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Although the temptation for me with this week's Sepia Saturday image prompt is to travel with the itinerant photographer's wagon following fairground folk around the countryside, I've decided instead to stick with the non-professional side of photography. I've covered travelling photographers a number of times here on Photo-Sleuth, so will use the opportunity to enjoy the fun of the fair through the eye and lens of an amateur.
I recently acquired a collection of 177 glass plate and roll film negatives and have spent a couple of weeks scanning them. Although they were sourced locally, the majority appear to have been taken in England, possibly by a young couple who later emigrated to New Zealand. I've selected a few which I've identified as being on the Lancashire coast. More images will no doubt make their way into my posts over the next few months, but I do hope to study the collection as a whole, ultimately with a view to identifying the family depicted although that's very much a long shot at present.
Entrance to Southport Pier and Pavilion, undated
Quarter-plate glass negative (108 x 80mm, 4¼" x 3¼")
by an unidentified amateur photographer
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
Regular Photo-Sleuth readers might find this view of a pier entrance familiar, since two of my recent articles have dealt with seaside photographers in Blackpool, namely Charles Howell and Young Burns. This, however, is the entrance to Southport Pier, not only one of the first piers to be erected in iron but also the second longest in Great Britain.
Along the turreted frontage of the entrance are a number of signs and posters advertising the attractions for those prepared to pay the admission fee (2d. for children). One sign offers tickets for a ride on the electric tram to the head of the 1465 yard-long pier, where Professor Powsey, Champion High Diver of the World promised to entertain three times daily.
Professor Powsey's Terrible Cycle Dive, West Pier, Brighton, c.1910
Professor Powsey, The World's Greatest Diver, Southport Show Ground
Images © and courtesy of Southport.gb.com
Powsey and his daughter Gladys both operated in a number of coastal towns in the pre-Great War years, including Brighton, Yarmouth, Inverness and Southport. Historian Alan Taylor lived nearby the Southport Pier from from 1908 to 1913, and recalled seeing Bert Powsey's act:
His most sensational dive ... he tied both his hands to his sides, tied his legs togethr, then plunged in and emerged safe and sound with all his ropes loosened. The climax ... was the bicycle dive, an expedition which he conducted down a steep board into the sea with the bicycle alight and blazing around him.
(Wrigley, 2006)
At the pier head, close to the refreshment rooms, you might attend a performance of "The Aristocrats" by the Pier Company's Orchestra or, should you have tired of Southport's attractions, you might prefer to take a passage on a steam boat for the brief trip across to Blackpool.
Southpost Pier and Pavilion, c.1910
The main attraction, however, appears to have been Fred Karno's Company playing at the magnificent Pier Pavilion, built in 1902 and sadly demolished in 1968, the domed roof of which is clearly visible above the hoardings pasted with a variety of Karno's posters. In the postcard view above, a set of very similar posters is just visible to the right of the entrance to the very grand building.
Fred Karno, best known for his role in the early careers of Charlie Chaplin and Stan Laurel, had been visiting Merseyside for well over a decade. The earliest event I can find is the record of a performance at Liverpool's Prince of Wales Theatre, then managed by Captain Fred Wombwell (of Bostock & Wombwell's Menagerie fame) in March 1895. The two productions advertised on this occasion were The G.P.O. and Wakes Week.
Poster for Fred Karno's The G.P.O., Leeds Hippodrome, 6 Oct 1913
Image © and courtesy of Leeds Playbills
Karno claimed that it was in the successful sketch The G.P.O. that Walter Groves first created the famed "Tramp Walk," later passed on to Charlie Chaplin when he took on the role. The earliest records that I have been able to find for this burlesque show was when it was staged at the Sheffield Empire and Paragon theatres in October and November 1908 respectively (Clarence, 1909). An entry in the 4 June 1908 issue of The Stage newspaper confirms that "a colossal production, entitled 'G.P.O.'" was in active preparation.
Poster for Fred Karno's Wakes Week, Leeds Hippodrome, 28 Oct 1912
Image © and courtesy of Leeds Playbills
It is not clear when Wakes Week was first produced, but the paucity of references to it on the net suggest that it was not particularly successful, and may not have been around for long when this poster was printed in late 1912 for a performance in Leeds. After war broke out in 1914, the popularity of such entertainment waned considerably. After the war, the advent of cinematography more or less ensured its demise.
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This is the view today - nothing remains of the old pier entrance, but there is still an old-style a merry-go-round, and the top of the 2004 Marine Way Bridge is visible above Silcock's gaudy Funland. If you use your mouse to navigate Google's Streetview above by 180 degrees (click and drag to the left or right), wou will see a view almost identical to that in the second slide chosen from the collection, pictured below.
Statue of Queen Victoria, Nevill Street, Southport, undated
Quarter-plate glass negative (80 x 108mm, 3¼" x 4¼")
by an unidentified amateur photographer
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
The sharper-eyed readers will spot that Queen Victoria appears to have turned around some time in the last century or so. The bronze statue was unveiled in July 1904 in the Town Hall Gardens, in front of the Atkinson Art Gallery, now Stockport Library, but moved to the junction of Nevill Street and the Promenade on 20 December 1912 (Anon, n.d. & Wright, 1992). In 2005-2006, the statue was removed for restoration and, when reinstated, the decision was made that she should move a short distance to the south-east and face the town centre instead of the sea (Anon, 2004 & 2006).
