in Poplar (or a tower block) to save your life, and I had no savings at all… In one corner of my brain I have always lived there.
Balfron Tower. © Mike Seaborne.
I left that job few months after the Balfron tour and the interview with Jock, and have no idea how Balfron Tower fell into the situation it's in today. It's about to have the makeover of a lifetime, which will also catapult it into a new social class. Indeed, as life imitates art, the millennial city imitates the famous 'I Love My Life as a Dickhead' video, wherein the hipsters have taken over Trellick Tower. For with the ensuing works, and the the huge project of decanting all of Balfron's tenants underway, Balfron's flats have been let all year at cheap rents to artists, to keep the place full – and, presumably, soften up a tiny little social transformation.
Balfron went to sleep as a brave and plucky social housing experiment; is currently dreaming a strange technicolor dream; and will wake up, what only feels like a lifetime later, a princess.
And it's some slight consolation to know that, if I had bought that flat all those years ago, I'd have a big headache just about now.
Balfron Tower. © Mike Seaborne.
The photos are from the exhibition Balfron Tower An Unrealised Future, featuring work by photographers Michael Mulcahy, Mike Seaborne, Peter Luck and James Wakefield. This runs until this Sunday (21st September), 12 – 6 pm at Flat 89, Balfron Tower, Poplar, E14 0QT (2 min. walk from All Saints DLR). Buzz flat 89 for entry.
Traffic on the Lea.Posted: June 19, 2014 Filed under: Bohemian London, Graffiti, Housing, The Thames and its Tributaries, Transport, Vanishings | Tags: 2012 Olympics, Foxtons, Ian Sinclair, Lea Bridge Road, Lea River, London houseboats, malcolm hardee, Viv Stanshall Comments Off on Traffic on the Lea.
River Lea towpath, under the East Cross Route. © David Secombe 2014.
A Sunday in May, on the towpath by the River Lea, just south of Lea Bridge Road:
Ding! … Ding! … Ding! … Ding! Ding! Ding!
The cyclist (mid-20s, jutting beard, sickly smile, deeply hittable face) steered his vintage eBay treasure inches between myself and my young son. Fifteen minutes into what was supposed to be a leisurely Sunday outing on the first really sunny weekend of the year and I was reduced to hissing violent epithets at various types of cyclist. Hipster cyclists, as above; Spandexed cyclists, often in entire family groups; unnervingly swift and purposeful cyclists with business on their minds; kids on mountain bikes; even a brace of fancy-dress cyclists, decked out in Edwardian gear – bowlers, waistcoats, plus-fours, spats – on authentically recalcitrant machines. Whatever their costume, they were all united by their fondness for those little silver bells, their peremptory tinkle an indication of assumed moral right. As a pedestrian on the towpath, on the Lea or a London canal, it's hard to avoid the feeling that cyclists see you as merely a car-driver deprived of your vehicle. (Suggested collective noun: an entitlement of cyclists.)
Not that long ago, this stretch of the Lea was a backwater; and the landscape still offers those with a taste for brownfield-rural the opportunity to participate in an Ian Sinclair-ish topographical narrative in a lush setting. There are overgrown meadows, deserted municipal sports facilities, mysterious structures to negotiate, structures often covered in an abundance of picturesque graffiti (whilst photographing the uncharacteristically polite cyclists walking their bikes under the East Cross Route, I noticed a young man posing his girlfriend for snaps on the other side of the decorated pillars). Of course, this riverside has been ravaged in recent years by the Alphaville of the Olympic Park, and the new residential developments that line the western bank south of Lea Bridge are testament to the burgeoning popularity of East London-lite: Hipster London, Foxtons London, Fatuous London.
Yet somehow, the houseboats remain aloof from it all; and the beauty of the Lea leads to daydreams of buying one, the idyll of having your very own piece of river within (distant) earshot of the churning city. A friend of mine has his own boat, a proper sea-going job, which he occasionally sails from Lowestoft to Limehouse Basin, where he moors it as his London base. This always struck me as simultaneously butch and civilised, an impression only slightly marred by a desperate call I once received from him en route, somewhere near Sheerness, asking if I'd heard the Shipping Forecast because his radio was broken. Several of the vessels moored on the Lea have all the appurtenances of the riverside 'luxury apartments' touted by Foxtons and their ilk, and it is not too exotic to imagine some of them actually sailing somewhere. A London houseboat might be the nearest thing to bucolic living anywhere within the M25; but a cursory inspection of some of the more ramshackle examples give one pause. More than a couple appear to be actually sinking, invoking thoughts of Viv Stanshall's houseboat foundering on the Thames near Chertsey. A houseboat is not a very safe place to store a life's work, and much of Viv's life sank with The Searchlight. Even if your boat is watertight, there are other dangers: Malcolm Hardee drowned in Greenland Dock during a drunken attempt to access his houseboat after a night out. (Eddie Mirzoeff has just pointed out to me that Penelope Fitzgerald's Chelsea Reach-moored houseboat sank not once but twice in the early 1960s, inspiring her Booker Prize-winning novel Offshore.)
Still the temptations persist … walking south, we encountered a riverine barbecue-cum-jam session, two barges lassooed together, a party of expert folk musicians playing together in an atmosphere of easy familiarity and home-brewed ale. I'm generally allergic to the claims of folk music but even I was charmed and wondered whether the water offered a better way of life for those in the know … but only a few yards further south, jungle was being played at industrial-noise level from a flat in a new block, obliterating the reels from upstream and putting paid to idyllic wonderings. Any remaining notions of hippie-ish promise were soon trashed as we reached the East Cross Route, where the aggressive post-Olympic new builds proved demoralising enough for us to turn back. Perhaps there is no such thing as a backwater in London any more; a sage with a tin of spray paint helped articulate this thought by stating the obvious on a bridge …
Back at Lea Bridge, the Prince of Wales was doing brisk business as football played on the TV. A massive new development is under construction on the north of the Lea Bridge Road. For real peace, you have to go further upstream, way beyond Springfield Park and up into Tottenham Marshes; if you moored there, maybe you would have a shot at a life of tranquility. If you saw a naked cyclist, it would be someone who did it every day. And that would be fine. Just an unpretentious houseboat, not too big, easy to manage through the locks, kitted out with obsolete technology – VHS tapes, audio cassettes – and overflowing with old paperbacks you could read by paraffin lamp. You know where to find me …
… for The London Column.
See also: Before the Blue Wall.
Ten imperatives.Posted: February 24, 2014 Filed under: Architectural, Crime and Punishment, Events, Graffiti, Lettering, Public Announcements, Shops | Tags: abney park cemetery, Banksy, miners' strike, Old Vic, Peter Sutcliffe trial Comments Off on Ten imperatives.
Borough. © David Secombe 2010.
Camden Lock. © David Secombe 1985.
Protestor outside the Old Bailey on the final day of the Peter Sutcliffe trial. © David Secombe 1981.
Banksy stencil, Borough Market. © David Secombe 2003.
Props outside the stage door, Old Vic. © David Secombe 1988.
Pet shop, Brockley. © David Secombe 2003.
Abandoned pub, Bermondsey. © David Secombe, 2010.
Pub toilet, Waterloo. © David Secombe 2008.
Sign outside a cafe, Brockley. © David Secombe 2010.
Abney Park Cemetery, N16. © David Secombe 2010.
East Ender.Posted: October 21, 2013 Filed under: Eating places, Graffiti, Health and welfare, Lettering, London Labour, Markets, Public Art, Street Portraits | Tags: Hoxton, Hoxton Mini Press, Joseph Markovitch, Martin Usborne, old East End 2 Comments
© Martin Usborne.
Joseph Markovitch:
I was born right by Old Street roundabout on January 1st, 1927. Some of the kids used to beat me up – but in a friendly way. Hoxton was full of characters in those days. The Mayor was called Mr. Brooks and he was also a chimney sweep. Guess what? Before the coronation, he was putting up decorations and he fell off a ladder and got killed. Well, it happens. Then there was a six-foot tall girl, she was really massive. She used to attack people and put them in police vans. Maria was her name. Then there was Brotsky who used to kill chickens with a long stick. His son's name was Monty. That's not a common one is it? 'Monty Brotsky'.
© Martin Usborne
I worked two years as a cabinet maker in Hemsworth Street just off Hoxton market. But when my sinuses got bad I went to Hackney Road putting rivets on luggage cases. For about twenty years I did that job. My foreman was a bastard. Apart from that it was OK. But if I was clever, very clever, then I would have liked to be an accountant. It's a very good job. And if I was less heavy … you know what I'd like to be? I'd like to be a ballet dancer. That would be my dream.
© Martin Usborne
I don't mind people taking pictures of me. But I wouldn't let a girl take a picture of me. She might have a boyfriend. I don't want any trouble. And who knows, he might think she wants to run off with me. You got to be careful where you go nowadays. Martin, if you want to take this picture you had better be quick. I don't take a good picture when my bladder is full.
© Martin Usborne
If I try, I can imagine the future. It's like watching a film. Pavements will move, nurses will be robots and cars will get smaller and grow wings … you've just got to wait. They will make photographs that talk. You will look at a picture of me and you will hear me say: 'Hello I'm Jospeph Markovitch' and then it will be me telling you abut things. Imagine that! I also have an idea that in about fifty years Hoxton Square will have a new market with an amazing plastic rain cover. So if it rains the potatoes won't get wet. I don't know what else they will sell. Maybe bowler hats. Nothing much changes round here in the end.
© Martin Usborne.
There's no point crying about things is there? People don't see you when you're sad. Best just to keep walking.
Do you know that I can't eat lettuce? I've got no teeth, not for ten years. It's hard to like lettuce if you haven't got teeth.
… taken from I've Lived In East London for 86.5 Years, photographs by Martin Usborne, the debut publication of Hoxton Mini Press. More details may be found on their Kickstarter page.


