text:
Active Minds is a legendary DIY hardcore punk band from Scarborough, UK. Formed in 1986 by two brothers—Bobs and Set—soon they've become the epitome of intelligent and overtly political punk music.
Since then they've been interviewed in countless of DIY fanzines from all over the world. Here's an interview from 2008 conducted by Flip Fuchs, this pretty long conversation with Bobs appeared in his zine Hluboká Orba #27 .
After 2008, the Active Minds continued touring and playing gigs, released numerous new 7″ EPs and the LP "Turn Back The Tide of Bigotry", in 2014 they are still playing shows in the UK and abroad.
Since I don't have your new LP yet, I have to ask: Why this system doesn't work?
Because it creates victims just in order to continue. Those who advocate free market capitalism as a way of improving everybody's standard of living are conveniently ignoring those starving millions whose suffering enables our standard of living to be maintained. A global economic system which cannot provide even the most basic necessities of life for everyone cannot be said to be working.
Active Minds started on January 1st 1986. Well, it's pretty uncommon for a punk band to exist for so long, so where do you draw the motivation and inspiration to continue from?
I know this sounds a bit corny, but in a way Active Minds isn't really a "band" in the conventional sense. As we're brothers we have a relationship that lasts where other friendships might not—"blood is thicker than water", as they say. Although our relationship now isn't the same as it was when we lived together, it's still strong and we're both still into the music and the politics so it just seems natural for Active Minds to continue. We've always tried to share the workload as well, which helps. It's a real partnership—not always equal, but we both have important input into the things we do as Active Minds, which makes the bond stronger.
When you look back, what are some of the best and worst memories from the years you did with this band so far? How did the hardcore punk scene changed over the years from your point of view?
Probably both the best and worst memories both stem from the same activity—touring. We've had some great times, met some great people and seen some great bands. I suppose the novelty does wear off a bit, but our earliest tours of Europe in the late 80's always bring back special memories—traveling by train to gigs on 17 day tours which took us right down into Italy and right up into Scandinavia in the space of just over a fortnight. When we first toured Europe (1987) we didn't really know of any other UK bands who have ever done it so it seemed a real adventure. Poland in 1989, before the collapse of the "Communist" system, is also a special memory—as was touring Mexico a couple of years ago.
The worst times? Well, in those travels you do sometimes get bad experiences, play or stay in shitty places, or meet some people you'd rather not meet again. But not too often. I don't want to single out particular instances, but we can usually laugh about them now.
How has the scene changed? In terms of activity it tends to rise and fall every few years—things stagnate and then get reinvigorated again with some regularity. The politics has certainly stagnated at times, when the scene has sometimes become dominated by cynical old-timers, but then we get a good kick up the arse from the new blood coming into the scene with the sort of fresh enthusiasm which inspires new activity. Comparing with the mid to late 80's the major difference is the awareness, and access people have to music and ideas from all over the world. In more recent years, with the use of the Internet, that awareness has really exploded.
Before Active Minds there was SAS (Speak Against Society), can you tell me more about this band? As far as I know SAS splitted up to two 2-piece bands—yours and Satanic Malfunctions, right? Isn't it kind of odd, that small town like Scarborough did produce not only one but just two 2-piece hardcore bands? I mean, couldn't you play together, when you had pretty similar lyrics and music? And what was this project Active Malfunctions about? I just remember seeing ad for a demo tape in a zine from UK in early 90's…
SAS existed for about 3 years, did a handful of gigs, two demos and an EP. They started practicing as a 3-piece in early 1983 when before I joined a few months later—the line-up then being me (vocals and occasional guitar), Ade (bass), Tony (guitar) and Vince (drums). All recordings were done with this line-up, with the EP coming out around the Spring/Summer of 1985. Shortly after the EP came out Tony and Vince left, and Stu and Set joined, but we struggled to regain the tightness we'd had for the EP—particularly because Vince had been a really good drummer, whilst Set was just starting out at that time. For those who are trying to find it, the EP had a pressing of 1000 copies and is now quite a collector's item.
Satanic Malfunctions originally started as a 4-piece (guitar, drums and two vocals)—Stu, Ade, Gary and Vince. They began I think late 1985, and they were not a particularly serious band at that time (at least, I didn't think so). SAS were still together at that time, but me and Set were growing a bit disillusioned and felt that we could really pursue the direction we wanted to take better as a two-piece—particularly the lyrics we wanted to do. So we made that decision on New Year's Eve (a New Year's Resolution?!), and the following day told the rest of the band that we'd decided to quit whilst we started writing new material for Active Minds. We didn't tell the others at that time that we were carrying on as a two-piece.
Although Active Minds have always been a two-piece, it wasn't the same for Satanics. The core of the band was two people (Ade and Stu), but they were at various times a 3-piece and 4-piece. They were only a 2-piece for the second EP and first LP. There was always the similarities with us though in that they had no bass, but maybe that harks back to the first days of SAS, before I joined, when they were practicing without a bass… The other similarity, perhaps, in guitar sound would be because I'd devised a way of tuning the guitar so that you played chords with just one finger, which I then showed Stu how to do and he has always used as well.
Why didn't we just all play together as a 4-piece? Well, that's how SAS had ended up, and it wasn't working for me and Set. I know that some other people may think that Active Minds and Satanic Malfunctions were very similar in our approach, but I certainly didn't always see eye-to-eye with Stu over politics so working together as one band was too restrictive for me.
Incidentally, there was another 2-piece hardcore band from Scarborough for a while as well—Upheaval (also two brothers). They were definitely influenced by us to do what they did.
As for Active Malfunctions—that was nothing at all to do with us. I never actually heard it, but as far as I know it was some cheeky bastards from Lincolnshire taking the piss. We should have sued! :-)
Being just "guitar + drums" band, how do you manage to get the right sound live and in the studio? Any technical advice for similar "minimalistic" projects?
With mixed results, I think is probably fair to say! We usually have to borrow amps when play live, and so we don't always quite manage to get the sound we want. It was more of a problem when we first started and I just used to play out of one guitar amp, but after a few years I got a local shop to make me up a special pedal that split my guitar signal into two, with a switch on each, so that I could play out of two amps at the same time. Since then I've always played through both a bass amp and a guitar amp, which tends to always get a more acceptable and powerful sound than we sometimes used to get in the old days. Technical advice for similar projects? Get one of these pedals made up. It cost me about €15 at the time—the best €15 I'll ever spend.
You always kept strongly about thought-provoking and critical attitudes in your lyrics and comments on every on ever record you did so far. Is there something you regret looking back, something you feel is not relevant anymore or you feel you were wrong about back then?
I'm not sure that I think we were "wrong" about anything, as such, but the world does change and things do become irrelevant. After all, when we started off we were still singing about Reagan and Thatcher, and the Berlin Wall was still in place. The stuff we did against CDs is certainly not relevant these days—there are young kids listening to music these days who've grown up in the post-CD age and for who talking about vinyl records is like talking about 8-track cassettes. That's why our new album is available on both CD and vinyl—even though we said we'd never do a CD. That's one thing I've definitely learned—never say "never". You can't predict the future.
Although I don't think there are things that we said which were wrong, obviously there are things that I wouldn't do or say in the same way anymore. I'm more than twice as old now as when we started and life's experiences change you. You find that certain methods of getting your views across that seemed appropriate when you were a teenager are less convicting when you're middle-aged (which is, after all, what I am now).
Regrets? Possibly that we singled out particular bands for criticism in things like "Dis is getting pathetic…". With hindsight, I don't think that was necessarily in order to make the point. It certainly didn't make us a lot of friends.
Let's talk now more about some of your lyrics, which probably caused the biggest controversy/angriest reaction—"Dis is Getting Pathetic" from the EP of the same name now from 1995—do you want to comment on this now, 13 years later, when there are probably ten times more "dis" bands than there were back in 1995? Are there any current bands with "dis" in the name you like?
I could never really understand why it provoked such an angry reaction from some people, although, as I said above, it probably wasn't necessary to single out particular bands as that just gets people in a defensive, embattled mode. But the basic point we were making was, and is, still valid. That doesn't mean I'm trying to tell people what bands to listen to. Make your own decisions. I'm just making a comment that people may or may not want to take consideration of.
Do I like any"Dis" bands? Of course I do! I did back then too. I'm a mad collector of hardcore punk vinyl, and have probably got stuff by a hundred bands whose name begins with "Dis" —let alone all the other "d-beat" (dreadful term) bands who've chosen slightly more original names. But just because I like a band doesn't mean I can't also be critical of them at times.
"At War With Satanists" from "Free To Be Chained" LP from 1997—again, it seems to me that black metal is getting popular again in punk scene in the recent years, do you still have the same opinions about it? Isn't it some form of authentic "misanthropic/nihilist" point of view/attitudes, similar to early punk bands, just pushed more far?
Yes, I still have the same opinions about it, but again I still like to listen to a lot of those bands. Where do you think the pictures came from that we used in the album booklet? From my own record collection. As I said above, though, just because I like a band's music doesn't mean I have to accept or support everything about them. I can't really understand why people think it's necessary to do so. After all, I can watch "Terminator" and think it's a good film without thinking that Schwartzenegger is a cool guy or that his politics are sound. It's OK to view music, like films, as purely superficial entertainment. But there's an inclination not to do so—to see bands as some sort of cultural heroes and leaders, just because they can produce an album that makes you want to leap around. That makes no sense to me. You shouldn't be afraid to criticise aspects of things that you also admire in other ways.
Is black metal some sort of legitimate "misanthropic/nihilist" point of view? I don't think so, but then again I think that nihilism as a philosophy is pretty dumb and self-destructive. And is it ever really that "authentic"? I remember seeing an insert of an LP from a band who was particularly well known for its misanthropic views. The thanks list in this record is absolutely enormous. I don't think I would even have known that many people, let alone like them. The idea that they hated everybody on the planet but then had so many friends seemed a little bit contradictory to me.
The lyrics of "Goremless" from "I Am Not a Tourist, I Live Here" EP inspired a response from Italian CRIPPLE BASTARDS who wrote song "I Dare You" released on their split EP w/ WORLD. Do you know it? "Inhibited bigot censors… philanthropic politically correct standards…" these are some words from their comments directed to your song… Personally, no matter what I think, I think that it's great to have this kind of "dialogue" (if you can call it so) with one band reacting to another through songs/comments—don't you think so?
I wouldn't really call it a "dialogue". Yes, I do have that record and when I read the stuff they'd written about us I have to say that I found it pretty bizarre—focusing in on one song of a band that probably not many people have heard of. When we did our stuff about the "Dis" clone bands, or black metal, or gore bands, we were looking at whole genres of the underground music scene. In that way we felt that most people reading it would be able to relate to what we were saying in some way—they'd have at least some reference point to it.
The Cripple Bastards attack on us seemed a bit more self-indulgent—like having an argument with us about one particular thing we'd said, and doing so in a public way in front of an audience who might well have been completely unaware of who we were, or what we;d said, and would therefore be a bit bemused by the whole thing. So, I'm not sure I'd agree with you that dealing with it in this way is "great", but perhaps we can't really complain because people may consider that we started it, in a way.
And finally "Young Fit Males" from "Free To Be Chained" questions the way some of the squats/autonomous places are run… wasn't it difficult to write song like this when you usually play squats and similar kind of places? Was this song inspired by some of the crazy experiences you had on your tours? Which were the some of the bad and some of the good places you played over the years? Don't you get this kind of reactions like "you don't live in a squat, so you don't know how hard it is, so what the fuck do you know…"?
Yes, it was difficult to write—but again, we felt it needed saying. I do feel that if you're wanting to challenge people's opinions you need to be willing to do so on subjects that are closer to home and which may be uncomfortable for some of your audience—otherwise you're not challenging anything at all.
And yes, it was certainly inspired by some experiences on tours. I'm not going to single out any particular incidents, but we have played in some very shitty places where getting the basics right didn't seem to be the top of anybody's priority list. I used to feel this particularly when my son was very young—I would look at a place and say to myself "Would it be safe to bring him here?" I didn't mean taking a three year old into a gig hall, but I meant taking him to the buildings themselves —would I be able to wash him or get him to a toilet, for example? Similarly, I used to think of people I knew outside the punk/hardcore scene—if I took them to some of those places, would they recognize them as genuine attempts to build an alternative society?
And sometimes, of course, the answer is no. But many times it was also yes. We've played in some truly inspirational squats (Leipzig, Berlin, and one in Italy spring to mind, but there have been many others) as well as a few truly awful ones (dogshit everywhere, no toilets, no water, no electricity, unsafe structures, etc.) I hope we've never given the impression that we disapprove of squats in general, because that would be entirely wrong—and we've also written songs like "Take It Back" which look at squatting very positively. As for the "What the fuck do you know?" response—I can't remember ever getting that, but perhaps we have sometime…
The UK has long history of self-runned places, collective housing, social clubs, co-ops… which are/were some of the most inspirational places, you would recommend? Have you ever been involved in something like this in your town? What does it take to have a place likes this working well?
As far as squatting is concerned, the UK has a history of legal squatting and squatter's rights that I don't think many places in the rest of Europe have. But these legal rights relate to people squatting in houses to live, rather than creating squatted social centers, etc. I think that has always produced very different squatting scenes in the UK when compared to mainland Europe, by necessity, usually need to group together in larger projects for support and solidarity to resist eviction. It also helps if they create or provide community space and activities which will bring them support from others who don't actually live there. This has resulted in a very vibrant culture of self-managed, squatted social centers.
These sort of places largely absent in the UK, except for a few places where the people who have set them up have either moved here from mainland Europe or have been inspired by what goes on there. There are sometimes relatively short-lived squatted gig venues, but I don't know of anywhere like that which has been around for a long time. Squatters in the UK are often people looking for somewhere to live, who are not looking to draw a lot of attention to themselves from the authorities by operating unlicensed bars or music venues.
However, there have been a number of excellent self-managed, legal clubs/co-ops, etc. I understand there are some down in the South of the country, which I've never been to, but the one I'm most familiar with is the 1-in-12 Club in Bradford which is excellent. The other one which stands out in my mind, but is sadly no longer around (ed.—as of 2008) was the Warzone Centre in Belfast which I always felt was exceptional and inspiring.
I'd say that to make such a place work well needs a solid group of committed people who are prepared to do the work, and it needs the respect and support of many more people who are going to use it. If people treat a place or its volunteers badly then those working on the project can soon get disheartened and pack it in. And the other thing is that it needs to avoid being "cliquey"—like a closed club which feels like it excludes anybody new who might be interested in coming along and getting involved. Without new blood and enthusiasm everything eventually dies.
There's never been this type of place in our town, which is too small and has too few potentially active members and supporters to make it viable.
I can imagine that with lyrics questioning some punk scene issues you can often get all sorts of reactions like that you are some uptight P.C. weirdos never having fun, criticizing everything, trying to enforce your point of view on everybody, dictating to others what is and what is not punk… I think that you must have tons of experiences with reactions like these—what would you respond?
We don't get so many reactions like that directed at us personally, but I think it's how quite a few people view us. We've had a couple of amusing experiences where people have met us and got on well with us, without actually knowing who we were. When they then found out where we live, they've asked us if we know those "weird, miserable Active Minds folks, who have no sense of humour". I think it's a little strange that people assume we're like that, because I think some of our stuff is tongue-in-cheek. I thought "Dis is Getting Pathetic…" was quite funny—more humorous than most nihilistic grindcore bands, surely?
I wouldn't necessarily try to respond to those sort of reactions in any particular way. It's up to other people how they want to react to what you say. I think a lot of it stems from people being uncomfortable about looking at their own lives in a self-critical way. In what we write, sometimes we will provoke that—to which people may choose to react in a defensive way. There's not much I can do about that. Some people do seem unnecessarily nervous about approaching us sometimes, but I think that we're a lot more friendly than they perhaps assume that we are.
You strongly promote activities on personal/local scale through your lyrics/comments or in interviews—tell us more about your involvement on local level in Scarborough. F.e. I read somewhere that you used to have a billboard in front of your house informing about all sorts of issues like multinationals, ecology, animal rights, etc.—tell us more about it and about the reactions it did attracted…
The billboard on our house used to be an advertising board for a business that was based there before I moved in. When I arrived I just left the board in place, painted over it and started enlarging posters to fit on it. It's quite big (about 6 feet high), and on the corner of a busy road, so it's quite visible.
The comments I've had show that people do take notice of it. The poster that I remember attracting most interest was one I mocked up of Gordon Brown, when he was in charge of the Treasury (rather than being Prime Minister, as he is now). It was based on a famous World War I army recruitment poster. The poster I put up said "Do your bit for the economy—buy things that you don't need". There were then various images and statements on it about consumerism and the exploitative advertising campaigns of multinationals. A number of people came up to me and asked for smaller copies of that poster for themselves, and I used to see people stopping and taking the time to read it all, which was good.
I know that Bobs is a member of Green Party and even run in local elections many times—so have you been successful? Also I think you were a candidate for European Parliament? What is your main agenda on local/national level? I think this may sound kind of embarrassing to some people as they think about band like ACTIVE MINDS to be an anarchist band… so what are your main reasons to get involved with Green Party?
I first got interested in the Green Party when I was still at school. I read some stuff and felt really comfortable with the ideas philosophy behind the Party, as well as with the decentralized and unconventional way that it worked. There was no local branch in my hometown at that time, but a few years later when one was set up in 1988 I joined. I've stood in many local elections during that time, and also for Parliament (twice) and the European Parliament (once).
Yes, I've been successful with it. In 2006 I successfully won a by-election for a local Council seat. As this election was a result of a resignation by another Councilor, I only had a 1 year term of office and had to defend my seat again in Spring 2007. I won that election with one of the biggest majorities of any Councilor in the area, so I am now a local Councilor until Spring 2011.
On a local level our main agenda has been concerned here with reducing energy use, better waste management and better public transport. When standing for national or European elections the issues have been more nationally or internationally based—peace, global wealth redistribution, opposition to US bases and US-led wars, climate change, animal rights, etc. It's still me. I'm still the same person whether writing lyrics for Active Minds or writing election addresses, so the the issues are similar—although of course written for very different audiences and therefore having different styles and emphasis.
I've never claimed to an anarchist, or that Active Minds were an anarchist band. If people want to take what we say and assume a particular philosophy then that's up to them, but I don't think my involvement with the Green Party has been inconsistent with what I've been doing with the band, etc. I've never said, or believed, that more conventional political action like standing in elections was necessarily likely to have more success than other forms of action, such as protests or direct action. Not do I think that doing one excludes doing the other. Different methods are appropriate at different times and for different audiences, and, in my opinion, election times offer and opportunity to speak, and get new ideas across, to a public which otherwise would be paying no attention.
Having said that, after 19 years in the Party, I did decide to leave at the end of 2007. So although I'm still a local Councilor I'm no longer involved with the Green Party—see below.
Are there any issues within the Green Party which you strongly disagree with? How do you deal with it? You may know that the Czech Green Party is part of the government now and it will most probably say "yes" to US plan to build American radar base in Czech Republic—could you imagine British Green Party to agree with something like this?
During my time in the Green Party I think it's fair to say that I was quite influential in it—not only locally, but also nationally. I was on the national Executive, in charge of the Party's Policy development for three years. Quire a few of the Party's policies were actually written by me, including the Party's Core Principles and its policies on redistributive taxes and universal benefits. I was also selected as the Party's top candidate on the regional list here to fight the next European Election in 2009.
There were some minor bits of policy that I disagreed with, but nothing major. If there had been I would have tried to get them changed (and may have succeeded—I was quite a persuasive speaker at Conferences, according to others…). But the party's individual policies weren't as important as its overall philosophy. Policies are tactical ways of trying to put philosophy into practice, so they will inevitably change over time as external circumstances change.
Whilst I was in the Party I always felt that the philosophy was sound, therefore I was happy to be involved. Certainly whilst I was in the party I was sure it would never have considered supporting US radar bases (which already exist here—including one just 15 miles away from us—and which the Green Party has already opposed).
But last year something changed which meant that I felt I could no longer remain in the Party—it decided to have a Party Leader. Up until that time it had never had a Leader, and had advocated collective leadership and bottom-up empowerment. It was one of the things that had originally attracted me to the Party—the fact that it actively opposed conventional power structures and tried to work in a different way. It's opposition to having a conventional Party Leader was later written into its philosophy (one of my own proposals). But December 2007, after a bitter internal struggle, the "modernisers" who wanted a more conventional Party to appeal to a more conventional public and media (one more interested in celebrity and personality politics than radical ideas), finally won a membership ballot and the Party decided to have a Leader—at which point I announced that I was leaving it, and resigned as the lead European candidate for the region.
Ironically, the last piece of policy that I proposed, and which was adopted by the Party Conference last Autumn, was to advocate a new system of Government, which didn't have a Prime Minister—i.e. an administration with a collective leadership rather than a single Leader. In my opinion, this unconventional view of how the country should be run now sits pretty much at odds with how the Party has decided to manage itself…
Why there are no ACTIVE MINDS T-Shirts?
I've never been interested in making band "merchandise". Apart from music I want Active Minds to be making political statements, not fashion statements. I've never really understood why people find it so important to advertise to the rest of the world what bands they like. Of course, you can find some Active Minds t-shirts around, but they're not "official". I'm not too fussed, providing people aren't ruthlessly profiteering from doing them, but it's not something I want to spend my efforts doing.
Loony Tunes label put out tones of great records over the years—I think that some of your stuff like V.A. "Splitting Headache On Sunday Afternoon" EP, V.A. "I've Got An Attitude Problem" EP, Satanic Malfunctions EP, or Totalitär EP must be total classics now, did you ever thought about repressing them? I think that demand for them is high… also after a few years of silence there are two new releases out now—your new LP and Kulturkampf LP, please talk more about them and also tell us if we can expect more releases in the future.
We've never thought about repressing those old records, because I don't consider that we have any right to do so. All the master plates have long ago been destroyed (the company that made most of our records went bankrupt some years ago). We'd have to remaster the records from the original vinyl, and if the bands wanted to make the stuff available again in that way then they're just as able to do that as we are. I'm not sure whether or not all the old Totalitär records have been compiled into an album, but if not I'm surprised and I think someone should do it, because I'm sure lots of people would be interested. As for Satanic Malfunctions—at the time that was released Loony Tunes was run with Stu from Satanics and that was obviously his project. Any sort of reissue would be up to the band members themselves. I heard from Ade that some German label may be interested in reissuing all their releases in some form or other, so we'll have to see what happens.
Yes, we've got two new releases out. We always intended to do a new Active Minds record, but that's just been delayed for a (very) long time. As for Kulturkampf, they were an anarcho- band from the early 80's whose demos I always thought were great and I always wished they'd come out on an LP. For many years I had the idea that I should try to contact them and see if I could put it out, and a couple of years ago I actually got round to writing to a 20+ year old contact address on the vague chance that I could still reach them there. I was amazed to find that I did make contact, and they were happy for us to do the LP of the old demos.
Future releases on Loony Tunes? There are a couple more older bands whose stuff I'd like to posthumously release, and I've contacted one of them. Whether it works out or not I don't know—it's a question of getting some co-operation from ex-members who are frequently no longer involved in the scene. You'll just have to wait and see… :-)
You are around 40 years old, right? I think that with the age comes sometimes more cynical/jaded feelings and especially in hardcore/punk it leads often to people leaving the scene, not being enthusiastic anymore about it, not giving a fuck about newer bands, just living (surviving?) in the past… how do you fight this? Do you still manage to keep an eye on current hardcore/punk scene? What are some of the new bands you like?
Yeah, I'm 41 now. I don't actively try to fight cynicism in others who are getting older and a bit jaded. If people have had enough, then let them go. As for me, yes I still think I'm quite enthusiastic, and seeing as I'm an avid record collector and run a distro I keep up with a lot of newer stuff that way—too many to list individually. There's quite a few good, energetic hardcore bands cropping up in the UK at the moment—although many don't seem to last very long. Quite a few good split 7″s out though of newer UK bands in the last few years—check out labels like Peter Bower and Town Clock. The Bickle's Cab LP impressed me too—a co-release between both those bands.
Punk rock, family, marriage, kids all-together… for some younger people it may sound like a crazy thing, for you it is reality for long time already, how do you manage to work this out?
Not marriage—I never got married as I don't believe in the institution of marriage. How do I manage to work it out? Having a family and still having a life? The same way millions of people outside punk still manage to fit things they enjoy around having kids, I guess. I've only got one son, and he's 15 now. Whilst he was growing up I guess it did impact on things like touring, as I didn't feel it was fair to leave him too long with my partner on her own. But adapting to different responsibilities doesn't mean you have to give up on everything else—just maybe focus on a little less time on those other things.
Since the "Free To Be Chained" LP I haven't heard much from you—I think you just did the split EPs with Urko, An-Attâ and Voĉo Protesta in these 10 years and definitely not much gig-wise/tour-wise… I think that many people thought that you don't play anymore… what were you doing all these years? I may be wrong, but I think something about Mexican tour, but I know no details at all – how was it (if it is not a rumour)?
We also put out two 7″s in that time—"National Lotta e" and "Recipe For Disaster", the split 7″ with Jesus Cröst, and I think the split LP with Petrograd and the 7″ with Umbrella Tribe came out since the second LP too. But you're right—we haven't been too active lately. Although our three LPs are each separated by 10 years gaps, until about the year 2000 we put out about a record a year or so, when you include the 7″s. Since 2000 we've done very little, and actually went 6 years without entering a studio.
What have we been doing? Well we've still been doing a few gigs on occasion, and doing the distro, but much of our time has been taken up with other commitments—largely family and politics for me. I'll have a lot more time to give to the band, label, etc. again now.
Yeah, we toured Mexico in January 2006, which was a real blast. We had a great time celebrating 20 years of Active Minds over there, played some cool places and met some great people. A few months earlier we'd toured Spain as well, which was also great fun, but other than that we haven't really done a proper tour for quite a few years—just the odd couple of gigs over a weekend on a couple of occasions.
You know "bigger bands", when they have new LP out, they usually tour a lot to "promote it", so can we expect another Active Minds Euro Tour since mid 90's, when you were here last time? After 20 years of playing, huge line of records out, are there any goals you feel you can reach with this band?
Yeah, I'm hoping we'll get over to Europe for a decent sized tour either later this year or early next year. And we'd like to visit some other places too in the next couple of years (now that people know that we're still around!)—maybe the US/Canada, Japan, Mexico again.
Those aren't really "goals" as such—just things that would be fun to do. I don't think we really have goals as a band, but it's always good to get feedback from people who say that we've been a positive influence for them, or that we've made them think about things in a way they might not have otherwise. If we can still get a few of those responses from time to time then I'm sure we'll feel that it's worthwhile us carrying on and that it's not just self-indulgence on our part!