The buildings to the left of the statue, which have survived largely intact, are adorned with signs and flags advertising the culinary delights available at the Victoria Baths Cafe and Restaurant. There is also a curious sign with a rather obvious "We Shall Have Rain," which I have deduced must be situated directly above a purveyor of umbrellas. I might add that, although they look a bit like rain, the pale brush strokes diagonally across the image are, I think, actually a result of a lack of care during the plate developing process.
Probably North Marine Gardens, Southport, undated
Quarter-plate glass negative (80 x 108mm, 3¼" x 4¼")
by an unidentified amateur photographer
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
The next poorly focussed photograph shows several figures on a footpath, taken from across a pond, complete with swan, and it seems likely that it was taken in the North Marine Gardens, shown on the 1911 map below.
Southport Pier Entrance, Pavilion, Nevill St and North Marine Gardens
Portion of 1911 1:2500 Ordnance Survey Map
Image © Crown Copyright and courtesy of Landmark Information Group
Shelter/bandstand in South Marine Gardens, Southport, undated
Quarter-plate glass negative (80 x 108mm, 3¼" x 4¼")
by an unidentified amateur photographer
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
The Marine Gardens and Promenade also extended to the south-west of the pier, and this photograph shows a bandstand which can be exactly matched with that in the two postcards below, dating from roughly 1910-1915, situated overlooking the southern arm of the Marine Lake.
The Promenade, Southport, c.1910-1915
Postcard by James Valentine (206845)
Lake and Gardens, Southport, c.1910-1915
Postcard by unidentified publisher
The second of these views gives a hint of the next destination of our photographer, on the far side of a lake adorned with row boats. Originally a cluster of amusement stalls, simple rides and side shows had formed around the pier entrance at the top of Nevill Street, but with the development of the area as the Promenade and River Gardens in 1887, what were deemed "less desirable" amenities had been forced to relocate to the southern end of the Marine Lake.
Southport Fair Ground and South Marine Gardens
Portion of 1911 1:2500 Ordnance Survey Map
Image © Crown Copyright and courtesy of Landmark Information Group
By the turn of the century, the attractions had evolved into a more extravagent enterprise, eventually known officially as the "White City," and continued to expand, with the stalls and sideshows becoming more elaborate and numerous.
1895 - Aerial Ride/Glide (closed in 1911) and Switchback Railway
1903 - Water Chute
1904 - Hiram Maxim's Flying Machine
1905 - Helter Skelter Lighthouse
1908 - Figure-of-Eight Toboggan Railway and River Caves
1911 - Lakeside Miniature Railway, connecting fair ground and pier
Water Chute and Flying Machine, Fair Ground, Southport, undated
Quarter-plate glass negative (108 x 80mm, 4¼" x 3¼")
by an unidentified amateur photographer
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
The photographer took two views of the Water Chute in action. The first was from the eastern shoreline of the lake, immediately in front of the stalls and adjcent to the chute's Landing Stage (marked on the OS map of 1911) and captures the big splash at the moment of impact.
An enlarged image includes some nice detail of the shallow, flat-bottomed skiffs used on the chute, the Flying Machine at rest (one of the "spaceships" is just visible behind the chute), and the superstructure of what appears from the map to be the Toboggan Railway in the background.
Water Chute and Helter Skelter House, Fair Ground, Southport, undated
Roll film or sheet negative (109 x 62mm, 4¼" x 2½")
by an unidentified amateur photographer
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
A second view, using roll or sheet film rather than a glass plate, was taken from the western shore of the lake, directly to the north of the chute, and freezes a skiff half-way down the slide. It may be that the photographs in this collection were taken with more than one camera, and even by more than one photographer. From a consideration of the similarity of the shooting styles and the sequence of shots outlined, it seems quite possible that they are from the same camera. If so, then it would have been of a type for use with spooled 116-format (4¼" x 2½") daylight-loading film, or a removable back could be replaced with a holder for sheet film or dry plates.
Ensign Folding Klito, unidentified model, c.1900-1920
Image © and courtesy of the Tauranga Heritage Collection
The Ensign Folding Klito, manufactured by Houghton Ltd. of London, was just such a camera, popular with many amateurs. However, there were several other makes available, such as the No 3 Sibyl, first produced in 1908.
At far right is the Helter Skelter Light House, opened in 1905 ...
... while other signs advertise the River Caves and Switchback rides.
Also visible is a crowd in front of the bowling alley.
Helter Skelter House, Water Chute and Flying Machine, Southport, PM 1907
Postcard by unidentified publisher
This colourised card, postmarked 1907, and a similar black-and-white view posted in 1912, show a fair ground area with fewer buildings, nevertheless with the Helter Skelter, Water Chute and Flying Machine already in place. A slightly earlier version of a similar view, posted in 1905, is lacking the Helter Skelter, which was only built that year.
The fair ground gradually shifted between 1922 and 1924 to the new Pleasureland site on reclaimed land to the north-west. This was after the River Gardens had been redeveloped as the King's Gardens, the latter having been opened by King George V and Queen Mary on 8 July 1913.