text:
Do you want to become a model?
I often recieve questions from girls who want to become a model, or from people who know someone that 'might have it'.
I have years of experience working as a model and have frequently been appointed
as a member of the jury of the Elite Model Look of the Year, both in the Netherlands
and at the International Finals.
Do you believe you have IT in you to become a model?
If you are between the age of 14 to 22 and at least 1.73m. (5,68 ft.) tall, or do you know someone who fits this description, please use the form below to send me some natural pictures (close-up and full length).

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Hot marking foil attachment is gauged in a variety of different ways, and there is a lot of mistaken belief regarding what each test truly measures. Take the basic scratch examination as an example. Is that a conclusive bond test or just a measure of the firmness of one's fingernail? In fact, many bond examinations performed are relative as opposed to a real procedure. If you have 2 foils on the very same substratum, both blocked at the same time, after that you can examine their relative resistance to your finger nail, presuming that you do not subconsciously scrape harder on that you intend to stop working. This is a lot more typical than you might think which is why a true scientific procedure of bond is chosen.
Such measurements are rare, and there is absolutely nothing that can genuinely be routinely carried out by a trade blocker or printer. Also a rub or abrasion tester is not testing attachment as long as the firmness of the foil surface area. The so-called Scotch tape test is normally the most commonly utilized however there are a lot of variables entailed, that again this is generally not definitive unless specifically the exact same tape is made use of each time. Apart from the bond of the aluminum foil it itself, the amount of wax launch used can dramatically influence the attachment and abrasion resistance of a hot stamping aluminum foil as it is examined. Hot aluminum foil can be used a wide range of waxes, and is absent in the form of a meaningful separate layer. The wax layer is usually applied by straight gravure, and is only around 0.005 gem grams per square meter when dry.
The solvents made use of in the subsequent lacquer or leading layer are generally relatively hostile, and although have a tendency not to liquify the wax when cool, will invariable strike through the wax layer promptly on coating, and additionally in the drying passage. The outcome is a wax rich resin layer at the carrier movie interface generally polyester that comes to be gradually extra wax deficient the much deeper into the lacquer layer – i.e. the further the range from the polyester where the wax layer was originally applied, the much less wax will certainly be intermixed with the resin. After blocking, the wax in the material tends to increase to the surface. Some wax will be at the surface of the foil quickly on hot stamping, this will certainly enhance with time as it migrates through the lacquer layer to the surface. Abrasion resistance boosts with time and your test outcomes will consequently vary according to just how long after obstructing you examine the foil. Visit the site Stempelaar.nl.


text:
Online Dental Education Library
Our team of dental specialists and staff strive to improve the overall health of our patients by focusing on preventing, diagnosing and treating conditions associated with your teeth and gums. Please use our dental library to learn more about dental problems and treatments available. If you have questions or need to schedule an appointment, contact us.
Oral Hygiene/Health 2016 emphasis is on keeping our mouths more basic (higher ph), good salivary flow and encouraging a shift in oral flora (bacteria) to the "good guys" (non disease causing bacteria). At your next appointment, Dr. Chin will review your oral home care program. Updated suggestions may include regular use of remineralization pastes; dietary- arginine rich foods (see videos below), xylitol (amount and timing important), basic chews; tooth varnishes, non alcohol mouthrinses, mouth sprays, mouth gels. Healthy mouths help us have healthy bodies!
Wisdom teeth are the third and final set of molars that erupt in the back corners of the upper and lower normal adult mouth. Unfortunately, most people experience problems from wisdom teeth; in most cases, this is because the teeth erupt too close to existing permanent teeth, causing crowding, improper bites, and other problems.
If wisdom teeth are causing a problem, this could mean that they are impacted. Impacted wisdom teeth can be extremely painful, as well as harmful to your oral health. Symptoms are easy to spot: pain, inflammation, and some kinds of infections.
Many people need to have their wisdom teeth extracted to avoid future serious problems. In general, the lack of the four wisdom teeth does not hamper one's ability to properly bite down, speak or eat.