text:
Autumn is fast approaching and you can always tell when the new season is coming as people start to smarten up their wardrobes and their hairstyle takes on more importance. We asked the teams at all of our shops to tell us which styles and trends they think will be big for the AW19 season.
The Mod-inspired mop
First up is Ruffians Marylebone where Manager and star barber Luke Davies' prediction for the season ahead is that the mod-inspired mop is set for a long overdue return to men's hair fashion.
With its heritage set in the 60s and after a reboot during the Britpop era, it's been a while since we have seen these mod-ish shapes coming back in to the mainstream.
What to ask the barber for
So, what should you be talking to your barber about to get this look? Essentially, it's a scissor taper from the nape with a steep angle to the crown. The crown is pretty short and choppy then elongated towards the forehead and heavy distressed fringe chopped in around brow level or just above for the brave.
Lots of texture is the key here. Point cut, texturised or even razor cut. This means the hair is tailored perfectly to your hair type, face shape and hair density. A truly bespoke look.
How to style it
This one needs a little more attention at home. After washing apply some thickening salt spray over the surface and dry flat pointing the dryer forward and wrapping it around the shape of your head. No need to try and get extra volume, the texturing will give you movement.
Style with a smidge of matt wax to enhance the texture and give you soft control.
Here's a nice recent example on the Ruffians Instagram:
Ready to get your mod on? Whatever style you're looking for, you'll be in safe hands with Stevie, Luke and the team at Ruffians Marylebone! Book an appointment online, in person or over the phone on 020 7935 2020.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Egyptians gather in Tahrir Square 1 year later
Anniversary is both a celebration and a continuing protest
Tens of thousands of Egyptians gathered in Cairo's Tahrir Square Wednesday to mark the first anniversary of the start of the popular uprising that toppled longtime authoritarian leader Hosni Mubarak.
Volunteers checked IDs and conducted searches of the protesters who flocked to the downtown square. As darkness fell thousands remained.
There were no army troops or police in the square, birthplace of the 18-day, anti-Mubarak uprising.
Military generals took over from Mubarak when he stepped down on Feb. 11, 2011. The ousted president is now on trial for his life on charges of complicity in the killing of hundreds of protesters during the uprising. He and his two sons, Alaa and one-time heir apparent Gamal, are facing separate charges of corruption in the same case.
Tahrir Square was packed with different groups of people, including members of the Muslim Brotherhood and those who had lost family members in clashes with security forces, the CBC's Margaret Evans reported from Cairo Wednesday.
"People tell me this is both a celebration and a continuation of the protest against the governing military regime. They want justice for the victims of violence over the past year," she said.
Liberal and secular groups marched into the square calling for continued "revolution" against the ruling generals who took power after Mubarak's ouster. Members of the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamists, in contrast, pressed a message that the revolution had succeeded, the time for protests is over and now Egyptians needed to rally behind the new parliament that they dominate.
The Islamists' strength was on display Wednesday in Tahrir, which was the symbolic heart of the 18-day wave of protests against Mubarak that began Jan. 25, 2011. A large Brotherhood podium blared speeches through 10 loudspeakers to the crowds, with one speaker proclaiming that Egyptians must defend their countries against "enemies" who want to strike Islam.
Brotherhood loyalists were chanting religious songs and shouting, "Allahu Akbar," or God is great. The group, whose cadres are known as the most disciplined in Egypt's politics, largely claimed the job of policing security in the square, checking IDs and searching the bags of those flocking to join the rally.
In contrast, liberals on the other side of the square were chanting, "Down, down with military rule" and demanding that Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, Mubarak's defence minister for nearly 20 years, be executed for the deaths of protesters killed in crackdowns against their movement in recent months.
It was liberal-minded protesters who flooded Tahrir Square one year ago. But now, many of these protesters feel that the revolution has been "hijacked" by the Islamists, who control parliament and will likely form the next government, said the CBC's Sasa Petricic.
"When the revolution started in Tahrir Square, it was led by people who wanted a secular, more liberal Egypt in many ways. The Islamists joined a little bit later in terms of the revolution … so I think that has been one of the things that bothered people the most," he reported from Cairo. "However, they do feel that things are moving forward."
Egypt's military rulers pledged to release more than 1,900 people tried in military courts to mark the first anniversary of the revolution that toppled Mubarak.
Tantawi decreed on national television Tuesday night that the nation's hated emergency laws would be partially lifted on the anniversary day, but said the strict measures will remain applicable to crimes committed by "thugs."
The CBC's Sasa Petricic, Margaret Evans, Evan Mitsui and Manmeet Ahluwalia are in Egypt for the first anniversary of the start of the revolution that toppled Hosni Mubarak's regime. Follow their reports on CBCNews.ca, CBC News Network and CBC Radio.
Tantawi's decision to partially lift the decades-old laws, which give police far-reaching powers, will likely not satisfy rights groups that have objected to the repeated use by the military of the term thugs to justify crackdown on protesters.
Angie Balata, an Egyptian-Canadian living in Cairo who participated in the protests during the uprising, said there was still "a lot to fight about" one year later.
"It's been just a lot of chaos, a lot of violence, a lot of sadness, really," Balata told CBC News Network. "I think that the year started off really great with the start of the revolution. But definitely the feeling today, and the feeling that I have personally, is that the revolution continues. We're not close to … having the demands that we wanted to be realized."
Balata said that many protesters had hoped most of the regime would be gone by now.
"Unfortunately, this hasn't happened, and we're not close to it," Balata said from Cairo. "The military has taken over, and that's a lot of the reason why there's a lot of sadness. I mean, a lot of people have died since the revolution. A lot of people are in prison."
But the protests have broken Egypt's long-standing "barrier of fear," she said.
"People do go out on the streets, and they say how they feel and they say their opinions. And they get out and they fight for their rights. And that in itself is one of the greatest accomplishments," Balata said.
Ahmad Nazmi, an Egyptian-Canadian who was part of Wednesday's Cairo protests, rejected the notion that the day had a celebratory tone.
"As far as an anniversary goes, this is not — as people who've been protesting for a year, who started protesting a year ago — a celebration," he told CBC News.
"It has not been a good year," he said. "There is no trust between the revolutionaries and the [military]."
Evans also travelled to Mahalla el-Kubra, a large industrial city a few hours north of Cairo that was the site of anti-government protests back in 2008, which are credited with paving the way for the Arab Spring and the Egyptian revolution.
Modaz Abdul-Hamid, a doctor in Mahalla el-Kubra, told CBC News that residents thought the changes were going to occur immediately after the revolution.
"We thought that it was going the right way, but now, you're not so sure, " he said in Arabic. "Just the president went away. All the other reforms have not happened yet."
With files from The Associated Press