Marine Lanke, Southport, undated
Roll film or sheet negative (109 x 62mm, 4¼" x 2½")
by an unidentified amateur photographer
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
Finally, it appears that the photographer travelled north along the Marine Walk, which at that time separated the Marine Lake from the beach. This view is taken from due north of the Pier Pavilion, looking back towards the pier, pavilion and the town frontage along the Promenade. That's the end of the images that can be clearly identified as emanating from Southport, and a suitable point at which to take a breather. He also visited Blackpool, but those delights can wait for another time.
If you've lasted this long, thank you for persevering. It's a little premature to deduce much about the photographer at present. After all, the seven images discussed here are a tiny proprotion of the collection, and don't appear to include any of the photographer's companions. Nor can I be certain that all of these photographs were taken on the same visit to the town. However, it has been possible to deduce that at least some of the photographs were taken after December 1912, when Queen Victoria's statue arrived on Nevill Street. I also think it unlikely that they were taken after late 1914, when the war would have changed much of the atmosphere in Southport. This narrows the date range right down to a very comfortable two-year period, and forms a good anchor point around which to view the remaining photographs in the collection ... in due course.
Fred Karno's Company Stage Listings, 4 June 1908, on the Fred Karno Company web site.
Khaotic, The Fred Karno Story
Fred Karno and the Karsino from the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames.
ER Promenade Appraisal, Historic Development and Movement Report, Sefton Council.
Anon (n.d.) King's Gardens Conservation Management Plan and Historic Development of Southport and its Seafront, Sefton Metropolitan Borough Council Conservation Management Plan.
Anon (n.d.) Statue of Queen Victoria, Public Monuments & Sculpture Association.
Anon (1895) Amusements in Liverpool, in The Era (London, England), Saturday, March 16, 1895; Issue 2947, courtesy of Gale CENGAGE Learning.
Anon (2004) Sefton Council Measure Up Queen Victoria, courtesy of Southport.gb.com.
Anon (2006) Queen Victoria is on her way back to Southport, in Champion, 26 April 2006.
Clarence, Reginald (1909) The Stage Cyclopaedia, A Bibliography of Plays, London: The Stage, p.167, courtesy of The Internet Archive.
Cook, Evelyn (2006) Pleasureland Amusement Park, Marine Drive, Southport, courtesy of Coasterforce.com.
Copnall, Stephen (2005) Pleasureland Memories: A History of Southport's Amusement Park, Skelter Publishing, in Historic Development of Southport and its Seafront, Anon (see above).
Kamin, Dan (2008) The Comedy of Charlie Chaplin: Artistry in Motion, Scarecrow Press, p.11, courtesy of Google Books.
Wright, Geoff (1992) Southport, a Century Ago, courtesy of Southport.gb.com.
Wrigley, C.J. (2006) A.J.P. Taylor: Radical Historian of Europe, I.B.Tauris, p.12-13, courtesy of Google Books.


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Visitors to the Bavarian town of Regensburg can expect a royal welcome at St. Emmeram Palace – the residence of the Thurn and Taxis family for some two hundred years. As compensation for losing the Bavarian mail monopoly, the princes were given the former Abbey of St. Emmeram in 1812. From 1816, this was converted into a magnificent residence that is now considered one of Germany's finest example of historicist architecture – a revival of styles from the past. The Romanesque-Gothic cloister, an impressive reminder of the building's history as a Benedictine abbey, dates back to the 11th century. Other highlights include the neo-Renaissance marble staircase and a number of state rooms such as the 'yellow' and 'silver' salons. The throne room is suitably splendid with a gold and white décor, while the double-height ballroom – a medley of rococo and neo-rococo styles – recalls the pomp of ceremonies past. In the baroque library, whose ceiling fresco from 1737 is by the famous artist Cosmas Damian Asam, there are almost 120,000 volumes. From 1910 to 1935 the royal brewery served as a coach house, stables and the official residence of the royal major-domo, Also worth a visit is the royal treasury with its exquisite items of furniture, prized weaponry and fine porcelain. Regensburg itself has many other attractions, of course, including the Valhalla – the 'hall of the slain' – built between 1830 and 1842 by Leo von Klenze for King Ludwig I of Bavaria. The Hall of Liberation overlooking the nearby town of Kelheim commemorates the victorious battle fought against Napoleon during the Wars of Liberation.
שני צירופי מקשים שימושיים להגדלת/הקטנת התצוגה בדפדפן:
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The SEC should consider alternative criteria for its accredited investor standard, including the use of more liquid investments inside any Reg D private offerings, or require the guidance of a registered investment advisor, according to a just-released report by the Government Accountability Office.
In addition to research with regulators and associations here and abroad, GAO surveyed 27 "market participants" in its study — including RIAs, broker-dealers, securities attorneys and accredited investors themselves — to determine what would be most effective in protecting investors while also encouraging capital formation in private vehicles. Among the options presented to study participants but rejected as unworkable by the GAO were a "self-certification investor designation," an "investor sophistication test" and an investor education requirement.
However, what would be effective, the study found, would be the use of an RIA, suggesting that an accredited investor "who wishes to invest in a private placement offer" be required "to use the services of a registered investment adviser to manage their investment accounts."