text:
Smart and capable, the all-new Subaru XV is an SUV the whole family can enjoy. Offering safety and reassurance in bad weather with its Permanent Symmetrical All-Wheel Drive system, the Subaru XV goes one step further with EyeSight Driver Assist technology, an advanced suite of safety features which includes Adaptive Cruise Control and Pre-Collision Braking. Elegantly styled with a raised ground clearance, the Subaru XV is undeniably handsome and backs up its solid design with a powerful driving experience, courtesy of a 1.6 or 2.0-litre Boxer petrol engine. An 8" touchscreen infotainment system with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto is the cherry on the cake.
Powerfully styled and sculpted for an urban environment, the Subaru XV is a compact SUV that means business. Chunky body mouldings, stylish alloy wheels and LED Steering Responsive Headlights ensure that you always stand out for the right reasons.
Powered by a 1.6 or 2.0-litre Boxer petrol engine, the Subaru XV is a flexible performer in the city and beyond. Subaru Rear Vehicle Detection with Blind Spot Monitoring, Lane Change Assist and Rear Cross Traffic Alert comes as standard.
The Subaru XV makes the most of its SUV shape with a spacious cabin and enormous boot with 385-litres of load volume. There's ISOFIX on both rear outermost seats, and a reversing camera comes as standard to guide you into parking spaces.
The Subaru XV offers fuel economy of 40.9 to 44.1mpg combined depending on engine choice, which is excellent for a petrol-powered SUV. Premium features like keyless entry, Adaptive Cruise Control, and Apple CarPlay and Android Auto come fitted as standard.


text:
TORONTO — Contract talks between the CFL Players' Association and CFL are costing players plenty of money. But it could also increase the cost of doing business for the league's nine teams.
The CFL and its players will return to the bargaining table Monday and Tuesday in Toronto. It will be their first face-to-face meeting since April 9.
The delay has drawn the ire of many CFL players, mostly because the league has instructed teams not to pay off-season bonuses until after a new collective bargaining agreement has been ratified. The current deal is scheduled to expire May 18.
Training camps are slated to open the following day but the CFLPA has instructed its players to not report if a new CBA hasn't been reached by then. The union has also said it doesn't intend to work past May 18 unless the sides agree to a new deal.
But the status of rookie camps, scheduled to begin May 15, is bothering some CFL general managers. The CFLPA hasn't told its players not to report, which isn't surprising given the camps open within the timeframe of the existing CBA. That also suggests the union is adhering to the various provincial labour laws.
However, given the state of contract talks between the league and union — the two sides are still negotiating non-monetary matters — and the annual Canadian college draft being held May 2, some GMs are finding it much more costly arranging airfares now for prospects to attend scheduled rookie camps instead of having had the luxury of doing so months ago when rates were a lot cheaper.
A CFL spokesman said Tuesday the plan is for rookie camps to ahead as scheduled. However, the uncertainty of the league's labour situation has caused some teams to play a waiting game when it comes to purchasing airplane tickets.
"The price of airline tickets is higher with shorter notice and you can't go get players airline tickets at this point," said a CFL GM.
However, another CFL general manager said this circumstance is really nothing new given teams faced a similar situation in 2014 when the league and union were last involved in CBA talks.
"Every day that goes by isn't necessarily a good thing," the GM said. "But in the CFL you've got to be able to adjust and make things happen on the fly.
"We try to (book travel arrangements) sooner than later to try to get the best fares. It doesn't always play out that way but that's the risk you take, right? For now, we're going to be patient and see how things play out. It could impact the bottom line but it's not something you can worry about. That's just what we're dealing with."
Another concern, too, is just how many players will actually attend. That's because once a player signs a CFL contract he automatically becomes a member of the CFLPA. The dilemma facing a rookie is trying to do right by the union while being able to take full advantage of an opportunity to play pro football.
Also, traditionally a CFL team's starting and backup quarterbacks report to rookie camp to get a head start on their season preparation. The expectation is attendance this year for the veterans will be voluntary.
Still, the second general manager downplayed the impact contract talks are having on his day-to-day responsibilities.
"The timing might be off a little bit and dollars may go up a bit," he said. "Other than that, it might change the order of what things you do and you might be doing more preparation now for the season than stuff that deals with rookie camp.
"Let's just hope there's an agreement (before May 15) and we don't have to worry about all of this."
Both CFL officials were granted anonymity due to a league directive. Personnel commenting publicly about anything to do with CBA talks will face repercussions under the rules.


text:
10 Ways to Make Your House More Salable
- Get rid of clutter. Throw out or file stacks of newspapers and magazines. Pack away most of your small decorative items. Store out-of-season clothing to make closets seem roomier. Clean out the garage.
- Wash your windows and screens to let more light into the interior.
- Keep everything extra clean. Wash fingerprints from light switch plates. Mop and wax floors. Clean the stove and refrigerator. A clean house makes a better first impression and convinces buyers that the home has been well cared for.
- Get rid of smells. Clean carpeting and drapes to eliminate cooking odors, smoke, and pet smells. Open the windows.
- Put higher wattage bulbs in light sockets to make rooms seem brighter, especially basements and other dark rooms. Replace any burnt-out bulbs.
- Make minor repairs that can create a bad impression. Small problems, such as sticky doors, torn screens, cracked caulking, or a dripping faucet, may seem trivial, but they'll give buyers the impression that the house isn't well maintained.
- Tidy your yard. Cut the grass, rake the leaves, trim the bushes, and edge the walks. Put a pot or two of bright flowers near the entryway.
- Patch holes in your driveway and reapply sealant, if applicable.
- Clean your gutters.
- Polish your front doorknob and door numbers.
10 Ways to Make Your Home Irresistible
- Put fresh or silk flowers in principal rooms for a touch of color.
- Add a new shower curtain, fresh towels, and new guest soaps to every bath.
- Set out potpourri or fresh baked goods for a homey smell.
- Set the table with pretty dishes and candles.
- Buy a fresh doormat with a clever saying.
- Take one or two major pieces of furniture out of every room to create a sense of spaciousness.
- Put away kitchen appliances and personal bathroom items to give the illusion of more counter space.
- Lay a fire in the fireplace. Or put a basket of flowers there if it's not in use.
- Depersonalize the rooms by putting away family photos, mementos, and distinctive artwork.
- Turn on the sprinklers for 30 minutes to make the lawn sparkle
5 Ways to Speed Up Your Sale
- Price it right. Set a price at the lower end of your property's realistic price range.
- Get your house market-ready for at least two weeks before you begin showing it.
- Be flexible about showings. It's often disruptive to have a house ready to show on the spur of the moment, but the more often someone can see your home, the sooner you'll find a seller.
- Be ready for the offers. Decide in advance what price and terms you'll find acceptable.
- Don't refuse to drop the price. If your home has been on the market for more than 30 days without an offer, be prepared to lower your asking price.
7 Terms to Watch for in a Purchase Contract
- The closing date. See if the date the buyer wants to take title is reasonable for you.
- Date of possession. See if the date the buyer wants to move in is reasonable for you.
- The earnest money. Look for the largest earnest-money deposit possible; since it is forfeited if the buyer backs out, a large deposit is usually a good indication of a sincere buyer.
- Fixtures and personal property. Check the list of items that the buyer expects to remain with the property and be sure it's acceptable.
- Repairs. Determine what the requested repairs will cost and whether you're willing to do the work or would rather lower the price by that amount.
- Contingencies. See what other factors the buyer wants met before the contract is final—inspections, selling a home, obtaining a mortgage, review of the contract by an attorney. Set time limits on contingencies so that they won't drag on and keep your sale from becoming final.
- The contract expiration date. See how long you have to make a decision on the offer.
20 Low-Cost Ways to Spruce Up Your Home
Make your home more appealing for potential buyers with these quick and easy tips.
- Trim bushes so they don't block windows and cut down on light.
- Buy a new doormat.
- Put a pot of bright flowers (or a small evergreen in winter) on your porch.
- Put new doorknobs on your doors.
- Put a fresh coating on your driveway.
- Edge the grass around walks and trees.
- Keep your garden tools out of site.
- Be sure kids put away their toys.
- Buy a new mailbox.
- Upgrade the outside lighting.
- Use warm, incandescent light bulbs for a homey feel.
- Polish or replace your house numbers.
- Clean your gutters.
- Put out potpourri or burn scented candles.
- Buy new pillows for the sofa.
- Buy a flowering plant and put it in a window you pass by frequently.
- Make a centerpiece for your table with fruit or artificial flowers.
- Replace heavy curtains with sheer ones that let in more light.
- Buy new towels.
- Put a seasonal wreath on your door.
Tips on How to Price Your Home
- Consider comparables. What have other homes in your neighborhood sold for recently? How do they compare to yours in terms of size, upkeep, and amenities?
- Consider competition. How many other houses are for sale in your area? Are you competing against new homes?
- Consider your contingencies. Do you have special concerns that would affect the price you'll receive? For example, do you want to be able to move in four months?
- Get an appraisal. For a few hundred dollars, a qualified appraiser can give you an estimate of your home's value. Be sure to ask for a market-value appraisal. To locate appraisers in your area, contact The Appraisal Institute (www.AppraisalInstitute.org) or ask a REALTOR® for some recommendations.
- Ask a lender. Since most buyers will need a mortgage, it's important that a home's sale price be in line with a lender's estimate of its value.
- Be accurate. Studies show that homes priced higher than 3 percent over the correct price take longer to sell.
- Know what you'll accept. It's critical to know what price you'll accept before beginning a negotiation with a buyer.