text:
Purchase this article with an account.
Raffaella Colucci, Rosa Boccia, Valentina Di Iorio, Ada Orrico, Paolo Melillo, Settimio Rossi, Michele Della Corte, Francesco Testa, Francesca Simonelli; Clinical presentation and disease course in Choroideremia patients. Invest. Ophthalmol. Vis. Sci. 2016;57(12):159.
Download citation file:
© ARVO (1962-2015); The Authors (2016-present)
Purpose :
To report the disease progression in patients with clinical and genetic diagnosis of Choroideremia (CHM) over a long-term follow-up.
Methods :
A retrospective longitudinal study was performed in 30 subjects. Medical charts of the baseline and follow-up visits were reviewed to extract the following ocular findings: Best-Corrected Visual Acuity (BCVA), fundus examination, Goldmann Visual Field (GVF), Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT), Microperimetry (MP1) and standard full-field Electroretinogram (ERG). Baseline data are presented as mean ± standard error of the mean. For the statistical regression analysis, BCVA was converted in LogMAR. Repeated measure regression models based on GEE were adopted to analyze the change of the clinical variables over follow-up. A p-value less than 5% was considered statistically significant. The study adhered to the tenets of the Declaration of Helsinki and received approval by the Local Ethics Committee. Moreover, each patient gave written informed consent.
Results :
The mean age at baseline was 34.7 ± 3.1 years (range: 7-65 years). The mean visual acuity (at first visit) in the cohort was 0.6 ± 0.2 LogMar in both eyes. Moreover, all the patients showed a constricted GVF (mean: 4758 ± 1603°2 in right eyes; 5105 ± 1615°2 in left eyes). Dark-adapted ERG responses were below the noise level in all the patients, while light-adapted ERG responses were detectable in 8 patients, even if with a marked reduction of amplitude.The patients were followed up for a mean time period of 6.7 years. The analysis showed a significant reduction of BCVA with a mean rate of 0.038 LogMar (about 2 ETDRS letters) per year (p<0.001), associated with a decrease of GVF area with a mean exponential rate of 6.4% per year (p<0.001), and of MS with a mean exponential rate of 4.3% per year (p<0.001). Finally, the Mean Macular Thickness significantly decreased with a mean exponential rate of 0.9% per year (p=0.009).
Conclusions :
Our longitudinal analysis showed a progressive decline of visual functionality, although slow. Moreover, the function loss was associated with progression of retinal degeneration, detectable by OCT. Our longitudinal data about the natural disease course could be helpful to identify patients most amenable for gene therapy and to show efficacy in open label clinical trials.
This is an abstract that was submitted for the 2016 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Seattle, Wash., May 1-5, 2016.
This PDF is available to Subscribers Only