The report was delivered yesterday to the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee and its chairman, Tim Johnson (D-S.D.), and the House Financial services Committee and its chairman, Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas).
As it stands now, to meet the accredited investor standard the SEC requires an investor to have an annual income of more than $200,000 ($300,000 for a married couple) or a net worth of more than $1 million, excluding the investor's primary residence. The thresholds were set in the 1980s and 2010, but the Dodd-Frank Act mandated that GAO study the criteria for qualifying individual investors as accredited.
GAO analysis of federal data on household net worth showed that adjusting the $1 million minimum threshold to approximately $2.3 million, to account for inflation, would decrease the number of households qualifying as accredited from approximately 8.5 million to 3.7 million.
Beginning in 2014, GAO argued that the SEC must review the accredited investor definition every four years to determine whether it should be adjusted, and GAO says its report provides "a reasonable starting point for SEC's review."
Such a review by the SEC will be particularly important now, as the agency recently lifted the ban on hedge fund advertising under Rule 506 of Reg D, allowing hedge funds and private equity firms to market their offerings to a wide swath of such accredited investors.
While the market participants in the survey cited net worth as the most important criterion, GAO said among the "financial resources criteria," market participants with whom GAO spoke most often identified a liquid investments requirement—a minimum dollar amount of investments in assets that can be easily sold, are marketable and the value of which can be verified—as most important for balancing investor protection and capital formation.
The report states that the SEC agreed with GAO's recommendation.
Check out Surprise! Not Every Hedgie Loves the Lifted Ad Ban on ThinkAdvisor.


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In politics, we often skip past the simple questions. This is why inquiries about the fundamentals can sometimes catch everyone short.
Michael Lind, the independent-minded scholar, posed one such question last week about libertarianism that I hope will shake up the political world. I�ll get to his query in a moment. It�s important because many in the new generation of conservative politicians declare libertarianism as their core political philosophy.
Libertarians have the virtue, in principle at least, of a very clear creed: They believe in the smallest government possible, longing for what the late philosopher Robert Nozick, in his classic book �Anarchy, State and Utopia,� called �the night-watchman state.� Anything government does beyond protecting people from violence or theft and enforcing contracts is seen as illegitimate.
If you start there, taking a stand on the issues of the day is easy. All efforts to cut back on government functions -- public schools, Medicare, environmental regulation, food stamps -- should be supported. Anything that increases government activity (Obamacare, for example) should be opposed.
In his bracing 1970s libertarian manifesto �For a New Liberty,� the economist Murray Rothbard promised a nation that would be characterized by �individual liberty, a peaceful foreign policy, minimal government and a free-market economy.�
Rothbard�s book concludes with boldness: �Liberty has never been fully tried in the modern world; libertarians now propose to fulfill the American dream and the world dream of liberty and prosperity for all mankind.�
This is where Lind�s question comes in. Note that Rothbard freely acknowledges that �liberty has never been fully tried,� at least by the libertarians� exacting definition. In an essay in Salon, Lind asks:
�If libertarians are correct in claiming that they understand how best to organize a modern society, how is it that not a single country in the world in the early 21st century is organized along libertarian lines?�
In other words, �Why are there no libertarian countries?�
The ideas of the center-left -- based on welfare states conjoined with market economies --have been deployed all over the democratic world, most extensively in the social democratic Scandinavian countries. We also had deadly experiments with communism, aka Marxism-Leninism.
From this, Lind asks another question: �If socialism is discredited by the failure of communist regimes in the real world, why isn�t libertarianism discredited by the absence of any libertarian regimes in the real world?�
The answer lies in a kind of circular logic: Libertarians can keep holding up their dream of perfection because, as a practical matter, it will never be tried in full. Even many who say they are libertarians reject the idea when it gets too close to home.
The strongest political support for a broad anti-statist libertarianism now comes from the tea party. Yet tea party members, as the polls show, are older than the country as a whole. They say they want to shrink government in a big way but are uneasy about embracing this concept when reducing Social Security and Medicare comes up. Thus do the proposals to cut these programs being pushed by Republicans in Congress exempt the current generation of recipients. There�s no way Republicans are going to attack their own base.
But this inconsistency (or hypocrisy) contains a truth: We had something close to a small government libertarian utopia in the late 19th century and we decided it didn�t work. We realized that many Americans would never be able to save enough for retirement and, later, that most of them would be unable to afford health insurance when they were old. Smaller government meant that too many people were poor and that monopolies were formed too easily.
And when the Great Depression engulfed us, government was helpless, largely handcuffed by this anti-government ideology until Franklin D. Roosevelt came along.
In fact, as Lind points out, most countries that we typically see as �free� and prosperous have governments that consume around 40 percent of their GDP. They are better off for it. �Libertarians,� he writes, �seem to have persuaded themselves that there is no significant trade-off between less government and more national insecurity, more crime, more illiteracy and more infant and maternal mortality ... .�
This matters to our current politics because too many politicians are making decisions on the basis of a grand, utopian theory that they never can -- or will -- put into practice. They then use this theory to avoid a candid conversation about the messy choices governance requires. And this is why we have gridlock.
E.J. Dionne�s email address is firstname.lastname@example.com.