text:
Services (Tree Shadow)
We are an Interior Designing Firm as described by our Business Name and Website. Well, there are many forms of an Interior Designing. As, it can be personal, professional or public, depending upon your property.
So, here we are explaining some of the services we specialize in. so, sit back and read this article, about why should you prefer a Professional Interior Design over your simple designed room.
- It looks more elegant and beautiful than the simple and plain look of the room.
- It's totally budget friendly in long run as, you can see a virtual sample in your mind and then initiate an Interior Decoration.
- It's way more attractive.
- It gives an impression of pure professional decoration.
Now, let's explain the points or factors mentioned above in detail.
Looks Elegant and Beautiful:
What we simply mean is that having your property Interior designed by Professional, gives you that neat and clean look. Which is more elegant than a simple white room or a simple room, with just one colour. Although, now you might be thinking that interior design is costly. Then, let us clear this misconception of yours as, yes interior designing cost a little more than having a simple and plain look. But, when you think about it on the long terms, you might acknowledge that everybody gets bored of that simple look in 2 years max. Now, imagine a situation for a property which is blessed by being interior designed. This property does not need any extra care for the next 3 years and at the top of it, if the design properly explains your style, status and property purpose then there is no need for any changes for at least 5-6 years more.
Budget Friendly:
Why it is budget friendly you say? It is simply because once you have your property interior designed, you don't need any changes for at least 8-10 years. But, if you consider having a simple and plain look that needs refreshing in almost 3 year in a repetition. You, can do the math that you are going for the plain and simple looks for 3-4 times in a 10 year cycle, as compared to one time interior design.
More Attractive:
It is simply more appealing and attractive than a plain simple look. Haven't you noticed something at Sharma ji's house when you last visited them? Their color combinations and the accessories were just complimenting each other. That simply means that Sharma ji had their home interior designed according to the furniture and accessories they already had so, there was no need for some extra purchasing of furniture or accessories to go with the interior design.
This is the ultimate beauty of interior designing that you can have the entire room designed revolving around the things or object that are already present. True, you may have to buy some extra curtains or some new pillow covers. But, these are nor that heavy of accessories we suppose.
Impression of pure professional design:
Well, we all have heard a saying that "First impression is usually the deciding one", it is true in some case. Just imagine a situation where you own a business that is related to the entertainment field. Would you be able to impress your clients with a plain and simple office or, would it better if your client enters your office and observe the interior design that revolves around the field, i.e. having some paintings, awards portrayed properly. Now, this displays the proper message you want to send to your clients that you are what everybody believes to be a professional in your field.
Now, there are many services in Interior design that you can custom choose from the services listed below and go for that premium look in your business, personal or commercial building.


text:
Bay Area Pet Expo | San Jose
Dang! This event has already taken place.Saturday, February 26, 2011 - 10:00 am to 6:00 pm | Cost: FREE
>> Want to see our Top Picks for this week instead?
>> Want to see our Top Picks for this week instead?
Santa Clara County Fairgrounds | 344 Tully Road, San Jose, CA 95111
Submitted by the Event Organizer
The Bay Area Pet Expo is a woofing, chirping, and meowing good time for the whole family. Your pet can sample delicious treats, try an agility course and find the latest in furry (or feathered) fashion, plus a pet costume contest
Highlight of the event: definitely the adoptable animals showcased by area non-profits–who knows, you may just come home with a new family member.
Four-legged friends can receive:
- "spa treatments" from local groomers
- sample delicious treats
- try on the latest in furry fashions
- an agility course
- pet talent show
Their humans will enjoy:
- interacting with top trainers
- learning pet-care tips from animal welfare organizations
- pet costume shows
- an exciting pet/owner look-alike contest
Disclaimer: Please double check event information with the event organizer as events can be canceled, details can change after they are added to our calendar, and errors do occur.
Event Details
Cost: FREE
Tags: Adoption, Demonstrations, family, Free, Pets
Categories: **Annual Event**, *Top Pick*, Fairs & Festivals, Fun & Games, Kids & Families, South Bay
Venue: Santa Clara County Fairgrounds
Address: 344 Tully Road, San Jose, CA 95111


text:
Award Winning Olive Oil
Our Award Winning Extra Virgin Olive Oils are made with varieties of olive that we grow onsite at our beautiful olive orchard in Dripping Springs, TX. Taste the difference in every bottle.
Don't miss our super popular Infused Olive Oils. Lemon, Jalapeño & Garlic Infused are delicious and easily add flavor to salads, veggies & grilled meats or seafood.
- Choosing a selection results in a full page refresh.
- Press the space key then arrow keys to make a selection.