text:
So your designer just came up with an amazing new animation on Adobe After Effects for your web application, fantastic! Just one problem, how do you convert this to a format usable within your web app? No worries, the awesome folks at Airbnb Design have your back. Introducing, Lottie , a fantastic new technology that allows you to use these animations in real time in a lightweight and flexible format just as easily as static images.
Table of Contents
How does this work you ask? Well, here's the explanation from Airbnb Design:
Lottie uses animation data exported as JSON files from an open-source After Effects extension called Bodymovin. The extension is bundled with a JavaScript player that can render the animations on the web. Lottie is amazing for 3 main reasons:
- It makes use of Adobe Effects flexible features to come up with high quality animations
- It allows you to manipulate your animation in whatever way you would like
- The animations have a small file size as they are they are in vector format
In this article, we'll be looking at how we can leverage the power of Lottie to add more life to our React Applications. To do this, we'll be using an npm package called react-lottie to generate viewable animations from JSON files exported by Bodymovin. Since we'll be focusing on the app side of things, we won't look into how these animations are created in After Effects but rather use animations created and open sourced by designers on Lottiefiles. If you have animations on After effects that you would like to use, you can export them to JSON using the Bodymovin plugin for After Effects.
What we'll be building
For this tutorial, we'll build this application which consists of two types of Lotties, one regular one and another with controlled animations depending on certain values in state.
Let's get started.
Creating our application
We'll be using create-react-app to create our app. If you don't have it installed yet run the following command to do so:
npm install --g create-react-app
Now let's create our application:
create-react-app lottie-demo
This will create some boilerplate code for our app and configure our react development environment. Open up the
lottie-demo directory and let's get coding. Yarn is create-react-app's default package manager and it's what we'll use to handle our dependencies(or rather dependency since there's only one for this project) so it's worth looking into as well.
Now let's install our one and only dependency,
react-lottie , to do this run this command in the terminal:
yarn add react-lottie
Great, we are all set to go, now let's add our animations.
Getting our Sample Lotties
We'll bve getting our sample animations from LottieFiles, so head over there and create a free account.
LottieFiles gives you access to a curated library of awesome animations from designers all over the globe, it also provides a platform to test, upload and share your own animations and is a great resource in general.
Simply browse through the animations, tweak the settings if necessary and when you are happy with what you have click
Download JSON to get the animation. Now inside the
src directory of our application create two more directories,
components and
lotties . These will hold or React components and Lottie animation data respectively. Place the downloaded JSON files inside the
lotties directory.
Awesome, now we are ready to create components that display these animations.
Uncontrolled Lotties
Animations can be allowed to run freely or be manipulated by data in state. First, let's look at the first case and create an animation that simply imports and renders a lottie.
Create a file called
UncontrolledLottie.jsx inside the
components directory and place the following code inside it.
// UncontrolledLottie.jsx
import React, { Component } from 'react'
import Lottie from 'react-lottie'
import animationData from '../lotties/4203-take-a-selfie.json'
class UncontrolledLottie extends Component {
const defaultOptions = {
loop: true,
autoplay: true,
animationData: animationData,
rendererSettings: {
preserveAspectRatio: 'xMidYMid slice'