Washington Post Writers Group
E.J. Dionne: Libertarianism's Achilles' heel
In politics, we often skip past the simple questions. This is why inquiries about the fundamentals can sometimes catch everyone short.


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Brain Cells 'Geotag' Memories To Cache What Happened — And Where
Think back to an important event in your life: a graduation, a birth, a special Thanksgiving dinner. Chances are you're remembering not only what happened, but also where it happened. And now scientists think they know why.
As we form so-called episodic memories, the brain appears to be using special cells in the hippocampus to "geotag" each event, researchers report in Science. The process is similar to what some digital cameras do when they tag each picture with information about where the image was taken.
As a result of this automatic geotagging, memories about places and events are "fused together," says Michael Kahana, a psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania, and one of the study's authors. "You come to a location where something happened and it reminds you of an event," he says. "Or you think of an event and it reminds you of the place where it happened."
Kahana was part of an international team of scientists that figured out how the brain's geotagging system works by studying seven epileptic patients in Germany. The patients were awaiting surgery and had wires in their brains that allowed the researchers to measure the activity of individual brain cells. That gave Kahana's team a way to watch what happened as memories were formed and retrieved.
Patients in the study played a video game involving a virtual town. In the early stages of the game, "you drive around the town and you learn where the different locations are that matter," Kahana says. Once the players had formed a mental map of the town, the game had them drive to specific locations, like the toy store or the flower shop or the bakery.
Meanwhile, the researchers were monitoring activity in each player's hippocampus, which is where the brain creates the mental maps that help us navigate. These maps rely on special "place" cells that become active when we reach a specific location. And the researchers were able to identify place cells in each player that responded to specific locations in the virtual town.
Once these cells were identified, the players began the last part of the video game. Now each time they arrived at a location, they learned what item they had delivered there. "So when you get to the bakery, a voice will come on and tell you you've just delivered a zucchini," says Kahana.
This created mental links between places (like the bakery) and events (like delivering a zucchini). Then came the hard part: finding evidence of those links in the brain.
To do this, the researchers monitored the activity of place cells while players recalled specific objects they had delivered. And the team found that just before a person remembered they had delivered a zucchini, there was a burst of activity in the cells associated with the bakery — the place where the delivery was made.
This suggests the hippocampus is constantly using place cells to geotag events in our lives, Kahana says.
The finding reveals a lot about how the brain provides context to episodic memories, says Howard Eichenbaum, of Boston University. Knowing where something happened is one important bit of context. But it's also important to know when something happened, he says.
Cells that act as time stamps haven't been found yet in a human brain, Eichenbaum says. But he has found cells that perform this function in the rat hippocampus.
"So it seems like the hippocampus maps things in time," Eichenbaum says, "very much the way it maps in space."
ARI SHAPIRO, BYLINE: It's ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Ari Shapiro.
Think back to an important event in your life: a wedding, a graduation, maybe a special Thanksgiving dinner. Chances are you remember not only what happened, but where it happened. For years, scientists have tried to figure out how the brain creates this link between an event and a place.
NPR's Jon Hamilton reports on a new study that seems to have an answer.
JON HAMILTON, BYLINE: Michael Kahana, from the University of Pennsylvania, says what's remarkable about the links between places and events is how strong they are.
MICHAEL KAHANA: You come to a location where something happened and it reminds you of the event. Or you think of an event and it reminds you of the place where the event happened.
HAMILTON: Just ask a Red Sox fan where they were when their team won the World Series a few weeks ago.
Kahana wanted to know how the brain forges these powerful links. So he teamed up with researchers in Germany to study the brains of seven patients with severe epilepsy.
KAHANA: These are patients who are undergoing a neurosurgical effort to map seizures in the brain so they have electrodes implanted.
HAMILTON: Which allowed the researchers to see what individual brain cells were doing, as patients formed new memories and then retrieved them. The team focused on cells in the hippocampus, an area that creates the mental maps we use to navigate in the world. Kahana says the patients played a video game involving a virtual town.
KAHANA: And the role that you play in this virtual town is you drive around the town and you learn where the different locations are that matter.
HAMILTON: Once the players had formed a mental map of the town, Kahana says, they were asked to drive to specific locations, like the toy store or the bakery.
KAHANA: And each time they arrive at one of these locations, they will be informed that something happened. And the something that happened is they delivered an object. So when you get to the bakery, a voice will come on and tell you you've just delivered a zucchini.
HAMILTON: That created mental links between places, like the bakery, and events, like delivering a zucchini. After the game ended, the scientists asked players to remember the objects they had delivered. And Kahana says activity in the hippocampus suggested how the brain was linking places and events.
KAHANA: The brain is doing a kind of automatic geotagging.
HAMILTON: He says it's doing this with special cells that start firing when we reach a specific location, like the bakery. And the experiment showed that these same cells also start firing when people recall something that happened at that location, like delivering a zucchini. Kahana says the cells appear to be adding information about location to our memory of an event.
KAHANA: When you're trying to remember the event, that geotag pops up. And by popping up what I mean is simply that those neurons in the hippocampus that told you where you were, those neurons reactivate just before you remember zucchini.
HAMILTON: That suggests the neurons associated with a place actually help us retrieve memories about what happened there.