text:
Brad's Biography
Olympic Peninsula
Fall Salmon
Winter Steelhead
Photo Album
Best Time To Come
License Fees & Regulations
About the Rivers
Travel Information
Other Things To Do
Columbia River
Fall Salmon/Buoy 10
Spring Salmon
Photo Album
Best Times to Come
About the Columbia River
Other things to do
Puget Sound
Photo Album
Best Times To Come
License Fees & Regulations
Travel Information
Other Things To Do
Cowlitz River
Summer Steelhead
Winter Steelhead
Photo Album
Know Your Fish
Chinook Salmon
Chum Salmon
Coho Salmon
Cutthroat Trout
Pink Salmon
Stockeye Salmon
Charter Rates
Reservation Request
Prepare Your Catch
Hot Links
Olympic Peninsula - Travel Information
Most out-of-state visitors fly into the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport and rent a car for their local transportation. From Seattle, there are four different routes that you can take to get to Forks, Washington. We borrowed this nice little map from the Washington State Ferries. It provides all the ferry routes across Puget Sound and some highway information if you elect to drive to Forks.
The most direct route, although it's not necessarily the shortest in travel time, is to take a Washington State Ferry from either Seattle to Bainbridge Island or, further to the north, from Edmonds to Kingston. Once you are on the other side, follow the road signs to Port Angeles via the Hood Canal Floating Bridge and Hwy 101. Continue on through Port Angeles on Hwy 101 to Forks. The travel time is about three hours not including waiting in the ferry line and the ferry crossing time. To us 'natives', waiting for ferry service is a sore point and we have learned to plan things around the ferry schedules. You should check the ferry schedules before you depend on them to get you across Puget Sound in a timely matter. If you have never been on the ferry, the experience may well be worth your while. Keep an eye out for marine animals including seals and otters. Sometimes you will have the privilege of seeing a pod of Orca (killer whales) as they travel up and down Puget Sound.
For those of you who want to drive, there are three routes to get you to Forks. All three routes start by driving from Seattle to Tacoma on I-5.
The shortest driving route is to take Hwy 16 from Tacoma to Bremerton, Hwy 3 from Bremerton across the Hood Canal Floating Bridge, and Hwy 101 to Port Angeles and, eventually, to Forks. Since you are still driving through 'civilization' this isn't as scenic as the two longer drives, but it is interesting. This is about a 4 hour drive.
For the second route, which is the longest drive, keep driving from Tacoma to Olympia, head for Shelton, and follow Hwy 101 up the west side of Hood Canal to Port Angeles and Forks. Driving the west side of Hood Canal also provides some beautiful scenery. This is about a 5 hour drive.
For the last route, which may be the most scenic, again drive from Tacoma to Olympia, head west on Hwy 12 to Aberdeen, and take Hwy 101 north to Forks. This route will take you through the lush rain forests of the Olympic Peninsula, as well as past some beautiful ocean views, and provides you with some spectacular scenery. It's about a 5 hour drive, but it's well worth it if you have the time!
No matter how you get to Forks, be sure to 'stop and smell the roses' along the way - especially if you are a first time visitor. You might also want to check The Olympic Peninsula Bed & Breakfast Association's website. They are a very good source for bed & breakfasts, restaurants, and sightseeing attractions for the entire Olympic Peninsula.
Alaska Airlines
America West Airlines
American Airlines
Delta Airlines
Northwest Airlines
Southwest Airlines
Rental Cars:
Copyright 2009 | Fishing Web Design


text:
Meet Stephina Awane, with 18 years experience in the TV industry, Stephanie has also worked as a TV Producer and Director for various shows for the major broadcasters in South Africa. She is the co-owner of Sorele Media. She directed her debut feature film, Love and Kwaito in 2016 and most recently, wrote and directed, the comedy-drama Baby Mamas (2018).
Meet Salamina Mosese, with 20 years experience in the TV industry, Salaminea first graced our screens 20 years ago, as the fresh-faced youngster we saw on the popular edutainment drama series, Soul Buddyz, it seemed she was destined to be a household name. Following this, she became known for presenting on Craze on ETV, and later as Keketso on ETV soapie, Backstage.
SCHICK chats with the female media duo on their new movie 'Baby Mamas', wearing different caps: actor, writer, director, and producer, and telling unique African stories to the world, enjoy!
Q: What inspired you both to get into film?
We love film and the power of the film medium to not only influence views and opinions but also to educate and entertain. And as we spent more time in the media industry, it became increasingly important for us to start telling our own stories, especially stories that we ourselves would like to watch.
Q: Congratulations on the premiere of the 'Baby Mamas' movie! How important was this to you, personally, and to your careers? How did it move from concept to reality?
This has been 3 years in the making. It is an important milestone for us because it is our biggest film project yet. We first applied for the funding to make Baby Mamas in 2015, but were unsuccessful, then later tried again, and the second time our application was successful. To have gotten to the point where we are is a dream come true.
Q: What was your inspiration behind the story?
The everyday single Mom, trying to make ends meet, raising a child, supporting her friends and trying to figure out life and love, these are the women that this story is for. We are inspired by the tenacity, bravery and beauty of these women that we see in our own personal lives, as well as in and amongst on the daily.
Q: How was it like premiering your film at the Toronto Black Film Festival, the Durban International Film Festival and even the Lights Camera Africa Film Festival?
Whenever you get the opportunity to show your work to audiences that are not familiar with who you are, it is daunting. But we have been pleasantly surprised by how well received this film has been. These film festivals coming before the SA release of the film, have been great for getting the brand's name out there and for has whet people's appetite for the film at home.
Q: You both seem passionate about telling unique African stories. Why is that so?
We are living in a time where the world seems to have woken up to the reality of the beauty and power of Africa, Africans and African stories. It is a fantastic time to build on this momentum and truly grow our industries.
Q: What was it like working with each other?
We have known each other for over 20 years, we work well together, we understand each other's rhythms and strengths and weaknesses. This formula has served us well thus far. We have been in business going on 4 years, and we have plans to diversify even further as a business, and possibly even work in other countries.
Q: You both wear different caps: actor, writer, director, and producer. Is one of these roles your favourite? Why?
The producing thing is still new to me (Salamina) and I am still getting into the role and what it entails. Stephina has directed for TV and making the transition to film directing has been an exciting one. We have both been on screen as actors and presenters, making the transition from child stars, to adult performers, and then now entrepreneurs has been a welcome change. We have been looking for a new challenge and each time we try something new we are stretched even further.
Q: What are some of the projects that you are most proud to have been a part of?
Our first foray into business saw us launching a VOD platform called AzaTV. Following this, we did our first feature film, called Love and Kwaito. This film revolves around the lives of two orphaned siblings navigating life without their parents, while still trying to get through school.
Q: What's the best and worst aspect of your jobs?
The best part of the work is creating new products, birthing new ideas and seeing them come to fruition. The worst part is the small business problems, the unreliable income sources and long hours.
Q: Is it important to collaborate with your colleagues? How have your professional collaborations benefited your career?
Yes, South Africa has a developed TV industry, but it is run by the broadcasters, and the producers are not yet at a point where they can own the intellectual property that they come up with. This means that commissions are the only way to get productions on TV. This is limiting in the long run in the sense that it is not a sustainable way to run a business. The film industry is still a developing industry, where very few filmmakers are able to make hit films that break the bank and box office records. We are still developing audiences that are willing to pay money to watch films while they are on the circuit.
Q: Where do you both hope to be in your career, a decade from now?
A decade from now we hope to have won awards as Directors and Producers and to have our content flighting on international platforms and channels.
Q: What has been your personal key to success?
We pray, we research, we ask for help, we read books and network and meet with those who have come before us, who can advise and create opportunities.
Q: Who were the biggest inspirations for your career?
Ava Duvernay, Oprah Winfrey, Shonda Rhimes, Mo Abudu, Biola Alabi, Khanyi Dlomo, Felicia Mabuza-Suttle and Tyler Perry. We admire all of them because they are pioneers, trendsetters, captains of their industries and black excellence personified.
Q: What is the best advice you can give to a young writer?
(Stephina) take time to read a lot and when you finally start just keep writing. Even if you don't know what you are writing or where it will eventually end up going, don't give up on what you are writing or on your ideas.
Q: Do you have future events you want to mention?
Not at this stage.