Base animation free from external manipulation

<Lottie options={defaultOptions}
export default UncontrolledLottie
In this case,
4204-take-a-selfie.json is the JSON file of the lottie I had downloaded. Feel free to replace that with whichever you had downloaded. Now let's go through the information provided in the configuration. You will notice we pass an
options prop to the
Lottie component, this contains the configuration data for the animation to be rendered. This consists of
animationData- an Object with the exported animation data, in our case, the json file
autoplay- a boolean determining if it will start playing as soon as it is ready
loop- a boolean or number, this determines if the animation will repeat or how many times it should repeat
rendererSettings- configuration data for the renderer
These are just some of the options you can provide.
We also provide the dimensions(length and width) of out animation as props to
Great, this animation is now ready for use by importing it into our
App.js and will look like this:
But first let's add our controlled Lottie.
Controlled lotties
Lotties can be manipulated in React to change some of their properties using data in state. In our case, we'll look at how we can play, stop and pause the animations in our lottie.
Let's create a file in
components and name it
ControlledLottie.jsx . Place the following code in that file
// ControlledLottie.jsx
import React, { Component } from 'react'
import Lottie from 'react-lottie'
import animationData from '../lotties/77-im-thirsty.json'
class ControlledLottie extends Component {
state = {isStopped: false, isPaused: false}
const buttonStyle = {
display: 'inline-block',
margin: '10px auto',
marginRight: '10px',
border: 'none',
color: 'white',
backgroundColor: '#647DFF',
borderRadius: '2px',
fontSize: '15px'
const defaultOptions = {
loop: true,
autoplay: true,
animationData: animationData,
rendererSettings: {
preserveAspectRatio: 'xMidYMid slice'

Controlled Lottie

Uses state manipulation to start, stop and pause animations

<Lottie options={defaultOptions}
<button style={buttonStyle} onClick={() => this.setState({isStopped: true})}>Stop</button>
<button style={buttonStyle} onClick={() => this.setState({isStopped: false, isPaused: false })}>Play</button>
<button style={buttonStyle} onClick={() => this.setState({isPaused: !this.state.isPaused})}>Pause</button>
export default ControlledLottie
Let's analyse this code. At first glance it is pretty much identical to the code in
ControlledLottie.jsx but there's a few key differences. We've added 3 buttons at the bottom along with their styling. These buttons are used to toggle the values of the data in state.
Lottie component also has two more props:
isStopped- a boolean indicating whether the animation is active or not
isPaused- a boolean that indicates if the animation is paused or not
Here's whar our controlled lottie component will look like:
Both our animations are ready to use now so let's import them into
App.js and display them in our app.
Edit the code in
App.js , importing our components and adding them inside the render function.
// App.js
import React, { Component } from 'react';
import './App.css';
import UncontrolledLottie from './components/UncontrolledLottie';
import ControlledLottie from './components/ControlledLottie';
class App extends Component {
render() {
return (

REACT LOTTIES

<UncontrolledLottie />
<ControlledLottie />
export default App;
Let's style the our app to make it mobile responsive, we can do this using css grid. Add the following code to your
App.css file.
display: grid;
grid-template-columns: auto auto;
@media only screen and (min-device-width : 320px) and (max-device-width: 480px){
display: grid;
grid-template-columns: auto;
This places our lotties in two columns that will be reduced to a single column on devices with a smaller width.
Now fire up the application and watch the magic happen.
yarn start
Your browser will open up and you should be able to see the two animations active. Clicking
Pause will have the controlled animation freeze in it's current frame, clicking it again should resume it as well as clicking
Play . Clicking
Stop returns the animation to it's default position and holds it there. Pretty nice, right?
Lottie can be used to really add life to an application, be it on web or mobile. They can be used to make applications more interactive and provide visually appealing feedback, for example animations indicating the state of certain processes. Lotties are also amazingly easy to use and extremely lightweight so they shouldn't have a massive impact on the perfomance of your application.
Like this article? Follow @AustinRoy007 on Twitter


text:
Events for 13th July 2019
Events Search and Views Navigation
Fethard Country Market
A vibrant community run Market held every Saturday in Summer and Bank Hols with local crafters, bakers, artists and producers. This is a lovely way to pick up some lovely locally produced goods which are often freshly picked or baked that morning and meet the people behind the locally created crafts. Fethard on Sea Country…Find out more »


text:
Click here to get information on Police Clearance Certificate from Asian Countries
Police Clearance Certificate (PCC) from South Dakota
Information for Police Clearance Certificate
Background Check Information or Police Clearance Certificate is an official document that is issued by "The South Dakota Division of Criminal Investigation Identification Department" is responsible for processing fingerprint based background checks. These background checks are processed one of two ways. You will have to write a letter to stating that you require a PCC and that you are authorizing the organisation to collect it on your behalf. The South Dakota Division of Criminal Investigation Identification Department, certifying that the applicant has never partaken in any criminal activity that led to the involvement of the South Dakota Criminal Investigation Division, and is also required when a person applies for an immigration status to other countries. Person applying for Police Clearance Certificate (PCC) are required to state the period of stay in South Dakota. It is issued to any individual who resides more than 6 months in South Dakota.
Procedure of Getting Police Clearance Certificate
In order to obtain a Background Check Information from South Dakota. You should send a written disclosure request to The South Dakota Division of Criminal Investigation Identification Department. The applicant will then complete the sections appropriate to him or her, and submit the form. You have to fill the prescribed application form in all sections completed in BLOCK CAPITALS with black ink. Obtained a complete set of 10 fingerprint impressions* taken by a qualified fingerprint officer at our lab. The original of the fingerprints must be posted with your completed application form. The applicant should furnish his or her full name, date and place of birth, and place and period of all residences in the South Dakota, including full addresses. An individual may authorise a representative, to apply for a Background Check Information in person on their behalf. An authorised representative must be provided with a letter of authorisation, which includes details of the address to which the certificate will be sent, and a copy of the subject's identification document (e.g. his/her passport).
Documents required for Police Clearance Certificate
- A letter explaining the purpose for which the police clearance certificate is required.
- Fully completed application form (Personal Particular).
- A letter stating that you are authorizing someone to apply on your behalf. (Power of Attorney), the authorization and release form, must be completely filled out and signed. Be sure to include the correct address to which the response should be sent.
- The fingerprint card must be completed to include the applicant's name, date of birth, gender and social security number as the minimum requirements for demographic information. Incomplete requests will be returned to requestor.
- A copy of your passport, driving license or similar for identification purposes.
- A set of applicant's fingerprint impressions (ten prints). The applicant must submit a set of his/her fingerprint impressions duly attested by our organisation.
- A detailed covering letter stating the period of stay in South Dakota and need for the said certificate.
- Copies of the first three of the data pages of his/her passport as well as the pages containing South Dakota visas, entry and departure stamps.
Processing Time
We will give the original Police Clearance Certificate within 2 weeks. (The processing time will increases if a person was ever charged by the police)
Processing Fee
Applicable Fee
Payment is non-refundable once the application is processed.
Police Certificate Issuing Authority
Police Clearance Certificate Check-list
Head Office
2443, Basement, Hudson Line,
Address of Embassy in India
U.S. Embassy,
[php snippet=1]


text:
I'm going to make my first big cookie tonight with the Wilton big cookie pan. What do you all use to write on them/decorate them - buttercream and a tip 21? was my guess.
Thanks in advance!
Buttercream and any tips you want to use.. If you have a copy machine you can trace flowers or what ever on to it just like you do a cake and fill it in ..
Have fun they are great to do ..
[email protected]
really wish i had a picture of it, but i normally do a border of "icing balloons" (or small wildflowers for a woman) in various colors around the edge and write with a #2 tip in the center. the balloons help eat up extra space and they look really nice too! hope this helps and good luck!!
Thank you both so much!!! I can't wait to try it.
Also, does anyone use the cookie boxes that look like pizza boxes and do you know of an on-line company that sells them?
Thanks again,
You can get them from this place pretty cheap I think.. on the left your going to click on food boxes under boxes then it will be the second item on the list.. good luck..


text:
POST TAGSBuyers Homeownership Home
Posted On April 28, 2017
Mortgage rates trended upward this week. The S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller home price index and new home sales report each posted significant gains. Pending home sales declined slightly, due to mixed regional numbers.
The Case-Shiller home price index hit the highest level since July 2014, increasing at a rate of 0.4% from January to February, and up 5.9% year-over-year. Price appreciation continued to be driven by the Pacific Northwest, with Seattle and Portland leading the 20-city index. Denver, however, was replaced by Dallas as one of the top 3 fastest-appreciating markets. David Blitzer, S&P Dow Jones Indices managing director and chairman of the Index Committee, stated, "Other housing indicators are also advancing, but not accelerating the way prices are. […] There are still relatively few existing homes listed for sale and the small 3.8-month supply is supporting the recent price increases."
In March, new home sales exceeded expectations, surging to an eight-month high of 621,000 units, up 5.8% from February and up a substantial 15.6% since this time last year. New home sales comprise approximately 10% of total real estate transactions. Recently, the market has faced inventory constraints and homebuilders are struggling to keep up with ever-increasing demand.
The pending home sales index declined in March by 0.8%, exceeding the predicted 0.5% drop, to a reading of 111.4. Regionally, the index returned mixed results. Pending home sales improved in the Northeast and the South, but were lower in the Midwest and the West. The National Association of Realtors reports a 3.8-month supply of homes with an average of 34 days on the market.
Mortgage rates hit year-long lows earlier this month. Next week the Federal Open Market Committee is scheduled to meet on Tuesday and Wednesday. It is unlikely that rates will move in May, as analysts are upping their predictions for a June rate hike.
Sources: HousingWire, MarketWatch, MarketWatch, CNBC, Mortgage News Daily