Howard Eichenbaum, of Boston University, says the new study reveals a lot about how the hippocampus provides context to our memories of events. But he says location isn't the only sort of context that matters. It's also important to know when something happened. And Eichenbaum says his research turned up another set of specialized cells in the rat hippocampus that put a sort of time stamp on memories.
HOWARD EICHENBAUM: So it seems like the hippocampus maps things in time exactly the way it maps in space. In fact, it's arguably just another dimension of our experience.
HAMILTON: Eichenbaum says having this time stamp on each memory lets us do something very important.
EICHENBAUM: It allows us to replay events in our heads in the order in which they happened.
HAMILTON: Eichenbaum says that ability, when combined with location information, can be a lifesaver. Say you're an animal that recently survived an encounter with a predator. Eichenbaum says you might avoid a second encounter if you can remember where the first one occurred and what sequence of events led to your brush with death.
EICHENBAUM: For survival the key feature would be what was I doing just before I got myself into this mess.
HAMILTON: The new research appears in the journal Science.
Jon Hamilton, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.


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Redondo Beach - The South Bay Business Environmental Coalition presented Bruder Toys America, Inc. an award for environmental excellence in "Resource Preservation". The award was presented at The 5th Annual SoCAL Environmental Excellence and Development (SEED) Awards at the Redondo Beach Performing Arts Center. It was the first time Bruder Toys has taken home this award and looks forward to receiving more in the years to come. Bruder Toys has solar panels on its headquarters in Hawthorne, CA since inception. There are number of benefits for the panels such as reducing emissions of nitrous oxide and carbon dioxide for the community. Bruder Toys does not stop there throughout the offices, break room, and warehouses are motion sensitive lights to turn off lights in rooms unoccupied. They also stride to be environmentally friendly by reducing excessive shipping distances by having multiple warehouses in New York and Canada. Bruder Toys also features "Spare Parts", a program that offers replacement parts for its toys, avoiding the need to replace them frequently allowing kids to play rough with their trucks like they are supposed to!We can only hope companies like Bruder Toys bring further awareness to improve resource preservation. The world would be as happy as the kids are playing with Bruder trucks.Contact information: Alejandro RosalesBruder Toys America, Inc4950 W. 145th Street, Hawthorne, CA 90250www.brudertoys.comPhone: 877-450-5152 Fax: 877-303-5200M-F 9am-5pm
Durable items for our little ones.
BRUDER Spielwaren GmbH + Co. KG
Dep. customer service
Postcode 190164
D-90730 Fürth
Tel: +49 911 - 75209230
Fax: +49 911 - 75209 - 229
E-mail: service(at)bruder.de
Home page: www.bruder.de
Please note our customer
service hours:
Mon - Thu 9:00am - 4:30pm
and Fri 9:00am - 1:30pm


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Latest COVID-19 precautionary measures taken by Fisher & Paykel. Find out more
French Door Refrigerators have been designed to maximise space as well as access. French Door fridges bring theatre into the kitchen with unobstructed access to wide-open shelf spaces. Below, a spacious full-extension drawer and storage bins provide ergonomic solutions for freezer items.
Check with your local retailer for pricing, availability and stock of this model. The product dimensions and specifications in this page apply to the specific product and model. Under our policy of continuous improvement, these dimensions and specifications may change at any time. You should therefore check with your retailer or Fisher & Paykel's Customer Care Centre to ensure this page correctly describes the model currently available.


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In her own words: living with sciatica
Susan, a 39-year-old emergency room nurse, lives in Arizona. When a herniated disk threatened her active lifestyle, she sought relief through minimally invasive spine surgery.
What was your first sign that something was wrong? What symptoms did you experience?
I was playing tennis and went for a shot. The first thing I felt was a tremendous pain in my leg. Doctors thought I pulled my hamstring and suggested I rest it and apply ice. But it did not get better. The doctor had me try a knee brace and at one point supportive hose, which only made the pain worse because it compressed the nerve. Nothing took away the pain. It remained awful, even when I tried to rest. Eventually my foot went numb, and I started falling. I stopped seeing family and friends and went straight home after work. I'd cry driving home. It was just so painful. I wasn't assertive with the doctor, because I didn't want to be labeled as a complainer. About a month after the injury, my mother called the orthopedic surgeon and said something is really wrong; my daughter doesn't act like this.
What was the diagnosis experience like?
The doctor saw me again and this time, asked about back pain. I'm a nurse, so back pain is a given. I never put the two together. Until then, he hadn't either. He ordered an MRI, which showed the disk herniations. I finally had a diagnosis.
What was your initial and then longer-term reaction to the diagnosis?
I had thought my leg was dying, that the blood flow was occluded. So when I found out it was a herniation, I was glad in a way. At least I knew what it was. But I also thought about all the people with back problems who never get better and have all these surgeries. I thought, "I'm too young for that." So I went through the gamut of what to do about it. It was my desire to figure out what was wrong and then be over it. Sciatica was horrible, the worst experience of my life. I still have pain now and again. But I'm living my life. There's never a promise of always feeling great. This experience has made me appreciate things more.
How is sciatica treated?