text:
Amar'e Stoudemire is an aficionado of entrepreneurial off-the-court endeavors.
His latest adventure could be as majority owner of the Hapoel Jerusalem basketball club, which currently competes in the Israeli Basketball Super League -- the top division in Israel.
Stoudemire tweeted Friday, "Excited to join the partnership that is giving back to the city of Jerusalem by offering the Hapoel basketball team a fresh start." His agent, Happy Walters, clarified to ESPNNewYork.com that the Knicks power forward is "part of a group that made a bid to purchase the team." If it's finalized, Stoudemire likely would become a majority owner, according to Walters.
Stoudemire, who has a Star of David tattoo on his left hand, traveled to Israel for a week in 2010 -- not only because he's a history buff, but to explore his possible "Hebrew roots." While he didn't discover any, he still relates to Judaism by sometimes wearing a yarmulke and a menorah necklace, as well as following other traditions of the religion. This July, Stoudemire will be returning to Israel to serve as an assistant coach for the Canadian men's basketball team in the 19th Maccabiah Games.
It's unclear at this point why Stoudemire chose Hapoel Jerusalem. The club has six runner-up finishes in the Israeli Basketball Super League but has never been crowned champion. On the other hand, Maccabi Tel Aviv has dominated the division, winning 50 titles.
Stoudemire wouldn't be the first NBA player to have a business partnership with an overseas team. Tony Parker owns a stake in ASVEL Basket, and his Spurs teammate Boris Diaw has one in JSA Bordeaux Basket. Both are pro teams in France.
Stoudemire's other entrepreneurial projects have included investing in Sheets energy strips, publishing a series of children's books with Scholastic, launching a limited-edition women's fashion line with designer Rachel Roy and producing his own documentary with EPIX called "Amar'e Stoudemire: In The Moment."
You can follow Jared Zwerling on Twitter.


text:
I'm envious of those people who find their true love in high school or college for the simple reason they no longer have to date. My parents were lucky like that. They met when my father showed up at my mother's door looking for somebody else. She was 16 then. 5 kids and 36 years of marriage later and they are still together.
Le Sigh. I keep opening my front door waiting to see if my true love is there but the most I find is a package from Amazon that usually contains a book about somebody else's happily ever after. Until then, like millions of other singles I am forced to date.
I hate dating. HATE IT. Mostly because I'm a little socially awkward. The only things I can talk about in great detail is writing, romance novels or my job. I'm super good at random trivia and would kick butt on a game show but unless my date is going to give me a pop quiz that thread of conversation is going to end rather quickly.
I also hate dating because it is so nerve-racking. What to wear? How to do my hair? How much cleavage to show? And then there is the food thing. Can't order linguine. Slurping pasta on a date is strictly not allow. Don't order anything with garlic or onions. Sandwiches aren't good because they have the potential to fall apart. (I know this for a fact because a pickle fell down my shirt on one horrifying occasion.)
Despite all my crazy neurotic worrying I usually manage to pull myself together and be a pretty good date. I show up on time, with a smile, looking great and I never order the most expensive thing on the menu. I'm sure men go through their own panicky process before going on a date but I wonder if it is at all the same for them as it is for us. I wonder if they use the same markers to determine whether a date was a good one.
I'll give you an example from my own life. Last year I went on a blind date with a guy who asked me to meet him at the "entertainment district" in a nearby town. No problem. I was familiar with the place. But as I'm pulling in he calls me and tells me to park in the garage behind Barnes and Noble because that garage is free. No problem, except there are at least four different roads that lead into the center and depending on which way you take the either garage could be considered behind.
I get another call 5 minutes later. "Where are you?"
"On the first floor of the garage in the second spot."
He sighs. "Just meet me in front of BN."
I walk up to the store with a big smile on my face ready to charm the man I will be spending the next few hours with and do you know the first thing he says to me? Nope it's not hello, or how are you, or that you are the most beautiful woman in the world, but you don't follow directions.
Oh no he didn't!
Now if he would have said this with a smile I might have laughed it off. But he didn't smile and a IMHO I think a nice guy would have said something to the effect of, "I'm sorry, I should have been more clear." Or "I should have given you the name of the garage."
But he didn't say that and I being me(who loves to be right) said,"Look at where we are standing. From this angle which way would you say is behind Barnes and Noble?"
He shut up and I was the tiniest bit annoyed. Later on in the date as we sat down for dinner he asked me how I take constructive criticism. I immediately get my back up. "What do you mean how do I take constructive criticism?"
"Like if I told you some thing you could improve on, things you might want to work on, how would you take that?"
"What do you mean things I could improve on? What do I need to improve on? Are you going to fill out a comment card at the end of our evening?"
He raised his hands in defense and laughed, "Well now I'm not going to say anything. You'll probably bite my head off."
Jackass. I tried to push away my extreme irritation and finish the night so I could get the hell out of there. Of course the neurotic nut job in me was wracking my brain thinking what it was I could improve on. All we did was go to a movie. There wasn't even much of a chance to talk. I know I didn't say anything offensive.
Of course the date doesn't end quickly. He decides to order dessert and coffee! After we talk about him for another twenty minutes I get the grilling of my life. What political party do you affiliate yourself with? How's your credit? How many kids do you want? Where do you see yourself living in the next ten years? What's your attitude towards alcohol?
SERIOUSLY? I felt like I was on a job interview. Finally the date ends. He walks me back to my car and I high tail it out of there. An hour later I get a text message.
"So did you feel the chemistry?"
Not sure how I could politely say hell no I instead typed. "Did you?"
He responds, "Yes, I can definitely see a future with you."
Oh boy. Apparently he saw that date in a totally different light. Yes, I did go out with him again. I thought maybe I was being a bit harsh and wanted to give him another shot. But when he said this, "What did you tell your friends about me? Did you tell them I was intelligent and successful and have a great smile," in a needy, please validate me sort of way, told me three times how much money he made and took me outside just so he could show off his brand new BMW, I knew we were not meant to be.
I probably should immortalize him in one of my books. He might the reason I switched to writing romantic comedies soon after we met. Now I can see the funny side of falling in love.
And just for the record neither parking garages were free and the one I parked in was closer. So I was right all along. Vindication!
Your turn! Ever had a bad date? Ever meet a person that just rubbed you the wrong way? Been on a date lately? Like dating. Hate dating? Can you top my story? (I've got others.) Any and all comments are welcome.


text:
Sylvester Stallone's "Expendables" franchise is moving to TV with an event series in the works at Fox, deadline.com reports.
Like the hit movies, "The Expendables" series will unite iconic TV action stars as a new team on a mission to stop a terrorist, according to the report. Stallone will serve as an executive producer of (but not star in) the series, which has no cast attached yet.
Other executive producers include showrunner Shane Brennan ("NCIS: LA") and the films' producer, Avi Lerner.
The three-movie franchise has grossed $786 million at the worldwide box office from 2010-14. Its cast has included Stallone, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Chuck Norris, Jean-Claude Van Damme and Bruce Willis.
Lionsgate — which distributes "The Expendables" movies — is producing the project through its TV division along with CBS TV Studios and Shane Brennan Productions.