text:
How to encourage your child to read
Read yourself! Set a good example by sharing your reading. Let your children see that you value books and keep them at home.
Keep books safe. Make your child their own special place to keep their books. Show them how to turn pages carefully.
Point out words all around you. Help your child to read the words around them: on food packets in the supermarket, on buses, in newspapers, in recipes.
Visit your library – it's free to join! All libraries have children's sections. Many also have regular storytelling sessions.
Make time to read. Read a bedtime story with your child every night. Encourage them to share reading with grandparents, brothers and sisters and aunts and uncles.
Keep in touch with school. Make sure your child swaps their home reading books regularly at school and try to make a regular time slot of about 10 minutes to hear them read.
If English is not your family's first language: You can buy dual language books. You can talk about books and stories in any language.
Page 2 >
National Literacy Trust © 2020 About us | Accessibility | Legal stuff | Competition terms and conditions


text:
Posted 3 years ago
This highly reputable company is looking for experienced residential and commercial carpenters to join their team. There is a range of opportunities due to the number of new projects in the area. You will be expected to carry out all aspects of carpentry; both residential and commercial. This is your chance to work in a booming area of New Zealand.
You will be trade qualified in the carpentry field and we are also interested in the experience you possess. A current site safe passport is desirable. You will be working on large commercial projects with many other professions working in the same environment. Having a substantial set of good quality tools is also a must. Flexibility of hours is essential, as these may vary on a weekly basis.
All applicants must be eligible to work in New Zealand.
For further information please contact Emma Stratton at Hays on +64 (0) 3 3776656 or email your CV through to firstname.lastname@example.com
If this job isn't quite right for you but you are looking for a new position, please contact us for a confidential discussion on your career.
See more jobs in Trade & Construction Jobs Edit Listing Delete


text:
A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature/Harrington, James
Harrington, James (1611-1677). -- Political theorist, s. of Sir Sapcotes H., was b. at Upton, Northamptonshire, and ed. atpage 179 Oxf., where he was a pupil of Chillingworth. After leaving the university he travelled on the Continent, visiting, among other places, The Hague and Venice, where he imbibed republican principles. He was for some time a groom of the bedchamber to Charles I. On the outbreak of the Civil War he sided with the Parliament, but disapproved of the execution of the King, for whom he appears, notwithstanding his political theories, to have cherished a personal attachment. Thereafter he withdrew from active life, and devoted himself to composing his political romance (as it may be called) of Oceana, which he pub. in 1656, and in which Oceana represents England, Marpesia Scotland, and Panopæa Ireland. In this work he propounds the theory that the natural element of power in states is property, of which land is the most important. He further endeavoured to propagate his views by establishing a debating society called the Rota, and by his conversations with his friends. After the Restoration he was confined in the Tower, and subsequently at Plymouth. He issued several defences of Oceana, and made translations from Virgil. In his later years he laboured under mental delusions. Aubrey describes him as of middle stature, strong, well-set, with quick, fiery hazel eyes, and thick curly hair.


text:
So I wrote about how I create my guitar sound (electric guitar) for my tutorials in a previous post and I've gotten questions because of that post:
"Which audio interface is the right one for simple home recording?"
Home recording starts somewhere and there are different ways to do it. Which one is right for you depends on your wishes and needs. You can buy digital multitrack recorders like the Zoom R16 which can also function as an audio interface for your DAW (ProTools, Cubase, Logic Pro X, etc) , there are portable 4 track recorders like the Tascam DR-44WL, or you could buy a dedicated audio interface like the Focusrite Scarlett 2i4 that you hook up to your computer or laptop. (by the way the – expensive – Apogee Duet can even be hooked onto your iOS device, which is pretty neat)
Now as I said before, what you need depends on your situation and wishes but if you're just starting out I'm going to assume that you mainly want to record yourself and you will probably work in "layers" meaning you record the parts one after another. Unless you're able to clone yourself 1 input would be enough but to be sure I'd take an interface with 2 inputs. There are many great interfaces out there that'll do the trick and many of them have 2 inputs that you can use for your xlr cables as well as your jack cords. Even though you wouldn't need it now, it is very handy to have a midi input on there as well but for many they will never use it.
Now these interfaces come in different price ranges:
The Behringer UM2 Audio Interface is about $50 and the Focusrite Scarlett 2i4 USB Audio Interface is $199 while the RME Babyface USB 2.0 is $750. (prices may change/vary)
At first glance these interfaces seem similar (only the RME looks a bit different) as that they are for home recording musicians but the prices tell us a different story. So which one would you buy? Hmmm… That is not the right question is it? Which one would you NEED?
Over the past years I've bought for many thousands of dollars worth of studio gear (believe me, for studio gear that is not a lot) and I've not always asked myself that question which led me into buying gear that is actually too "pro" for my purposes.
For what will you be using that gear, honestly?
Messing around recording solos over a backing track
- Composing a song
- Recording a song to send to your friends & family
- Making a quick demo for your band
- Making a quick soundtrack for your youtube video
- etc
These are all good things, it is what I use it for but lets be honest.
You're probably not going to be using it for:
- Recording an album that you will sell in stores or on iTunes
- Recording an official soundtrack for a movie
- Recording a demo for a top band/artist
- etc
Why? Because when it gets that serious usually you want to record that in a place where they have the knowledge how to best record. Where they have the best gear to record it. Where they have the proper soundproofed room to record it in.
That last thing is what I did wrong sometime ago. We were recording in a "studio" that was not properly soundproofed. Multiple takes went into the bin because of the fact you could here trucks outside driving by. Once you need it to be "pro" you'll need to go to the proper place anyway.
So what does that mean? It probably means that most of you will be happy with the behringer if the interface meets your needs in terms of IO's and such. But what you definitely do NOT need is something like 192kHz Sample Rate. 24bit is cool but for cd's it always gets converted to 16 bit anyway. (not that it isn't smart to record in 24 bit in the studio but for home recording purposes it is usually not needed)
Personally I have a RME Fireface 800 at home and it is overkill. This is the list of I/O's:
10 x Analog I/O
1 x Stereo Headphone Out
2 x ADAT I/O or 1 x ADAT I/O plus 1 x SPDIF I/O optical
1 x SPDIF I/O coaxial
1 x Word Clock I/O
1 x MIDI I/O
4 x Mic/Line Inputs with Preamps
1 x Instrument input adjustable
2 x FireWire 800
1 x Firewire 400
What do I use out of all those I/Os?
2 mic inputs with preamps and 1 instrument input. I use the midi line as well by the way. On a rare occasion I help a friend record more and the the extra mic/line inputs and Analog I/O's come in handy but ADAT, SPDIF, etc… NEVER!
Firewire connections are for my Mac Pro so I do need those. (Though definitely not 3)
Be hones about your needs. Sure the RME baby face is an amazing piece of engineering (Those Germans sure know how to build their stuff) but it has features are going way past the needs of us mortals in my opinion. If it is for you then cool but my guess is you wouldn't be reading this blogpost as you probably know more about interfaces than me if you need 192kHz samplerates.
Some audio interfaces for the home?
But don't stop looking there, do your own research before you buy!


text:
Drowsy driving continues to be a massive problem in the United States. While many people understand how drunk driving could pose a safety hazard to drivers, passengers, and pedestrians alike, they also might not know there are incredibly few differences between driving under the influence and driving while fatigued. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), around 1 in 25 adult drivers report having fallen asleep while driving in the 30 days before answering the survey. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) also estimated around 72,000 crashes, 44,000 injuries, and 800 deaths in 2013 resulted from drowsy driving. Drowsy driving is incredibly dangerous because sleep deprivation can have similar effects on the body as drinking alcohol. Your concentration falls, you are less capable of responding quickly in emergency situations, and, if you fall asleep, you have 0 visibility of the road. Some studies have shown being awake for 18 hours straight makes people drive similarly to people who have a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) of 0.05%. The legal BAC limit in most states is 0.02% for underage drivers, 0.04% for commercial drivers, and 0.08% for standard drivers. Likewise, if you've gone a full 24 hours without sleeping, you're operating on the cognitive level of a person with a BAC of 0.10%. If you are experiencing signs of sleep deprivation, such as yawning and blinking frequently, difficulty remembering the past few miles driven, missed exits, and lane drifting, consider pulling over to rest or have your passenger drive. Losing control of your vehicle because of drowsy driving could make you liable for any car accident that may occur. Talk to one of our skilled Toledo car accident lawyers if you or a loved one were harmed by a negligent driver. We are dedicated to helping people seek compensation for medical bills, lost wages, property damage, and pain and suffering. Our firm has more than 100 years of combined legal experience to offer your case. Let us see what we can do for you. Contact us at (419) 318-0772 or fill out our online form to schedule a free case consultation today.
Drowsy Driving: What You Need to Know
| Aug 8, 2017 | Firm News