I tried everything. I had five epidural injections. The first was amazing. About five hours later, the pain was gone. But as soon as I went to work, the pain was back. The other epidurals never helped. The doctors gave me anti-inflammatory drugs, muscle relaxants, pain pills. Nothing worked. Pain pills made me sleepy and nauseated, but the pain was still present. I tried relaxation tapes, massage, everything I could think of. But I wasn't getting better. And I needed something lasting. I knew what people go through with back pain, the failed surgeries, and the road many of them take. I was determined not to become an emergency room regular.
At that point, I started looking on the Internet and read about a doctor (Anthony T. Yeung, M.D.) doing the minimally invasive surgery. It turned out, my orthopedic surgeon had done a residency with this pioneering surgeon and encouraged me to see him, which I did. There was no hospital stay. I left with two little Band-Aids and no leg pain. Two days later, I was able to walk down the block. Before, it had been hard just to walk from the door to the car. One week after the surgery, I was able to walk for a half hour. I could do more and more. The people in the rehab unit were incredible. They taught me how to develop other muscles, like in the abdomen, to help where the back was weaker. I'm still doing the exercises.
Did you have to make any lifestyle or dietary changes in response to sciatica?
There are still some limits to what I can do. I'm not playing numerous sets of tennis followed by a swim, which was my usual routine. But I'm back on the courts and in the pool. I work out three or four times a week. When I wake up and my back feels tight, I stretch using an exercise ball. I'm very careful about lifting and maintaining good posture. I don't want this to return.
Did you seek any type of emotional support?
Does sciatica have any impact on your family?
I'm back doing things with my friends and family. That low point in my life has been followed by a lot of good things.
What advice would you give to anyone living with sciatica?
Bad things can happen, but it's best to fix it and move on. Find the least invasive way to take care of the problem. Don't dwell on the pain. Concentrate on all the great things you can do.


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Bonavita Peyton
Furnishing your baby's room is more than just a step in welcoming your little one into the world -- it is a long time investment. When you purchase baby furniture for your special nursery, it should be unique and fitting for your family and home, but, most importantly, it should be safe for your child to grow with. Throughout your search, you will come across a wide variety of choices for your little one's room, but one of the best options we can provide you with is the Bonavita Peyton Collection.
The Bonavita baby furniture line was established in 1995 and has furnished thousands of beautiful, safe, and stylish nurseries across the country. Trusted by parents and children everywhere, their merchandise will surely fit well in your home. While all of their collections are beautiful, safe, and long lasting, the Peyton crib collection is undoubtedly one of the most sought out on the market for its clean lines and uncomplicated styling. Described as both modern and traditional, this collection showcases its uniqueness in terms of color styling. Each Peyton piece comes in a variety of colors, including dark, light, or medium wood, espresso, and white. The color you choose to furnish your baby's room with will determine the overall style and feel of the nursery. For example, the collection in light wood will give off a more traditional feel, while the same furniture in espresso will give the room a modern vibe. This collection will adapt to your personal style and room.
While all of the pieces in this collection are aesthetically pleasing, they are also well made and guaranteed safe for your child. Each and every furniture item in this collection fuses high-end style, solid construction and versatility to last years beyond your little one's young years. This furniture collection is a great investment and will likely be in your family well after your baby's teenage years. All of their furniture meets or exceeds ASTM, JPMA and CPSC standards and undergoes voluntary testing, so you know your baby is in the right care.


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Tagged: Shoes
These Shoes Weren't Made for Batting Average
Money can make people do some pretty strange things and that in turn can lead to awful decision making. And the more money we're talking about, the more things can get even stranger and the decisions even worse. This proportional relationship explains but in no way excuses baseball GM thinking, which at times provides us with arguably some of the most ridiculous occurrences of this phenomenon. Allow me to explain by putting a, completely random of course, GM big money/bad decision situation into everyday terms. Say I went shoe shopping and on a bizarre whim committed…oh, let's pull a completely random number out thin air here…let's say $86 million give or take on some sort of weird four season…er…month…four month payment plan. I mean, personally, I usually spend more like $40 to $60 on a pair of shoes and I don't believe I've ever spent more than a bill on a pair but I have heard of Manolo Blahniks and the like – hello, I do have two X chromosomes! – so I suppose that $86 million might be reasonable for someone else. 😉
Now let's say these shoes just plain turn out to be bad shoes. I mean, they're certainly nice, personable shoes…er, I mean pretty. That's it, pretty. They look good on my feet. But other than that, they're bad shoes. They give me blisters, pinch my heels and make my feet ache. Every now and then it finally seems like they're starting to get comfortable but then they don't allow me to walk for any length of time before all the blisters and pinching start up again. And, to top it all off, they're not just affecting my feet. When I wear these shoes, more often than not, they wreak havoc with the whole starting lineup…er…my back. My back and, actually my legs. Now these shoes worked out okay for a friend of mine but, as anyone can tell you, she's much more hitter friendly…er…I mean she has much, much better arches.
So what should I do about these shoes? I mean, I committed all of that money to them, so I suppose I should just keep wearing them until I'm crippled right? There's no way I could eBay the silly things. Who else would be crazy enough to commit so much money to them. And, in the mean time, other, better, more reliable shoes are just sitting there riding pine – in my closet that is, it's one of those new fangled pine closets – and gathering dust. So, just to be fair, I should probably trade those better, more reliable shoes for another aging reliever and a few sticks of used bubble gum right? …er…I mean used gym socks, old flip flops and a couple of packs of mothballs. Suffice to say, this is completely ridiculous and I am thrilled that Major League GMs don't get to make my sartorial decisions for me.