text:
Home Tags Announcements
Tag: Announcements
Apple is having its most exciting and tumultuous year in over a decade — here are its biggest moves of 2019 so far
It's been a busy 2019 for Apple — and we're only halfway through the year. We rounded up the company's biggest and most notable announcements.
The 25 most exciting announcements from E3 2019, the biggest video game showcase of the year
E3 2019, which runs until Thursday, is the biggest video game show of the year. We've rounded up the best announcements from the show floor.
Jeff Bezos unveils a giant lunar lander that he says is 'going to the moon' and will help Blue Origin populate space
Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, unveiled a giant lunar lander on Thursday at an event about the progress of his spaceflight company, Blue Origin.
Jeff Bezos will reveal new details about his rocket company Blue Origin today. Clues suggest he could announce plans to land on the moon.
Blue Origin, the aerospace company founded by Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos, has doled out cryptic details ahead of a media event in Washington, DC.
Here's everything Facebook announced at its biggest event of the year
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has a lot to talk about at the company's annual F8 developer conference.
LIVE: Samsung unveils new Galaxy phones, watches, and more
Samsung is set to launch new phones, watches, earbuds, and more.
Here's everything Apple announced at its big iPad and Mac event
Apple held a big event in Brooklyn, New York, on Tuesday to unveil new iPads, new Mac computers, and more.
Apple knocked its big iPad and Mac event out of the park
After one of the most disappointing iPhone events in recent memory one month ago, Apple came back in October with a very impressive showing.
The 11 coolest announcements Google made at its biggest product event of the year
Google made dozens of announcements in its 75-minute event to unveil its Pixel 3 smartphone, but a handful of "wow" moments stole the show.
Here's everything Google unveiled at its biggest hardware event of the year
Google invited journalists to an event in New York City to unveil its newest smartphone, the Pixel 3, as well as several other new hardware products.