text:
Automated content recognition tech company Civolution has completed the sale of its TV analytics and TV synced ads business, Teletrax, to 4C, a Chicago-based data science software ... More
Infor Adds New Alliances to Bolster Enterprise Asset Management Network (SCN)
Infor, the industry cloud company, has announced announced new alliance partnerships with Advoco, Inc. and YES Energy Source. As members of the Infor Partner Network, both organiza... More
LAIKA Executive Touts Switch to Hightail
During LAIKA's first two films ("Coraline" in 2009 and "ParaNorman" in 2012) the main way the Oregon-based stop-motion animation studio went about sharing video files amo... More
Rovi Makes Metadata Offering a Standalone Service
Rovi Corp.'s metadata service, Rovi Knowledge Graph, is now available as a standalone service, the company announced May 5, a response to pay TV and broadband operators desire to... More
Experts: The Rewards and Frustrations of Metadata
Having thorough metadata surrounding your content seems like a must nowadays. But hearing from Greg Smith, GM of ad services for Deluxe, making metadata actually work for your cont... More
Librarians: Make Metadata Automatic
No metadata strategy survives first contact with the user. That was the message from a diverse panel of data librarians at the recent Metadata Madness East conference in New York.... More
M&E Journal: What is Smart Content? (And why should you care?)
By Guy Finley, Executive Director, MESA From M&E Journal Winter 2014-15 What is Smart Content and why should you care? This was the opening comment I posed to a recent asse... More
SeeQVault Ready for Primetime
By Chris Tribbey LAS VEGAS — Victor Matsuda, chief communications officer for NSM Initiatives, has a reminder for the consumer electronics industry: If it catches on in Japan, i... More
IBM to Acquire Aspera
By Chris Tribbey Big Blue is synonymous with Big Data. Emptoris, DemandTec, Varicent, Vivisimo, Star Analytics, StoredIQ. All are big data acquisitions IBM has made in just the l... More
10th Annual Digital Asset Management Event Set for Nov. 14-15 in Los Angeles
Leading Digital Asset Management (DAM) executives will gather next week at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza to share best practices and expertise representing all sectors of the dig... More


text:
Time Machine Table Clock
This product is called a Time Machine Table Clock. But this is what the manufacturer has to say:
"Time Machine is the clock that's fun to watch! Just turn it on and its precise mechanism transfers a chrome ball every sixty seconds for the perfect time. With its custom acrylic display case and ultra-modern design, Time Machine is destined to become the centerpiece of any room or office and will entertain and amaze for years!"
For the actual purpose of this item, we are totally clueless. It sure does not look like a clock, and only time will tell if it is actually a functioning time machine.
But when you think about it, who really needs a clock (or a watch for that matter) if you actually have a full functioning time machine?
Looking at the picture, it has some spiral tracks, a device of some sort, and it literally has balls of steel.
Make of it as you will but one thing is for sure - this thing looks awesome!
Now that you know such an item exists, you may be excited to know that you can get your very own!
But, how much is an item such as this timeless masterpeice is worth? The list price at the time of writing is $40.00.
If you want it, then you can get the Time Machine Tabletop Clock.


text:
On Tuesday 20 December 2016, prof/ Mohamed Kenawy- president of Mansoura University and Prof/ Ashraf Abd Albaset- Vice -President for Education and Student Affairs, held a meeting with the faculty of Dentistry board, to discuss and review the final arrangements to apply for accreditation.
With the presence of prof/Essam AL wakeel- Dean of the faculty, Faculty Vice-Deans, and the quality assurance unit manager.
Prof/Essam AL wakeel, gave his thanks for the university's administration for the total and continuous support to all faculties to apply for accreditation.
Prof/ Abd Albaset, praised the faculty members and employees for their efforts.
Prof/ Kenawy, stressed on the importance of completing all required files, to set a clear and specific mission and vision within a specific timetable, pointing out the importance of a teamwork.


text:
The Tenure Imbalance in Spain: The Need for Social Housing Policy
The Tenure Imbalance in Spain: The Need for Social Housing Policy
Montserrat Pareja Eastaway and Ignacio San Mart´õn Varo
[Paper received in nal form, July 2001]
Summary. Spain is usualy chosen as an example of an unbalanced picture among tenures. The owner-occupied sector has been growing since the 1950s while the rental sector has become smaler. Surprisingly, other European countries are at present folowing the same pattern, but mostly we also see an important function for social housing. Taking into account that public housing, built by public developers, is almost negligible and that government housing policy programmes basicaly stimulate ownership, the 'social housing' concept lacks an adequate de nition in Spanish housing policy. In this sense, the encouragement of the rental sector through public policy should provide an alternative for low-income families. Despite different cultural housing backgrounds, the emergence of a reliable rental sector in Spain appears to be the most promising strategy for solving current housing problems. The aim of the paper is twofold. On the one hand, it analyses the evolution of the rental sector through recent decades, stressing how different central government regulations have affected the tenure structure in Spain. On the other, it considers the rental sector as a potential instrument for authorities to meet the housing needs of low-income families. Housing policy stil plays a crucial role in offering the opportunity for certain groups to access a suitable house. What can be caled the 'European shift' to the market can cause irreparable damage to those families that have bene ted from former, direct or indirect, public means.
دیدگاهی بنویسید.
بهتر است دیدگاه شما در ارتباط با همین مطلب باشد.


text:
Saturday, July 14, 2007
Dumb and Dumber
Dumb and Dumber; comedy, USA, 1994; D: Peter Farrelly, S: Jim Carrey, Jeff Daniels, Lauren Holly, Mike Starr, Karen Duffy, Teri Garr
Lloyd Christmas and Harry are two dumb friends who can never find and keep a job because they are simply too stupid. As Lloyd was working as a limousine driver, he fell in love with Mary who deliberately left a briefcase in the airport - which contained ransom money for her kidnapped husband. So Lloyd and Harry set out to Aspen to return the briefcase to her. On their way they cause chaos, but upon arriving in Aspen they find Mary and help the FBI catch Nicholas. They return home and turn down a chance to join bikini model girls in a bus.
Vulgar comedy "Dumb and Dumber" has subsequently gained cult status and a large number of fans calling it amazing. Those viewers who can enjoy some really crude humor and mean spirited gags will probably find the film hilarious, yet those terrified by such gags as Lloyd igniting a fire by farting, a dream sequence where he rips a heart out of the chest of a Chinese cook, broken parrot's head and spiting in a sandwich, will probably have trouble enjoying it. The movie offers a few good-good gags at the beginning, good-bad in the middle, just to loose itself in the sea of pointlessness with bad-bad gags towards the end. Jim Carrey, who always likes to "enrich" his every sentence and gesture with grimaces, is terribly irritating at times, the movie is overlong, the jokes are by today's standards predictable (the scene where the endangered owl gets killed by a cork of champagne that Lloyd opened) or painfully forced while the worst incorrect joke remains the one where Lloyd and Harry accidentally kill the agent by mistakenly giving him rat poison instead of his pills. As a set of gags, the movie is funny for those who like really devastating humor and occasionally has a few comical lines ("One time, we successfully mated a bulldog with a Shih-Tzu...we called it Bullshit") due to it's over-the-top exaggerated tone, but as a film it could have been better. Ironically, another movie also revolving around a mentally limited hero released the same year, "Forrest Gump", is today rightfully appreciated more. It's a pity, because the Farrelly brothers are actually one of the few good directors of toilet humor because they have a humanity for their heroes, but even this film has its virtues.
Posted by Marin Mandir at 4:32 PM
No comments:
Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)