So, baseball. Because this blog is about baseball after all, not about shoes, crazy monitory decisions or strange, badly used literary devices…okay, maybe it is frequently about strange, badly used literary devices, but I digress. Peter Bourjos. The trade talk has been flying through the rumor mill again like crazy and, coincidentally or not, he's riding the pine again tonight. I know his bat has been terrible so far this season. I also know that, so far, when Sosh puts him back in for a game, he hits…and then is benched again, which isn't exactly sensible or positive reinforcement. I also know he started out slow last season and finished out 2011 hitting a respectable .271, a figure we sure wish Vernon Wells had achieved. And his defense? Oh my word, his defense!! So this makes no sense to me.
As far as Bourjos' latest replacement goes, I love Mike Trout. I want him to stay in the lineup, batting leadoff, and in the outfield every game. But I want to see Peter Bourjos in the outfield with him instead of Vernon Wells. Bourjos is younger. Bourjos is faster. Bourjos catches everything in sight! Bourjos made changes at the plate last season that lead to a respectable batting average and appears to be on the verge of doing the same thing this season while Wells is, at best, one step forward, two steps right back to last season. Keeping and playing Bourjos and Trout together would mean many more seasons of an amazing outfield combination that can't even see their peak approaching from where they stand, as opposed to aging outfield.
If the team hadn't committed so much money to Wells, I don't think we'd even be having this conversation. But they did and we are. However, I don't think any amount of money justifies the team cost of continually not using the best tool we currently have available…and it certainly doesn't justify trading that tool for another bullpen arm. Since I first saw Bourjos play in 2010, I have been dying to see a regular outfield with Trout in left, Bourjos in center and Torii in right (for as long as Torii's an Angel and I do hope that's longer than this just this season). I just hope Jerry Dipoto wants to see the same thing.
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And now the highly anticipated Angels/Rangers game is about to begin! Go Halos!!! Of course…I'll be catching it delayed by about an hour and 15. Seth doesn't get off work until 6 and the Friday Night Ritual just isn't the same if I start the game without him – besides, he'd wait for me. 🙂 In the mean time, I'll be preparing the Friday Gourmet, Wine and Angels spread – blue cheese bacon burgers with fried leeks and fresh tomatoes. Wine still to be determined, but definitely, definitely red. I'm thinking something in a Syrah.


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The Washington Post columnist Robert Samuelson took a scorched-earth approach on Monday to what he sees as out-of-control entitlement spending, criticizing unrealistic liberals and hypocritical conservatives.
Referencing President Barack Obama's recent charm offensive, Samuelson wrote that what is really needed is a candor offensive.
"The budget debate's central reality is that federal retirement programs, led by Social Security and Medicare, are crowding out most other government spending," he argued. "Until we openly recognize and discuss this, it will be impossible to have a 'balanced approach' — to use one of President Obama's favorite phrases."
Entitlement spending is already crowding out other areas of the federal budget, he noted. The Army is to be cut by 80,000 troops, the Marines by 20,000. As a share of national income, defense spending ($670 billion in 2012) is headed toward its lowest level since 1940. Even now, the Pentagon says budget limits hamper its response to cyberattacks.
"Domestic discretionary spending," he added, "a category that includes food inspectors, the FBI, the National Weather Service and many others—faces a similar fate. By 2023, this spending will drop 33% as a share of national income, estimates the Congressional Budget Office. Dozens of programs will be squeezed."
And whether or not politicians deal with it is of little matter; decisions will be made.
"Choices are being made by default. Almost everything is being subordinated to protect retirees. Solicitude for government's largest constituency undermines the rest of government."
This is an "immensely important story," he noted, and one almost totally ignored by the media.
"One reason is that it's happening spontaneously and invisibly: Growing numbers of elderly are simply collecting existing benefits. The media do not excel at covering inertia."
Turning his sights to the aforementioned politicians, Samuelson writes that liberals "drive this process by treating Social Security and Medicare as sacrosanct."
"Do not touch a penny of benefits; these programs are by definition progressive; all recipients are deserving and needy. Only a few brave liberals complain that this dogma threatens programs for the non-aged poor. "
By contrast, hypocritical conservatives are liberals' "unspoken allies."
"Despite constant grumbling about entitlements, they lack the courage of their convictions."
He specifically noted the latest budget plan by Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis.
"From 2014 to 2023, he proposes cutting federal spending by $4.6 trillion. Not a cent comes from Social Security, while Medicare cuts are tiny, about 2%. His major Medicare proposal (in effect, a voucher) wouldn't start until 2024. Most baby boomers escape meaningful benefit cuts."
Concluding with a few shots at the public, he wrote, "What frustrates constructive debate is muddled public opinion. Americans hate deficits but desire more spending and reject higher taxes. In a Pew poll, 87% of respondents favored present or greater Social Security spending; only 10% backed cuts. Results were similar for 18 of 19 programs, foreign aid being the exception."