text:
Geoscientist employment improves in Q3Posted December 13, 2019
Australian geoscientist employment improved marginally in the third quarter of 2019.
The latest AIG Australian Geoscientist Employment Survey revealed that unemployment amongst Australian. geoscientists fell to 7.4% at the end of September, down from 9.3% at the end of July. The underemployment rate also fell to 14.1%, from 14.9% for the same period.
Australian geoscientist employment – June 2009 to September 2019
The survey results, at a national level, continue a gradually improving trend evident since March 2016, but the rate of improvement appears to have slowed since March 2018.
The number of long-term unemployed geoscientists continued to increase with 47% of unemployed and under-employed geoscientists having little to no work for more than one year, or more than two years for 34% of respondents.
AIG President, Andrew Waltho, welcomed the continued improvement in both the unemployment and under-employment rates, with the reservation that the rate of improvement remains slow. "The most disappointing and serious statistic is the proportion of long term unemployed and under-employed geoscientists" Mr Waltho said. "AIG and kindred professional institutes continue to promote the need to recognise the high-level scientific skills possessed by this pool of experienced professionals that can be applied in a broad range of fields where an ability to understand and interpret Earth systems and processes is valuable". "In the meantime, AIG continues to provide members with effective and accessible opportunities for members to maintain and expand their professional networks and undertake continued professional development" Mr Waltho said. "Members accessing these opportunities are actively working to resurrect their careers and value this support" he said.
The unemployment and under-employment rates amongst geoscientists in Australia varied substantially between states.
Unemployment amongst geoscientists decreased in Western Australia, Queensland, New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory, but increased in Victoria and South Australia. The greatest improvement in unemployment was evident in Victoria. No Northern Territory respondents responded as being unemployed. Too few responses were received from Tasmania for state results to be reported.
Under-employment, defined as respondents being able to attract less than 25% of their desired workload, decreased in Queensland, Victoria and South Australia but increased in Western Australia, New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory, and the Northern Territory. The lowest under-employment results was evident in Victoria.
Australian geoscientist unemployment and under-employment by state – September 2019
Almost 71% of respondents reported being full-time employees, on staff or fixed term contracts. Only 3% work part time and between 4% and 5% are casual employees. Self-employed geoscientists comprise 22% of the profession.
Australian geoscientist employment basis – September 2019
Geoscience remains a male dominated profession in Australia.
Some 85% of survey respondents were men and 15% women. One respondent identified with neither gender. There are relatively more women pursuing geoscience careers in Australia in the 0-15 years experience groups, with the highest proportion of women responding to the survey having between 10 and 15 years experience.
Gender diversity in Australian geoscience – September 2019
"Clearly, more needs to be done to attract women to geoscience careers, and retain women in the profession with more than 15 years experience if gender equity is to be achieved" Mr Waltho said. "It's a serious issue, central to the public recognition vitality of the geoscience profession that will take concerted and committed action by all geoscientists in Australia to address".
The next employment survey will open for contributions in early January 2020. AIG values the continued support of both members and non-members who take a few minutes to complete the survey each quarter and encourages as many geoscientists working in all sectors of the profession in Australia to contribute.
Geoscientist employment opportunities continue improvement despite June quarter slowdownPosted September 10, 2019
Australian Geoscientist Employment Survey June 2019
Employment opportunities for Australia's geoscientists continued to show a very slowl-improving trend, despite disappoini.ng results for the second quarter (April to June).
The second quarter setback saw unemployment rise from 7.5% at the end of March, to 9.3% at the end of June.On the other hand, underemployment amongst self-employed geoscientists fell from 20.5% to 14.9% for the same period. The underemployment figure represents the proportion of self-employed geoscientists unable to secure more than one quarter of their desired workload.
The survey was completed by 734 respondents nationally. Some 66% of respondents worked or sought work in mineral exploration. A further 18% worked in metalliferous mining, while 5% of respondents worked or sought work in energy resource exploration and production.
Half of Australia's geoscientists who are currently unemployed have been without work for more than 12 months. A similar proportion sees little prospect of regaining employment in their field in the year ahead. Almost one in ten unemployed geoscientists are looking to leave the profession, seeking more stable employment.
"The depressed employment prospects for geoscientists are a surprise given mineral exploration expenditure rose during the June quarter according to Australian Bureau of Statistics figures released last week although mineral exploration drilling declined," AIG President, Andrew Waltho said.
"There is little doubt that junior exploration and mining companies especially are experiencing difficulty raising capital to fund new exploration and producers are having to deal with considerable uncertainty and price volatility, at least partly due to trade tensions between the USA and China" Mr Waltho said.
"The increase in work secured by self-employed geoscientists is most welcome, especially in light of the sharp increase in under-employment observed in the previous survey," Mr Waltho said.
"Long term unemployment is the big issue in these figures. Half of Australia's unemployed geoscientists have been without work for 12 months or more, and a similar number see no new opportunities on the horizon," he said.
"Professional institutes, including AIG, are doing whatever we can to help members remain in touch with their colleagues and peers and maintain their skills, but it's pretty hard to remain motivated when industry conditions appear to be stagnant," Mr Waltho said.
The employment situation varied significantly between states in the latest survey results.
The lowest levels of both unemployment and under-employment were recorded in Western Australia. Unemployment amongst professional geoscientists fell from 8.5% at the end of March to 7.8% at the end of June, while under-employment fell from 17.6% to 11.0% for the same period.
Victoria recorded the largest fall in the unemployment rate, from 11.8% at the end of March to 5.9% in June. Under-employment in Victoria also fell from 17.6% at the end of March to 14.7% at the end of June.
Queensland, New South Wales, South Australia all recorded increases in both unemployment and under-employment. Only a small number of responses were received from geoscientists working in the Northern Territory and Tasmania, which indicated near-full employment of small pools of local geoscientists.
Overall improvement trend in geoscientist unemployment continues, but self-employed geoscientists still doing it toughPosted March 5, 2019
Australian Geoscientist employment survey results for Q4 2018 released.
- Call also made for greater political action to ensure more equitable and timely access to land for exploration
- More women also forging geoscience careers
The latest quarterly Australian geoscientist unemployment survey for the final quarter of 2018, conducted during January 2019, revealed a slight increasein geoscientist unemployment, from 8.3% at the end of September, to 9.1% at the end of December 2018. Underemployment amongst self-employed geoscientists, however, rose significantly from 12.9% to 18.5% for the same period.
However, despite the dip for the past quarter, the new results pointed to evidence of an overall improving job trend since June 2016.
"This latest quarterly result is disappointing", Australian Institute of Geoscientists spokesperson, Mr Andrew Waltho said today, "coming at a time when there was genuine optimism regarding an improvement in exploration activity, several, significant new mineral discoveries, and speculation regarding potential skills shortages facing the exploration and mining sectors".
"Both the Federal Government and Opposition have announced initiatives to support mineral exploration research if elected in the May Federal election, but no-one is talking about improving processes facilitating equitable and timely access to land for exploration," Mr Waltho said.
"In fairness, this is a state issue, but we are still seeing bureaucratic and lengthy processes in operation that disadvantage the junior exploration sector in particular, with little sign of change," Mr Waltho said.
The unemployment and underemployment situation varied widely between states. Unemployment was lowest in South Australia (5.3%), NSW and ACT (5.6%) and Victoria (5.9%), followed by Western Australia (8.3%). The results for Victoria and South Australia represent marked improvements on the previous, September quarter survey. Unemployment in Western Australia was 8.3%, up from 6.5%. Unemployment in Queensland jumped from 11.5% in the September quarter to 15.1% in this survey.
All states except South Australia saw little change or an increase in unemployment in the 12 months between December 2017 and December 2018, but an overall improving trend since June 2016 remains evident.
The underemployment rate in South Australia took some gloss off the positive unemployment figure, coming in at 36.8% for the quarter, followed by Queensland (24.2%), NSW/ACT (16.9%), Western Australia (14.9%) and Victoria (11.8%).
The survey attracted 391 individual responses. Too few responses were received from Tasmania and the Northern Territory for the reporting of state results.
Junior exploration and mining companies employ 29% of Australia's geoscientists according to this survey, almost as many as major and mid-tier companies combined.
Cultural shift needed
"This amply demonstrates the importance of measures to help small employers avoid burning precious capital waiting for approvals before conducting productive exploration activities" Mr Waltho said.
"Small companies have a limited capital base on which is difficult to raise further funds and must be used productively if they are to survive," Mr Waltho said.
"Early career geoscientists tend to be employed in greater numbers by major mining and exploration companies but this soon changes as geoscientists gain professional experience, suggesting that major companies need to look more closely at retaining talent by providing a more dynamic and professionally rewarding professional environment for their staff," Mr Waltho said.
Women are represented almost equally in the geoscience staff of major, mid-tier and junior exploration companies. The overall proportion of women in the workforce remains low, but large, mid-sized and junior companies don't appear to either discriminate or be preferred sources of employment.
"Gender diversity in exploration and mining, long-considered to be a male dominated profession in Australia is changing rapidly" Mr Waltho said. "Almost half of the early career geoscientists (0-5 years' experience) who responded to this latest survey were women," Mr Waltho said. "The sector is clearly creating career opportunities for women that are being taken up and we need to ensure that this trend continues through measures to promote and preserve gender diversity," he said.
"A drop in the proportion of women in the 5 – 10 year experience range is evident, but the proportion of women in the profession increases again in the 10 – 15 year range, suggesting, perhaps, that we are seeing the benefit of measures such as flexible employment and favourable parental leave provisions that enable geoscientists to mix raising a family with pursuit of a career. "This again, is something we need to build," Mr Waltho said.
"The fact that we are seeing evidence pointing to this is a real positive for both the exploration and mining industry and our profession," Mr Waltho said.
September quarter Australian geoscientist employment survey openPosted October 9, 2018
This survey, available here, will provide data on trends in geoscientist employment in Australia during the third quarter (July to October) of 2018. In the June quarter, the Australian geoscientists unemployment rate fell to 8.5%.
This was the lowest level of unemployment seen in several years and the survey results indicated that some long term unemployed geoscientists were returning to work.
Every state, except Queensland, experienced a decrease in unemployment during the June quarter. The unemployment rate in Queensland increased from 11.3% at the end of March to 12.2% at the end of June. In Western Australia, unemployment fell from 9.4% to 7.9%. In South Australia, the unemployment rate fell from 11.1% to 10.3%.
The period covered by this survey is typically one of the busiest times in the Australian exploration field season, which will make the results of this survey especially interesting.
The survey takes only two or three minutes to complete. You do not need to be an AIG member to contribute. No data that could personally identify respondents is collected. Contributions to the survey are required from both employed and unemployed geoscientists to ensure the relevance of results. Your completing the survey really helps to make a difference to the standing and knowledge of our profession.
The survey will be open for contributions until 26th October. Every contribution adds to the reliability of the survey results.
Thanks in advance for your support
Have you contributed to the latest Australian Geoscientist Employment Survey?Posted July 8, 2018
The latest instalment in the Australian Geoscientist Employment Survey series is open for contributions until this Saturday 21st July.
The latest instalment in this survey series is designed to provide data on trends in geoscientist employment in Australia during the second quarter (April to June) of 2018.
Please contribute to the survey personally, encourage your peers and colleagues to participate and share news of the survey via social media. We need as many contributions as possible from Australian geoscientists working or seeking work in any sector of our profession. You do not need to be an AIG member to contribute – we would like to hear from as many geoscientists working or seeking work in Australia as possible.
Please click here to complete the survey.
The data collected by this series of surveys helps AIG to develop a consistently based, robust and reliable view of employment trends affecting our profession.
The first quarter 2018 survey showed the recovery in geoscientist employment evident in the latter half of 2017 had stalled.
The general feeling, however, is that prospects for geoscience employment in Australia, particularly in exploration and mining, should be improving as a result of increased investment across Australia. How this is translating into jobs will be demonstrated by the survey results.
No data that could personally identify respondents is collected. Contributions to the survey are required from both employed and unemployed geoscientists to ensure the relevance of results.
Your completing the survey really helps to make a difference to the standing and knowledge of our profession.