text:
Brooke Nicol has just released an exciting new product that is sure to be a huge hit with new mums everywhere. (I just wish I had been able to get my hands on one of these brilliant baby feeding buddies when I was a brand new mum.)
I came across the website by chance and thought that this was a product I needed to help publicise because I know so many mothers that would have found this to be heaven sent.
I tracked down the brilliant Brooke Nicol to see if she would answer some questions for us, and here we are:
What made you decide the market needed Breast Mate?
I remember by the time my first child, Ollie, was about 8 weeks old I started getting frustrated that there was not a better way to remember all my feeding information.
I used to leave a hair band around my wrist to remember what side to feed on next which always ended up in my hair leaving me lost. I also used to record on a note pad the last time I fed and how long for which I always used to forget where I left it.
One night I couldn't sleep thinking that there had to be something available on the market, so I started researching the Internet. Once I realised there was nothing else available that captured all breast feeding information I started speaking to other mums to see if they shared my frustrations or was I the only one getting frustrated.
I could not believe how many people used to track their feeds the same way I did and I realised there was a need for a product. Once I got started on researching the need and the more people I spoke to, the ideas just kept coming. One mum showed me a spreadsheet her hubby developed which tallied up all feeding information so she could capture her baby's feeding habits which is why I developed Breast Mate to have the downloading capability.
I then started looking at what other features I could incorporate into the unit based on what I had bought in my nursery. This is when I included a nightlight and colour changing thermometer. The face plates were then introduced to give it the cutesy factor and also so the Breast Mate units served a purpose after breast feeding was finished as a fun nursery nightlight accessory.
What has been your biggest challenge throughout the process, from the original inspiration to releasing Breast Mate?
My biggest challenge would be having to fund the development of Breast Mate whilst being on maternity leave twice and then raising 2 kids.
Although my husband and I work full time on top of Breast Mate it has been a tough 4 years in trying to fund everything from design, legal patents, production, software development etc. There were so many times I felt like we could not go any further with it as we financially could not afford it but I guess that is why it has taken 4 years!!
Can you tell us about the most rewarding moment?
The single most rewarding moment was when I got home from an interstate work trip and I came home to find my first Breast Mate unit sample on my kitchen table.
I cried! Seeing an idea that I thought up during many sleepless nights sitting on my kitchen table was the most amazing feeling. Second to that was when I sold my first unit.
What's next for Brooke Nicol? Are there more products to come?
If only I had a crystal ball! I need to really focus on Breast Mate for the time being, however I also have a couple more ideas that I would like to eventually work on.
My ideal scenario would be to work on this full time allowing me to spend more time with the kids and just keep coming up with ideas.
You did this over a period of time, 2 children and while working – how did you manage to juggle all of this?
Good question! I am lucky to firstly have 2 beautiful kids and an amazing husband which makes it easier. My mum helps out a lot along with my sisters and friends. As my husband is a fireman I have my life schedule mapped out on a little A5 laminated calendar and we all work around this.
The kids are in child care 2 days per week and Ollie has started kinder this year also. I am also fortunate my full time job allows me flexibility to work from home on the days my husband is at work so I get to spend time with my kids and work at the same time.
Some days I must admit I don't know how I got it this far but I do know that if it was not for the people around me I couldn't have done it. I have to be very organised and just make sure that the kids are always cared for by people they love and that I try and make sure I spend quality time with them in between my job and Breast Mate.
I am also training for the gold coast marathon next month and this has been my vice where I can go and run out all of my frustrations and solve all of the problems of the world. This has been a massive help and really makes me appreciate what I have.
You've seen this product through from start to finish, how much of the process were you familiar with before you started work on the design of the Breast Mate?
This was all totally new to me. I have never been involved in product development before so I had to learn everything. I was very fortunate that the companies I worked with in Melbourne I have known for 10yrs through work, so I trusted them and could not have done any of this without them. My one contact Lincoln was literally my saviour behind all of this and helped me with everything.
I had to learn how to write and apply for my own innovation patent and trademark registrations, design the unit, work with software developers, work with designers in developing my own website, understand distribution, freight, PR and marketing. The list goes on!
With all of the new skills you've learnt are you planning a change of direction to put these skills to further use?
At this stage I am helping other friends that are starting up their own businesses and especially if it involves product development. Otherwise I will just see where Breast Mate takes me and hopefully it will allow me to work on my other ideas.
What do you think is THE most beneficial, unique feature of the Breast Mate unit?
The most beneficial and unique feature is the fact that Breast Mate is so easy to use to record and store information and download it to a computer. It is beneficial as the information captured allows mums to see baby's feeding habits and can take all the information to their health nurses if they have any concerns.
The graphs show mum as patterns form which will help them in building routine and getting back to some form of normality as a lot of the stresses associating with breast feeding are catered for with Breast Mate.
The Breast Mate unit is designed to cater to all aspects of breastfeeding and recording information, is it still going to be as beneficial to those mothers who are bottle feeding with formula or need to express breast milk and bottle feed?
Breast Mate also caters for mothers who bottle feed or formula feed as they can still capture when the last feeds occurred and how many feeds occurred in a 24 hr period. The additional features of Breast Mate like the colour changing room thermometer, night light and alarm clock of course are features that anyone can use making it very versatile.
What does being a woman mean to you?
Being a woman means so many things. It means I am a mum to my beautiful baby's and the bond we have is so very different to what they have with their fathers.
Being a woman allows me to have an intellectual side as well as an emotional side which is a nice balance that sometimes men either don't have or don't show.
I believe that women of today take on so much that it is important that sometimes we stop and look at what we have achieved and be proud of ourselves. I am very proud to be a woman and do look at what I have achieved with a big smile over a sneaky glass of red!
Is there anything else you would like to share with us and our readers, about yourself and/or your product?
I would just like to say how important I think it is for people to follow their dreams. I never thought I was capable of inventing a product that people would want to buy and now I am telling everyone about it in a magazine.
I also think it is so important to surround yourself with supportive and positive people. It is these people that will pick you up when you are having those tough days.
Lastly, I would say how important it is to find a balance. I do struggle managing my full time work, my invention and my family let alone some me time, but you must find it. You need a vice that helps you escape. Mine is running, however regardless of what it is if you do not have something that gets your mind off things I believe that this causes failure.
And absolute last point is please spread the Breast Mate word to all of your friends and help me one day buy that island that I will take all of your readers to for a holiday!
The Breast Mate unit is available from www.breastmate.com.au for $79.95 with a choice of 4 cute face plates.
My blurb went missing… so now I have to bring you a new one. One that is a little broader too.
I devour books, vampires and supernatural creatures are my genre of choice but over the past couple of years I have broadened my horizons considerably.
I inhale music, hair metal that satisfies my inner bogan is where my musical passion lies, but again I've been exposed to lots of different music I wouldn't normally listen to and have broadened those horizons also.
In a nutshell – I love to write! I love interacting with a diverse range of artists to bring you interviews.
Perhaps we were perfect before – I LOVE WORDS! Reading, writing, speaking, listening – if it's got words I'm there!


text:
Texas Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers
College Program Guideline
- The Admissions/Recruitment Office is responsible to see that ALL representatives from their institution
- receive a copy of these guidelines,
- are able to answer knowledgeably the specific questions asked by students and parents,
- are appropriately trained and
- Maintain the highest level of personal and professional conduct.
- Institutions are responsible for all the actions of the persons acting on their behalf. Alumni must be trained and MUST be identified as alumni on their name badge.
- The following materials are NOT to be distributed at TACRAO sponsored programs: bumper stickers, buttons, pennants, posters, rulers, candy, T-shirts, or other gimmicks. Appropriate items include brochures describing an institution and its program, catalogs and other items containing factual information. Pens and pencils with your institutions name are allowed. Demonstrations such as food preparation, drawing caricatures, hair cutting or other similar activities are not permitted.
- Representatives are expected to remain at the program until the time period expires or the host indicates the program is over.
- Displays must be confined to the tabletop provided. Audiovisual equipment is not allowed in browsing of commons areas. Only those schools with individual rooms can use this type of equipment. Call ahead of time if you want permission to use the host school&s equipment. Billboards or displays used in the browsing area are limited to 36 inches above the table. Do not, at any time block the view of another representative.
- Each institution must register for the college fair by designated deadlines and notify the host of any cancellations. Representatives must remain behind of beside the table during the shopping portions of the college programs. Aisles in front of the booth must be kept completely clear of promotional and display materials.
- Limit students, cadets or other non-professionals to two in addition to the institutions primary representative.
- Institutions may solicit an invitation to a particular program. The host of the program does have the right of refusal.


text:
When imposter supply teacher Dewey Finn asks his young students to demonstrate their singing ability, one of his charges bursts into Memory from Cats. "I never want to hear that song in this building again!" he exclaims, stopping her. But for 21 years, that song was heard nightly in this building – 35 years ago Cats received its world premiere here at the New London Theatre.
Now Andrew Lloyd Webber is back in residence with his freshest, funniest show since the youthful exuberance of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Cats and Starlight Express. It marks a significant break from the lush romanticism of musicals such as The Phantom of the Opera and the sometimes maudlin seriousness that pervades subsequent works such as Aspects of Love, Sunset Boulevard, The Woman in White and Love Never Dies.
In fact, it feels as if Lloyd Webber has, at the age of 68, gone full circle, with a score boasting punchy retro-rock riffs that could have come straight from Jesus Christ Superstar, a show that premiered on Broadway in 1971 before arriving in the West End a year later.
School of Rock has followed a similar path and becomes the first Lloyd Webber musical since Superstar to do so. This made both commercial and practical sense: not only because of its all-American subject, but also because it stars 13 child actors and New York's legislation around child performers is less restrictive than the UK's.
All credit, then, to children's casting director Jessica Ronane, children's director Nic Greenshields and children's music director and rock coach Sam Hall for their phenomenal work finding and training three sets of 13 astonishing child actors for the London staging.
The kids play the variously uptight, upright students of the private Horace Green prep school, whose academic and personal lives are turned upside down by a supply teacher with a passion for rock music, when he coaches them to take part in a Battle of the Bands competition.
All the children play their instruments live, including (at the performance reviewed) Toby Lee on electric guitar, Jude Karper-Wrobel on drums, Selma Hansen on bass and Oscar Francisco on keyboards. They are as quirky as they are individual, and I defy anyone not watch them rock without breaking into a great big smile.
They are also, in every way, the equal of their powerhouse counterparts who I saw in the show's New York premiere in December 2015 (where it was coincidentally playing at the original Broadway home of Cats). You expect New York stage kids to have the smarts; but these English ones also have an appealing deferential spirit that explodes into confidence when they find their musical legs. It may be a small gear change but it's a cultural difference that plays to British strengths.
The show, based on the 2003 film comedy starring Jack Black, is also distinguished by a witty and appealing adult cast. As Dewey Finn, David Fynn is perfectly cast as the permanently dishevelled accidental teacher, a pot belly constantly protruding from designer Anna Louizos' deliberately unflattering coloured cardigans. He is a powerhouse of rock and comedy energy, with a lovable, unforced physicality. Florence Andrews shows off a great operatic voice as head teacher Rosalie Mullins, who harbours a secret passion for Stevie Nicks, as we find out when she eventually lets her guard down. Oliver Jackson and Preeya Kalidas, as Dewey's unwilling flat sharers, also have a series of stand-out comedy moments.
As with the kids, the London cast gives the Broadway originals a serious run for their money, slipping into the American rhythms of this story with effortless ease and panache. It's a refreshing fact of West End life that it's now impossible to tell the difference between the standard of the companies gracing shows on either side of the Atlantic.
But it is the music that matters most, and Lloyd Webber delivers a tuneful collection of pastiche rock and charming ballads (although one, If Only You Would Listen, sounds uncannily like Someone Else's Story from Chess, scored by Abba's Benny Andersson and Bjorn Ulvaeus). Lloyd Webber has regularly flirted with rock influences, most notably with Jesus Christ Superstar and some twangy rock chords at times infecting even the score of Phantom of the Opera, but here he gives himself the opportunity to fully indulge that anarchic spirit.
It's not a show that takes itself too seriously, but it has a heartwarming message about the value of self-expression for children, and Julian Fellowes' book is on the money about the various failures of parenting that the adults come to recognise. It is just occasionally a touch too knowing, in the way of a panto script that nods and winks to the adult audience, but this is a genuine family musical with cross-generational appeal.
The show's film origins may be betrayed by an episodic structure that moves between different locations from scene to scene, but director Laurence Connor ensures it moves fleetingly as well as with feeling; there's a real investment in the progress and outcome of these kids. Designer Anna Louizos frames it within a Gothic-looking school that could double for Hogwarts a few hundred yards away at the Palace, and it's lit to full rock-stadium effect by Natasha Katz.
But most of all this show has tons and tons of heart, and it has been executed with a heartfelt amount of art.